Praise for the Novels of Barbara O’Neal

Praise for the Novels of Barbara O’Neal

HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE

“Mothers and daughters are at the heart of this beautiful novel by O’Neal.… Highly

recommended.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“Absorbing … O’Neal’s tale of strong-willed women and torn family loyalties is a cut

above the standard women’s ction fare, held together by lovingly sketched characters

and real emotion.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Envelops you like the scent of warm bread, comforting and invigorating, full of love

and forgiveness and possibility.”

—ERICA BAUERMEISTER, bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients

“This book will have you smiling and crying and pining for an old love, or just a hunk

of really good fresh-baked bread. I loved every single delicious bite.”

—JENNIE SHORTRIDGE, author of When She Flew

THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING

“O’Neal has created a powerful and intriguing story rich in detailed and vivid

descriptions of the Southwest.”

—Booklist

“Readers will identify with this story and the multilayered characters.… And with some

of the tantalizing recipes for dishes served at the 100 Breakfasts Cafй included, O’Neal

provides a feast not only for the imagination but the taste buds as well.”

—Romantic Times

“Barbara O’Neal has masterfully woven local culture, the beauty of nature, her love of

food and restaurants, and a little romance into this magnificent novel.”

—Fresh Fiction

THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS

“The Lost Recipe for Happiness is a delectable banquet for the reader.… This book is as

delicious as the recipes interspersed throughout an incredible story.”

—SUSAN WIGGS, New York Times bestselling author

“The Lost Recipe for Happiness is utterly magical and fantastically sensual. It’s as dark

and deep and sweet as chocolate. I want to live in this book.… A total triumph.”

—SARAH ADDISON ALLEN, New York Times bestselling author

“Beautiful writing, good storytelling and an endearing heroine set against the backdrop

of Aspen, Colorado, are highlights of O’Neal’s novel. A tale that intertwines food,

friendship, passion, and love in such a delectable mix is one to truly savor until the very

last page.”

—Romantic Times

“Will appeal to women’s ction fans and foodies, who will enjoy the intriguing

recipes … laced through the book.”

—St. Petersburg Times

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used

fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

2012 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Original

Copyright © 2012 by Barbara Samuel

Al rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of

Random House, Inc., New York.

BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Original y published in mass market in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing

Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1989.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

O’Neal, Barbara

The garden of happy endings : a novel / Barbara O’Neal.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53446-0_01

I. Title.

PS3573.I485G37 2012

813′.54—dc23 2011036881

www.bantamdel .com

Cover design: Belina Huey

Cover images: © Cultura (woman and garden),

© Justin Paget/Oxford Scientific (dog)

v3.1

Prologue

MANY YEARS AGO

The second time Elsa turned her back on God, it was raining.

She had imagined that they would end their pilgrimage by walking from the

Camino right into the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, which she had seen

in pictures. It was one of the largest cathedrals in the world, and in her mind, the

Camino was a red carpet leading directly to it.

Instead, there was rst a long slog through the city itself. It was pouring, a relentless

deluge that soaked them as they walked suddenly on sidewalks instead of gravel,

trudging through the large and thriving metropolis, complete with noisy cars, and

planes roaring overhead, and the cacophony of thousands of people. After forty-three

days of walking from one quiet hostel to the next, where the noisiest things in the world

were roosters and frogs, the city jangled her nerves.

Joaquin, her ancй, was deeply quiet. They had begun the camino as a lark, one last

adventure before they started graduate school, but it had become much more as they

traveled, one foot in front of the other.

They should have known better, Elsa thought, shoulders hunched in misery. She should

have known better. The camino called you for a reason. Secretly, she had hoped to nd

some indication of the way to express her vocation. From tiniest girlhood, she had

wanted to be a priest. That idea had been shattered when she was fourteen, but she had

still focused on comparative religions as an undergrad.

“Are you all right?” she asked Joaquin.

He took her hand. “Yes,” he said, but his throat betrayed him, showing his Adam’s

apple moving in a big gulp.

At last they made their way to the square and into the vast, ancient cathedral. And

there they stopped, dripping rain from hair and ponchos and packs, their mouths open

in astonishment at the gold. Oceans of gold, mountains of gold. Gold slathered over

statues and walls and candlesticks, gold enough to feed all the poor in the world for a

century at least. Gold and adornments and Santiago overseeing it all.

Joaquin walked to the altar and knelt, and she saw that he was sobbing, his shoulders

shaking. He had always been deeply faithful; it was one of the things they shared in a

world that was increasingly underwhelmed by the old practices. To give him time and

privacy, she knelt and crossed herself and entered a pew. Pilgrims with dusty feet and

grimy packs milled around, along with tourists in tidy skirts who had arrived by bus,

going to kiss the saint. Some of them looked sideways at Joaquin, but not as many as

you might have thought.

At last, he rose and turned to her. Elsa left the pew to meet him. He took her hand.

His eyes were red from crying, and she had a terrible feeling. She thought of the way he

had made love to her that morning, with both erceness and tenderness, and a burning

began in her heart.

“Don’t say it,” she said, and backed away from him, closing her eyes, covering her

ears with her hands. Water dripped down her back from her wet hair.

“Elsa,” he said, and caught her hands. “Look at me.”

She did.

“I am going to be a priest.”

Elsa stepped away from him, and looked up at Santiago, draped in gold. “All that way

I walked,” she said, “and this is what you give me?”

She spat on the floor and stormed out of the cathedral.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue: Many Years Ago

Autumn

Chapter One: Seattle, Present Day

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

March

Chapter Five: Pueblo, Colorado

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

April Showers, May Flowers

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Solstice

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Contents

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Feast of San Roque

Chapter Twenty-Nine: August 15

Recipes

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

SEATTLE, PRESENT DAY

Chapter One

Six days before she turned her back on God for the third time, Elsa Montgomery

went to the harvest festival at her church.

