Jasna.
Her head was angled up, toward his window. The sight of her startled him and made him want to cover his nakedness, though he quickly realized she could not possibly see him. The curtains were partially drawn, a set of lace sheers between him and the sash, the outer pane smeared with rain. He was standing back, the room dark, outside even darker. But in the wash of the streetlights four stories down, he could see Jasna watching.
Something urged him to reveal his presence.
He parted the sheers.
Her right arm motioned for him to come. He didn’t know what to do. She gestured again with a simple wave of her hand. She wore the same clothes and tennis shoes from earlier, the dress pasted to her thin frame. Her long hair was soaked, but she seemed unfazed by the storm.
She beckoned again.
He looked over at Katerina. Should he wake her? Then he stared back out the window. Jasna was shaking her head no, and motioning once more.
Damn. Did she know what he was thinking?
He decided there was no choice and quietly dressed.
He stepped from the hotel’s entrance.
Jasna still stood in the street.
Lightning crackled overhead, and a renewed burst of rain poured from the blackened sky. He carried no umbrella.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“If you want to know the tenth secret, come with me.”
“Where?”
“Must you question everything? Is nothing accepted on faith?”
“We’re standing in the middle of a downpour.”
“It’s a cleanse for the body and soul.”
This woman frightened him. Why? He was unsure. Maybe it was his compulsion to do as she asked.
“My car is over there,” she said.
A tattered Ford Fiesta coupe was parked down the street. He followed her to it and she drove out of town, stopping at the base of a darkened mound in a parking lot devoid of vehicles. A sign revealed by the headlights read CROSS MOUNTAIN.
“Why here?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
He wanted to ask her who did, but let it go. This was obviously her show, and she intended to play it out her way.
They climbed out into the rain and he followed her toward a footpath. The ground was spongy, the rocks slippery.
“We’re going to the top?” he asked.
She turned back. “Where else?”
He tried to recall the details of Cross Mountain the guide had spewed out on the bus trip. More than sixteen hundred feet tall, it held a cross atop that had been erected in the 1930s by the local parish. Though unrelated to the apparitions, a climb to the summit was thought part of “the Medjugorje experience.” But no one was partaking tonight. And he wasn’t particularly thrilled about being sixteen hundred feet up in the middle of an electrical storm. Yet Jasna seemed unaffected and, strangely, he was drawing strength from her courage.
Was that faith?
The climb was made more difficult by rivulets of water gushing past him. His clothes were soaked, his shoes caked with mud, and only lightning illuminated the way. He opened his mouth and allowed the rain to soak his tongue. Thunder clapped overhead. It was as if the center of the storm had settled directly above them.
The crest appeared after twenty minutes of hard climbing. His thighs ached and the back of his calves throbbed.
Before him rose the darkened outline of a massive white cross, perhaps forty feet tall. At its concrete base, flower bouquets were buffeted by the storm. A few of the arrangements lay strewn about by the wind.
“They come from all over the world,” she said, pointing to the blossoms. “They climb and lay offerings and pray to the Virgin. Yet she never once appeared here. But they still come. Their faith is to be admired.”
“And mine is not?”
“You have no faith. Your soul is in jeopardy.”
The tone was matter-of-fact, like a wife telling a husband to take out the trash. Thunder rumbled past like a bass drum being worked to a beat. He waited for the inevitable flash of lightning and the burst splintered the sky in fractured bolts of blue-white light. He decided to confront this seer. “What’s there to have faith in? You know nothing of religion.”
“I only know of God. Religion is man’s creation. It can be changed, altered, or discarded entirely. Our Lord is another matter.”
“But men invoke the power of God to justify their religions.”
“It means nothing. Men like you must change that.”
“How would I possibly do that?”
“By believing, having faith, loving our Lord, and doing as He asks. Your pope tried to change things. Carry on his efforts.”
“I’m no longer in a position to do anything.”
“You are in the same position in which Christ found Himself, and He changed everything.”
“Why are we here?”
“Tonight will be the final vision of our Lady. She said for me to come, at this hour, and to bring you. She will leave a visible sign of Her presence. She promised that when She first came, and now She will keep that promise. Have faith in this moment—not later, when all will be clear.”
“I’m a priest, Jasna. I don’t need to be converted.”
“You doubt, but do nothing to relieve that doubt. You, more than anyone, need to convert. This is the time of grace. A time for a deepening faith. A time for conversion. That’s what the Virgin told me today.”
“What did you mean by Bamberg?”
“You know what I meant.”
“That’s not an answer. Tell me what you meant.”
The rain quickened and a fresh burst of wind whipped drops like pinpricks across his face. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, Jasna was on her knees, hands clasped in prayer, the same faraway look from this afternoon in her eyes as she stared up to the black sky.
He knelt beside her.
She seemed so vulnerable, no longer the defiant seer seemingly better than everyone else. He looked skyward and saw nothing but the blackened outline of the cross. A flash of lightning momentarily gave life to the image. Then darkness reenveloped the cross.
“I can remember. I know I can,” she said to the night.
Thunder again rolled across the sky.
They needed to leave, but he was hesitant to interrupt. It might not be real to him, but it was to her.
“Dear Lady, I had no idea,” she said to the wind.
A bright flash of light found earth and the cross exploded in a burst of heat that engulfed them.
His body rose off the ground and flew backward.
A strange tingling surged through his limbs. His head slammed into something hard. A wave of dizziness swept through him, then sickening nausea claimed his gut. His vision swirled. He tried to concentrate, to force himself to stay awake, but couldn’t.
Finally, everything went silent.
FORTY-FIVE
