Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

6 · Portugal, Earth · Six Years Earlier

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Gods?”

The words startled Cole, that last one especially. He glanced from the bailiff to the judge sitting in the elevated dais to his side. The judge nodded at him, urging Cole along.

Cole looked down at his hand, which felt heavy on the black Bible. He could feel the bumps and ridges on the book’s cover, like the skin of something that might bite him. He was suddenly aware of the hundreds of gazes and cameras aimed his way, all the judgment pouring out of them. It was the book, he realized. It all came back to that scaly book.

“Do you swear to tell the whole truth?” the bailiff asked again.

A lawyer turned to the judge and let out an exasperated sigh.

It was a simple question, Cole knew. Probably the simplest anyone would ask of him. If he couldn’t answer this one, how was he going to survive the rest? He swept his gaze out over the sea of faces in all those rows of benches and up to the packed balcony. Spectators were even pressed tight along the back wall, jostling with one another to see. The double doors at the end of the center aisle opened, and Cole watched a uniformed officer wave off whoever was attempting to enter.

“Do you swear to tell the truth?” the bailiff demanded, his impatience laced with venom.

Cole nodded.

“We need to hear you say it, son,” the judge told him.

“I swear,” Cole said. He lifted his hand from the Bible and rubbed the pads of his fingers together. They were warm, or maybe he was just imagining it.

“Please be seated.”

Cole sat. There was something comforting in being told to sit or stand, and when. He looked down at his feet, wondering if there was a place to kneel as well.

“I’d like to start with the… event,” the lawyer said. He stressed the last word, his voice regaining its honeyed quality as it was projected out more for the audience than for Cole. “Can you tell us where you were on the day the research institute was destroyed?”

Cole swallowed. He ran the question back in his mind a few times, wary of making any mistakes.

“I was in the barrio,” he finally said.

Laughter rolled through the crowd, perhaps at the outlandish idea that a slum rat such as himself would be anywhere else.

“Where were you exactly?” the lawyer demanded. He crossed his arms and turned to the benches, which Cole suddenly realized were arranged very much like church pews. Everyone was facing him, rapt and expectant, with wide grins still pinned to the faces of those who had been laughing. He was practically on an altar, Cole realized. One of the altars of old, where defenseless things were sacrificed to higher powers. That’s where he was—not in a courtroom.

“Answer the question,” the judge intoned.

I was in the barrio, Cole repeated to himself. He wasn’t sure what to say, but the people in the pews had laughed because they knew he couldn’t have been anywhere else. They had laughed because in the barrio meant nothing to them. It was an imprecise sprawl, and yet it was Cole’s entire universe. He thought the question over again, wondering what the lawyer wanted, wondering how not to give it to him. He looked out over the congregation, their eyes and mocking smiles wide.

“I was up on the water tower,” he blurted out, the truth spilling from him before he could contain it.

Cole gripped rungs still wet with the morning’s dew and began his long and routine climb up the metal ladder. Chipping paint uncoiled from the old steel beneath his hands, revealing muddy gold rust beneath. He climbed quickly, and the water tower above rang with his movement, almost as if sensing his arrival.

When he finally reached the grated platform high above, Cole saw that the sun had not yet risen to light up his small patch of Portugal. Its first rays barely leaked over the horizon to give the swollen belly of the water tower a pale glow. He ran his hands along the curved and riveted panels as he circled the giant container. There was no need to rap it with his knuckles; his footfalls made the entire structure rattle with an obvious, tinny emptiness.

When Cole reached the East side, he plopped down on the metal grating, the cold and wet steel pressing up through the seat of his blue shorts. He dangled his thin legs out over the edge, wiped the moisture from the rail ahead of him, and leaned forward to gaze out over his unlucky home.

The barrio.

Land of filth and muck and muddy sorrow. A slum crowded with people bustling and jostling to be anywhere else.

Cole’s eyes wandered up twisted alleys barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness. The tight streets appeared as black cracks among the dull gray of wooden and metal shacks, all of it a maze of winding anarchy. Twinkling everywhere above this maze was a wet web of electrical and telephone lines entangling the rooftops in a confused snare. It was like a net cast from the heavens to trap any of the floundering, flapping, filthy poor who happened to worm their way out of the labyrinth below.

Cole looked further up Angústia Hill where the sides of leaning shacks caught some of the looming day’s light. Twisted planes of steel glowed as if still molten. They brought into clear relief the jumbled nature of the ad-hoc town: the shared walls and overlapping corrugated roofs; the rebar bones poking up through abandoned second-story dreams; the wisps of smoke from cooking fires that cascaded from under eaves instead of travelling up proper stovepipes. For as far as his twelve-year-old eyes could see, the surface of his cursed Portugal was covered with slip-shod shanties. It was a landscape of jumbled cubes, like a sack of individual little dice poured into the mud by gods playing some crooked game, a game where all the pips came up craps every time.

Cole rested his arms on the railing and swung his feet out over it all.

“This world doesn’t suck—it’s just stuck.”

He chanted the sing-song phrase to himself, trying to sound as convincing as the Sisters.

“All that’s due is a miracle or two—”

The rest of the rhyme’s hopeless optimism was interrupted by the soft clang of hands and feet slapping steel rungs far below. The tower swayed slightly as someone else reached the platform and came to take away his solitude and depressing vista. Cole turned and gazed down the curving walkway as light footsteps rang his way.

“Holá Brother,” someone out of sight called too loudly. “It’s just me.”

Cole’s heart practically pounded straight through his ribcage when Joanna, his sister in name only, came into view. She rounded the belly of the water tower, squeezing her way along the narrow walkway just as the sun broached the horizon with the sudden intensity only a valley could know.

A warm glow bathed Joanna’s walnut skin and gave her straight black hair an obsidian sheen. The timing of the day’s dawn and her arrival were spectacular. It was a combination nearly as potent as it was torturous. Cole’s new awareness of the opposite sex had coincided perfectly with his adoption into the religious order of Miracle Makers. For obvious hormonal reasons, joining a sect that promoted abstinence had seemed a painless no-brainer just six months ago. Now, it was excruciating.

“Holá, Sister Joanna,” Cole said, stressing her name more than the cursed honorific. “What are you doing here?”

The smile on Joanna’s face melted, and Cole swore the sun itself dimmed. He felt like an ass for the way his question sounded, even to his own ears.

“Am I not welcome?” Joanna asked.

“No,” Cole said. “It’s not that. I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m surprised. I never knew you came up here.”

“I never have,” Joanna said. She took a few more steps toward Cole, her hand brushing the wet railing as she went. The action sent a cascade of dewdrops plummeting and twinkling from the rail and down through the rays of new sunshine.