It was a bright orange Saturday in October, possibly the last sunny day of the

year. She parked her car beneath an old monkey tree and let her dog, Charlie, out of the

backseat. A long-legged black rescue with exuberant energy, he knew to mind his

manners in crowds, keeping to her right side as they wandered toward the booths and

tents set up on the lawn of the Unity church.

Just as they rounded the edge of the fair, ducking beneath the low arms of a pine tree,

Elsa caught the scent of rotten apples. For a moment, she thought it came from an

earthly cause, an apple that had fallen behind the booths or lay in the thick grass,

forgotten in the rush to get everything ready.

There were certainly plenty of apples. Apples in baskets and apples in pies and

apples oating in a tub lled with cold water for bobbing. Washington State was one of

the premier apple-growing states in the nation, and local orchards had contributed

heavily to the annual church festival.

It took place on the second weekend of October, when the leaves in the Seattle area

hung on the trees like construction paper cutouts in shades of red and orange and

yellow, and the worst of the winter gloom had not yet set in. The church, a small and

humble building that boasted the stained glass art of a now-famous former parishioner,

sat unassumingly in the midst of an arts-and-crafts neighborhood, where the houses—

and thus the land the church sat upon—were commandingly expensive even after the

real estate debacle.

The harvest committee rented booths to local farmers and craftspeople. It attracted a

cheerful crowd of well-tended parents, their scrubbed children, and obligatory golden

retrievers. The families played games and ate caramel apples and plumped up the

church coffers better than any other single thing they did every year.

Elsa loved the fundraiser. It had been one of the rst things she had created upon her

arrival here as minister nine years ago. This year, the sun was shining, but the air was

sharp enough that she wore a pink wool sweater and a pair of jeans with boots. She’d

left her hair, crazy as it was, loose and curly on her shoulders, and she walked along the

tables that were set up outside. Tents were erected over them, just in case.

As she moved down the center aisle, again she smelled the sulfurous odor of rotten

apples. Insistent, dark. She paused, recognizing the warning.

Something was coming. Something dark and wicked.

She turned in a slow circle, looking for clues. Apples of ten varieties spilled out of

baskets, along with pumpkins and squashes and piles of freshly baked bread. In the

face-painting booth, Kiki Peterson carefully painted dragons on the face of a little girl

wearing a fairy tutu. Next to them was a table set up to serve crepes made by Jordan

Mariano, a vegetarian chef who attended the church. The menu o ered roasted

pumpkin and tomato crepes, apples and sugar, or classic chocolate and cream. Nothing

seemed amiss. No one who looked out of place. No—

“Reverend!”

Elsa turned, still half seeking. A tall man dressed in khakis and a gold shirt strode

toward her. He was a member of the finance committee.

“How are you, George?”

“You have a minute, Rev? I want to talk to you about the shortfall in fundraising last

week.”

“Let’s talk about that at the meeting on Wednesday, shall we?” She peered over his

shoulder, seeking a possible escape. “It’s on the agenda—”

“But I don’t think the committee is taking it seriously.”

She touched his arm. “That may be, but let’s enjoy this beautiful day and talk about it

on Wednesday.”

“But—”

“Excuse me.” She headed toward a bent old man sitting in the sunshine. “How are

you, Eddie?”

He turned his nearly blind eyes toward her, wispy white hair springing out in Einstein

fashion around his head. “If I was any better, I’d already be in heaven.”

She let him take her hand, and squeezed it. “Glad to hear it. How are the new digs?”

“Fine, ne. I have me a cat and some television, so what more does a man need,

huh?”

He was eighty-nine, su ering from terminal cancer, asthma, high blood pressure, and

crippling arthritis, but he put his love in things beyond himself, and that kept his spirits

high. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ll be over to see the new place sometime this week, and we’ll

say a blessing. How’s that?”

“Wonderful.”

A trio of girls in plaid shorts and T-shirts swirled over. “Reverend Elsa, we made you

some dragon y wings!” The smallest of the trio held up the tissue-paper-and-coat-

hanger wings, pale purple with green and purple glitter. Their faces, too, had been

painted with dragons. She looked over to Kiki and winked.

The teenager smiled. “I can paint your face, too, if you want.”

“Oh, that would be so pretty!” the smallest of the girls said. She took Elsa’s hand and

pulled her toward Kiki and the face-painting booth. “Please, Reverend Elsa?”

Elsa capitulated, and let them pull her down into the chair, their cool little ngers and

hands touching her arms, her shoulders, her neck. Someone pulled her hair away from

her face, gently, pressed it to her temple. “I’ll hold it so you don’t get paint on it.”

“Thanks, Alice.” She gave the tiny redhead a kiss on the wrist.

Alice wiggled happily. “You’re welcome.”

Charlie slumped onto Kiki’s foot. “Do you want a dragon or a rose or something else?”

Kiki asked.

“I don’t know. What do you girls think it should be?”

“A flower!”

“A dragon!”

“A castle!”

Kiki laughed. “A castle? How about a unicorn?”

“Oooh, yeah!” Alice traced a spot on Elsa’s cheek, the touch as light as gossamer.

“Right there.”

“Can I x your hair?” Davina asked, tilting her head sideways. “I have a brush. I’ll be

careful so Kiki doesn’t mess up.”

“I won’t mess up,” Kiki said. “I can do this in my sleep.”

“Sure, then,” Elsa said. “You can fix it.”

Kiki dipped her brush into a pot of iridescent white paint. Her extraordinarily long

brown hair, straight and glossy, fell in a silky wash over one thin shoulder and she

tossed it back. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Elsa closed her eyes as the liquid touched her cheek. The little ones uttered

their hands through her hair, and one hot plump body leaned into her, probably sleepy.

The child suddenly bent over and rested her head in Elsa’s lap. Gently, Elsa touched her

back. The pink bubble gum smell of girl wafted around her.

“You’re going to be such a good mom,” Kiki said. “You’re so patient.”

“She’s not married!” Alice said, standing on one foot. “You have to be married to have

a baby.”

Kiki smiled, a twinkle in her dark blue eyes. “Well, then she needs to get married.”

