by Kate Sweeney
“I suppose from…” Grayson pointed to the ceiling. “Those guys.”
“Will you be serious?”
“I am,” Grayson said very seriously. “From what she said, they sent her because being a mortal, as well, might hinder me from being all the immortal I can be.”
“You’re not kiddin’?”
“I am not kidding.”
“You sound like you don’t believe her.”
“Well, let’s just say I’m cautious and very leery.”
“I don’t blame ya. What’s she like?” Corky asked, completely enthralled.
“She likes chocolate ice cream.” She looked at Corky. “It concerns me that you don’t think this is odd.”
“Why should it be? Given all that has happened to you, I’d think you’d be more accepting. But I understand your reticence. Really I do. With Phelan still out and about and with this liar’s moon business, like I said, I don’t blame you.” He leafed through his book once again. “Ya see, with me, I’ve always been around this. It’s been part of my life and my family since, well, for generations. I wasn’t surprised when that vampire—what was her name, Kendra—came to me and wanted the glamour.”
“I remember you telling me. What did Kendra need it for?”
“Remember, she was working in the catacombs in Guys Hospital in London. She wanted a spell that hid her from anyone finding out what she was up to.” He laughed then. “Neala was scared to death when I told her about Kendra.”
Grayson chuckled. “I’ll bet she was scared. This is new to Neala, as well.”
Cory nodded. “Poor Neala felt better when I explained that a glamour is a spell of sorts that hides you or what you’re doing and showed her the glamour I used from my book.” He patted his beloved book and continued, “But the vampire part was another story for her, but not me. Remember when we met Sebastian? I was shocked only because I had read about her in this book. She’s a legend in her world, then to come face to face with her.”
“You’re amazing. I truly admire your steadfast trust in all this and your willingness to accept it so quickly.” Grayson smiled then. “I really need you and Neala. You’ve been through a lot with me in such a short time.”
“It was meant to be. I agreed with Maeve, we’re all connected on some level for some reason. That’s why her coming to me and Rose in our dreams means something. It wasn’t just a dream. I wonder if Neala has had a dream like this.”
“I don’t know. I know she’s coming this weekend. When I talked to her, she sounded so tired. I know the people at the museum are worried about the stone. She tried to tell them that Phelan is keeping it for safety purposes because, God forbid, she can’t tell them the truth.”
“I know. Telling the National Museum in Dublin that an Irish artifact has disappeared into thin air during an ancient ritual, and by the way, speaking of ancient, your primary benefactor, Phelan Tynan, is the son of a wizard from nearly two thousand years ago, but no matter.”
Grayson laughed at the absurd but true explanation. “I suppose poor Neala has her hands full.”
“Yes, but the museum officials are very forgiving and understanding since Phelan—”
“The shape-shifting asshole.”
“—has contributed millions to the cause.” He tiredly rubbed his eyes. “So when do I get to meet Elinora?”
“I have no idea. One minute, she’s eating ice cream, and the next, I’m talking to myself.”
Corky slowly started chuckling. Grayson joined him, and in a moment, both were laughing hysterically.
“And not just any ice cream,” Grayson said through her laughter. “Only chocolate if you please.”
“No!” Corky said, drying his eyes.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Kerrigan. Chocolate only.”
“An ice cream-eating Greek beauty. What next?” Corky asked, still laughing.
In another moment, they stopped and pondered that question.
Chapter 6
Grayson had a fitful night’s rest. She woke tired and for some reason irritated. It was possibly due to the tossing and turning.
She met Corky early in the morning. The tired, but anxious feeling still hung around her. Leaning against the desk, she looked out the window and watched as Sister Gabriel sat on the wooden bench in the courtyard of the monastery. While she read, it struck Grayson how peaceful she looked, like the nuns from her youth. “Why would a nun wear that old starchy habit?”
Corky gazed out the window, as well, and shrugged. “I don’t know. Some nuns, especially here in Ireland, are very dedicated to their order. If Sister Gabriel has been cloistered all this time, as she said, she really didn’t know much of the outside world.”
