Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
GWENNA
Two days later, I get a notice in my mailbox that the texts that Dr. Emrys puts on hold for me at the library are ready.
When I arrive to check them out, it’s an…
interesting selection, to say the least. They're all out of different cultural traditions, different centuries, different continents even, although mostly in the western world, and, most frustratingly, different sized printed books, which leaves me with an awkward armful of elephant folios down to incunabula stacked in my arms as the librarian swipes my student ID.
“Usually we don't permit these to leave the building,” she remarks in her even librarian’s tone. “But Dr. Emrys insisted.”
I nod, wordless. She must be new here, I think. Because otherwise she would recognize me as girl who is not to be trusted with valuable manuscript material. But the checkout goes through, and I am equipped.
When I get back to Camlann, I spread the books out in the study overlooking the lake—the biggest workspace that’s not the dining room or the Black Table—and just…
work my way through. At first, I'm eager and intrigued, taking some notes, remarking on similarities of imagery and word choice, even pausing to relish the language now and again.
But very quickly, it becomes repetitive.
I am this, I am that.
I start skimming, something I hate to do. Ten or more books in, I’m on the verge of giving up when I hear footsteps at the entrance to the room.
“I thought you might be here.”
It's Callahan. I look up, lifting my cheek from my fist, where it's been resting so long it’s probably left an indent.
“Yeah,” I say, yawning inadvertently. How long have I been here?
I stretch my arms above my head, glance at the brass clock on the fireplace mantel.
3:30 p.m. Outside, the sun is waning, flaring pink and orange across a rare clear sky.
I stare at it. Cal follows my gaze, his hand on the strap of his bag over his shoulder, and together we look at the oncoming darkness of night, too early, too soon.
It's May, I think, in the desperate back of my mind. It's almost summer.
Cal sets his bag down. “Discover anything interesting?”
There's just a shade too much hope in his voice, an eagerness he can’t quite stamp out. Hearing it makes me wilt.
“I don't know,” I say honestly. “I mean, it's not really interesting me personally, but that isn't the point. At this point, I’ll care about whatever I'm supposed to care about.” I spread my hands over the mess of papers, not sure if I’m about to laugh or cry.
“It's like the only way I'm gonna know what I'm looking for is to go in knowing what I'm looking for. It’s like…like…”
“Like a tautology,” Cal says.
“Yeah.” I laugh a little and smile. “Exactly.”
Cal looks at his hands, spread on the table. “I'm taking Philosophy this semester. A History of Rational Thought. It’s kind of a…” He trails off as if looking for the right word.
“Mindfuck?” I offer.
Cal blushes. “I mean, not in so many words, but—”
“I know what you mean,” I say. I had a brush with Enlightenment philosophy in high school which gave me very immediate no thank you vibes. “Never got behind it myself. It's exhausting trying to be that objective all the time.”
“Yeah,” Cal says, smiling a little. “And it feels like it shouldn't be, right? Like if it's the absolute truth, it should just kind of be obvious, right?”
I sigh. “So one would think,” I say slowly.
Cal drums his fingers on the table, pulling out a textbook but not really looking at it.
“All these French guys,” he says. “I don't even speak French. I think only you, and King, and Lanz—”
His sentence stops short. He clears his throat, suddenly gets very busy flipping through his text. “I keep mixing up Pascal and Descartes,” he finishes.
“I don't think learning French would help you there,” I say mildly. “In what context?”
Callahan lifts a thick shoulder. “Like, which one said, I think therefore I am, and which one had the wager?” He shakes his head. “It doesn't really matter. I'm just going to try and memorize it all for the exam, and then…”
And then what?, I think. What? When the semester's over…for some reason, it had never even struck me. The end of an academic term, and we'll, what? Does the team stay here? Do I stay here? Will things get worse?
They certainly won't get better, I answer in my head.
Cal takes out a pencil, chews on the eraser. “Do you think there's a God, Gwenna?”
The question genuinely blindsides me. It's so frank, coming from Cal. “What?” I ask. “Why?”
“Oh, I just…” He looks up at me over his glasses, then down to his text.
“You know, the wager. He thought, well, if there is a God and I believe in Him, then I got it right and everything's fine.
And if there isn't, well, there's no harm in believing anyway.” Cal squints.
“More or less. I'm paraphrasing. I don't know. I don't speak French.”
“No, that's basically it,” I say, dimly recalling my French rationalists. “I guess I fall somewhere along those lines,” I say. “But maybe with more of an…educated guess than a wager.”
“What do you mean?”
I look out the window at the rapidly fading sky.
“Like…forecasting the weather, I guess. You can predict the chance of rain based on current conditions outside.
It's not a guarantee that it will rain, but it's more likely than not, based on what you can observe.” And based on what I've observed, I think, well…
there's something out there in the universe.
Something I'm supposed to be a part of somehow, I remind myself, looking down at all my texts.
“Yeah,” Callahan says. “Me too.” But he doesn't sound convinced.
“What's the assignment exactly?” I say.