Elsa gave her a rueful grin in return. Kiki’s mother, Julia, had been trying to

matchmake Elsa for months, one very nice man after another, but so far, there had not

been a single second date. Julia said she was too hard on men, that Elsa needed to relax

a little, but what was the point in that? Why spend your life with someone who wasn’t

just right?

Except … she wanted children. She’d always wanted them, at least four, maybe six. It

was beginning to seem as if that might not happen. She was thirty-eight, and running

out of time. And as much as she loved her work, the congregation, and the children of

others, she would really mind if she didn’t have a child of her own.

This, please , she said, a soft prayer sent out above the heads of the sweet-smelling

girls, whose hands touched her, patting her hair, painting her face.

This.

It was only as she stood up that she again smelled the reek of disaster, deeper now,

worse, like bloated fish. She swayed.

“You okay, Rev?” Kiki asked.

Elsa touched her arm. “Fine, thanks. Tell your mother I’ll see her tomorrow.”

“I will.” Kiki screwed the lid of the paint back on. Blue stick-on stars decorated her

fingernails. “I think she’s lining up a new one for you.”

Elsa shook her head and left, putting a hand over her upset stomach. She made her

way through the crowd and walked into the church, to duck into the haven of her o ce.

She closed the door, as if to leave the threat behind.

It was a small room, with a single window overlooking the grass and trees and a

square of earth planted with chrysanthemums. The dйcor re ected her simple tastes,

with airy white curtains that blew on summer breezes, and only a trio of simple photos

on the walls, all in a line, memories from her travels. Glastonbury Tor, pointing into a

dark heavy sky from the top of an English hill; a shot of a mile marker on the Camino

de Santiago, with an abandoned boot on top of it; and a shot of an old man painting a

canvas by the sea.

Below the photos stood a small altar table with a pillar candle and a vase she lled

with fresh owers. Today, they were striped pink and white carnations, and their

peppermint aroma lent a sweetness to the air. Elsa lit a candle, asking for protection,

for goodness to blow this miasma away. She asked for insight to assist those who might

need her, and patience, and stillness.

When that was nished, she picked up the phone and dialed Joaquin, her oldest

friend, who had once been her fiancй. He answered on the second ring. “Father Jack.”

“Walking, it’s me,” Elsa said. “I’m getting one of my warnings. Will you say some

prayers?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks, I have to get back to the harvest festival. I’ll call you later.”

“It’s the fundraiser for the soup kitchen tonight. I won’t be back until about ten.” He

said something over his shoulder, and Elsa imagined him talking to his secretary. “Your

sister contributed a quilt. It’s amazing. She really needs to show them.”

“Which one is it?”

“It’s a garden, which makes it sound ordinary, only it isn’t.”

“Shoot a cellphone picture and send it to me.” Someone tapped on her door. “I’ve

gotta go. Talk soon.”

* * *

A thousand miles away, Elsa’s sister, Tamsin, knelt in a ower bed, using a hefty pair

of garden shears to prune the frost-killed plants. In the high desert of Pueblo, Colorado,

the sun could be very hot even so late in the season, but a giant old elm protected the

backyard at high midday. Even so, Tamsin wore a sun hat and long sleeves and gloves

to protect her pale white skin.

Any day she could spend in a garden was a good day in Tamsin’s book. She had

restored every inch of the 110-year-old garden beds herself, reviving ancient peonies

and climbing roses; Naked Lady lilies and a bed of poppies that bloomed like lush

courtesans each June. Just now, there were only seedpods and withered owers, so she

gave the plants their haircuts, leaving coral bells and intriguing stalks to stand for

winter interest. She pruned the roses mercilessly, trimmed the irises to fans of three

inches, yanked up annuals and tossed them into the compost heap. It was hard work,

sweaty and dirty, but that was what it took to make beauty.

Her husband, Scott, called to her from an upstairs window. “Tamsin, do you know

where my black dress shirt is? I can’t find it.”

Tamsin rocked back on her heels, and pushed her hat o her hair so that she could see

him. Her husband was a big man, tall and broad, and lately a little stout, though she

didn’t mind. He worked hard as an investment banker, a career that had given Tamsin

more luxury than she’d ever dreamed of. He played hard, too, with an epicurean

lustiness that made her worry sometimes that he’d give himself a heart attack.

He was packing for yet another business trip, this one to Memphis. They were more

and more frequent lately. Some, she suspected, were mainly gambling trips, high stakes

poker games in back rooms in big cities. He loved gambling, and the black shirt was his

favorite for poker.

None of her business. As long as he kept his head, what did it matter to her? “Check

the dry cleaning in the downstairs closet.” She straightened, slapped dust o her jeans,

and her mind drifted back to the garden. Maybe she should divide the peach irises next

year. They were looking a little crowded.

“Hey, Tamsin,” Scott called again, and she looked up.

He leaned from the window and tossed her a small, colorful cloth bag, the kind you

could buy at shops that sold Tibetan goods. It landed at her knee with a plop of dust.

“What’s this?”

“A little something, that’s all.”

Smiling, she thought he must have made a good deal. Through the years both she and

her daughter, Alexa, had become accustomed to surprises like this. The strings of the bag

were tied, and she loosened them, pouring the contents into her hand. A pair of

diamond solitaire earrings winked at her. Each was the size of a ngernail, and they

glittered even in the shade, sending out rays of yellow and blue and violet.

Holding them cupped in her palm, she looked up. He was fond of surprise presents,

but not this big. “What’s the occasion?” she asked in some bewilderment.

For a minute, he looked too sober, then his usual twinkle returned. “Maybe I just want

to get lucky before I have to leave.”

She laughed, because it was acknowledged between them that Tamsin was by far the

more sexual of the two. And lately, he’d been very stressed and busy with work. “Is that

so?”

His hands hung loosely over the windowsill on the third oor of the red sandstone

Victorian, one of the most beautiful in the city. Her pride and joy, this house, this

garden, the tower room where she created her quilts. “Come upstairs, Tamsin,” he said.