Cole swallowed and went to stand up, but then Joanna’s hand was on his shoulder, fixing him in place. His head swam with confusion and nubile hormones, his mouth about to leak shameful admissions—

And then Joanna simply sat down beside him, having used his shoulder to steady herself on the narrow walkway. She scooted side to side a little, then wiped at the back of her shorts, the same shade of blue as his.

“It’s wet.”

“The dew,” Cole pointed out like an idiot. He leaned away from her and felt his own wet shorts, as if confirming it, or maybe highlighting something they had in common. He wasn’t sure.

“It’s pretty up here.”

Cole watched as Joanna brushed more wetness from the lower railing ahead of them, sending another straight line of dewdrops raining down, some of them splashing wide against her bare thighs. She leaned forward and rested her arms on top of the cleared surface and gazed out over the barrio.

“You think this is pretty?” Cole whispered. He had to fight from telling her what he thought was pretty. It sure wasn’t the barrio.

Joanna turned to him and smiled, and surely the sun crept higher over Angústia Hill, soaking the older girl in extra honeyed light and Cole in more heat. “Of course,” she said. “Just look at all the people starting a new day.” She swept a perfect arm out over the slums. “Smell all that fresh food and that crisp air.”

Cole begrudgingly tore his eyes off her arm and looked beyond it to the rolling hills soaked in shacks. He focused on the people this time, not remembering if they were even out and about before, though he was sure they must’ve been. He matched the rhythmic hissing sound of a straw broom with a shopkeeper sending horizontal wisps of dust into the street. The distant clatter of a screen door was followed by a barely audible call for some animal or child to come inside. The scent of fried plantains stirred weakly in a morning air that Cole had to admit was crisp and cool. As the light of the rising sun spilled down alleys he knew like the lines of his own knuckles, Cole saw how much activity there was up and down them. He looked out over the vista through Joanna’s eyes, or perhaps through the eyes of a young boy, newly smitten.

“I’ve always come up here to look down on this place,” Cole admitted shamefully.

“It is a nice spot,” Joanna said, obviously missing Cole’s point and taking the “down” as literal instead of figurative. “I’m glad Marco told me about it.”

Cole peeled his eyes away from two kids chasing each other through the streets, laughing and screaming, and turned to Joanna. “Marco told you about this spot?”

Joanna nodded. “He said the sunrise up here was magical. Said I should come up today because it was gonna be a good one.” She turned her head to the side and rested her high cheeks on her smooth forearm. “He was right.”

Cole blushed. He ran his finger along the underside of the railing, knocking the hanging dew loose. He knew for a fact that Marco never got up early enough for a sunrise in his life, but he’d have to thank the old bastard for divulging Cole’s secret spot. Maybe his Group Leader wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

“Hey Cole?”

Cole saw that he was idly peeling paint from the railing. He stopped and looked to Joanna.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got something I want to ask you.”

Cole lost himself in Joanna’s eyes, which somehow looked so much younger than her fourteen years, and so much older as well. They were the eyes of a girl who had survived a bunch of days without seeing anything bad enough to scar them. They were a woman’s eyes untouched. In the back of Cole’s boy-brain, he knew she was waiting on a response from him, but he lost himself in the black and brown ridges around her pupils. He felt like he could dive straight into them, cleansing himself of the filth and muck of the barrio, escaping away to some more beautiful place—

And then a twinkle burst in Joanna’s eye.

It grew into a flash, a shattering of brightness, a yellow starburst spreading out through the brown. Her eyes twitched to the side and focused on something in the distance, and Cole realized he was seeing not some internal twinkle, but the reflection of some bright light. He turned just as a great rumble arrived, followed soon after by a too-warm breeze. Out in the center of the barrio, right in the middle of the new government district, a terrible ball of orange was dissipating in the sky.

Cole watched, stunned senseless, as the fire morphed into a cloud of black smoke. It churned up into the sky, flattening and growing dirty white as it did so.

The rumble grew, and soon the water tower was trembling in harmony. Cole felt Joanna’s hands settle on the back of his, squeezing. He in turn gripped the rail in raw terror as the empty tower swayed in an unnatural breeze.

“What in the Almighty’s name?” Joanna breathed.

The cloud slid through all the hues of gray to the color of ash, then rose up and blended with the natural puffs high in the sky. Sirens called out like startled birds, wailing in the far distance where wealthy people paid to be protected from whatever had just happened.

“Was that a bomb?” Joanna asked.

Her hands were still on Cole’s, even as the tower settled back to stillness.

“It didn’t sound like a bomb,” Cole sputtered.

Joanna finally pulled her hands away, creating a fathomless distance between herself and Cole measured in mere centimeters.

“Have you heard bombs before?”

Cole shook his head slowly. He noted the odd way the shacks along the hillside all around the blast were pushed flat in concentric circles. Something about that was screaming at him to be understood. To be recognized as familiar.

“Just in a few movies,” Cole admitted, not taking his eyes off the scene. The crying and shouting of people added to the screaming din of the sirens.

“Are we safe up here?” Joanna asked. She gripped the rail and stuck her chin out over her knuckles, peering down. “Maybe we should go see if we can help. I bet the Miracle Makers need us right now. They’ll be worried and looking for volunteers—”

Cole nodded. He could see tiny silhouettes creeping up the alleys toward the blast, picking their way through rubble, hands on stunned heads with elbows sharp to either side, some of them doubtlessly adding to the cacophony of mad sounds screeching over the barrio.

“C’mon,” Joanna said. She scrambled to her feet and shook Cole’s shoulder. Her voice was full of fear and anxiety, and yet she seemed to have more wits about herself than Cole. “Let’s go find Marco,” she said. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Marco,” Cole repeated. He bit his lip, remembering vaguely some conversation he’d had with his fellow Miracle Maker a few months ago. “Yeah,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the horrific scene, the smoky aftermath of a blast that must’ve claimed so many. “Let’s go find Marco,” he said.

7 · The Courtroom

The lawyer smiled at Cole’s answer. “And wouldn’t you say that the water tower provided a most excellent vantage of the day’s events?” He continued to smile, but Cole saw the lawyer’s teeth as more for biting and gnashing and tearing out flesh than for evincing pleasure.

He nodded. Cole knew there was danger in the question, but his mind was a fog, the truth billowing in him like a suffocating smoke.

“Speak up.”

“I could see everything,” Cole said. He looked to his own lawyer behind her table and wondered when he could start answering her questions. Each step felt like a trap with this guy.

