The Miracle Stealer (15 page)

We hiked up the incline a bit farther, and Daniel, riding again on Bundower's shoulders, pointed a finger toward a tent beneath the shade of a sprawling maple. Inside, a woman made wax candles in the shapes of dragons and wizards. She wore a red cone hat with white stars on it, as if she were a sorceress. Her hands
warmed a piece of wax over a tender blue flame and her fingers pushed and twisted, shaping. Bundower put Daniel down and lifted up a wax damsel who resembled Sleeping Beauty. Daniel held a rounded green knight wielding a sword straight over his head. A wick poked from the tip of his blade. Daniel turned to my mother and said, “I'd never ever light it.”

My mother started talking about the hazards of a fire, but Bundower gave her a look and she reached into her purse. The sorceress woman carefully wrapped the knight in butcher paper before stashing it in a plastic bag.

Finally we reached the top of the field, the eastern edge that runs up against the forest. Like they did every year, they had constructed a large wooden bandstand for the musical acts that would perform later in the afternoon and evening, and it was strategically placed to cover the clear-cut path the rescuers had chainsawed the night Daniel was in the well. A bunch of people sat on the edge of the empty stage, looking down over the field. Bundower boosted Daniel up, and I sat next to him. My mother walked over to get in line for funnel cake. Below us, the red balloon had again touched down and was loading up more passengers. Beyond that, a neon-green Jet Ski buzzed along the lake. I squinted to see if Jeff was riding it, but from that distance I couldn't tell.

“Look here,” Bundower said to me. “I'm not sure what the mayor had in mind, but seems like nobody cares we're here.”

“Fine by me,” I said.

Daniel unwrapped his knight and rolled it in his hands. His swinging heels knocked against the wood. I told him to be careful not to break the wax sword off.

I pictured myself standing up on the stage and addressing
the crowd, holding a megaphone and announcing, “Come see the amazing Miracle Boy!” If people were willing to pay to have their faces badly painted, and for fried Twinkies and rocks shaped like E.T., what price would they pay to be healed? If Daniel were the real thing, if he could actually take away pain and suffering, if Leo was right and my brother could help lift regret, who wouldn't want it? Everyone in Paradise would line up. Everyone in the world.

“Can I go play?” Daniel asked me. He was looking at the rear of the stage, where a few kids were circling each other.

“The candle stays,” I said.

He frowned but handed it over, and then joined the other children. I watched them for a minute, then turned back and stared at the crowd. I thought about what Leo said about everyone having wounds, and as each person passed, I'd look into his or her eyes and wonder,
What healing do you need?

Bundower, who'd been standing guard on the edge of the stage, wandered closer to me and stood with his thumbs shoved into his gun belt. “You might not give your ma such a hard time.”

I kept watching the crowd. “What's the secret signal for my wanting advice on how to deal with my mother?”

“She's been through a good bit. You could cut her some slack.”

“What's it to you?”

“I'm just saying. She's your mother. Wouldn't cost you anything to show the lady some respect.”

My mother returned carrying paper plates loaded with funnel cake and a couple cans of Coke. “Daniel,” I shouted over my shoulder, “lunch.”

My mother said, “Guess who I found?” and when I looked back, Volpe and Wheeler were following her.

Volpe smiled widely, but the mayor frowned at Bundower. “I thought we agreed you'd notify me when you arrived.”

“Cool your jets,” Bundower said. “You haven't missed any photo opportunities.”

Volpe stood before me. Even in the gray light, her gold glasses shone. “How are you, Anderson?”

“I'm perfect,” I said. “Even better now that you're here.”

Daniel sat again next to me, and my mother gave us one of the funnel cakes, which I put on my lap. The heat seeped through the paper plate and warmed my leg. My mother offered some of hers to Bundower, and he peeled free a piece of the fried dough, dipped it in the sugary powder, and took a bite.

The mayor studied the sky. “I'm sure the sun's going to burn through this.”

Volpe said to Daniel, “What's that you have?” and she lifted it from the stage. Carefully, she examined the candle. “King Arthur and his Round Table had a sacred quest. The search for the Holy Grail.”

