Flesh and Blood Read Online Free Page B

some spooky second coming shit?”
     
    I laughed.
     
    “Seriously, is she a pregnant virgin? That older nun told me they had medical evidence.”
     
    “For the moment it remains inexplicable,” I said, “but we’re not finished looking into it just yet.”
     
    “Well, hey, let me know if I need to start living right anytime soon,” he said.
     
    Sister Mary Elizabeth opened the door of the classroom and stepped out. Most everyone looked at her differently, nearly reverentially.
     
    “Thanks again for coming to test me, Mr. Coleman,” she said. “Especially on such short notice. I really appreciate it.”
     
    “Can we get you anything, dear?” Father Jerome asked.
     
    She shook her head. “I’m fine. Chaplain Jordan, did you need to see me again? I thought I might take a walk down by the lake.”
     
    “If you don’t mind some company, I’ll join you,” I said.
     
    “So,” she said, “if I’m not lying and I
am
a virgin, how can I be pregnant?”
     
    I shrugged. “The work of the Holy Spirit,?” I offered.
     
    She laughed.
     
    It was a clear, cool night, and the nearly full moon shone brightly on the smooth surface of the lake. Though peaceful, it wasn’t quiet. The nocturnal noises, the chirps and croaks and calls, were so loud they seemed amplified.
     
    “Do you have any idea when this happened?” I asked. “I mean specifically.”
     
    She shook her head.
     
    “Anything strange happen to you around the time of conception?” I asked. “Anything at all?”
     
    She looked up, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips. “That would’ve been a little over four months ago.”
     
    “Do you live alone?” I asked.
     
    “I have my own room in the girls’ dorm,” she said. “It’s close to Sister Abigail’s.”
     
    “Anything strange, odd, or different happen?”
     
    She shook her head and frowned. “Not that I can remember,” she said.
     
    “Anything at all?” I asked. “No matter how small.”
     
    “I really don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, thinking back now, it’d be easy to read something strange into ordinary occurrences that if I weren’t inexplicably pregnant would otherwise not cross my mind.”
     
    “Such as?”
     
    “I usually don’t recall my dreams, but for a while there I would wake up in the morning with vivid memories of them,” she said.
     
    “Any recurring?”
     
    She shook her head. “Not really.”
     
    “Nightmares?” I asked. “Any of them related to getting pregnant?”
     
    She shook her head again.
     
    “What else?”
     
    “I passed out a couple of times,” she said, “but I think that was after I was already pregnant. I’m just not sure.”
     
    “Where were you when it happened?”
     
    “Different places,” she said.
     
    “The dining hall, the chapel, down here on the path, the porch of Father Jerome’s cabin—I was delivering some medicine to him, he’s very sick—and the soup kitchen in Bridgeport where I volunteer.”
     
    “Ever pass out before or since?”
     
    “Not that I recall.”
     
    “What else?”
     
    “I don’t know,” she said, frustration eating at the edge of her words. “Do you want me to say that I woke up a few mornings with my panties twisted and a funny feeling in my vagina? Maybe I did. I’m just not sure, but if I did, my panties get twisted up all the time when I sleep, I’m a tosser and turner. And as far as funny feelings in my private parts, well, that happens from time to time, too, and it’s never resulted in pregnancy before.”
     
    I nodded, and we were silent a few moments.
     
    She shivered as a breeze blew in through the trees, rustling their branches, raining down leaves, and rippling the otherwise smooth surface of the lake.
     
    I took off my suit coat and draped it around her shoulders.
     
    “Thanks,” she said. “And I’m sorry I was snippy. I’m just so tired of all this. I know you’re only trying to help and I’m being awful.”
     
    I shook