Immaculate

Had I ever really believed in God, though? In Jesus? Did I believe in them now—did I have to believe after this? The Virgin Mary had always seemed like a character to me, a sweet, muted woman draped in blue for the nativity play, a pretty porcelain face in old paintings and stained-glass windows—not a living, breathing woman who had once walked this very same earth. Who had once had her own life yanked out from under her and turned upside down by the truth of her destiny, a baby with no human father. Did I believe in her?

I realized now how odd it was that I’d gone through the motions of Christianity for my entire life without ever really dissecting what I felt about any of it. There had always been more crucial things to think about—school and grades and cold, hard indisputable facts, geometry and physics, grammar and history. But there had to be something, didn’t there? Some force that brought us here, some sort of higher power that knew what could become of all the atoms and molecules and compounds floating around in the universe?

It was unlike me to not have an answer. It was unlike me to have somehow let such a big question go.

My room was sweltering, but still I was wrapped up in my blankets, sweaty and buried, hiding beneath the nest of feathers. The person I wanted to hide from most was me, and I didn’t know how to make that happen. Because even in my dreams—that is, if I would ever be able to fall asleep again—I knew I couldn’t escape myself, my thoughts, my fears. My body.

By the time I counted twelve chimes from the old grandfather clock downstairs in our living room, I couldn’t be alone in my room anymore. I couldn’t be alone with myself. More than anything or anyone else in the world, I needed my mom. I needed her arms around me, and I needed her to know everything that I knew. Because as terrible as everything in my life felt in that moment, the most terrible, excruciating part was keeping it all a secret from my mom. I’d never hidden anything important from her before, and I couldn’t hide this, either. Not even for a night.

I kicked off the blankets and rose from the bed like a sleepwalker, lifted up and tugged toward the hallway by invisible hands. A bright shaft of moonlight spilled through my thin, gauzy curtains, illuminating the full-length mirror that hung from my door. I reached out for the knob, but froze, caught by my reflection.

Was I showing? Could I see? Could other people see?

I was shocked that the idea hadn’t occurred to me earlier, not once during the countless hours of solitude I’d spent in my room that night, reflecting and analyzing, poring over every last detail, every piece of evidence again and again and again.

Goose bumps prickled up my arms, the hairs standing on end, as I carefully, little by little, lifted up the edge of my T-shirt. I stared at myself, first from the front, then from the side. Front, side, front, side. My stomach looked so pale, so ghostly white against the shadows behind me. I cupped my hands over my belly and studied my profile. Was that a bump? A tiny, minuscule, almost entirely nonexistent bulge, but still, could it be the begi

But it was only a matter of time.

I pulled my shirt back down and crept into the hallway, my bare feet knowing every creaking wooden floorboard, every slope and splinter, every inch of the way along the pitch-black path to my parents’ bedroom. They always left the door slightly open while they slept, a habit from the days when Gracie and I were little and helpless—a nightly routine that they’d never been able to leave behind, no matter how old we’d gotten or how independent we’d become. I had hated this on the nights when Nate and I were downstairs together, cuddling on the sofa, wanting at least the veil of privacy, but seeing the crack now made my heart swell.

I pushed the door open farther, just far enough that I could poke my head through and peek into the room. My mom flinched and jerked herself up at the first squeak of the hinge. I could make out her panicked face in the moonlight, her eyes darting around the room until she found me standing in the doorway. I put one finger on my lips and pointed to Dad, and then motioned for her to follow me out. She fumbled for her glasses on the nightstand and swung her legs over the side of the bed, an instant transition from deep, sound sleep to active and alert motherhood. Within seconds we were both safely down the hall and inside of my room, and I closed the door behind us.

“What’s going on, Mina?” she asked, her tired face tense with worry. I noticed wrinkles that I hadn’t seen before, furrowed around her eyes and fa

“No, I’m fine. I don’t need you to get me anything,” I said, sitting down on the edge of my bed. “I just need to talk to you. I need to tell you something.”

“Okay, then tell me something,” she said, her voice sounding confused but still patient as always, and she walked over to lean in next to me. “What’s this all about, Meeny? You’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring myself, too,” I said. My voice cracked. But I couldn’t dissolve into tears, not until I’d pushed the whole story out into the void between us. I closed my eyes and forced myself to speak. For the second time that day, two times more than I would have ever liked, I described everything that had happened—meeting Iris, what she had said, what I had said. I told her about the last few months, all the strange symptoms, and I told her about that morning, that afternoon out in the woods.

She didn’t say anything. No questions or observations. Not a single word the entire way through.

After I finished talking, ending right at the point when Ha

“Mina . . .” she said, her voice quiet but firm.

I breathed in and held the air deep inside of my lungs.

“Mina, I believe you.”

She believed me. And I hadn’t even needed to ask.

She reached out before I could react, and rested her palm against my flushed cheek. “Mina, I may not understand one bit of why this is happening to you or how this is happening to you or what any of this craziness means for any of us at all . . . but I do know one thing in this world, without a doubt, without any uncertainty”—she shifted to face me straight on and wrapped her hands tight around both of my shoulders—“I trust in you. I believe in you. You’re my Mina, my baby girl, and I can see right through those amazing blue eyes of yours. I can see exactly what’s inside, and I know like only a mother could know for sure that you’re not hiding a thing from me, not a thing. So if you’re crazy, then I’m crazy, and we’re just going to have to be crazy together, all right?”

“All right.” I nodded hard, up and down, up and down, still amazed by her reaction. “So . . . so what should we do next?”

We. The word felt so right on my lips.

“Well, I think I should call Dr. Keller on Monday, tell her we need an appointment as soon as possible. We have her run the standard tests, make sure we know exactly what we’re dealing with. I think it’s best we don’t tell her too much at this point. Just the basics, the symptoms, the tests you took today. We’ll fill in the gaps when we need to. I don’t want to raise too many u