There Can be Miracles

Prologue

In the beginning, there was the Seed.

It was a Magic Seed, meaning not of a species found on earth. Now it is a popular tendency in any myth for magic seeds to be coveted and pursued at the cost of selling one's own mother, or a good fat cow if no elderly parent was available.

This was not the case with young Mary Cher. She was at the moment waking from a bad dream where a beautiful winged being of uncertain sex was trying to tell her that there was a future appointment with the proverbial stork due to the planting of a Magic Seed in her virgin womb, and it had nothing to do with the kiss her boyfriend Joseph had given her yesterday while hidden behind a potted plant. (Joseph was a rather shy fellow whose idea of a wet dream was getting caught in the rain with his girl.) Besides, every modern learned girl knew that you didn't get babies from kissing or holding hands. Babies were what happened after marriage. No unwedded youth below twenty knew exactly what it was that happened between the marriage and the baby, but apparently it had something to do with tortured bedsprings.

Mary was perspiring on her pillow, her nerves in a wreck. Like any person thoroughly educated in the mysterious ways of God, she instinctively knew the difference between dreams that were simply the result of your subconscious, and dreams that foretold significant events in the near future. And one certainly did not ignore divine winged beings, especially when they got overenthusiastic with the trumpeting and heralding.

It had been a particularly loud heralding, which must mean that whatever was happening to her was of utmost importance.

About twenty minutes later, Joseph the village carpenter's son was shaken from a sound slumber by a panicked redhead girl.

"Jo, I think we're in trouble."

"But I meant it to be good news!" groaned Gabriel.

YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE EASIER ON THE HERALDING, replied the booming voice. BESIDES WHICH, PREGNANCY IS NOT ALWAYS PERCEIVED AS CELEBRATORY IN THESE TIMES, ESPECIALLY OUT OF –

"Weedlock?" the Archangel hazarded a guess.

WEDLOCK, ACTUALLY.

"Right." A wise resounding pause. Then: "What is that anyway?"

IT IS A TRIVIAL ISSUE. AN INVENTION OF MODERN MANKIND WHICH YOU ARE NOT TO BUSY YOURSELF WITH.

"So my job is done, Lord?"

FOR NOW. I SHALL CALL ON YOU AGAIN SOON. THIS STORY IS JUST BEGINNING.

"Couldn't you send Raphael instead? People seem to be less afraid of him…"