Chapter one

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This chapter sets up the story.  Chapters two and three will show Theresa's maturation into a teenager and introduce Steve Hartley who will be critical to the story.  The action will begin in Chapter four. ( It's cliche to put a murder, explosion or something of that nature on page one to 'grab' the reader,  but in Empress Theresa,  the characters are the most important element of the story.  The eye-popping scenes will take care of themselves later. )    

                                  EMPRESS THERESA

                                       Norman Boutin

 

                                     Chapter 1

      I’m Theresa, the younger daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Sullivan, and I hope it’s not bragging to say I was cute as heck at age ten.  Everybody in the family said so.  I was the princess in the Sullivan clan of Framingham, Massachusetts because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition.  All the relatives expected great things from me.  

      Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they’d been told.  Prime Minister Blair said I’d still be remembered in a million years. 

      Did you catch that?

      Churchill, Hitler, and Lincoln will be footnotes in dusty history books a thousand years from now, and nobody remembers Charles Martel who saved Christianity in Europe by winning the Battle of Tours thirteen hundred years ago to set up the world as we know it today, but Prime Minister Blair said I’d be remembered for a million years.  Mr. Blair is not inclined to exaggerating.  I was the last person you would expect to earn that accolade.  I was a nobody from nowhere.   When this story began I was a little girl who didn’t have much of a clue about anything.  My job as a kid was to figure out what the heck was going on and what to do about it.  It’s not easy when you’re young and everything is brand new.

      My father once served a tour in the Navy.  He said I had to be the captain of my ship but sometimes the seas would be rough.  I had to learn all I could about the world.  I wondered why should I be worrying about it in the fourth grade?  I’d soon find out.

      We’re lost in this confusing world unless we follow the directions of its Maker.  I did.  It’s the only thing that got me through.

      Everybody has pressures.  There are two kinds.  One is threats to your life and health.  I had more than my share of that with a thousand assassins wanting to get me.  The other kind is bearing responsibility for other people’s lives and welfare. That’s really tough if you care about them.  I set new world records in that department. People were sure I’d crack under the pressure, but I didn’t. It will take smarter heads than mine to figure out why not.

      I’ll be telling my own story which is a good thing because nobody knows it as well as me.  The drawback is that there are some things I can’t know because I wasn’t there.  For example, Prime Minister Blair and President Stinson mentioned they talked to each other on the phone.  They must have talked with many other heads of state and it would be interesting to know what was said.  It’s a sure bet they discussed how to eliminate me if I got out of control, but I can’t know any of that.  It can be frustrating not knowing these things.  But remember you’ll learn things in the same sequence I did.  Somebody else telling my story could only say what I did in the world.  They couldn’t get in my head like you will.  You’ll see what a horrible, worldwide mess I had to deal with.

      My story began quietly with no hint of what was coming.

      I was home with my 17 year old sister Catherine who was old enough to be my babysitter.  She made it possible for mom to go back to her part time  job without leaving me alone.   Catherine hadn’t been a whiz in school like me and she was thinking of going to one of the many trade schools around Boston after high school.  Mom and dad said I should go to college.    

       Oops!  Before going on I have to mention an odd incident that happened six months before I was born.   Mom was raking leaves in the backyard when she noticed a fox sitting on its haunches ten feet away.  It was staring at her.   A metal rake is a good weapon against a creature as small as a fox and mom held her ground.   After five minutes the fox walked away.   This strange event seemed unimportant.  My parents forgot about it for eighteen years.

      OK.   Now I can begin my story.

      Our house was next to a pond close to the river where all the neighborhood’s kids spent many happy hours looking for turtles and frogs.  I was lounging on the deck reading a book on the school summer list.  Catherine was inside reading a magazine. 

     Taking a momentary break from the book, I noticed a red fox walking along the pond's edge.  It disappeared behind the little patch of woods which dad let grow wild like most of the neighbors.  This was very rare.  Red foxes were never seen in broad daylight during the summer months.  It didn't happen. 

      Then something really amazing happened.  It came out of the woods and walked towards me!

      I kept still and waited to see how close it came before noticing me.  It was sixty feet away, forty, twenty.  By now it was clear it was looking at me.  I considered running into the house, but curiosity won out.        

