The Book of Joby (13 page)

“Joby,” he said dryly, “your old man’s a reactionary iconoclast.”

Joby stared up at him, clearly unsure whether it was all right to ask what that was. So Frank reached down, lifted his son into the air, and whirled him around before pulling the now giggling boy into a fidgety embrace.

“That means sometimes I’m a
weirdo,
” Frank explained playfully. “But I get better after your mother works on me, so we’ve decided you should go to church with Benjamin tomorrow, and the week after that if you want to. And when you get home, I hope you’ll tell us all about it, ’cause we don’t know much about church either. Okay?”

“Okay, Dad. I’ll do a oral report.”

“My son the genius!” Frank replied, setting Joby down with a groan. “Your brain’s getting too heavy for me to lift like that anymore. You know that?”

“Not just my brain!” Joby bragged, pulling his sleeve back with a fierce expression, and bending his arm up to make a muscle.

“
Oh
my gosh!” Frank laughed. “Did I just hoist all
that
up in the air? No wonder my back hurts!”

“No
wonder
!” Joby proudly agreed.

“Tell you what, sport,” Frank informed him. “From now on, you lift me. Okay?”

“Okay,
sport
!” Joby replied.

“I don’t know,” Joby whispered, “but they sure didn’t
act
happy.” The boys had lost Benjamin’s parents in the milling throng headed out of Mass, and were taking advantage of their first chance all morning to talk privately.

“That’s so
weird,
” Benjamin whispered back. “I never heard of
anybody’s
parents not wantin’ ’em to go to church before . . . At least they let you come.” He shrugged.

Joby could hardly wait to talk with Father Crombie. He had liked the old priest the minute he’d seen him at Mass. His kindly expression and cheerful smile had reminded Joby of Santa Claus, and he made funny jokes in the middle of his speeches. Joby hadn’t always understood them, but people had laughed so hard that he hadn’t been able to keep himself from laughing too. When Father Crombie had talked about people being lights in the dark, Joby had imagined himself surrounded by glowing candles—as if standing in a giant Christmas tree. It was such a neat idea that it had made him fidgety.

Of course, he’d been a little disappointed to see the polished benches filled with normal people instead of lords and ladies, but the Mass had still been wonderfully strange. There’d been a great deal of kneeling and standing, and sitting, and standing, and kneeling again, just when you started to get comfortable and weren’t expecting it. Joby suspected this was all meant to spy out people like himself who didn’t belong there, though Benjamin insisted they only did it so that people wouldn’t fall asleep. Joby couldn’t imagine anyone going to sleep in the middle of something so interesting. His admiration for Benjamin had grown in leaps and bounds as he’d watched his friend stand and kneel, and mouth the long, intricate prayers with the casual ease of an expert.

Not everything about the Mass had been pleasant, though.

Joby still hadn’t gotten over the idea that God had a kid. He figured Geezez must have been more like a superhero than a normal kid, since no normal kid could go forty days without eating. But the more Joby had thought about it,
the more Geezez seemed like a dumb name for a superhero—or for anyone at all. It sounded like “Cheez-Its,” or “Geezez Krised!”—which he’d heard people say when they were surprised or upset. It was like being named Dang It or Holy Moley. But not until halfway through the Mass, as he’d sat listening carefully to the prayers being read and chanted around him, had Joby slowly come to realize that God’s superhero son, Geezez, and the frightening man nailed to the boards above the table for failing to beat the devil were the same guy!

If Geezez, who wouldn’t even take a piece of bread when He was starving, had lost to the devil anyway, and ended up like
that,
what was going to happen to Joby? Joby didn’t know how long he could go without eating, but it wasn’t anything like forty days! He’d spent the rest of the service reminding himself that Arthur wouldn’t have asked him to try if there was
no
way he could win. He just wouldn’t have!

Before church, Benjamin had asked his folks if he and Joby could go talk with Father Crombie afterward. So now the boys were waiting for the crowd of old ladies around the old priest to dissipate. When the last chatty old woman finally let him be, Benjamin walked boldly up with Joby in tow.

“Hello, Benjamin.” Father Crombie smiled mischievously. “I saw you over there. Why didn’t you come over sooner and rescue me from Mrs. O’Hearn?” He turned his kindly smile on Joby who suddenly felt shy. “Who is your quiet friend?”

Benjamin laughed. “He’s not quiet! That’s Joby, Father Crombie. He’s not Catholic, but he’s my best friend.”

“Benjamin said I could come,” Joby said. “Is it all right?”

“Of course!” Father Crombie gasped, looking scandalized. “Our Lord welcomed every child he ever met! I don’t think He even asked if they were Catholic!”

“We’ve got some questions,” Benjamin said. “Have you got time to talk to us?”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do.” He smiled. “Ask away!”

“They’re . . . kind of private,” Joby said. “Could we go . . . somewhere?”

“Oh. Certainly,” Father Crombie replied. “Would the sacristy do, while I put away these vestments?”

When Benjamin nodded, Joby did too.

The sacristy turned out to be a small room to one side of the altar. As they entered, Joby saw closets filled with royal-looking robes, and shelves cluttered with mysterious boxes, bottles, books, and candlesticks of gold and silver. It was like a treasure trove! On one shelf there were two large golden
cups, one with rubies set in its stem. As Father Crombie turned to hang the long embroidered scarf he’d worn over his robe in a closet filled with other such scarves, Joby caught Benjamin’s eye and pointed urgently up at the golden cups, mouthing the word “Grail.” Benjamin shook his head no, just as the old priest turned around and sat down in a chair by the scarf closet.

