On the Third Day

by David Niall Wilson

  “You don’t feel safe any longer?” Donovan asked.

  “I don’t feel alone.” Father Morrigan corrected.

  He reached out and unsnapped the briefcase.

  “I’ve spent a great deal of time these past months going over past cases. I’ve read nearly every report you’ve made over the years, as well as several decades of your predecessors.”

  He paused to let this sink in. Donovan only nodded. The young priest seemed feverish to explain himself, and it seemed that listening to that confession was the only way he was going to get through to the answers he needed.

  “Nothing in the files, or nothing that I can find, anyway, seemed to provide an answer for this.” As he spoke, he pulled free a file folder and shook it gently.

  Donovan didn’t have to ask what it was. It was the case folder for the cross in the jungle, Father Gonzalez’s miracle. He’d started the file himself, and his own bold script was plainly visible on the tab of the folder. It was considerably thicker than it had been when he’d seen it last.

  Donovan reached for the folder, and Father Morrigan handed it over. He wasn’t done speaking, though.

  “I took it a few steps further, Donovan,” he said. His voice was excited. It was obvious that he was trying to contain himself, considering the somber aspect of the day, and the recent events with Father Thomas, but his mind was thousands of miles away near an old wooden cross. “I took samples of the blood.”

  “Samples?” Donovan frowned.

  Father Morrigan nodded. “Believe me, Father Gonzalez wasn’t happy about it, but I took a medical kit with me, and I brought back two test tubes with samples of the blood. I sent them to the Jesuits. I was very discreet,” he added, noting that Father Prescott wasn’t smiling.

  Donovan nodded and gestured for Father Morrigan to continue.

  Clearing his throat, the younger priest nodded.

  “Anyway, I got the results, but they didn’t make any sense to me. It’s blood, there’s no doubt at all that it’s blood, but the blood isn’t human. Not remotely. In fact, the DNA matched that of an insect. A…butterfly.”

  Donovan sat back, flipping quickly through the folder. His eyes were wide, and as he shuffled the papers, not really sure what it was he thought he’d find, he spoke.

  “Butterflies? You’re telling me, Brian, that I spent all those days, sweating and praying, bathed in the blood of butterflies? There couldn’t be enough blood in a butterfly to make a good stain on a white shirt. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It didn’t make any more sense to me than it does to you, Donovan,” Father Morrigan replied softly. “I was sure that it was wrong. I even had the samples re-tested at a different college – not associated with The Church. I paid for it myself. The result was the same, but this time I got more.”

  Donovan glanced up from the files.

  “I got Dr. Sullivan, a Ph. D. and Lepidopterist. I took him the results of the tests, and I told him my story. It felt a bit odd, explaining the nature of the investigation to someone so obviously not grounded in The Church, but as it turns out, Sullivan was raised a Catholic, and he understood.

  “More than that, he had our explanation. It’s not the one I’d hoped for, though I’ll be honest, Donovan, when the Cardinal first pushed me into that flight to meet you, I would have accepted it happily and returned to the library stacks. I haven’t been able to forget what happened with Father Gonzalez. Everything I’d believed to that point was put to the test in that jungle, everything I gave lip service to came to life and challenged me. Believe, or not? I had to know the truth.”

  Father Morrigan grew thoughtful and fell silent for a moment, then looked up, eyes flashing with an intensity of emotion that caught Donovan off guard. “I wanted to know what happened out there,” he said. “I wanted to know, not to explain it with a simple report, or dismiss it and move on. I wanted to know, absolutely and beyond any shadow of a doubt that what I experienced was a miracle – or that it was not.

  “So I went to see Dr. Sullivan, and I learned the truth. I don’t know that I feel any better about it, but there are other questions, aren’t there Donovan? There are always more questions.”

  “What was it Brian?” Donovan prodded.

  Brian continued. “There are certain butterflies in jungle environments that flock in the thousands. We saw them, both of us, when they took off from the clearing that final day. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, of course,” Donovan said.

