St. Barbara has contracted cancer in her right shoulder. In a rare appearance to a devotee at the northern window (one of three she opened without permission), she elaborated:
My quill pen is like lead. General Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg was a reincarnation of my father, who killed me in a fit of rage on return from one of his “heroic” military campaigns. I cried when the Lord’s lightning bolt hit him. It was really weird to find myself at once dead and sobbing. I didn’t think saints could get ill because our bodies only exist in art. But I know there’s a hard thing in here that feels like a big piece of metal. On December 21 I held a vigil with the Almighty and the answer came back, ‘Vandenberg Syndrome, WMD for short, is secret: No one is allowed to speak of it. Even more paranoia than the general had when he was interviewed for head of Central Intelligence is foreseen for 2013, so we have to wait and see about your lesion.’