The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Inside, he moved toward the altar, pointing. “There it is. Saint Ifritia’s foot,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” said Mina, stepping up beside him.

“Right there,” he said and pointed again.

She looked, and an instant later went weak. Father Walter caught her by the arm. She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I can’t believe it,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “But there it is. You mustn’t touch it with your hands. You must only kiss the toes. I’ll stand outside. You can have a few minutes alone with it.”

“Thank you so much,” she said, tears in her eyes.

He went outside. Leaning against the buffeting wind, he pushed aside the bamboo curtain that protected the shrine’s one window. Through the sliver of space, he watched Mina approach the altar. Her hands were folded piously in front of her, as he’d instructed. He realized that if she’d not worn the heels, she’d never have been able to reach the foot with her lips. As it was, she had to go up on her toes. Her head bobbed forward to the relic, but it wasn’t a quick kiss she gave. Her head moved slightly forward and back, and Father Walter pictured her tongue passionately laving the rotten toes. It both gave him a thrill and made him queasy. He had a premonition that he’d be drinking hard into the night.

After the longest time, Mina suddenly turned away from the foot. Father Walter let the bamboo curtain slide back into place and waited to greet her. She exited the shrine, and he said, “How was that? Did you feel the spirit?” but she never slowed to answer. Walking right past him, she headed toward the outhouse. The sand blew fiercely, but she didn’t bother to hold her hat and it flew from her head. Mina walked as if in a trance. Father Walter was surprised when she didn’t go to the outhouse, but passed it and headed up out of the valley in the dunes. On the beach, the wind would have been ten times worse. As she ascended, he called to her to come back.

She passed over the rim, out of sight, and he was reluctant to follow her, knowing the ghost of the driver might be lurking in the blinding sandstorm. He turned back toward the church, his mind a knot of thoughts. Was she having a holy experience? Had he offended her? Was she poisoned by the old foot? He stopped to fetch her hat, which had blown up against the side of the outhouse.

That night, his premonition came true, and the whiskey flowed. He opened Mina GilCragson’s travel bag and went through her things. By candlelight, whiskey in one hand, he inspected each of her articles of clothing. When holding them up, he recognized the faint scent of wild violets. He wondered if she was a saint. While he was searching for evidence in the aroma of a pair of her underpants, Sister North appeared out of the shadows.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“Sniffing out a holy bouquet. I believe our visitor today may have been a saint.”

“She was nothing of the sort,” said Sister North, who stepped forward and backhanded Father Walter hard across the face. His whiskey glass flew from his grasp and he dropped the underpants. Consciousness blinked off momentarily and then back on. He stared at her angry, yellow eyes as she reached out, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him to his feet. “Come with me,” she said.

Outside, the sandstorm had abated and the night was clear and cool and still. Not letting go, she pulled Father Walter toward the shrine. He stumbled once and almost fell, and for his trouble, she kicked him in the rear end. Candlelight shone out from the shrine’s one window, its bamboo curtain now rolled up. Sister North marched the father up to the altar and said to him, “Look at that.”

“Look at what?” he said, stunned by drink and surprise.

“What else?” she asked.

And, upon noticing, he became instantly sober, for the big toe of the holy foot was missing. “My God,” he said, moving closer to it. Where the toe had been was a knuckle-stump of sheered gristle. “I thought she was sucking on it, but in fact she was chewing off the toe,” he said, turning to face Sister North.

“You thought she was sucking on it . . .” she said. “Since when is sucking the holy toes allowed?”

“She was a scholar of Saint Ifritia. I never suspected she was a thief.”

Sister North took a seat and gave herself up to tears. He sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. They stayed in the shrine until the candles melted down and the dawn brought bird calls. Then they went to his bed. Before she fell asleep, the sister said to him, “It happened because you lied.”

He thought about it. “Nahh,” he said. “It was bound to happen someday.” He slept and dreamt of the driver’s wife and daughters. When he woke, Sister North was gone.

Sister North’s Sermon