Divine Temptation (13 page)

Maggie chuckled. “Yeah, given his personality, I’d say exorcism makes perfect sense as a favored pastime.”

Father Tom didn’t appear by the time Maggie went home, but the next morning he bustled into the office carrying a stack of books. He set them on the edge of the desk while he fished around in his pocket and pulled out a key to open his office door. “I’m sorry to have procrastinated so much on this, Maggie. But I’ve finally gotten inspiration for the archaeology presentation. Now I’ve just got to comb through these and get some notes together. How long are you in today?”

“I could stay until one.”

“Oh dear.” He maneuvered so he could see the face of his watch.

“Why don’t you give me whatever you have ready by then, and I’ll type it up at home,” Maggie suggested. “Then I can finish up anything remaining in the morning.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you. I’ll get busy.”

He stepped into his office, but Brenda stopped him with a shout. “Hey! You don’t think you’re going to bury your head in those books before giving us a full account of what went on at Somme, do you?”

He paused, seeming to think over his words before saying, “Nothing conclusive. I wasn’t the only priest or minister called in. There were a dozen or so, all with different thoughts on what might be going on.”

“Well, what do you think it was?” Brenda asked, and Maggie held her breath.

“It’s not…I don’t…it’s probably nothing. A freak of nature. Nevertheless, we’ve all agreed to keep a close eye on the situation, just in case. For now the garden staff will downplay the spectacle—essentially ignore it and see if it goes away.”

Maggie was relieved by his nonchalance. Surely if a priest wasn’t overly concerned about it, she needn’t be either. He took a step into his office, but then turned back to the women. “Before you get any ideas, I’d rather the two of you stayed away from the park for now. It’s just some vines, after all. And more people showing up, particularly church staff, will only give more credence to a fluke. It’s best not to get people riled up over nothing.” His eyes flicked between the two women before he retreated into his office and shut the door.

“It’s kind of nice the gardens don’t want to use the visitation thing to lure more visitors,” Maggie said.

“Not how they roll, I guess,” Brenda answered absently as she returned to her work.

Maggie went home with several pages of Father Tom’s handwritten notes. She was happy when Liam’s friend Tommy called to ask him to the pool for the afternoon—this way she could work without interruption since Kirsten also had plans to spend the afternoon with her friends.

Deciphering the priest’s handwriting was no problem, but sometimes his mind and his hand worked at two completely different speeds and his notes often ended up with arrows, asterisks, and circled text that took some figuring out. He’d bookmarked a picture of a small stone with rudimentary figures of a man and woman carved into the face that Maggie surmised he wanted included on the last page of the handouts.

She typed an outline of various archeological discoveries—capitols, palaces, and stone tablets in places such as Bogazkoy, Turkey, and Iraq—that backed up the existence of kings and societies described in Scripture. She filled another page with a list of credible tombs of biblical figures in locations that could be visited today.

Going through all the physical support—not something often explored when talking of faith and spirituality—had piqued her interest more than she’d expected, so later that evening she found herself exploring more online. Separating wheat from chaff was a bit tedious on the Internet, and she spent far too much time exploring something called the Protégé Prophecy, a supposed prediction that one of Satan’s followers would father a child on this Earth. The child would bring legions of humans into the devil’s fold and elevate his father’s standing in the underworld. Maggie found it all fascinating, but a few additional clicks of her mouse informed her that it had all been dismissed as an unfounded hoax.

Since it was summer and there were no extra credit points to be earned, Maggie didn’t push Kirsten to attend Father Tom’s talk the next evening. Besides, this way she didn’t have to find a babysitter for Liam. She’d promoted the presentation in the local papers and was curious to see whether the blurbs had attracted any outside folks. But most of the people she handed information packets to as they filtered in for the lecture were at least somewhat familiar, except for one reserved gentleman who took a seat several rows behind the others. Estimating him as roughly her age, Maggie noted his refined features and was certain he’d have left an impression if she’d ever seen him before. It was a decent sized showing overall, and by the time Father Tom was scheduled to begin, she had only five packets left. She set them on a table in the narthex for latecomers and stepped just inside the doors, pleased that Monsignor Sarto hadn’t rushed back into town to take over this presentation too.

After greeting everyone, Father Tom started his presentation in an unusual way. “The Bible reads like a work of fiction. ‘The greatest
story
ever told,’ they say. And it’s a story that has it all—action, sex, deception, murder. Love. So it’s easy to forget that as Christians, we believe it’s all true. Now, that’s not to say its literal translation is always historically accurate, such as in the story of creation. The story of Adam and Eve may be literally historically accurate, or it may be a parable of sorts, but as we move beyond Genesis, and prior to Revelation, our Holy Bible becomes as much an historical account as it is a spiritual one.”

He went on to delve into accounts of each of the archeological excavations Maggie had typed up.