“Yet she’s very intelligent and doesn’t seem surprised or shocked by anything.” Grayson turned to Corky. “If she was cloistered, kept in seclusion, then brought here, I would think there would be a little culture shock.”
“I see what you mean,” Corky said. “What’s your point?”
“I don’t know why I keep going back to why.”
“Why what?”
“Why would a seventeen-year-old girl want to choose a life cut off from the outside world?”
“A vocation. Maybe this is her calling. This is how she chose to live her life.”
“Or hide from it.”
Corky looked slightly stunned. “Where would you come up with that?”
Grayson heard his defensive tone. “I’m not accusing, but there’s something here that I find very curious about Sister Gabriel.” She sat at the desk Corky vacated. “Since she arrived, have you noticed she’s usually around?”
Corky scratched his head. “You know, come to think of it. Every time we’re in here reading from this book, she—” He nearly swallowed his tongue when he looked up to see Sister Gabriel walking by the door. “Grayson,” he whispered and motioned to the doorway.
Grayson got a glimpse of the black habit flowing past the door. Both were silent for a moment as they heard the wooden rosary beads, which hung from the nun’s waist, tap together with each fading step Sister Gabriel took.
“What does she want?” Grayson cautiously walked to the door and peered down the hall; she listened to the eerie silence.
“Looking for the end of the rainbow?”
Grayson nearly jumped out of her skin as she whirled around to see Neala standing there. She laughed as Grayson put a hand to her heart. “Geezus, Neala. Don’t do that.”
Corky laughed, as well, more, Grayson thought, out of relief than anything else. She turned back into the room and joined in the laughter.
“I can’t stay long, so tell me what you two are up to.” Neala got a hug from Corky. “Ya look very guilty.”
“Grayson is suspicious of Sister Gabriel.”
Neala raised her eyebrows and wagged her finger in Grayson’s direction. “Grayson MacCarthaigh, shame on you.”
“Oh, please. I realize she’s a nun, but she’s still human.” Grayson cocked her head. “Isn’t she?”
Suddenly, the three of them laughed and snickered like school children.
“Now tell me why you’re suspicious,” Neala said.
“I can’t put my finger on it. It just seems like she’s always around.”
“Well, she’s new. Perhaps she’s just trying to fit in and get acquainted with the monastery,” Neala said.
Corky and Grayson nodded, but somehow Grayson was not convinced. She decided to leave it for another day. She looked at Neala and smiled. “So how are things in Dublin?”
Neala sighed. “Very tense. I’m trying to convince the powers that be that Phelan has the stone for safe keeping. For now, they seem to believe the theory of a letter and stealing the stone. Personally, I think they’d believe anything Phelan told them if he handed them a check.”
“For now, that’s fine, Neala. It’s bad enough that inspector from Dublin asked questions.”
Grayson agreed. “As I told Corky, Inspector Gaffney will be back if she’s wo
rth anything. So if you can keep the museum officials quiet, that might satisfy her.”
“Ya don’t sound very positive,” Neala said.
“I don’t feel very positive.”
“Neala, did Grayson tell you about her new visitor?” Corky asked with an innocent smile.
Grayson glared at him and avoided Neala’s curious look. “No, what visitor?”
“A Greek beauty.”
Neala raised an eyebrow. “Really? A friend? From Greece?”
Corky lifted his eyes upward and pointed to the ceiling. Grayson continued to glare.
“She’s an angel?” Neala asked with a grin.
“Only in Grayson’s heart.” Corky put a hand over his.
Neala stopped grinning. “Interesting.”
Grayson quickly explained Elinora and her purpose. Neala listened with a mildly surprised expression. “So she’s no angel,” Grayson said.
“But beautiful,” Neala said, hiding her grin.
Grayson felt the color rush to her face. She could have gladly hit Corky with his book of wizardry at that moment.
