Gertie’s card catalog was, sadly, even bigger than the one at her school. Erica didn’t know which was sadder, the diminutive size of her school library or the massive numbers of “records of removal” cataloged here.
Father Michael looked back at his slip of paper. “There was Frances-her name is Marguerite Morales. She’s from Marquette. Marty-she’s the one I had the hardest time tracking down. Her name is Maureen O’Connor, but when I called the number at her last known address in Kalamazoo, her mother said she’d received a postcard from Australia postmarked in Tamworth, and hadn’t heard from her since. So I called the operator and asked to be connected to Tamworth, Australia.”
“From the church phone I hope.” Erica grinned. “Long distance?”
“Of course.” He returned her grin. “The operator in Australia-what a delightful woman, very strange accent! I asked if there was a Maureen O’Connor listed in Tamworth, and she told me no, there was not. Frustrated, I told her my story, and she got very excited. You see, she was from Tamworth, although I was actually connected to the operator station in Brisbane. Tamworth is, apparently a tiny little town between two much larger ones-Brisbane and Sydney.”
“Even I’ve heard of Sydney,” Erica remarked, flipping idly through Gertie’s card catalog. “Are you going to tell me the operator knew this Maureen O’Connor?”
He laughed. “Not exactly knew her, but she had heard of her! She said she knew a girl named Maureen had moved into their little town-which wasn’t even declared a city until 1946, if you can believe it-with her baby. I guess they’d done some sort of story in the local paper about arranged marriages, which apparently are becoming more and more popular in Australia. Ruth said men outnumber women there two to one.”
“Those are sad odds.” Erica mused. “Who’s Ruth?”
“The operator.”
“Oh, right.”
“Anyway, she remembered the article and the man’s name.”
“Really?” Erica looked at him, hands on her hips. “She remembered the man’s name?”
“It’s a small town. I guess.” He shrugged. “So she gave me his number, and sure enough, we struck gold!”
She grinned, holding out her hand for the slip of paper. “You really did some good detective work there, Hardy Boy!”
Father Michael laughed, glancing down at his list, his smile slowly beginning to fade as he talked. “There’s one more. Jean-Norma Pyke-she’s actually still at Magdalene House. Working in the laundry. That’s where I found my mother.”
Erica raised her eyebrows at him. “What?”
“You know, I was very young when I came to the nunnery here at St. Mary’s. Three or four, I think?” Father Michael mused. “I barely remember a time before, but I do have some memories of that place. I remember hearing my mother’s voice. She used to sing to me. And I remember them calling her Lily. But that was all I could remember.”
“That’s not much to go on,” Erica agreed.
“But while we were down here, looking for these girls, Gertie and I got to talking about Magdalene House and I mentioned my mother and what I remembered, and she said, ‘I bet I can find her!’ So I told her the month and date of my birth, and what do you know, she goes straight to her little card catalog, and pulls out the two Lilys who had stayed at Magdalene House around that time. We looked up their files, and found their real names. The first name was a dead end. But the other name-Marianne Locke-that was my mother.”
“You talked to her?”
He nodded, but he looked so sad. “I went to see her. Before the holidays. At Magdalene House. She still works in the laundry.”
“But you found her!” Erica reached out, taking his hand. “Isn’t that good news?”
“Come on, I want to show you something else.” His smile was still far too small and sad for Erica’s liking. She followed him down the corridor, her belly clenching with the memory of her last trip through them as a representation of The Virgin-not at Father Michael’s sweet living nativity scene, but at a bastardized pagan ritual turned on its head, made Catholic for Father Patrick’s perverted purposes. She knew, the deeper they went, where Father Michael was taking her, what secret he had discovered, and she wished she could take it back, take it all back, give him back his innocence because hers was lost forever.
“Father Michael,” Erica said as they neared the heart of the circle, the inner sanctum, the center of the star, putting her hand on his arm. “I need to tell you something-”
She took a deep breath, swallowing, the words stuck, and when she looked up at him she saw she didn’t need to say it after all.
“I know.” He held his hand out to her and she took it, hers trembling in his. “I’m so sorry, Erica. So sorry.”
The worst thing wasn’t her pain, her fear, her sudden sense-memory returning, her body reliving the experience in hot flashes and gooseflesh. The worst thing was, she didn’t know what he was apologizing for. What did he know, exactly?
She let him lead her, just like she had let Father Patrick lead her, a lamb to the slaughter. They didn’t speak as he opened the door and turned on the light, leading her toward the mammoth crosses in the center of the room, glancing up at him and wondering what he knew.
She had a feeling she was about to find out.
Inside, Erica couldn’t catch her breath, looking around at the huge, empty cavern where she had been strapped to a cross and sacrificed to priest after priest. Father Michael must have seen the panic on her face, stopping to put his arms around her, and she let him hold her, helping still her quivering limbs.
“Why did you bring me here?” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, Erica.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry for what they did to you. What they did to all of you. My mother told me about this place. She told me… about the place I’m going to show you. The place she lived for fifteen years.”
“What?” Erica lifted her head, meeting his eyes, seeing tears there. “What are you talking about?”
Father Michael walked to the platform where the crosses were mounted. They were mechanized, the gear and pulley system used to raise them while the Mary and the Magdala were strapped down, bodies on the vertical axis, arms on the horizontal. Father Michael pushed a button and the crosses began to rise, no drugged, terrified girls on them this time, and Erica watched, heart in her throat, as they hit their maximum reach, still at a three- quarter angle to reduce the strain on the girls’ arms.
“Come on.” He took her hand, leading her around the platform to the opposite side. Father Michael stepped over the thick metal framing that surrounded and supported the platform, into the space created underneath, the crosses looming overhead, throwing deep shadows.
“What-?” Erica took a step forward, curious, always curious, and saw him grasp something at his feet and pull, lifting up, and she realized it was a door, like some sort of trapdoor, right in the floor.
“What is that?” she asked before she thought. Did she really want to know?
“It’s where Father Patrick kept his daughter for fifteen years.” Father Michael took a step into the darkness under the door and Erica’s heart leapt, but she followed him anyway, climbing over the steel railing and seeing stairs leading down.
“His daughter?” Erica whispered, gladly taking the priest’s offered hand. The smell hit her first, like something rotted, long-dead. She gagged, covering her mouth and nose with her hand as they made their way down the stairs in complete blackness. “Aren’t there any lights?”
“At the bottom. Watch your head.” He flipped a switch and fluorescents hummed, revealing a small cell-like room, no windows, the ceiling so low Father Michael had to duck-he couldn’t even stand straight up. How deep under the ground were they, she wondered? There was a small vent near the ceiling.
A filthy mattress sat in one corner and for a moment, as Erica’s eyes adjusted to the light, she thought she saw a baby with thick, dark hair under the cover of a threadbare blanket, like someone had tried to cover it to keep it warm, and a scream rose to her throat before she could stop it, clutching Father Michael’s arm in terror.
“It’s okay. It’s a doll,” he assured her, squatting in front of the mattress and pulling the blanket down, revealing the naked, plastic limbs. “I thought the same thing at first…”
The doll was missing an eye and there was something wrong with its mouth, like it had been cut-or chewed.
