The Child Goddess (33 page)

35

ON THEIR RETURN
to Earth, Isabel and Oa spent only one night at the Multiplex. They boarded the sonic cruiser to Geneva the next morning, on the Feast of St. Blase. Paolo Adetti saw them off. There was no sign of Gretchen Boreson.

Isabel entertained Oa with the various stories regarding St. Blase, a physician from the fourth century. He was purported to have been protected by wild animals, and to have been martyred in various unpleasant ways. The story Oa liked best was about Blase saving a boy from choking on a fish bone, and becoming, in that roundabout way, the patron saint of singers. She made Isabel tell it twice, before her eyelids began to droop, and she slept.

Isabel drowsed, too, still feeling the effects of twilight sleep. Both of them woke just as the craft soared to its smooth landing in Geneva.

Isabel wore her usual black, with her Roman collar, and her blackovercoat. Oa wore a jumpsuit of cream polysilk, her hair collected into a long ponytail that hung to her waist. Isabel glanced at her with pride, and gave her a coat to put on before they descended the metal stair of the cruiser. The air was cold, and heavy with snowclouds. Hilda Kronin, ExtraSolar’s liaison to World Health, met them on the tarmac, and shepherded them into a long black car, a perfect copy of the one that had carried Isabel away from the Mother House.

“Mrs. Edwards is expecting you. Mother Burke,” she said when they were settled in the car. Nothing in her demeanor indicated that she found this visit out of the ordinary. Possibly Boreson and Adetti had managed to keep their own counsel in the matter of troubling Anna.

“This is a sad duty,” Isabel said carefully. “I thought Mrs. Edwards would prefer to receive her husband’s effects from someone who knew him.”

“You’ve never met her?”

Isabel turned her face to the street scene beyond the window, hiding the emotion that must show in her face. “No, we’ve never met. But Simon spoke of her to me.”

“She’s a quiet woman,” Kronin said, and then fell silent herself.

The house was modest and solid. Isabel stood on the sidewalk outside, with Oa beside her, and looked up at the brick facade, the green-painted door. The tiny lawn was covered with a pristine blanket of white from the last snowfall. No footprints, large or small, disturbed it. Somehow the sight saddened Isabel. She bowed her head briefly, asking for inspiration and guidance, and then she led Oa through the little iron gate and up the walk to Anna Edwards’s door. Hilda Kronin came behind with the driver, the two of them carrying the cartons of Simon’s things.

The door opened at a murmured command, and Simon’s wife appeared.

Isabel stood on the step, uncertain whether to offer her hand.

“You must be Isabel Burke,” Anna said. Her voice was light, almost childish, at odds with her graying hair and slightly stocky figure. She wore no cosmetics, and shadows marked the sagging skin beneath her eyes and lips.

“I am,” Isabel said quietly. “Are you Anna?”

“Yes.” Anna Edwards stepped back to allow Isabel and Oa and the others inside. She closed the door, and gestured to a little sitting room off the hall. “Please.”

Hilda Kronin and the driver set their burdens down in the hall, and Hilda stood back while Isabel and Oa went into the sitting room. “Anna,” she said. “I think I’ll wait in the car. Give you and Mother Burke a chance . . .”

Anna didn’t look back. Her eyes assessed Isabel, shifted to Oa, and back to Isabel. “There’s coffee in the kitchen, Hilda.”

“No thanks, Anna. I’ll call you tomorrow, make sure everything arrived safely.”

Isabel waited until Anna came into the living room and took a seat before she sat down on the small divan beneath the front window. It was a pleasant room, unremarkable, but designed for comfort. In one corner a desk lamp illumined a stack of flexcopies. Books lined every available space, and a large reader was set unobtrusively into one wall, almost hidden by a vase with sprays of holly. Christmas, Isabel thought. She and Oa had slept through Christmas. Twice.

“I hope you don’t mind if I call you Anna,” Isabel began. “I feel as if I know you, through Simon.”

The shadowed eyes blinked once, slowly. “Really,” Anna said in a flat way. “I don’t feel as if I know you at all.”

The air was charged with emotion. Oa sniffed audibly as she tried to identify it.

“It’s only natural for you to feel antagonism toward me, Anna,” Isabel said quietly. “And I’m sorry. I’m deeply sorry for that, and for the sad circumstances that have led to our meeting.”

