The Fool by Morgan Gallagher Page B

core of him that
prayed and reached for God, responded. Andrew Scott got down on his
knees, blessed himself with the sign of the Holy Cross and prayed
for the soul that had just departed: wishing with all the strength
of his own soul, that the departed one would find peace,
acceptance, forgiveness, and divine love. That it would move into a
state of Grace.
     
    Maryam did not bother the young priest with
words or explanations. She accepted his profound need to feel the
journey he was upon and not to mar those feelings with words,
intellect and questions. She cleared her equipment back into her
pack and silently jotted down notes for her report.
    Lesser mark of the pentagram completed:
working area protected. Nunc dimittis finished. Distinct sense of a
soul both locked into place and then released. Scent of tea
roses. She paused, wondering, thinking; filtering. Mother of
All Sorrows? Rome would puzzle upon her report and decide on
action, if any. She suspected this parish might be receiving more
funding, and more priests, to keep its flame alive. What a pity
that Wyn Jones would be moved on.
    She opened out her inner case and brought
out a crucible and a mortar and pestle. She selected frankincense
and ground alfalfa grasses, crushed and blended them together. She
then added a single dried rose petal. The mixture was tipped into
the crucible and the lid put on. She readied her camera to one side
and moved the crucible onto the altar, in the centre, which was
free from blood stain as the sheets of the Qur’an had kept it
clear. She lit the mixture and put the lid back on. When the smoke
was beginning to flow out from under the edges she used crucible
tongs and lifted the lid clean off. A cloud of smoke bellowed up.
She picked her camera up.
    Andrew watched as the smoke rolled up... and
stopped. How it condensed into itself and hung in the air above the
altar. How it rolled into itself in a delicate swirling ball, until
the heat from below died and it dissipated. How it drifted down,
back towards the altar, gently flowed over it and disappeared on
the stone flags of the floor. He was too astonished to pray.
    Altar tested positive for supernatural
interference.
     
    She tested several locations. Both altar and
tabernacle tested positive. The confessional and the choir did not.
The strongest reading was from the Sacristy, as she’d expected.
    It was well past dawn by the time she’d
finished and cleared up. Andy had stayed and watched. They walked
back over in the companionable silence that had slowly been
restored to them through the night’s endeavours. Whilst he made
them both some breakfast, Maryam typed up an initial report and
emailed it through to Rome. She requested permission to continue
her investigation by interviewing Wyn Jones, outlining some of her
concerns and in particular, her suspicion about his uncommon
silence with the police.
    The day had a lot of chaos in it and they
were both drained. Andrew took the couch in the parlour and Maryam
got two hours sleep lying on the bed in her room. First, the
doorbell started ringing, and then the phone never stopped. The
house began to fill up. The police leaving the scene had allowed
the women of the parish in to take charge of the cleaning and
cooking, and setting everything to rights. Two new priests arrived,
settled in upstairs and then began to prepare rotas for an all
night prayer vigil in the Church. The cleaning company finished the
crime scene clear up and a veritable mob descended on the church to
clean and set up for the ceremony. Maryam watched a local woman
arrange a spray of pink tea roses with white baby’s breath on the
side altar dedicated to Mary. On the other side, dedicated to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, she set in place a vase of crimson
carnations. She confirmed that those were the flowers that were
always placed there. Sometimes the tea roses were white, sometimes
yellow: they were always tea roses.
    ‘Father Edwards, he says the Lady likes