Of course! MS stood for Maria Stelopolis, the other woman who touched the nipple, the one the herbalist remembered! No wonder he didn’t know what had happened to her—she probably came here and perished! Never to be heard of again. For a second Clarissa wanted to weep, imagining herself curled up, dying alone at the entrance of the cave, miles from anyone.
“Get a grip,” she told herself. “This cave is real; women have stayed here before and survived. I’m going to recover from whatever’s happening to me. I will!” She took a deep shuddering breath and forced her heartbeat to slow down. Then she was overwhelmed by another bout of extreme hunger. Again she was driven to the table, this time with an insatiable desire for cheese. In half an hour she’d consumed half her supply of feta. Finally she was forced to drag the bed over to the kitchen table, which she had covered with fruit, olives, bread, and yogurt. She spent the rest of the day lying on the bed, cramming herself with food. She continued to swell at a rapid rate. By late afternoon she’d abandoned her loose dress as it had grown too tight and had wrapped herself in a sheet.
Outside, the shadows grew longer. Clarissa walked heavily over to the fireplace. She lit the pile of driftwood balanced precariously over the mound of coals, then turned on the lamp. She had just made her way back to the bed when she was gripped by a terrible cramp. It lasted for about five seconds then disappeared. Minutes later she was seized by another shocking pain. It went on for hours. With each new wave of agony she swore that she would make herself crawl outside and just scream for help, but then the pain would abate and she could do nothing except gather her strength to deal with the next surge. There were times when she thought the agony would kill her, would split her in two like a peach being ripped open, but as the night progressed she slowly sensed a shift within her body.
The first light heralded the dawn. With a mighty effort Clarissa pulled herself to her feet and squatted, acting on pure instinct. She screamed—one long howl at the top of her lungs—and pushed down hard. To her complete surprise a baby shot out of her vagina and onto the bed. A bluish-red color, scrunched up, with a cone-shaped head; it was obviously a boy and obviously alive. Clarissa collapsed back onto the bed in shock.
This isn’t happening to me. This…alien thing couldn’t possibly have come out of my body, she found herself thinking. Alien it certainly looked, covered in a whitish gunge with the deep red corkscrew umbilical cord still attached, spiraling out of her. She had another contraction and the placenta followed. She lay there for a moment, legs sprawled, her thighs covered with blood, adrenaline surging through her body. The whole event felt like some extraordinary dream and part of her expected to wake up into a reality she would recognize—not this…this pulsating landscape of blood and confusion.
She looked down. She was still bleeding profusely so she grabbed the sheet and stuffed it between her legs. It was then that
she heard a little whimper that sounded like a cat. Clarissa’s heart jolted. “My child,” she said as blissful astonishment washed over her.
She turned toward the baby. His arms and legs kicked wildly in the air and it was obvious that he was trying to open his eyes. She wiped his face and nostrils clear of the toothpastelike muck he was covered in, then wondered about the umbilical cord.
“You’ve been at a birth, remember? C’mon, Clarissa,” she said out loud in a desperate attempt to clear her brain of the hormones that had left her functioning in a thick fog.
“Peg it, that’s it….” She reached out and pulled a couple of small metal clamps off the fuse box near the bed. She pegged one either side of the cord and cut it in the middle with a kitchen knife.
The baby opened his eyes and looked at her. It was an extraordinary feeling—that she had produced this thing, this whole other being, out of what? She put her hand over his skull. He was warm, alive, she could feel the life force beating through him. This was no dream. Suddenly the adrenaline left her. She lifted the baby up to her breast and placed a nipple into his mouth. He began to suck immediately. Exhausted, she fell asleep.
She woke five hours later and to her utter amazement the baby was already the size of a three-month-old, robust, beautifully formed, with thick black hair and almond-shaped eyes of a curious green color. Why is he growing so fast? Clarissa wondered. He must be influenced by the same phenomenon that affected me and the seedlings. The baby gazed up at her with his huge eyes, which also seemed uncannily wise. Other than that, he looked completely normal.
She sat up. She felt remarkably fit. With the use of a mirror she checked her vagina. She knew she had torn but the skin had miraculously healed itself. And already her figure was almost back to its usual size.
Why wasn’t she frightened? Was this sense of contentment hormonal? Or was she under some strange influence that dulled all normal emotional reactions? Still groggy, she tried analyzing the events. She remembered years ago she’d read that there had been one or two reported cases of so-called virgin birth. One was the rare occurrence of the embryo of an identical twin becoming trapped inside the body of her sister, and when fully grown the sister had given birth to her twin.
