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She did not react, as if a Vatican envoy contacted her daily. Finally she invited them inside.
The house was sparsely furnished in a mix-and-match decor. Sunlight spilled in from half-open windows, many of the panes cracked their length. A portrait of Mary hung over the fireplace, surrounded by flickering candles. A statue of the Virgin stood in one corner. The carved Madonna wore a gray dress trimmed in light blue. A white veil draped her face and highlighted wavy locks of brown hair. Her blue eyes were expressive and warm. Our Lady of Fatima, if he recalled correctly.
"Why Fatima?" he asked, motioning to the carving.
"It was a gift from a pilgrim. I like it. She seems alive."
He noticed a slight tremor to Jasna's right eye, and her barren expression and bland voice were causing him concern. He wondered if she was on something.
"You don't believe anymore, do you?" she quietly said.
The comment caught him off guard. "Why is that important?"
She shifted her gaze pointedly in Katerina's direction. "She confuses you."
"Why do you say that?"
"Priests rarely come here in the company of women. Especially a priest without his collar."
He had no intention of answering her inquiry. They were still standing, their host yet to offer a seat, and things were starting off badly.
Jasna turned to Katerina. "You don't believe at all. And have not in many years. How your soul must be tormented."
"Are these insights supposed to impress us?" If Jasna's comment bothered Katerina, she apparently was not going to let the woman know.
"To you," Jasna said, "what is real is only what you can touch. But there is so much more. So much you cannot possibly imagine. And though it cannot be touched, it is nonetheless real."
"We are here on a mission for the pope," he said.
"Clement is with the Virgin."
"That is my hope."
"But you do him a disservice by not believing."
"Jasna, I've been sent to learn the tenth secret. Clement and the camerlengo have both provided a written directive for it to be revealed."
She turned back. "I do not know it. And I don't want to. The Virgin will stop coming when that happens. Her messages are important. The world depends on them."
He was familiar with the daily messages from Medjugorje, faxed and e-mailed worldwide. Most were simple pleas for faith and world peace, fasting and prayer urged as a means to accomplish both. Yesterday he'd read some of the more recent in the Vatican library. Websites routinely charged fees for furnishing heaven's mandate, which made him wonder about Jasna's motives. But considering the simplicity of her home and the plain manner of her dress she wasn't reaping any profit. "We realize you don't know the secret, but can you tell us which one of the other seers we could talk with to learn it?"
"All were told to keep the information private, until the Virgin releases their tongues."
"Would not authority from the Holy Father be sufficient?"
"The Holy Father is dead."
He was tiring of her attitude. "Why must you make things so difficult?"
"Heaven has asked the same thing."
It sounded to him an awful lot like Clement's lamentations in the weeks before his death.
"I have prayed for the pope," she said. "His soul needs our prayers."
He was about to ask what she meant, but before he could say a word she crept close to the statue in the corner. Her gaze seemed suddenly distant and transfixed. She knelt on a prie-dieu, saying nothing.
"What's she doing?" Katerina mouthed.
He shrugged.
A bell pealed three times in the distance, and he remembered that the Virgin supposedly appeared to Jasna at three P.M. each day. One of her hands found the rosary that draped her neck. She clutched at the beads and started mumbling words he could not understand. He bent close and followed her gaze upward toward the sculpture, but saw nothing except the stoic wooden face of the Virgin Mary.
He recalled from his research that witnesses at Fatima reported hearing a buzz and feeling a warmth during the apparitions, but he thought that simply part of a mass hysteria that engulfed illiterate souls who desperately wanted to believe. He wondered if he was truly witnessing a Marian apparition or just a woman's delusion.
He moved closer.
Her gaze seemed locked on something beyond the walls. She was unaware of his presence and continued to mumble. For an instant he thought he caught a glimmer of light in her pupils--two quick flashes of a reflected image--a swirl of blue and gold. His head whirled left, searching for the source, but there was nothing. Only the sunlit corner and the silent statue. Whatever was occurring was apparently Jasna's alone.
Finally her head dropped and she said, "The Lady's gone."
She stood and moved toward a table and scribbled on a pad. When she finished, she handed the sheet to Michener.
My children, great is the love of God. Do not close your eyes, do not close your ears. Great is His love. Accept my call and my plea that I am entrusting to you. Consecrate your heart and make a home for the Lord within it. May He dwell within it forever. My eyes and my heart will be here even when I will not be appearing anymore. Conduct yourselves in everything as I'm asking you and leading you to the Lord. Do not reject God's name from yourselves, so that you would not be rejected. Accept my messages so that you would be accepted. It is time for decisions, my children. Be of righteous and innocent heart that I could lead you to your Father. Because this, my being here, is His great love.
"That's what the Virgin told me," Jasna said.
He read the message again. "Is this directed to me?"
"Only you can decide that."
He handed the page to Katerina. "You still haven't answered my question. Who can tell us the tenth secret?"
"No one can."
"The other five seers know the information. One of them can tell us."
"Not unless the Virgin consents, and I'm the only one left who experiences Her visits daily. The others would have to wait to receive permission."
"But you don't know the secret," Katerina said. "So it doesn't matter you're the only one who's not privy. We don't need the Virgin, we need the tenth secret."
"One goes with the other," Jasna said.
He couldn't decide if he was dealing with a religious fanatic or someone truly blessed by heaven. Her impertinent attitude didn't help. In fact, it only made him suspicious. He decided they would stay in town and try, on their own, to speak with the other seers who lived nearby. If nothing was learned, he could return to Italy and track down the one who lived there.
He thanked Jasna and started for the door, Katerina in tow.
Their host stayed rooted in the chair, her expression as blank as when they arrived. "Don't forget Bamberg," Jasna said.
Chilly fingers danced along his spine. He stopped and turned back. Had he heard right? "Why did you say that?"
"I was told to."
"What do you know about Bamberg?"
"Nothing. I don't even know what it is."
