Lightning judders up his arms. He drops her hands.
She raises her eyes to his. He sees not defiance, not pretense, but fear, clear and icy.
God help him, itistrue. The impossible ... has happened? Lukas feels himself on a precipice. He presses his fingers to his temples, hard, to form an axle for his spinning head. A miracle, here? In this mercantile city so far from any remotely holy land. Here!
He drops his hands, feels doubt drain from his fingertips. He’s a pauper woken up to a banquet. He has yearned for this, worked for it, prayed for it. But he never thought it could happen. Not in his lifetime. Such blessings were for other eras, more deserving times. Braver men. Through his amazement, Lukas feels the whisper of green belief. A miracle!
Aleys stands away from him, looking frightened. This must be awe, not fear. Overnight, she has been transformed from a girl to a vessel of grace. Wonder rushes through his mind, overturning carts, ripping thatch from rooftops. He knew she was special. He must protect her. Lukas runs his hands over his tonsured head. The Lord has come to redeem this city. They have been blessed.
He remembers how she was lit like a lamp the night he gave her the brown wool and cut her hair. How she made him feel like Francis. Lukas feels his chest inflate with raw, clean air. He spreads his arms to heaven.
“Hallelujah!” His voice is resonant. He is uplifted, standing on the headlands of the rock of the church. Above him, the rafters sing. He thinks the roof may rise from the church. The sun will come out and flowers will bloom across the land.
His eyes descend to her face. The girl is crying softly into her hands.
“Child, what is it? This is a time to rejoice!”
“It’s gone.” She opens her wet palms.
He reaches out to take her wrists. They’re wooden as wheelbarrow handles.
“No, no, no,” he says. “It will come again. The grace will return.”
“How do you know?” She stares at him.
“Because you’re chosen.”
“Chosen?” Aleys shifts her blue-black eyes between his. “Do I have a choice?”
He could wring her with his exasperation. “Did Moses have a choice? Did Mary?”
“But I’m not sure it’s true.”
He takes a deep breath. Patience. The girl has just worked her first miracle, of course she’s confused. That doesn’t give her leave to doubt. Or spread doubt. This must be nipped in the bud, for the sake of the city, for the sake of his men. For her own sake. He thinks of his brother. The bishop can’t arrest a miracle worker. He doesn’t think.
Lukas feels his feet on the church floor. He roots himself in his own faith, back to the fundament. He remembers his knees in the cold soil of redemption. If ever there was a call to obedience, this is it.
“It’s God’s will,” he says. “I order you to believe.”
26
Aleys
Aleys returns to the hospital in procession as if she were a holy relic. Beguines encircle her like a protective guard. The citizens of Brugge drop their tasks, bow their heads. Crowds trail them, emptying whole plazas, and entrepreneurs gather the dust from her footprints. They want her now, in the wards, all the time.
Sint-Janshospitaal stills to a hush when she enters. People freeze mid-gesture, mouths agape. Aleys wants to yell into the strange silence,Return to your tasks. Resume your conversations. I’m just a girl! Stop gawking.From the lodgers’ side of the hospital, merchants crane to see her, cross themselves when they do, remember to doff their caps.
There are so many sick people.
Her mouth is dry with doubt.
They guide her to the first bed, a man with yellow skin and lemon eyes. She feels the tingle start in her hands, and when she prays, theAvespreads like a balm. The man blinks and pink blooms in his cheeks. She doesn’t know what’s happening.
They lead her from one bed to another. Sometimes she feels something. Sometimes she doesn’t. Fever consumes a child, a woman miscarries, and Aleys’s hands are useless. She has no understanding, no idea who will rise and who will fall back on the pallet. It seems random.
“God is mystery,” says Lukas that evening, like she doesn’t know. Her nights are more real than her days.
It is the same the next week and the one after. Friar Lukas is hovering, too attentive, overjoyed at the recoveries and suspicious of the losses, like Aleys could conquer death if she only tried harder. He makes excuses to touch her hands, testing for the buzz, and she has taken to drawing them back into her sleeves when he approaches. Lukas steers her toward patients who aren’t that sick. He’s afraid I’ll fail, she thinks. He presents florid men with dyspepsia who sit up in their beds and undress Aleys with their eyes. Indigestion is a waste of a miracle. She wonders if she has the power to smite them.
