I tense my jaw at the second mention of Kingston, but choose to ignore it. “Something special,” I say. “What do you mean, exactly?”
"I mean, Ms. Vale, that if my conjectures are correct, the end of the quest for your four friends lies in…you."
"In me?" I ask, dumbfounded. “In…what? How? I don’t understand.” I don’t understand how that’s possible, I don’t understand what he evenmeans—become what they seek?“But they're looking for the Holy Grail." The words still feel ridiculous to say out loud, but I need to clarify. "What do I have to do with that?"
"What do youknowabout the Holy Grail, Ms. Vale?" Dr. Emrys asks.
"Um..." I rack my brain. Monty Python references, jeweled-looking cups, a few stupid throwaway lines fromThe Michelangelo Matrix. "It's a cup," I say stupidly. “From The Last Supper, right? That Jesus used to drink the sacramental wine?"
"Ah," Emrys says, "but is it?" He gets to his feet, shaking a finger in the air, and picks up a piece of chalk. "Middle French, 12th century. You're familiar?"
"In passing," I say. "I've only taken modern French. I was hoping to study it here before I..." I don't finish the sentence.
Emrys doesn't seem to notice. He writes a word on the chalkboard. G-R-A-A-L. "This word," he taps it with a nub of chalk, "means nothing to do with cups. It's more of a platter.And more than that," he says, "how many times does this word appear in the Bible?"
It's a trick question, and I know it. "Zero," I say.
"Correct. We read of cups, certainly, the bread and the wine, but nothing, nothing canonically to indicate that the object itself had anything to do with anything. It could have just as easily been a holy sandal or a holy perfume bottle. The grail as such was, I believe, chosen,constructed, and somewhat at random."
I blink, thinking. Okay, so the Holy Grail is a myth. Not one that comes from the Bible, one invented later. Fair enough, I guess.
"But then, so why look for it," I ask, out loud, "if it doesn't exist?"
"Ah," Emrys says, smiling, "but I didn't say it doesn't exist. Did I?" He drops the chalk back in the metal tray, dusts off his fingers, clasps his hands at his back, and starts to pace back and forth. “No, I can assure you, it is very, very real. I have seen it. Or Iwillsee it, depending on your perspective. From where I stand in time, I've already watched you become what they seek.”
I still can’t believe this. “You're saying you've seen the future."
"No, no.” He shakes his head. "I'm saying I've lived it. I remember it the way you remember yesterday. Except for me, your 'tomorrow' is my yesterday, and my tomorrow is your..." He makes a helpless gesture. "It's confusing. Even for me."
"But if you know what happens," I say, my heart racing, "if you've already seen it—then what do I do?”
“That, Ms. Vale, is the tragedy of it." He rubs his temples. "I remember that you did unlock it. I remember the triumph, the power, the moment of transformation. But the path between here and there?" He looks at me with something like despair. "It's fog. Beautiful, frustrating fog. The harder I try to remember the specifics—the methodology, the steps, what triggered it—themore it slips away. Like trying to remember a dream. But when the future fails me, I look to the past.”
I frown.
“To texts,” he says. “Writings, records, holy books and magical treatises. I can study—wecan study—and it is through study that we discover the truth that exists above and beyond time.”
My brain turns this over and over, over and over, like a rock tumbler. “So you’re saying,” I say slowly, “You’re saying that I’m the Grail, but you don’t know what that means, or what I’m supposed todowith that information, and the only way to figure it out is to…”
“Read books,” Emrys says. “Yes.”
I exhale hard. Stare at the ground.
“You’re sure it’s not just a cup?”
Emrys chuckles. “Would that it were so simple. No, my theory is it's something else entirely. A vessel only in the broadest sense. Something, or someone," he darts a glance at me, "that refreshes, restores, renews, and disposes of what must die so that new green roots can sprout."
“I’m…not following," I admit.
“It is difficulttofollow,” he agrees. “The path is thorny and split with many forks.” He sighs, almost weary. “It is only my theory, Ms. Vale, but it is a sound one, I think. Or thought, as we worked our way through that corpus of now-departed manuscripts. I think, in brief, that there is something in the magical world—in its traditions and rites, in its stories and myths—that is the Grail, or became known as the Grail, once our chivalrous friends married it into the Christian tradition. I think that truth lies hidden and defined in the overlap and correspondence of writings that stretch through many centuries. What I don't know, and what you, I suspect, don't know either, is what or how that power can be made manifest."
"Power," I echo. I close my eyes for a long blink. Magic is real. Miracles are real. But superpowers? I just…don't think so. I don't have anything like that.
"The fire," Emrys says shortly. "You didn't set it."
"IknowI didn't," I say. "And I'm glad you believe that I didn't, but?—"
He shakes his head swiftly. "Not this one. Here. Not just this one. At home. Your church, St. Catherine's."