“Sadly, I have not met the beautiful Elinora yet,” Corky said in full pout.
Neala laughed and kissed Grayson on the cheek. “Well, I want to meet her, as well. Now I can’t play with ya anymore. I’m off. I have to get back to the museum. I’ll be back over the weekend.”
“Maybe during the week, I’ll—” Grayson stopped and shrugged. “We’ll see you on the weekend.”
Neala smiled. “Okay. We’ll all go out for dinner.”
“Sounds good,” Corky said. “Safe trip, Neala.”
For a moment, Grayson looked at Neala, who was smiling. “Well, I’d best be going.” As she walked out, she said over her shoulder, “By the weekend, maybe you can say what’s on your mind, Grayson.”
Grayson frowned deeply when Corky snorted with laughter.
“Shut up.” Grayson looked at Corky, who had shuffled papers in front of him.
“Don’t be sour. Now let’s get back to this. I’ve scanned a few pages here. I’d like ya to read when you can. It’s in the ancient dialect I think you know now.”
“Fine,” Grayson said absently. Her mind was elsewhere; it was on Neala, who was now on her mind more than Grayson wanted to admit.
“I’m leaving it here in this folder. I have to go to Galway. I’ll be back later this afternoon.” Corky gathered his briefcase and looked at Grayson. “Gray?”
“What?” Grayson said, looking up. “Oh, sure. Go. I’ll read it later and see if I can decipher it.”
Grayson picked up the folder after Corky left. She then tossed it back on the desk. “I need some air.”
“Good morning, Grayson,” Sister Gabriel called out to her as Grayson walked through the courtyard. She was still sitting on the bench.
Grayson smiled and walked over to her. “Good morning, Sister.”
“Would you like to sit?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a chilly morning.” Sister Gabriel closed her book and looked around the courtyard. “This is peaceful.”
“Yes, it is. Was the convent in Innishmore peaceful?”
“Yes, it was. But it was different. More isolated than peaceful. One had plenty of time for contemplation.”
“I can imagine. What did you contemplate? If you don’t mind my asking.” Grayson shifted to face the nun.
Sister Gabriel smiled as if she were thinking of what to say. “I don’t mind at all. I suppose I thought of many things, as anyone would. Your life, your mistakes, what you did right. How to change and how to ask for forgiveness. How to go on and do God’s work.”
Grayson nodded. That was quite a litany. “It’s a big leap from a cloistered life to an abbess of a monastery. What made you want to enter society again?”
“It was time, I suppose. When Sister Michael contacted me, then the bishop, I thought it was God’s intervention. Perhaps He was telling me it was time.” She looked at Grayson then. “I am sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
“There’s a reason for everything, child.”
Grayson fought the tears once again; she nodded.
“You find comfort in these walls. I know. And though you may not know it now, God is watching out for you. He would never lead you where He couldn’t keep you.”
Grayson’s head shot up. “That’s exactly what Sister Daniel said to me when I was a small girl.”
Sister Gabriel placed her hand on Grayson’s. “And she was right.” She stood then. “Now I must talk with Sister Michael. Thank you for the conversation.”
“My pleasure, Sister.”
She watched the nun walk away thinking there was still something about her she didn’t understand. Sister Gabriel was a curious thing to Grayson. From the moment she met the cloistered nun and shook her hand, Grayson had a deep feeling Sister Gabriel was not all she appeared to be. The vision Grayson had when she shook her hand was fleeting at best, but it was distinctive. It was of three women, one a young woman perhaps a teenager and the other two were nuns. They were in some stone building; Grayson remembered the cold feeling she had during the vision and wondered what it meant. She also remembered trying to shake the sister’s hand when she left and Sister Gabriel quietly slipping her hands into the sleeves of her habit, avoiding Grayson. Looking down at the palm of her left hand, she wondered why.
Grayson walked back into the office ready to read the folder Corky had left. When she sat at the desk, the folder was not there. “Shit,” she mumbled and searched the papers strewn on the desk left in Corky’s wake. “He’s a slob.”
