inthewildwood | Fic: Hagiolatry (Chapter Five)

When Frankie woke up the next morning, everything felt stiff, even the stuff that probably wasn’t supposed to. Her back hurt- no surprise there- as did her wrists and forehead, but for some reason, her fingers felt stiff too. Had Jesus had some kind of Holy Carpal Tunnel Syndrome the books hadn’t mentioned? She doubted it.

She could hear Patty and Donna already up and clattering around the kitchen, and smiled to herself. The night before had gone- after the brief awkwardness of not knowing whether or not they’d argued that afternoon (they hadn’t)- really well. They’d raided her cupboard and found a bags of potato chips and camped out on the living room floor (well, they had; Frankie got the couch) and shot the shit until all hours of the night. Then The Crucible had some on TV and Patty had asked her if she’d seen anyone with the devil lately, and they hadn’t been able to have a real pillow fight with Frankie’s wrists all fucked up, but she’d gotten in a few good swings. She wasn’t sure which one of them had fallen asleep first, but both Patty and Donna had been yawning when Frankie had closed her eyes. Now it was- she checked her watch- almost eleven in the morning, and she felt less like a stigmatic being babysat and more like a high schooler recovering from an all-nighter. Which she preferred, though she wasn’t sure if Jesus would have been so keen on saving the world if he’d gone to her high school.

She got up, wrapping the couch blanket around her shoulders, and padded into the kitchen. Patty had commandeered the stove, and was waving a spatula as Donna in order to punctuate some kind of point about French toast recipes. One of them had turned on the radio to the classic rock station, but had turned it down in deference to the fact that Frankie had slept in, so a very muted Roger Daltrey was singing about his teenaged wasteland. Donna was perched on the counter, laughing at Patty’s speech. Frankie paused in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, smiling at both of them.

Donna was the first one to notice she was there. “Frankie, hey!” She slid off the counter and ran over to hug her. “Did you sleep okay? We didn’t wake you up, did we?”

“Yes, and no,” Frankie said, hugging her back. “I just woke up.” She grinned over Donna’s shoulder at Patty, who was staring intently at her frying pan. “What’s for breakfast?”

“French toast and bacon,” Patty announced, apparently deciding that the bacon was fried enough and lifting the pan off the over. “And orange juice. A girl’s gotta eat right when she’s Jesus.”

Frankie laughed as she settled down at the kitchen table. She’d told Donna and Patty everything Andrew had said the night before, and while Patty was a bit more skeptical than Donna- “so this makes you, like, a saint? Seriously? I’ve seen you commit half the deadly sins myself-” they both agreed that it made a weird amount of sense, which was more than Frankie had settled on. But then, they’d gone to Catholic schools, and she hadn’t.

“Hey, Frankie,” Donna said as she sat down across from her. “Are all these yours? Is it okay if I move them?” She was holding up the notes Frankie and Andrew had been taking the day before.

Frankie nodded. “Just a little extracurricular reading.”

Donna moved to set the papers down on the counter, then stopped, peering at one. “You guys were reading Latin?”

“What?” Frankie got up and walked over, grabbing one of the papers from Donna. It didn’t look anything like she notes she had taken. The top half of the page was covered in messy spikes that might be some kind of alphabet, but wasn’t any she could recognize. The bottom half was written in recognizable letters, but she still had no idea what it said. “I didn’t write that.”

Donna frowned. “Did he?”

“Not that I know of.” Frankie turned the paper over. Her notes on the St. Francis book were still intact on that side. “This is written over my notes.”

Patty came around the counter and took the paper from Donna. “You can read this? Seriously?”

“Well I can’t read what it says, but I recognize the language-”

“Guys!” Frankie’s head was starting to ache again. “Focus. I didn’t write this, and I don’t think Andrew did either.”

Donna shook her head slowly. “So who did?”

Frankie slumped back into the chair. “I don’t know.” Could she have written it? She didn’t know Latin, but she also didn’t know about stigmata, and she still had holes in her wrists. But Andrew hadn’t said anything about stigmatics suddenly knowing other languages. Then again, she hadn’t asked.

