The Book of Illumination Read Online Free Page A

believe in ghosts.”
    Officially, that is. Unofficially, I have friendly working relationships with a number of men of the cloth, some of whom wear black, and some of whom wear scarlet. Cardinal O’Shea might not take my call if I phoned up his office and asked to speak with him, but I had people I could get to call him.
    I glanced over at Sylvia. She had found her way to a chair and sat down. As though to compensate for her profane lapse, her posture was perfect and her ankles were primly crossed.
    The older monk began to pace as his younger companion watched nervously. I could tell that the younger ghost wanted to speak but didn’t dare. From their relationship, I inferred that the older monk was his abbot.
    “So it’s really up to you,” I ventured. “If you want my help, you have to tell me what’s going on.”
    The older monk paused, then turned toward me slowly.
    I’ll tell
you …
nothing
, he thought coldly.
    “Not even what language you’re speaking?”
    He could not prevent me from hearing what he was thinking, so as first he, then the younger monk vanished into air, I heard my answer as that young musical prodigy might hear a snatch of melody in the wind:
    Irish
.

    Clouds had gathered during the course of the day, and the few sailboats left on the river looked lonesome and vulnerable, like toys in danger of being picked up and tossed by an irritable child. I had stayed longer at the Athenaeum than I’d planned and was anxious to get home; Declan and Henry would be back anytime now, and I wanted to have a meal ready. I glanced at my watch and relaxed a little: it was only a quarter to four.
    It had taken Sylvia and me half an hour to put her office back together. We’d replaced the items in her desk drawer, straightened the books on her shelves, and swept the opalescent shards of shell into her wastebasket. Her delicate pearly nautilus had been shattered, and a shell with a chestnut zebra pattern had taken a pretty hard hit, but a couple of the smaller, harder shells had survived with only chips.
    “Why would they do this?” she asked, positioning the surviving shells so that the chips would be hidden.
    “I don’t know. The younger one seems nicer, but I don’t think we’ll get anything out of him unless he comes to see you alone. Which poses a problem.”
    Sylvia was straightening the items on her desk. She looked up. “You’re the only one they can communicate with.”
    “Yeah.”
    I sat down. All of a sudden I felt very tired, and then I remembered that I had forgotten to pick up the blueberry muffin I’d intended to buy with my Starbucks on my way in this morning. I was fading. Maybe they’d be giving out leftover Luna bars on the common. I liked those Chocolate Pecan Pie ones.
    Sylvia wiped off the top of her desk—aha! She did tuck Kleenex up her sleeve! She came over and sat down beside me.
    “Are you …crazy busy right now?” she asked.
    “My son’s getting home in a little while. I really have to—”
    “No,” she interrupted, “I mean, are you working full-time?”
    “I wish.” She had no idea how I wished. We were getting by, but just barely.
    She nodded and smiled. “Could we meet for coffee tomorrow?”
    “I have a meeting at two in Carlisle, but I’m free in the morning.”
    “There’s a café on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Commonwealth. Would eight thirty be too early?”
    “Not at all,” I said.

Chapter Four

    T HE CANNELLONI WERE warming up when I heard Declan’s truck pull into the driveway. I glanced out the window, but the doors didn’t open right away. Transitions were hard. As much as Henry might want to see me, he hated saying good-bye to his dad. On Fridays, it went the other way.
    Declan and his wife, Kelly, had been separated for eight months when he and I met one night at a bar in the North End. I wish I could blame the luscious and vaguely tawdry turn the evening took (backseat of a car parked up by the ocean in Swampscott) on something like