A Finer End

He gave her a startled glance; his gaze strayed to the briefcase he’d left on the table. He frowned. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “No. Yes. I don’t know. There’s something I haven’t told you.”

Winnie’s heart sank, and she braced herself for bad news.

Jack, however, seemed unaware of her discomfort. “Something very odd has been happening to me these past few months, Winnie, and I don’t know what to make of it. I haven’t said anything because … well, I was afraid you’d think I was a bit mad. And because it seemed somehow that telling you would give it a credence I wasn’t willing to acknowledge.”

“What are you talking about?” Winnie asked, now utterly baffled.

“I suppose you hear all sorts of odd things.…”

“Mostly ordinary things, really. People worried about their families, illness, debt … Jack, are you in some sort of trouble?”

“Nothing like that. Although that might be easier.” He hesitated a moment longer, then reached for his briefcase and removed a sheet of paper. “Read this.”

She took it curiously. It was an ordinary sheet of foolscap. On it a few Latin phrases had been penned in a small, square hand. Beneath that were parts of sentences scrawled in English, in a hand she recognized instantly as Jack’s.

At night the candles shone forth from the windows of the Great Church as stars from the heavens.… Our voices rang round roof and cloister … the gargoyles shouted praises to Our Lord. This you know.… That which was hidden will … out. Out of a thought will come truth. Fear not.…

“What is this?” she asked, looking up at Jack. “Are you translating something?”

“You might say that. Only, I wrote it. Both parts.”

“You wrote the Latin? But that’s not your handwriting. I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, pushing his wineglass aside. “The first few times it happened I had no awareness of it at all—just had to assume I’d written it because there was no other explanation. I had a few stiff drinks after that, I can tell you.

“But now … especially today—with this one”—he touched the page with his fingertip—“it’s like I’m watching myself from a distance, but I feel disconnected from what’s happening.”

“But you understand what you’re writing—”

“No. Not until afterwards. And then I struggle a good bit with the translation.”

Winnie stared at him. “But surely you can control it if you want—”

“It doesn’t occur to me. You do think I’m daft, don’t you? I can see it in your face.”

She made an effort to collect herself. “No, I … of course I don’t. But you should see a doctor, have a physical. Maybe there’s something—”

“A brain tumor?” He shook his head. “No other symptoms. Nor of any other physical ailment I’ve been able to find. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Then—”

“I suppose I could be suffering from some sort of mental breakdown, but I seem to be coping well enough otherwise. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Of course,” Winnie hastened to reassure him. He seemed as normal and as capable as anyone she had ever met, and that made his story all the more disconcerting.

“Good. That’s something, anyway,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “Having ruled out physical ailments, I started to research. There are parallels to something that’s happened before.”

Realizing she was still clutching her wineglass, Winnie relaxed her fingers and took a sip, forcing herself to be silent, to let him tell it his own way.

“Does the name Frederick Bligh Bond ring a bell?” Jack continued.

“Didn’t he have something to do with the Abbey? Sorry. That’s all I can come up with.”

“Bond was an architect, like me, and an authority on early church architecture. But he was also an amateur archaeologist, and when the Church of England bought the Abbey from private owners in 1907, Bond got the commission to excavate the ruins. He made some marvelous discoveries, including the existence of the Edgar Chapel. All very respectable, all very aboveboard, until several years into the excavations, when he revealed that his finds were due to instructions from former monks of the Abbey—and that the monks had communicated with him through automatic writing. He was fired, his reputation in ruins, and he never recovered.”

“But if he was familiar with the history of the Abbey, he was most likely just dredging up stuff from his subconscious,” Winnie protested.