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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK204 Jack Fritschersink. She%u2019d work for days to soak them out. In frustration. Ring around the sink, around her whole life. Because, poor thing, she felt too much, could accept too little the given limits of life and grace itself. %u201cVentriloquists,%u201d she had said. %u201cDummies. Parrots. Magicians. Hocus Pocus.%u201d She had blasphemed the very words of the consecration of bread and wine: Hoc est enim Corpus Meum. This is My Body. Hocus Pocus. She asked too much, expected, what? Something.I felt she had a right to expect me to answer her dilemma as much as I expected the priests to reveal to me the secrets of the answers I needed for my sake as much as hers, but she was an occasion of sin, her voice, her body, her snotty arrogant way intimating she came from some place better, and deserved to be, needed to be, was really asking to be fubbed, because her vocation was seducing innocent priests like Cyril Prosper who had been turning chivalrous and dandy toward her, following after her with his eyes.%u201cMr. O%u2019Hara,%u201d Rector Karg stood suddenly next to me and squared off his place opposite Cyril Prosper and Lock Roehm. %u201cMay I see you a moment? Excuse us, please, gentlemen.%u201dI followed Rector Karg into a cove of evergreen that sheltered a small outdoor shrine to the Virgin Mary. He looked straight ahead and made a big business with his Army Zippo of lighting a large candle among the many small candles already burning. We were alone. He had, he said, by chance happened to see me. How fortunate, he said. He had, he said, wanted to remind me of my situation. Finally, he turned and faced me.%u201cYou came so perilously close, son. Your honesty, that%u2019s what saved you. Had you lied once, about the transistor radio or anything, the smaller lie would have exposed larger lies, larger faults. Small things fall into large patterns. Are you innocent? Have you innocence?%u201d%u201cYes, Rector.%u201d%u201cForgetting nothing, I will forget everything so we can begin anew next September. But one caution.%u201d His face folded deeper behind his jaw. %u201cYou must be prudent. Prudent enough not to tell anyone what happened. Not your uncle. Not your parents. Lay people can never understand what occurs in seminaries. Silencio. Do I have your word?%u201d%u201cYes, Rector.%u201d%u201cPromise me.%u201d %u201cI promise you.%u201d%u201cYou will tell no one.%u201d%u201cI promise.%u201d%u201cYour uncle has promised.%u201d