"We've heard it so many times, Your Eminence.  Women are to be honored, women are to be equal.  It always ends with a bit of honor, but no equality.  It just doesn't wash anymore."

"Wash?" he asked.

She was ready, had spent the previous days rehearsing and promising herself that she would not be submissive.  She would instead search out the honest verbs.  "The hierarchy has little credibility when it comes to women."

Della Tevere was attentive.  "Tell me why you say this."

"In a word, exclusion.  Down through history church leaders have excluded us from all decision making in the Church.  By doing so these men have effectively robbed us of our equality.  What will happen when the day arrives that all women realized what churchmen have done to them?"

"Perhaps we can prevent that from happening."

"I doubt it, Your Eminence, at least if history is any indicator.  When churchmen can no longer ignore or subjugate us, you study us.  And we are tired of committees and commissions that go on interminably studying us.  Nothing ever comes of it."

"Isn't holiness the real equalizer?" the cardinal asked.

"No!" she shot back.  "That's the smoke the hierarchy blows in women's eyes to obfuscate the issue... We're not talking holiness.  We're talking power."

Maggie edged back to consciousness and to a throbbing pain in her face.  She opened her eyes to the dim light of a single bulb on the ceiling above her.  Where am I, she thought, fighting for clarity.  She was lying on a hard surface, her fingers grasping links of a chain.  She struggled to sit up only to lie back down as unrelenting pain stabbed at her face.  Then she forced herself to a sitting position and sucked deep breaths to quell the pain and beginning nausea.  She saw that she had been lying on a narrow board bunk, one side hinged to the wall, the other held level by heavy chains angled from the wall.

She looked around the room.  It was a cell, about six by twelve feet.  The cement block walls and cement floor were wet, as if someone had hosed them down.  They were stained with brownish blotches.  The entry door was solid metal except for a four inch square window.  A four inch gap opened between the floor and the bottom of the door.  A squat toilet sat at the back wall.  As her eyes cleared she saw the dark crack, a jagged wound in the toilet's side.  A sink clung to the wall next to the toilet.

Maggie's dream was always the same, and always new.  She entered the cave, buoyant and optimistic, and moved deep into it.  She stooped to pick up an encrusted shard and felt sure that under its earthen crust she would find a key to her research.  Looking back at the cave entrance she saw the figure of a large man enter the cave.  A steel door clanged down behind him, trapping her in the cave.

The dream followed its usual course until the man had thrown her to the ground and was upon her.  He ripped away her clothes and sat, straddling her waist.  He began to pummel her body with his fists.

Maggie woke, her eyes darting about as she took sharp, deep breaths.  She lay there a moment collecting herself and then got out of bed.  She walked to the window and threw it open.  A chill in the breezed made her pick up her robe from the bottom of the bed and put it on.  Then she returned to the window and stared out into the dimly lit night sky.  It's like looking into the shadowy dark of the cave, she thought.

 Maggie did not hear Barbara as she quietly entered the room.  The open door allowed the breeze to quicken and it caught the door from Barbara's light hold and slammed it shut.  Maggie froze as fear stabbed needles through her body.  It's him, she thought.  He's come back.  Molina has come back.  And there before her the darkness lightened to reveal the entire scene, the way it was...
 

 

Unable to resist and tormented by pain, Maggie moved in the only direction left to her, inward.
She found Charles there.  She saw him clearly, his fair skin, the shock of auburn hair, the hazel green eyes, the scar on his forearm, the familiar grin.  He beckoned her to follow him and together they walked deeper.  Finally he stopped and turned to her.

Maggie reached out to take his hand, but her flight into this inner refuge failed her.  She found herself suddenly outside, detached, and looking down on the attack.  Her breathing was rapid and shallow as she watched Molina's arms flail downward, the forced spread of legs, and the pounding thrusts of his body.

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