Read The Priest's Well (The Greek Village Collection Book 12) for Free Online

which seems more like ancient Greek, and despite his fluency, he struggles.
    ‘Ah. I see!’ It is not such good news. The two people named—Nefeli and her crippled mama—have official rights to the house for their lifetimes. They do not own the house, but they have legal possession of it. But that could be, well, potentially, his lifetime. That’s bad.
    He looks up and stares at the blank wall. If he keeps in mind that Nefeli thinks she only has the place until her mama’s death, he must be able to work it to his advantage somehow. Perhaps if he offers her something more permanent for herself, she might give up the big house before her mama dies.
    His gaze drops to the wooden floor.
    Perhaps it is better if she never knows the house could be hers for her lifetime. As the bishop said, it is sometimes better that people do not know everything.
    A tap at the front door rouses him. Looking at his Rolex (a gift to himself to celebrate the completion of the noise insulation on his church in America), he wonders why Nefeli would be back so soon. It is nowhere near lunchtime. Leaving the papers on the desk, he goes through to let her in, but it is not Nefeli.
    ‘Ah, er.’ He cannot remember her name.
    ‘Maria,’ she prompts. He hadn’t really taken note of her before. She is thinner than she appeared in her housecoat, sweeping the road outside her house, perhaps even on the skinny, malnourished side. She must be late middle age because her hair is a flat dark colour that only a bottle of dye can bring. In front of her ears, the roots flash grey.
    ‘Can I help you?’ He would like to continue with his thoughts, sort through more of the papers.
    ‘Yes, you can. Someone stole my bike a couple of weeks ago and no one has done a thing about it and then some items of clothing went from my washing line and I suspect it is the same boys, but there is no discipline these days, they run amuck, playing football when they should be at school and stealing peoples’ property.’
    The last thing he wants to do is invite her in, but to stand talking on the doorstep is inappropriate.
    ‘Shall we go over to the church?’ He steps out into the sunshine, looks up. It is surprisingly hot. One minute spring, the next summer.
    ‘No, Papas. The last papas offered some reflections after the Sunday service. It’s not traditional, but I know how you priests like the sound of your own voices. Here.’ She thrusts a sheet of paper at him, which he gingerly accepts. ‘I have provided you with some material for these reflections, best to give these young criminals’ families a bit of a nudge about their responsibilities.’
    ‘Thank you for your efforts, but I tend to write my own sermons, Kyria Maria.’ He pushes the papers back to her but she withdraws her hand. He all but prods her in her stomach with them.
    ‘You are new here, Papas. There are many things to learn about our village. One thing I know, and I am passing it on to you, is that there needs to be more self-discipline around here.’
    He has seen this before in his parish in America, where there was a woman called Janet-Lee. Every week, she would have some grievance with someone and she would find their faults, write them up as a sermon without directly mentioning any names, and then deliver it to him to be read on Sundays. The first time she did this, she caught him off guard and he accepted the notes, but on reading them through, it was transparently obvious that vengeance was the motive and it was clear to whom she was referring. He burnt those notes in the fire. They felt potentially explosive. But having accepted them once, Janet-Lee seemed to think this was all the permission she needed to do it every week. Each essay, he put straight on the fire at home. But about two months later, in a quiet, almost bored moment when he had just received the news that his application for a grant to insulate the church had been turned down, he flipped though her latest offering and found