It was raining. It was raining the way it rains on the west coast of Ireland, with buffets of wind, waves of rain, and a grayness that makes even the brilliant green of the rolling hills turn dull and drab. Father Vincent Sheahan wandered past the steamed-up storefront display windows, behind which many of the more casual tourists had sought refuge from the downpour. On a more pleasant day, he would have found the colorful variety of religious and pseudo-religious memorabilia amusing, but today it all seemed cheap and depressing. Virgin Mary cuckoo clocks, plastic vials of holy water labeled "I Prayed For You at Knock", water-filled glass balls with a figure of the Holy Mother of God inside that snowed when you shook them and played "Ave Maria" when you wound them up, was this what Catholicism was about to the pilgrims? Vincent took some satisfaction in noting that business was none too brisk today, although he suspected that if the weather were more conducive to a stroll, even the New Age-style establishment boasting tie-dyed scarves and energy-channelling crystals would be turning a profit. Hell, probably more than the dark, stuffy Ma and Pa shop with the rosaries. Who needed prayer when you could tap directly into the universe simply by strategically placing stones about your person?

 He was ostensibly looking for a souvenir for Avril, but he was vacillating on whether to bring back anything at all. After what had happened the night before, the margin for misinterpretation now was rather large. He didn't want her to take anything the wrong way. What would he be signalling now by bringing her back a present, as he had promised to do earlier in the evening, before everything had gone so wrong? He hoped to let her know that he wanted things to return to the way they had been; he wasn't sure if that was possible now, though. Well, anything was possible, but not likely, given Avril's predilection for holding a grudge. He wasn't actually sure of her mood, as he had gotten up and left this morning before Avril had even been awake, in order to join the group from St. Joseph's on the bus to Knock. At least he had been able to catch up on his sleep during the journey, leaving Paddy O'Connell to lead the recitation of the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. He had certainly gotten very little rest the night before, having first been interrupted in order to aid in the delivery of the foal, and later having been unable to drop off again due to the whirl of thoughts, impressions, and reproaches that had filled his head.

 Vincent found that he had stopped in front of a window displaying statuettes, some religious, some patriotic, some humorous, and some he wasn't sure where to place. He found himself sorely tempted by a Virgin Mary sporting a T-shirt with the inscription, 'Kiss Me I'm Irish!' Under different circumstances, he actually would have bought it, but now he thought it would be in the poorest taste.

 Why had Avril kissed him as she did? The only thing that was fairly clear to him was that it had been done more in anger than in affection. He attempted to replay the scene in his mind, to see if he could divine any rhyme or reason to her actions. Avril had once said to Vincent that men and women were different species and invited him, "Care to enlighten me on your sex?" after she had apparently had a run-in of sorts with Edso. Now he could pose her the very same question. Women were unfathomable.

 Back in Ballykissangel, Avril mercifully didn't have much time to spend thinking about herself or Father Sheahan. Although he, and the events of the previous night, had been the first things to occupy her mind when she awoke (as indeed they had been the subject of her fitful and restless thoughts during the tedious hours before dawn), she quickly sorted herself out and turned her entire attention to the new filly. As the stable hands arrived for work, they gathered excitedly around Pilgrim's Progress's stall, and she had to tell and re-tell the story of the harrowing delivery. Siobhan arrived shortly and gave them all a lesson in umbilical cord care and instructions on what to watch for in the two animals over the next few days. Avril was glad for the distraction, as she was not feeling particularly self-congratulatory that morning.

 Once things had settled down a bit, Avril and Siobhan withdrew to Avril's office to take care of the paperwork. Avril had had the necessary forms at the ready, already half filled out by the owner, in anticipation of the birth, but in her haphazard search for her cell phone the night before, she had pushed many of the papers from her desk to the floor, and since then done no more to restore order than to heap everything into a single pile. Now she had to sit down and take the time to sort through things again.

 "Have a seat, Siobhan, this might take a few minutes," she said, plopping down onto her desk chair and picking up the untidy stack of papers from the floor. Several slipped out of place and fluttered to the floor again.

 "Not a problem. I reckon you got into a bit of an uproar last night," Siobhan smirked, leaning over to pick up the stragglers.

 Avril accepted the loose papers from Siobhan and gave her a tight smile. "Just a bit. Everything's under control."

 Siobhan took a seat at the kitchen table and inquired conversationally, "How's Father Sheahan this morning? Has he found a new vocation as midwife?"

 Avril responded coolly, "I don't really know." She balanced the stack on her knees and quickly leafed through it.

 "Hightailed it out of here before he could be drafted for duty again?" Siobhan joked, not letting loose.

 Avril felt forced to respond. She looked up from the papers to Siobhan and explained steadily, "He left early this morning to accompany a group of pilgrims up to Knock. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet."

 "Well when you do see him, you'll be sure to mention about coming over to my place for a couple of days, won't you?"

