Anastasia's Grail

by Mary Pearson

the car.

  The work load was fantastic that day. Fortunately, they had returned in time to prevent all of the supplies from thawing and they had been duly dispatched frozen that morning at the post office. But there was very little left in storage and Stacy’s mother and grandmother had been working frantically to replenish the supplies. Stacy got to work immediately. To make matters worse, next weekend was third Sunday. Third Sunday of each month the family would shut down production of protein bread for one day, switching over to caramel rolls and pastries, which they would serve as donated hospitality at Holy Apostles Church. Their involvement with this ministry predated the bread shop by many years, so it took precedence. All of this meant that this would be a short work week.

  “Would you girls be able to stay an extra two hours each night to help us catch up?” Grandma Annie asked. “I’ll order take out for dinner.”

  Stacy and Emily agreed and Stacy noticed that Arthur was working beside Zeke. It was cool of him to help out. They had fettucine alfredo delivered, which they quickly ate and then got back to work for several hours. By the time they went across the street to do a little home work and get ready for bed, Stacy was worn out, but they had accomplished a lot. Two more days like this and the stores would be replenished.

  At school the next day, Libby pointedly sat at a different table. Apparently she thought Stacy had turned into a God-Squader or something. No matter. Stacy had a lot of reading to do.

  When she wasn’t doing homework, Stacy thumbed through the books she had bought at the conference. She read a few more miracles of the Eucharist. There was one where a consecrated host, thrown carelessly into a Priest’s breviary( or prayer book) for distribution to a sick parishioner he was intending to visit, became a splotch of blood in the book, still visible to this day. There was another where hundreds of consecrated hosts being held in reserve for an upcoming feast day, were stolen and stuffed into a poor box. The thief had only wanted the gold container they were in. After much prayer the missing hosts were found but, fearing contamination, it was decided they would not be consumed, but rather would be allowed to experience natural decay—only they never did. It had been hundreds of years and these particular hosts were still as fresh as the day they were baked. Scientists had done numerous experiments, putting unconsecrated hermetically sealed hosts beside them, and such. These invariably experienced decay within a few months, but the Miraculous Hosts of Siena, completely unprotected from the elements, refused to break down.

  Continuing to read through the drama of the Heller book and all of the trials and obstacles overcome by the STURP team to be able to conduct their experiments—from incredibly expensive equipment being donated, to clearing up impossibly tangled red tape, to windfalls of money being received just in time to purchase the necessary airplane ticket for dozens of individual scientists, it was clear they were experiencing Divine Intervention. It was equally clear that there were Powers trying to prevent the team from completing this work. Stacy felt the author’s frustration when he discovered that all of the samples had been given to the one scientist, Walter McCrone. He had to wait and beg forever before being given such a meager amount of wound image fiber that there was no way to do a porphyrin fluorescence test. Meanwhile McCrone told reporters that there was no blood on the Shroud—just iron oxide paint. But after searching every slide, Heller found tiny amounts of what certainly appeared to be blood in most of the non-image slides. Gathering all of these tiny bits together and, with much difficulty, managing to get them into solution, he and his companion scientist were rewarded when the solution began to clearly flouresce, and it was equally clear that it was blood.

  At this point Stacy, not finding any info on the blood type, went to the school’s library, got on line and punched in Shroud of Turin blood type. She was immediately rewarded with many articles, each attesting to its AB+ type—the same as the Miraculous Host of Lanciano.

  Lord, Stacy breathed, You had real human blood, and you had AB+: the universal receiver.

  Stacy had taken biology the previous semester and they had studied blood types. They were even allowed to type their own blood, which Stacy did. She knew her own to be O-, the universal donor, and apparently the exact opposite of the blood that had coursed through Jesus’ veins when He walked the earth. That figured. She was painfully aware that her own nature was about as far from sinless as it could possibly be. She knew she shouldn’t even consider going to that party with Darius, for example, but she found herself looking forward to his call and, truthfully, she didn’t yet know if she would go or not.