“Your hand is moving,” Donna observed.

“No it’s not, it’s-” Frankie looked down. Her left hand, lying on the tabletop, was twitching frenetically, like a giant fleshy spider. Her fingers especially were jerking back and forth, almost like they were trying to crawl across the table of their own volition. Frankie slammed her right hand down over her left, and they stopped moving.

“Wow,” Patty said. “They must have you on some really freaky drugs, man.”

Frankie was shaking. “I haven’t taken any drugs.”

Patty and Donna exchanged a look, like the one they had back in the club. “We should call someone,” Donna said.

“We should call Andrew,” Frankie said, staring down at the table. There were grooves in it that there hadn’t been before, like someone had dragged a knife across the plastic. “But can we eat first? I’m starving.”

Another look passed over her head. “Frankie, you’re not okay.”

Frankie dropped her head into her hands. “I know.” The dirty speckling on the kitchen table were suddenly fascinating. She could stare at it forever. “But I’m not going to get worse in the next half-hour, and I’m hungry. Can we wait? Please?”

Donna nodded slowly, and lowered herself into the chair across from Frankie. Patty narrowed her eyes, but sat down next to her and shoved a plate across the table. “Eat.”

Frankie ate.

Andrew arrived while they were washing the dishes- or rather, while Patty and Donna were washing the dishes, because Patty insisted that she didn’t want Frankie’s gross blood germs getting into the water and giving her food poisoning, so she stayed put at the kitchen table. She called him once they’d finished eating, at Donna’s insistence, and explained the situation by saying “my hands are going crazy or something, I don’t know.” To his credit, he hadn’t asked any questions, just promised to come right over and hung up.

When he knocked on the door, Patty and Donna both looked up from the sink, but she just called “come in,” and heard the door open, and then he was standing in the kitchen doorway unwinding a scarf from his neck and looking at her with eyes full of concern. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”

“I’m fine.” Frankie pushed herself up out of the chair and went to take his coat. “Andrew, this is Donna and Patty. Guys, this is Andrew. He’s been . . .” She trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence without it sounding really weird. “Helping me out,” she finished lamely.

“It’s nice to meet you, Father,” Donna said over the dish in her hand. Patty was eyeing his collar suspiciously, but she nodded politely. “Nice to meet you.”

He nodded at each of them in turn, and as his back turned, Donna mouthed “nice,” over his shoulder at Frankie. Frankie just shook her head fondly.

Andrew stopped at the table, fingers skimming the papers as he frowned down at them. “Did you write this?” He picked one up and peered at it. “I didn’t realize you spoke Latin.”

“I don’t,” Frankie said, lowering herself back into the chair. “That’s why I called you. We found it on the kitchen table this morning.” She watched him scrutinize the paper, lips pursed. “What does it say?”

“It says . . .” He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and set them on his nose. “Jesus said : "If those who lead You say to You, ‘see, the Kingdom is in heaven’, then the birds of the sky will be there before You. If they say to You, 'it is in the sea', then the fish will be there before You. But the Kingdom is inside You and outside You. When You know yourselves, then You will be known, and You will know that You are the children of the Living Father. But if You do not know yourselves, then You dwell in poverty; then You are that poverty." "

Frankie sat quietly, chewing on her lip and absorbing what he’d said. “And the stuff at the top?”

He frowned at it. “I could be wrong- I’m not a translator- but I believe it’s Coptic writing. Presumably it’s the same text in its original language.”

Donna set her plate down and sat next to Frankie, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Is it from the Bible, Father?”

“Call him Andrew,” Frankie murmured.

He shook his head, forehead furrowed. “No, it’s not- at least, no version I’ve studied, and I’ve studied several. This passage doesn’t appear in any of the Gospels.” He set the paper down and walked around the table to where Frankie was sitting. “May I see your hands?”

She held them out, palms up, fingers uncurled. He took each one in his hands, running his thumb over the pad of her palm and holding her fingers closer to his face to examine them. “Did you feel any different when you woke up this morning? Tired or groggy?”

