Chapter Text
Mysteries, Yes
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
By Mary Oliver
Squelching step by squelching step you trudged along the ever deeper growing mud path towards the house. Darkness was obscuring most of your surroundings, the rain obscured the rest and this was already shaping up to be a highly unusual first day at work. Begrudgingly, you crossed the last few strides, seeking shelter underneath the roof above the door. It pained you to arrive in such a state, no doubt covered in mud and drenched to the bone, but there was nothing much you could do about it and so you took a deep breath and knocked on the front door.
A few moments of silence, followed by a muffled scraping sound, quick steps and then a few beats of silence before—at last—the door swung open.
"You must be Miss l/n", the man before you stated with a welcoming smile.
"Yes, I am. It's wonderful to meet you and I’m really sorry about this", you gestured to the small puddle of muddy water slowly spreading around your feet, though before you had the chance to do anything about it, he had already stepped aside and guided you into the entrance hall.
"Please, don't worry. It's quite alright, let's get you into the warmth. I’m Father Jud."
He was not what you had expected, or maybe he was exactly that. Taller than you thought, really quite prominent ears, though you thought that this was endearing and a kind smile. Of course, you had seen the news reports and read the articles. “Required reading” the agency had called it, necessary because the woman you would replace had died under such extraordinary circumstances. Really, if you thought about it, all the events leading up to this job getting back on the market had been rather unique.
Your thoughts snapped back into the here and now where Father Jud was helping you out of your coat and hanging it across the back of a chair towards the open-hearth fire in the common room. You discarded your shoes by the front door, knowing they would surely leave marks on the hardwood floor. Unsure if there was anything you could do about it; you followed the Father into the living room. A few sofas of varying age, color and size were placed towards the fire which cast a warm glow over the room
“Please, have a seat,” he gestured towards a small sofa and sat down opposite you, “I hope you got here safe despite the weather. I don’t even know where to start, I’ve never done this.”
“Neither have I,” you laughed which seemed to ease his nerves.
“Well, I suppose this here is the rectory, down this corridor there,” he gestured vaguely across the room, “is the secretaries office and just across is my own. This here is the common room, mostly for church functions, but you may use it as you please as well. I’m sure you must be quite exhausted, let me show you your rooms and maybe we can go through the rest tomorrow.”
Without reason to disagree you followed him up the stairs.
“I don’t know… this place just gives me the creeps, you can’t tell me the stuff that happened there doesn’t freak you out at least a little bit,” Becca’s voice rang out of the phone. You were propped up on your bed, watching a few birds idly jumping on your windowsill.
“I’m telling you, it’s fine. The church is fine, the father is fine, the pay is…well…maybe not fine, it’s honestly horrendous, but beggars can’t be choosers,” you sighed. This had been going on for a while. Every week during your scheduled phone call with your best friend she had been remarking on all these same points. How moving two hours away just to be rid of your ex was way too drastic, and this church thing was entirely uncharacteristic of you and most of all that you weren’t even catholic. All very decent points, but none of them good enough to sway you, at least not before giving this an honest try.
“Does he even know you’re not religious? Surely, he must know. I mean you’re not going to confession or anything like that, are you?”
After a few pointed seconds of silence you answered, “I sort of am…going…to confession…. But before you come at me, I’m sure it would be fine to tell him, he’s really quite alright, you know? I just haven’t come around to it yet.”
“So instead, you’re just pretending to be catholic, y/n I feel like that in and of itself might be a sin,” Becca was now laughing.
You could hardly suppress a grin, “You’re a dick, I’m hanging up.”
“Yeah yeah…go hang out with your new best friend. Talk to you next week?”
“Yeah, see ya!” with a click the phone went silent.
Outside the birds had flown off elsewhere and in their place the sun had made an unexpected appearance. The steadily shorter growing October days had left little opportunity for you to thoroughly explore the grounds in the few weeks you’ve been here. Most of your days were spent inside the overstuffed yet meticulously well-ordered office where you had been making slow progress on discerning what files were of importance and what should long have been thrown out.
No time like the present, you told yourself as you were pulling on your boots and a light jacket before heading outside. A few hesitant rays of sun hit your face through the browning tree crowns as you walked along a small foot path towards the church. Off to the side was your favorite spot. Just beneath a gnarly pine tree, out of sight unless anyone was looking, the remnants of an old stone bench. Though as you drew closer you realized that Father Jud had already taken your spot. Hearing your footsteps approaching he turned around and smiled at you. “Lovely to see you. Would you like to sit with me?”
All of what you told your best friend was true, Father Jud really was quite nice, he had a wonderfully kind smile and nothing but compassion for the people in his parish. You shared the rectory with him and though both of you had separate living quarters you saw each other frequently throughout the day. In fact, most days you had taken to eating breakfast together.
“I’d love to,” you answered and plopped down next to him, “how is the preparation for the Sunday service going?”
“Slow but steady,” he looked over to you and smiled.
Father Jud was an enigma to you, you hadn’t failed to notice that there was a tattoo poking out just above his collar, surely a remnant of his life before the priesthood. He had a particularly infuriating habit, probably one required of you to become a priest, that allowed him to turn every personal question posed to him around, so that you would instead talk about yourself. This was, of course, incredibly charming, since you’ve met few men who would rather hear about you instead of talking about themselves. Unfortunately this also meant that all your subtle or not-so-subtle questions were left unanswered.
“y/n, I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve been wondering how you ended up here,” there was a slight pitch to his voice, like he might have been embarrassed to ask.