I rolled my eyes. Funnel cake makes you thirsty—sticks to the roof of your mouth. I didn't mind sharing a Coke with Daniel, but I wasn't sure how I felt about my mother and Bundower passing one back and forth.

Volpe told Daniel, “The Holy Grail was Jesus' chalice, and it was said to have wondrous powers.”

“When you're finished eating, maybe we should walk around more,” the mayor said to my mother. “Give everyone a chance to see that Daniel's here.”

“We could just float him up in the balloon and make an announcement,” I suggested.

My mother shook her head and sighed, “Ann.”

Bundower shot me a look, and I said, “Sorry,” then took a bite of funnel cake. My mother seemed surprised by my apology.

“What's a chalice?” Daniel asked.

Before I could answer, from around the side of the stage came a familiar voice. “It's a kind of special cup.”

We all turned and there was Leo, wearing jeans and a clean white T-shirt. Behind him on either side were two other men, both from the choir I'd chased off. “Hello, Anderson,” Leo said.

Everybody—the Chief and my mother and Volpe and the mayor—snapped their faces to me, shocked that he knew my name. I nodded. “Hey, Leo.”

In turn, Leo greeted everyone. He was very polite and proper.

Nobody shook hands or anything, but the introduction felt very formal, like we'd been sent by our tribes to arrange a truce. Daniel and me slid down off the stage, and all of us kind of stood there a bit stunned. We'd all been anticipating this moment, but none of us knew quite what to do now that it was here. At first people just walked past, but then a few stopped. Maybe they recognized the mayor, or maybe they noticed Leo's burns, or maybe they just sensed the tension in the silence between our two groups. In no time at all, a small crowd had formed, and the people began whispering back and forth. And now the out-of-towners were taking a hard look at Daniel, and I think some of them were figuring out just why that little boy looked so familiar.

It was Daniel who broke the standoff. He reached up on the stage for the paper plate. Without explaining or asking permission, he walked past my mother and Bundower, crossed the open space between us and the Pilgrims, and stepped right up to Leo. He held the plate up and said, “You like funnel cake?”

Leo smiled with those perfect teeth. “I've never tried it, to be honest.”

“You got to rip it.”

Leo reached down and tore a chunk. All eyes were on him as he ate, as if it were some grandly symbolic act. He licked his lips. “It's good.”

“You can have the rest,” Daniel said. “We got more.”

Leo held up a hand, like he was about to say no, but then he reconsidered and took the plate from Daniel. “Thank you.”

Daniel said, “You're welcome,” and returned to the stage. I stood behind Daniel and put my hands on his shoulders.

Bundower lifted his chin at Leo. “Look here. Where are all your pals?”

“There are others nearby,” Leo said. “They're waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” one of the onlookers asked.

And none of us, not the Pilgrims nor me nor my mother, could keep from giving away the answer. We all turned to Daniel. He blinked and smiled, then slid behind me and wrapped one arm around my leg.

Leo looked me in the eye and said, “We didn't want to overwhelm him. I asked them to be patient.”

“So you are their leader,” I said.

He shook his head. “Most of them I'd never met before coming to this place. But they seem to respect my opinion.”

The crowd around us was growing larger. Still holding Daniel's knight, Volpe stepped forward. “Many have traveled far to see him,” she said to me.

“That's true,” Leo said. “Consider how many more could not make the journey.”

The two guys with Leo both nodded their heads at this, and I wondered what it meant.

Leo bent down, bringing himself eye to eye with Daniel. “There is something I'd like very much for you to see.”

“The rock,” I said. “Up in the fairy fort.”

Leo nodded. “Yes. The rock. That's where everyone's gathered.”

“What's up there?” my mother asked.

Volpe said, “It's the sort of thing you must see for yourself.”

The mayor stared at Volpe. “Sylvia, you've been up there already?”

“Oh, yes,” she said and her voice was light and dreamy. “It's wonderful.”

Bundower put his back to Leo, faced me and my mother. “This is totally your call.”

My mother rubbed her hands, opened her mouth, closed it, and looked absently in my direction. Daniel said, “I want to see something wonderful.”

I shrugged, trying to act like I didn't care. “I guess it's why we came.”

