Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

“Congratulations,” the Father said.

Cole nodded.

“Now Joanna, why don’t you come inside with me? There are some ancient scriptures I would like to go over with you. Very applicable to what lies ahead for us.”

Joanna smiled and reached for Cole’s hand, as if to drag him along with them.

“Actually,” Father Picoult said, “I think Marco has need of Cole.” He lifted his eyes and looked beyond the gate. “Isn’t that right, Marco?”

Cole turned and looked outside the Church grounds, back toward the street. Marco and his young gang of Miracle Makers were strolling up toward the front gate. Cole had wondered during his conversation with Joanna: If her story was true, why would Father Picoult allow the two of them beyond the reach of the Church, alone? And now Cole saw that he hadn’t. They had been two lambs, guarded by a half dozen shepherds.

Marco came up to the gate and rested his hands on the wrought iron. “Congratulations,” he said to Joanna, a wry smirk on his face.

Cole tried to will himself to be two inches taller. He thought he could sense a tinge of jealousy in Marco’s demeanor.

Marco looked to Father Picoult. “Does he know?” He jerked his head at Cole.

Cole was about to say indeed he did, when Father Picoult said, “I haven’t told him yet.”

Cole turned. He watched Father Picoult pull a dark bundle from the shadows of his cloak. With the snap of his wrist, the bundle unfolded into a smaller version of the cloaks Marco and his peers wore.

“For me?” Cole asked. He held out his hands and felt another layer of resistance and doubts crumble. They were letting him into an ever tightening circle of family.

“We’ve never had a Senior Miracle Maker so young,” Marco said. And it wasn’t malice that Cole noted in his tone. It was something more akin to awe—or pride.

Father Picoult opened the hem of the cloak, and Cole raised his arms and wormed his way into the heavy fabric. As his head emerged, the first thing he saw was Joanna’s brilliant smile and shimmering eyes. Cole wanted to wrap her in his arms right then, but refrained from doing so in front of the others.

“Alright,” Marco said. He slapped Cole on the back. “Let’s get started.”

“Started?” Cole watched as Father Picoult guided Joanna away, up toward the entrance of the Church. She looked over her shoulder and waved one last time, the smile of so much pride and joy still on her lips. “Started with what?”

“Training,” Marco said. “You’ve got a lot more to learn in the next nine months than she does.”

10 · The Streets

Cole hurried after the group of Miracle Makers, his legs feeling trapped and confined in the heavy cloak. He watched their long strides and tried to match them, wondering how they ever got used to the garb, especially in the barrio’s afternoon heat.

“What kinds of things do I need to learn?” Cole asked. “Like changing diapers and stuff?”

The other boys laughed at that. They had to stop and wheeze for air, they laughed so hard. At least it gave Cole a chance to catch up.

“I think that’s gonna be taken care of,” Marco said. He pinched Cole’s neck with one hand and wiped tears from his eyes with the other, a wide smile plastered across his face. “Today you’re gonna witness another Miracle, and you’re gonna see how things are done around here, okay?”

Cole nodded—even though he didn’t understand.

“Do you understand why you were picked for this?” Marco asked, the laughter and smiles fading around them.

Cole looked down at his cloak. “You mean this?” He brushed his hands across the rich, dark fabric.

“No.” Marco squeezed his neck harder. “For Joanna.”

Cole blushed. “Because I love her,” he whispered.

The boys howled even louder at that. One of them slapped Cole on the back of his head.

“No, you twit. Everyone loves Joanna, if you really consider what you’re feeling love.”

“I love her the most!” one of the other boys said.

“You just lussst her,” someone whispered in Cole’s ear.

Cole dug his finger in after the tickle of the insult.

“It’s okay,” Marco said, waving down the others. “It’s perfectly natural. But no, the reason you’re perfect for this job is because you’re smart. And you’re one of us.”

“A slumrat,” someone said.

Marco guided him into an alley and off the busier street. He steered Cole away from several bums huddled together around a makeshift campfire.

“I think you’ve got a decent sense of right and wrong,” Marco said, “but I also think you have a practical mind. You understand that sometimes doing right means getting your hands dirty.”

Cole thought about how many meals he’d stolen over the years. He looked back toward the homeless men, thinking about how he always foresaw his old age just like that.

“The world doesn’t get better by hoping and praying,” Marco said. “But it sure would be nice if more people thought that it did.”

Cole frowned. “But then wouldn’t those people spend more time hoping and less time doing?”

Marco popped Cole playfully on the back of the head. “See? That’s the smarts I’m talking about. You see it all at once, don’t you?” He pointed to one of the boys ahead in the alley, who was trying to catch a pigeon. “With these idiots, I have to explain everything a dozen times. But you’re right. If people thought prayer worked, they’d do less to improve their lot. Which would leave the job to us.”

“Which they would pay us for, naturally,” another boy said.

Marco smiled at the boy who had finished his thought for him. “We call them offerings, not payments,” he said.

The other boy laughed.

“What we’re aiming for is one Church,” Marco continued, “and not that dodgy one in Rome, or that one in Salt Lake. Portugal will one day be the nexus of all belief, back under one unified roof. Hell, you’ve seen the difference in just the last weeks, haven’t you?”

Cole thought about the crowds in the Church even for the last two Wednesday and Thursday services. He had figured it was just because so many people knew someone who had died in the blast.

“Just wait until you see everything Picoult has in store for the Church,” Marco said. “You’re gonna be one lucky slumrat if you play your cards right.”

“We’re getting close,” one of the boys said.

“Alright,” Marco whispered to Cole. “Quiet now. Think of this as training and as a test of sorts. It’s like a slumrat raid, but to do good.”

With that, the demeanor of the group changed. The boisterous and loud walk transformed into textbook sneakcraft. Each of the kids moved to the shadows and danced forward on the balls of their feet, the heavy cloaks shrouding them in shadow and absorbing any stray noise.

Cole did the same and noticed how well-suited the fabric was for silent movement. The heavy material held him fast, constraining any extraneous motion, allowing him to move with an economy of sound. The others pulled their hoods up, and Cole did the same. He slid around a puddle, avoiding a pile of tin cans, and held up as the group coalesced by a closed door.

The boys flattened themselves to either side, and Cole did likewise. Marco knocked on the door while another boy swished a bottle of something into a dark rag. After a moment, a chain could be heard sliding back, a voice inside calling to someone else that they were answering the knock.

As soon as the door cracked, Marco shoved his way inside. The other boys followed, their actions lithe and serious. There were sounds of a scuffle. Cole looked up and down the alley, his heart racing with adrenaline. He felt