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Show Acting Alone Page 15 even more obsessively than the other nuns for the acknowledgement of Mother's sainthood, and called her grave a shrine, committing the technical heresy of prematurely introducing a cult. Mother had told the young women to be strong; and Gorgonia's cellmate had strong arms for the relics of saints. And now, fifty years after the fact, the old woman was almost certainly saving some of Mother's old hankies (laundry number still neatly sewn on) so she might be in possession of some second-class relics were the beatification and canonization to go through. Polycarpana was certain that a routine police matron-style body search would turn up those hankies even now, here in the safe tunnels. Beads clicked all around, and the Apostles' Creed opened the mouths of the nuns. Right in the middle of praying for the deliverance of her baby sister Shanny, Polycarpana suddenly had a vision. She saw Gorgonia up there now, alone in the reverberating chapel, adoring the sacrament and steadfastly guarding the supposedly beautiful copy of Marie Antoinette's favorite chandelier overhead. Sirens were screaming like banshees all around, and Gorgonia's ancient, beige, papery face was taking on that certain expression - "The Gorgon," Simone Stylite gasped, or whispered up from her pillow into Polycarpana's face. It was as though Simone had read her stretcher-bearer's mind. Simone's bloated fingers worked her beads in proper time, even as she delivered her entirely non-devotional commentary. "God help the poor Intruder! We may have a new statue in the chapel before this is over." "Either be more charitable or cackle more quietly," whispered Polycar- |