      The fox reached the four steps of the deck.  It came up the steps, stopped, and sat on its haunches staring at me.  It did not seem vicious so I waited. 

      In an instant, faster than you could blink an eye, a softball sized white ball emerged from the fox and went straight into my stomach.

      I screamed and ran into the house.  The fox ran away.  I slid the glass deck door closed and locked it just in time to see the fox disappear in the woods.

      “What did you scream for?” asked Catherine who had walked into the kitchen.

       “There was a fox out there.”

       “He won’t hurt you” she said and went back to the living room.

       I stood at the glass door for five minutes watching for anything else that might happen.  At last I thought it was all over.

      I went into the living room to sit down and think.  What was that white thing?  I couldn’t come up with any theory.  It was nothing I had ever seen on those television nature programs.

      Perhaps it was a daydream from not eating enough.  Mom had warned me about that.  At age ten I was already conscious of my weight and tried to stay skinny.  I should eat something. 

      I went into the kitchen to prepare an early lunch of fried eggs, a strip of bacon, toast, and milk.  I gobbled all this down in a couple of minutes and soon felt better.  It was too little eating after all.  Nothing had really happened.

       Satisfied, I walked back into the living room to find something else to do.  I turned on the television and watched the late morning talk shows for a while.

      I heard fire trucks in the distance blaring their deep toned sirens.  These trucks could be heard from a mile away.  They were coming closer.  And closer.  Soon the sound made it obvious they were in the vicinity of our street.  My intuition told me this had something to do with the white thing that jumped at me.

      I went out the front door and waited on the lawn.  The sirens were very close, and, yes, there they were turning into the street, a tanker truck and a small ladder truck.  The two vehicles went halfway down the street and stopped.  Already people were coming out of houses to watch the excitement.

      The yellow fire engines had loudspeakers that sent out vocal messages loud enough to rattle windows.  A conversation was going on between the firemen and the station.

      “What do you have?”

      “A hundred and fifteen degrees here” a fireman shouted. 

      “It‘s seventy here.”

      “Yup.  We have something.”

      A crowd of neighbors was gathering near the confused firemen.  I walked over to join the onlookers.   “What's going on?”  I asked one of my girlfriends.

      “They're looking for a fire.”

      The girl's father said, “The temperature jumped up in a few minutes.  Somebody called the fire department.”

      It was hot.  It was nice a little while ago.  I thought it over.  A fox appears in daylight which never happens, it comes up practically to my feet, the white thing jumps into me, and the firemen look for a fire that doesn't exist.  All this happened within an hour.  There had to be a connection.

      Before long the fire chief arrived in his yellow sedan.  He asked the lead fireman if anything had been found.  Then they walked over somebody's property to look at the pond.  Nothing there. 

      “Could it be a ground fire?” the fireman asked the chief.

       “Not likely with water over there unless there‘s a rock ledge underneath.  We have to check it out.”

       Thermistor probes were brought from the station, and firemen spent the rest of the morning pushing the probes a few inches into the ground to check the temperature.  They did this on everyone's lawn, the area inside the turnaround at the end of the street, and finally went into people's back yards.  They found nothing.

      Around one o'clock the temperature in our neighborhood had dropped back down to eighty degrees.  The firemen gave up and left.

      I was young and inexperienced, but I wasn't a dumbbell.  If people found out what happened today they’d pester me about it forever.  My Cousin Mary was diagnosed a schizophrenic and the whole Sullivan clan was biting their nails waiting for the gene to show up in some other family member.  It wasn’t going to be me!  I resolved to never tell anybody.  Not even my parents would know.  They’d think I was ill like Cousin Mary.  I didn’t need it.

      Two days later I woke up early and walked into the living room.  Mom was looking intently out the window.   “What’s going on?” I asked.

      “There’s some men parked down next to the turnaround.  They’ve been there all night.”

      I looked and sure enough a van and a four door sedan were parked in the turnaround where they could see every house on the street.

      “Mrs. Gagnon said a police car stopped to talk to them at two a.m.” said mom.  “They showed IDs and a little later the police left.”