“No use waiting then,” Bundower said. And with that he scooped Daniel up onto his shoulders and turned to Leo. “Lead the way.”

L
ooking back, I know now that I underestimated the strength of the Pilgrims' faith. Or their need. Or their dreams, maybe. Or whatever it is that you want to call the belief that life can be better than what it is. That's what lured them all to Paradise, the ones who came with Leo and the ones who came on their own. That belief fueled their desire to see Daniel as miraculous. From where I am now, of course, it's easy to see. But when I was in the middle of it, I was too focused on what was right in front of me. I couldn't see the big picture. It's the difference between the view from the valley and the view from the mountaintop.

So imagine Leo guiding our little group up the trail into the forest. And a crowd of festivalgoers, mostly people from outside Paradise, following us along that twisting path, which was marked by stumps from the midnight clear-cut. Nobody talked, so as the noises from Paradise Days lessened and then vanished, the only sound was feet kicking leaves, and squirrels scrambling in the branches overhead. From the Chief's shoulders, Daniel was tallest among us. He must've realized where we were going, but I couldn't get a read on how he felt about that. As far as I knew, he'd never been back to that place in all the years since his accident.

In a way, it felt like we were walking back through history. Less than a minute after leaving behind the modern world, we
passed the low stone walls stacked by Colonial farmers to mark off their property, back when that part of the forest was still open field. Of course, the night Daniel was in the hole the men plowed right over the wall that was in their way, and afterward no one went back to repair the tumbled rock. Deeper in, we cut through the orchard of wild apple trees, descendants of some distant farmer. Untended for generations, and deprived now of full sunlight, the misshapen trees grew twisted and close to the ground. On one of our long-ago hikes, Jeff and I plucked green apples from the gnarled limbs. Legend had it that the fruit was poisoned, but really it was just bitter.

And then at last we climbed the rise that overlooks the fairy fort, so old no one even pretends to guess its origin. My mother and Mayor Wheeler were leading the way with Leo and Volpe, so they were the first to see, and the sight down in the crater stopped them dead in their tracks. My mother gasped and covered her mouth. At her side, Volpe said, “Blessed be Jesus.”

Bundower and I stepped up, and the scene spread out before us. Below, in the ancient and scattered circle of stones, maybe a hundred Pilgrims waited, facing us. All perfectly silent, like some garden of statues. Some held hands, but most stood alone. All their faces lifted toward Daniel with what I can only describe as a brightness. Imagine on a winter day, when the sun breaks through the clouds and you turn to face the warmth. That's how they were looking at my brother.

This would be easier if I could describe the Pilgrims as just young or old, or rich or poor, crazy-looking or sane, but there were all kinds. There were babies being held and toddlers clinging to their parents, teenagers and businessmen, a woman
in patched blue jeans thrusting a tattered Bible over her head, a frail, gray-bearded farmer in overalls, puffing on a pipe. From outward appearance, they had nothing in common except for the fact that they had gathered here in this place. A dozen tents had popped up in between the rocks, some worn and ragged, some still shiny with their newness.

At the center of the congregation, the very heart of the fairy fort, sat the fist-shaped rock, surrounded by what I took at first for a heap of trash.

From the rise, Leo lifted an open palm in greeting to the Pilgrims below. “I told you he would come.”

The Pilgrims exchanged smiles, thrilled and anxious. A few clapped and someone shouted out, “Praise the living God.” Leo started to descend, picking his way carefully down the inside slope, and we followed. Daniel wrapped his arms around the Chief's head and the Chief took hold of Daniel's ankles. The crowd of maybe a few dozen festivalgoers who'd come with us that far didn't join us down in the fairy fort. Instead they spread out along the rim of the crater, not too sure of what was going on, but certain they wanted a good view for whatever was coming.

Leo led us around the rocks and through the scattered congregation. Walking next to me, Bundower tapped on Daniel's leg. “How you doing up there?”

“Who are all these people?” Daniel asked as we passed through them.

Those who were close enough to hear, including Volpe and the mayor just ahead of us, laughed at the question. The sound radiated out from us as others chuckled as well, and this
bothered me. I'd forgotten that the shape of the fort magnified sound, and it seemed like even the forest above us was laughing.

