The Outside

by Laura Bickle

  We turned west and walked down a broad paved lane bounded with chains painted white between concrete stanchions. It was surrounded on both sides by what had once been a manicured lawn. At the end of the lane, a white figure stood.

  It was a statue of a woman in a veil with her arms outstretched. It took me a moment to realize who she was. Plain people didn’t believe in graven images, but I knew her instinctively to be Mary, mother of Jesus. At the base of the statue was a sign that read WELCOME TO THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF PEACE. Frostbitten zinnias wilted in a flower bed at her feet.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “It’s a Marian shrine,” Alex said. “It’s a Roman Catholic pilgrimage destination. If any place is still holy, this is it.”

  “I was here as a little girl,” Ginger said. “I remember. My grandmother took me. There are all these little grottoes in the woods and a church.”

  “If it’s sacred,” I said, blowing out my breath and staring up into Mary’s unseeing eyes, “we should be safe.”

  “C’mon,” Alex said. “We’re burning daylight.”

  We made our way down leaf-strewn bricked paths that meandered around bare trees. Tied to the trees were brightly painted sculptures.

  “Who are these?” I asked.

  “Saints,” Ginger said. “This one is Saint Francis, patron saint of animals.” She pointed to a figure holding a lamb, then another figure of a robed man holding a baby. “And Saint Joseph.”

  “We didn’t have saints in the Amish religion.” I stared up at the robed man holding the baby. He was bearded, like an Amish man, and with the expression of tenderness on his face he reminded me of my father. I had heard of saints before, but wasn’t sure I fully grasped the concept. “I know that they’re holy people.”

  “Right. They’re special people who lived fully ‘in Christ,’” Ginger said.

  “How is that different from being full of Christ, like Pastor Gene said?”

  “Saints usually lived a long time before. And accomplished huge miracles. Like this one, Saint Joan.” She pointed to a figure of a young woman in armor. Paint had flaked away from her face, and squirrels had stored nuts in the bottom ledge of her shrine.

  “What did she do?”

  “God spoke to her. He told her to lead an army to victory in the Hundred Years’ War. And she did.”

  I looked at the figure. She didn’t seem very big, or very powerful. Plain people didn’t believe in military service—we were pacifists. I couldn’t imagine leading an army. And I couldn’t imagine God speaking to me.

  “Remember that she was also burned at the stake for heresy,” Alex chimed in.

  “She was a pawn for people in power,” Ginger said. “A young girl trying to do as she thought best, as she believed God told her. And she was canonized for it, made a saint. She’s one of the patron saints of France. Also of women and captives.”

  “I don’t understand . . .” I struggled to articulate what I felt. “I don’t understand putting a mortal person on such a pedestal. Literally.”

  “Saints are thought to be intercessionaries with God. Roman Catholics pray to them, as well as to God and Jesus. It’s just another way of connecting to the divine.”

  I frowned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about praying to ordinary men and women, even if Christ moved through them and performed miracles with their mortal hands. But the Holy Spirit seemed to move in mysterious ways.

  We walked down the path, farther into the woods draining of light. I saw a fountain, overhung with ivy and backed by a rock wall. The water in it was still and green. A figure of a woman—another iteration of the Virgin Mary, I assumed—was kneeling before it with her hands clasped in prayer. Behind the wall I could see a rack of burned-out candles in glass containers. Leaves had blown into the doorway.

  “What’s this?”

  “Our Lady of Lourdes. A grotto,” Ginger explained. “Saint Bernadette of Lourdes saw an apparition of Mary. Mary told her to dig, and a spring with healing powers was revealed. Some believed in its powers. Some didn’t. That’s the thing about miracles. They’re open to interpretation.”

  I thought I’d experienced healing water at Pastor Gene’s creek, but I wasn’t sure. As more time passed, I wasn’t sure if that was the Lord or if it was just luck. Time was seeming to cloud the miracle I’d felt. I stared into the green water. “This is the spring?”