      Dad woke up and heard the same story.  As mom and dad got ready for work another police car came around the street but left without stopping.

       Other people left for work.  The morning wore on.  The mail truck came by at ten.  I walked out to get the mail while Catherine was in her room. Two minutes after I got back in the house the car and van drove away.  They had spotted me.

      How did they know about me?

      I sat on the sofa thinking for a while.  I felt I was being watched.  Or was somebody listening?

      I spotted the phone.  Was somebody listening on the phone?

      I dialed 0 for the operator.

     “Operator.  How may I help you?”

     “Can I have the number for Alice Pizza in Framingham?”

     “One moment, please.”

     Ten seconds later another woman said, “Alice Pizza, 555-8402.”

     “Thanks.”  I hung up.  So they weren’t listening.

      The weekend arrived.  Mom and I went to Boston to shop in the Washington Street shopping district.  We drove down to the Boston Commons underground parking garage.   I thought I saw some car come in right behind us and park close to our car.

      We got up to the surface and a man followed us.  We went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore first because if we bought something it would be small and easy to carry the rest of the day.  I looked through the books on sale and thought I saw a different man watching me.   Barnes and Noble had two floors.  “I’m going upstairs, mom” I said. 

      There was an escalator to the second floor.  I went along the wall stopping now and then pretending to look at books and that same man from downstairs always seemed to be close to me.  He was spying on me. 

      Later, we went to McDonald’s and I spotted another man who walked behind us into the restaurant.  He was there as long as we were and after we left I looked back and he was coming out too.   But he stopped at a corner.  Another man standing on the corner started walking in our direction.

      We got back home and mom took things into the bedroom.  I dialed the operator again.

      “Operator.  How may I help you?”

      “Can you give me the number for Alice Pizza in Framingham?”

      “One moment, please.”

      I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  A full minute passed by and she hadn’t come up with the number yet. 

      I hung up the phone.   Now they knew I knew.

      While I was young I had some feeble ideas of what this all meant.  My life wasn’t going to be like that of other kids.  I had to think like somebody important, somebody with responsibilities. I was something special.  Maybe I was dangerous, or that was what the government was thinking.   Someday they would come around and talk to me.  I wasn’t stupid enough to think they would just watch me for the rest of my life.

      Two days later mom took me to a nearby strip mall.  There was a DVD movie rental store.  I looked around for the classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  They’d shown it on television a couple months ago. 

      I played and replayed the parts of the movie where the astronauts talked to HAL.  The most chilling scene was when astronaut Dave Bowman left the spaceship in a pod to retrieve the body of his dead astronaut partner drifting through space.  When he flew back to the spaceship, he said one of Hollywood's most famous lines:

      “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”

      But the spaceship's computer, HAL, wouldn't open the door.  It was a creepy scene.

      The summer days rolled by.  I saw the watchers following me everywhere.  Mom did most of her grocery shopping on Saturday and I usually went with her because Catherine wandered off with her friends.  While mom was talking to the meat counter clerk I went down the breakfast cereal aisle to choose something.

      “Hi, Theresa.”

      Some woman I didn’t know was standing next to me.  She looked to be in her early twenties and had a friendly smile. 

      “Hi” I said with a young kid’s taciturnity.

      “Do you have a cellphone?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Call me when you’re alone.”  She handed me a piece of paper with a phone number.

       The woman knew that I knew about my watchers.  I had often stared at them.  So this woman also knew I had to think she was one of them and I had to be curious enough to talk to her.

      When we got back home I went to my room and called the number.  My curiosity about the watchers overcame my wish to keep HAL secret. I wanted to know how they knew about me.  The woman answered.  Her spies must have told her I was home.

      “Hi” said the cheerful woman.  “I'm Jan Struthers from the United States Government.  Are you alone?”

      “Yeah.  Are you?”

      “You know I’m not.  There are sixty people with me in this room.  Can we talk?”

       My childhood was over.  All I wanted was an ordinary life like everybody else. It looked like I wouldn’t get it.

      “About what?”

      “About your little secret.  We know it.”

      I thought about that.  Everybody had secrets. Talking to this woman wouldn’t be admitting mine.

