The Pope read the message three times. It took him that long for the true import to sink in. The telex was from the bishop of Innsbruck.

He read the telex a fourth time, and then turned to his visitors, who by now were consumed with curiosity.

Filtering the joy from his voice, the Pope announced solemnly that: “Cardinal Archbishop Neils Braun has died.”

Gasps filled the room.

“How?” said the archbishop from Paris.

“Where?” asked the archbishop from Milan.

The Pope proffered the telex and tried again to keep his inner joy from seeping through to his face and voice. For the first time since he was a small boy, he truly believed in miracles.

“Shall we say a word of prayer for our departed brother?”

The Pope delivered a prayer of condolence and intercession. And in his heart he sang a prayer of thanksgiving.

The chalet was a modern A-frame normally used by the local Bavarian parish as a spiritual retreat. The head of the parish was a close friend of Hans Morgen’s. The building was filled with varnished wood everywhere and had a freestanding metal fireplace now filled with the pop and flash of burning logs. Seth Ridgeway added another split oak log from the stack he had just carried in. Then he closed the metal cinder curtain and walked over to Zoe, who stood by a vast window overlooking the evergreen-clad slopes of the secluded alpine valley. She snuggled close as he put his arm around her.

“I could get used to this,” Zoe said.

“Yeah. I know what you mean,” Seth replied.

“I know its only been a couple of days, but it seems like a lifetime.”

“The Cardinal’s Nest was a lifetime ago.”

They stood silently for a long time watching the sun spill through cracks in the clouds and play across the trees like green fire.

“God has been good to us,” Zoe said.

“If you say so.” Seth’s voice was dark. “I hope you’re right. I’d really like to believe that, but I just can’t anymore.”

Zoe gave his hand a squeeze. “You will,” she said. “Just give it time.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than time.”

They were silent again for a long while, watching the wind sweep up the valley, passing a frosted brush through the tops of the trees. Then they both saw the movement at the same time. Down below, following a serpentine path between the trees that was a hiking path in the summer, they could make out the red speck of Hans Morgen’s down parka. He sat astride the snowmobile he had ridden into town more than two hours before. A small sled tagged behind piled high with its tarpaulin-shrouded cargo. Sounds of the snowmobile’s engine grew barely audible above the crackling of the fire.

“Maybe getting back to teaching will help,” Zoe suggested.

“Maybe,” Seth replied, shaking his head. “But I don’t think so. After all this—after all I’ve learned from the Sophia Passion and all the rest—I’d have to throw away the syllabus and start over.”