Page 138 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
The storm has blown the front doors—both of them—wide open, and wind and rain are howling into the gap, wetting the flags and sending gusts of damp air through the massive room. But that’s not what has Auden staggering to a halt and staring.
It’s Father Becket Hess, kneeling in the doorway, dripping wet and framed by silver sheets of rain. The blowing wind lashes at him like a heaven-sized whip.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
St. Sebastian
At some point Delphine must have arrived, although she’s nowhere to be seen as we urge Becket into the library.
But her handiwork is everywhere—the room is filled with sprays of lavender and hung with garlands of fresh-smelling greenery. The tables are laden with all sorts of bready treats: rolls and pastries and homemade loaves with an artisanal butter bar—I suppose in keeping with the Lammas theme of harvest and grain.
There’s small cakes and finger sandwiches and petit fours and piles and piles of fresh fruit. There’s neat rows of cocktails that even I can acknowledge are very pretty—fizzing flutes of champagne, coupe glasses filled with drinks the color of violets, highballs garnished with tiny heads of lavender. And at the center of it all, a naked tier cake with frosting the color of cream and heaped with blackberries and more lavender sprigs.
Even Becket, in the state he’s in, pauses to stare.
“Delphine really outdid herself,” I marvel as Auden tugs Becket over to a battered leather chair.
“You,” Auden says to him, “sit.” Then to me, he says, “I’m going up for dry clothes. Get him a drink, will you?”
It’s not even noon, but if ever a man looked like he needed a drink, it’s Becket in his priest’s collar and shirt, soaked to the bone and looking shell-shocked. I glance at the clock as I walk over to the sideboard and pour out a scotch. He would have only just finished Mass an hour ago, and St. Petroc’s is at least fifteen minutes away—more in a downpour like this. I wonder what could have sent him running here so quick after the service when normally he likes to chat with his parishioners.
And from the look of him, it wasn’t because he was excited for lavender cake.
“I saw Rebecca’s car outside too, next to Delphine’s,” Becket murmurs as he accepts the scotch I hand him. “Do you think they’re trapped outside in the rain?”
I shook my head. “They must be upstairs. Auden and I were just outside and we didn’t see anyone.”
Becket’s eyes flicker with the first sign of interest I’ve seen from him yet today. “Were you in the thorn chapel?”
I suddenly decide I’d very much like a drink of my own. “Yes,” I say, walking back over to the drinks. “We were. Hypocritical of us, I know.”
“It’s only hypocritical of Auden, and I suspected he’d end up there today anyway,” Becket says. His voice is more wooden than usual, and it’s hollow like an empty room. Or an empty church. “I wish he’d accept the inevitable.”
I uncap the bottle as I look at him. The rain keeps the room dark, and despite Delphine’s efforts with glass lanterns full of flickering candles and strings of lights hung over the tables, the room is full of storm-shadows. It’s hard to get a good look at his face from here—save for his eyes. That radiant, unearthly blue.
“What’s the inevitable?” I
ask.
“That Thornchapel has already chosen him, even if he hasn’t chosen it back.”
I want to tell him he’s wrong, but I can’t.
“And,” Becket continues, “we all must accept our inevitable too.”
“Which is?”
Lightning flashes outside as he answers, in an empty voice. “That Thornchapel has chosen all of us along with him.”
All of us.
The truth of it is colder than the clothes sticking to my skin, and I finish pouring my drink so I can take a few much-needed swallows. And as I do, I think of the storm sparking above Auden’s head as he fucked me, I think of his voice thick with tears back in the mudroom.
If this is what it feels like for us to be chosen, I don’t think I like it very much.
I take another drink and then walk back over to the circle of sofas and chairs and sit across from the pale-lipped priest. I’ve never seen him like this. Never shaken, never silent and haunted.