  “No. The real one’s in Lourdes, a town in France. This is a replica.”

  “It’s pretty,” I said. But also somehow forlorn in its abandonment.

  We continued walking along the bricked paths. Moss had begun to grow over the bricks, obliterating names of people who’d apparently made donations of money to the shrine.

  “Why does the path circle this way? Aren’t we going back where we came from?” I asked. I was unused to the idea of Ginger being a spiritual guide. But this seemed to be an area of thought that she knew from her childhood. She occasionally stopped to look at sculptures, her hand pressed to her lips, lost in reverie. It was beautiful to see her in this way, touched by memory and faith.

  “A lot of religions believe in the idea of labyrinths for meditation. While the feet are kept busy, the presence of God is felt.”

  I smiled. That I could understand. Plain people believed that God emerged through hard work and performance of our daily duties.

  The sun dipped below the horizon. I could see, sharp against the violet sky, an evening star burning. And before it, the cross atop a church spire at the end of the brick path, a quarter-mile distant.

  “That’s the chapel,” Ginger said. It was good to see her smile again.

  The moonlight illuminated a stone mound to my right—it reminded me of the Indian mound we’d stayed at days before. A placard identified it as the Grotto of Our Lady of Fatima.

  “The Virgin Mary appeared before shepherd children in Portugal during World War I,” Ginger said. “She was said to be as bright as the sun.”

  But we were losing sun. I hitched my backpack higher up on my shoulder, laced my fingers in Horace’s reins. He twitched an ear and shied to the side.

  I glanced to our right. I thought I saw movement between the trees.

  It’s just a deer, I told myself. This is holy ground.

  Unless it’s been defiled. Unless the Darkness has been let in.

  “Who runs this place?” I asked. “Who maintains it?”

  Oblivious, Ginger walked several paces behind, soaking in the memory. “Nuns. Beyond the chapel are dormitories.”

  Horace pawed. The sound of his hooves on the brick caused both Ginger and Alex to turn. I heard the hiss of Ginger’s indrawn breath. The moon broke free of the tangle of tree branches, shining down on us.

  I saw something out of the corner of my eye, on the left side of the path, flitting between the trees. Something dark. My skin crawled.

  “Run,” I whispered.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Horace needed no urging. My fingers were wrapped in his reins, and he dragged me forward. I cried out as my sore hand struggled to cling to him.

  More dark figures moved between the trees, like rotten leaves. I glanced to the cavelike mouth of the Fatima grotto. Shadows slipped out of it, dark as ink, not bright like the apparition of the Virgin Mary. I saw pale faces and hands, framed in robes of black.

  “The nuns . . .” Ginger paused. “The sisters are . . .” I could read the shock on her face.

  “Run!” Alex insisted. He was ten steps behind me, ten
paces ahead of her.

  And that was all it took.

  The sisters swarmed Ginger. I snatched a stake from Horace’s pack, disentangled myself from the reins, and ran back.

  “Ginger!”

  Alex had turned, and I saw silver flashing in his fist. He slashed at one of the black shadows. It reeled back, hissing.

  But one of the blackbird nuns fell upon Ginger. She dropped to the pavement, shrieking, clawing on the mossy brick. Alex skidded to a halt over her, slashing at the bloodthirsty nun. I thrust my stake ahead of me. It pierced the shadow, and I heard the wet slap of black blood on the brick. White claws grappled around my weapon. I kicked back, shoving the body from the stake like a piece of meat from a stick.

  Alex pulled Ginger to her feet and we ran to the chapel. I fumbled in my pocket for my Himmelsbrief, stumbling backwards, holding it out at arm’s length. The preternaturally pale faces of the nuns hissed at me. Most of them were old women, but I saw the smooth face of a young one, barely older than I was.

  “Come to the Lord, little sheep,” she whispered.

  “The blood is the life.”

  “You will die, and rise again like Jesus in the Resurrection.”

