a mix of whoops and cheers and angry shouts. The throng pressed forward, calling his name out and waving, the euphoria of the faithful at the front of the mob only riling even more those opposed to Father Jerome’s appearance, and the fighting farther back gained in intensity. Shouts of “Kafir,” Blasphemer, and “La ilah illa Allah,” There is no God but Allah, resounded angrily across the plain as incensed protesters started throwing rocks up at the keep.
Father Jerome stared down at the raging maelstrom below, beads of sweat trickling down his face. Slowly, he raised his arms, stretching them high and wide in a welcoming gesture. Again, as his mere appearance had done a short moment earlier, the gesture only seemed to polarize the crowd below even more and fuel the fighting.
“Please,” he yelled out in an Arabic that was heavily accented, “Please, stop. Please stop and listen to me.” His pleas could hardly be heard over the chaos raging below, and had no effect on the commotion. With rocks still pelting the wall of the keep and flying wildly past him, he remained steadfast and shut his eyes, his face locked in deep concentration, his arms held high—
—and suddenly, the crowd gasped in shock. Gracie saw people pointing upward—not at the priest, but higher up, at the sky above him, and she spun her head up and saw a ball of light, perhaps twenty feet or so in diameter, swirling over the priest. It hovered there for a moment, then started to rise directly above him, and as it did, it suddenly flared up both in size and in brightness and morphed into the sign, the same one she’d seen over the ice shelf. It now blazed overhead, a massive, spherical kaleidoscope of shifting light patterns, its lower edge hovering no more than twenty feet or so directly above Father Jerome.
The throng below just froze, rooted in place, entranced, staring up in openmouthed awe. The stones stopped flying. The brawls ended. The shouting died out. The sign was just there, shimmering brilliantly, rotating very slowly, almost within reach, closer now than it had been over the research ship, its radiant lines and circles mesmerizing.
Dalton was lying on his back at the very edge of the roof, filming the sign and panning back down to get the crowd’s reaction. Gracie was still crouching near him, fifteen feet or so away from Father Jerome, who had his head tilted back and was staring up at the blazing apparition above him, dumbfounded. The camera swung back, stopping momentarily to settle on Gracie. She stared into the dark abyss of the lens, tongue-tied. She wanted to say something, she could feel the whole world watching, hanging on the edge of their seats, willing her to tell them what it felt like to be there, but she couldn’t do it. The moment was simply beyond words. She looked up at the blazing sphere of light, then Father Jerome brought his head back down, and as he did, she caught his eye. She could tell that he was shivering, and saw a tear trickle down his cheek. He looked scared and confused, his stricken expression telegraphing an am-I-really-doing-this anguish to her and quietly pleading for some kind of confirmation, as if he didn’t believe what was happening. She mustered up a confirming nod and a supportive smile—then his expression shifted, as if something had suddenly startled him from within. He closed his eyes, as if locked in concentration, then, a few seconds later, he turned to face the crowd. He looked down on them for a moment, then he spread his arms expansively and tilted his head upward to face the sign. He shut his eyes again and breathed in deeply, basking in the sign’s radiance, drinking in its energy. The masses below were still paralyzed, staring up in shocked silence, their arms stretched upward toward him, reaching out, as if trying to touch the hollow globe of light.
Father Jerome maintained his outstretched stance for the better part of a minute, then he opened his eyes to face the crowd.
“Pray with me,” he bellowed out to them, his voice thick with emotion, his arms raised to the heavens. “Let us all pray together.”
And they did.
In a stadium wave-like reaction that spread slowly and silently from the front to the back of the crowd, every single person outside the monastery—Christian and Muslim, believer and protester alike—fell to their knees and bent forward, all of them