It seemed ridiculous to attempt to apply any scientific rationale to the birth or the acceleration of every natural process in and around the cave. It seemed she had only one choice: to accept the phenomenon. But that would require the faith she knew she still lacked.
The baby smiled at her. At least he seems happy, she thought, gathering the child into her arms. The clean milky smell of his hair made her heart clench. She carried him over to the bowl. There she washed him carefully, examining every inch of his flesh for any faults. He was flawless.
“You’re beautiful, however you came to me,” she told him, then realized that she hadn’t given him a name. She tried to think of all the biblical names that would fit and decided to call the boy Joseph, because it felt as if he had come to her from a dream.
“Joseph,” she said out loud and the baby reached up and touched her cheek with his hand. As he touched her his fingers extended another quarter of a centimeter. Impulse made her place the baby’s hand in her mouth. She could feel the flesh growing, millimeter by millimeter, with each beat of the child’s heart. It was an astonishing sensation. She pulled his hand out of her mouth and stared at his body. It was like time-lapse photography. She could see his arms and legs lengthening, the muscles developing, unfurling beneath the skin like roses. She checked her watch, timing his development: he grew two centimeters in less than three minutes. Clarissa was stunned. Suddenly the baby starting urinating, his pee shooting up like a miniature fountain. That was real enough, even for her. Laughing, she wiped him clean.
As she washed him down Joseph stared up at her. “You know exactly what’s going on, don’t you?” she asked him, and to her fascination the child seemed to nod. He was now the size of a one year old, his beauty blinding.
She cleaned herself and put on a fresh white tunic she found in the cupboard. Her breasts were heavy again with milk. Amazingly she felt better than ever; the birth seemed to have renewed her health, not depleted it.
Joseph crawled across the floor of the cave. It was hard even to believe that he actually existed. She needed concrete proof, evidence that he wasn’t just a projection of her own mind. Suddenly she remembered that she had packed a digital camera. She ran to the bed and pulled out her suitcase. Throwing clothes around she searched frantically and found it buried under a pile of stockings. Joseph pulled himself up by the table leg and took his first steps. As he walked clumsily toward the door she aimed the camera at him.
She sat down on the floor and stared at the image. The background was crisp and in focus, but the child’s outline was blurred, as if the speed of his growth kept his molecules in constant motion. But he was there in the image, evidence that something extraordinary had happened.
You’re real, she thought, her eyes welling up with tears.
The child smiled and, wobbly on his feet, walked over. He rested his little torso against her then reached up and grabbed one of her full breasts. With a knowing look, he fastened his mouth on her nipple and began to suck. Her pleasure was disconcerting and intense. She sat back and let him take his fill. She felt his gums grow hard as he literally began to teethe while still on the nipple.
“Ow!” she exclaimed as he nipped her. She pulled him away and wiped the milk off his mouth. “How am I ever going to explain you?” she pondered as Joseph played with her hair. “No one would believe me if I told them I was a virgin. They’d think you were the result of a secret love affair and accuse me of breaking my vows.”
She imagined the headline in the Adelaide Advertiser: LOCAL NUN GIVES BIRTH TO MIRACLE BABY! It made her smile. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how her father would react, but one thing was for sure: he would never believe her. Perhaps no one need know the truth.
“Come on, time to be introduced to the world.” She picked up a blanket, tucked the struggling child under one arm, then walked outside.
He sat next to her in the shade. Fascinated, he watched the sky and then the sea. He now seemed about five years old. His loveliness enthralled her. She couldn’t help running her hand across the smooth softness of his back and buttocks. He was perfect. His hair had thickened and fell down to his shoulders. His face had lengthened and he now had the look of a boy rather than a baby. His mouth had become fuller and more pronounced as his cheekbones had sharpened. His skin tone had darkened giving him a Middle Eastern appearance. Clarissa could see none of her genes in him. It was as if he had sprung up biologically independent of her.
“I may have given birth to you, but you’re nothing to do with me, are you?” she asked, expecting nothing but the seagulls to answer. To her immense shock he replied, but in a tongue she couldn’t understand.
“Speak again,” she demanded, and he did, this time with a longer sentence but still in a completely incomprehensible language. She pointed to the sky and he replied with one word. It sounded vaguely familiar.