  I backed up the steps of the chapel. I heard Alex behind me. The doors crashed open, and Horace’s hooves banged on stone. I ducked into the chapel, hoping that I was not walking into deeper Darkness.

  The doors slammed shut, blotting out the night. I heard scratching on the door, plaintive cries . . .

  . . . but the door held fast against them.

  “It’s still holy,” I whispered, turning to face the inside of the sanctuary. It felt like a miracle that this place was safe. “How?”

  “Maybe it’s an island . . . like your barn protected by a hex sign when your larger community had been defiled.” Alex’s voice was disembodied, distracted.

  I saw red and blue patches of light on the floor, cast from the moonlight moving through the stained-glass windows. Depicted in one was Mary, appearing in a cloud before a young woman. I wondered if this was one of the women who’d seen her at Fatima or Lourdes.

  “We need light.” I heard Alex scrabbling around. There were clicking sounds, and one by one, cylindrical glass votives were illuminated. They must have been battery powered, with metal flames flickering inside. The glass was red, and the light cast was wan. But it was light.

  I followed his lead, punching buttons on the top of the votives. There were hundreds. I mashed the buttons, seeing them light up, greedy for the light.

  I noticed a metal box beside them with a small sign that read $2.00 DONATION.

  “For each candle. For a prayer.” Ginger was unsteady on her feet, leaning against the back of a pew. I slipped my arm beneath her, cried out when it came away with warm blood.

  Something thumped against the door and giggled. “The blood is the life.”

  Horace clomped on the slate floor, blowing at the door.

  “Take her up front,” Alex ordered.

  I supported Ginger down the aisle, our footsteps ringing loudly on the slate. Alex charged ahead of us, to the altar, which was surrounded by hundreds more of the lights in their iron holders. He slapped them on, illuminating a fabric-draped altar with gold ornaments and an intricately painted statue of Jesus looking benignly over us.

  I helped Ginger lie down on a pew, tugged her coat off. There was blood on her shirt collar, trickling down her sleeve. I unbuttoned her shirt, apologizing as I did so, to examine her shoulder. I couldn’t see what had happened—there was too much blood.

  I dug through our packs for one of the T-shirts taken from the Animal Farm. I wiped away at the wound, saw that there was a tear in her skin. She cried out when I touched it.

  I ran to a stone bowl full of water at the front of the church. I soaked the T-shirt with it and grabbed the small yellow sponge at the bottom. I did my best to wash the wound. Alex hovered over the back of the pew. He and I traded glances in the flickering light.

  “Is it a claw mark?” Ginger asked. “Tell me that it’s just a claw mark.”

  If it was a claw mark, she would live. Alex had told us that much, from his time on the Outside before he’d come to us. It was a bite that we had to be fearful of, a bite that would transmit the infection.

  I hesitated. It was a surface wound, one that a person would easily survive . . . if it had not been a bite.

  “It’s a bite,” I said quietly.

  Alex swore and turned away. Ginger began to sob.

  The only thing I could do was hold her as she shook.

  ***

  “How long?”

  I couldn’t help but ask.

  Alex and I stood at the back of the church. I’d bound Ginger’s shoulder up as best I could with bits of robes that I’d found in a closet. She was kneeling before the altar, praying. She had been there for hours, still as the statue hanging above her. I had crept halfway up the aisle twice to check the rise and fall of her shoulder, to make sure that she was still breathing. I had seen the glitter of dampness on her cheek.

  “Based on what I saw before I came to your village . . . it could be hours. Or a couple of days.” His hands tightly gripped the back of the pew, whitening his knuckles. “I suspect that the holy water you used to rinse out the wound may slow the progression somewhat, but there’s really no way to know.”

  I placed my hand on his. “We’ll deal with it when the time comes. If it comes. Maybe the holy water will stop it.”

  “It’s my fault,” he said in a small voice. “I picked where we were going.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s just . . .” I struggled to find the right words, to articulate the helplessness that we all felt in the face of this tragedy. “It’s just Gelassenheit. God’s will.”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t believe that.” His hand curled into a fist beneath mine. “No loving God would want this. For any of us.”