“And at this time you were already an initiate in the—” The lawyer shook a piece of paper stiff and seemed to read the next, as if anyone could now get it wrong. “—The Holy Order of God’s Miracle Makers, is that also correct?”

“I’m actually a full member,” Cole said.

The lawyer smiled and handed the piece of paper to one of the team of people behind his desk. Cole didn’t follow the paper all the way. He didn’t want to face the other people sitting there—

“At least, I was a full member,” Cole added. He wasn’t exactly sure what his status with the Order was anymore. He noticed his lawyer frowning at this and wondered if he’d made a mistake.

“So, let’s be clear about this.” The lawyer turned and faced the two rows of jurors. “You, Cole Mendonça, were a full member of these Miracle Makers.” He stressed the words and wiggled two pairs of fingers in the air. “You were, on the morning of the—let’s just call it an explosion for now—you were perched on what you yourself admitted was the perfect vantage point for your handiwork—”

“Objection,” Cole’s lawyer said. “He’s leading the witness.”

“Sustained,” the judge intoned.

Cole’s lawyer stood up. “Your honor, my client is not the one on—”

“Your objection was sustained, Counselor.” The judge picked up his mallet, but used it to point at her rather than bang it. “Please sit.”

The crowd in the pews stirred. Their attention returned to Cole.

“On the morning of the… explosion, you were in a spot with an uncanny view of the new research institute, and you were with another member of the Miracle Makers.” The lawyer walked over to Cole’s witness stand and placed his hands on the wooden ledge before him. “Where did you go immediately after the event?”

“I went to Church,” Cole said. He wanted to look at his lawyer with every answer, but figured it might seem like he wasn’t sure or was being coached. He knew perfectly well what had happened that day and why. He kept reminding himself of that. All he needed to do was tell the truth.

“Did you go to pray?”

There was laughter from the pews.

“Did you go to confess?”

Cole shook his head. “We went to see Marco. We thought we could help, or something.”

“Perhaps you thought you could help build the next bomb?”

“What?” Cole looked around the room, all eyes wide and locked onto his. “No, I had no idea about any of that at the time. I thought maybe some of the injured people might need help. Joanna and I went to Marco because he’s our group leader—”

“Is that what you call each cell? You call them groups?”

“Cell?” Cole shook his head. “No, it wasn’t like that. A group was… it was just a group. A bunch of kids. I mean, Marco was in charge of us, but he was only like sixteen years old.”

The lawyer waved his hand as if to shoo away Cole’s words. “The court has already established that age will not be a defense for anyone in this case.”

“I’m not defending anything,” Cole said, hearing his voice increase in pitch and volume. “I’m—We went to Marco because we weren’t sure where else to go. That’s all.”

“So you’re saying that at this time, after watching the explosion from such a choice spot, you had no idea Marco and the Miracle Makers were the ones who set off the explosion.”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. Rephrase that, Counselor.”

The lawyer cleared his throat. “Are you saying—and please remember that you’re under oath—that you went to Marco with the belief that he was uninvolved with the events of that morning.”

Cole nodded. “I had no clue,” he said.

“Are you also going to tell me, again while under oath, that this explosion was not your idea?”

Cole felt his jaw unhinge. He looked to his lawyer, whose hands were splayed out over the papers before her as if she needed to pin into place all the facts she thought she knew. Cole wanted to keep turning, to scan the room. He imagined Marco sitting off to the side, a mad grin on the boy’s face, but Cole knew he wasn’t there.

“Answer the question,” the judge said. “And I’m getting tired of reminding you of that.”

Cole bit his lip. He reached up to wipe sweat from beside his ear, but stopped himself and just let it run down his jawbone.

“Was the explosion and the corresponding blast in New Zealand in fact all your idea?” the lawyer asked.

“I don’t think so,” Cole said. Of all the questions he had feared to hear in court, he never expected this one to come up—the one that had been haunting him for weeks and weeks.

“You don’t think so.”

“I had nothing to do with the bombs,” Cole said.

“So you were more of the cell’s planner, then?”

“Objection,” his lawyer shouted, her voice shaky.

“Overruled. Answer the question.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Tell us what it was like.”

Cole wrung his hands together. “It was just a conversation,” he said. “It was an astronomy book. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

The lawyer spread his arms wide. “And yet here we are, Cole. Now, you’ve already admitted to killing a boy in cold blood, a member of your little cult, and now we know that this miracle of yours was nothing more than a terrorist act that you yourself dreamt up.”

“No,” Cole said. He looked to his lawyer, waiting for an objection, but her face was blank, her mouth hanging open. “That’s not what happened.”

“Then tell us.” The lawyer turned and waved at the congregation. “Tell these good people about your involvement in this cell. Tell them the truth, and tell them that my client had nothing to do with your actions, that these cells were operating without his knowledge, that all this was done by unruly and sociopathic boys hiding behind his cloak for safety.”

“But that’s not right,” Cole said. “He did do this, I swear.”

Cole finally relented to the pull of his curious gaze and turned to meet the glare of Father Picoult, sitting at the table with the party of suits. Cole pointed. “I’m telling you, he was the one who started it all.”

“So, are you feeling at home yet?”

Cole looked up from the book winged out across his lap. He was sitting in the church hallway, his legs crossed, his back against the ornately tiled walls of the refectory. Before him loomed the shadow of Father Picoult, the heavy folds of his plain black smock still stirring from his silent stroll down the hallway.

“It’s Cole, right?”

Cole nodded. “Yes, Father. And yes, I feel very much at home here. Even more than I had at the orphanage.” He smiled up at the priest. “Not that I don’t appreciate everything the Sisters did for me, of course.”

Father Picoult smiled down at him. “That’s good to hear. I’ll pass along your gratitude, and I’m glad you’re making yourself comfortable.” The Father nodded toward Cole’s lap. “What are you studying?”

Cole looked down at the book in his lap. “Astronomy, Father. With Sister Maria.”

“Is that a subject that interests you?”

Cole’s head bobbed. “Very much so.”

“That’s God’s great mechanism, you know.” One of Father Picoult’s hands materialized out of the folds of pitch black and hovered over the book, palm down. “Everything we do is determined by what you study there.”

Cole didn’t know what to say to that. Nothing he could utter would match the profoundness of what the Father was saying. He nodded mutely. Several older boys strolled past, whispering amongst themselves. One of them peeled away from the others and took a spot beside the Father, and the way the boy stood there, completely at ease in the man’s presence, standing almost as if an equal, filled Cole with an almighty envy.

“Father, if you have a moment—”

“Ah, Marco, I’m glad you’re here. Have you two met?”

Cole gazed up at the older boy, probably at least fifteen.