“My hands were sore,” she said, trying not to shiver as he ran his fingers over her knuckles. “I thought it had something to do with the stigmata.”

“It might have,” he said, dropping her hands. She wrapped her fingers into fists and rested them on her knees. Did he know what he was doing, when he did that? Was he doing it on purpose? “May I use your phone? Some of my contacts may be able to identify the writing.”

She nodded. “It’s in the front hall.”

He nodded and moved back out the door. He hadn’t noticed her reaction, but Donna had, and she nudged Frankie’s knee with a grin. “Priest, huh?”

Frankie groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Shut up.”

“He’s kind of cute,” Patty said mischievously, moving behind Donna’s chair and dropping a hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder. “And you seem to like him."

Frankie was blushing furiously, not helped by the fact that both her friends were all but winking at her. “Of course I like him. He’s trying to help me figure stuff out. That doesn’t mean I-”

“Like-like him?” Donna said, etching out air quotes with her fingers. Frankie threw a napkin at her. “Yeah, that. And even if I did, it’s not like it would matter. I’m pretty sure you noticed the collar.”

“He could leave it on,” Patty said thoughtfully. “It might be kind of hot.” She nudged Donna’s shoulder. “Hey, we should try that sometime.”

“You- ugh!” Frankie threw her hands up. Donna and Patty were both laughing openly now. “I can’t believe I’m getting this from the Catholic school graduates.”

“Catholic school doesn’t breed the depravity out of you,” Donna said, mock-gravely. “It just makes it worse.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Seriously, Frankie, you seem into him. And he seems to like you.”

Frankie dragged a hand through her hair. “I’ve got bigger problems than whether or not I should date a priest, guys.”

“Maybe,” Donna said. “But you know what makes me feel better when things are going shitty?” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Her.”

Before Frankie had time to process that, Andrew came back through the door, still holding the phone to his ear. “Yes- no, that’s all right. I’ll fax it to you. Grazie. I’ll talk to you later.” He switched the phone off.

“Any luck?” Frankie asked.

He set the phone down on the table. “None of the text sounded familiar to him, and he can’t identify the language until he sees it himself, though he did agree that it sounded Coptic. I’ll fax him a copy of the papers when I get back to my motel.” He pulled his ever-present notepad from his pocket and flipped it open. “When I spoke to him last night, I asked about other recent stigmatic cases. There don’t tend to be patterns- well aside from the gender, but-” he nodded at Frankie- “you knew that already. But if we can track down any other cases of atheists or non-Christians exhibiting the symptoms, we can-”

“Excuse me, Father,” Donna interrupted. “If you don’t mind my asking, how is any of this going to help?”

He frowned over the edge of his glasses at her, but it wasn’t an angry expression. “I don’t follow.”

“I mean,” Donna gestured, “It’s great that you’re looking for other cases and stuff, but Frankie still getting hurt in the meantime. Isn’t there someplace you could take her? Back to the Vatican or something?”

He sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I would if I could. But they wouldn’t take her in.”

Donna looked outraged. “Why not?”

“Because I’m an atheist,” Frankie said to the tabletop. “He had to lie to them to stay in the city and help me at all.”

Patty spoke first. “Bullshit!”

Andrew shook his head. “I agree with the sentiment, but I’m afraid she’s right. The Church isn’t-” He broke off and rubbed the bridge of his nose again. “There are certain restrictions in place when working within the organization. As a representative of the Church, I can’t do anything to change it.”

Patty crossed her arms mutinously. “I still think it’s bullshit.”

“Leave it, Patty,” Frankie said. “He can’t do anything.”

He smiled at her, and Donna nudged her knee under the table. Frankie ignored her and focused on what Andrew was saying instead. “I was going to say, I’ve had a friend at the Vatican- he’s aware of the details of the situation, but he can be trusted not to speak about it- looking through other documented cases of stigmata for parallels to your experience. He hasn’t been able to discover any other cases of atheist stigmatics, but he did find several from recent years. The most recent was a priest who died a few weeks ago in Bela Quinto, whose parishioners-”

“Wait,” Frankie said. “Did you say Bela Quinto?”

