Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora

Author:Paul Acampora
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

CHAPTER 12

I HAD MET Sister Clare at the Shrine of the Holy Relics in Maria Stein, Ohio.

“Any cool stuff to see around here?” I’d asked the first gas station kid I met when I crossed into Ohio. My backside was so sore that day that I would have stopped to see fresh eggs.

“If you like bones,” he said while the truck swallowed up gas, “you should go to Maria Stein.”

“Who’s Maria Stein?”

“Not who,” he said. “Where. It’s the name of a town.”

“I never heard of a town with a first name and a last name.”

“How about New York,” the kid said. “Or Los Angeles?”

“What’s in Maria Stein?”

“I told you,” he said. “Bones. Lots and lots of bones. They’re pieces of saints.”

“How far is it?” I asked.

“Not too far. And it’s cool.”

The gas station attendant gave me directions and told me to look for the Convent of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. “And don’t forget Salt Lake City,” he yelled as I drove away. “That one has a middle name!”

If I ever have children, they will not go to public school in Ohio, but at least gasboy’s directions were good. I followed his instructions all the way to Maria Stein, where I discovered the Shrine of the Holy Relics, home to over a thousand relics, some very fancy reliquaries, and a really pretty church.

According to the dictionary, a relic is an object kept for its association with the past, especially a piece of the body or a personal item of a saint. A reliquary is the fancy container used to hold relics. Why not just call them bones and boxes? I don’t know.

When I arrived at the shrine, the place was mostly dead. I suppose a place like that is always mostly dead.

A tall woman stood up from behind a desk in the corner. “Welcome,” she said. “I’m Sister Clare. I’m the docent here today.”

I did not know what docent meant. I figured it was either a recruiter or a security guard, but she was actually more like a tour guide.

“Hi,” I said. I glanced at the hundreds of containers around me. “Are these all bones?”

“No,” said Sister Clare. “There’s hair and teeth too, some fingers, a couple ears. I think we may have somebody’s tongue.”

“Oh, yuck.”

Sister raised an eyebrow. “There’s also jewelry, clothes, and assorted objects that saints may have used during their lifetimes.”

“Wow,” I said. “Can I look around?”

“Please do,” said Sister Clare. “Just don’t touch the relics.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

I wandered around a little. A box holding a fragment of cloth said to be worn by Jesus’ mother, Mary, was displayed prominently. There were bones and strands of hair from hundreds of former popes and bishops and martyrs. I couldn’t help but notice that there were a lot of virgins too.

I felt a little bad for the virgins. Their status in that department—and mine too, for that matter— didn’t bother me one way or the other, but who’d want it printed on top of their remains for all eternity?

“What’s all this stuff doing in Ohio?” I asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.