“Why are you here?” Anna asked. She closed her eyes, and her lips trembled briefly. When she opened her eyes again, she said, “I have . . . resented you for a long time.”

“I wanted you to know . . . to understand.”

Anna’s jaw tightened. “What is there to understand?”

“I want you to know that what happened in the Victoria Desert . . . Virimund was different. Nothing can compensate for the loss of your husband, I know—”

“I had already lost him,” Anna said, leaning forward with a sudden energy. Oa took a sharp breath. “Long before he went to Virimund. He broke his vow to me. And you, I believe, broke yours.”

Isabel nodded slowly. “You’re quite right, of course. And I have done—am still doing—penance for it.”

“Taking Simon with you to Virimund was doing penance?” The words were so bitter, Anna’s mouth so tight as she said them, that Isabel felt a wash of sympathy.

“No, Anna. That’s what I’m trying to explain. Why I came here.”

Isabel turned to Oa, who sat stiffly, as if ready to spring to Isabel’s defense. “Oa,” Isabel said. “Oa is why Simon was needed on Virimund. Oa and fourteen other lonely, abandoned children.”

“He told me about it,” Anna said. “He called me, from the transport, and from the power park. But I still don’t see why it had to be Simon. You must know other scientists.”

“But Simon was the one,” Isabel said. “Because of his political influence, because of his ability to be both scientist and diplomat. Because of his great heart.” She stood, and went to crouch beside Anna’s chair, to look up into her face. She tried to see what it was in this face that Simon had once loved, what had drawn him. “Anna. I’m so very sorry you were hurt. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“The fault is not all yours.”

“No, it’s not. But I accept my share of it.”

Anna clenched her hands with a sudden fury, and leaned forward, toward Isabel. “What was the point of it all? Why did Simon have to be a hero? What could possibly make it worth his dying?”

Isabel held her gaze. “That’s far too big a question for me to answer. But I can tell you—I came to tell you—that Simon performed a great service. His name will be remembered, here on Earth and especially on Virimund. Even at the end, when he knew the virus was going to win, he worked on the antiviral serum, worked right through the night, until his last breath. Who else had such courage? Only Simon. Only your husband.”

“I loved him.” Anna seemed to wilt, the brief energy of her anger fading. Tears welled from her eyes, and she pulled a handkerchief from a pocket. “I loved him as a man—not a scientist, not a physician, not a diplomat—as my husband! It’s been two years, and I still grieve.”

“Of course,” Isabel said. “You have every right to your grief.”

Anna dropped her head, and sobbed silently into the white cloth. When her tears subsided, she sat on, her eyes covered, her head bent.

Isabel stood, and signaled to Oa. “We should leave you alone. But thank you for seeing me, Anna,” she said softly. “I wish there were more I could do.”

Anna lowered the handkerchief. She stood, too, straightening her dress, smoothing her hair. She lifted her head to gaze at Oa. “This girl . . .”

“Oa.”

“She’s had the antiviral? The one Simon created?”

“Yes, she has.”

“Is it working?”

“We don’t know yet. Simon thought it could take quite some time.”

Anna took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was a bit stronger. “I’m a teacher,” she said. “I’ve devoted my life to children.”

“I know.”

Anna Edwards met Isabel’s eyes. Her eyes were still reddened from her tears, and the lids were a little swollen, but there was courage in her gaze, and perhaps, Isabel thought, the beginnings of acceptance.

Anna said, “There is something you can do for me, Mother Burke. You can let me know if Simon’s serum works for Oa. You can let me know if it was worth it.”

*

IN THE SECOND
week of Easter, the priests and novices and lay ministers of the Priestly Order of Mary Magdalene celebrated a special liturgy in honor of Oa of Virimund.

The Tuscan sun shone its benevolent light on the old stone chapel, warming the heads of those lining up for the procession. First the servers, then the ministers and novices, and lastly the priests, twenty-seven of them, their bare scalps shining, filed into the chapel. They wore albs of white, draped with chasubles of green. A children’s choir from the village of San Felice sang, and several priests representing other orders were present. Marian Alexander presided, her face calm, but her eyes glowing with pride at the success of the Virimund mission. At Isabel’s success.

