Was it really Clare’s fault that she had fallen in love with Indiana Jones at first sight? No, that she had wanted to be Indiana Jones. That she had aspired to the life of a dashing professor, her quarries the real location of Arthur’s grave and the secrets of the world’s standing stones from Orkney to Stonehenge to Brittany. Her mother had always dismissed such aspirations with a knowing smile, just as she had grudgingly approved Clare’s getting a PhD as Something You Did For Yourself—the academic equivalent of a year spent abroad on a Kiwanis scholarship before you came home to teach at the local high school and provide your parents with grandkids they could spoil.
And it didn’t matter that the reality of being a medievalist had been a far cry from Indiana Jones. That the past week had been closer to her fantasies of the professorial life than six years of post-colonial investigations of Crusader romances, nuanced rereadings of populist heresies, and feminist reinterpretations of convent life. That the only genuinely interesting piece of research she seemed to have read in her graduate career was an investigation of the dirt on medieval prayer books, which proved beyond a doubt that St. Sebastian was the most well-thumbed page in any medieval psalter—although it seemed impossible to determine whether that was because he was a plague saint or because medieval ladies had a guilty taste for his rippling torso. From the look of things, her mother was going to get her way after all. Clare would slink back to community life, after her little adventure playing at being a professor. And that, frankly, broke Clare’s heart.
Fighting down the angry tears took so much effort, she barely heard the swift tap on the door, or Father Gregory’s polite request to come in, until he was sitting in her visitor’s chair that she had hastily cleared of a stack of student papers. It was scarcely comparable to the cathedral-like president’s office, and yet he seemed to bring a whiff of its magisterial grace with him, as if he had censed the room with it.
Or a whiff of the Inquisition, as he studied her, his fingers steepled. Clare swallowed hard. What was he going to do? Fire her outright? Why should he? she reassured herself. She’d be gone in another year anyway—just an unfortunate blip on All Saints’ serene radar—just like the miracle she was supposed to investigate ... quietly. Much less scandal that way.
Father Gregory drew a breath, as if to pronounce a blessing—or a sentence. “I’m afraid I had to cancel our scheduled chat with the lawyer. Both he and I have had rather busy mornings, given the rather dramatic turn of events yesterday and today. But I feel very comfortable saying that, as far as you’re concerned, the matter is closed.”
Closed? All of it over? The miracles, the chess games, the fiddle music, the room at the Waldorf, all vanishing like a bad dream rapidly dissipating in the morning light, leaving nothing more terrifying looming on her horizon than the stultifying nineteenth-century iterations of the Lazarites?
“And Sean ...?”
“I sincerely hope is meditating on the horrors of the eighth circle of hell, specifically eternal suffocation and immolation.”
“Simony?” Clare asked, startled. “No. He just tried to hire me a lawyer.”
“Actually, he was willing to fund a chair in medieval studies, provided I selected the right applicant.”
Clare stared at him, stunned. And then she said the first thing that came to mind. “A professorship isn’t a church office, even in a Catholic school. So it’s not really simony is it?”
“Indeed.”
Clare shut her eyes. Why quibble about definitions? If Sean had actually tried to bribe Father Gregory on her behalf, that was going to make the Cosplay Lolita a tempest in a teapot. “Look, Sean is a complicated man. Arguably even a difficult one. But surely you can see that he wasn’t asking you—”
“As a matter of fact, yes, he very much was,” Father Gregory said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re quite correct about the issue of simony. Decisions about professorships are in the hands of a tenure committee, not the clergy. And that decision is based on your teaching and publication record. Not on promise of funding from an interested party. Or for that matter, on any court records that never should have been unsealed. If I am making myself clear?”
Clare just stared at him numbly. Her career, not a shambles then? How was she supposed to believe that? How was she supposed to believe he had forgotten that scene with Trey Carey? Erased the words “Cosplay Lolita” from his mind?
She drew a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said. “I mean, thank you for taking the time to tell me personally. I ... I know you’re a busy man.”
“Not too busy to ask my assistant to write a letter for your permanent files, expressing the president’s gratitude for the invaluable contribution your research skills made to the investigation of the Cause of Father Enoch.”
And that, apparently, was all he was here to say. She stared at him, stunned, as he pushed himself to his feet and started for the door. That was it, then? This was over with? He was ... letting her off? Even giving her a letter of recommendation?
She shook her head. They were not equals, no matter how much he couched their conversations in the rhetoric of civilized debate. And she knew he was a busy man. Knew that she had presumed enough on their relationship already—if that’s what you wanted to call nearly getting in a fistfight with the college’s biggest donor. She should lay low, do her best to fly under his radar, and hope he forgot all about her for the next two years. But she found herself confronted with a burning question, and honestly, there was no one else she could think to ask.