Leaning in close to me, Bundower whispered, “Look here. You make out that guy from your backyard, you point him out.”

I nodded. “You'll be the first to know.”

Bundower raised his voice. “Nancy,” he said, “you okay with where we are with this?”

From between Volpe and Leo, my mother glanced back and said she was just fine. She had that look like she did the night she drove Daniel to the Abernathys'—nervous but determined—like she was being tugged in a direction she wasn't quite sure she wanted to go. I knew how she felt.

Working our way closer to the center, we passed pilgrims who bowed and some who knelt. All backed away from our path. Those who didn't avert their eyes out of awe or respect gazed up at Daniel like he was some minor deity.

Just ahead of us, my mother said, “I don't understand,” and I saw the stuff that from the rim I'd mistaken for garbage. Backed against the fist-shaped rock was an electric wheelchair, the deluxe scooter kind with three knobby tires and a stick for a steering wheel. Seated on the cushioned chair, as if it were a kind of holy throne, was a golden-framed photograph of Daniel. It was his bloodied and swollen face from a magazine cover, blown up to many times its original size.

From the Chief's shoulders, my brother pointed and said, “Hey, Andi. That's me.”

The Pilgrims seemed pleased.

Piled against the wheelchair, abandoned medical gear mixed with strange curiosities. Three wooden canes crossed
over drenched and crumbled packages of Marlboro cigarettes. A full bottle of whiskey tilted against a battered green oxygen tank. An asthma inhaler capped a pyramid of brown pill bottles. Hypodermic needles encased in plastic were scattered across a ripped-up fur coat. Sharp fragments of sliced-up credit cards littered the ground near a suitcase that looked brand-new. A pool cue rose from the heap like the skinny mast of a ship. An X-ray film of a spine patched with bolts and screws lay nestled inside the white shell of an orthopedic back brace.

My mother squatted down to a filthy car seat that held a milk carton showing the black-and-white image of a missing child. When she remained quiet, Mayor Wheeler asked the obvious question. “Can somebody tell me what I'm looking at?”

Leo pulled free a single aluminum crutch from the pile and held it, smiling. “Proof,” he said. “Evidence left behind by those who've felt the healing.”

A satisfied murmur rolled through the Pilgrims. Many nodded and someone shouted, “Amen!” Slowly, they were creeping nearer, gathering around us.

Leo continued, “And tokens of the needs of those who suffer still. The afflicted offer up their sorrow, acknowledge and renounce their sins, expose their weakness to the light of God's judgment and grace.” He returned the crutch to its place. “At this shrine that marks where Daniel was saved, others seek salvation.”

By now the Pilgrims had closed in on us, forming a human wall about fifteen feet back. Almost all their eyes had lifted to Daniel, still perched on Bundower's shoulders. “How come they're crying?” Daniel asked.

“They weep with joy,” Volpe said. “They've been waiting for you, some for so long.”

“Waiting for what?” the Chief asked.

As if in response, a small woman stepped away from the crowd, out into the open space between them and us. She wasn't old, but she took tiny steps as if she were afraid she might fall, and she walked with her eyes cast to the earth. When she stood before Bundower, she timidly extended a hand clutching a photograph. It shivered with her trembling.

My brother wriggled and the Chief bent to a knee. Daniel slid off his back, came around to the trembling woman, and lifted the photo from her. Holding it with both hands, he brought it up to his face. “She looks just like you,” Daniel said.

Still staring at the ground, the woman said, “Dolores is my baby sister.”

“Where is she?” Daniel asked, looking around. “Didn't she want to see the festival?”

“Dolores can't leave the hospital. She would have loved to have been here herself.”

“She must be real sick.”

The trembling woman nodded. “Well, she smoked too many cigarettes. Now she can't breathe right by herself.”

Daniel moved to give the photograph back and said, “Maybe the doctors can make her all better.”

But the trembling woman held up a hand and shook her head. “I brought that here for you. Keep it. And pray for Dolores. Please.” Then she turned and shuffled away, disappearing into the Pilgrim crowd and leaving Daniel with nothing to do but slide the picture into his back pocket.