The boy looked down at Cole and shrugged. “This the new kid?”

Father Picoult clicked his tongue. His hand disappeared back into the heavy folds of his cloak. “This is young Cole, and he will be a Brother to you soon. Sister Dara says he is one of the brightest young lads to pass through the orphanage. Isn’t that right, Cole?”

Cole lifted his shoulders. His cheeks and neck were burning under their gazes and from the air of the Father’s compliments.

Marco sniffed and stirred beneath his cloak, clearly not impressed.

“In fact,” the Father said, “I think I’d like to assign him to your care. I believe you two will have much to offer one another.”

“You want him to become a Miracle Maker?” Marco turned to face his elder, his cloaks doing the same with a swishing delay. “How old is he, like eight?”

“I’m eleven,” Cole whispered, his words absorbed by their thick cloaks.

Father Picoult laughed. His voice was soft and powerful at once, and full of warm mirth. “My eyes blinked and you went from his age to a group leader,” he said. “The same fate awaits our young Initiate, here.” Father Picoult rested a hand on Marco’s shoulder. “Tell you what, why don’t you spend the rest of the day with him. Show him around. Ask him about his studies. I assure you, there is much to teach and learn between the two of you. I think you’ll be surprised.”

“But I was going to ask you about—”

“In time,” Father Picoult said. He patted Marco on the shoulder, withdrew his hand, and his great cloak swallowed it once more. With a last smile and nod to Cole, the head of the Church turned and resumed his quiet stroll down the gilded halls, the heavy folds and deep shadows hurrying along after him.

“Alright,” Marco said. He let out an impatient sigh. “Come with me, I guess.”

Cole hurried along after Marco, jealous of the older boy’s flowing cloak and long, confident strides. The blue shorts and clean white shirt he’d so recently felt pride over now seemed insufficient. He wanted more.

“I take it you’ve already been shown around.” Marco held open one of the double doors at the end of the hall. It led out to the walled garden on the side of the church, with the crowded and crumbling cemetery beyond.

Cole hurried through the door, clutching the large astronomy book to his chest. “Sister Anna gave me a brief tour the other day,” he answered.

“Well then, instead of showing you around, let me just tell you how things operate around here, especially since it sounds like I’m gonna be stuck with you.” Marco let the door slide shut and rested a hand on Cole’s shoulder. With the other hand, he pulled the book out of Cole’s arms.

“First off, you can drop the studious act. That got you out of the orphanage, but it won’t go far here.”

Cole fought the urge to twist away from the hand on his shoulder. He watched Marco tuck the astronomy book under his arm, losing Cole’s place in the process.

“I take it you were a slum rat before the Sisters adopted you?”

Cole didn’t say anything. He continued to stare at the book.

“Hey kid, how old when the nuns took you in?”

“Nine.” Cole looked up at Marco. The boy’s countenance had changed. Gone was the pious and reverent choir boy, and Cole realized this kid was no different than any of those he’d known on the streets, just better fed and better clothed.

“So how long did you live on your own?” Marco slapped Cole’s back and pointed out into the gardens. He walked down the steps in that direction, forcing Cole to follow.

“I was never on my own,” Cole said, catching up. “I had friends.”

“So you were part of a crew, huh? Petty theft, pickpocket, or did you guys run any complicated scams?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Cole lied. “We begged and scrounged for scraps.”

“I’ll bet.” Marco stopped in front of a bush drooping with roses. He peeled a single petal off one of the red ones and held it up to his nose. “Listen, kid—”

“It’s Cole.”

Marco turned and smiled. He flicked the petal away, leaving it to flutter in the air. “Okay, Cole, I think you need to understand something. You’re not that special here, okay?” Marco nodded toward the far side of the garden where a small group of kids, all different ages, were sitting in the grass with one of the Sisters. “Do you think any of us here came from good homes? Or from any kind of home? ‘Cause we didn’t.”

Marco spun around and strolled toward the cemetery. Cole glanced back at the kids in the far grass, then hurried after Marco.

“There’s not a kid in here who didn’t come from the streets and move through the orphanage. Since we all lived on the streets, we all know each other’s secrets, do you get what I’m saying?”

“I wasn’t a criminal,” Cole said.

Marco stopped in front of the wrought iron gate leading into the cemetery. He pulled Cole’s book from under his arm, flipped it open, and riffed through the pages.

“I hope you really mean that,” Marco said. “It’s a lie, of course, but I hope you really believe it.” The older kid looked up at the packed rows of aged and stained headstones.

“There’re two kinds of slumrats that tunnel their way into the Church,” Marco said. “There are the ones who don’t feel anything, who can do whatever they want without remorse. Those are the scary ones. Then there’s the slumrat like I imagine you see yourself, the one who can rationalize a crime as necessary.” Marco snapped the book shut. “Maybe even rationalize a crime as just.”

He handed the book back to Cole. “Is that how you see yourself, slumrat?”

Cole took the book and began automatically thumbing for his place. “I usually just did what I was told,” he said quietly. He was pretty sure that was the right answer, in more ways than one.

Marco turned and beamed down at him, then laughed. “The nuns must’ve eaten that shit up,” he said. He slapped Cole on the shoulder and pointed at the astronomy book, which Cole had re-opened. “The one part of your act that I actually believe is that bit. You really like reading that stuff?”

Cole nodded.

“So you’re really some kinda bookworm?”

He shrugged. “Reading lets me escape the barrio, I guess.”

“In your mind, maybe.” Marco tapped his temple, his hand in the shape of a gun. “But don’t get any delusions, slumrat. There’s no getting out of the barrio for you and me. Just ask my friends here.” Marco swept his hand over the gate and toward the listing and tilting pale faces of marble beyond. He laughed some more, then noticed Cole had turned his attention back to his place in the book.

“Hey, I’m teaching you a valuable lesson here, kid. Reading up on those stars and dreaming about being someplace else ain’t gonna get you far. In fact…” Marco snatched the book away and flipped roughly toward the back. “I’ve read this book, and the only thing worth studying in it is black holes.” He found what he was looking for and shoved the book into Cole’s outstretched hands. “That’s your barrio, slumrat.” He tapped the image on the page. “That’s your point of no escape, right there. You read up on black holes for me and come tell me what you learned. Consider it your first assignment as part of my crew.”

And with that, Marco spun away from the black gate and swished through the gardens, leaving Cole alone with all the quiet tombs.

But Cole didn’t mind.

He sat down on the cobblestones and started to read. Black holes sounded more interesting than stars, anyway.

