I stare through the honey-warm light in the window of Orman Used & Rare Books. After fleeing the cathedral, I climbed into my car and began driving, taking free right turns and last-minute lefts, letting the voice guide me through the city like an undercover officer on a high-speed car chase, expecting to end up somewhere important, somewhere religious, somewhere worthy of the voice’s direction. But not here. Not where I’ve already been twice in almost as many days. Where everything started. Where I made an ass of myself the last time.
I shake my head and place my hands over my ears.Why here?I ask, but the voice does not respond.
The voice was always inside me, a part of me, and yet distinct from my own thoughts. I stopped speaking to it out loud after my mother caught me, learning instead how to respond with my eyes and heart and mind. How to carry on an interior conversation. To feel my way through a dialogue that was only ever happening within.
Until the voice stopped speaking back. I can’t help wondering now if it was a fluke, if I’ve been abandoned once again. I try not to panic. Remind myself that in all the years it was with me, it kept its own mind, its own habits and rhythms, coming andgoing as it pleased. But the last time itwent, it went for seventeen years. And in the ensuing silence, I am beginning to question whether I really heard it at all.
I get out of the car and start for the door. The street outside the bookstore is bleak. This corner of the city reflects all the grit and downtrodden charm Seattle is known for, the brooding miasma at its heart. And it is uncomfortably quiet.
The black note card crunches in my hand. What am I doing running around the city like this, chasing a dream, or a nightmare—I’m not sure which? What are these people playing at? Why am I playing along?
I feel like the one-eyed cat I saw—bedraggled, sodden, wanting a solid meal and a place to lick my wounds. I should go home, take off these godforsaken boots, pour myself a large glass of Syrah, and get a decent night’s sleep. Prepare to face Calvin at the office tomorrow morning.
I turn back for the car but only make it a few steps when I hear the door open behind me. “Judeth? Is that you?”
I freeze and cringe. Reluctant, I turn around. “Hello.”
“Sneaking away this time?” His expression is a cross between suspicious and amused.
“No,” I lie. “Just thought I forgot something in my car.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me, but he doesn’t call bullshit openly, and I’m grateful.
“I wanted to apologize,” I tell him. “For my last visit. I was rude and maybe a little…off. I’m not always like that. It was a weird day. I just didn’t want you to think—”
“Apology accepted,” he says and holds the door open for me.
I walk inside. A few shoppers are quietly perusing the aisles, so I keep my voice down as I follow him to the counter.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks as he passes me.
I shake my head. “Not exactly.”
“Where did you go?” He is undeterred. I wish I could say I felt the same.
“All of the places you mentioned. Several that you didn’t,” I inform him.
He cocks a brow. “You weren’t impressed?”
The glistening interior of St. James Cathedral flashes through my mind. “Of course,” I tell him. “I’m not blind.”
“Then what?” He busies himself wiping down the counter with a dustcloth and a bottle of Pledge. I suddenly imagine Roger holding Pledge and wearing rubber gloves in his turtleneck and linen trousers, his hair flopping to one side. It’s so impossibly amusing I nearly laugh out loud. He never offered to help with anything other than the bills after moving into my place. He didn’t have to say that he thought it was beneath him; it was implied.
“Nothing. I—” I scratch my forehead even though it doesn’t itch. “I don’t know. I was after something specific, I guess. But it never showed.”
He studies me like I’m a good jigsaw puzzle he’s just sitting down to for a long, frustrating weekend. “Specifichow? If you tell me what it is, maybe I can help you find it.”
It’s the mark of a selfless man, that willingness to help against his better judgment. I haven’t met many of those. I wish I could give him what he’s asking for, but, the truth is, I don’t know myself.
I take a breath and step to the side as a woman approaches with a small pile of unruly romance novels, ready to check out. “I don’t think I can.”
He peers at me as he rings the woman up. “Do you always speak in riddles or is that just for my benefit?” he asks sarcastically.
I become ridiculously self-conscious under his scrutiny—my low, untidy ponytail, the scuff marks along my boots, my half-done makeup and head-to-toe black attire, the holes in all my answers. “Sorry. It’s kind of this thing I’m doing. Like a scavenger hunt.”
He wishes the woman well as she takes her bag and heads out. Leaning over the counter, he says, “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
I don’t know what to say because it’s truer than he knows, but not in a good way. I laugh uncomfortably. “I received, like, a clue. But I haven’t been able to figure it out. I thought maybe I’d know once I saw it at one of the churches, but I think I had the wrong idea.”
