“He called to her. But she was frightened and backed away from the window. He walked around the tower, looking for the door, and finally found it but it was locked.
“He stood there awhile calling to her. But she did not reappear. Despairing, he sat against a tree and tried to figure out a way to make her open the door. Soon he fell asleep. Later that evening, he was awakened by the sound of someone walking through the woods. Quickly he hid himself and watched as the old wizard pulled a golden key from a chain around his neck and opened the door. The shepherd heard the wizard lock the door from the inside. He decided this might be his only chance to get into the tower. So he picked up the heaviest, biggest rock he could manage and stood by the door, waiting for the wizard.
“When the wizard emerged, the shepherd hit him on his head with the rock and the wizard fell unconscious.
“Manuel ran as fast as he could to the top of the tower, where he found Serena sleeping on a bed of dove feathers and gold dust. He sat beside her to admire her beauty, his heart aching with love for her. When she woke and saw his kind and handsome face, she, too, fell instantly in love with him.
“‘Come away with me, Serena. I am only a poor shepherd but I will love and care for you all your life,’ he said.
“She said she would and he kissed her passionately. It was a kiss so full of love, that a baby was made and appeared beside Serena on her bed. They called him Juno, and that was me. Overjoyed, the young lovers carried me from the tower. But when they stepped outside, the wizard was waiting for them. Enraged, he pulled a sword from its sheath at his side and ran my father through, killing him instantly. My mother was stricken with grief and wailed with all the pain of her broken heart. It was a cry so loud that God Himself heard it and recognized it as the voice of His lost angel.
“He appeared to her and the wizard as a blinding light. He cast the wizard straight to hell. Then He spoke to my mother.
“‘Weep not, my lost little angel, I have come to take you and Manuel home.’
“She saw Manuel’s soul rise from his body into the light and soon she was beside him. They were going to God.
“‘But what of our child?’ they asked.
“‘He has a life to live before he can join us. He has many things to do on Earth. One day, you will all be together again.’
“And I was blinded by the light of God.’’
Lydia didn’t say anything, trying to understand what kind of person you had to be to believe a fairy tale all your life. How innocent, how trusting, how pure he had to be never to imagine that his uncle had lied. What kind of world did he imagine, where the mystical existed so believably? “And you believed this until when?’’
“I think until just now. You must think I am an idiot. Someone like you, always searching for the truth. I have hid from it all my life in this little church. The world is nothing like I have believed it to be. I think on some level, I knew. But I just never examined it. I didn’t want to know the truth.’’
“God, why would you? The world can be a twisted, fucked-up place. What a gift you had all these years, to live like you have. You had something that I’m not sure even exists anymore. Pure faith.’’
“Blind faith. If everything you believe in is a lie, then you’re a fool, not a saint.’’
She marveled at the change in him. The monklike demeanor he had held was gone, and an ordinary man, angry, confused, and grief-stricken, sat beside her, clutching her hand. He’d lost his glow of inner peace. And she grieved for that loss, almost more than for his other losses.
“Just because your uncle told you a story meant to protect you doesn’t mean that everything he taught you was false. Plenty of people who are not fools have faith
– faith in God, faith in the basic goodness of human nature. You don’t have to give those things up.’’ “What about you, Lydia? What do you have faith in?’’
She searched her mind, wanting to come up with something to satisfy them both. But she didn’t know. She didn’t want to say what she’d realized in that moment, that she had been searching for faith in him. She’d started to convince herself that he could heal the pain she had been carrying inside her since the death of her mother, that he held the truth that could set her free. It was that search that had been drawing her to him.
“Because you see the truth,’’ he said, when she didn’t speak, “you don’t need faith.’’
“Because I see the truth, I need it even more; faith that there is something larger, something better than what we see. There are people who believe you healed them. What about that?’’
“I never healed anyone. People lied to themselves. And I was starting to believe it, too. They were searching, just like you were. For something larger, something that could fix the injustice of suffering. They let themselves believe a fairy tale. Just like I did.’’
“But I saw you in my dreams,’’ she said.
“I can’t explain that, Lydia.’’
“And that’s the space that faith occupies. In things we can’t explain and can’t understand.’’
Now he sat silent, trying to grasp at the fading concept of himself and his world. He wondered who he would be, now that everything he had known was slipping away. “So, do you know what happened to them?’’
“Yes. Do you want me to tell you?’’
“Yes.’’
As carefully as she could, she relayed the fate of Serena and Manuel Alonzo, giving him the whole truth as she had learned it from archived articles from the newspaper. She felt he deserved that. “Your parents were poor, living here in the barrio of Santa Fe. Your father worked in construction and your mother was a nurse’s aide at Santa Fe General Hospital. They married very young and it was an abusive relationship. Your father beat your mother, Juno.
“When she found out she was pregnant, she became afraid for your life. She was afraid you would not survive the beatings. She was too afraid to divorce him or leave him, fearing that he would find and kill her anyway. So she killed your father, set their house on fire while he was passed out from drinking.
“She went to trial and was found guilty. She gave birth to you in prison and died in labor.’’
Lydia told the story in all its earthly ugliness. And when she was done, she told him about Bernard Hugo and what they had discovered. And Juno wept, feeling grief and pain for the first time in his life. She sat beside him with her hand on his back and nodded to the officer standing by the door, who had stood waiting for her signal to start digging up the garden. Lydia was certain it was here they would find the victims’ hearts. She wasn’t sure why Hugo had buried them here, she wasn’t sure what his message was, but she had a vague sense now of the way the killer’s mind worked, of his essence. And though she didn’t know what his ultimate goal was, she knew he intended to have vengeance against Juno for not saving his son. The only thing she really didn’t understand was why he chose the victims he did. Was it just a matter of opportunity? Were they just unlucky enough to fly into his radar?
“Juno,’’ Lydia said gently, a thought occurring to her suddenly.
He had lifted his head from his hands and seemed to be staring off at the altar, lost in his grief. He came back to himself when she spoke to him.
“Did any of the victims ever come to you for counsel? Did you heal any of them, Juno?’’
He seemed to deflate even further as he considered her question, and realized the implications of the answer he was about to give. In that moment he truly had lost everything he believed to be true.
“I’ve seen all of them,’’ he said softly. “Christine and Harold came to me a year ago to help them overcome their addictions. Shawna came to me to help her with her anger. And Maria, she came to me when a doctor found a lump in her breast.’’
“And what happened with each of them?’’
“Christine and Harold seemed to have beaten their addictions when they disappeared. Shawna became involved in the church and that seemed to give her some peace. When Maria’s tumor was removed, after her visit, it was found to be benign. She claimed that before she had seen me, she was sure she was about to die from breast cancer, and that as I played my guitar, she could feel the cancer leaving her. She was quite vocal about it.’’
“So you helped all of them. In ways, you healed all of them. That should mean something to you, Juno. Each of their lives was better for your interaction with them, whether it was divine or not.’’
“Lydia,’’ he said, “if your question implies what I think it does, then all of their lives were ended because of