8 · The Church

The next morning, at the first breaking of bread, Cole was sitting with his fellow initiates when Marco arrived with a tray of food. One look, and the bench of boys opposite Cole parted like the Red Sea. Marco’s tray landed with a clatter. He sat down, picked up his roll, and dunked it in Cole’s soup.

“You learn anything about the barrio yesterday?” Marco chewed while soup trickled down his chin. The other young boys, all in identical white and blue uniforms, sat motionless in some form of awe mixed with fear.

“I read all about black holes,” Cole said. He pulled his soup closer and stirred it protectively with his spoon.

“And what did you learn about escaping them?” Marco’s voice was muffled, his mouth full of a second large bite of roll.

“That it’s possible,” Cole said nonchalantly. He sipped soup from his spoon but kept his eyes on the older boy.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s called quantum tunneling. It can happen when a single atom is near the event horizon and has something real random happen to it—”

Marco reached over and dipped his half-eaten roll back in Cole’s bowl. When he pulled it back to his plate, he left a trail of soup between their two trays, a constellation of sticky dollops. Cole watched it happen and fell silent.

“What else did you learn?” Marco smiled and took another bite.

Cole grabbed his own roll and kept it in both hands while he thought about what to say.

“Is there any chance of a black hole coming to the barrio and whisking you away?” Marco stuffed the remainder of his roll in his mouth and chewed around a smile. The other boys still hadn’t moved. Some stared into empty spoons and some clutched their trays in both hands.

“Maybe,” Cole said, still trying to act calm. “There wasn’t much in that book on black holes to be honest, but I found a ton on the web.” He took a bite of his roll and smiled at Marco. “Did you know a black hole might’ve passed through the Earth hundreds of years ago? One could zip through us right now, maybe suck us and our breakfast right up, and then zoom off straight through the roof.”

Cole lifted his roll over his head, and the other boys around him looked up after it.

“We’d be dead, of course, but it would happen so fast, we’d never know it. And we’d all be the same,” he added. “Us, our trays, our spoons, all pressed together into a tiny space the size of an atom. We’d travel like that forever, zipping through space and sucking down more and more and more, leaving craters and burning rings of fire behind.”

Cole smiled and took a large bite out of his roll.

Marco laughed. “What kooky site did you read that load of crap on?”

Cole shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“You’re making that up,” one of the other kids whispered, his tone one of more wistful hope than accusation.

“It was called the Tunguska Event.” Cole turned his attention to the other boys his age. “It was the largest explosion of its kind. It took place in Old Russia, back at the turn of the twentieth. For a long time, scientists thought it was a meteor impact, even though there was no crater. The blast rocked people and houses for miles and miles, and all the trees were pushed over, just snapped off and leaning away from the center of this massive fireball.”

“And it could happen here?” one of the boys asked. “At any time?”

Cole nodded. He looked to Marco, only to find the boy smiling in a different way; he seemed genuinely pleased.

“How do they know it was a black hole?” another boy asked.

Cole turned to address the kid, suddenly feeling quite older than the other boys his age.

“They finally found the spot where it entered the Earth,” he said. “At first, they had looked directly opposite the blast, down in the Indian ocean, but what were the chances that the black hole passed directly through the center of the Earth? It was silly to look there.” He stirred his soup. “But then, in the middle of the twenty-third century, some guys were digging for bones in Africa when they found charred rock that only looked two hundred years old. They thought it was meteor rock, so they called these astronomers in, who took one look and realized a black hole had passed through.”

“How would you stop it?” the boy beside Cole asked. “There has to be some way to protect ourselves.”

Cole took a sip of his soup, ignoring the fact that it had grown cold and that there were soggy crumbs from Marco’s roll in it. “You can’t stop them,” he said. “They can come anytime and from anywhere. There are probably billions or trillions of the things roaming the universe since the time of Creation. They’re like cosmic cattle, grazing on everything.”

A new fear settled over the boys, quite stronger than the one Marco’s presence had brought. Cole looked to Marco to see the older boy beaming. He winked at Cole and stood up.

“You aced your assignment,” Marco said. He wiped his chin with his napkin, then threw it into his untouched bowl of soup. “Be sure to take up my tray as well, slumrat.”

And with that, Marco spun and hurried out of the dining hall as suddenly and swiftly as he’d arrived. Cole watched him go, the folds of the boy’s cloak swaying wide with his turn, then settling down all around him, the blackness swallowing him whole.

“Do you really expect this court to believe that?”

The lawyer in the black suit waved his arm out over the pews.

“Are you going to tell these families that their loved ones died because of an innocuous conversation that took place over some soup? Is that also what you’re going to tell those families in New Zealand? That this wasn’t the work of God, or some coincidence too extreme to trust, but the scheming of some homeless kids taking advantage of the hospitality and kindness of the Church?”

“I’m telling you what happened.” Cole looked up at the judge. “That’s what I swore to do.”

The judge squinted at Cole, as if looking for something difficult to discern.

“I move to have this case against my client dropped,” the lawyer said. He walked away from Cole and back toward his wide table, staffed plenty with suits. “If this is the extent of the evidence, the hearsay of one boy when the other isn’t here to provide his side of the story—”

“Denied,” the judge said. He held out a hand to calm down Cole’s lawyer, who had risen from her seat and seemed fit to explode. “And I’ll caution you, Counselor, not to employ theatrics for my jury’s benefit. Now, if you have no further questions—”

The lawyer spun away from his desk. “Oh, if we’re going to persist in this, I certainly have other questions.” He stalked toward Cole, his finger jabbing the air. “I’d like to probe into the charges that were dropped, the charges that prompted you to turn on the man who so kindly took you in. I think if there’s any real conspiracy here, that’s where we’ll find it.”

“My client doesn’t have to answer those questions,” Cole’s lawyer protested. She flipped through the papers spread across her desk. “It’s clear in the agreement he signed—”

“A boy is dead,” the other lawyer said, whirling on her. “Another boy is dead, and now his name is being besmirched without him here to clear it.”

“There is ample evidence—” the judge began, but the stirrings in the congregation-like crowd made it hard to hear. He reached for his gavel and banged the wooden puck on his dais so hard, it leapt up in the air.

“Order,” he demanded. “Settle down or I’ll clear every last one of you from my court.”

Cole watched the scene from the stand, his hands clasping the ledge before him as if the room itself might start spinning.

“The jury deserves an answer if they are to take this witness seriously,” the lawyer said. He approached the judge’s bench, his hands raised and his shoulders up by his neck.

The judge pointed the gavel at him. “I’ll allow you to proceed, but do so carefully.”

“Your honor—” Cole’s lawyer began.

