That last accusation knocked the breath out of him. If his father were ever to hear such a rumor, Daniel would be finished. Hannah too. He tried to soothe his wife. “Annabeth, please calm down and let me explain.” He took her by the hand and coaxed her to sit on the bed beside him.
She followed grudgingly. Her brief explosion of temper had spent itself and been replaced by sullen silence.
“I have no carnal interest in Hannah whatsoever.”
Annabeth peered into his face, trying to detect whether he was lying or not.
At least, he had the advantage there. He was telling the absolute truth, and it showed in his expression.
“You don’t?” she asked uncertainly. Her natural tendency to doubt herself began to reemerge.
“Of course not. I’ve merely been teaching her.”
Annabeth’s face cleared a bit. “You have?” She seemed to want to believe him.
“Yes, she asked the diviner if she might learn Hebrew, so she could read scripture in its original language. As you know, I’m considered a scholar of ancient tongues.”
“Yes, you are,” Annabeth agreed in a much calmer voice. “I was always proud to be the wife of such a learned man.”
He forced himself to give a plausible smile. “It’s no secret that the diviner can deny Hannah nothing, but he feared what the congregation might say. As a general rule, women are discouraged from higher learning.”
“The diviner says Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden because it was woman’s weakness to be tempted by the tree of knowledge,” Annabeth agreed sententiously.
Daniel could feel her resolve weakening and pursued his advantage. “So how would it look if his own wife was seen studying scripture in Hebrew?”
“Oh,” Annabeth said. “I never thought of that.”
Daniel took her hands in his and squeezed them lightly. “We’ve had to be very secretive about her lessons. Promise you won’t tell. It could cause all sorts of problems for my father and for Hannah if you do.”
“Oh, I won’t, Daniel, I promise.” Annabeth had settled into her usual gullible state. It allowed her to remain happily ignorant of most of what went on around her.
The scion thought about her wavering temperament. Her doubts might easily surface again unless he did something drastic to reassure her. He put his arm around her shoulder and suffered her to rest her head against his shoulder. He stroked her hair. “Poor Annabeth. I’m sorry I caused you so much distress.”
“It’s all right,” she sniffled into her ragged handkerchief.
They sat quietly for a few moments. Hannah had been right. She was out of time. Now Daniel was out of time too. He racked his brain for a solution. It appeared, but the idea didn’t please him at all. He knew what Annabeth wanted more than anything else in the world. The thought of what he must do next disgusted him but it was the only way to quiet her suspicions for good. He tilted her face to look up toward his. “I know we talked about having another child.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “It was so long ago I thought you had forgotten.”
“I didn’t forget,” he said. “Perhaps we should start making one now.” He tipped her head up further and kissed her on the mouth.
She responded eagerly. Too eagerly. Almost ravenously.
Daniel considered once more the possible punishments God might mete out to him for his blasphemy. What was about to transpire would be far more unpleasant than a quick death by lightning bolt.
Chapter 7 – All Up in the Air
Cassie climbed the spiral staircase to the bell tower, nicknamed the “chimney” ever since Maddie had claimed it for a smoking lounge. Wafting away clouds of smoke, the pythia advanced toward the operations director. “You should seriously think about getting a better ventilation system up here.” She coughed.
Maddie glanced up. “Griffin’s on it, but he hasn’t had a lot of down time lately to deal with my little issues. Sorry about the air quality.”
Cassie took a seat next to her on the couch. “So, what’s up that you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
The frizzy-haired Amazon smiled mysteriously. “It’s something you need to see. C’mon.” She ground out her cigarette in an ashtray, grabbed a set of keys off the coffee table, and led the way out.
As they traveled down the hall to the elevator, Maddie asked, “Has Erik been keeping you busy?”
Cassie rubbed a large bruise on her hip. “Busy and sore,” she replied. “He’s been very... thorough.”
The older woman laughed. “His forearms were black and blue when he got to work this morning. I’d say you gave as good as you got.”
The pythia giggled. “I suppose I did.”
They took the elevator to the lower level which housed the Central Catalog of all the Arkana’s finds around the world. Instead of turning left toward her office, Maddie led Cassie down a dark, narrow hallway to the right.
“I’ve never been in this part of the vault before,” the pythia remarked. “What’s back here?”
“You’ll see,” was her companion’s cryptic response.
They turned a corner and stopped in front of a door that bore the title “pythia.”
“What’s this?” Cassie asked.
Maddie fitted one of the keys from her ring into the lock. “It’s your office,” she replied.
“My what?”
“Office. Where did you think Sybil did her work?”
Cassie frowned. “I never thought about it. I figured she was on the road so much that there wasn’t any reason for her to have a space at HQ.”
Maddie swung the door open and flipped a switch on the wall.
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “Wow!” she exclaimed.
The walls seemed to be moving, or rather, water seemed to be flowing down the walls. There was light coming from behind the water. A soft, luminous glow.
“What is this?” The pythia made a move to touch the surface.
“Neat, isn’t it?” Maddie asked. “Those are quartz crystal panels, but they’re cut really thin so they can be backlit. You can adjust the level of the light to whatever suits you.” The
