The halo arrived when she was twelve. The teasing was merciless. The nuns were furious. In confession, she wept.

She was force-marched through tabernacles and asylums and hospitals and prodded and examined and questioned. The cruelest question: “Why you?”

She disappeared. How does a young woman with a halo disappear?

Victor Kreuiter lives, reads, and writes in the Midwest.