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Shards of Light

By Susan Miura

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Chapter 1

SHILO

Lemons. Their delicate scent drifts along gentle breezes in the convent courtyard, while nuns tend citrus trees and blooming flowers like ethereal garden fairies. Le Sorelle di Santa Teresa. Throughout Sicily, the Sisters of Saint Teresa are famous for the delicious pastries they sell to help support the poor and oppressed. But it is not them I traveled five thousand miles to see. I watch from a marble bench, lost in my own thoughts and expectations, as a woman approaches from across the courtyard. Our blue eyes lock. She continues, slowed by age, with the blazing Sicilian sun glistening on her short silver curls, and I rise without hesitation to approach the great-grandmother whose story set our family tree on fire.

Nonna Marie.

We stop, inches apart, gazing in silence. I haven’t seen her since I was a child, but I’d know that face anywhere. And those eyes, of course. A mirror image of mine, set in a face weathered by the joys and trials of eighty-six years. For all the world, she appears to be an old woman standing on a garden path, harboring nothing remarkable or noteworthy. But I know better. Because behind my great-grandmother’s eyes lies the key to a divine gift bestowed upon me just weeks before my seventeenth birthday. A gift like no other—so amazing, so unbelievably powerful, that I sometimes wonder if I’m lost in a dream.

“Shilo Marie.” The whisper accompanies tears that shimmer in her topaz eyes. No one else calls me by my first and middle name, yet spoken from her lips, it sounds as natural as breathing. “Shilo Marie.”

Memories swarm my mind, stories of all she’d been through, and all she left behind. The fall that nearly took her from this world. The shame that brought her to a mountainside convent, miles away from civilization, and an ocean away from her family. But she stands before me, contentment gracing her face, strength blazing eyes that have witnessed miracles and wonders. Cried a thousand tears. I close the gap and we embrace, wrapped in each other’s arms as if we’ll stay that way forever. And if that’s what she wants, I will wait.
Because what I came here to learn is worth whatever it takes.

#

“So you are the one.” Mother Superior’s stiff greeting leaves me wondering if she’d been less than willing to approve my summer visit. She sits motionless, wrinkled hands folded on her desk. “Marie’s great-granddaughter from Chicago.”
Rain taps the convent windows, weaving tiny pathways down the panes and onto stone walls that have survived storms and the harsh Mediterranean sun for nearly five-hundred years.

“Yes, ma’am.” Not sure I’ve ever used that term before, but it seems appropriate. “Cedarcrest, actually. Next to Schaumburg.” Everyone seems to know Schaumburg, probably because of Woodfield Mall.

Her head tilts. No light of recognition lights her angular face. “As in Schaumburg, Germany?”

“Yes. No. I mean, same name, but it’s a suburb of Chicago.” My words are met with another quizzical look, reminding me that suburbs are not a thing in some places. “It’s a town near the city, ma’am.” Another random ma’am, like I have no control over it. Julia would be giggling if she could hear me now, but my little sister’s heading back home with our parents…and I am not. Our week-long visit with the Sicilian cousins was crazy fun and ended much too soon.
Now this.

“Please address me as Mother Superior.”

Images from “The Sound of Music” dance through my brain. We saw the play at the community theater a few years back. Part of me wants to belt out that song about the hills, just to see if she’ll crack a smile, but chances are slim she’ll see the humor. I nod.

“You did not join your family when they met with Marie. Why not?”
The unanticipated question tumbles around my brain. It was important for me to meet her alone; to connect one-on-one, with no distractions, no outside voices. I planned it that way even before stepping foot on the plane, and told my family to visit her first. But how do I explain that possessing The Gift is something no one else can understand, except Nonna Marie? She had it first. She gets it. And we are linked in a supernatural way, incomprehensible to the rest of the world.

“I just wanted to meet her alone. It was…just something I wanted.” It is the lamest of answers, but her nod tells me she won’t press for more, which is all that matters.

“Marie tells me you are not Catholic.”

“No, but I’m Christian. I go to a nondenominational church. We have pastors, not priests.” There are other differences, of course, but my gut tell me she’s well aware of them.

“I see.” She gazes at me with eyes that pierce my soul. “You look like her. Not just the eyes. Your mouth, too. Your cheekbones.” Her English is nearly flawless. “Is it true you possess The Gift? That you can heal like Marie used to do?”

Another question I didn’t anticipate. At least, not so soon, or so directly. I steal a moment by glancing around her stark office. Like my room in the convent, it provides little more than the basic necessities. A crucifix and painting of Jesus are the only wall adornments. I focus on the Savior’s face, wondering how to release a truth I guard with my life. But her eyes tell me she already knows why I got exiled to the land of nuns.