He blinked. “Yes. It’s a small town in Brazil.”

“My mom is there,” Frankie said slowly. “She called me from there on Friday.” She exchanged a look with Donna. “Could that have anything to do with it?”

Andrew looked down at his notepad, frowning. “It might. I’ve never heard of a case where the stigmatic symptoms transferred from one person to another, but the connection seems to well-timed to ignore. Has she sent you anything from Brazil?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said, getting excited. “She sent me a box of stuff- it got here the morning she called me. There were some postcards and souvenir stuff in it. And a rosary.” The fucking rosary. She hadn’t even thought about it since Saturday morning, when she’d left it on her bedside table. Could it be that simple?

He looked up from the notepad. “Do you still have it?”

“It’s in the bedroom.” She started to get up. “I’ll go get it-”

“I’ll go,” Donna interrupted, scrambling up out of her chair. “Patty, come on.”

“But I don’t- hey!” Donna grabbed her elbow and dragged her out of the room, leaving Frankie and Andrew staring at each other.

“Your friends are very forceful,” he said mildly.

She laughed. “So am I.”

“I had noticed,” he said, smiling. If she had to put a word to it, she’d say he was grinning. She was too. “So if this is what’s making the stigmata happen, what then? Do you, like, perform an exorcism on it?”

He chuckled. “Nothing so dramatic. Admittedly there isn’t much in the way of precedent for a case like this, but hopefully just removing the relic from your apartment would be enough to stop the stigmata from appearing.”

She grinned and rose up out of her chair. Crossing the room in three steps, she reached Andrew and threw her arms around him. “This is great!”

He froze, and she experience a horrible flash of panic- fuck, what if he’d overheard her conversation with Donna and Patty and she’d freaked him out?- but then his arms rose up around her, and he squeezed her back. She let out a long breath, and hid her smile against his chest. Forget what Donna and Patty had said; forget that he was still wearing the collar; forget that she didn’t have a chance. He was here now, and she was here now, and this whole nightmare was almost over.

“I found the-” There was a clatter of footsteps in the doorway that suddenly stopped. “Oh.”

Frankie disentangled herself from Andrew and smiled at Donna and Patty, who were looking at her with a mixture of surprise and pride. “You got the rosary?”

Patty held her hand out. “Here you go.” She tossed it to Frankie, pulling a face. “Are you sure you don’t want to just toss it down the garbage disposal or something?”

Frankie dangled it in front of her face contemplatively. Now that she knew it may or may not have been responsible for making her spout blood, it looked less like a necklace and more like a demonic murder machine. “It would make me feel a lot better.”

Andrew took it gently from her hand. “As cathartic as the experience might be, I suggest we hold off on destroying this until the Vatican has had a chance to study it. If it is responsible for your injuries, it may have properties we don’t understand.”

“Yeah,” Donna said, nodding. “Plus, trying to throw it out might just piss it off. Do you think it’s sentient?”

Like that evil Stephen King car,” Frankie said, narrowing her eyes at it.

Andrew coughed. “Mr. King is an excellent writer, but in this case, I would rather defer to the Church.”

“You like Stephen King?” Frankie said, surprised.

He smiled a little. “I do have some free time to spend. The Bible is a wonderful book, but it doesn’t provide quite the same form of entertainment.”

“Oh man,” Frankie said, shaking her head. “I have got to show you around the city, because there is so much to do around here besides sit in your room and read.”

He looked perplexed. “I like to read.”

“So do I, but-” She laughed and shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll show you around anyway, and you can decide if you like it better than the books, okay?”

He still looked confused, but he slipped the rosary into his pocket and smiled at her. “I’d like that.”

Andrew left not long afterwards, after deciding that he’d hang on to the rosary until he could get a flight back to Rome and hand it off to a “specialist” in Vatican City. The thought of him taking off so soon made Franie’s chest feel tight and achy, but it meant getting the rosary as far away from her as humanly possible, and that was a pretty comforting thought. Besides, he could always come back to visit. Come to scenic Pittsburgh: we have rainstorms and bizarre atheist stigmatics.