  Stacy had a scheduled appointment with her counselor after sixth hour to determine whether she had completed all of the necessary requirements for graduation.

  Mr Smith turned the screen of his computer toward Stacy. “As you can see,” he said, “Your grades are all fine and, assuming that you pass all of your current classes, you should have no trouble receiving your diploma at the graduation ceremony. However,” he regarded her gravely, “there is the matter of your senior presentation. You are one of the few students who has yet to declare what you will be presenting to the panel. I believe you are scheduled to present on,” he flipped through a calender on his desk, “March 6.” He faced her squarely. “Have you decided on a topic yet?”

  Stacy scratched her cheek nervously. “I was thinking of doing a presentation on the Shroud of Turin,” she heard herself say. Stacy blinked. I was…?

  Mr. Smith rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “What an intriguing idea,” he said after a pause. “What slant?”

  “I’m still doing the research,” Stacy said quickly. Lord, help me. She most certainly couldn’t do a Catholic presentation in a secular school. “I’ll let you know in a few weeks.” Stacy got up, trying to look confident.

  “Well, I’ll pencil it in. I’ll be looking forward to seeing your research.” Mr. Smith shook her hand. “What an intriguing idea—the Shroud of Turin.” Stacy smiled nervously and headed to her next class.

  It was another hectic night at the bakery. They ate take-out subs that Zeke picked up on his last post office run. There was a delivery of several pallets of grains needed for the bread that a semi had dropped off and since Zeke was out on a mail run Grammy asked if Stacy and Arthur would mind taking the rickety elevator down to the basement to put them away. The chore required four trips in all with the dolly piled high. On the last run the lights in the elevator began to flicker. Then—horrors—it stopped altogether. She and Arthur were stuck between floors.

  “Now what…?” he asked her.

  Stacy sank down to the floor and drew up her legs, regretting the lack of a cushion. “We wait. Someone will get us out,” she said, “once they figure out we’re in here.” It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was a bit annoying, as busy as they were at the moment.

  Arthur shrugged and sat down opposite her. “Maybe we should yell or something.”

  “It’s unlikely they’d hear us. We’re on the opposite side of the building and with the mixers running it’s pretty loud in there.” Stacy put her head on her knees. “Of course someone could run out of an ingredient.” She rolled her head to the side to look at him. “That might speed things up. You know,” Stacy smiled at him slyly, “I don’t really mind being stuck in here. We could use a rest and…” she hesitated a bit, “well, it could be worse.” She had been thinking, I don’t mind being stuck here with you. In the confined space she could smell his cologne and she was extremely aware of his nearness. His stretched out leg was only inches from her thigh. She was aware of her pulse. Stacy swallowed. “I know you’ve hung out with Zeke for years so I should know you, but I really don’t. For instance, your family: Do you live with your father…? mother…? I don’t know if you have any brothers or sisters.” Stacy didn’t think there were any near her age. She would have met them at school.

  Arthur looked surprised. “My life is boringly normal, except that these days it’s so unusual to be normal.” He cleared his throat. �
�I live with both parents—never divorced. I have four older siblings. They are all married and have families of their own. One lives near. The others had to follow careers elsewhere, so they’re scattered.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “I think my mom misses my sisters a lot.” Arthur smiled softly. “Zeke said your dad passed away.”

  “Car accident. It’s been almost ten years now.” She said this wistfully. “After that Mom brought us to live near Gram. She needed her to help take care of us while she worked. Of course all this came before the bread shop. Now we all work together—one big happy family.” There was a note of insincerity in this comment and it didn’t escape Arthur.

  “You do all seem pretty happy,” he stated.

  “Anything else…? Stacy prodded.

  Arthur’s face was blank. He shrugged.

  “You don’t think we’re a bit weird?”

  He shook his head. “Everybody’s weird, Stace… one way or the other. I guess I don’t know a lot of other families who periodically interrupt their work schedule to pray together. That’s a bit odd,” he paused thoughtfully, “but I like it.”

  Stacy tossed her hair. “Sometimes George bugs me.”

  “He doesn’t mean to,” Arthur