      “Something happened to you to make those fire trucks come to this neighborhood.  You were giving off a lot of heat.  We know you were because we saw it all around you.  What happened before the fire trucks came?”

      “I don’t have to tell you anything, do I?”

      Jan Struthers maintained her friendly attitude.

      “No, you don’t.  But it will make things a lot easier if you tell us something.  We’re not going away.  We will be spying on you from now on.  We have to.  Whatever happened is very important.”

      “You don’t know anything that happened?”

      “We know a lot.  Something from outer space came to Earth seven years ago.  We’ve been looking for it ever since.  That heat you were giving off has to have something to do with that thing from outer space.”

      I considered that.  Jan Struthers gave me a moment and then brought out a point.

      “There is nothing natural to Earth that could have caused that heat.  The thing from space did it.  We watched you rent that movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  You are aware of that thing.  What happened before the fire trucks came?”

      There was no use denying something happened.  They already knew.

      “I saw a fox walking near the water.  It came up close to me and a white thing jumped out of it.  That's all.”

     “Where did the white thing go?”

     “In me.”

     “How big was this white thing?”

     “Like a softball.”

     “Did it come from the fox?”

     “Yup.  Came right out.”

     “What part of the fox?”

     “The stomach.”

     “How did it jump out at you?”

     “It moved in my stomach.”

     I wasn’t very enthusiastic about telling the story.  Jan Struthers had to force it out of me one tiny piece at a time.

     “How long did that take?”

     “Like that.”  I snapped my fingers at the phone.

     “Did you feel anything?”

     “Nope.”

     “Did this white ball look solid like a steel ball?”

     “Nope.  Fuzzy like cotton.”

     “What happened then?”

     “I ran into the house and waited.  Then I ate breakfast.  I thought I was going crazy.”

     “How long after the white ball jumped at you did the fire trucks come?”

     “Half an hour.”

     “Did the white thing change you in any way?”

     “No.”

     “Does it make sounds or talk to you?”

     “No.”

     “Have you seen it again?”

     “No.  It's like it went away.”

     “How have you been eating lately?”

     “Like I always do.”

     Jan took a break to think what else she should ask.  This was the most important interview since Moses came down the mountain.

     “Would you be willing to come in to talk to some smart people and figure out what this thing is?”

     “I didn't do anything.”

     “All right.”  She dropped that line immediately!  “You rented 2001:A Space Odyssey.  What did it show you?”

     “It showed me don't talk to this thing.  It's like talking to the devil.”

      “Do you have a name for it?”

      “HAL.”

      “Like the computer.  The monolith was the alien, not the computer.”

      “The monolith didn’t talk.”

      “Does HAL talk?”

      “No.”

      “It's a good idea not to try to talk to it.  Don't stir it up.”

      “What is HAL?”

     “We don't know.  We saw it seven years ago but haven't seen or heard about it since.  You're the only one who's seen it.”

      “Does it come from space?”

      “Probably, but that may not be bad.  This thing may never do anything.

      “I think that covers everything.  I have to emphasize how important it is to tell nobody about this.  Don't give a hint to anybody.  If you talk to somebody they will too and you will never be able to live the life you want.  No college.  No job.  No marriage.  No friends.  You'll have to stay at home all the time.  This is the last thing we want.  A lot of people are trying to keep this secret.”

      “What if one of my watchers talks?”

      “Most of our people don't know why they're watching you.  Only the people at the top know.  I'm one of the few people who knows you give off heat.  Without knowing that nobody can prove you have anything to do with HAL.  That's the biggest secret.  Without knowing about the heat they can't spot you or suspect anything.”

      “Don’t those sixty people know about me?”

      “Very good, Theresa!  I’m impressed!  These people are top ranking officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency.  Your watchers are people hired from outside.  They know nothing.”

      “Can I tell my parents?”

      “That’s up to you.  But remember, if you can’t keep it a secret, why should your parents?  Your mother will want to share it with Aunt Jessica.  Then Aunt Jessica will want to share it with Uncle John.  Before you know it ten thousand reporters will be parked in front of your house for the rest of your life.”

      “Not if HAL never does anything.”