She heard something outside and stood by the window, overlooking the courtyard. She watched Sister Gabriel now as she walked the courtyard once again, rosary in one hand and a prayer book in the other. Instinctively, Grayson knew this was a ritual for Sister Gabriel; this must have been a daily routine in the convent in Innishmore, and old habits were hard to break. What amazed Grayson was not that she kept her routine, but how long it was. Glancing at her watch, she realized the nun had been walking in a circle around the courtyard for nearly an hour, and more amazing, Grayson had stood there watching her the entire time, mesmerized by the nun.
“That’s some dedication,” Grayson said as she watched from the window of the office.
In a moment, the bell tolled in the monastery, causing Sister Gabriel to close her book and walk out of the courtyard. It was exactly noon. Grayson would be curious to see if she meditated the same time every day.
With nothing to hold her interest, Grayson turned back into the room and sat at the desk where Corky kept all his writings, notes, and scanned pages he had taken from reading his “bible,” as he called it. Grayson looked on the desk, but she still couldn’t find the manila folder he had. He had all his notes from this prophecy he had been working on. He had left it on the desk for Grayson to look over the scanned pages from his book of wizardry… She laughed inwardly, knowing Corky hated it when she used that name to describe his book of spells, prophecies, and legends.
“Well,” Grayson said as she searched the desktop. “The folder seems to have vanished into thin air. Can’t anything be normal anymore?”
Figuring Corky must have taken it with him, Grayson gave up looking for it. For some reason, she looked at the doorway, just in time to see the fleeting image of Sister Gabriel. Grayson quickly went to the door and got a glimpse of a floating black blur rounding the corner. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another black blur. It was one of the younger nuns. The place is crawling with nuns, she thought.
“Are you looking for someone?”
Grayson let out a yelp and whirled around. “Geezus!”
“Mary and Joseph,” Sister Michael said. “I’m sorry I startled you.”
“That’s okay, Sister, Neala did it to me earlier. Hey, have you seen anyone by Corky’s desk? I’m missing a manila folder that he left for me.”
“I was gone this morning.”
“No, child. I had to see the bishop, and that takes all morning. I’ve just returned. Why?”
“No reason. So you haven’t seen Sister Gabriel?”
“Not as yet. Now why all the questions?” She gave Grayson a scathing look. “I highly doubt any of the sisters are thieves, Grayson.”
Grayson felt her face get red hot. “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply. I-I…” She stopped and chuckled. “I’m sorry.”
Sister Michael grinned. “I forgive you. Three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers should do it.”
Grayson laughed along. “Yes, ma’am. Can I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“How well do you know Sister Gabriel?”
Sister Michael raised an eyebrow. “Walk with me.”
“Uh-oh, we have to walk for this?”
Sister Michael laughed as they walked out to the courtyard. Grayson glanced at her. “She seems to have a routine of prayer. I saw her out here earlier.”
“Yes. When you live your life alone and away from human contact, a routine of prayer and meditation is a necessity.”
“I suppose it would be.” Grayson strolled next to the nun.
As they walked out of the courtyard and away from the monastery, Grayson waited for her to continue. “We’ll have an early spring,” Sister Michael said, looking around the green rolling hills.
“You sound sure of it.”
“I am.”
“Divine intervention?”
“Farmer’s Almanac.”
Grayson laughed quietly but said nothing more.
“Sister Gabriel, I believe, had a special calling. I cannot tell you much, except to say she found God early in her life and has been devoted ever since.”
Grayson nodded but said nothing; she felt Sister Michael watching her. “You are not convinced?”
“Oh, no, no,” Grayson said. “I’m just naturally curious of anyone who would hide themselves, for what—maybe thirty years?”
“To live a life of a cloistered nun or a monk is not hiding. It is their way of serving God.”
“I know, Sister, and I’m not judging. There’s just something about her.” Grayson noticed Sister Michael seem as if she wanted to say something.