“I’ll be right there.” She headed inside, tucked the earrings into the secret drawer in

her bread box, and dashed into the downstairs shower. Clean, still damp, she wandered

through the house naked and feeling deliciously wicked about it. There were bene ts to

an empty nest.

He waited on their enormous bed, tucked demurely beneath the sheets. His bearish

chest showed some gray hair lately, and he had started shaving his head because he was

balding. He was fteen years older than she, but she still found him attractive. Loved his

size, his twinkling blue eyes, his wicked sense of humor.

Tamsin took her time walking toward him, knowing her body was still in great shape,

that he was immensely proud of her, and that this would be good, hot sex.

“God,” he said, holding out a big hand toward her, “I’m the luckiest man in the

world.”

“You are,” she agreed with a chuckle, and dived in beside him.

Across the world, Tamsin’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Alexa, wore a blue dress and

stood on a rooftop garden in Madrid, sipping a glass of Rioja. Around her, sibilant

Spanish rose and fell, a perfume for the ear, the most musical of all the languages. There

was nowhere in the world she would rather be than in Spain. She inhaled the air of it,

dry and light.

Spain.

Again.

At last.

She had rst fallen in love with Spain through her aunt Elsa’s stories. Elsa and her

boyfriend had walked the Camino de Santiago when they were young, and they had met

bandits and ghosts and angels, and travelers from all over the world. Elsa spoke of cows

wandering up a street in front of an old woman with a stick in her hand. She told stories

of black dogs that seemed to appear out of nowhere, and cidra, a hard cider that was

cold and refreshing after a long day of walking. Elsa had seen the enormous censor

swinging from the rafters in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.

Curled up in her arms, with her aunt’s warm voice pouring over her, murmuring

words in lispy Spanish, Alexa fell in love with the magical far away. Spain became a

siren to her, calling and calling. The yearning drove her to study Spanish in a serious

and focused way, and to learn about the history and culture of Spain.

Not Mexico, as many of her friends in Pueblo had, but Spain. Sometimes they thought

she was being arrogant by dismissing the new world in favor of the old; they cited the

bloody stories of the Inquisition. She countered with tales of the Moors and the high

degree of medical knowledge that had been their legacy, and the amenco, and the

great cities and cathedrals.

Mostly, she didn’t care what anyone said. Only Spain would do.

In her senior year of high school, she was an exchange student in Madrid. Her host

family had been cold and unfriendly, but Alexa loved the city, the people, speaking

Spanish all day long. She made friends and had a string of sweet boyfriends, and

promised herself she would be back.

Sometimes, it felt like she had been born in the wrong country. How could she have

been born in America, when she clearly belonged in Spain? It was the most fanciful

thought she ever had, and she was not a particularly fanciful girl. Her mother always

said that Elsa was mystical enough for the whole family, so she was free to focus on the

beautiful, beautiful world. Alexa loved the world of the mind.

When the opportunity to return to Madrid arrived in college, Alexa leapt. Honestly,

the opportunity didn’t just show up. She’d had to track it down and then beg her parents

to let her go, and she still didn’t get to spend her junior year abroad, but instead had to

nish her course work and achieve her degree before they would let her spend the year

there. Her parents were worried that she would not return. They were worried about

terrorist attacks.

Mainly, she thought, they were worried that they would lose her to the far away. And

perhaps that was not so far off the mark.

But she had at last succeeded, as she usually did with her parents, who doted on her,

both of them. She tried not to take advantage of it too much, but in this case, it had

been important. She’d had to get back to Madrid. Had to. Her life was waiting. She

could feel it, ripe and ready beneath a thin skin of distance.

And this time, her host family was much kinder, a wealthy family with connections.

They liked her manners, her excellent accent, her knowledge of Spain. Tonight, they had

brought her along to a dinner party that began at ten p.m., with cocktails on this

elegant rooftop garden with the stars overhead.

It was warm. Alexa wore an aqua dress with a loose empire skirt that oated over her

body, and a beaded shawl. Her hair was her pride, long and thick and shiny, and she’d

left it loose, curling over her shoulders.

One of the brothers of the host family came over, bringing with him another man.

“Alexa,” David said, “may I introduce my friend?”

He rattled o a string of names, but all Alexa caught was “Carlos.” He had the long

face and bedroom eyes of a Spanish actor, but his eyes were bright, bright blue, and his

beautiful mouth smiled at her.

Alexa thought, Oh! Here is the reason I have come to Spain. To meet my husband. It

made her cheeks ush, but not with embarrassment. With anticipation. She smiled,

meeting his eyes directly. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He took her hand and kissed it with courtly grace, and there was a smell of sugar in

the air, and a ne blue ring of enchantment that fell down around them. For a moment,

they only hung there, suspended in the magic—at last!—and he asked if she would sit

beside him at supper.

“I’m afraid I am dependent on what our hostess has planned,” she replied.

David laughed. “Oh, I think she will allow him to make the choice.”

“Well, then, I would be honored,” Alexa said.

It was only several days later that she understood he was a count, in line for the

throne, obscenely wealthy and much too much for a girl like her to want.

By then, it was too late.

Chapter Two

The phone call from Julia Peterson came in at just past eight the following

Wednesday evening.

Elsa had been to the YMCA for a long swim. She tried to get there every day.

It was a moving meditation, a way of shaking o the world. In the pool, the world was

silent and there was only her body, the water, her breath. Gliding. Tonight, she’d

practically had the place to herself, so she felt good as she walked into her small house

and dropped her gym bag on the oor in front of the stairs so she would remember to

stick the wet towels and suit in the laundry.

When the phone rang, Elsa reached for it automatically, and then halted, feeling the

miasma seeping out of it. Her body went cold.

She closed her eyes, let it ring one more time, trying to stay on this side of the change

for one more minute. Automatically, she sent out a prayer for assistance—Give me what

I’l need for this—and taking in a single breath, picked up the phone. “Reverend Elsa.”