      “All the more so.  It’s anticipating something that hasn’t happened yet that interests people.”

     A break in the conversation let me absorb this new idea.  This was heavy stuff for a ten year old to think about.

      Something else had made me wonder.  “Why is the operator one of you guys?”

     “You might ask the operator to connect you to somebody, maybe somebody outside the country.  We need to know who it is.  It’s for your protection.”

      “How can I give off heat without burning up?”

      “Hold on.”

      There was a moment of silence.  I had stumped her!

     “Theresa, we think HAL is doing a lot of things around you but not inside you.  It’s like you’re in a party.  A lot of people are dancing around you but they’re not making you dance.”

     That sounded reasonable.  “Okay.”

     “Well, I’ll leave you alone now.  Thanks for talking with me.  Call anytime you have questions.”

     She hung up.  I’ll bet the sixty people cheered her for doing a good job.

      There it was.  They tapped the phone and watched me all the time.  And they knew I knew I was being watched.   But I said nothing to mom and dad.  What must the spies be thinking about that?

      In a moment I realized Jan Struthers hadn’t asked me if I’d told anybody besides my parents the secret.  They knew I hadn’t.  How did they know that?

      One day I woke up at 6:30 a.m., tumbled out of bed, and changed to jeans and sweatshirt before my groggy eyes cleared and I noticed an orange spot in the middle of my field of view.  It was right there in the exact middle no matter where I looked.  I hadn't noticed immediately because it was small.  It was like an orange golf ball at forty feet.

      I put on shoes and walked to the living room.  The orange spot was always there.  I went out to the backyard.  Likewise, the little orange ball was always there even when I looked up at the sky.  HAL must have had something to do with it.

      “What is that for?” I whispered.

      A few days later I was working in the tiny garden I kept in the backyard.  I liked to grow pumpkins, which were fairly easy to grow, and would grow eight plants a year in the small plot.  The plants now had vines three feet long with little one inch pumpkins.  They would expand rapidly in the next month until they reached eight or ten inches in diameter in September.   

      I was pulling up the annoying weeds that kept sprouting up all the time.  The worst was that prickly weed whose name I didn’t know that would grow three feet tall if you let it.  I used a hand spade to dig one of the prickly weeds up by the roots and felt a rock.  I brought up the three inch wide flat rock and threw it at a gallon water sprinkler can ten feet away.  The rock hit the can dead center.  I hadn’t even tried to do that.  I found another rock and threw it at the can.  It too hit the can.

      I got the rocks and walked fifteen away from the can.  I threw the rocks while keeping the orange dot in my eye field on the can.  The rocks hit the can again.

      I got the rocks once more and walked fifty feet away.  Nobody could hit the can from this distance.  I threw.  The rocks hit the can.  So that’s what the orange dot was for.  It was an aiming device.  It got the rocks to whatever I was looking at.  Interesting, but I couldn’t see any use for it. 

      Two days later I saw ten year old Tommy Kearns walking back from the nearby convenience store.  I sometimes saw him throwing a baseball with another boy.  

      “Going to Tommy’s house, mom.”

      “OK, dear.”

      Tommy’s house was four homes down the street.  I knocked on the Kearns door.  The mother answered.

      “Hi.  Is Tommy here?”

      The mother found Tommy and told him Theresa was visiting.  Tommy came to the door.

      “Hi, Theresa.”

      “Hi.  You want to pass the ball?”

      “Sure.  I’ll get it.”

      He retrieved a baseball and two baseball gloves and we went to the street.  We stood roughly fifteen feet apart and passed the ball back and forth.  I backed up to twenty feet and we continued passing.  I was getting the ball straight to Tommy’s chest.  He was not doing as well.  I had to take a step or two to the side to catch the ball.  Tommy stood in place.

      “Hey!  You’re good!”  Tommy exclaimed.  “How do you do that?”

      “I’m a natural” I said.

      I backed up to thirty feet.  It went the same way.  I hit Tommy dead on while Tommy’s aim was typical for a ten year old.  Bad.

      Tommy’s father came out and walked to Tommy.

      “Can I take over, son?”

      Tommy was glad to be relieved.

