The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay Page B

her, a voice called loudly. The woman!
    A dozen or more people were standing on the small patch of ground outside the church. One was a man witha camera. Another was Kiti Mendoza. Having shared their experience last night on Facebook, she and Melinda Catapang had arranged to come back first thing today but Melinda had forgotten that she had to work a Sunday shift and Kiti had overslept. Quite a number of their Facebook friends, however, had made their way to the Sacred Heart in time for the early mass and, as they telephoned and texted, the word spread. Across South London messages flashed up: Eyes. Blood. Statues. Coverings.
    During the morning Kiti had received several of these. Although none of them were entirely coherent, the ones that struck her forcefully were the ones about concealment. Several of her contacts, including her Auntie Rita, had complained that they were not allowed to see the crucifix. Some people had already gone back onto Facebook to say this too. The ripples of the story expanded inexorably, catching in their concentric rings the boyfriend of a girl who nursed with Kiti, a boy with ambitions to become a photojournalist. Kiti bumped into him on her way down Riverside Crescent, and gave him the details. It was exactly what four years in England had led her to expect: secrecy, dishonesty and double-dealing. Trying to find the truth round here? Forget it. A miracle? In this city of unbelievers they wouldn’t know one if it hit them in the face.
    The sight of Mary-Margaret at the front door of the church, flanked by a priest and a funny little man with a floppy gray mustache, was an unexpected godsend. The photographer focused his lens. Kiti rushed up with arms outspread and embraced Mary-Margaret. It’s her, she said again, ecstatically. The one who saw it first.
    It began to dawn on Father Diamond that Mary-Margaretmust have been spinning tales when she was in hospital. He remembered what she had said when he was visiting, something about wounds. At the time he had thought that she was raving. He did not now change his mind. Come on, dear, he told her firmly, pulling gently at her arm to disentangle her from the embrace of the young girl. Let’s go and get that cup of tea. But Mary-Margaret would not be deflected. She recognized Kiti, of course, and was pleased to see her; even in her ordinary clothes the girl brought with her some of the atmosphere of the hospital—concerned, consoling, and efficient—that Mary-Margaret had so enjoyed. Is it true, they won’t let you in? the girl asked her. Yes it is, said Mary-Margaret. He’s locked the door.
    Stella unlocked the front door while Rufus unpacked the car. Even when left empty only for a day or two a house is not the same as one inhabited and hers felt subdued to Stella, as if a faint melancholy had drifted through it while she was away, as gentle and as transitory as dust. There was once an occasion when, on coming home alone, she had opened the door and sensed a presence, although nothing was out of place and there was no unusual sound. It was late in June, the evening of a hot day, she had left the upstairs windows open at the rear of the house. She had looked quickly into her bedroom but there was nothing there, and in any case she had no sense of an intruder. Camilla’s room was undisturbed but, when Stella switched on the light, she felt something move, or tremble. At first she could see nothing but then there was another flutter,very slight, and it came from a wooden clog, an ornament, on Camilla’s desk beneath the window. As she neared it, her heart thumping, Stella saw the clog contained a bird, a swift; it must have flown in through the open window. Did it think the clog a nest, she wondered, or had it seemed the only place of safety in a bewildering world? The bird’s wings were closed and it had settled halfway down the clog headfirst. It moved more violently as it heard her approach. What if it were to panic and flap wildly around,