“He may establish the witness’ reliability as long as he does not ask the boy to indict himself.”

The lawyer in the black suit grinned.

“Proceed,” the judge said.

The male lawyer cleared his throat. He walked up to the side of Cole’s witness box and rested his elbows on its ledge. He leaned toward Cole’s microphone and looked out over the audience and the jury box.

“Please tell us,” the lawyer said, his voice slow and amplified by the microphone. “Tell us why we should trust you, when you admitted to the cops that you killed this other boy, this Marco.”

“Objection, your Honor!”

The gavel rang out like a gunshot.

“Why did you kill him?” the lawyer shouted into the mic.

Another gunshot, the round gavel block leaping up like a spent cartridge.

“Order!”

Hundreds of simultaneous gasps seemed to suck the air from the room.

“Order!”

Another crack of wood. Grumblings turned to shouts.

“Order in this court!”

The only people sitting still were Father Picoult, his arms crossed over his chest, and poor Cole, his memory tumbling with awful answers to the question. To that question, and questions he was thankful nobody knew to ask—

9 · The Barrio · Two Weeks After the Blast

“Do you wanna do burritos?”

Joanna tugged Cole toward one of the open stalls lining the busy marketplace. A group of men stood by the ordering window eating wraps the size of soda cans.

“I don’t eat there,” Cole said, shaking his head.

Joanna looked from the large menu above the ordering window to Cole. “Why?”

“The owner’s name is Mendonça,” Cole said.

Joanna pointed to the man behind the counter with the stained white smock and cook’s hat. “That’s your father?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” Cole said. “I never knew my dad. My policy is to not do business with anyone named Mendonça, just to be sure.”

Joanna seemed deflated, then confused. “But that’s gotta be like, the second most common surname in the barrio.”

Cole shrugged. “There’s lots of places I don’t go.”

“So you really don’t know who he is? What about your mom? Or any siblings?”

“Jeez,” Cole said.

“I’m sorry.” Joanna stepped under the cover of an awning pasted with Chinese symbols. She stuck her head in the ordering window, then turned, smiling. “Definitely not a Mendonça,” she said. “Is Chinese okay?”

“Sure.” Cole raised his hands. “As long as you’re paying.”

“I told you I was.” She winked at him and smiled. Cole let her order for them both while he watched the busy street, everyone going about their business as if the Miracle two weeks ago hadn’t happened. Or maybe, the bustle and energy of the barrio had increased from the weeks before. It wasn’t as if nothing had happened to the barrio, but something… wonderful.

“Let’s sit over there.”

Cole took a carton of noodles with a pair of chopsticks sticking out the top from Joanna. She sat on one side of a rickety table and Cole quickly sat down on the other to balance her out. Joanna extracted her chopsticks, but didn’t dig into her noodles. She held them in the crook of her hand, her delicate fingers cradling them, the tips opening and closing like a butterfly’s wings. Cole shoved a mouthful of noodles in his mouth and watched her. The smile on Joanna’s face filled him with a warmth he thought he understood, but a dread he couldn’t quite place.

“Thanks for lunch,” Cole said between bites, wondering if maybe he wasn’t being gracious enough and that was the reason for her mood.

Joanna nodded. She still hadn’t touched her food. “You’re welcome,” she said.

“You said you wanted to talk about something?” He took another bite.

Joanna looked up at the underside of the tattered canopy with the Chinese script. Cole saw a film of tears coat her eyes, and he wondered why that seemed to perfectly match the dread he was feeling.

“I’m pregnant,” Joanna said.

Cole gasped, sucking a noodle down the wrong way. A coughing fit ensued. He pounded his chest and looked around for water. Joanna ran and grabbed a paper cup and filled it from a hanging orange cooler. As Cole hacked and wheezed—his throat scratched and itching something awful—he considered the ridiculousness of Joanna tending to him at that moment. He seized the water gratefully and drank most of it in a rapid series of desperate gulps.

“Slowly,” Joanna said. Her smile hadn’t changed, but the tears were gone from her eyes, even as a different set of them rolled down Cole’s cheeks from the burn in his throat.

“Who?” Cole wheezed, his voice a dry rasp. He knew it wasn’t his. They’d only kissed the once, and just barely. He was pretty sure it took something other than a kiss. Right?

Joanna sat down beside him, threatening to teeter them and the table right over. She rubbed his back with one hand and took the empty cup away with the other. Cole felt the years between them yawn wide as she tended to him. Or maybe it was that he still largely felt like a child, and Joanna was saying she was with one.

“It’s nobody’s,” Joanna said with a smile. “It’s—” She shook her head and let out a little laugh. “Well, I don’t even want to suggest it,” she said, “but it must be a Miracle. I’ve never… done that… with anyone.”

Cole glanced down at the empty cup in his hand. Joanna grabbed the cup, twirled from the table, filled it back to the brim from the cooler, and returned. Cole took a sip, letting the cool, crisp water coat his throat. The man behind the counter yelled something about one cup per meal, and Joanna apologized.

“How do you know?” Cole asked. Now that the shock of her revelation was wearing off, his rational mind was assuring the rest of himself that she was simply wrong, or perhaps she was lying about having never done… that. Whatever that was.

“Sensors in the toilets look for these things,” she said. “They notify the nuns. It takes a couple weeks for the hormones to change.”

“A couple of weeks,” Cole intoned.

Joanna nodded. She reached for her noodles, then stopped herself and folded her hands together instead.

“Who else knows?” Cole asked.

“Father Picoult. A few of the Sisters, I suppose. Soon, I expect everyone will. Cole, they’re gonna make an announcement next week. I’m—”

The tears returned, welling up at the bottoms of Joanna’s lids and spilling over. Cole put his cup down and wrapped his hands around hers, an act of intimacy they had shared often in the past weeks.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He suddenly felt like this person he was infatuated with, who he’d scarcely known for more than a month and had barely spent time with until two weeks ago, was so much older and different than him. Cole wanted to wrap her in his arms and run away from her all at once. His stomach and heart were at odds.

“I’m scared,” Joanna finally said. She brushed the tears off her perfect cheeks and wiped her hands on her shorts. “I mean, I’m excited and all, but I’m terrified of what this means.”

“I don’t understand,” Cole said. “What does this mean?”

Joanna laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh of humor—it was more like a release of nerves.

“Do you think this is how Mary felt when she found out?” Joanna wiped at her cheeks. “Father Picoult said she was probably around fourteen or fifteen, and poor, just like me. I’ve never thought of that before, you know? I think of her later, all powerful and strong and wise and His mother.”

Cole felt a lead weight sink through his being and settle in the pit of his abdomen.

