Immaculate Heart Read Free Page B

knew I knew she was lying. “You’ve heard the stories?” she asked.
    â€œAbout the apparition?”
    The old woman nodded, and leaned forward on her stool as if she were about to divulge something juicy. “Did they tell you about the miracle?”
    â€œWhat miracle? I thought the church decided the apparition wasn’t real.”
    â€œOh, aye, they always do. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t.”
    â€œYou think it was real?”
    â€œIf it was or it wasn’t, what I think makes no difference a’tall.”
    I laughed. “There’s a slippery answer.”
    The lady gave me a sideways look as she pointed to a rack of cross pendants and religious medals in what passed for gold and silver. “Now, you’ll be wanting a souvenir from your time here. Something for your gran?”
    â€œWhy?” I asked. “Do you know my gran?”
    â€œI know everybody’s gran that was born in Ballymorris, and that’s a promise.” Again she seemed to be sizing me up. “I remember you, lad. You came back with her, ah, let’s see, ’twas a good few years back.” She nodded to herself with a weirdly satisfied look on her face. “You came in the summertime.”
    I laughed. “You can’t possibly remember me. That was twenty-five years ago, and we were only here a week.”
    The old woman stared at me in mock contempt. “Sure, you’re only sayin’ so because you don’t remember me. ”
    She had me there.
    â€œLet’s see here,” she went on, “I’ve Saint Anthony, Saint Patrick, Saint Joseph—ah!—and I’ve this miraculous medal as well—that’s the Blessed Virgin, y’see—now wouldn’t this make a lovely wee gift for your granny?” She plucked another box from the rack. “Saint Christopher, here’s the one you’ll be wanting, for he’s the patron saint of travelers. This one’s forty, but I’ll give it to you for thirty-five, so.”
    â€œI did make it across the Atlantic without any help from Saint Christopher,” I pointed out.
    â€œAh, but who’s to say what might happen on the return journey?”
    I raised an eyebrow, and she answered with another shameless grin.
    â€œI’ll take my chances,” I said.
    â€œThese rosaries have been blessed by the bishop,” she went on, running a crooked finger along the rows of plastic beads. “I’ve rosaries from Medjugorje and Fatima and Lourdes, and I’ve holy water all the way from Rome as well as Saint Brigid’s Well just down the road. What about a bottle of holy water to bring home to your gran?”
    â€œNo, thank you.”
    Then she saw me glancing over her tiny army of statuettes. “This one’s my bestseller,” she said as she thrust a five-inch image of the Virgin into my hand. “Wait and see. She glows in the dark.”
    I couldn’t imagine she sold enough of anything up here to have a bestseller. I replaced the statuette on the counter, and she pressed another laminated prayer card into my hand. Save a dozen souls in the time it takes to boil an egg. The prescribed prayer followed in small print. “I think you’ll find this one very useful.”
    â€œOne down, eleven to go,” I said, and this time I decided to humor her. She sold me the card for a euro fifty, and I tucked it in my wallet. “Now that you’ve made your sale, will you answer my question?”
    The old woman looked up at me, her pale eyes wide and mocking. “And what question would that be?”
    â€œDo you actually believe in all this?”
    â€œYou might ask Martina McGowan,” the old woman replied. “Sure, weren’t the doctors about to take her leg above the knee before the Blessed Mother healed it, and with the waters of this very well?” She jabbed a finger toward the row of little plastic bottles of holy