Chapter 7:
"…blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets." Kurt turned the page over in his Bible, and was about to begin reading, softly, again, when he heard a soft voice say, "That's not what I heard."
He dropped the book and looked down. Grace's eyes were open, and he felt an incredible surge of joy. She was awake! And alive!
"You're awake!" He suppressed the urge to shout, and instead hurriedly put the book aside and leaned over her. 'How do you feel?"
She frowned a little as she focused on her body. "Tired. Very tired, even though I feel like I've slept a whole day. I hurt a little here, too, although not as bad as I did before." She put a hand on her ribcage, under the covers, where Hank had stitched her back together. He'd had to do surgery to remove her shattered ribs, cutting into her torso to remove the pieces, and she had stitches along what used to be the end of her ribcage. "I'm so weak.. ." She laid her head back on the pillow, closing her eyes for a moment.
Kurt stood. "Can you use something to drink?"
"Please?" He left the small bedroom, going across the hall to the bathroom, and filled a cup with water. Coming back, he grabbed the straw Jean had left there earlier and dropped it in the cup, then held it in one hand while she raised her head to sip from the straw. She drank quite a bit from it, only stopping when the cup was almost empty.
"Is that all? Do you need more?" She shook her head, and he put the cup down on the small bedside table and sat back down in his chair as he took one of her hands in his.
'Where are we?" she asked after a moment, looking up at the ceiling above her and at the stand beside her bed that held her IV. She looked at it, then pointed at it and said, "What's that?"
"It's an IV," he said. "Hank started you on it because you needed the nutrients in it."
"Who's Hank?"
"He's my friend. He's also a doctor. You're in my home. I don't know if you remember, but I found you in the shed in the middle of last week's blizzard, and I brought you here because you were coughing blood."
"I'm in your home?" she looked at him reproachfully. "You promised you wouldn't tell anyone about me."
"I had to," Kurt said firmly, unrepentantly. "You needed help, Grace. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if you died out there from cold while I sat in here safe. God would not be happy with me either."
"Why? He doesn't care."
Kurt leaned forward. "Don't say that, Grace. He does care. If He didn't he wouldn't have led me to you the day after Halloween, and he wouldn't have given you back to me when you died on Hank's operating table." Just thinking about it made him shiver in relief and thankfulness.
"I died?" Grace frowned. "I think I remember…that light…yes, and He shut me out of it again." She said bitterly. "The elders were right. 'He rejecteth they who have invited the fallen One into their soul; let every man's hand be turned against them; and let them be cast into the pit of burning pain, for their invitation to the Wicked One'."
Kurt frowned. "Where is that from? That is not in the Bible."
Grace looked at him, startled. "That's what the elders told us the Bible said. We were never allowed to read it; women and children were not allowed to even look at it. As soon as we entered the church we were to bow our heads and look at the floor. Only the elders were allowed to open it and read it, and only men could look up when in the church."
Kurt frowned. "Such is not the case here," he said. "I suspect that the real reason why they did not want you to look into it was because they didn't want you to realize just how much of their sermons they were making up. Did you read the Bible I gave you?"
"No," Grace admitted, eyes downcast. "I…I couldn't. Every time I tried to pick it up I kept remembering what happened the time I tried to read the Bible. I sneaked into the church and got caught."
"What happened?" Kurt asked.
"I was beaten. Forty lashes for desecration of a holy relic. The only way you'd be permitted to touch the Bible was if you were clean, and they had a test for that. They made me drink the holy water, and it made me terribly sick. Then they took me out, tied me up, and beat me."
Kurt winced. "The Bible is free to all who wish to read it," he said, taking it off the table and holding it out to her. "Here. Take it."
Grace reached out, hesitantly, and almost touched it, then she drew her hand back hastily. "I…I can't. I'm sorry, Kurt."
Kurt sighed. 'Then I will read it to you. Relax, and just listen." He turned back to the first Book, the Book of Genesis, and started to read. Grace listened to him read, occasionally stopping and asking him questions, which he answered as best as he could, and they sat there for a long while comparing what he read with what she had been taught.
Jean was walking past the room that Grace was in when she heard Kurt laugh and say something. She opened the door quietly, and was surprised to see Grace lying in bed, talking to Kurt and smiling happily. She looked happier, and sounded happier, and Jean felt a pang as she looked at the girl's scarred face. Grace would be a pretty girl if those scars didn't disfigure her face.
She closed the door softly, retraced her steps to the kitchen, and headed for the refrigerator as Charles and Hank, sitting at the table, looked up. "Grace's awake," she told Hank. "She and Kurt are upstairs right now talking about religious theology." Hank started to rise from his chair, but she waved him down. "I wanted to fix a couple of plates for them. If you'll wait until I'm done, you can help me carry the plates up."
Charles followed them back up to Grace's room. She froze as soon as she saw Jean, Charles, and Hank come in, and went silent. Kurt, however, refused to allow her to withdraw like that. "Grace, this is Charles Xavier. He owns the mansion. And this is my friend Hank, the doctor who saved your life." Hank nodded amiably at her as he checked her IV, checked the vital signs monitor, and then pressed a stethoscope to her chest. Finally looking satisfied, he stepped back. "How are you feeling, my dear?" he asked.
Grace nodded at him shyly. "Better," she whispered. "Thank you."
"Does anything hurt? If you are, I can give you more pain medications."