  “Well, the giveaway – the thing we missed – was the cycle. The blood only rained on the cross at certain times of the year. It rained on the cross, but, as it turns out it was only visible on the cross because the area is a clearing. There are other clearings nearby, and I verified this as well. Smart as he was, I wasn’t taking Dr. Sullivan’s word for this, or anyone’s for that matter.

  “The butterflies have a menstrual cycle, Donovan,” Father Morrigan blurted. “It happens one time a year, and only in places where they exist in such abundance. They release the blood in flight.”

  He stopped speaking and took a deep breath. Then he concluded.

  “It wasn’t a miracle.”

  Donovan sat very still for a few minutes; taking in all that Father Morrigan had told him. He flipped pages in the report idly, but he wasn’t really reading them, or looking at charts and graphs, he was thinking. Finally, he dropped the folder onto the table, sat up straighter, and turned to meet Father Morrigan’s gaze.

  The younger priest almost flinched. Donovan didn’t know what Father Morrigan expected him to say, but he was fairly certain that what was on his mind would not be it.

  “I’ve spent a lot of years chasing answers like this one, Brian,” Donovan said. “I’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights, as it seems you can now imagine, worrying that I might not find the miracle I’ve been seeking, and worrying an equal number of nights that I would. Now I think I’ve found a more satisfying answer. It won’t stifle my curiosity, and it won’t end my search, but it lends all of it a new perspective.”

  Father Morrigan looked bewildered, but he remained silent.

  “I don’t think it’s whether or not we will find one answer, or another that matters, Brian,” Donovan said. “The search, the caring, and the wonder of it all is far more important. That, and one other thing I’ve come to believe over the past few days.”

  “What is it?” Brian asked softly.

  “We approach all of these investigations with the same misguided question. We search and we questions, we dissect and we study, all in the hope of answering a question we already know the answer to. ‘Is it a miracle?’ We should know the answer. We should be living with the knowledge of that answer every minute of every day, but instead we question, and we fear what will come. Do you know what the answer is, Brian?”

  The younger priest shook his head. The gesture conveyed his bewilderment, but it was tinged with hope, as well. It was obvious from the expression painted across his face that if there was such an answer, he very desperately needed to hear it. Father Prescott smiled.

  “You remembered the butterflies taking off from the clearing in the jungle,” he said. “But do you remember what it was that I said to you after they took flight?”

  Father Morrigan thought for a moment, then nodded. The ghost of a smile twitched at the corners of his lips.

  “You said, ‘there’s your miracle, Brian.’”

  Donovan nodded. “Exactly. The problem has always been our question. Is it a miracle? Of course it is. Watch that brilliant wash of color leap into the blue sky over the jungle and tell me you can’t see God’s hand in it? Tell me that something so spectacular, so overwhelming that it can bring tears to your eyes just because you were there and able to experience it is not a miracle, and I will tell you that you have missed the nature of miracles.

  “The question, then, is not whether a thing is a miracle, but what kind of miracle it is. Every day that we walk the earth, we are surrounded by miracles, but
we take them for granted. Anything that is not mysterious, or mind-bending, we call natural, and we move on. Butterflies that happen to fly over a clearing with a cross in it may have a natural explanation. The virgin mother’s image on the side of a barn created by rainwater. Is the rain the entire explanation, or should we be looking beyond the rain to the message, and the messenger?”

  “I thought you might be disappointed,” Father Morrigan said.

  “If you’d brought me this a month ago I would have ranted about it,” Donovan grinned.

  They both chuckled, as Donovan rose and held out his hand.

  “You did good work on this, Brian. I suspect the two of us will be crossing paths again. It’s not an easy obsession to shake.”

  Father Morrigan shook Donovan’s hand. “I have a question, if you have a moment longer,” he said.

  Father Prescott waited, and Father Morrigan plunged on.

  “The pendant I brought you from Cardinal O’Brien. I wondered if you would tell me what it was – what it meant? I saw the effect it had on you in the Jungle, and I’ve wondered about it ever since.”