Oa was already in the chapel, kneeling in readiness in a pew before the altar. In her hand she held a tiny stone, a bit she had carried away from the kburi, to have with her something of the Child Goddess. Isabel knelt beside her. She had designed the ceremony, with the help of Mother Alexander, and all that remained for her to do was shepherd Oa through her part.

The great moment, for Oa, had come during the Sacred Triduum, the three holy days before Easter. She had risen from her cot in Isabel’s room, and gone down the corridor to the bathroom to wash. Isabel was already up, dressed, almost ready to go to the chapel for morning Mass. Oa had run back down the corridor, her sleepshift flying, a smeared towel in her hands.

“Isabel!” she cried, before she was even in the door.

Isabel, startled, put down her cross and turned. “Oa?”

Oa burst into the room, forgetting to close the door, forgetting the rule of quiet, forgetting everything as she held the towel out for Isabel to see. “Isabel! Look!”

“Oa, what—oh, sweetheart! Is this yours?”

“Yes, yes! This is Oa’s! The blood of a woman—of a person!”

They had embraced, Isabel laughing, Oa laughing and crying at the same time, freeing herself to pirouette around the room, coming back to hug Isabel. The girl had grown at least three inches, and was almost as tall as Isabel. She was thin, of course, as all the anchens were thin, but her breasts had begun to bud, her childish hips to round. She was growing up. And now, for Oa, the proof. Her menses had begun.

Isabel had explained to Marian how important this was to Oa, and today they would honor the great event in a public liturgy. The press were invited, so that people could understand what had happened, what remained to be done for the other anchens. The children in the choir stared curiously at Oa, distracted from their music by this dark-skinned, slender girl over whom such a fuss was being made. Gretchen Boreson had sent a representative, the envoy Cole Markham, bearing gifts for Oa’s special day, and bringing an archivist to record everything. Isabel smiled at that. Gretchen Boreson, even ill as she was, would turn all of it into a public relations triumph.

The ceremony was solemn and simple. Candles were lit, scriptures read, prayers offered. At last, Isabel escorted Oa to the altar and Marian Alexander blessed her, saying “Oa of Virimund, you are one of the great mysteries, and the great miracles, which make us grateful to God for the wonders of being human.”

Isabel saw Oa’s eyes flicker, searching for her. She stepped a little closer, and put a hand on Oa’s shoulder.

“We are, all of us, grateful to have you as part of our community, and we rejoice with you. We also honor the Child Goddess, your patroness, who sustained and strengthened you while you waited for this day.”

Oa held out the little stone, the bit of volcanic rock carried all the way from the planet Virimund. Marian took it in her hand, and sprinkled holy water on it, and then gave it back. Isabel had had a necklace made, with a reliquary, and she helped Oa to fit the stone into its little locking compartment. Oa hugged her, and murmured her thanks to Marian.

Marian finished by saying gravely, “Oa of Virimund, on this day, here in the Magdalene Chapel, all of those present recognize and honor the existence of your immortal soul. May God bless and keep you always.”

And then every Magdalene came forward, one at a time, to embrace Oa, to bless her with their hands on her curly head, their cheeks pressed briefly to hers. Through it all Oa’s smile blazed white, and her eyes shone with joy.

Isabel closed her eyes, sending her thanks to Simon. And to God for providing him.

*

IT ALL SEEMED
like a dream to Oa. Or was it the long, long years on Virimund that had been a dream? But each of these women who came forward, who brushed her cheeks with theirs, who blessed her, each of them knew the secret that now she knew, too, felt the sensations that she felt. Was she really different from the anchen she had been two weeks before? Or was it her belief that she was changed that made her feel different? It would be a long time, she thought, before she could think of herself as no longer being an anchen. Or maybe, in a way, she would always be one.

Isabel led her out into the sunshine, part of the procession, while the children sang their anthems and the birds of Tuscany answered with their own twittering melodies. In the courtyard of the Mother House, a great feast had been set out, fruits and breads and olives and nuts and lovely elaborate cakes. Oa stood at the head of one of the tables, taking the congratulations of people who were new to her, who shook her hand and chatted with her.

Marian Alexander brought a man to meet her, a gray-haired man in black, wearing a white collar like Isabel’s. “Oa,” Marian said, “I’d like you to meet Father Raymond. He’s a physician, and he has volunteered to go to Virimund, to work with the anchens.”

Oa stared at him. “You will go to Virimund?”