      The father smiled and asked, “Ready?”

       “Yeah” I said.  

      We tossed back and forth.  Tommy’s father had an accurate aim.  I didn’t have to step side to side to catch the ball.

      After a few throws Tommy’s father backed up to around forty feet.  No ten year old could throw accurately at this distance, he must have thought.  We tossed the ball.  I invariably got the ball straight to Tommy’s father.  This went on for another ten minutes.  Other people had been coming out to watch.   

      At last, the father noticed that I was getting tired.  This was August and it was very hot.

      “Let’s call it quits, Theresa” the father said.  “It’s getting hot.” 

      “OK.”

      I went aside to talk to Tommy.   Several adults  came up to Tommy’s father.   One of them asked him,  “How good is she?”

      “She’s incredible.  Someday she might pitch for the Red Sox.”

      August rolled on.  It was a week before I was to begin the fifth grade and I could think of little else.  Most kids said they hated school.  I loved it.  It was there that I met all my friends who were scattered all over town in the summer,  there that the girls invited each other to each other’s homes. 

      It was a working day for my parents and   Catherine had eaten something. I began throwing together lunch for myself.  Mom had bought steaks.  There was a new bottle of steak sauce.  I tried to open it but it was tight.  The trouble with these steak bottles was that the cap was so narrow.  There was no leverage to twist it.  I tried harder.  No wonder little old ladies starved to death.  A little more effort and the bottle broke.  Steak sauce spilled on the counter.  A steak sauce bottle had particularly thick glass and should  be unbreakable.

      I cleaned up the mess and put away the rest of the food.  I wanted to think.  How had I broken the thick glass bottle which not even a strong man could have done?  Did I have a lot of strength? 

      I looked around for something to lift.  The living room sofa was the heaviest piece of furniture in the house.  I lifted one end of it easily.  But so did dad.  How could I tell how strong I was?

      I went to the basement and looked around.  Like many people we Sullivans kept lots of junk we never used.  I rummaged around and found two complete sets of old lawn horseshoes, grabbed a horseshoe with both hands and tried to twist it.  At first it didn’t change, but as I applied more force HAL seemed to get the idea.  The horseshoe bent easily.       

      The next morning I approached mom.

      “I want to see Father Richard.”

      She spun her head around in surprise.

      “What about?”

       “I can’t tell you.”

      “Honey, you can tell me anything.  Maybe I can help.”

      “I can’t tell you.”

     Mom was worried.  Something serious must be going on, but even at age ten I had certain rights to privacy.   

      “All right, dear.  I’ll drive you.”

      On the way through the living room I picked up a burlap shopping bag used by environmentally conscious people who didn’t want paper or plastic.   

      “What’s in there?”  mom asked.

      “Horseshoes.”

      “Why are you taking those?”

      “It’s a secret.”

      Mom was really worried.  She made a quick call to the rectory to make sure Father Richard Donoughty would be there.  We drove the one and a half miles to the rectory and were met at the door by the smiling twenty-nine year old priest.  I knew I could trust him to keep my secret.  Priests were supposed to be beyond salvation if they revealed a secret, or something like that.  That’s what I thought then.   

      “Ah.  Theresa wants to be a nun?”  he joked.

      “She won’t tell me what it’s about.”

      “Oh.”  He got more serious.  “Do we all talk together?”

      “No” I said.  “Me alone.”

      “Very well.  Mrs.  Sullivan…”  He indicated the living room which served as a waiting room.  “This way”  he smiled showing me to his office.

      Father Donoughty sat at his desk and I sat in a chair in front of him.

      “Now, Theresa.  What’s on your mind?”

      “I have to show you something.”

      I took three horseshoes out of the bag and stacked them together.  The ends had small bends and I had to arrange the horseshoes with one advanced over the one below so that the rest of the structures would lie flat on top of each other.  Then I grabbed all three shoes at once by the ends and started trying to twist them.   I applied more and more pressure over some fifteen or so seconds until I did succeed in bending the horseshoes about fifty degrees.  I put them down on his desk.

      The priest thought it had to be a trick.  He picked up a horseshoe and tried to bend it with all his strength.  It didn’t budge.  He tried the other two with the same result.  It was no trick.  I had bent all three at once.