“I'm supposed to”—Callahan lifts up the piece of paper with the essay prompt written on it—“analyze and argue for or against Pascal's wager through the lens of Cartesian logic.” He blinks like his eyes have gone out of focus just looking at the prompt, then squints them shut. “And I think Cartesian logic’s like…you're only supposed to accept things that are clear and distinct. Not what’s like, between the lines or implied, but only what’s directly there. So…”
“Woof,” I murmur. “Remind me not to take Philosophy.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“I don’t like it,” Cal says suddenly.
I blink. “The class?”
He shakes his head. “The wager.” He presses his thumb hard into the margin of his book, not meeting my eyes.
“I always thought…I don’t know. That if you believed, you believed.
Like it’s not supposed to be about proof or the best odds, or whatever.
Like it’s actually maybe about the odds being bad, and still choosing to think that everything’s going to be okay. ”
I don’t think we’re talking about French rationalists anymore.
“Do you believe in God, Cal?”
“Of course.” He answers so quickly it’s like a reflex. But then a little furrow appears between his brows. “It’s more…I wish God had turned out to be more like I’d thought He was, you know?”
Boy, do I.
I feel the distinct need to change the subject.
“You guys practicing again?” I ask, lightening my voice.
Cal nods.
“How’s it going?”
Cal blinks. “Fine.”
“How’s Lanz?”
Cal doesn’t answer. Just fidgets with a little piece of paper he’s ripped off the edge of his notebook. He looks up, but doesn’t meet my eyes. Stares, instead, at one of the books in my pile.
“Nag Hammadi,” he says.
I blink. “Come again?”
Cal nods, indicating. “The Gnostic library of Nag Hammadi?”
It’s one of the bigger books, an elephant folio, one I hadn’t yet cracked because of its sheer size. I push around some of the other ones and drag the blue-covered text in front of me, considering.
“I, uh, wrote a Religion paper on it in high school.” Cal gets up and circles around to my side of the table, while I get out of my seat so I can actually see the whole thing properly.
“All these scrolls found in this archaeological dig. Stuff like the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, a ton of prayers.”
“Oh. Hm. How very Michelangelo Matrix.” I flip open the front cover, although not without some effort. “Didn’t realize I had anything Christian in that stack.”
“I mean…depending on your definition.” Behind me, Cal shrugs. “Like, yeah, we studied them at Catholic school, but as apocrypha. Not like, actual canon. They really emphasize an individual spiritual knowledge of God instead of, you know…”
“The authority of the church?” I offer, rolling back the thick title page, then the table of contents.
“Yeah. Very influenced by Plato.”
I stop turning pages so I can glance back at Cal. “And you claim not to be a scholar,” I say, smiling.
Cal just blushes.
“I heard they’re doing a sequel” I say. “Maybe they need a strapping young undergraduate research assistant to assist Fabienne—”
Cal’s face reddens. “I don’t have a crush on Fabienne De La Croix.”
“Or Dr. Montgomery,” I amend, shrugging. “Whatever floats your boat.”
“I mean I don’t have a crush on her because she’s a book character,” Cal clarifies. “Not because she’s a girl.”
As he says it, he puts his hand at the small of my back. Now I feel my face go red.
“Having crushes on book characters is perfectly normal,” I mutter, but I lean over the text and refocus. I see now that there’s a section earmarked—well, set off with a bookmark—and I flip ahead, to a page that proclaims THE THUNDER, PERFECT MIND.
“This doesn’t look very Gospel-y,” I mutter.
Cal says nothing, and I realize he’s just reading. I do, too.
I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
And there it is. Fully in keeping with the form. I groan a little, try not to feel disappointed that I’m for yet another I am she who brought forth plentiful fields, or whatever this one is about, but I keep reading.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother and the daughter.
“This is weird,” Cal rumbles behind me. “Do you get it?”
I shake my head, silent, reading on.
I am the one who has been hated everywhere
and who has been loved everywhere.
I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.
I am the one whom they call Law,
and you have called Lawlessness.
I am the one whom you have pursued,
and I am the one whom you have seized.
“No,” I say at last. “It’s all just…opposites.” I feel my shoulders sag. “Is that supposed to mean something? Because it’s literally contradictory.”
I look back at Cal, but his face is blank. Like he was hoping I’d have some revelation.
“Shit,” I whisper. And sink back into my seat.
Callahan brushes his hand over my shoulder, like he’s not sure whether to give me a pat or a squeeze, and I reach for his hand and hold it there. Then I let go, and he goes back to his seat.
“If all this gets figured out, he’ll get better too, right?” Cal says softly. “Lanz?”
I stare at the book. At the poem.
For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
“I’m doing everything I can,” I say thickly. “I promise you, Cal.”
Suddenly, I remember it—the potion, of sorts, that I brewed for Lanz. The honey.
I never did tell Morgan about that.
Maybe there’s still something she can do.
“Yeah.” Cal nods a few times. “Me too.” He folds the little scrap of paper, unfolds it. “Me too.”