Free Lucifer's Crown by Lillian Stewart Carl

bell in the chapel?"
    "Yes. A replica of St. Bridget's bell."
    "Once a priest, always a priest, I guess."
    "Yes. Even so, I've been—inactive—for many years now."
    "Did you leave the church,” asked Maggie's voice, “or did the church leave you?"
    Thomas looked round.
    "Sorry,” Maggie went on, “I was eavesdropping."
    "My faith is no secret.” Thomas replied. “Would you care for a cup of tea, Rose?"
    "I promised Sean I'd play basketball,” she answered. “Thanks anyway."
    "Please don't break anything,” Maggie told her. “I'd like to get y'all back to your parents intact."
    "No, ma'am,” said Rose with her brightest smile. Dazzled, Thomas managed to escort Maggie toward the outside door of his cottage without tripping over his own feet.
    "That smile is like a flash bulb going off in your face,” she said.
    "Breathtaking,” Thomas replied. “What a shame there are—shall we say vandals?—who would spoil such beauty. But I would assume from your Freudian slip you know that."
    "Freudian slip ... Oh no.” Maggie's face went, appropriately enough, the magenta of a Rosa gallica . “Return her to her parents intact. Like a girl that age is going to be a virgin. Sorry."
    "Your concern does you credit. Jivan—D. I. Gupta—expressed concern as well.” Opening the door, Thomas ushered Maggie into the house that had once belonged to the chapel's priest, two minuscule rooms up and down.
    The staircase to the bedroom was little more than a ladder. A medieval hooded fireplace contained soot-blackened andirons and a pile of ashes. Bits of shabby furniture stood upon a threadbare carpet. A computer and an audiotape player were conspicuously anachronistic. Lancet windows in the massive stone wall admitted a modicum of afternoon light.
    Maggie set her laptop computer on the table. “Yeah, I feel responsible for the kids. I don't have kids of my own. I'm—ah—I'm divorced.” She turned toward the nearest bookcase, presenting Thomas with her knotted shoulders. Choosing a book, she ran her fingertips down its spine as though she were stroking a lover's body.
    Her windblown hair made an auburn halo that softened her angular features. A steadiness in her gaze testified to an exacting intellect, and a tightness at the corners of her mouth suggested unresolved regrets. Her rounded body carried itself with the nervy poise of a thoroughbred horse. Thomas filled the kettle and set it on the electric ring. “You must find the students stimulating as well as worrying."
    "The campus in the fall is downright intoxicating. The changing leaves. The smell of new books. All those bright young faces.” She replaced the book and combed her hair with her fingers. “I like the way you write, putting the religious and social aspects into context. Most historians use past events to beat their own ideological horses."
    "St Bernard said, ‘Every word one writes smites the Devil.’ Mind you, it's fashionable nowadays to consider religious faith either a psychological idiosyncrasy or a deficiency in character. We rationalize away evil and medicate away visions."
    Maggie glanced back at him. “I wondered if religion was your horse."
    "One to ride, not to beat."
    "Do you ever question your faith?"
    "Frequently. And it always answers. To paraphrase Plato, the unexamined faith is not worth believing."
    "Your faith answers? Not the church? Is that why you left it?"
    "As with any event, there were many reasons.” The evasion came smoothly to his lips, but this time left a bitter aftertaste. Again he felt strong as any physical appetite the need to speak the entire truth. And yet how, when the truth would appear the most bare-faced of lies?
    "Not that I know anything about it,” Maggie told him. “I was brought up Episcopalian, and would probably be a Unitarian, except..."
    That would require belief , Thomas concluded for her.
    She considered two stitchery samplers hanging above the books. One was in Latin, the other in Greek, both