“If I may now ask you to turn to the final page of your packet.”

The swishing of paper sounded throughout the church.

“This is a picture of a seal discovered near the bottom of the
Tepe Gowra
Mound in Iraq. Would someone like to describe the carving?”

He nodded toward a man who stood up and said, “It’s a woman and a man. Naked. They’re bowing prostrate, like they’re broken.”

“And what else do you see in that picture?”

“A snake.” The man’s head snapped up to look at Father Tom. “It’s Adam and Eve.”

The pastor nodded. “Please look at the notes below and see that this finding dates back to thirty-five hundred B.C.” He paused and looked out at the attendees. “It appears the fall of mankind may have a basis in history, after all. He gave them a garden. Paradise. And Satan came along and offered something else. They were tempted. They gave in. And God’s been punishing them ever since.”

In the quiet of the night, an elusive drip coming from somewhere in the townhouse worked like a metronome to lull and focus Maggie’s mind. Yet she couldn’t fall asleep. She had so many questions after the presentation, and despite Father Tom’s assurances about the
tholos
, she couldn’t help but wonder. She wished Evan was there to talk to about it all.

Before she lifted her head and saw him, she felt him. “Hey, stranger,” she teased as she propped herself up on her elbows.

He smiled, but only halfway, and didn’t make a move to approach her. “What do you need, Maggie?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You brought me here.”

“Against your will?” She sat straight up.

He sighed, but didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…I have a lot of questions for you. If you don’t want to answer—”

“I do want to be here, and I do want to answer your questions—to the extent that I’m allowed.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why do you seem so…stiff?”

He gave her a long and hard look, and then the cold steel of his eyes softened to something warmer and the tensed muscles along his rigid jawline relaxed. “There’s no problem. I’ve just not been summoned by a human before. I didn’t know it was possible.”

“Oh.” She felt her face warm. She hadn’t realized she’d been wishing hard enough for him that anyone would notice. “Guess I’d better make good use of my ‘summons’ then.” She told him about the disturbance at Somme Park, but Evan didn’t know anything about it. She asked if he thought it could have anything to do with what she’d felt there, if perhaps he’d misinterpreted the energy and it had actually been something good.

“Why would I lead you away from something good?” he asked.

“You admitted to not fully understanding what’s going on here. I mean, why are you appearing to me in the first place? What drew you to the coffee shop? You don’t know. So, all I’m suggesting is that maybe you were wrong that day at Somme.”

Through the fringe of hair that fell across his forehead, she saw that his typically smooth brow was creased in confusion. His frown told her he didn’t like the uncertainty. “Or perhaps what called me there was entirely different from the pull you felt at the urn—two conflicting spirits that appeared in the same area, either by coincidence or design. The dark shadows may have moved on from that space while the light stayed. Either way, I suggest you stay away from there for the time being.”

“I was hardly planning to have a picnic there any time soon.” Maggie was frustrated with the continued lack of a straight answer and let out an irritated sigh. “I’m sure there’s no point to it, but let’s move on to the next question. Adam and Eve—fact or fiction?” The ancient seal had seemed to prove that an Adam and Eve-like legend had existed from near the beginning of time.

“The story is true, but perhaps not exactly in the way you understand it,” he explained. “To be communicated, it had to be put into human words. There is no language understood on Earth that could convey an exact account.”

In response, he said, “I know it’s a difficult concept to grasp—that there are things out there your mind simply can’t fathom. I could try to explain, but you wouldn’t understand.” He spoke in gentle tones and moved closer to the bed, sitting down on the end when she shot him a dirty look for telling her she wouldn’t understand. “That’s where your faith comes in.” He reached up and traced his thumb lightly over the tense wrinkle between her eyebrows, easing it away with his serene energy. She nodded, and his fingers moved down to rest at the bend of her jaw.

“What do you mean when you say the story is true, even if I don’t understand it accurately?” she asked.

“The essentials are true—God created man, then woman. They were meant to live in perfect tranquility. But they were tempted into disobedience.”

“And God punished them.”

“Punishment wasn’t God’s purpose. His purpose was to give them what they wanted.”

“They wanted to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden?”

“They wanted to be more open to sin. To bite that fruit, Eve had to overcome an enormous obstacle. God didn’t make humans to sin; it wasn’t in their original nature. But when Eve used her free will to surmount the obstacle—the innate goodness and obedience God had intended for mankind—and gave in to temptation, and then Adam followed, God saw what they wanted and he gave it to them.”

“But everything became so awful after that; it sounds like punishment to me.”

“Fear, hunger, shame, coldness—it’s all a part of sin. They couldn’t just have part of it; they had to take it all. But it’s what they chose.”

“Not really,” Maggie insisted. “They wanted the fruit and the power they thought would come with it. They didn’t ask for the rest of it. It seems unfair that God didn’t warn them about the other stuff ahead of time.”