“Kiki’s missing,” Julia said without preamble. The Petersons, mother, father, three

teenaged daughters, and a seven-year-old son who’d been a happy “oops” baby, were

one of the solid cornerstones of the church. Allen served on the board, and Julia taught

the middle schoolers Sunday school, never the easiest job. Kiki was the fourteen-year-old

who had painted Elsa’s face with a unicorn. “She never came home from school.”

“You’ve called the police and her friends, all that?”

“Yeah.” Julia’s voice was breathless. “Her English teacher saw her leave school at

four, with her backpack. She was by herself. She’d been working on a chemistry project

for extra credit. You know she wants to be a doctor, right, so …” Julia made a small,

pained sound. “I’m so worried!”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you. I’m freaking out so badly I can barely hold the phone. Allen took the

other kids to stay with his mom and I’m just not sure what to do with myself.”

“Hold tight.”

By the time she arrived, there was a detective in the living room of the Petersons’

home. Evidence of supper was still on the table, and the carpet, which had once been

very expensive but was now showing the wear of such a vigorous family, was scattered

with books and toys. Elsa paused on the threshold, feeling a dense, dark energy swelling

from somewhere, through her. Dizzy, she closed her eyes and put a hand on the door to

steady herself.

Bad. This was going to be very bad.

And yet, in this ordinary room was a mother still on this side of the worst day of her

life. Elsa sat down and took her hand. The long thin ngers, so much like Kiki’s, were

ice cold.

“The police say that a bunch of kids saw a guy hanging around the school grounds the

past few days,” Julia said. “They think—” She halted, her ngers tight on Elsa’s. “One

o cer let it slip that there was a sex o ender released from prison a couple of months

ago.”

She made a small moan, covered her mouth with two ngers. Her eyes looked triply

blue against the red of weeping. “What do we do?”

“What we need is to be out looking for her,” the detective said. “Can you give us

something of your daughter’s, something that has her scent?”

“Her scent?”

“For the dogs,” Elsa said gently.

“Oh.” The word came out on a waver, barely a sound at all. “Of course. Her coat

is …” She tried to rise but couldn’t.

Elsa stood. “I’ll get it. What color is it?”

“Yellow,” she said.

When the detective left, Elsa sat with Julia. They prayed. They waited. They prayed

again. But nothing was discovered that night.

Or the next.

Or the next.

On the fourth day, an army of community volunteers joined the police and state

patrol and other professionals to sweep the woods behind the school.

Elsa joined the search party, along with her dog. Charlie wasn’t a bloodhound or a

trained beagle, just a mixed-breed black dog with a solid helping of at-coat retriever.

He had glossy, thick fur and patient, intelligent eyes. He’d been more than a handful as

a pup, and now he was so tall he stood nearly to her hip, but she’d worked with him a

long time and he behaved well as they combed through the bushes and undergrowth.

They had been at it for an hour when Charlie caught a scent at the edge of a ditch and

practically yanked Elsa’s arm out of the socket, pulling her toward a thicket. A pulse

leapt suddenly in her throat.

Elsa gave him the lead. He snu ed through wet leaves in a zigzagging line that

probably broke all protocol, pulling so hard she could barely keep up with him. When he

ducked under the protective branches of a pine tree, Elsa ducked with him, barely

missing a slap of needles to the eye.

Charlie halted at the body, tenderly sni ed her naked thigh, and sat down hard. He

whimpered softly.

Elsa did not move for a long, long moment. Kiki’s slim body lay naked in the leaves,

her hair twisted and tangled with twigs. She barely had any breasts at all. Her skin was

a waxy shade, and there were marks all over her—puncture wounds and blood and

bruises. One hand was clenched into a st, the earth marking the place where her nails

had scraped across it. They still had blue star stickers on them. Her eyes were open to

the sky, as if looking for help.

Elsa fell to her knees and wished for something to cover the damage, the unholy

evidence of a long slow death, and knew she could not. “Over here!” she cried, and her

voice was too hoarse to carry. She staggered to her feet, vomited into the trees, and felt

something shift in her belly.

Strike three, you’re out.

Her knees straightened. She cleared her throat and called, “I found her.”

On the morning of the funeral, Elsa stood on her back porch, smoking a contraband

Kool from a pack she’d bought at the local gas station. Rain poured in a hard gray sheet

from the sky, making lakes in the yard and rivers in the streets. It had been at least a

decade, maybe more, since she’d last smoked a cigarette. She’d bummed one from a

detective at the scene and had smoked it with hands shaking so badly she couldn’t even

light it, not caring who saw her.

She’d taken up smoking late, when she was twenty-three, the year she spent

wandering around England after walking the Camino de Santiago. With other illegal

immigrants, she worked under the table at restaurants, where she was badly paid, and

slept in hostels, pretending she was a carefree backpacker. Everyone smoked, all the

European youths she wandered with, and she took it up to be friendly, just as she drank

to anesthetize her wounds, and slept with some of the men to ease the howling

loneliness that had once been filled by Joaquin and God.

A long time ago now. She smoked and stared at the gray rain, wondering what she

would say when all those faces turned to her for some semblance of reassurance, some

sense of hope or possibility in a world where something like this could happen. At the

moment, she had nothing.

Last night, she had pored through dozens of writings from every spiritual tradition she

had studied over the years—and there were a lot. She’d culled quotes of bewilderment

and howls of sorrow and a dozen platitudes that only made her furious, but none of

them seemed right.

She kept thinking of Kiki at the harvest festival, so long-limbed and pretty, sweet with

the little ones, coy over the man her mother had lined up for Elsa’s next date, and it

seemed impossible that she was gone.

But gone she was, and Elsa’s job today, the only thing she had to do, was o er some

tiny kernel of healing to the girl’s mother, her father, her siblings. She had to o er some

small branch of hope to the congregation, which was stricken and horri ed and deeply

unsettled by the swath of violence. They were depending on her.

It was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done.

She inhaled the last acrid breath of smoke and put out the cigarette and thought of

bubonic plague wiping out half the earth. It had seemed a visitation of evil, but it had

only been a terrible accident of nature, a tiny, tiny bug. But what had those spiritual

leaders thought? What must they have struggled with?