      He tried to remain calm as I waited patiently for his comment.  The thought of diabolic possession had to be the first thought that came to him.  Possession was often manifested by super strength.       

      He managed to say, “How did you do that?”

      “I have something from space.  The government knows about it.  They watch me all the time.  They followed me.  I saw them.”

      “When?”

      “When we came here.  Mom doesn’t know.”

      “They followed you here?”

      “Yeah.  They’re in the green car.”  I pointed in the direction of the parking lot.

      He got up to look out the window at the small parking lot.  There was a green car out there, a four door sedan.   Instead of driving into the parking space as everybody did, they had backed up so that the two men inside could watch the rectory.  There was a blue car next to it similarly backed in to watch the rectory.  This car had a male driver and female passenger.

      “Can you wait here a minute, Theresa?”

      “Yeah.”

      He went outside.  The window was open in the heat, so I walked over to listen to whatever I might hear.  When Jan Struthers saw him she instantly got out of the blue car and quickly walked over to him.   

      “These men don’t know everything.  Only I do.  What did Theresa say?”

      “I’m not at liberty to say.”

      “It’s not the usual stuff?”

      “It isn’t.”

      “It’s critical you tell no one.  Theresa will be the first to suffer.  People will come after her.  They’ll kidnap her, kill her, or worse.”

      “Who are you?”

      “I work for the American government.”

      “How many of you are there?”

      “Hundreds.”

      “That’s a lot of people.”

      “Do you understand how important this is?”

      “I’m beginning to.”

      Father Donoughty thought things over for a moment.

      “I’ll need to tell the Cardinal.”

      “Why?”

      “Theresa needs one person she can trust.  I need the Cardinal’s help to stay close to her wherever she is.”

      “All right, but it goes no further.  Don‘t call him on the phone.  Talk to him in person.”

      Jan Struthers walked back to her car and he returned to his office.

      “I’d like the Cardinal to come here and talk with you some time.  Is that all right?”

      “Sure” I said.  

      A meeting was arranged with the Cardinal.  It was concluded that there was no diabolical possession.  I was a perfectly normal good girl.  My story, confirmed by the brief visit of Jan Struthers, had to be true no matter how amazing it was.

      I did so well in the fifth grade it was decided I’d skip the sixth and go straight into seventh.  I would graduate from high school at seventeen.  Part of the decision to let me skip a year was my hair.  It started growing very thick after HAL came around.  I mean, you could grab a handful of my hair and feel the weight like it was wet.  Mom was sure this was a sign of my “change of life” and I needed to be with girls my own emotional age. 

      Yeah, well, I was growing up fast, but it wasn’t because of hormones.   I was worrying about HAL, and so were a lot of others.  Jan Struthers walked by me sometimes in a store or someplace when mom and dad were out of sight.  She asked how things were going and asked was there any news about HAL.  I never told her about the orange spot in my eye field or the strength HAL gave me.  They’d haul me off to some laboratory.  One time I asked her how many people were watching me.  “Four hundred” she said!  It takes that many people to watch somebody twenty-four hours a day without being noticed.  It would be easier if I lived in an Iowa farmhouse.  They could keep an eye on me from a distance.  But when mom and I went into Boston, a hundred and fifty watchers had to spread out to keep an eye on me.  It would be just as bad when I went to high school and moved around a lot. 

      Jan said, “I suggested we just give you ten million dollars if you promised to stay home.  They turned it down.”

       They were right.  I wouldn’t stay home.



THE FOUR CORNERSTONES OF THERESA'S PHILOSOPHY:

"We're lost in this confusing world unless we follow the directions of its Maker."   page 2

"As a believer I was sure I was immortal and that gave me courage."  page 70

 "I did everything correctly.  In this world perfection isn't good enough."  page 207

( Theresa is trying to do something good for everybody, but nothing seems to be going right. When everything you believe in seems to be letting you down, your sanity is in danger. Every good person has had this experience in some way. )

 
"I'm very simple.  I follow my conscience.  I am what I do.  If you think that's easy, try it for one day."  page 391