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Geoffrey spoke up slowly, a faraway look in his eyes. “I want to go to India”, he said. “I’m to go to Cambridge next year, then work here with my father, but I don’t want that life. I want to see the world. I’m joining the Royal Navy as an officer instead. That’s my secret”.

Joseph began to speak almost before Geoffrey finished. “I’m going to America. I have a cousin there, and when I raise ten pounds, he’ll sponsor me”.

I was startled. I knew who he meant. Once a year our mother’s cousin sent us a bundle of knickknacks and candy, sometimes coins. She kept his brief letters in the kitchen drawer.

“Is it true?” I asked.

Joseph looked at me. “If you tell, Rose, I’ll make you sorry”.

“Rose won’t tell”, Geoffrey said. He tossed a pebble into a corner. “She won’t, because she’ll share a secret, too. What is it that you dream of, Rose? Tell us. Do you want to be a princess?”

I don’t know what made me answer as I did. Perhaps it was the silence, the layers of the past that seemed to well up from the stones, the years of prayers that had been spoken here.

“A priest”, I said, without even thinking, but as I said the words I knew they were true. “I would like to stand up in the church and say the words, and be a priest”.

A long silence followed, wind moving in the sunny air.

Then they laughed.

“A priest!” Joseph repeated, scornful. “Don’t be daft”.

“Girls can’t be priests”, Geoffrey agreed, though more kindly.

My cheeks flamed and I didn’t speak. I hadn’t known how deep this longing was until I spoke it. Though I had always understood that it was beyond rules or even words, how I felt when I walked into the silent church to mend the robes or repair the altar cloths—more alive, more listening, than I ever felt in other places.

I paused in the reading and looked out the window, watching two young men on bicycles travel down the quiet street and disappear around the corner. What Rose had put into words was something I’d felt, too, something I’d been thinking about since I’d seen the Wisdom window with its beautiful rendition of creation. Now I was more convinced than ever that Rose was connected to those windows, remembering their vivid colors, the swirl of wind, the sense of divine life and motion in the world: ruah, breath, spirit.

“All right”, Geoffrey said. He leaned against the stone wall. “I’ll tell you another story. Once there was a beautiful woman from a noble family. She fell in love with a man who had no prospects and was sent away. A few years later she visited this very monastery and was shocked to find her beloved had become a monk. They started to meet in secret”. He paused here, lowered his voice. “When they were discovered, she was sealed up in a wall right here, alive”.

Now Joseph was as quiet as me. He was staring at Geoffrey Wyndham’s soft leather boots. I knew just what he was thinking—not about the horror of the story, which I didn’t believe, but about the noble girl, the man who had no prospects, the ruin of it all. My shame deepened, for our boots, Joseph’s and my own, were old work boots, cracked and muddy. We had no prospects either.

We listened to the wind move in the grass.

“I’m leaving”, Joseph said. He walked past the broken stairs and disappeared into the corridor. When I went to follow him, Geoffrey caught my arm. There were dry leaves under my feet and the sky opening above.

“Don’t be angry”, he said. “I think you’re too pretty to be a priest, that’s all”. Then he leaned down swiftly and kissed me. I was startled by the feeling, like flowers opening to the sun, and I did not pull away.

“That’s my real secret”, he whispered, his breath in my ear, his cheek against mine. “A secret only for you, Rose Jarrett”.

This is how it began, then, a year before the comet.

It is nearly noon. My accountant has gone. He gathered up his things and bowed slightly in my direction before he disappeared into the crowd. He slept so soundly, his head resting on my shoulder. I feel a little