Ivy Leaves Journal of Literature & Art – Vol. 89

II. The Girl pulls the covers to her chin and crosses her legs so that her right ankle is wrapped around her left, a contortion she believes will prevent an unplanned virgin pregnancy.

She is aware of feeling both protected from the long reach of God and dubious about the effectiveness of her solution.

But she knows this will become part of her routine. Like walking step for step with whoever is in front of her in the hallway, it is an impulse she cannot resist. She doesn’t step on cracks, her mother doesn’t die. She crosses her legs at bedtime, the Holy Spirit doesn’t impregnate her with the Christ Child.

The Girl can hear crickets outside her window. Only male crickets can chirp.

This knowledge distresses her, and she grieves silently for all the music-less girl crickets in all the world.

She thinks of the women in the Bible. All the girls, never called by God to use their hands to build a boat or free his people, only to be faithful and pregnant with miraculous baby boys. It isn’t fair. Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary.

Not me, too, Lord. Not me.

It isn’t fair.

III. Three A.M. and she is still awake. As soon as she looks at the clock, she begins the math.

Four hours until the alarm goes off. Thirty minutes until sleep could possibly commence, if she’s being realistic. And she is. Three hours and thirty minutes of sleep at best.

She could wake up an hour later, but then she wouldn’t have time for a shower, and her bangs are awkward enough without also sticking to her forehead.

She considers streaming a This American Life episode on her laptop and letting it lull her to sleep. Ira Glass’ voice is Nyquil for people too nervous to abuse over-thecounter medications. But if the podcast is too interesting or if it takes a turn into the supernatural, she knows she will never sleep. After And the Call was Coming from the Basement, she had to turn a lamp on just to escape a feeling that every shadow was something waiting to pounce.

Ghosts scare her, though she does not believe in them, or in anything supernatural.

Demons are even worse. A trailer for a movie about possession will make her afraid to be alone in the bathroom for a week, but that is not something she will mention.

The existence of her fear triggers another worry. Somewhere, deep down, she must believe demonic possession to be plausible. The Friendly United Methodist Church claimed some part of her brain early in development, and now she will never be able to root it out, not completely. Somewhere, somehow she still believes in a devil below and a God above, and this scares her most of all.

I. The golden form faded to rays of light through the window, less and less bright until the room seemed darker than it had ever been. Mary wondered if it had been real.

Unless she had succumbed to madness in a day, yes. She would have a child. And Joseph, would the light come to him as well? Or would she be cast to the streets, disgraced?

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. What would it feel like to be overshadowed by Jehovah? Mary decided it must hurt like a wedding night, but hoped it would be so painless she would not even know it had happened. Perhaps it was already done.

She twisted up her hair and pressed her neck back into the plaster. She thought about spinning the rest of the wool, but didn’t budge. There was so little time left.

How many moments would be only hers now? How long until she began to show?

What would she tell her mother, her father?