The Book of Illumination Read Online Free

cutting layers of tissue.
    “She wanted to see where we work,” Sylvia managed, nodding overenthusiastically.
    “Well, here it is,” Chandler said grouchily.
    “What are you working on?” I stupidly asked, the result beingthat fifteen minutes later, we were still listening to a discourse on lesser-known details of Palladian influence in the buildings of nineteenth-century Philadelphia. He had really warmed up—to the sound of his own voice.
    “Well,” Sylvia broke in, “we should probably let you get back to work. Anza has …”
    I could see her searching helplessly for something I had … to do? To get to? To treat with an immediate dose of … something?
    “…a friend running the Tufts 10K!” I offered brilliantly. I beamed at Sylvia.
    “How unpleasant,” he mumbled. A horrifying image of Chandler in spandex, and too little of it, sprang unbidden to mind.
    I had to agree.

    Sylvia unlocked her office door, switched on the light, and stepped inside. A strangled cry escaped her lips, and as my gaze swept the room, my stomach did a little flip. Desk drawers were pulled out and their contents spilled across the carpet, and several beautiful shells I had noticed, pearly varieties in various shapes, had been shattered.
    Man, these guys were mad!
    Then I saw him again, the older monk. He had apparently just finished his rampage, because he was red and breathless.
    “What’s
this
all about?” I demanded, fixing him with a direct stare. “You should be ashamed of yourself! This is no way for a man of God to behave! Trashing people’s offices!”
    I have to admit, I always enjoy the look of shock on their faces. Ghosts don’t know I can see them. Until I speak to them directly or wave or something, they assume I’m like every other clueless human being.
    They were thinking in a language that was unfamiliar to me, alanguage I had never heard spoken. But words are not, and never have been, barriers for me. I have no idea how or why, but I understand what is being thought. That’s how it’s always been.
    “Oh my God,” Sylvia said. Miraculously, she was still on her feet.
    “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain!” the older monk bellowed.
    “Knock off the swearing,” I said to Sylvia. “You’re pissing him off.”
    “I didn’t swear,” she said.
    “‘God’ is a swear,” I explained, “when you say it like that.”
    “I’m sorry! I didn’t know!” I noticed that her hands were shaking.
    “What do you want?” I asked him.
    “I demand to speak with the cardinal!”
    He was quavering with fury, and I tried to keep from smiling by biting the inside of my cheek. He was giving my son some real competition in the tantrum department.
    “I don’t think that’s possible, Brother. As you probably know.”
    He didn’t answer, but I had his attention.
    “I’m sure you’ve tried. And he couldn’t see you, could he?”
    He seemed to deflate before my eyes. Behind him, the younger monk shook his head silently.
    “I’ll be glad to help if I can.”
    “You?” The sneer had returned to his expression.
    I speculated on which part of me he would find most objectionable, and the list was long: I was a lapsed Catholic, an unwed mother, a female wearing jeans and a torn T-shirt that might be a tad too tight, a female wearing red(dish) lipstick, a female who didn’t feel she had to genuflect before him and ask for his blessing. In short, a female who wasn’t a nun.
    “Suit yourself,” I said. “You probably have people showing up here all the time who can see you and talk to you.”
    He glared at me, but I could see that this had hit home. “I must speak with the cardinal!”
    “Not going to happen, Brother. I’d do it if I could but I seriously doubt that someone like me could get Cardinal O’Shea here to do the bidding of someone like you.”
    “And by that you mean …?”
    “A ghost. With all due respect. You should know that better than anyone: the Church doesn’t