You knew this question would come at some point and you couldn’t fault him for it. A young woman moving away from her previous, well-paid position to become a secretary for a church in a small town was sure to raise some eyebrows. At night you had sometimes rehearsed what you were going to say: that you had needed a change in scenery or that you felt you needed to be closer to your non-existent faith, anything so you didn’t have to divulge the sad, pathetic truth of it all. Though right now, looking into Father Jud’s welcoming eyes, it didn’t feel right to tell him any of your lies.
“I broke up with my horrible ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately, we worked at the same company and to make matters even worse…guess whose dad owned the place. Certainly not mine, I can tell you that much,” it was strange being so vulnerable in front of someone you had only known for such a short time, still you went on, “I didn’t want him to see me miserable and unemployed. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that he had won, so I figured that this would offer me some peace, quiet and desperately needed distance. You know, I told myself that if I went on my own accord, at least I’d be rid of him,” the words came tumbling out against your better judgment.
Next to you Father Jud nodded along, “Did it at least work?”
“I haven’t seen him around yet, so there’s that. My best friend is stirring the rumors at home, so according to her I’m currently sunbathing on a tropical island.”
“If you don’t mind me saying…this is quite the drastic decision to make just for a break up,” he had turned his head to look at you.
“It was quite the drastic break up,” you answered with a small smile which he reciprocated.
“I’m sorry to hear, though for what it’s worth I’m glad to have you,” he answered and then, almost as if embarrassed, he quickly added, “I mean, all of us here are glad to have you.”
You felt yourself getting red at his earnestness, “Thank you, Father.”
“You know…you don’t…you don’t have to call me Father all the time… I mean it’s alright if you prefer, but if you’d like you can just call me Jud,” now it was his turn to blush as he stammered through the sentence, clearly unsure if he was breeching some social boundary.
“Oh, I wasn’t sure. I never really, you know…talked to a priest casually, but thank you. Jud.”
He gave you another smile before hastily getting up and smoothing down his shirt, “I better get going, the sermon and all that, you understand.”
“I do,” you answered and watched as he walked back towards the rectory.
“This is going to be an issue,” you had whispered to yourself a few days ago while you were looking at some of the previous years sign-up sheets for the fast-approaching bake sale. Subsequently, you had spent the hour after the next Sunday service trying to rectify the situation without having to tell Jud. He had enough on his plate already and if you could help it, you would find a way to solve it yourself.
You wouldn’t say that your plan had failed miserably, technically you had done pretty well, just not well enough and as result you were now loitering in front of Jud’s office door, rehearsing how you were going to break the news to him.
On your third whispered run-through you heard his muffled voice through the closed door, “I can hear your pacing, is everything alright?”
There was no way around it anymore so you sheepishly struck your head into his room, “Actually…yes, there is something I need to talk to you about.”
“Sure, go ahead,” he gestured you to come in, but you stayed standing in the doorway.
“About the bake sale…”
You saw his face scrunch up in frustration, the whole event had already proven itself to be much more complicated to organize than either of you had anticipated, “No, y/n, please not the bake sale. Anything but the bake sale.”
“So, the thing is, as of three days ago we had like three people signed up for baking,” you began.
“That hardly seems enough.”
“That’s what I thought, so after the service I went around and recruited some more people and now we’re up to 7.”
“I think that’s still short a few people, if I remember correctly last time we had like 15 different cakes and what not.”
“Yes, so I had a look at the old sign-up sheets and here’s the deal. We’re not even short on sign-ups at all. It turns out that Martha just made half of the cakes.”
“You’re telling me that for this to work we need to procure at least like 6 more cakes. Do you think we can maybe buy them at a store and pass them off as homemade.”
“Lying is a sin and you should know better,” you retort, “besides I already have a solution.”
“Which would be?” you could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced of your sudden reassurance.
“If you would kindly direct your eyes to the supplies behind me,” at this point you finally left your position in the doorway where you had previously obscured a number of grocery bags with your body, “you would see that we’re in the possession of about 6 pounds of flour, 3 pounds of sugar, like a couple dozen eggs, countless sticks of butter and other assorted chocolates, fruits and nuts waiting to be turned into cake.” You gave Jud your best go at a reassuring smile.
He looked away from you, craned his neck slightly to see the mountain of groceries and then back up to you, “You’re going to bake six cakes?”
“Are you mad? No, absolutely not. WE are going to bake six cakes. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t rope you into this.”
He sighed, “Are you sure we can’t just buy some, I’m not a good baker.”
“You said yourself how important this is to strengthen the community and do you really think anyone wants your shabby grocery store sheet cake? Your good looks and charm will only get you so far. You need to get your head in the game and help me carry this stuff; it was hard enough getting it out of the car alone.” You had already turned and began to pick up some of the lighter bags, waiting for Jud to follow along which he reluctantly did.
“Tell me more about my good-looks and charm,” he smirked.
“You’re changing the subject. Baking is just chemistry; I have nothing but trust in you.”
“I was never any good at chemistry,” he admitted.
“Alright, then just follow my instructions.”
“I was never much good at that either.”
“Isn’t that your whole deal as a priest?”
“I’m not your average priest,” he replied as he picked up the particularly heavy flour bags and followed you into the kitchen.
“Yes, I have gathered as much, what with the neck tattoo and everything.” You had reached the kitchen where you placed your bags on the counter. When you looked back at him you could see that he had turned red. “Unconventional, but I think it suits you.”
“I didn’t think anyone had noticed,” he said as he was placing his bags next to yours. He looked concerned at the idea.
“Well, I don’t know…I have…but then again, I see you more than anyone else.”
Before you could say anything else on the matter Jud had already taken off to retrieve the rest of the bags. By the time he was back you felt it was best to let the matter rest for now and began distributing the recipes between the both of you. Spirits needed to be high if you wanted this afternoon to be a success.