“Well, boys,” he said pleasantly, “what shall we talk about?”

Benjamin looked to Joby, who turned to Father Crombie, shy once more, and unsure of how to begin.

“If it’s a secret,” the priest assured them, “I promise you that nothing said here will ever leave this room. That is a sacred oath, Joby.”

After his embarrassing interview with Father Morgan, Joby had given considerable thought to making his questions sound less foolish.

“I have this book about Camelot and King Arthur,” Joby began apprehensively, “and I wanted to ask if you think Camelot is a real place anybody could get to.”

Looking neither surprised nor amused, Father Crombie thought for a moment, then said, “I do believe in Camelot, Joby. But I suspect it can only be reached these days through the dreams and intentions of good men and women like yourself.”

Though not what he’d hoped for, the answer fit Joby’s own experience.

“So, it’s not real anymore?”

The priest looked startled. “Of course it is!”

“But you just said . . . What do you mean?” Joby asked.

Father Crombie put a hand to his chin in thought, then grinned. “Is money real?”

Both boys nodded, looking slightly confused.

“See?” Father Crombie beamed. “You both say yes. Yet money doesn’t exist any more than Camelot does.”

“What?” Benjamin said. “
Everybody’s
got money.”

“Do they?” Father Crombie asked with twinkling eyes.

Benjamin reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumbled dollar bill. “Look!”

“Is
that
money?” Father Crombie asked, as if he knew a joke they hadn’t got yet. He rose to snatch a sheet of paper from the nearby countertop, and held it up for them to see.
ST. ALBEE’S PRIORY CHURCH BULLETIN
was printed in large green letters across the top. The rest was columns of black type. “What about this, Benjamin? Is
this
money?”

“No, Father,” Benjamin said, beginning to look worried.

“Why not?” the priest insisted. “It’s paper just like yours. It’s even got green and black ink on it. It’s bigger, but that should only make it worth more, shouldn’t it?”

“But . . . you know it’s just a church bulletin, Father Crombie!” Benjamin protested.

“Yes, I do,” he smiled, “but the only thing that makes
your
little sheet of paper
money,
and mine worthless, is that everyone
believes
they’re different
here
and
here.
” He pointed first at his head, then at his chest. “Money is the biggest fairy tale you ever heard! Yet, just because we all
believe
in it, money is, sadly, more real to many people these days than you or I are.”

Joby sort of got what he meant, but he couldn’t see what it had to do with Camelot, and said so.

“Yes, well . . . what I mean to say, Joby, is that, just because a place like Camelot exists only in our minds and hearts at present, doesn’t mean it isn’t real, or that it can’t be as solid as this church someday. If everyone believed in it as you do, Joby, it would soon be at least as real as money.” He smiled. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

“You mean, Camelot could come back?” Joby asked excitedly. “Like King Arthur’s s’posed to?”

“Oh, I’m sure it could,” Father Crombie sighed, “if only people dreamed more wisely.”

Joby fell silent, eyes wide but hardly seeing. As if a door had opened inside him, the whole quest suddenly made sense! Maybe Arthur had sent him to bring Camelot back—and the devil didn’t want that! That would explain why Arthur couldn’t help him ’til he won and why Camelot was doomed if he failed. Revelation surged through Joby like a heady explosion!

“Are you well, child?” Father Crombie asked, leaning forward in concern.

“Yes,” Joby said. “I just . . . What if the devil didn’t want Camelot to come back?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Father Crombie said, still looking oddly at Joby. “It’s an interesting question, though. What makes you ask it?”

Filled with his own fierce purpose now, Joby ignored Father Crombie’s question, and asked his own instead. “Father Morgan already told us that to fight the devil I had to make sure I never took anything from him, even a piece of bread, no matter how hungry I was. Do you know anything else about fighting the devil?”

Father Crombie sat back, gazing all the while at Joby. “Who is Father Morgan?”

“We rode out here yesterday,” Benjamin said. “But you were at the . . . somewhere else all day, so we talked to Father Morgan instead.”

“Here?” Father Crombie asked in surprise. “There is no Father Morgan here. . . . And I went nowhere yesterday.”

“He said he was just visiting,” Joby added, sure now that it
had
been Merlin.
Just visiting.
It was funny if you knew the secret.

“Perhaps,” Father Crombie mused. His gaze became probing. “I’d be interested to hear what else he told you, Joby—if you wish to say, of course.”

Joby recounted what he could recall, omitting his conviction about who Father Morgan really was, of course.

“ ‘The price of failure’?” Father Crombie asked when Joby had finished. “Those were his exact words?”

Joby nodded.

“And that’s all he had to say about it?”

Joby nodded again.

For a time Father Crombie sat in silence, looking at Joby with bemused concern. Then he said, “Do I gather that you plan to fight the devil for the return of Camelot?”

Joby couldn’t hide his alarm. He hadn’t meant to tell Father Crombie
that.
He should have asked his questions more carefully. He looked to Benjamin, who looked just as worried and confused as himself.

“Don’t worry, Joby,” Father Crombie reassured him. “I meant what I said about not betraying your secret, which I think a very fine one, by the way.”

“So . . . can you help us?” Joby said, not happy about the addition of a third party to their secret, but seeing no help for it now.

“I’d be happy to try,” Father Crombie replied.

Seeing no reason anymore not to ask, Joby pointed at the golden cup he’d noticed earlier, and asked, “Is that the Grail?”