“Wait,” he said. “You don’t really think—?”

“I begged and begged and Father Picoult finally said I could take you to lunch and tell you on my terms, away from the Church.” Joanna glanced around at the bustling market. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to do this much more. He said everything has to be perfect with this birth. He said there’s no mortal father, but that since you were there with me that day—” Joanna’s cheeks flushed, and Cole felt his own temperature rise. “Anyway, I think he knows how we feel about each other—”

“How do we feel?” Cole asked. His throat tightened.

“You’ll be my Joseph,” Joanna said, entangling her hands with Cole’s. “Can you imagine what lies ahead? I always thought I was destined for nothing in life, but then… I always felt special somehow. I feel like this was supposed to happen.”

“I don’t understand how you’re pregnant,” Cole said. “I mean, if you’ve never…”

“It was a Miracle,” Joanna said. “Whatever passed through the Earth, whatever hit Zealand and flew through the center of the planet, it came out here in the barrio and it left a baby behind. Our baby. A new King to save us from a universe gone wrong and full of evil.”

Cole glanced down at Joanna’s stomach, even though it bore no sign of anything, much less a miracle. His gaze lingered there a second before wandering out over the alley, over the crowded markets, the smoke and odor of the meal stalls. Everything looked the same, which didn’t match all the new and bizarre feelings and thoughts coursing through his body and brain.

“I’m not even thirteen,” Cole said. He didn’t know when his real birthday was, but the one he had chosen for himself was another eight months away. This couldn’t be happening to him. The black hole had been enough bizarreness for an entire lifetime.

“Father Picoult says men were much more mature at a younger age, back in the olden days. He says that’s how they’ll need to be again when our son arrives.”

“You think it’s a boy?”

For an eye-blink, Cole felt like this child, this unborn being they were speaking of, was really his. His heart swelled with the lie.

“Of course it’s a boy,” Joanna said, her voice cracking. “Cole, you do know who this is, don’t you?”

Cole shook his head.

“This will be the Creator Incarnate,” she said. “The Maker’s Child. The Blessed Return.”

Cole recognized the words, but the tongue suddenly seemed foreign. He didn’t know people really believed that stuff. Then again, what had he seen two weeks ago? A black hole had passed through the Earth, right through its dead center, taking out a hospital in New Zealand that performed abortions and did work with stem cells, and it had exited the Earth right in his barrio, right in front of him. It had destroyed a new research facility set up to study genetically modified foods. That wasn’t a coincidence, was it? Could it be? He ran through the odds in his head, coming back again and again to having witnessed an honest to Gods miracle. And now this?

“Are you okay?” Joanna rubbed his forearm, her other hand holding his. “It was hard for me to believe at first, but Father Picoult and the Sisters will be our guides.”

“Our guides for what?”

Joanna smiled. The two years she had on Cole suddenly seemed like a dozen.

“Our child will be born of a virgin,” she said. “This will be the start of a spiritual awakening. People will believe again, and the Church will grow strong and guide them. Don’t you see? This is why the Gods chose us. You and I are young and unspoiled. We have not yet been tainted by the world of skeptics and disbelievers—”

Cole shook his head. He thought about all the wrongs he had already committed in such a short life. There’s no way the Gods would pick him, if anything like Gods really existed.

He glanced up at Joanna, fearful she might sense his doubts. Not just of this crazy pregnancy, but much more fundamental ones.

“You should eat,” Cole said. He aimed one of his chopsticks toward Joanna’s untouched carton of noodles.

Joanna smiled. “You’re right,” she said. “I need to eat for both of us.”

Cole noticed the change in the Church as soon as they returned. The Sisters buzzed like bees over the grounds, pruning and weeding and chipping paint. Father Picoult met Joanna and Cole at the gate. He draped his arm protectively over Joanna’s shoulders and smiled fondly at Cole.

“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 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.

“Cecília? 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. “Cecília?” 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 dark suit seemed unsure of what to say. He paced over to his desk, slid a few pieces of paper around, then returned to Cole.

“Is that where the bruises came from?”

Cole brushed his fingers across his cheek, which was only sore when he touched it. The swelling had gone down the past weeks. He nodded.

“So you resisted arrest?”

Cole shrugged. He did remember becoming even more violent when he saw one of the cop’s badges read “Mendonça.” He remembered trying to punch that officer in the face, but couldn’t recall if he’d landed the blow.

“And now you want this court and a jury of your peers to take the word of—what did you call yourself?”

“A slumrat,” Cole said.

“Yes, a slumrat. And a murderer. And probably the planner behind the bomb that killed thousands—”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

The lawyer in the black suit smiled.

“I’m not asking anyone to take my word,” Cole said. He looked to the jury box, ignoring the lawyer, who was raising his hands, palms out, as if suddenly Cole shouldn’t speak. “I’m just telling you what I know. For context. It was part of my deal.”

“For context?” the lawyer asked. “Context for what?”

Cole’s lawyer stood from behind her desk. “When you’re done badgering my witness, I’ll call my next one and we can get on with this,” she said.

Cole looked out to her and saw a smile on her face. He was pretty sure he’d screwed some things up, but he’d related everything the way he remembered it, and that was all they’d asked of him. He watched the other lawyer mumble something and sit, and then an officer led him out of his stand. Cole shuffled through the small wooden gate and down the aisle between the silent and rapt pews. When he got to the door, another officer opened it, the flash of a badge catching Cole’s eye, a familiar face smiling at him above it. Cole looked to the man and saw a patch of dull purple around his happy eye. Cole was glad that the punch had landed.

The door was pulled open, obscuring the officer. As Cole was led out, another familiar face was led in. It was the blind man from the alley house, his eyes much brighter and younger-looking than the rest of his weathered face. The man smiled at Cole and nodded. Cole’s lawyer called the gentleman to the witness stand, her voice sonorous and confident, and Cole realized how little he’d been needed for how much he’d bargained away.

The crowded bus jerked to a halt in front of a tall gate with coils of razor on top. An American in a military uniform stepped out of a guard booth and spoke to the driver through his open window. Soon after, the gates let out a metallic clang, then began parting, sliding to either side on squealing wheels.

The brakes hissed as they let go, and the bus lurched forward and into Cole’s latest in a long string of adoptive homes. Immediately, however, he saw that the Galactic Naval Academy would be nothing like his previous shelters. Low, shiny buildings consisting almost entirely of glass greeted them beyond the gate. White walls, silvery windows, flawless pavement divided up with painted lines that still appeared wet and new—it was the opposite of his home on the dingy barrio streets. And there were no gardens or greenery like the orphanage, no wandering Sisters and Brothers like the Church. It bore no resemblance at all to Lisboa’s Military School for Young Boys, his latest home, which had been carved out of a castle complex, crumbling and old.

