Nana Pete glances into her side mirror and swerves, passing a car on her left. “We’re almost there. Try to relax, Mouse.”
But I can’t relax. Every nerve ending in my body is standing on end, like split wires. I am so nauseous from fear that every time Nana Pete changes lanes, I have to choke back the bile rising in my throat. All I can think about is the amount of trouble we are going to get into when we get back. It is nearly unfathomable. Forget leaving Mount Blessing without permission, which, aside from defectors, no Believer has ever done. The real crime is our obvious lack of faith in Emmanuel. Taking Benny to a hospital to be checked out by “real” doctors after Emmanuel spent four and a half hours performing a miracle on him is like spitting in his face. No one believed Saint Bernadette either, I think to myself, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to her. People even laughed when she told them of the miraculous spring of water the Virgin told her to dig out from the ground. But it turned out to be true. Later, these same disbelievers had brought their sickest relatives to the spring to be healed. And the miracles—countless numbers of them—had begun.
“Please, Nana Pete, let’s just turn around, okay?” I ask for maybe the hundredth time. “Please? We’ll get back before Mom and Dad’s meeting ends, and I bet we can even convince them to take Benny to the hospital in the morning.”
But Nana Pete shakes her head. “No can do, Mouse. You heard what Claudia said about the ether and Benny not being able to use his hand again. We’ve got to get him checked out. Right now.”
I look down at Benny. His face is very, very white, like snow in winter. The edges of his lips are tinged blue and under his eyelids I can see his eyeballs moving back and forth, as if he is having a bad dream. I try to not to think about the last thing I said to him before he got hurt, but it echoes in the back of my head: Fine, be a pain. But when you get called into the Regulation Room, don’t expect me to go in there with you. My eyes fill with tears. How could I have said such a thing? I don’t even know where to begin to atone for this sin, it’s so big.
Honey, who has been unusually quiet until now, turns around. She looks down at my little brother with a serious expression. “I have his glasses,” she says. “Just so you know.”
Her statement startles me. How could I have forgotten about Benny’s glasses?
“Where were they?”
“Right inside the Great Door. On the floor. I guess they fell off when … when everything happened.” She reaches over the back of the seat and brushes her fingertips gently over the front of Benny’s shirt. “He looks okay,” she says. “Don’t you think?”
As if on cue, Benny’s lashes flutter and his lids slide open heavily.
“Hey,” I whisper, leaning over him. “Hey, Benny. It’s me.” Benny blinks several times without seeing anything, and then, disoriented and frightened, starts to scream. He thrashes violently until he slides off my lap onto the floor of the car.
“Benny!” I screech.
“Oh my God.” Nana Pete nearly swerves off the road. “Get in the back, Honey! Help Mouse get him off the floor before he hurts his hand even more!”
Honey is over the seat in a flash and in ten seconds my brother is stretched out tightly between us. I have both of his arms pinned carefully to his sides, and Honey is hanging on to his legs, which are still flailing.
“It’s okay, Benny!” I shout, trying to make myself heard above his still-piercing shrieks. “We’re going to the hospital! You’re going to be all right!” I start to cry along with him. I’d give anything to take the pain for him. Anything at all.
“We’re almost there,” Nana Pete says grimly, eyeing the three of us in the rearview mirror. “Hang in, guys.” She gives the car another surge of gas. “Hang in.”
The Queen Mary finally screeches to a halt in front of a wide blue building with EMERGENCY glowing above the doors. Nana Pete rushes inside, carrying Benny, who is still wailing. Honey and I are close at her heels. Within seconds, a flurry of white-clad medical personnel appear, as if from the woodwork. The next moment, they vanish into a small room behind a glass door and stretch Benny out on a silver table.
Somehow Honey and I manage to slip into the room behind everyone. We hover at the room’s periphery, trying to stay out of the way as nurses run in and out. Suddenly a tall man dressed all in blue strides into the room, snapping on a pair of thin rubber gloves.
“The injury is to the extremities, is that correct?” He has a deep, rumbling sort of voice and a neatly trimmed white beard. A pin on the front of his shirt identifies him as Dr. Pannetta.