Disclaimer: The Giver belongs to Lois Lowry and Scholastic Books, Inc., of whom I am neither.

Jonas was late getting to the Annex that morning. He had walked slowly much of the way, still somewhat reluctant to return to the building where, only a few days before, he had learned of war. Since he had left home promptly at the end of school hours, it wasn't more than a minute or two's delay, but he was still anxious, unsure how the Giver would feel.

He hurried into the room and, without thinking, said, "Giver, I apologize…"

He stopped, realizing that the Giver was looking at him with an expression he couldn't quite read. The old man seemed to be measuring him, as though he were a container into which a great deal of water must go.

"Jonas," he said, "do you remember when you first began to see colors?"

Jonas was surprised. Of course he remembered – how could anyone forget that first glimpse of red?

"Yes, sir," he said.

"You remember how you found yourself at a loss to describe the experience, how thoroughly it fell outside your comprehension?"

"Yes, sir," Jonas repeated.

"Do you think," said the Giver, "that you could handle another such experience?"

Jonas blinked. "Y… yes, sir, I do," he said. "Why?"

The Giver leaned back in his chair. "Early this morning," he said, "I found myself recalling a memory that I had not thought of for many years. It is a memory utterly unlike all the memories I have given you, and most of the other memories I still keep.

"It is…" The Giver seemed to be struggling for words. "It comes from a part of the world that has been utterly forgotten. None of the words you know will suffice to explain it to you – although there are words in there…" he indicated the shelves of books "…that seem appropriate to such things."

"And you… wish to give me this memory, sir?" asked Jonas.

The Giver nodded. "I was much older when I received it," he said, "but since you have taken on the memory of war after only a year, and survived…" He smiled. "I suspect you are ready."

He nodded to the bed. Jonas removed his tunic, lay down on the bed, and felt the touch of the old man's hands on his back.

For a moment nothing happened. Jonas could feel the Giver pressing on him – rather harder than usual, in fact – but no memory came.

After a few seconds, the Giver removed his hands. "Forgive me, Jonas," he said. "It is an old memory, perhaps the oldest that I hold. It will take some effort to transmit to you."

"I understand, sir," said Jonas.

The hands returned to his back. Nothing – and then, suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, he found himself sitting in a small room far from the Annex.

–And instantly he perceived that something was different.

In the past, whenever he had received a memory, it was always him in the memory. It was him on the sled, that first day at the Annex; it was him watching the elephant be killed; and it was him, a few days before, pouring water in the mouth of the dying soldier. Presumably, there were people before him who had actually done these things, but their identities could never be deduced from the memories themselves.

Now, however, it was not simply a memory of doing what someone else had done – it was a memory of being someone else. In the memory, he was no longer Jonas, but someone altogether different.

It was a female, that was clear – he could feel a subtle difference in her body; a different shape, a different way of moving, from what he was accustomed to – but that was hardly the greatest difference. There were females in Jonas's community, but there were no females like this one; there was no one like this one.

But what was the quality that set her apart? Jonas knew what it was, but he couldn't find the precise word that fit. Cleanness, completeness, life – love. Yes, perhaps that was it. She could love. Love was a part of her, as it had been a part of the festive memory that was the Giver's favorite.

Jonas searched for her name, and found it. Miriam. A good name, Jonas thought.

She was kneading something in her hands – something that Jonas suspected was food, although it was nothing like the salmon that fed his community. It felt something like clay, and could be sculpted in the same way, but it was warmer, softer – somehow kinder.

Jonas blinked. Kinder? What a strange thought; how could an object be kind? Pleasurable, yes, and perhaps even loved, but kind? Kindness was when you gave consideration to others; it was a part of living. Something that didn't live couldn't be kind, and Jonas, who had been trained in precision of language since he was a Four, wondered why he had thought that it could.

But he wasn't Jonas, he realized. He was Miriam. He was living her life, so he was thinking her thoughts – and she had not had his precision-of-language training, and so she thought of objects as kind.

For a moment Jonas was hesitant. He was not used to assimilating so totally into another person, and for an instant he wanted the memory to end.

But it didn't end. It went on, and after a while, Jonas began to grow comfortable with it – with being Miriam, with feeling what she felt, with knowing her strange joy in all the small things of her life.

Then…

Jonas was never quite sure what happened next, no matter how many times he recalled the memory. All he could say was: Between one moment and the next, someone had entered the room where Miriam sat kneading.

It was a being unlike any Jonas had ever known – as unlike as red was unlike black. The visitor seemed to have no body, no attributes that could be perceived with the senses, and yet it was real – more real, in a sense, than anything Jonas had ever known. It didn't need to be seen; if it chose to reveal itself, no one could possibly overlook it.

Miriam certainly did not overlook it. She sat, utterly still, as her confused emotions flowed through Jonas's being. He was terrified. He was exultant. He was near tears. He was ready to laugh. He was bewildered, he was delighted, he was humbled, he was soothed, and above all he was honored that this being – Jonas perceived the word angel – should have come to visit him.

The angel spoke, not to Miriam's ears but to Miriam. "Hail, fullest of grace!" it said. "The Lord is with you."

Jonas felt Miriam's uncertainty at these words; what kind of greeting was this? Here was this magnificent being, glorious beyond all words, and it seemed to be paying this young female honor due not even to the Chief Elder.

And behind the uncertainty lay a touch of fear. Miriam knew that these beings, these angels, were usually bringers of messages; what sort of message lay behind such a greeting?

The angel seemed to perceive this. "Fear not, Miriam," it said, "You have found favor with God."

