“That they have all been summoned via and from the cathedral. I wanted to come here to see if I might sense that … threat. That dark presence that I detected the day the crypt was desecrated.”
“And did you? Sense anything, I mean?” he asked, his face showing concern.
She wondered, then, what he would make of the conversation she had had with Mr. Sadiki. How would he feel if he knew he were in the presence of one chosen by an ancient non-Christian goddess to do her work? It was then she realized, with a calm, happy certainty, that it would not change his opinion of her. It would not change the way he felt about her. He might not understand everything, any more than she herself did, but he understood what she was trying to do. He knew of her gift, and of her mission, and he did not question its value.
In that moment she felt all her crossness toward him evaporate. He trusted her judgment. She tried to imagine explaining to Phileas what she planned to do. For all their mutual fondness and familiarity, she simply could not see how she would ever convince him of her secret, of her gift. How could she expect such a thing of him, in all fairness? John, on the other hand, had already accepted all that she had told him about her family of lost souls. He had already proven himself a valuable ally in her work to stop the Resurgent Spirits. With him she could do what she had been called to do, without secrecy, without explanation. In that moment she saw that it was he, and probably only he, who could marry her without taking from her that aspect of herself that had come to mean more than anything. She decided that she must be honest with him, though. When she shared her experiences of the banned book and what Mr. Sadiki had told her with her father, she would make sure that John was included. There must be no more secrets between them.
By the time Phileas returned, she and John were already making their way back along the boards toward the site entrance.
“Hecate!” he called, puffing slightly in his hurry to catch up. “Leaving so soon?”
“Thank you so much for the tour,” she said, taking his hand. “It has been fascinating. You are doing something very worthwhile here.”
He twirled his whiskers again, shifting from one foot to the other. “One must do one’s bit, what? But why the haste? I had thought we might call in at the Black Lion for a bite to eat. What say you, Reverend Forsyth? Or is such a place beneath the dignity of a man of the cloth? Don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“It’s an attractive offer. Alas, I am required at Evensong,” he replied.
“Another time, perhaps. Just the two of us then, eh Hecate? Cheer you up after all this talk of dead bodies and ghoulish things like that?”
Hecate let go his hand. As Brother Michael had once said, there were some divides that could never be crossed.
“Not today. I am expected home.”
“Then allow me to take you in the phaeton.”
“No need to trouble yourself. I must fetch my bicycle from the cathedral. I can walk back with John. Thank you again,” she said, turning before he had a chance to put up further argument.
When she and John were properly out of earshot she had a question for him.
“Did the dean really send you? Only, it seems something of a coincidence that he should do so today, on the one day I am there. And as you know, I am no lover of coincidence.”
He hesitated for a moment and then replied.
“He did send me, but only after I suggested it.”
“Oh. I see. You did not think me capable of inspecting the burial site without you?”
“On the contrary, I knew you to be perfectly able. No, I’m not proud of it, but the fact is … I was jealous. It … it did not sit well with me that Phileas would get to spend time with you. I confess I worry that he is someone your family sees as a suitor. Someone you have known a long time. I fear our own new friendship … Well, I did not wish him to have further advantage.”
Hecate stopped walking and stared at him. She had never seen him so vulnerable, so lost for words. His honesty, and his obvious deep affection, moved her.
“I should not encourage such jealous behavior,” she said.
“I would not expect it of you.”
“You were wrong to deprive poor Phileas of his moment.”
“I was. And yet…”
“And yet?”
He looked at her directly then, as if trying to read in her expression her true feelings.
“And yet I would do the same thing again in order not to lose you.”
A lively party of factory workers, freed from their shift, swarmed along the street, breaking the quiet tension of the moment with their ribaldry and noise, allowing Hecate a chance to collect her thoughts. When they had moved on she stepped close to John and took his arm. She would share with him everything, she had already decided that. And she knew the perfect moment in which to do so. A moment which had the added advantage of involving her father, for she believed the only way to avoid feeling divided by the two most important men in her life was to bind them together in a common cause. A cause which had herself at its heart.
“Oh, I am much harder to be rid of than you might think. Now, come along, or Mother will blame you for my being late home, and that wouldn’t do at all, would it?”
24
Sitting with John and her father in the Twyford-Harris carriage, Hecate waited until they had left the city boundaries before she spoke up.
“Now that I have your undivided attention, there are things I should like to tell you,” she explained. “Things I need to tell you, regarding the Essedenes, and regarding myself.”
“Why, daughter, you sound quite mysterious,” said Edward. His tone was light, but she could see concern in his eyes. He knew her too well. As he waited for her to speak he took out his pipe and loaded it thoughtfully.
Beside her, John shifted in his seat. “I am happy to be taken into your confidence, of course. Might what you have to say better equip us for today’s mission?”
“It might,” she agreed. “Though I shall leave you both to judge for yourselves if you think our work here more or less dangerous because of it.” Her statement silenced both men. She had been uncomfortable keeping her actions with the keys from her father, but now she came to confess to what she had been doing she felt guilty, too, and not a little ashamed. He deserved her trust and her honesty. They both did.
“After our trip to London, Father, we agreed that the most likely place for the writing used to summon the Resurgent Spirits was the locked cabinet. We were correct, and the map confirmed it to me.” When his expression suggested he would like clarification on this point she pressed on. Some details would have to wait for another time. “I needed to gain access to that cabinet’s contents, as I believed—indeed I am now certain—that the same book holds the incantations required to return the Resurgent Spirits to their rightful place. As we do not yet know the identity of the person performing the rituals to invoke the Essedenes’ curse”—here she avoided glancing at John, ashamed to have ever allowed her father to include him on a list of possible suspects—“there was no one I could trust to grant me sight of the cabinet’s contents. Which is why I had a set of keys cut. Keys that would open the way to the library and the cabinet itself.”
“But”—Edward was shaking his head—“how were you able to have keys copied when you did not have the originals?”
“I made impressions and took them to a key cutter.”
John spoke up. “When I saw you leaving the cathedral that evening … you had taken the keys from the vestry?” There was real hurt in John’s tone. “You made me complicit in deceiving the dean.”
