A guide with the verger began explaining in English. “In the twelfth century certain cathedrals were decreed pilgrimage cathedrals to relieve the numbers of people making journeys to the unstable Holy Land at the time of the Crusades. Many of these had labyrinths added, which became known as ‘the Road to Jerusalem.’ Originally they were walked at Easter, just as the classical labyrinths had been a dance of spring to celebrate returning vegetation. The experience of walking, however, was meditative, calming, focusing. Many people find it brings them nearer to heaven, ready to comprehend the will of God. For the minutes that you walk it, you are outside of time: your concerns are inward and spiritual, rather than material and temporal.”

The stream of information bubbled along, but Lucy’s thoughts spiraled wildly. The candles made a liquid pool, bent backward and forward, cast shadows through the long nave. She wanted the others to go first: she had to walk last, without anyone watching her. Her mind skipped, and she gave herself up to the extraordinary play of light and shadow. She wanted to be outside of time.

And then it was her turn—more than half an hour had raced away, and her feet were heading into the labyrinth with a will of their own.

IT WAS SIX IN THE EVENING. MAX SETTLED TO WATCH SOME TELEVISION after he’d eaten an unusually early dinner, and Alex stretched out near him on the sofa with a glass of Bordeaux. He had sorted the papers carefully into sections and picked up the first sheet again. He thought of Lucy in Chartres with Will’s working copy of this same text; it made him feel close to her, and ache to be there. Our two souls, therefore… He felt that Donne understood something precisely relevant for them. Lucy and he were divided in space, but not in thought at the moment. He would describe their two souls as one for now—they were outside of time. It must be seven in France, he thought. He took up Will’s postcard of the labyrinth and looked at it, then he read some more of the text of the old document. I am what I am, and what I am is what I am…I have a will to be what I am. Alex played with the words, all weighted monosyllables, over and again. He sat up after a minute and wrote on a notepad: Will, I am. William.