A Finer End

A sheet of paper covered in a graceful, but old-fashioned hand lay beneath the watercolor’s backing.

“Jack, I think this belongs to you,” Fiona said, awe in her voice as she transferred the painting to him.

He lifted the sheet, his heart thudding with excitement. Beneath it lay a flat, paper-wrapped package, tied with a faded silk ribbon. “This appears to be a letter,” he said, struggling to decipher the handwriting. He read aloud haltingly:

“These papers have been passed from father to son in my family for seven hundred years, and we have preserved them to … our ability. But sadly, the original wrappings have disintegrated beyond my power to restore. I have devised a new place of safekeeping, as I have been instructed, in the hopes that this gift from Our Lord may be treasured and kept as it deserves.

“It is said that this is the Holy Chant of Glastonbury, brought by Joseph of Arimathea and his followers from the Holy Land in the First Century after the Crucifixion of Our Lord, perpetuated by twelve anointed choristers, as it had been since the days of the Faithful in Egypt. Thus when the Norman, Abbot Thurstan, sought to impose the form of worship practiced in France upon the monks of our Abbey, they rose in protest against him and he shed their blood upon the Altar of the Great Church. So it is that this most holy of praises to Our Lord vanished from the sight and hearing of mankind, but was not lost.

“This I entrust to the care of”—Jack squinted at the script—“descendants—I think he says descendants, and may the Blessings of Our Lord Jesus Christ be always upon you.

Matthew Montfort, 1759.”

Jack looked up; Winnie’s face was rapt. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “So it was true. I didn’t really believe it.…”

“I can’t bear it,” Winnie breathed. “Go on. Open the package.” When he hesitated still, she said gently, “It’s your right, Jack. This is what Edmund wanted.”

Fingers trembling, he untied the ribbon and folded back the wrapping from the tissue-thin folio beneath.

The path that had begun with such deceptive gentleness now switched back and forth up the steep north side of the Tor. The drop-off was sheer, the clay between the viciously sharp stones was slick as glass, and there was no railing.

Gemma made the mistake at first of trying to use her torch, but she found that while the circle of light lit the terrain immediately beneath her feet, it blinded her to the turns of the path and the nearness of the precipice.

She fell once, hard, cutting her hands and knees. She lay there a long minute, feeling the cold dampness seep through her clothing, letting her heart slow. It didn’t matter that she was afraid of heights, she told herself, as she couldn’t tell how far up she’d climbed.

After that, she used her hands as much as her feet, trying always to feel the rising ground on her right.

Still, she misjudged a turn in the path: her left foot slid over the edge, sending pebbles echoing down the hillside. She stood gasping, gathering her courage, but the prospect of the return journey was so terrifying she knew that even if it weren’t for Faith, she could only continue upwards.

At last, her right hand reached into space, and as she moved gingerly in that direction she felt the ground level out beneath her feet. She had reached the summit. For an instant moonlight rent the clouds, illuminating the tower before her. Then the clouds blotted out the moon again, but the dark, squat shape remained imprinted on her brain.

How had she ever thought to find Faith in this desolate place?

She used the torch now as she inched forward, but it lit only the sparse turf, and once a startled sheep. When she called out Faith’s name, the wind snatched the word from her mouth. She halted a few yards from the tower, unwilling to go any closer. Despair washed through her.

Then, in a lull in the wind, she thought she heard a cry.