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was clarifying surprised him; he needed people. Twenty years ago when he was a civilian, he used to go camping
     up in New Hampshire just to get away from them. Until Laurel, he never took anyone with him. But then, Laurel wasn’t people.
     She was—special.
    And that book was closed, he firmly reminded himself, putting down his half-eaten supper and standing up.Best not to even open it, let alone thumb through it, however casually.
    In the gathering dusk, he slowly paced the perimeter of his open-air cloister. He’d been here only three days, but they had
     taught him that while he might be a monk, he was not cut out to be a hermit. He missed his brothers—all of them, even Ambrose.
     He missed the fun, the banter and clash of opinions at supper. He missed watching sports on television with them, cycling
     with them, all the things they did together.
    Most of all, he realized, he missed doing the services with them, filing into the basilica with them, chanting with them—good
     grief, he missed Latin?
    Down here, Mass was the thing he most looked forward to. Not for the Eucharist, though obviously that was the most important
     part. Mass was the one time in the day when he had contact with others.
    The first morning he had arrived at the chapel at one minute to seven, in true abbey fashion—only to find that he was three
     minutes late. (Patience was not Father Francis’s greatest virtue.) After that, Bartholomew arrived at the chapel ten minutes
     early. He didn’t mind; the sisters were there, setting up the altar.
    When Mass was ended, Father Francis would wish him a good and productive day, and before the monk could strike up a conversation,
     the gray-haired priest would whirl away down the hill in his white cassock. The sisters stayed behind to do Lauds, to which
     he was not invited, so he went back to the cottage and had his bowl of cereal and went to work. And started looking forward
     to the next morning’s Mass.
    Tomorrow was Sunday, he reminded himself. Which meant they would be going in to the Cathedral in Hamilton,the island’s one city. A really big day, he thought, mocking his anticipation.
    It was almost dark now, but he decided to finish his supper, a bowl of chili and a sourdough baguette—out here, as he could
     not bear the thought of eating one more meal inside, staring at the wall. Now, sitting on the desk chair on the six-foot by
     nine-foot cement slab that served as a porch, he gradually became aware that he was being watched.
    He kept spooning the chili, and without seeming to, scanned the confines of the quarry. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught
     a slight movement—in the brush above the quarry’s north wall. There was a shadow there, darker than the shadow it was in.
     Frustrated by the absence of light, he could barely make it out. A cat—a small black one, with a white blaze on her chest.
    Her
chest? How did he know it was a female? He couldn’t say; he just knew. He named her Noire.
    “We’ve got a cat at home,” he told her, keeping his voice low, so as not to startle her. “A big ring-tailed Maine Coon cat
     named Pangur Ban. He’s named that—I named him—because he’s the friary cat, and long ago in a medieval monastery, they had
     a cat named that.”
    He frowned. I’m talking to a cat, he thought. Well, so what? It was good to hear someone’s voice, even if it was his own.
     And besides, Noire seemed interested—well, not disinterested.
    “I’m a brother,” he went on. “You probably couldn’t tell that, because I’m not wearing a robe. Actually, this is our working
     habit—khaki pants, blue denim shirt. There’s a cross embroidered here,” and he showed the cat the small outline of a cross
     over his heart.
    If anyone came by here now, he thought, they’d thinkI’d just been released from a mental ward—a little too soon. But it was nearly dark; no one would be walking up here now.
    “Noire, you belong to anyone? Probably not, or you’d be