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send a pretty clear “someone’s rippled in here” message to Pfeffer, if it really was him.
    The massive oak door creaked open and in walked my sister’s dead former advisor with a dude in a suit, and a priest, and two guys dressed like monks.
    Helmann , Sir Walter informed me.
    I should have been freaked to be in the same room with über–bad–guy, but I was a little preoccupied seeing my friend back from the grave.
    Pfeffer, most definitely not dead, scanned the desk for a moment, looking for something that was missing from the pen–holder.
    Oh, crap, I thought. I’d left his pen over by the file drawers. Not finding it, he reached in his pocket and removed another pen which he turned backwards and thrust into a teensy hole on the side of his desk, like it was a key. Which it must have been, because a drawer that you couldn’t even tell was a drawer a moment ago now slid open. The priest reached down inside the drawer and pulled out probably the last thing I was expecting to see. For some unfathomable reason, Pfeffer kept the elements of the Eucharist—communion—in his desk.
    What??? I wrote to Sir Walter.
    Peace, young Will, said my French friend. We shall observe.
    Honestly, I wasn’t sure what he meant by observe. Observe like watch this stuff or observe like, I observe Christmas, you observe Hanukkah. So I just shut my mouth. Well, I stopped with the note–writing. I was dying to ask what Pfeffer was thinking, but Sir Walter maintained radio silence as the priest chanted his way through an Ash Wednesday service in Latin. When it came time for serving the Host, Helmann seemed to defer to Pfeffer. Meaning he let Pfeffer eat the thin wafer first. Helmann observed Pfeffer for a few minutes while the priest paused like this was how they always celebrated Mass.
    After this little pause, Helmann nodded curtly to the priest who then placed the Host on Helmann’s tongue. When it came to the chalice containing the wine, Pfeffer went first again, everyone pausing for a couple of minutes. And then they finished up with it and somewhere in there while my mind must’ve been wandering, Helmann, Pfeffer, and the two monks got ash–crosses on their foreheads.
    What’s Pfeffer saying to you? I wrote as soon as the office–Mass concluded.
    Wait, came the response. Classic Sir Walter.
    While we waited, the priest and the monks started chanting again, but it wasn’t any part of the Mass I was familiar with, just some Gregorian chant, like maybe Psalms or something.
    Watch Helmann , said Sir Walter.
    I watched as Helmann stood with his eyes closed. And then I remembered how Sir Walter told us Helmann couldn’t change form quickly and needed chanting monks to calm him. Well, if my conscience was as smudged and dark as his, maybe I’d need monks, too. It took over a minute. Once, when my eyes flicked to Pfeffer, I thought I saw a hint of a smile on his face. Nothing with his mouth, just this look his eyes had that I recognized. Like a little pre–smile.
    Why’s he happy? I asked.
    Please, Will, wait! This time I realized Sir Walter wasn’t just telling me to wait in his usual annoying way. I could hear stress in his voice, like I’d distracted him, and he needed to focus so he could drive in bad traffic or something.
    Helmann vanished.
    Pfeffer closed his eyes briefly, then crossed back to the heavy oak door, allowing the Church trio to exit.
    Can we talk to Pfeffer yet? I asked.
    Do not change form! Sir Walter’s voice was hard as stone.
    I cast my gaze back on Pfeffer. He leaned against the door with his eyes closed looking suddenly like a very tired man. Opening his eyes, he noticed the pen I’d misplaced earlier. He frowned, stepped over to pick it up, and stared at the pen, like he was daring it to explain how come it wasn’t in the pen–holder on the desk. He rubbed his eyes, sighed, and returned the pen–key to its place after using it to close the secret drawer.
    Then he walked to the door, crossed the