The death of one small human seemed very small in comparison. Going inside to have

a shower, she focused on that.

And on Kiki. For Kiki, she could do this.

* * *

Every single member of the congregation came to the funeral, nearly all of them

dressed in bright spring colors at Julia’s request. The sanctuary was lled with

carnations, which had been Kiki’s favorite, and Elsa had woven some pink ones into her

hair.

The day before, Elsa and Julia had gone over the service, what Julia and her family

needed. Julia had been adamant that it needed to be an uplifting celebration of Kiki’s

life, rather than a dark, dour, howling marker of loss. “That isn’t who we are,” she said,

and paused to keep her voice clear. “It isn’t who Kiki was.”

It was never easy to preside over the funeral of a young person. Kiki’s friends looked

stunned or raw in their bright Easter clothes, and they had all brought mementos and

cards to pile on the coffin, which was, of course, closed.

Complicating this funeral were the throngs of media outside the church. They gave lip

service to the grief of the attendees, but in fact, the story was violent, mysterious, and

tragic. It also played hard on the fears of every mother and young woman in the Seattle

area. In all, a winning formula for news. Elsa had set strict boundaries on how close the

reporters could come to the church, and had asked for the burliest members of the

congregation to enforce those boundaries. They had gladly agreed.

Elsa sat in her chair on the dais as the music team led the mourners in song, a

traditional favorite that Kiki had loved singing. For a moment, Elsa was overcome,

thinking of her standing on the dais to sing with the youth group, and it seemed to

strike others, too, especially her friends, who sat together in a tight huddle right behind

the family. They leaned on one another, pressing tissues to their faces. They had a

presentation planned, which Elsa had encouraged.

When it came time for her to speak, Elsa looked out at the expectant faces. She

walked to the podium, entirely empty, and stared into the sea that blurred in front of

her. Light fell through the windows in red and blue and yellow bars, touching faces, the

coffin, and Julia.

At last a sentence came to her. “Spirit fashioned Kiki Peterson out of dragon dust and

unicorns, belly laughter and a graceful paintbrush.” In the faces, she saw a sudden wash

of tears in many eyes, but also ease, and she continued without even knowing what she

said. Continued with the words that came from some other part of her, speaking them

with a sturdy voice and laughter and even some tears. She would never remember a

word of it.

It was not until the evening that she collapsed, alone in her little house, with the great

darkness of a black hole sucking her soul into it so she could not even feel. She fumbled

with the cigarettes and took them outside to the cold night. It was not raining, and the

sky was thick with stars. They gave her no comfort.

She lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply, feeling the chemicals ease her panic almost

instantly, leaving behind a depth of loneliness that nearly brought her to her knees. The

vast, empty universe mocked her with light from stars that had been dead a billion

years, and a darkness that held no life at all.

No life. No spirit. Nothing but unfeeling dust, formed by accident into life on this tiny

planet in a far little corner of the universe.

Alone.

Twice before, she’d felt this engul ng recognition that God was only a construct to

help humans make sense of their short, tragic lives. Twice she had weathered it and

come back. This time, she saw the truth all too clearly—there was nothing.

Finished with the cigarette, she put the butt in a co ee can and crossed her arms,

looking up. Emptiness looked back.

But God or not, there was a congregation of humans who needed her. She would not

abandon them, no matter what her personal feelings were.

She would not abandon them.

Chapter Three

Joaquin Gallegos, known to all as Father Jack, liked to run in the early

morning to prepare himself for the day ahead. He’d been a devoted runner since

winning his rst blue ribbons on track days in elementary school. His eet feet

had snared the scholarships that had made college possible. Made his life possible.

This Thursday morning in late November, his heart was heavy as he rolled from his

bed and washed his face, then pulled on his running pants and a warm eece jacket one

of his brothers had given him a couple of Christmases back. The shoes were his one

indulgence, a new pair every three months that provided his long narrow feet and high

arches with serious support.

From the top of his bureau, he picked up the rosary beads he’d bought so long ago in

Roncesvalles, Spain, before beginning the pilgrimage that had changed his life.

The world was still covered in eggplant shadows as he loped out the front door of the

rectory and ran through the sleeping streets. It was snowing lightly, but with a certain

steady intent that made plain there would be piles of snow by evening. It was good to

be back in Pueblo, after so many years away. He’d been deeply pleased when the bishop

o ered him this church in a challenged neighborhood in his hometown two years before.

He loved Pueblo, loved being close by his siblings and large extended family, who were

so proud of him, the priest.

With his thumb, he caught the rst bead of his rosary and began to quietly chant the

Lord’s Prayer, then the Hail Mary’s and the Glory Be’s, sliding the beads around his

wrist, each one worn smooth by his touch over the years. Sixteen years, to be exact.

His usual run was six miles, a long loop down the levee, around the ditch, and through

a sleeping old neighborhood of tiny houses in the shadow of a church, and back to San

Roque. He prayed the rosary through the rst half, then simply held the beads in his

ngers, sliding them comfortingly back and forth across the back of his knuckles, and

listened for anything God had to say in return.

Sometimes it was prosaic, a nudge to check the toilet in the men’s restroom in the

basement, or to ask Mrs. Marelli about the lasagna she usually cooked for the monthly

potluck. Other times, it was more mysterious, a whisper to look up a passage from the

bible, or a visual of a person who needed prayer. He made no claim to getting these

communications perfectly right every time, but he did his earnest best.

It was Elsa who was on his mind this morning. He had dreamed of her last night.

Several times over the past few weeks, he’d caught something hushed in her tone, as if

she were using her voice to compress something she could not say. In his dream, she was

smoking, looking at the moon.

Joaquin and Elsa had been friends since childhood. They had both been nerdy kids—

Joaquin skinny and tall, Elsa one of those invisible girls with braces and crazy black

hair and knees that were too big. He at least had had track, but she’d nothing to redeem

her in the cutthroat waters of elementary school.

Today, he rubbed his thumb across the beads and prayed to see the shadows obscuring

her faith. To see how to help her heal.