"No, I'm fine. Thank you." And then she looked at Xavier, and she said in a voice barely above a whisper, "Please…you won't tell anyone I'm here, are you?"
"No, of course not." Charles smiled. "You have no reason to fear, however. You are safe. Grace, it's been four or five months since …you left, hasn't it? The compound at which you were being held burned due to an accident two months ago. A lot of people died; very few survived."
Grace's face went white. "Did they…did they say who died?"
"I shall print out the casualty list later for you to look at if you wish," Xavier said. "Only ten people survived. The Federal government is charging five of them with a variety of crimes and they are currently waiting for their day in court." He watched her carefully. "The other five are going to testify to the fact that the five who are being held responsible were called the elders of the cult. Joseph Borden, David Farrier, Noah King, Mark Howard, and Joshua Givens. Do any of those names mean anything to you?"
"Father Borden was the one who performed my exorcism," she whispered, her eyes haunted. "He was the spokesperson. He told everyone that God spoke to him and told him what to do. He told them to beat me; he told them to dig the Pit and put me in it." She swallowed. "He…stood over me and whipped my eyes…" She couldn't go on.
Jean, overwhelmed with pity for the girl, patted her shoulder kindly, then leaned over the bed and hugged Grace. "They are in jail, and they won't hurt you," she said. "They are not even looking for you anymore. You can relax. They won't find you here."
Grace smiled at Jean, but she never took her eyes off Charles. "Will I have to…testify?" she said. "Will they ask me to speak against Father Borden? Because God will surely strike me if I do, to speak against one of His Chosen, one of His ordained."
Xavier clasped his hands. "Grace, this may come as a surprise to you, but none of the people awaiting trial are ordained members of the priesthood. None of them even went to a seminary, which is where priests go for training. None of them has seen the inside of a convent. They are as ordinary as you or I. Kurt, here, has more right to the name 'priest' than they do."
"Really? You're a priest?"
Kurt decided not to mention that he was not actually a priest. His affiliation with the now defunct 'Church of Humanity' was still a sore spot with him. And if Grace believed he was a priest, maybe she would accept that what he was telling her was God's truth and come to believe it herself. So, "Yes," he said. "I am a priest."
"That's how you know all that stuff," she whispered. "And here I am…lying down…I should get up, kneel…" She started to push herself up off the bed to kneel in front of Kurt, but Hank held her down even as Kurt sprang up in dismay.
"Do not kneel to me, Grace! Please! I am not God, that you should kneel to me! You should kneel to no one but God! I am but a messenger!" Finally, exhausted and gasping, she lay back quietly.
"Please, Grace," Kurt said, taking her hand gently. "I do not ask that anyone kneel before me, and grovel at my feet. God Himself says no man should bow head to another, that He alone is God. Whatever they told you at the compound, it is wrong!" He cupped her chin in his hands. "Please, Grace. Did you hear what Charles said? They were twisted, misguided, fanatical mutant-haters who only wanted to control you, to hurt you because you were different. This is not what God teaches. Give me a chance to show you what God really is."
He waited. And waited. And then, when he was finally about to give up, a single hot tear fell down her cheek and she nodded once, slightly, gently.
When Charles uploaded the casualty list from the compound fire and had Grace look at them, she discovered everyone was dead. The five survivors were being sequestered; she had no way to contact them even if she wanted to. Which she didn't.
"But don't you want to know how your parents are?" Kurt asked as she stared at the sheet of names. "Or how they died?"
Grace gave a small, bitter laugh. "I never knew who my parents were," she said bitterly. "We children were housed in a large dormitory. I had my own bed in that dormitory ever since I could remember. They'd bring children in after they were about one year old, and we'd have to take care of them. We older ones changed their diapers, fed them, sang the songs the priests said were okay to them, and they'd stay in our dormitory for a whole year; they weren't allowed out. By the end of that year, they'd usually forget who their parents were, and just called us 'sister' or 'brother'. Some of them would call for Mama when they got out, but the elders would punish the baby severely if we didn't stop it, and so we'd hush the two-year-olds if they called for Mama. Because we'd rather spank them ourselves than have one of the Elders beat them. They were too little; and they were so confused, and scared…" She trailed off. "I never knew who my parents were."
Kurt sighed. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"I don't know," Grace said. "I think I'd be really mad at them if I knew. I mean…how could they just give me up to Father Borden like that? And if they saw me later, wouldn't they…shouldn't they…have said something, done something, to stop it when Father Borden started torturing me?" She fell silent. "If it were my child I would have tried to do something, anything, to let that child know I was still alive and still cared about them. I would have tried to sneak the child out of the camp. Anything. I don't know why they didn't." She looked up at the ceiling, tears in her eyes. "Why didn't they?"
Kurt sighed. "I don't know, Grace," he said. "I think you should maybe talk to God on that one."
She turned to him. "Pray? I should pray?"
"I think you should," Kurt said gently. "Maybe God can give you some of the answers you need in prayer."
She looked undecided for a moment, then shook her head. "I can't," she moaned. "God…God doesn't love me, and I don't care about him. Leave me alone."
Kurt looked at her sorrowfully. "All right. I'll let you come around to it in your own time," he said. "But…tomorrow is Sunday, and I'll be conducting the Sunday services in the chapel downstairs. Even if you don't want to participate, you can come and watch." He hoped she would.
"I'll think about it," she said.