 "Look, Siobhan, why don't you ask him yourself if you're so keen on having him?" Avril stood up and slammed the stack of papers down on the table in front of Siobhan. "I'm late for a practice session," she blurted out as she brushed past Siobhan and stalked out of the kitchen.

 Why wouldn't people just leave her alone, thought Avril as she strode across the yard. She knew that Siobhan was curious about her and Father Sheahan, just as the rest of the town was. She had heard the insinuations made both behind her back and to her face whenever she went into town, to say nothing of the curious looks she got from the stable hands, owners and riders. The worst, though, was whenever someone had to come into her office. They would look around surreptitiously (or so they thought), apparently for evidence of an intimate relationship. What did they expect to find? Vincent's underwear draped over the back of a chair? Framed photographs of the two of them in compromising positions? Avril recalled one time, before Father Sheahan had even moved in, when Edso had visited.

 He had picked up a book that Father Sheahan had left on the kitchen table, quite accidentally (although was it really an accident? Avril now considered to herself). Edso had been curious and asked, "You taken up religion?"

 Avril had denied it offhandedly, thinking nothing further of it. "Oh that. God no."

 But Edso had not been satisfied with her denial, going so far as to open the book and snoop around for evidence...of what? Avril wasn't sure, but she thought he already then had had the notion that she was involved in some way with the priest. Edso had apparently found what he was looking for, for he had emitted a satisfied "Ah," indicating that his suspicions had been confirmed.

 At the time, Avril had of course been in the dark, and had asked, "What do you mean, 'ah'?"

 Edso had simply responded, "I don't mean anything, just 'ah.' I understand, it's the priest's."

 Avril had immediately gone on the defensive and challenged him, "Yeah what of it?"

 Edso had then innocently protested, "I'm not making nothing of it," and that had been true. He had dropped the subject completely and let it go at that. At least he had that much respect for her. But Avril knew that Edso had made something of it to himself. She could sense his disapproval and jealousy. She knew that Edso had feelings for her himself (or at least that he wanted to get into her bed), but that didn't give him the right to jump to conclusions that weren't there.

 Avril's natural defiant nature had allowed her, even obliged her, to ignore the gossip and innuendo, but now she felt there might actually have been something to it, at least on Vincent's part, and that made her want to run away from everything, just to get on The Cat's back and run and run and run, over the fields, through the gorse and heather, past the hedges and rocks and trees, until her fingers were stiff from gripping the reins, her toes numb from pressing them into the toes of her riding boots, her skin wet from the rain that began to fall like a pervasive cloak, pressing itself into her breeches, gloves, and jacket, and The Cat's sides were heaving and steaming. Then she stopped. She felt thirsty. It was the same thirst she forced herself to suppress every day, but today it nagged at her more than usual. She looked around. Not a soul in sight. She was alone, and she felt lonely. She dismounted and began to walk The Cat back toward the yard.

 Vincent hurried back toward the National Marian Shrine in the center of the town. He glanced longingly at the beautiful gardens surrounding the building, but a meditative stroll on a day like today was out of the question. Inside, the church was tropical with the steaming jackets and dripping umbrellas of the couple of thousand pilgrims who had had the misfortune to book their trip for today. Vincent quickly found his group at the rendezvous they had agreed upon and they took stock of the situation. They had already heard Mass read upon their arrival this morning, and then most of them had performed the Stations of the Cross in the Basilica of Our Lady Queen of Ireland before breaking for lunch. They decided to visit the local folk museum in order to get some air, before returning for confession and recitation of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. They wanted to be ready for the 3:00 pm Concelebrated Mass with Anointing of the Sick.

 Vincent felt duty-bound to accompany the group to the museum, although his heart wasn't really in it. For that matter, his heart hadn't really been in the Mass they had participated in this morning, nor in the Stations of the Cross, but those were things he could do in his sleep. Things he had done in his sleep. Back at the seminary, he and the other seminarians had had to practice saying Mass for hours on end. And since a priest has to say Mass before a congregation, they had taken turns playing congregation for one another, nodding off between responses, and even during responses. They hadn't thought of that as disrespectful, necessarily (not most of them, anyway, although Luigi Petronelli had had the most annoying technique of raising his stentorous voice to the decibel level of a DC-10 revving its engines whenever he noticed one of his "parishioners'" attention wandering).

 In fact, one of the attractions of the Catholic ritus for Vincent was the hypnotic effect of the eternal repetitions, which led his mind into a trance-like meditative torpor. It could peel away the impurities of the mundane world, sharpening his intuition and awareness of the Almighty. He had found early on that if he tried to concentrate on the meaning of the individual words, his mind became bogged down and lethargic. But today he was simply so preoccupied with his own thoughts and the problems of that one particular parishioner that he couldn't surrender himself to the influence of the spirit.

