Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

like running, but knew there was no place to go. Someone yanked him inside and closed the door behind him.

Marco lowered a woman to the ground, the dark rag pressed over her mouth. The boards above them creaked as someone walked casually across the second floor.

“Who was it?” a male voice rang out. Marco looked to the others and raised a single finger to his lips. The boy with the canister began soaking the rag again.

“Cecilia? Did you hear me? Who was at the door?”

The shuffling steps overhead moved away, then creaked on a stairwell. The clomping descended, wrapping back around toward them. Cole looked at the other boys, terrified and confused. Shouldn’t they be running? At least toward or away from this man coming down the stairs? His heart pounded as the footsteps reached the landing and their owner came into view.

The man stumbled down into the small living room and kitchen, his hand brushing the wall. “Cecilia?” he asked. His eyes wandered around the room, but they were obviously blind. He felt his way toward the back door, moving closer to the crouched and quiet group of boys.

“You’d better not be giving the last of your copper to them homeless men,” the blind man said. He shouted the words as if the woman were out in the alley, behind the closed door. Patting his way through the stools by the kitchen counter, the old man headed their way as if to go out after her. Marco made a gesture with his hands, and the kid with the soaked rag sprang into motion.

It was over before Cole could even think to breathe. Two boys held the old man, smothering him with the rag as he fell unconscious. Another two started carrying the woman up the stairs, one grasping her armpits and the other with her knees.

“What are we doing?” Cole hissed.

Marco just smiled.

“Grab the legs,” one of the boys told Cole, pointing at the man.

Cole did as he was told. They made their way up the stairs with the old man, navigating the twisting stairwell slowly to avoid bumping him into the walls. Upstairs, they found a bedroom with two tiny cots. The woman was already being arranged on one of them.

“They sleep separate,” one of the boys pointed out, which elicited a round of giggling. Cole helped arrange the man on the cot, wondering what the hell they were trying to accomplish. He saw one of the boys pull out a black case. He unzipped it loudly, then produced a gleaming needle. The syringe was passed to Marco.

Cole moved to intervene. “What is that?” he asked.

“It’s so she won’t remember,” he said. He passed the needle to another boy, who plunged it behind the woman’s ear. Cole cringed from the sight of the act.

“And now for the Miracle,” Marco said. He grabbed Cole’s arm and turned him toward the old man. More syringes were produced, one identical to the last and another that was much larger and gleaming with a stainless steel casing.

The boy with the smaller syringe held it out toward Cole. “You wanna do this one?”

Cole shook his head, and several of the others laughed. The needle dove behind the man’s ear and the plunger was depressed.

“Hold his head steady,” Marco said.

Two boys knelt by the cot and braced the man’s skull. Marco accepted the larger syringe and moved behind the head of the cot so he could lean over and steady himself. One of the boys holding the man’s forehead used two fingers to pry open his eyelid.

“What is that?” Cole asked. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re gonna make the blind see again,” someone whispered.

Marco paused before inserting the needle. He looked up at Cole. “It’s stem cells,” he said, waving the syringe. “Doctors perform this procedure all the time, only these people can’t afford it.”

“I thought we were against stem cells,” Cole said.

Marco laughed. “We’re against doctors, slumrat. People can’t afford to pay them and tithe at the same time.”

With that, he looked back to the blind man’s open eye and lowered the large needle. Cole fought the urge to look away as the metal rod slid into the corner of the open eye. The plunger went halfway down, and then the other eyelid was pulled open. The procedure was repeated, the old couple tucked in, and before Cole knew it, they were back in the alley, locking the door behind them.

“What did we just do?” Cole asked.

“Our good deed for the day,” someone called out.

The boys had returned to their youthful state, jostling and joking as they skipped toward the end of the alley.

“These people will be approached later in the week,” Marco said. “A group of Sisters will go door to door, telling everyone in this neigh-borhood about the Church. The Sisters won’t know what happened here, but they will hear about it soon enough, right from the source. And you can bet this couple will be in church next Sunday. And you can bet Picoult will have them on stage, asking them about this Miracle.”

“That was a Miracle?” Cole asked.

“There’s nothing like your first one,” Marco said. He clasped Cole’s shoulder and squeezed. “Congrats again on the promotion.”

They hadn’t even reached the end of the alley when everything else clicked into place for Cole. The obvious punched him in the gut, taking away his breath and making him feel sick to his stomach. He staggered out into the busy street, leaned on a rusted light pole, and clutched his abdomen.

“You okay?” someone asked.

“I think he’s gonna be sick.”

Cole looked around for Marco, who moved to his side.

“She’s really pregnant,” Cole said.

Marco knelt down beside Cole. “That she is.”

“Did you do it?” Cole asked.

Marco smiled. “Yeah, but not like you think. She’s still a vir—”

Cole’s hands clamped around the rest of the sentence, squeezing Marco’s throat. The other boys stopped giggling and tensed up. Marco pried Cole’s hands away from his neck, then slapped Cole across the face.

Cole hardly felt the blow. His body was bristling with rage. All he could think of was Joanna on a cot, pinned down by a pack of boys, needles or worse invading her flesh. He launched himself at Marco, tackling the boy. He landed a few blows before someone pried him off, the other kids a tangle of cloaks around him, all of them grasping and clutching at Cole.

Cole felt himself pinned in place. Marco was on his hands and knees, his nose bleeding. The other boys had fistfuls of his new cloak.

“Hold him,” Marco said.

Cole sagged down, wiggling his arms out of the wide sleeves. He felt a primal fury coil up in his gut as the lie of the black hole and its explosion dawned on him as well. He thought of the grieving widows and the confused orphans all around the Church the past weeks. He thought about how Joanna had cried and cried over their losses. He fell to the pavement, leaving the boys holding his empty cloak, and emerged a free and mad animal.

Cole lunged forward and kicked at Marco’s face. He landed a serious blow, but kicked again. And again. He kept kicking, even as the other boys realized they no longer had him and reached to seize him once more. He kept kicking, even as they rained their own blows against him. He was kicking still when the cops came and took their turn at holding him down. Even as they peeled the other boys off him, he kicked. As they shoved him to the pavement and cuffed him, he kicked. He even kicked later as they dressed his myriad new wounds. Cole kept kicking and kicking and kicking at anything he could.

11 · The Courtroom

The courtroom remained silent long after Cole finished relaying what had happened. Even the lawyer in the