When she opened her eyes, she knew what her cards meant—leaving the High Priest.
Don’t worry. He’s not going to kill himself, Nora replied. He’s decided to go back to the Jesuits.
Wednesday.
Nothing in the news. Nora texted Cyrus about that. He told her to sit tight, the tea was brewing.
She waited though the wait was hard and lonely. They’d all seen little of each other since last Thursday when Nora had made her choice. Kingsley, Juliette, and Céleste were holed up in their white palace behind the black iron gates. Nora stayed in her office mostly, trying to work or trying to read, but really doing nothing much but stroking Gmork’s head and staring out the French doors to her wild backyard garden. And Søren? She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Even Cyrus disappeared on her, spending his free time with Paulina doing their wedding errands. It made Nora smile to think of him taste-testing wedding cakes, his eyes glazing over when the florist tried discussing bouquets and boutonnieres with him. He needed that time with Paulina doing sweet easy things.
They all needed that time. They were like injured animals, isolating themselves from the pack to lick their wounds and privately heal.
Gmork nudged Nora’s hand, his signal she needed to get back to petting him. And she did. It was a sweet and easy thing to do, and while it didn’t make her feel too much better, it didn’t make her feel any worse.
Thursday.
Nora hated waiting. She told Cyrus that in a text message. He replied with a message asking her to come have dinner with him and Paulina.
She wants to meet you, Cyrus wrote her.
I’m not fit for company.
Get fit. You do not tell my fiancée “no.”
Nora didn’t want to leave her house but knew she couldn’t hide forever. She took a shower, dressed in her most conservative outfit—red slacks, white boatneck blouse, and matching red ballet flats. When she arrived at the little white cottage, a pretty brown-skinned woman in a yellow dress and white lace cardigan opened the door. This was Paulina. Cyrus stood behind her, watching the show.
“Hi,” Nora said. “I’m Nora. Thank you for—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. Paulina stepped forward and took Nora in her arms for a long hug. Cyrus said, gloating, “I knew you two would get along.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Friday.
Cyrus had been right with his prediction. On Friday, the front page of the paper revealed damning evidence of a coverup in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Archbishop Dunn’s secretary had served as a source. At age thirty-seven, while working as a school chaplain at a New Orleans parochial school, Father Isaac Murran had kissed a student and rubbed her thighs. That girl’s family made a complaint. Another girl came forward and said he’d done the same to her. Father Isaac was transferred to a post working as a chaplain in a men’s prison, then at a nursing home, then back at a middle school. Archbishop Dunn was aware of the complaint in the file, the prior bad acts, but still chose to transfer Father Isaac to a new position at a different school. It seemed the archbishop was well-aware of many prior bad acts of several priests in the diocese. Instead of defrocking the priests or calling the police to report the crimes, the men had simply been transferred, then transferred, then transferred again.
Nora took a copy of the paper to Mercedes at The Good Witch. She found her in the reading room, already pasting a cut-out of the article into her big black leather magic book.
She stood in the doorway of the room, watching Mercedes work.
“I made the scrapbook,” Nora said. Mercedes looked up from her cutting and pasting.
“It’s called a book of shadows, not a scrapbook,” she said, though Nora could tell she was trying not to smile. “If your name had been in the article, I would have framed it and put it on the wall with the others.”
“I’m glad my name’s not in the article.”
“I’ve been working spells to protect you all week.”
“I think they’re working. They haven’t said a word about me. Not even a hint. Cyrus’s name is everywhere though.”
“I didn’t cast any spell of protection for him.”
“That’s not very nice.” Nora tried to scowl.
“Your friend is a detective. Getting his name in the paper for solving a case is good for him, bad for you.”
Mercedes motioned at the chair across from her currently occupied by a small black cat that didn’t look much older than a kitten.
“Is this Hestia?” Nora said.
“No, this is one of the stray ‘familiars’ someone dropped off at my doorstep. I need to change the sign to say, All Familiars Must be Accompanied by Their Human.”
She smiled. Mercedes said, “How are you?”
Nora picked up the half-sleeping cat and took the chair. The cat merely stretched and yawned and fell back asleep on her lap.
“Everyone keeps asking me that. Angry. But I’m okay. Just worried about that little girl.”
“Even a cleansing fire can burn you, if you stand too close. Churches are burning in this town. I see the fires on the altars. But better careers burning than children.”
“They’re saying Archbishop Dunn may have to resign. There might even be criminal charges.”
“Hope so,” Mercedes said. “If he does go to jail, it’ll be thanks to you.”
“Thanks to you,” Nora said. “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t warned me I was going to make the wrong choice. The men in my life made very persuasive arguments.”
“So easy to choose between good and evil. So hard to choose between good and good. Hardest of all is choosing between what you want to do and what you ought to do.”
“It was all on me,” Nora said. “My choice. Just me. I was the one vote and if I’d voted the other way, how many kids would… I guess we all thought it was over.” The big clergy abuse scandals of the ’90s had been all over the papers. Then they just stopped. Out of sight, out of mind.
“You know how many supposed ‘witches’ and ‘psychics’ are just con artists?” Mercedes said. “How many of those ‘mediums’ take the hope and the money of grieving parents, claiming they can communicate with their dead children? My own house needs cleaned, too. Nothing new about people abusing their power. Your Church doesn’t own the copyright on that.”
Mercedes gave her a little smile, a littler wink.
Nora had to ask. She just had to.
“Is it real? Did you really see what you say you saw in my cards?”
“Does it matter?” Mercedes shrugged. “Maybe I saw it in the cards. Maybe I had a vision. Maybe I just used my brain and two eyes when I saw a handsome man in black drive up to your house one night, Bible in his saddlebag, inscribed, ‘To Father Stearns with deepest love and gratitude.’” The Bible was a gift from parishioners at Sacred Heart when he left to come to New Orleans.
“So you knew I was sleeping with a priest. That still doesn’t explain—”