In short, she knew she was about to initiate the patented Clare Malley self-destruct sequence—even if it meant she was going to crash and burn right back to the bosom of her sainted family.
“Is it so very wrong?” she asked.
Father Gregory turned, raising an eyebrow. “Is what wrong?”
“Wanting to believe in miracles? Wanting to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven? Being on the Devil’s side and damned well knowing it?” Father Gregory cocked his head as he considered the issue. “I suppose that would all depend on what you mean by the Devil’s side,” he concluded.
“To want something for yourself? To want to be special? To want something more than just a home and children? Because frankly I hate children.”
A small smile crossed Father Gregory’s face. “It is one of the distinct privileges of my position to be able to leave them to the nuns,” he allowed. He paused for another moment. “But beyond that, I don’t think you have to be a neo-Platonist to answer ‘Not in the least bit wrong’ to any of your questions. C.S. Lewis would call it sehnsucht, although, personally, I find the German locutions somewhat cumbersome. But I believe that any competent theologian—as well as the German ones for that matter—would agree that reaching for something beyond ourselves is what religion is all about.”
“Even if you risk getting called a Cosplay Lolita?”
He studied her for a moment. “Even if you risk getting called a hubris-driven angelophany-junkie,” he said.
It took her a moment to even parse his meaning—and her eyes widened. “Really?”
But the door had clicked shut and Father Gregory was gone.
Sean had no idea how long he had been walking. All night, apparently. And most of the morning as well. Neither did he have any real idea where he had been walking. No orishas pointing the way at the crossroads this time. No priests to urge him down the straight and narrow, either. He was just wandering—more bewildered than he had ever been in his life. If, in fact, he had ever been bewildered in his life. Which he pretty much believed he had never been. Went with territory and all that. Another new feeling, then. This was rapidly turning in to a habit.
But eventually his aimless footsteps found the path back to Danny’s— the way home, he supposed. As if he had ever had a home. So what did it mean that this was the first time he had ever regretted that?
What did it matter? Where else was he going to go? Shoving his hands in his pockets, he started toward the bar. And a familiar presence fell into step alongside him.
“Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” he said.
“I won’t be back after this,” his father’s ghost confirmed. “Time for me to move on.”
“I thought so,” Sean said, then added, “So what was all this? Some kind of expiation? Repentance? Redemption?”
“The words just tend to get in the way, really,” the ghost said with a shake of his head that sent a single droplet of blood flying. “Might be better to say I just needed to finish things the right way. Things I started all wrong years ago. I did try ...”
“When you finally tracked me down to Danny’s?”
“I had the cops waiting just outside the bar,” the ghost admitted. “I was determined to make you come home even if they had to arrest you.”
“For what? Killing my mother?”
“You know better than that.”
“Maybe.” Sean conceded. “So what happened?”
“I stopped to listen to the music,” the ghost said.
Sean nodded. “Niel Gow’s Lament, if I recall correctly.”
“It was only supposed to be for a moment, but ... I had never heard you play. Well, I’d heard, but I hadn’t listened. And once I did—”
“I know.” Sean said. “You came regularly. Thursdays. Stood my drinks. Most people said I played best on Thursdays.”
“Drove poor Marie crazy, but it was the happiest time of my life.” The ghost’s face shadowed. “You need to come home. She needs you to take care of her.”
“I’ve got it on pretty good authority that she is more than capable of taking care of herself.”
“You’re right, of course.” The ghost sighed. “Guess I was a lousy father to her as well.”
“You were our father. That’s all that really matters.”
“Thank you for that,” the ghost said. He paused, then added, “But now I’m holding you up. There’s someone waiting for you at the bar.”
Someone? As in Clare? Sean couldn’t bring himself to hope.
The ghost smiled. “I never had the good fortune to love a woman, but I had the great good luck to love my son. You have a chance for something better. So, go take it, before it slips away.”
“Truth be told, I’m still not even sure I know what love is.”
The ghost laughed. “Our proof that the universe is inherently kind.”
“Ben Franklin said that was beer.” Sean said, but already his father was beginning to shimmer into nothingness.
“Go ahead and get things right with her,” his voice drifted back on the breeze. “But, when you’re through, remember there’s still one more thing that needs attending to.”
“I know,” Sean said, but he was no longer talking to anyone but himself.
To judge from the relief that flooded Martin and the regulars’ faces as Sean strolled into Danny’s, Clare had been sitting in his booth for some time, looking like nothing so much as some wronged wife waiting for her lout of a husband to creep back up the stairs.