A warning moved through him. Be ready.

Be ready. He frowned.

When he was seven years old, Joaquin had had the measles, a terrible case that nearly

killed him, at least by some accounts, and left him with scars on his body, face, arms,

chest. Even at the end of grade school, he still wore a T-shirt to the swimming pool. His

legs tanned and covered the marks, and anyway, who cared if you had scarred legs?

At his very sickest, when he’d been limp with a fever that made him delirious, and

likely should have had him in the hospital, an angel came and sat with him. He’d been

painfully isolated, quarantined from the other children, and his mother was afraid of

contagiousness so she barely visited his room.

The angel didn’t have big white wings or even any wings at all. She wore a long

green gown. Light emanated from her skin, and she had very dark clear eyes. She took

his hand, cooling the heated, itchy esh, and said, “Joaquin, you can’t die yet. You have

important work to do. One day, you will be a priest and save many lives.”

He had been delirious, but not that delirious. “No,” he said. Not a priest.

She just smiled. “You’ll see,” she said, and started to sing the most miraculously

beautiful song, as if harps and birds and guitars and the sweetest voices in the heavens

were joined together. As she sang, she stroked his forehead and neck, her hands smooth

as silk, and he smelled something that even now he couldn’t describe, like brown sugar

or simmering cherries.

He fell asleep, and when he awakened, his fever had broken. His mother brought him

food. She asked who he’d been talking to, and Joaquin only shook his head. Obviously

he had imagined it.

But so many years later, he could still close his eyes and see her, exactly as she had

been, that angel. Her name was Gabrielle, she said. I wil see you again.

It had been a long time later, but she had returned. And he was a priest now, just as

she had said. He did not tell the story, though Elsa knew it. It had marked a breach

between them, the loss of the union they had imagined. He had not been able to be

there for the crisis of faith she experienced that year, long ago. He had, in part, been the

cause of it.

A bible verse from Ecclesiastes came to him:

Two people are better o than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person fal s, the other can reach out

and help. But someone who fal s alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each

other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can

stand back-to-back and conquer.

He wiped a droplet of sweat from his forehead. Someone who fal s alone. He would call

her again this afternoon, make sure she was all right. Push, if he had to, past the

barriers she sometimes erected.

Bring her home.

He scowled his resistance, a wall of resistance, enormous and hard as brick. No. That

was his imagination, the wrong side of him. Instead, he would ask Tamsin to go see her.

As he looped back up the hill toward the parish, a whisper moved through him one

more time.

Be ready.

Tamsin swung by Father Jack’s o ce in the rectory of San Roque Catholic Church. He

had called last night to ask if she would come see him.

It was a blustery day, the sharp wind giving lie to the bright sunlight, and drying out

any remaining life in the grass in the lawns, turning the city a uniform pale brown. It

would be ugly until it snowed. As she parked, Tamsin shook her head over the vacant lot

between the church and a block of three-story apartment buildings. Trash and

tumbleweeds blew into the lot, catching on junk of various kinds—discarded tires,

unidenti able wood, a couch where two young thugs sat sharing a joint. They eyed her

with faintly hostile expressions as she locked her car—luckily she was driving the

ordinary Subaru and not Scott’s BMW—and hurried up the walk.

Mrs. Timothy sat at the desk, a sixty-something professional secretary who guarded

Joaquin as if he were the pope himself. “Is he in?”

Officiously, she rose and smoothed her gray pencil skirt. “I’ll check. You are?”

Tamsin smiled. Mrs. Timothy knew very well who she was—she and Scott were

enormous donors to the church, and Alexa had been here every Sunday of her life,

thanks to Scott. But Tamsin didn’t care for Mass. Didn’t care much for the Catholic

Church, or any church for that matter, and she didn’t attend. Mrs. Timothy liked to rub

that in. “Tamsin Corsi. He’ll know who I am.” She did not add, as we’ve been friends

since childhood. Technically, it was just Joaquin and Elsa who had been friends back

then. Tamsin was eight years older, forty-six to their thirty-eight now.

“I’ll tell him.” She sniffed and knocked on the door of his office.

A pair of pigeon-breasted Italian women stuck their heads into the o ce. Sisters, by

the look of them, and judging by their aprons, they had landed the plum duties of caring

for Father. “Where is Wilma?” one of them asked. “We need to put co ee on the list!

He’s almost out!”

“Do you want me to tell her?”

The sisters exchanged a worried look. “We’d better wait.”

Mrs. Timothy came back out, waved a hand. “Father will see you now.”

Hiding her smile, Tamsin headed for his office.

Father Jack sat behind the desk and stood up as she came in. He was, they all said,

too handsome to be a priest, despite the scarring on his skin from a terrible case of

measles when he was a child. Black hair fell in a glossy swath across his forehead. He

had large dark eyes that could be sympathetic or furious or inscrutable. “Good morning,

Tamsin. I’m so glad to see you.”

“I have to tell you,” she said, “that eld is an eyesore and dangerous and I think we

need to do something about it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “We? If you’d like to head a research committee to see what

can be done, that would be terrific.”

“Ha-ha.”

“ ‘We’ doesn’t always mean somebody else. I can get you a few volunteers.”

“I don’t even come to church.”

“That’s all right.” He gestured for her to sit down and took a seat himself. “Lots of

other people don’t come to Mass, either, but they do work around the church. What

would you like to see done with the field?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about that. It’s just ugly and not very inspiring.

Maybe it could be—” She paused, running through possibilities “—a community garden!

Wouldn’t that be great?”

He inclined his head, a quizzical expression on his brow. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“Sure, why not? We’d have to raze it and bring in some topsoil and, I don’t know,

make little plots.” She stopped. “Oh, no you don’t, Mr. Machiavelli. I know you.”

“You don’t have to commit to anything right now, but what if you just looked into

what exactly would be required, and got back to me?”

Tamsin thought of the garden, the at-eyed boys, and then the transformation. Maybe

she did need a project. “I’ll look into it.”

He smiled. “Thank you,” he said with emphasis, then sobered. “I asked you here today

to talk about Elsa.”