  I slipped away from his fury, walked up the aisle to Ginger. I knelt beside her.

  “I’m never . . . never going to see Dan or the kids,” Ginger said. Her voice was rough with crying.

  I put my arm around her. “You will see them again. In heaven.”

  A choked sound emanated from her throat. “I wonder if they are already there. It’s been . . . years since Dan took communion. My daughter is a practicing Catholic, but my son gave it up when he was a teenager.”

  “There is no way to know if they will precede you in heaven,” I said. “But God would not allow you to be separated.”

  What I told her was the opposite of what the Amish Ordnung said. We believed that unless one was baptized in the Amish church, one wouldn’t reach heaven and be reunited with one’s loved ones. I hoped that God would not be cruel to those of us who meant well.

  Ginger stood suddenly, wiping at her face, disentangling herself from my arms. She walked with purpose to a small closet in the back of the church. She closed the door behind her. I heard a latch scrape on the inside and Ginger’s soft voice, whispering.

  “What’s she doing?” I asked Alex.

  “Confessing her sins.” He gestured to the little cabinet. “A priest sits on one side of a screen, and the penitent on the other. The penitent confesses in anonymity and the priest grants absolution, assigns a task to carry out to make things right. Usually a bunch of Hail Marys, from what I understand.”

  I stared at the strange carved box. It seemed scarcely larger than a coffin. Again, a human intercessionary standing between earth and God. But there was no one there. I wondered if Ginger imagined a priest on the other side, if that was some comfort.

  The whispers eventually died away, but Ginger did not come out. I waited, sitting in the last pew. I waited for a long time, until fear grew in me. I strained to hear any sound.

  I stood and knocked on the door. “Ginger? Are you all right?”

  “You’re going to leave me here,” she said. I heard the fear in her voice. “You should.”

 
; I sucked in my breath. I imagined it for a moment: locking her in the confessional as she began to change into a vampire. Alone. It was a cruel abandonment. Like being buried alive. I imagined the squeak of her fingernails on the wood, her cries to the priest who wasn’t there. I wondered if she would be able to escape the holy box, if its power would erode under the onslaught of the evil that gestated within it. I wondered if it would hold and she would starve within it.

  I shivered. It disturbed me that I could even think of it.

  “No,” I said. “We won’t leave you here.” I reached for the door and wrested it open. A small hook and eye closure inside the frame splintered and gave way.

  Ginger sat on a little bench inside, deep in shadow. The ornate cutout pattern of the confessional screen obscured most of her face.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t want to become like them.” Her glass blue eyes fixed on me. Whether they were fevered with conviction or infection, I couldn’t tell. She reached out, her cold fingers knotting in mine. “Don’t let me become like them.”

  I sucked in a breath, let it out.

  “I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

  And that promise hung as heavy on me as stones.

  ***

  We left at dawn, when the dark sisters had retreated to their grottoes. The sun shone brilliantly as we emerged from the shadow of the church.

  I had a bit of hope. Hope that the holy water and that our prayers might have helped Ginger, as they had helped me at Pastor Gene’s church. But that hope dwindled as I saw her in the growing light of morning. Ginger had grown pale. Dark circles settled beneath her eyes. She refused to eat more than a bite or two of some crab apples I found and turned away from the potato chips from the convenience store.

  As the day wore on, we wandered through golden, unharvested fields of wheat. I thought I saw a suspicious ripple of movement in the tall stalks. I glanced at Alex.

  He nodded. He’d seen it too.

  I squinted. There was the flash of a gray tail.

  “I think we’re being followed,” he said.

  As long as it wasn’t by vampires, that was all that mattered.

  Exhaustion hit Ginger by noon. We’d put her on the horse, but she was nodding asleep over Horace’s neck. Alex called a stop so we could rest. We stomped down the stalks of wheat in a broad circle to provide rough bedding.