Zoe took a sip of her gluhwein and nodded. “Maybe it was psychological. Maybe I didn’t want to leave until I had seen all the art. Or maybe…” She stared into the distance for a long moment.

“Or maybe?” Seth prompted.

“I know you’re going to find this hard to believe,” Zoe said hesitantly. She stared up at the ceiling and then back to Seth. “But I think maybe God wanted me there. I think I was meant to remain until I had gotten her message. Then she gave me the plan for how to escape.”

“Oh sure. You’re telling me that there’s a God—you pick the gentler, either, or, both neither—who’s so screwed up that we almost have to the before we believer

Zoe just looked at him.

Seth shook his head. “Zoe, that’s not faith. That’s the desperation of mortal fear looking for anything at all to hang on to.” He turned to her. “Look, you had everything you needed to know in your head.”

“I’m not all that sure I did,” she said uncertainly.

“Of course you did,” Seth persisted. “All it took is remembering all that stuff your dad taught you and putting it into action.”

“I’m not really sure of that,” Zoe began slowly. “Now that I think back, there’s so much that I’m just not aware of knowing before.”

“Of course you knew all that stuff. You just haven’t thought about it for years because you haven’t had to.”

“So why did it all come back to me so clearly,” Zoe asked. “It was almost as if I could see blueprints.”

“Because the pressure of impending death focuses your thoughts… trust me, I’ve been there, thought that.”

“Your recent encounters with death seem to have had the opposite effect on you.”

“Yeah, one time and the experience is mystical, but when people keep trying to kill you time after time, you just start to think that God’s either twisted and sadistic or isn’t there at all.”

Zoe shook her head. “That doesn’t wash. I was in grave, constant danger the entire time. Death was always just around the corner every day that passed. So why did the specter of dying not focus my mind before I really started learning about the Great Goddess, before I started believing in a God that embraced the female?”

“I am not believing this,” Seth said as he drained his wine. “You, Ms. confirm-it-to-believe-it, who never trusts anything you can’t touch with your own hands, see with your own eyes.”

“And I am not believing what I hear from you, Seth. You’re the believer until things get rocky and you ditch your faith? How strong was—”

The telephone behind the bar rang at precisely seven P.M. The owner’s teenage son picked up the receiver, listened, and then said: “It is for you, Mein Herr.”

Seth walked behind the bar and put the receiver to his ear.

“Yes?”

“Herr Ridgeway? It’s me, Gunther. I believe I can help you. That is, some friends of mine may be able to help you meet with Father Morgen.”