  Donovan fingered the small lump through his robes. It rested gently against the skin of his chest.

  “When this is over – maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, I’ll be flying out of here.” He said. “I won’t be going straight back to Rome. There’s a stop I need to make along the way. If you’ll arrange to join me, I think I can give you a better answer than any I could form in words.”

  Father Morrigan stared at him doubtfully for a second, then smiled.

  “More mystery. Okay, then, I’ll call you this evening.”

  The two parted in the hallway. Father Morrigan turned back to the church and walked slowly away. He’d clutched the folder in one hand and walked with energy and purpose. Father Prescott watched him go, smiled, and then turned back toward the rectory. Father Thomas’ office door stood ajar, and light pooled on the floor of the hall, spilling out from within.

  Donovan squared his shoulders and started down the hall. From where he stood, he heard the clink of glass on glass, and a shadow passed through the light.

  ~ Twenty-Nine ~

  Donovan hesitated in the hallway outside the rectory door. He’d seen Bishop Michaels duck into the hall earlier, and there were no other open doors, but he still hesitated. There was the sound of movement within the office, and his memory of the last few times he’d stood outside that same door were vivid. It was too easy to imagine Father Thomas’ smiling face glancing up from the pages of some ancient book, or to see the young people who’d visited Thomas that first day stumbling into the hall with their accusing, protective glares. Shaking his head, Donovan stepped forward and pulled the door open a bit wider.

  Bishop Michaels sat inside. He was hunched over Father Thomas’ desk, idly thumbing through an old book. Beside the book, on top of a pile of unfiled papers and folders, he’d placed a pint bottle of scotch. There were two tumblers also; one was empty, the other half full of amber liquor.

  The Bishop glanced up and smiled, wanly. He nodded to the chair across the desk from him, and to the empty tumbler. Donovan stepped inside and took the seat. He glanced around the room. Everything was much as he remembered it. Books canted at odd angles from the myriad shelves. Files awaited filing and letters awaited signing. It was a comfortable chaos, and the corners of Donovan’s eyes stung with the bite of sudden tears. He turned back to the bishop.

  “I never thought I’d be sitting alone in this room again,” Michaels said. He grabbed his drink, swirled it in the tumbler, and then took a quick sip. “I honestly didn’t expect to see Quentin in here again after this past weekend either, but I certainly didn’t want this.”

  He inclined his head in the direction of the cathedral and the coffin, the people and the memory’s that he couldn’t shake free of his mind. He took another drink and lifted the bottle. Without comment, and without glancing up to see if Donovan wanted it, he poured two fingers each into the two tumblers and screwed the cap back on the bottle.

  “Spent a lot of years in this office,” he said at last. “Of course, it was neater then. Polished. I used to chide him about the appearance. It seemed to me that if you were going to have an office where you met with members of the parish as the Vatican’s representative, that office should make the proper impression.

  Michaels took another drink, then said. “He never listened to me. Not on this, and not on much else.”

  Donovan studied the bishop’s features. From a distance, in the cathedral, he’d seemed tired and harried. Up close he looked almost skeletal, a caricature of his old self. The lines of his features dug deeper into the flesh of his face than they had only a few short months before. The bags under his eyes hung heavy and dark.

  “You look like hell, Tony,” Donovan said. “My God, when was the last time you slept?”

  “Three days,” the Bishop replied without thinking about it. “Not in three days. Not since…three days.”

  He took another drink, refilled his glass, and turned to see that Donovan had yet to touch his own. With a shrug, he recapped the bottle and sat back with a heavy sigh.

  “Three days, Donovan. You saw the videotape? The new one?”

  Donovan nodded. He’d watched it twice.

  “I saw what happened,” The Bishop replied. “I saw what you did, and what he did. It was real, wasn’t it? All of it?”

  Donovan shook his head slightly. He didn’t deny the bishop’s assertion was true, but his expression was troubled.