“Yes, ma’am. Mother Superior.”

She folds her hand and nods, her gesture laden with sceptism. “Tell me, then. When does this happen? How? If you are to stay here for the summer, I need to know more about you.”

Clearly, there’s no room for small talk. The woman’s all business, with no apology. She stares at me, unblinking, her ancient countenance intimidating me for reasons I can’t explain. My heart reaches for Kenji, but he’s a world away, living with relatives on an Indiana farm. Maybe right this minute he’s wondering, like me, how our summer plans got torn to shreds. We were supposed to have jobs, go to soccer camp, and spend lazy days at the beach. Instead, we’re living on separate continents, a strategy meant to keep us safe from the gang bangers who want our heads on a silver platter.

I fight the urge to fidget like a fourth-grader in the principal’s office, and begin with the story of healing an injured dog when I was five years old. The Gift went dormant for twelve years after that, until the day I met Tyler. “I was visiting my Aunt Rita in the hospital, and met this little boy who’d been beaten by his father.” The vivid image sears my heart. “When I touched his head, I felt warmth in my heart, and the room got hazy. I returned the next day, when Misty, his mom, was there. We became friends after that.”

Mother Superior leans forward. “And this is when the healing took place?”
I nod, reliving the scene that is forever imprinted on my life. “I prayed for him. Warmth spread through my body, my arms, then pooled in my palms and fingers. Misty said my hands were moving over Tyler, but I don’t remember that part.” My hands clench and unclench as I reveal this highly protected information. No one is supposed to know about The Gift, but spending the summer here came at a price, and this is it. Mother Superior promised not to divulge my secret to anyone else.

“You could not see?”

I open my mouth to answer, then realize there isn’t one. At least, not one that will make sense. The warmth filled me with joy…no, something bigger. Love, purity, power and beauty all combined into light and breathtaking colors. But that will sound crazy. “I couldn’t see Tyler, or anything of this world, but I could see. Then I passed out.”

She studies my face. “Are you saying you saw Heaven?”

Did I? I struggle for words to explain what can’t be explained. “It felt that way, but honestly, I don’t know. It was just…wonderful.”

“Hmm.” I sense her trying to decide whether to believe me, or write me off as a whacko. “And the little boy…he was healed?”

Images of Tyler’s sweet, pallid face fill my head. By the time I left that room, the gash on his cheek was little more than a thin pink line. “That night, the doctor checked his spleen and determined he didn’t have to operate. The cut on his face was gone, and his arm wasn’t broken anymore.”

“I see.” She nods. “What happened with your Aunt Rita? Marie’s daughter. She died of cancer last month. Why couldn’t you heal her?”

I gasp, then struggle to take my next breath. Aunt Rita’s death hit me like a freight train, and I hadn’t quite moved past the pain. I miss her laugh, her stories, her hugs that wrapped around me like a blanket of love. I miss her cheering like crazy at my soccer games.I miss her.

“I don’t know.” I want to say that God decides who gets healed, but the words stick in my throat. Why, how, when? Who to heal, and who not? How does he choose? And what could have possibly qualified me for such a gift? These questions plague me daily. I only hope my great-grandmother can answer them, and tell me why Aunt Rita had to die. Gazing at my hands, I choke back the emotion her name brings to my lips. When I look up, Mother Superior’s face has softened. Sadness shadows gray eyes that have probably seen dozens of souls leave this world.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I, too, have lost loved ones. It is difficult. We cannot always know God’s reasons, but we can always trust him, yes?”

I nod, knowing her words are true, but taking no comfort in them when auntie’s death makes everything hurt inside.

“We can continue this later, if you are upset.”

My preference would be no continuation at all, but that’s not going to happen. We may as well finish up this polite interrogation now, and be done with it. Anyway, answering more questions will help take my mind off the last one.

“It’s fine. What else would you like to know?”

“What is this trouble you are in? Why is someone after you?”

I recap the highlights, explaining how Misty had run away from her foster parents at sixteen, moved in with Jake and gave birth to Tyler. “It didn’t take long for her to figure out Jake was a violent maniac, but she had no where else to go. After Jake beat Tyler, Misty discovered he was running drugs for a local gang called The Warriors. That’s when my dad asked her to help him with a drug bust.”

“Your papa is polizia, yes?”

“Yeah, he’s a sergeant. He arranged for Misty to deliver the drugs, surrounded by undercover cops, but me and my boyfriend kind of got in the middle of it. Now the Warriors want revenge on us.”

“That is an interesting story. You have experienced much drama for one so young. You will not find such things here.” She points to my phone, which is peeking out of my hoodie pocket. “Nor will you find service for cell phones. They are useless on the mountain. You may call your parents once a week from my phone.” She places her hand on the ancient landline sitting on her desk. “We live a simple life, Shilo. Perhaps you will be bored.”