Donna and Patty left as well, since the long weekend would be over the next day and they needed to get the store cleaned up and ready for opening. Frankie offered to go with them and help, but they declined because she “needed to rest.” Frankie guessed that “needed to rest” was code for “we could use some alone time,” but she didn’t mind. She wasn’t exactly tired, but she could use some time just relaxing and not worrying about stigmata for awhile.

She made herself a late lunch- the bread in her cupboard was a bit stale, but it made for a decent grilled cheese- and settled herself down on the couch with some of the books she and Andrew had been reading the day before. Maybe it was just psychosomatic, but it felt like her wounds were already healing- the cuts on her back definitely stung less than they had, and the ones on her wrist barely hurt at all. Anyway, as relieved as she was to not have to deal with gaping wounds anymore, the book had actually managed to catch her interest. It was one of the ones Andrew has brought with him, and offered to leave with her- “if you’re going to show me around, it’s only fair that you try some of my reading material-” about St. Teresa who, according to the book, had also been a stigmatic as well as writing a shitload of memoirs, and founding convents. She seemed pretty cool, even if she had called Jesus her spouse, which Frankie found kind of freaky.

Frankie ended up getting so absorbed in the book that she didn’t hear the phone ring at first, and nearly fell off the couch trying to grab it in time. She grabbed the receiver, and held it up to her mouth, hoping she didn’t sound too out of breath. “Hello?”

“It’s me.” Andrew. She smiled, curling up with her knees tucked underneath her. “Found anything new?”

“No, unfortunately,” he said. He didn’t sound terribly regretful, though. “I haven’t been able to reach Father Delmonico, but it doesn’t matter much- he can’t make any kind of judgment until he sees the rosary. I was just calling to see how you were doing.”

Frankie smiled, feeling warmth spread over her face and under her hair. She didn’t need a mirror to know she was probably turning pink, and felt privately thankful that there was no way he could see her right now. “I’m doing fine,” she said. “Chilling on the couch, catching up oh my reading.”

“Reading?” he repeated. “I thought you preferred going outside.”

She couldn’t actually tell if he was flirting or if he was genuinely confused, but she laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah, well, I guess I got into the habit. St. Teresa’s a good writer.”

“Oh!” He sounded delighted. “Are you reading the Life of St. Teresa of Jesus? It was one of my favourite texts when I was studying at the seminary.”

“Of course it was.” She flipped the book shut and turned it over to the back cover. “She seems really into Jesus. I mean, I know nuns kind of have to be, but she’s really into Jesus.”

“Ah.” He coughed. “Well. There was a tradition among medieval writers, specifically female ones, to speak of God and Jesus in what you or I would consider overtly sexual terms. You’ll find it in the writings of Margery Kempe and Julian or Norwich as well- often they’d refer to themselves as the wife of Jesus, which can also be found descriptions of women entering nunneries. It was seen as a spiritual marriage, an alternative to the physical bond between husband and wife. Of course, Margery Kempe was already married when she began receiving visions-”

“Andrew,” she interrupted. She was smiling, and kind of glad he couldn’t see it over the phone.

He coughed again. “Well. Anyway, the point is, there was often an- ah- sexual component to the writings of early female mystics.”

“Just the women?” Frankie asked. “There weren’t any monks getting hot for Jesus?”

He spluttered a laugh. “Not that I’ve encountered, but I suppose it’s possible.”

“Well, there’s a new research project for you.” She grinned. “When you’re done investigating stigmata.”

He laughed softly. “I don’t think I’ll be done with that for a long time.”

They talked for an hour after that, occasionally lapsing into mutual silence while Frankie flipped through her book. They hung up after he yawned, and then he yawned, and she pointed out that if they kept up like that, they’d fall asleep with the phones on and run up giant bills. She meant to go to bed after hanging up, but the couch was comfortable, and she ended up falling asleep with her head pillowed on the armrest and the book tucked under her elbow.

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