  “I just don’t know, Tony,” he said at last. “I recall details, and vivid images, but there is so much I don’t remember, and so many other things that I do remember that aren’t on the tape. It makes no sense.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think you saw,” the bishop said. “What is on that tape is enough. I saw it, you saw it – I’ve seen it a hundred times since – the original of the tape had to be dubbed onto a fresh cartridge so I wouldn’t wear the damnable thing out. You saw that tape, and still you doubt?”

  “I don’t doubt,” Donovan replied, “that something amazing took place. I don’t doubt that in some way we all witnessed, and were a part of, something miraculous. I just don’t remember it exactly the way the tape shows it. I can’t verify what I don’t remember, and that is where my doubt lies. I guess it’s in myself.”

  The bishop nodded, but his eyes were far away. He downed his drink again and reached for the bottle.

  Donovan reached out and laid a hand on the older man’s wrist, stopping him from pouring.

  “What is this, Tony?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

  Bishop Michaels didn’t release the bottle, and after a moment, Donovan let him finish pouring another drink. He stared into its depths, gave it a swirl, and then turned to Father Prescott very suddenly. His eyes were haunted. They burned with intensity.

  “It’s funny, you know?” the Bishop said. “I’ll know soon, and it’s all because of you – your presence, your investigation. It’s sort of ironic that you’d be the one I’d see last before I got the answers I never asked for.”

  He fell silent a moment, but before Donovan could speak again, he continued.

  “It was you, Donovan, who wanted a miracle. All I wanted was to grow old, to have my office, my church...to die in peace. By tonight, I’ll know how much of it is a lie.”

  Donovan watched in silence as the bishop downed half of his drink absently and glanced to his bottle to be certain there was more where the one in hand had come from.

  “Tonight is the key. Before it’s over, I’ll know what I have to look forward to, and possibly what I have to fear.”

  “I don’t understand,” Donovan said. “What is special about tonight? Easter Mass is long gone, and the services for Father Thomas are complete. I was going to pass on Cardinal O’Brien’s hope that you’d take some time off and join him in Rome.”

  “I may do that, Donovan,” Bishop Michaels replied. “I may well do
that. Tomorrow. For now, I think I’d like to be alone. You don’t need to wait for me – I know my way out.”

  Still confused, Father Prescott stood, wavered a moment, then walked to the door.

  “You can shut that behind you, please,” Michaels called to him. “I don’t want anyone else wandering in until this is over.” He hesitated, and then said, “It’s the third day, Donovan. Father Thomas died on the cross three days ago.”

  Donovan nodded. He took the ornate doorknob in one hand and began to pull the door shut. Just before the click that would cut the two of them off from one another, Bishop Michaels’ voice floated out to him.

  “Do you believe in God?”

  The door closed with a soft click, and Father Prescott’s footsteps echoed in the hall as he strode back to the world.

  EPILOGUE

  Father Morrigan walked slowly along beside Father Prescott. The streets were nearly deserted. It was early evening, and the sun had already dropped beyond the skyline of the city, leaving long shadows stretching in all directions. A few curious onlookers followed the pair of priests with their eyes, but neither wore more than the collar to show their office.

  Donovan watched the windows and alleys as they passed. The further he walked down that street, the more surreal it became. He knew it too well, had walked it a thousand times in his dreams, and he knew the eyes as well. He knew the faces of those who had believed in him, and he heard their whispered voices even before they began to speak.

  Word spread quickly through the village, and Donovan had no doubt it would quickly reach Father Fernando’s ears at the chapel. It didn’t matter. He would be recognized soon enough. Every time a face passed through the periphery of his vision, he was sure that he knew it. Every time he heard the echo of a voice, he expected to know and understand it.

  Father Morrigan remained silent. He’d asked his questions on the flight and the long drive after. He’d gotten most of the answers he needed, though not all, but he knew they were near to the moment of understanding. He was a little nervous, after hearing how things had gone on Father Prescott’s previous visit. No one made any move to impede their progress, however, and before long the two of them stepped into the small square.