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Trisha Falcon is catatonic in a room at Parker Hillview Hospital. She is also with Helen in the home they’ve made together. In each case, Trisha is there to heal, but her wounds are deep and healing protracted: three years in the hospital; timeless moments with Helen. When the young woman is whole again, she joins Helen in her garden, where Trisha is at last able to receive and delight in love. She falls asleep in Helen’s arms and wakes in a hospital bed.
Pius XIII, newly elevated to the Throne of St. Peter, has wounds of his own. Rooted deep in his childhood, they refuse to heal. A voice guides the Pontiff and though Pius believes it to be the voice of God, the message is unclear to him. He longs for that clarity, for understanding, and holds the world’s corruption responsible for his and Man’s poor reception of God’s voice and presence. Pius’ vocation is to bring the world back to God through Christ’s Church. The Falcon woman may help or hinder his mission.
Trisha is a miracle worker, investigated and validated by the Archdiocese and the Vatican. Even so, she is dangerous. A tale spreads purporting that the woman has been to Heaven, that Helen is God and She has chosen Trisha for a special purpose. A community grows around her: composed of the hopeful, the skeptical, those who have lost faith and those who have discovered it for the first time in the reports of the remarkable woman.
Pius orders Trisha’s kidnapping. He imprisons her in St. John’s Tower, intent on purging her of blasphemy, bringing her to repentance, and using her as an instrument of the Church. As Trisha remains formidable and the Curia conspires to depose Pius, bloodshed escalates in the Holy Land.
Pius reacts. He charges his Knights with the cleansing of Jerusalem’s Old City, resolving to consecrate it to God and initiate the rebirth of piety in the Holy Land. Moreover, the Pontiff personally oversees the "spiritual reconditioning" of the Falcon woman.
Trisha does not submit, challenging us to search our hearts and to test our faith. To discover our own capacity for forgiveness, our own invitation to live in Helen's Garden.
Excerpt