The Valkyries

away, and he lowered his arms.
    “Kneel down,” the voice said.
    He knelt. He couldn’t think. There was nowhere to go.
    “Clear the ground.”
    He did as the voice ordered. With his hands, he brushed a small area in the sand directly in front of him so that it was smooth. His heart continued to beat rapidly, and he was feeling more and more dizzy. He thought he might even have a heart attack.
    “Look at the ground.”
    An intense light, almost as strong as the morning sun, shone on his left side. He didn’t want tolook directly at it, and wished only that everything would end quickly. For a moment, he recalled his childhood, when appearances of Our Lady had been described to children. He had passed many sleepless nights as a child, asking God never to order the Virgin to appear to him—because the prospect was so frightening. Scary.
    The same fright that he was experiencing now.
    “Look at the ground,” the voice insisted.
    He looked down at the area he had just swept clear. And that was when the golden arm, as brilliant as the sun, appeared, and began to write in the sand.
    “This is my name,” the voice said.
    The fearful dizziness continued. His heart was beating even faster.
    “Believe,” he heard the voice say. “The gates are open for a while.”
    He gathered every bit of strength he had remaining.
    “I want to say something,” he said aloud. The heat of the sun seemed to be restoring his strength.
    He heard nothing. No answer.
    An hour later, when Chris arrived—she had awakened the hotel owner, and demanded that he drive her there—he was still looking at the name in the sand.

Chapter 54
     
    T HE TWO OTHERS WATCHED AS P AULO prepared the cement.
    “What a waste of water, out in the middle of the desert,” Gene joked.
    Chris asked him not to kid around, since her husband was still feeling the impact of his vision.
    “I found where the passage came from,” Gene said. “It’s from Isaiah.”
    “Why that passage?” Chris asked.
    “I have no idea. But I’m going to remember it.”
    “It speaks about a new world,” she continued.
    “Maybe that’s why,” Gene answered. “Maybe that’s why.”
    Paulo called to them.
    The three said a Hail Mary. Then Paulo climbed to the top of a boulder, spread the cement, and placed within it the image of Our Lady that he always carried with him.
    “There. It’s done.”
    “Maybe the guards will take it away when they find it here,” Gene said. “They watch over the desert as if it were a flower garden.”
    “Maybe,” Paulo said. “But the spot will still be marked. It will always be one of my sacred places.”
    “No,” Gene said. “Sacred places are individual places. In this one, a text was dictated. A text thatalready existed. One that speaks of hope, and had already been forgotten.”
    Paulo didn’t want to think about that now. He was still fearful.
    “In this place, the energy of the soul of the world was felt,” Gene said. “And it will be felt here forever. It is a place of power.”
    They gathered up the plastic sheeting in which Paulo had mixed the cement, placed it in the trunk of the car, and left to take Gene back to his old trailer.
    “Paulo!” he said when they were saying their good-byes. “I think it would be good for you to know an old saying from the Tradition:
When God wants to drive a person insane, he grants that person’s every wish.”
    “Could be,” Paulo answered. “But it was worth it.”

EPILOGUE
     
    One afternoon, a year and a half after the angel’s appearance, a letter arrived for me in Rio, from Los Angeles. It was from one of my Brazilian readers living in the United States, Rita de Freiras, and was in praise of
The Alchemist.
    On impulse, I wrote to her, asking that she go to a canyon near Borrego Springs to see whether the statue of Our Lady of Aparecida was still there.
    After I had mailed the letter, I thought to myself:
That’s pretty silly. This woman doesn’t even know me. She’s just a reader who wanted to say a few kind words, and she’ll never do as I’ve asked. She’s not going to get into her car, drive six hours into the desert, and see whether a small statue is still there.
    Just before Christmas in 1989, I received a letter from Rita, from which I have excerpted the following:
    There have been some marvelous “coincidences.” I had a week off from my job over the Thanksgiving holiday. My boyfriend (Andrea, an Italian musician) and I were planning on getting away to