God. The word called up a plethora of images, many of them meaningless to Jonas. A few, however, were perfectly clear: an all-powerful being, the maker of everything that could be imagined; the Chief Elder of Miriam's community, loving, merciful, and wise; a figure of justice, who blessed the good and punished the wicked; and – unpleasantly, for Jonas – a bringer of victory in war to the ones who followed him.

Jonas perceived all this in an instant, and the angel continued: "Behold, you will conceive and bear a son, and you shall call him Jeshua."

On his table at the Annex, Jonas started. Miriam, that marvelous creature, a Birthmother? How could it be? How could so precious a life be so wasted?

But another piece of information slipped into his consciousness. In Miriam's community, it seemed, to be a Birthmother was the highest honor a female could attain, something to which all aspired. Jonas was vaguely scandalized.

"He will be great," the angel continued, "and will be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Israel forever; his kingdom will have no end."

Even if he had wanted to, Jonas could not have spoken – his mind was entirely taken up with these visions of glory, of which he understood so little. Miriam, however, was more practical, and Jonas found himself speaking her words with her voice: "How can this be, since I know no man?"

(As Jonas perceived the implications of this sentence, he learned far more about the Birthmothering process than he ever cared to know.)

"The power of the Holy Spirit," the angel replied, "shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. Thus the holy thing to be born to you will be called the Son of God."

What! Jonas/Miriam wanted to exclaim. How could God have a son? God was one being – there couldn't be someone who was partially God, the way a son was partially his father. (Jonas couldn't recall knowing this before, but he was certain of it now.) Anybody who was God would have to be entirely God. So He couldn't have a son… unless…

The angel seemed to sense Miriam's confusion, for it added, "Behold, your cousin Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her Old age, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren."

Impossible. The Old were not Birthmothers. Jonas knew that. By the time one was in the House of the Old, the body had become too weak to carry a newchild to birth. That was why Birthmothers never gave birth more than four years after their Ceremony of Twelve. An Old female giving birth was as impossible as… well, as God having a son.

"Nothing," the angel whispered, "is impossible for God."

Jonas could sense Miriam's distress. Nothing was impossible for God… well, of course that was true, but it hardly told her anything. She waited for the angel to speak further.

The angel, however, remained silent, and gradually Miriam realized that it was waiting for her to speak – to say, yes, all right, I will give birth to this son of God.

Could she, though? To give birth to a son without "knowing a man" – well, it was unusual, to say the least. Miriam thought of her assigned spouse, and Jonas became aware of a strong, kind man who worked as a Carpenter.

He was not likely to understand, Miriam thought. He would be kind, and loving; he would not mock her or accuse her in the streets; but he would forever believe that she had betrayed him.

For that matter, had she betrayed him? Was it betrayal to let the Maker of husbands and wives take the husband's role? Jonas didn't think so – but how could a peasant girl say?

One thing was certain. If Miriam accepted the angel's offer, she would never be the same again. She would go about her community as she always had, but a great gulf would lie between her and the others – far greater than the gulf that had lain between Jonas and his community since he began to receive the memories.

Could she accept that? Could she bear so terrible a burden?

The angel offered no consolation. There would be pain, it seemed to say. There would be pain, and sorrow, and grief beyond all knowledge… but there would also be joy beyond imagining.

But the joy was far in the future… and Miriam, unlike the angel, was a creature of time.

As Miriam reflected on these things, the room was completely silent. Everyone was waiting for Miriam's decision. Jonas was waiting, the angel was waiting, Nature itself seemed to be waiting. Perhaps God was waiting.

And someone else was waiting, too… waiting for Miriam to say no, I can't. Waiting for the word to be spoken, and the angel to depart. Waiting for hope to die.

Please, Miriam, Jonas whispered. If the other in the room got his wish…

Miriam's lips moved. "I…" she began.

The world seemed to lean forward, lest it miss the words.

"I am the handmaiden of the Lord," Miriam whispered. "Let it be done to me as you have said."

It was done.

The angel smiled – not with its mouth, for it had no mouth, but it smiled nonetheless. It gave an image that encompassed gratitude, relief, and exaltation. And it departed.

And as the angel departed, an ecstasy began to flow through Miriam – an ecstasy so powerful that, had Jonas been on his own, he was sure he would have been destroyed. But Miriam was stronger than he was, and she accepted it with joy. It was said, it was done, and it was good.

She began to whisper in a curious tone, "Praise ye the Lord. Praise, O ye servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

"Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth?

"He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord."

Praise ye the Lord…

And Jonas opened his eyes, and he was back on the bed at the Annex.

Neither Jonas nor the Giver said anything for a moment. The details of the memory were still fresh in Jonas's mind – the gentleness of Miriam, the presence of the angel – and the Giver's eyes seemed to say that he had more than a wisp of it himself.

Finally the old man broke the silence. "That will be all for today, I think," he said.

Jonas nodded, put his tunic back on, and walked out the door. He left the Annex, got his bicycle, and pedaled home.

And all the time his mind was whispering, "Praise ye the Lord; praise, O ye servants of the Lord…"

About the Rosary Sequence: Twenty mysteries, twenty stories. Each of the stories in this series centers around a character from a different fandom, who is placed, all unawares, in the midst of a different one of the 20 Scriptural or Traditional events that make up the mysteries of the Rosary. (This means, of course, that an alert posted on this story does one no good; the alert has to be on my stories generally. If you don't want to do that, but you do want to follow the Sequence, you can drop me a letter, and I'll notify you personally when the next story goes up.)

Other stories currently posted:
"The Second Joyful Mystery" (Justice League)