“Are you worried, too? I can’t put my finger on it, but she just doesn’t sound right.”

“She’s stopped taking my calls. We usually talk at least once a week, sometimes

more.”

Tamsin blinked. “You do? Even after all this time?”

As if he saw nothing strange at all in that, he nodded. “We’ve been friends for twenty-

seven years. We share a calling.” He shrugged. “It feels very natural.”

“So when was the last time you talked to her?”

“She sent me an email about a week ago, but before that, it was at least a couple of

weeks. I call, but she doesn’t call back.”

“That’s not making me any happier.” Tamsin frowned. “She just sounds … weird. Flat.

Like she’s not all there.” She made a decision on the spot. “I’m going to y to Seattle.”

She stood. “I’ll let you know what’s going on.”

“Please. And ask her to get in touch with me. Tell her I’m worried.”

Elsa had loved Sunday mornings her entire life. As a child, she’d even liked the ritual of

a good long bath on Saturday night, and having her hair washed. Of course, she’d hated

the pins and curlers her mother had put it up in, hated the way they interfered with

sleep—her mother had been at war with Elsa’s hair from babyhood, when she was born

with a headful of black corkscrews. But she’d endured even the discomfort of sleeping in

rollers for the pleasure of church.

On Sunday mornings, she liked getting dressed in special clothes, held just for this one

sacred day, and then having a better breakfast than usual, after which she went to

Sunday school. There she learned about the saints and Jesus and the Blessed Mother,

who was always her favorite, with her pretty face and kind eyes. Jesus was good, but he

seemed like a teenager, a little aloof and far away, as if he’d want to be with his friends

and would be annoyed if she bothered him, as her sister, Tamsin, often was.

Although no one else in her family had particularly stuck with it—her parents had

only gone out of duty—Elsa loved church even when she went alone. She never missed

Sunday school, which was where she had met Joaquin in the rst place. They were in

the same Sunday school class in the fifth grade. He loved it as much as she did.

Since becoming a minister, Elsa had grown to love Sunday mornings even more. She

still had rituals. Her Sunday clothes had become simple linen slacks and tunics in neutral

colors, paired with bright scarves. People brought her scarves from their travels now,

beautiful things in amazing fabrics and textures. She also had a massive collection of

bracelets, but only wore one at a time, since she gestured so much giving her sermons.

Gestured and paced and paused and stopped.

She adored it. Part teaching, part theater, part pure love o ering, a way to serve the

world and the people in it.

This gloomy November morning was the rst Sunday of Advent. She rose at ve, as

was her habit. Usually she spent time in meditation before she took a shower, but lately

she couldn’t bear to sit in silence in the small room she had set aside for the purpose.

Instead, she took Charlie for a long walk in the drizzle. He never minded. She had a

good raincoat, and the repetitive motion, breathing in the cool air, the stillness of early

morning were as steadying for her as meditation.

When she returned home, she had her shower and let her hair dry, curly and long,

over her shoulders. She chose a deep purple scarf of thinnest, airiest silk, in honor of the

vestments priests wore at the beginning of Advent. Her bracelet was an enameled

purple cuff.

She could do this.

It was her habit to eat a good breakfast, oatmeal or eggs, along with strong milky tea

and some cheery rock music to raise her energy. Salt-N-Pepa and Cyndi Lauper, Motown

and The Cars. Light, happy songs to get her heart into the right space. Her sermons

were woven of the challenge of being human and the pleasure of being one with the

Divine, and joy was always her goal. Uplift. Happiness. Joyful people could overcome

trouble and illness and sorrow. Joy could blot out darkness.

And this was a powerful, beautiful Sunday, one of the best of the year. Advent. Light

arriving in the darkness of the world.

But she felt no light, anywhere in her, anywhere in the world. It was always a

challenge to adjust to the rainy season, but this year it was even more di cult. They

had not seen the sun since the harvest festival, almost two solid months before. The

deep gloom, the eternal, endless sound of rain falling and falling and falling, and the

constant cold damp were taking their toll.

Focus, she told herself, drinking tea and poking at a bowl of oatmeal. She went over

her notes for the sermon. The light coming into the world. The beginning of the most sacred

season for Christians. Advent. The birth of Christ. In metaphysical terms, a new start for al .

An R.E.M. song wound through her head, mocking. Losing my religion.

Lost. It was lost.

And yet, she had an obligation to her congregation, who were still reeling. A web of

soft despair had fallen over them, like a people enchanted in an old fairy tale, and they

were looking to Elsa to help them shake it off.

This morning, she would give them the rst Advent candle. She would sing the rst

Christmas carols of the season and would act as if—as if she believed, as if she still loved

this season with abiding passion, as if there was healing if they would only reach for it.

At her feet, Charlie whined softly and licked her shin. “It’s all right, baby,” she said.

But it was hard to fool a dog. “Let’s go to church, shall we?”

He leapt to his feet and they drove over in the rain.

The church was tucked into a neighborhood full of monkey trees and rs and

hemlocks, the ground thick with ferns and moss and greenery of a thousand varieties.

Elsa had grown up in the high, bright deserts of southern Colorado, and she never

ceased to marvel at the number of things that grew here.

She had learned to carry an umbrella, which she opened now before she left the car,

keeping it angled so that her hair and clothing stayed dry. Charlie leapt out of the car

behind her, padding into her office, where he would stay until after the service.

It was dark enough that she had to turn on the lamps. She closed the door behind her

so that random people would not disturb her before she grappled with this morning’s

lesson. She could hear the small choir practicing in the sanctuary, and women talking

and laughing in the kitchen. It was a church lled with artists and massage therapists,

professors and students, a vibrant, energetic—and often eccentric—crowd. They arrived

at Unity through metaphysics and Wicca, fallen away Catholicism or old-school

theologies that no longer served modern, questing populations. There were meetings for

mothers and children, for Abraham adherents, for Reiki sessions, and studying Lessons

in Truth. The bulletin board held yers for masseuses and jewelry makers, for psychic

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