 He did think of Avril as a parishioner, even though she wasn't a church-goer. He considered himself the spiritual shepherd for every person living within the boundaries of his parish, which didn't mean that he had to turn everyone into a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic, but rather that he would do his best to alleviate the burdens of their souls and show them the way to the fold. Whether they accepted his help or not, whether they followed him or not, was a matter of their own conscience. At least that's what he aimed for in theory. When it came to individuals like Avril Burke, he got thrown for a loop.

 Everything had seemed to be going so well between them, Vincent thought. Avril had started opening up to him about her past, about her drinking and her relationship with her ex-husband. They hadn't been able to discuss her sister yet, but Vincent had hoped that would come soon. She had so much anger in her, which she wasn't able to let go of yet. Vincent wondered if that might have been some of what had spilled over onto him last night.

 He couldn't really think of a concrete reason for her to have suddenly gotten so angry at him. She had said that it was the kiss he had placed on the side of her forehead, but that had really been quite chaste. Hadn't it? He examined his own motivation. He had felt close to her last night, certainly, both physically and emotionally, the closest he had ever felt to her. But it hadn't induced any sexual feelings in him. It had been more of a deliciously comfortable warmth, the kind of feeling he had had as a child when his grandfather would invite him to sit on his lap to tell him a story. Or when his mother would take him outside on a chilly, clear autumn evening, encircle him in her arms and point out the constellations of the southern sky. He had felt loved, wanted, cherished, safe, sated, happy. Did he really hold Avril in such high esteem as he did his grandfather and mother? he wondered with sudden alarm. Did she really provide those things for him? If so, maybe he really was getting too close to her. Well, not usually, he admitted with bittersweet relief, but last night had been special. They had worked together to achieve a critical success, and at the end he had been so full of joy that he had felt impressed to share that joy with Avril. That had been the source of the kiss from his end. So while it was, technically, chaste, that is, not infused with any sexual motive, it did have at its root what some might call love.

 Avril had called Siobhan upon returning to the yard, in order to apologize for her abrupt departure earlier. Siobhan had been gracious and asked if she wanted to get together to talk about things. Avril was tempted to agree, but didn't feel comfortable about discussing Father Sheahan with anybody. And Father Sheahan--Vincent--was the problem.

 How did she really feel about him? She had been so focussed on analysing his behaviour and motives that she had neglected to take a look at her own. Well, not neglected. More like avoided. She admitted she was afraid of what she would discover. She couldn't afford to fall for a priest. That was just asking for her heart to be broken again.

 Maybe his kiss had really been just what it was billed as: a paternal (or filial, he wasn't that old) gesture of congratulations. But what about hers? She had kissed him hard, full on the lips, emotionally, but without malice aforethought. She had acted on instinct, prompted by the anger that had welled up in her when he had insisted on denying her accusations. But what instinct was that? Her normal mode of attack was verbal. What had caused her to use a symbol of love as a weapon? For that was how she had thought of it at the time, as a weapon to show Vincent how it felt to be used as an object of affection without permission. But now, when she thought about the kiss again, she didn't remember the anger. She remembered the slightly ridged texture, the firmness and the fullness of his lips, the scratch of his beard on the tender skin around her mouth. And the taste. It had not tasted like anything in particular, just like Vincent. Avril felt a pang of that familiar thirst again, but this time it was not for alcohol. It was for the taste of Vincent on her lips.

 Vincent led the recitation of the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary on the way back to Ballykissangel. He felt more at peace now that he had made some decisions, based on his insights. He sat back in his seat, watching the lights of the distant houses floating in the darkness. He fingered the beads in his jacket pocket. He had settled on a plain wooden rosary for Avril, something that expressed the simplicity and openness that he wished for, as well as the primacy of his religious calling and his hope that she could find release from her torment through prayer.

 When Vincent finally arrived back at Avril's place, it was after midnight. They had stopped for dinner on the way back, and Vincent had felt a real sense of community among the pilgrims. He was glad the others' spirits hadn't been dampened by the foul weather. On the contrary, they had brought sunshine to his own heart. He had also stopped by Fitzgerald's to find out if there was a room available yet. This time, there was, and he had asked Óonagh to get it ready for him while he went to retrieve his things.

 When he drove into the yard, he saw that the apartment was dark. So much the better. He didn't want to have a confrontation now, although he hoped that they would be able to talk in the light of day. He tried the door and found it unlocked. He wondered whether Avril had simply forgotten to lock up, or if she had left it open for him on purpose, as a gesture of good will.

 He entered the apartment as quietly as possible and felt his way through the darkened living room into the guest room. He closed the door and flipped on the light, squinting while his eyes adjusted to the light. He quickly stuffed his belongings into his rucksack and gathered up his leather jacket and sleeping bag, then turned off the light again, opened the door, and carefully made his way back to the outer door. He went out to the car and dumped his things onto the passenger seat, then went back inside. He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out the rosary and the card he had written, and laid them on the kitchen table. Now that he had been made aware of it, he could smell the scent that lingered in Avril's hair, ever so faintly, hanging in the air. He hesitated but a moment, then turned and walked back out to his waiting car.