Author's Note: I'm using the public domain World English Bible to avoid potential legal issues. Therefore, it's not exactly what you would hear in a Catholic Mass, but it's close enough.

Chapter 76: Red

Since the front of the church faced the street, people arriving by vehicle parked behind the church and entered through the back door. The courtyard behind the church buzzed with activity: old ladies hugging one another, a table for signing a petition to end the death penalty, a bake sale fundraising for a local homeless shelter, and middle-aged men swarming around a deacon. Joan walked boldly between Marc and Mokuba, holding their hands as a few people stopped to gawk. She noticed her parents' bicycles locked to the wrought iron fence and gulped down a wave of nostalgia.

Tamara walked ahead and held the back door open for the trio, but since this door was much narrower than the front entrance, Joan released their hands. She blessed herself with holy water from a small bowl affixed to the door frame and heard a collective gasp from across the room, amplified by the church's sound system. She looked up to see the entire choir frozen. A few sheets of music fluttered to the floor. Joan's father George spilled a steady trickle of water over his face from a stainless steel water bottle as he paused mid-gulp.

"What?" Joan asked innocently.

Gertrude spoke first. "We're just so happy to see you."

"It's been a long time," the choir director added.

Someone helped George clean up the water he had spilled while Joan approached the choir with Marc, Mokuba, and the bodyguards in tow. She hugged her mother first, then got hugged by most of the other choir members as Gertrude went to hug Mokuba. "I sensed you were the more virtuous brother. Thank you for bringing her back to us."

"It's not exactly like that," Mokuba protested, feeling awkward in her long embrace.

"It doesn't matter why. What matters is that you're here."

"It does matter," Marc cut in. "We need to have a word with the big man in the sky."

"I'm sorry," Gertrude said, "I don't think we've been properly introduced."

Mokuba did the honors. "Mrs. Saunders, this is Joan's boyfriend Marc Aurelio. Marc also works for me, and he's the reason we met. Marc, this is Joan's mother Gertrude Saunders."

Gertrude shook Marc's hand while she scrutinized him. "I remember your name from the article and your face from the Youtube video, but . . ." Gertrude lowered her voice, "is she really seeing all of you?"

"Yes." Marc's unyielding walnut eyes stared into Gertrude's.

Gertrude glanced back at her daughter smiling and exchanging pleasantries with old friends. Joan's confirmation sponsor grabbed her hand to examine the ring on her finger. Gertrude turned back to Marc. "I'd like to know the full story on how you met, but it will have to wait until after Mass." She gave them a short nod and returned to her seat.

Joan broke free of the choir and made her way back to her men. "Can you believe it? They wanted to set me up with a microphone. I told them no, but they made me promise to sing from the pews. Not that I wasn't planning on doing that anyway, but now the pressure's on." Before Marc or Mokuba could reply, Joan spotted an old friend from high school on his way in the door. "Ozzy!" She dashed to a Scottish man with dark, wavy hair and gave him a big hug. "Come sit with us."

Oswald glanced at Joan's entourage as they caught up with her. "I don't wanna be a third wheel."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're a fourth wheel, and Mokuba needs more California friends."

Oswald blinked. "He does?"

"Of course. Come on!" Joan urged. She dragged him away from his bewildered parents and into an empty pew. Marc took a seat beside Joan and Mokuba sat beside Oswald while the bodyguards positioned themselves on either side of the group.

"So . . ." Oswald fished for appropriate words, trying to avoid the elephant in the room, "seen any good movies lately?"

"Well," Joan said, "there's this one where a whore magically gets pregnant by four men at the same time, and then the Greek goddess Hera shows up and curses her unborn child, so she winds up going to church to see if her childhood god has anything to say on the matter, and she runs into an old friend along the way."

Mokuba fidgeted on the hard wooden pew.

"Is she you?" Oswald asked.

"Yep. How did you know?" Joan asked.

"Lucky guess."

Before they could converse further, Joan's mother announced a greeting along with a three-digit number. Joan picked up a music book from a shelf behind the pew, flipped to the number, and began singing The Summons. Joan suspected that her parents had made a last-minute change to the program for her, knowing that this was her favorite hymn.

A priest in his fifties with short, dark hair peppered with gray wearing red vestments walked up the aisle along with a deacon and a full complement of altar servers. Joan recognized Father John and locked eyes with him as he turned to face the congregation. «I need answers. Do you have them?» The way Father John's eyes widened assured Joan that he had received her thoughts.

Marc felt the mild brain zap from Joan's use of magic and tightened his hand around hers. «Don't do anything you'll regret.»

«We regret more from our inactions than from our actions,» Joan told Marc.

«Not from where I'm sitting at the moment,» Marc replied.

«Why, because you impregnated me or because you got caught?»

A flood of thoughts came at Joan. She saw visions of Marc's former domestic life with Laura: the good, the bad, the growing, unvoiced need and anger and desperation over their repeated failure to reproduce. Mounting tension that finally reached a breaking point. «Joan, if I knew we could keep it, I would impregnate you all over again, but then you had to go and piss off a goddess. Don't do the same with God.»

«I'm not going to piss Him off, just get His attention. Besides, the God I know is much more forgiving. Not to mention we're old friends.»

«I hope you're right about that.»

Joan tuned back into Mass as a middle-aged lady spoke the first reading, "Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all with one accord in one place. Suddenly there came from the sky a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Tongues like fire appeared and were distributed to them, and one sat on each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under the sky. When this sound was heard, the multitude came together and were bewildered, because everyone heard them speaking in his own language. They were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, 'Behold, aren't all these who speak Galileans? How do we hear, everyone in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the parts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians: we hear them speaking in our languages the mighty works of God!'"

Pentecost. Joan should have known when she saw Father John wearing red. Before the middle-aged reader could take her seat, Joan swirled the air in front of the altar, creating a deafening noise. With every ounce of focus she could muster, she shredded the altar's tablecloth and distributed the shreds over the heads of every member of the congregation. She set them alight, and they burned for a few seconds. Several people bolted for the doors, but many remained frozen in place.

Now, if only Joan could get the languages part down. She heard Oswald speaking in Gaelic and others throughout the church testing their native tongues, but it all sounded like gibberish. She hadn't thought this through. Maybe, with a little more focus, she could –

"Joan," Mokuba gasped, "please stop." The pounding in his and Marc's heads faded with the flames. Glazed looks crossed their faces as they recovered.

The rest of the congregation continued to chatter, oblivious to the conversation in Joan's pew, while Father John attempted to establish order.

"So you were serious about the magic thing," Oswald whispered to Joan.

"Yeah," Joan whispered back. "It's all because of this ring. It takes a toll on the guys, though."

Once they realized they couldn't understand foreign languages, the people began complaining about the smoke from the tablecloth. Several people, including George, coughed and left the building. It wasn't much worse than incense from Joan's standpoint, but then again, her dad couldn't tolerate incense either.

Marc massaged his forehead. "Well if this hubbub doesn't get God's attention, I don't know what will."