Miracle by Connie Willis Page A

to stay here,” she said, trying to put the meaning of the words into her voice. “Sit down. Rest.”
    They remained standing. Sharon pulled the rocking chair. “Sit, please.”
    Mary looked frightened, and Sharon put her hands on the arms of the chair and sat down to show her how. Joseph immediately knelt, and Mary tried awkwardly to.
    “No, no!” Sharon said, and stood up so fast she set the rocking chair swinging. “Don’t kneel. I’m nobody.” She looked hopelessly at them. “How did you
get
here? You’re not supposed to be here.”
    Joseph stood up.
“Erkas,”
he said, and went over to the bulletin board.
    It was covered with colored pictures from Jesus’ life: Jesus healing the lame boy, Jesus in the temple, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
    He pointed to the picture of the Nativity scene.
“Kumrah,”
he said.
    Does he recognize himself? she wondered, but he was pointing at the donkey standing by the manger.
“Erkas,”
he said.
“Erkas.”
    Did that mean “donkey,” or something else? Was he demanding to know what she had done with theirs, or trying to ask her if she had one? In all the pictures, all the versions of the story, Mary was riding a donkey, but she had thought they’d gotten that part of the story wrong, as they had gotten everything else wrong, their faces, their clothes, and above all their youth, their helplessness.
    “Kumrah erkas,”
he said.
“Kumrah erkas. Bott lom?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know where Bethlehem is.”
    Or what to do with you, she thought. Her first instinct was to hide them here until the rehearsal was over and everybody had gone home. She couldn’t let Reverend Farrison find them.
    But surely as soon as she saw who they were, she would—what? Fall to her knees? Or call for the shelter’s van? “That’s the second couple tonight,” she’d said when she shut the door. Sharon wondered suddenly if it was them she’d turned away, if they’d wandered around the parking lot, lost and frightened, and then knocked on the door again.
    She couldn’t let Reverend Farrison find them, but there was no reason for her to come into the nursery. All the children were upstairs, and the refreshments were in the adult Sunday school room. But what if she checked the rooms before she locked up?
    I’ll take them home with me, Sharon thought. They’ll be safe there. If she could get them up the stairs and out of the parking lot before the rehearsal ended.
    I got them down here without anybody seeing them, she thought. But even if she could manage it, which she doubted, if they didn’t die of fright when she started the car and the seat belts closed down over them, home was no better than the shelter.
    They had gotten lost through some accident of time and space, and ended up at the church. The way back—if there was a way back, there had to be a way back, they had to be at Bethlehem by tomorrow night—was here.
    It occurred to her suddenly that maybe she shouldn’t have let them in, that the way back was outside the north door. But I couldn’t
not
let them in, she protested, it was snowing, and they didn’t have any shoes.
    But maybe if she’d turned them away, they would have walked off the porch and back into their own time. Maybe they still could.
    She said, “Stay here,” putting her hand up to show themwhat she meant, and went out of the nursery into the hall, shutting the door tightly behind her.
    The choir was still singing “Joy to the World.” They must have had to stop again. Sharon ran silently up the stairs and past the adult Sunday school room. Its door was still half-open, and she could see the plates of cookies on the table. She opened the north door, hesitating a moment as if she expected to see sand and camels, and leaned out. It was still sleeting, and the cars had an inch of snow on them.
    She looked around for something to wedge the door open with, pushed one of the potted palms over, and went out on the porch. It was