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a man named Bauer. Joshua Bauer. Killed, I’m afraid, just outside the office presently assigned to you.” Again choosing his words carefully, the way many members of the congregation did, leaving in abeyance whether she was, or was not, their actual rector.
    â€œIn the hallway?”
    â€œIn the passage between the rector’s office and the sacristy.”
    â€œNear the Lady Chapel.”
    Christopher Taite nodded. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Joshua is buried back there with the other Bauers, beneath the two dying elms. You can see the grave from your window.”
    Amanda shivered at the casualness with which the thurifer spoke of murder and death and burial. She was a thorough materialist. The bishop knew it, and she suspected that the members of Trinity and St. Michael knew it. At her former church, she had preached rarely about the afterlife, or, indeed, about anything requiring an acceptance of the supernatural. She could do war or climate change at the drop of a hat; she would happily deconstruct images of women’s sexuality in the Book of Esther; she could demonstrate how the Gospels mandated national health insurance. But the Big E and the Big O were well outside of matters she felt comfortable discussing from the pulpit.
    â€œWho killed him?” she asked.
    â€œNobody knows. Not for sure.” He slowed. They had reached the far corner of the cemetery, the church building entirely hidden by the thick copse of trees. The wind was harsher here, flattening her hair, and she wondered whether it was some trick of the foliage and the walls, a tunnel effect. The bricks were newer, too, as if they had started repairing this section of wall before running short of funds. “A young man was believed to have committed the crime, but there was never a trial, and there has always been some doubt about whether he really did the deed. Would you care to sit?”
    There was a stone bench, and a pretty little fountain. Water spouted from a jug held by a maquette of a cherub. Brightly colored fish glistened as they wiggled and darted.
    â€œI’ve never been to this part of the cemetery,” she said.
    â€œThe rectors often come here for reflection. You might have noticed the quiet.” And she did. Birds chirped. Water gurgled. Breezes fluttered the leaves. That was all: Not even traffic noise from the side streets penetrated the magical shield of trees and walls. “I think you will find this spot conducive to prayer and meditation.”
    â€œThank you,” Amanda said, and meant it. For some reason she felt close to tears, perhaps because she had at last met a congregant who, for all that he might judge her failings—gender foremost among them—did not seem to regard her as an interloper sent by a left-leaning bishop to subvert the traditions of Trinity and St. Michael.
    Christopher Taite seemed to read her mind. “You have to understand the people here,” he said. “We have fought all our lives to change the rest of the world, to open it up for members of the darker nation. We have battled our way to great fortunes, to positions of influence, to places in society. We have no wish to battle within the church as well. We need an island of stability, a place we can come for renewal, a place that is the same for us as it was for our grandparents. Can you understand that?”
    â€œOf course,” Amanda said, although she couldn’t, really. Her well-off family had gone from hard right to hard left in two generations. Like most people of strong conviction, she saw no reason other than sheer pigheadedness for anyone not to trace with joy the steps of her own journey.
    The thurifer nodded his head. “Well, you’ll learn. Give them time. Give yourself time.”
    â€œI will,” she said, quite unpersuaded. “Thank you, Christopher. Or do you prefer Chris?”
    â€œMr. Taite,” he said. “My family is rather