“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.