“Thank you,” Leo said. He settled his deformed hand on Daniel's shoulder. “This is all we ask.”

Those of us circled behind Daniel—me and Bundower, my mother and Volpe and Mayor Wheeler—we all traded glances, hoping that somebody else knew for sure how to interpret what was happening. By the time I turned back to the Pilgrim congregation, a few were stepping forward from the crowd, and those behind them seemed to be falling in line. It was as if they'd choreographed this smooth movement, like they were suddenly flowing with one mind.

The second Pilgrim to come before Daniel was a man wearing a blue suit and a loosened tie. His clothes looked expensive, but that didn't keep him from dropping onto one knee in the dirt before my brother. He raked a hand through his thinning hair before he spoke. “When I was young, I cheated on my wife. A dumb thing on a weekend trip. I never told her I was unfaithful.”

I'm not sure Daniel knew what “unfaithful” meant, but he understood “cheated” and knew that the man had done something wrong. He shrugged his small shoulders and said, “When you hurt somebody, you should say you're sorry.”

The man jerked his head side to side. “But I can't. She passed away. Last November. Before that, I was close to telling her. I swear it. But then she started getting weak. Once she was diagnosed, once we knew she wouldn't make it to the new year, how could I tell her? All the while she was wasting away in that bed, she kept patting my hand, telling me what a good man I was, telling me how I was her love forever.”

Everyone in the fairy fort was silent. Even those watching along the rim above, the ones who'd followed us from the field, were still,
and I wondered if they could hear what was being said at the rock. Daniel said, “Maybe she can she forgive you from heaven.”

The man looked up, tears rimming his red eyes.

Daniel said, “Your wife can still hear you. Maybe she's even listening right now. You can still say you're sorry.”

The man didn't smile, but he took a deep breath and staggered to his feet. Leo took his elbow and steadied him. “Lay down your guilt, brother. Bury it here in this place.” Together, they moved to the side and knelt before an upside-down tricycle with no front wheel.

The third Pilgrim was a teenage girl just younger than me. She had jet-black hair and two lip rings, so for sure she wasn't from Paradise. She giggled nervously and rocked back and forth in front of Daniel, knowing that everyone was staring at her. With a sudden movement, she rolled back one sleeve and offered a wrist thick with scars. Some of the scabs were fresh and raw. Daniel reached out and held her wrist tenderly, looking at the wounds. The girl forced a laugh and said, “I do it to myself. When my parents are asleep. In my bathroom so there's no mess.”

“Don't that hurt?” Daniel asked.

She nodded. “That's why I do it. But I want to stop. I really, really want to stop.”

Daniel hugged her around her waist, pressing his face into her belly. “Please quit doing that.” When he stepped back, she wiped a finger under one eye, smearing black mascara across her cheek. Then she wandered off, drawing a steak knife from her back pocket and dropping it into the pile of sacred artifacts.

“Thank you, merciful Christ!” Volpe shouted, and her cry was echoed by others, both in the fairy fort and, strangely,
along the rim above. Still next to the man in the suit, Leo grinned at me.

The procession of afflicted circled around the fist-shaped rock. A thin lady with sunken cheeks and veins rising from her neck told Daniel she made herself throw up after she ate because she thought she looked fat. A father tightly gripped the hand of his toddler son, a sweetly smiling boy who couldn't hear or speak. An olive-skinned woman pressed her hands together in prayer and said with a thick accent, “Uncle stomach very sick.” A lady wearing glasses on a chain offered Daniel her crooked fingers, plagued for years by arthritis. Clutching a worn Bible to his chest, a trucker said he'd run over a man in a gas station in Virginia fifteen years ago. Rather than stopping to get help, he sped off in a panic. When he finished his confession, he joined the adulterous man, who was still on his knees.

Not everybody in the line was a total stranger. At one point Jeff's father stepped up and, without saying a word, emptied the liquor from his monogrammed silver flask. He tossed it onto the pile and it clattered up against a Ouija board. Jim and Sally Guth appeared as well. Lifting Daniel's hand to her belly, she asked, “Can you feel that life?”

Jim raised his eyebrows. “Right now, our baby is half the size of a sweet pea. That's what the doc said. Thank you.”