The Cloisters(64)

“She tries so hard to be a riddle,” said Rachel.

But for the first time it struck me that Aruna wasn’t a riddle, but an oracle. After all, who were oracles if not women who guarded temples of knowledge?

I shook my head. “We know better than most how easy it is to be seduced by the mysteries of the past.”

“Don’t get too seduced, Ann. Sometimes it’s better not to know what the future holds.”

I thought of Rachel’s survival and her parents’ deaths, of Patrick’s. It was easy to see why she wouldn’t want to know what the future might hold, why it was easier to believe Patrick was still here, still among the flowers, somehow. We walked to the edge of the garden and sat on the low stone wall that enclosed it, taking in the movement of people, the forming and dispersing of groups—social cellular division.

Our flutes of champagne had gone warm. It felt like being a distant cousin at a family wedding, easily overlooked but somehow still necessary to the event. After a few minutes, the last rays of afternoon sun warming our skin, Rachel said, “I’m so glad you ended up here this summer.”

“I am too.”

“Out of all of this, at least we’ll have that.”

Already the August sun was setting a little earlier, and on some days, there was a crispness in the wind. Everything around us was cooling, and maybe I was too.

“If you wanted to, you could come with me up to Cambridge. Maybe get a job at the Fogg?”

We hadn’t talked about what would happen when the month was over, although there was a message in my in-box from the restaurant where I worked asking me if I was coming back in September. Just seeing the name appear had made my chest constrict, a panic grip my lungs.

“Maybe,” I said, sipping my flat champagne. “I’d like to stay here.”

Rachel nodded. “You could always ask Aruna if she’s heard of anything that might be available at the Beinecke.”

We were planning an article that would reveal the discovery of the cards and a full translation of the documents Lingraf had transcribed. An article that would reveal the original, occult origins of tarot, the Renaissance’s interest in parsing fate, in knowing the future. Once it was published, there was no doubt we would both be able to choose where we wanted to go. A reward for the risks I had taken that summer.

Rachel waved at the curator of the Morgan. “I’d better go say hi. Do you want an introduction?”

“No. I’m fine.”

There was little else left to do but wait the event out. I pulled myself off the stone wall and made my way into the galleries, hoping I might be able to lose myself in the paintings and sculptures. Inside, I was grateful for the silence, and in front of my favorite work in the collection—a large fresco of a lion—I sat down on a bench and allowed my eyes to follow the curves of its tail. Leo and I hadn’t been able to talk since that night, and the handful of text messages we’d exchanged left me with more questions than answers. But it wasn’t for lack of trying; Rachel had been needier than usual in the wake of Patrick’s death.

“Running away?” It was Leo.

“Taking a break,” I said, facing him.

“Not in the mood to turn murder into an opportunity to leverage your next position? Good for you.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Is it? Have you taken a look out in the gardens?”

“What else are we supposed to do?” I said. “We have to come together somehow.”

Leo moved to the window in the gallery—a narrow Gothic arch of thick float glass. Lit from behind, he was just a dark outline, his features in shadow.

“And we do that by dressing up in our nicest clothes and patting ourselves on the back while the site where a man lay murdered is only steps away.”

“Leo—”

“What are you getting out of his death anyway, Ann? Have you really asked yourself that?”

I had, even if I couldn’t stand the answers.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said quietly.

“You know why I did it,” Leo said, looping a hand, nails black with soil, around the back of his neck. “He asked me to.” His voice was thin. He looked tired, his tan face pulled taut against his cheekbones. “Ann, trust yourself. There’s a reason why you’re in here and not out there.”

But my intuition didn’t work like Leo’s—shrewd and quick, as much a part of him as his skin—it was harder to access. I had started to rely on the cards to guide me, to sharpen it. But Leo always had a way of standing off to the side, not because he was retiring or afraid, but because he liked to assess things, assess people. He was calculating.

“Everyone grieves differently.”

“Don’t make excuses for her.”

“I’m making excuses for myself,” I said. I meant it.

“Well don’t make them for Rachel. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“We’re friends.”

He laughed. “Haven’t you noticed that Rachel doesn’t have friends? Just admirers. You’ve been to house parties full of people I consider friends, but have you ever met someone Rachel considers a friend?”

I was staring at him, angry that on some level he was right. That the world I had carefully walled myself within was beginning to show cracks.