This new home of his in a state called Arizona was all orderly and new and sitting amid an excess of emptiness that would’ve made any structure in the barrio blush with embarrassment. Cole was in an alien land, as far from any life as he’d ever dreamed of living, and he was giddy with nerves and excitement.

“Look at all them kids.”

The boy in the seat beside him leaned over Cole and pointed to a string of buses lined up by the curb. Their own bus took a circuitous route through the parking lot and ended up at the back of the line. The brakes squealed and the doors popped open. A man with a shaved head stomped into the bus and began barking orders, the first familiar thing in Cole’s new home.

It didn’t seem to matter that the boys came from dozens of military academies scattered all over the planet, everyone in the bus knew how to snap to an adult’s demands. They knew how to march and they knew how to stand in perfect lines. They also knew how to communicate with the barest of looks and the most timely of whispers.

“My name’s Cole,” he said to the boy from his seat. The two of them had squeezed out of the bus together and now stood shoulder to shoulder in the back of a phalanx of nervous kids.

“Riggs,” the other boy hissed, his mouth parting on one side.

They nodded to each other and smiled, the two of them bound by chance proximity in this new world they’d entered. The boys ahead of them began marching off in a column four wide; Cole and Riggs fell in as directed, and the precise line of cadets wound its way through the yawning doors of the GN Academy, down the shiny tiled halls, and into a crowded gymnasium.

Once inside, the large groups were pared down to smaller ones. There were officers everywhere in their crisp uniforms, shouting advice and orders. Cole spotted what appeared to be a few upperclass cadets helping out, boys just a few years older than himself in uniforms of their own, already decorated with badges and medals.

“That’s the support classes over there.”

Cole turned to see where Riggs was pointing. Across the wide hall, he saw other groups of kids receiving their stacks of fatigues and falling into cliques that would soon learn engineering and other auxiliary roles. There was a much wider mix of cadets in those groups, a smattering of girls and even a few members of other races. Cole tried to take it all in, but his line was jostling forward and he had to pay attention to where he was going.

“Step forward!”

The two boys ahead of them shuffled to a line of tables arranged across the gymnasium floor. They gave their names, stuttering and nervous, and cadets riffled through cards in little boxes. Something was checked off the cards and stacks of clothing were handed out. Cole noticed with no shortage of excitement that flight helmets were placed on top of each pile of folded garments.

“Next!”

He and Riggs hurried forward and gave their names. Cole held out his arms and flashed back to similar scenes from his past. He remembered much skinnier arms trembling for a clean shirt and a new pair of blue shorts. He recalled the pleated pants from Lisboa’s Military School, much nicer than the lifetime of prison clothes the cops had threatened him with. He watched as a folded flightsuit, a black uniform, a pair of glistening boots, and then a flight helmet were loaded up in his now older and thicker arms. His dizziness and excitement were interrupted as the upperclassman behind the table shouted for him to move on.

Cole followed Riggs out of the gymnasium and down a hallway. The boys ahead of them were already chattering about their new gear and winning shouts from the older cadets directing traffic.

The long line of boys with their clothes and helmets filed into a smaller room full of simulator pods. A hushed awe fell over them as they shuffled into place along the room’s interior. Cole noted how much newer these simulators looked compared to Lisboa’s. He wondered if everything he’d learned at his last Academy would have to be re-learned. Maybe his above-average scores wouldn’t be reproducible here and they’d send him home as a failure. The first sensation of raw panic stirred in his guts as he imagined being kicked out of flight school. Riggs had to elbow him into place, he’d become so distracted.

The hopeful cadets stood shoulder to shoulder in a long line stretching down the room of simulator pods, waiting. Upperclassmen in flightsuits and aged officers strode up and down the line, taking stock of the newest class. Cole studied one of the older cadets, trying to imagine the boy having once been in his place. He tried to picture, years hence, being where that boy stood, seeing the fresh and frightened recruits lined up and trembling. He noticed one man seemed to command the respect of the rest of these older cadets, a fat soldier in a straining flightsuit. The officer lumbered up and down the line frowning, his jowls hanging down like a dog’s. Cole stiffened when the man walked by, then relaxed and resumed breathing once his back was turned.

“These must be the navigators,” Riggs whispered.

Cole followed his gaze to see another file of recruits shuffling in, their bundles clutched to their bellies, different-colored helmets wobbling precariously on top. They filed to the end of the simulator room and turned to face the string of hopeful pilots as the officers and cadets strolled casually up and down between the two lines.

Cole did a quick count of the boys to his side and saw that he was fifteenth from the end. It dawned on him that he was about to be paired up and not with Riggs, who had somehow become his friend over the course of a few whispers. He counted the other row as they wiggled into place. He searched faces partly obscured by the ridiculous loads they were each carrying. When he got to fifteen, he smiled at the boy across from him, who smiled back. His navigator looked vaguely European, with bushy brows and dark eyes. Cole started to nod his direction when the cadet beside him caught his attention.

Cole had to look twice to make sure he was seeing correctly. Riggs elbowed him repeatedly, which confirmed it. There was a girl in the line of navigators. Her hair was cropped short, but her cheeks and mouth, and especially her bright eyes, betrayed her. Cole was positive he’d heard flight school wasn’t open to girls.

“Cole—” Riggs whispered, his tone dire.

“Shhh,” Cole hissed. He watched the fat officer deliberately stroll up in front of the girl and turn his back toward her, as if to shun or purposefully ignore her. The older cadets seemed to be doing the same as they kept toward the other end of the room. As the last of the navigators filed into place, another officer entered the simulator room, an older man, supremely thin, with a plate of medals on his chest big enough to stop a torpedo.

“Pssst,” Riggs hissed.

Cole elbowed him back.

The older officer walked straight up to the heavyset one and whispered something. The larger man nodded, obviously the lower ranked of the two, and walked toward the end of the room, calling for all the cadets to listen up. As he began his orientation spiel in a booming voice, Cole watched the more local action across from him. He saw the thin man turn around, pausing ever so slightly to look at the girl navigator. Cole caught just the barest of smiles on her lips before she looked quickly away from the senior officer, and then the thin man strode off, a smile on his face as well.

“Cole.”

“What is it?” Cole hissed.

“Damnit man, do me a favor,” Riggs whispered.

Cole adjusted his pile of gear and turned to the side to see what Riggs wanted.

“What?”

Riggs bared his teeth, then hissed through them:

“Switch places with me.”