“I tried to stand her a drink, but she was having none of it,” Martin said, as the other men continued to study her with rapt attention. He passed Sean a bottle of whiskey and a pair of glasses. “Here’s hoping for your sake, this will work better. By the way, what’s wrong with pink wine? I thought the ladies liked their drinks sweet.”
Clare shot him a baleful look, as if she had heard him from all the way across the room. “You need that me and the lads give you your privacy?” Martin asked.
Sean grinned. “She scare you that badly?”
“She’s a formidable woman,” Martin said. “Don’t let the sweet face fool you. They’re always the worst. Toss you right over those helpless looking shoulders and drag you home from the pub when you’ve stayed past closing.”
“Personal experience?”
“I still light a candle for the good woman’s soul every week. Although I’m pretty certain it’s not necessary. She’ll be tolerating St. Peter’s nonsense no more than she did mine.”
“It’s the red hair,” Sean called back to him as he headed across the room. “It’ll be the ruin of us all.”
“Martin’s best regards, and it’s an insult to refuse a bartender,” he said to Clare, as he slid into the booth and poured two glasses with careful ceremony. “Besides, I have a feeling I’m going to need this. Slainte.”
The whiskey burned down his throat in a satisfying rush, but Clare made no move to reach for her own glass. “We have unfinished business,” she said.
Sean nodded toward the gouts of briny steam that rose from the table on the other side of the room. “Didn’t think you were here for the cuisine.”
“An endowed chair just for me? Seriously?”
Christ. What happened to the seal of the confessional? Was it simply not applicable in cases of infernal bargains? Or did priestly vows include meddling along with celibacy, poverty, and obedience these days? “It was just words. Blarney.”
“It was another test.”
All right. She was not going to make this easy. Blame it on the red hair, he guessed, but if that’s how she was determined to play things...
“Actually,” he said, “it was just ... me. And you need to take a long, hard look at what that really means.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think it means instead?”
Frankly, Sean needed more whiskey to answer that question. Or maybe he was just stalling as he reached for the bottle and poured with a hand that was so shaky he knew he’d never play tonight. Maybe he was just hiding from the fact that he didn’t want to play tonight. What he wanted to do was answer the question.
“It means I’m a guy who’d do anything to keep you. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Go back to being Michael Grinnell if that’s what it takes.”
“It’s not a question of what it takes,” she said.
“But it always will be to me.” He couldn’t help himself. He took another gulp of whiskey. “Don’t you see, that’s how I think? It’s how I’m wired. Life is just a chessboard. So you really need to ask yourself if you want to spend your time with a man who’s constantly trying to stay three moves ahead of you, just to keep you from leaving. A guy who will whisk you off to the Waldorf or the Gaelteach or whatever it takes to keep you from discovering the pathetic truth that I am really just a bore who can play the fiddle.”
And suddenly, for some reason, she was smiling, and it killed him that he couldn’t figure out what that meant—even if at the same time, he couldn’t help thinking it was sexy as hell. Not the smiling. The not knowing.
“I think that you are substantially overestimating your ability to manipulate me. Or anyone else for that matter,” she said.
“Then let’s put it a little more simply. You can do a lot better than me, Clare Malley. Even with a billion dollars in my pocket.”
“And if I don’t care?”
“You will, eventually. And that’s an official prediction.”
“More like a self-fulfilling one,” she said. She shook her head. “You remember what I said about Cupid and Psyche? Well, I meant it. I’m sick of the testing. We’re going to finish this here one way or the other.”
Reaching for the whiskey, she raised it briefly before she swallowed it off in a single gulp. “So here’s how I see the situation. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re a fiddler who lives over a bar, or Father Enoch’s first miracle, or even a billionaire master manipulator who wants to snatch me off to the Waldorf. Any reasonable person will tell me you’re bad news. But the thing is, I’m not reasonable. I want to be with you—at least for now, and the hell with the future. The hell with the consequences. We’ll figure that out when it comes. What I need to know now is whether you feel the same way. Whether you’ll admit to yourself you feel the same way. So I want you to take off those damned glasses, look me in the eye, and say you never want to see me again, or I want to finish what we started back there in the Waldorf. No more tests, no more blarney. Just an answer. Which way is it going to be?”
He could sense, rather than see, the shoulders stiffening at the bar behind him, and he was mortified to think they might be laughing. Mortified to know that he was blushing. Another new emotion, he supposed. Frankly, he liked the other ones better.
It was reflex to reach for the whiskey. It cost every fiber of his being to reach for his glasses instead. “I think we should be taking this discussion upstairs.”
“Why?”
He glanced over at the drinkers at the bar, who had suddenly immersed themselves in their glasses with studied disinterest. “Partly because we’ve entertained the lads enough for one night,” he said. “But mostly because that’s where my bed is.”