The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan Page B

that none of Gwen’s descendants suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which is, as far as I know, a hereditary condition. I am particularly thankful for this, as are my mother and my grandmother. I’m Gwendolyn’s great-granddaughter.”
    Maureen looked down at the booklet in her hand. She had missed the small print at the bottom of the
Mary in McLean
pamphlet.
By Rachel Maddox Martel.
    Rachel handed the booklet to Maureen. “Here, it’s a gift. It contains Gwen’s story, and a few other details about the visions. Now this other book” — Rachel indicated the large white volume with the bold black MAGDALENE heading — “this is also written by a native of McLean. The author has spent a lot of time investigating local Mary sightings, but she has also done enormous amounts of general research. This book really runs the gamut on Magdalene theories, and I will say that some of them are a little far out, even for my taste. But it’s fascinating reading, and you won’t find it anywhere else because it’s never been distributed.”
    “I’ll take it, of course,” Maureen said somewhat absently. Her mind was in several places at once. “Why McLean, do you think? I mean, of all the places in America, why does she come here?”
    Rachel smiled and shrugged a little. “I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe there are other places in America where this happens as well, and they just keep it to themselves. Or perhaps there is something special about the location. What I do know is this: people with a spiritual interest in the life of Mary Magdalene tend to end up in McLean, sooner or later. I can’t tell you how many people come through this shop looking for specific books on her. And, like you, they had no previous conscious knowledge about the Magdalene connection in this town. It can’t be just a coincidence, now, can it? I believe that Mary lures her faithful here, to McLean.”
    Maureen thought about it for a moment before responding. “You know…,” she began slowly, still composing the thought. “When I made my travel arrangements, I had every intention of staying in D.C. I have a good friend there, and it would have been easy to drive in to McLean for the book signing. D.C. made a lot more sense with the airline as well, but at the last minute, I decided that I had to stay here.”
    Rachel was grinning as she listened to Maureen explain her change of travel plans. “See. Mary brought you here. Just promise me, if you see her while you’re driving around McLean, that you won’t forget to call and tell me about it.”
    “Have you ever seen her?” Maureen had to know.
    Rachel tapped the pink booklet in Maureen’s hand with the tip of her fingernail. “Yes, and this is really an explanation of how the visions have been passed down in my family,” she explained in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone. “The first time, I was very young. Four or five, I think. It was in my grandmother’s garden at the shrine. Mary was alone that first time I saw her. The second vision happened when I was a teenager. That was a ‘roadside,’ as we call it here, and it was Mary with Jesus. It was very strange; I was in a car full of girls and we were driving back from a school football game. It was a Friday night. Well, my older sister Judith was driving, and as we came around a bend in the road, we saw a man and a woman walking toward us. Judy slowed down to see if it was someone who needed help. That’s when we realized what it was. They were just standing there, frozen in time, but there was a glow surrounding them.
    “Well, Judy was very upset by this and started to cry. Then the girl next to her in the front seat starting asking what was wrong and why were we stopped. That’s when I realized that the other girls didn’t see them. Only my sister and I saw them.
    “I’ve wondered for a long time if genetics had anything to do with the visions. My family had experienced so many of them, and I had real proof that we