I sigh, having wondered that a million times myself. Five weeks is going to feel like a lifetime, but no need to share that with her. “I’ll be fine. There’s a lot I want to learn about The Gift.”

“Well, then.” she stands up, indicating our meeting has ended. Finally. “Talk to your nonna. Listen well. Do not make the same mistakes she made. Such mistakes…they can be fatal.”

She isn’t the first one to utter those words. I’ve heard them from my parents, and more recently, from my Sicilan relatives. I have no intention of healing people to gain fame and fortune, but neither did Nonna Marie. It happened over time, they all say. Slowly building, until one day God took away the power as quickly as he’d given it. Devastated, suicidal, Nonna Marie left society behind and hid away at the convent.

There is so much I want to know about what my relatives refer to as “the fall.” What led up to it? What happened after? And most importantly, how do I prevent it from happening to me?
#
I jerk awake as the numbers 2:07 glimmer at me from the travel clock on the night stand. My window shade comes alive with the menacing silhouettes of lemon, fig and olive trees waving in the darkness. By day they were friendly providers of shade and fruit, but tonight they bend and sway as though reaching out to grasp something unknown. Was it the trees that woke me? The wind?
The ivory walls of this room are void of art, except for the wooden crucifix over my twin bed, and the Virgin Mary oil painting centered above the small wooden dresser. It is a stark contrast to my own bedroom back in Cedarcrest, with it’s violet walls covered in photos of friends, Kenji, posters, the string-art guitar Julia gave me for my birthday, and my real guitar standing in the corner like a faithful friend.

Footsteps pad softly past my door. I’d heard them last night, too, but thought I must be dreaming. Not this time. Someone around here sleepwalks, or performs a mysterious late night ritual, which hopefully does not include sacrificing a virgin. Then again, it’s a convent, so at least I wouldn’t be the only candidate.

Maybe it’s just hefty Sister Francesca indulging in the occasional midnight snack. But the footsteps head in the wrong direction, and tread far too lightly. Curiosity draws me toward the door.

Slow and silent, I turn the knob and ease it open the width of one eye. Dressed in her flowing white habit, a nun carries something in front of her with both hands. Not wide enough for Sister Francesca, and definitely not the ancient Sister Angelina – no limp. She’s too tall for petite Sister Celeste. That pretty much covers the ones I know. She heads toward the room I’d asked Nonna Marie about earlier today in the barn.

“Shhh, granddaughter,” she said. “You will know when time is right.”

It was the same answer she gave when I asked about the little stone house in the field where several young girls are living. I’ve seen them hanging clothes out to dry, playing catch, reading books. The Meadow House Girls - another mystery on this desolate mountain. Since Nonna wouldn’t expound on her cryptic answer, I let it go. At least, on the outside.

Stopping at the door, the nun shifts her burden to one arm, turns the knob with her free hand, then slips into the room. The door clicks behind her, leaving the convent halls silently vacant, as though the lone sister had been nothing more than a transient ghost.

I have to know who or what is in that room. Do they have other visitors with divine powers? Are they sheltering refugees from a war-torn country? Or…is some sort of abomination taking sanctuary within these walls?
Clearly, I’ve seen way too many movies, or desperately seek something to take my mind off missing everyone back home.

My head tells me to stay put, close the door, and return to bed, but my feet don’t get the message. They creep down the deserted hallway, finding every squeaky floorboard along the way. Hopefully, the tapping of rain on stone covers my footsteps, as well as my drumming heart. The door looms ahead, staring defiantly at me as if to ask, “now what?”

Getting caught would render pure humiliation, but that doesn’t stop me from pressing one ear to the door while keeping an eye on the hallway.

“This pill will help the pain.” The soft, Italian words of the nun inside are muffled, but I hear well enough to understand. “This one will fight the infection in the stab wound. The bullet wounds seems to be healing well. You are blessed to be alive. Thank the Lord we found you in time.” Silence, then the clink of glass on a metal tray. “You cannot get stronger on pills alone. Here, try to eat a little. I’ve brought some lemon bread and minestrone. Come now, eat. Don’t worry, they won’t find you here.”

“Thank you, sister.” The voice is raspy. Weak. And definitely male. “You are too kind.”

The stranger’s simple words are meant to be cordial. Nothing more than a thoughtful expression of gratitude for the care he is apparently receiving from the compassionate sisters. And yet, they ice my skin. Bristle the hairs at the nape of my neck. And I’m not sure which is the biggest mystery: why there’s a man in the convent, why he’s been shot and stabbed…or why his presence here unsheathes my claws.
 

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