Chapter Fourteen

Then He said, "Hear now My words: "If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream.

Numbers 12:6

From then on, Silas began to watch Sennett far more closely. He started noticing odd things about her. For one thing, she seemed to be mysteriously out of step with time.

When she was cooking, she would often put on the timer and go and do something else for awhile. Without fail, she would leave what she was doing and begin walking through to the kitchen just before the timer went off. It usually rang as she was still walking to the oven or stovetop. After the first couple of times this happened, he watched more closely. She wasn't keeping an eye on the time. She didn't glance at a clock or watch before she got up. She just seemed to have an inbuilt ability to know just before something was going to happen.

Sometimes she would mention a friend or family member in passing that she hadn't seen for months and that person would ring unexpectedly that same day.

They would often watch the news together (always a trial on Silas' emotions) in the evening. As certain events played out over the course of days, Sennett was unfailingly correct in her predictions of how events would work out.

Then he noticed that often he would be thinking or feeling a particular thing and Sennett would suddenly say the very thing he was thinking or suddenly do something that made him realize she knew what he was feeling. If watching TV was making him anxious, she would turn it off. If he was feeling fretful and at a loose end, she would put on some soothing music - a sure way of calming him down.

Some of it Silas could put down to Sennett simply being sensitive. He knew he was naive in some ways due to his lack of education and his social isolation but he had also learned to hide his feelings from others. Neither the Bishop nor the Teacher had ever understood Silas' moods instinctively. They had understood how to trick and manipulate him but generally were not able to guess what he was feeling. The only way they knew was if he told them. He had been very open with Bishop Aringarosa and the Bishop had used the information to dupe him. But if there was some emotion he wished to hide from Aringarosa, he had always been able to.

He got the feeling that would not be an option with Sennett.

It was Sunday morning that the answer came to him as clear as crystal, seemingly out of nowhere. "You're a prophet," he said bluntly, putting his fork down next to his scrambled egg.

Sennett said nothing, just raised her eyes slowly from her own plate and looked at him guardedly. He could tell from the expression on her face that he was exactly right.

"That's why you're always out of step with time; why you always know what is going to happen," he continued, thinking out loud, "That's why you know about things that happen in Israel at the exact moment they happen although you're so far away. That's why you're celibate too. And that's how you know what everyone around you is thinking and feeling; its divine knowledge - prophetic knowledge."

Sennett didn't reply. She just looked back at the eggs going rubbery and cold on her plate. Once upon a time, she would have loved someone to guess the truth. Nowadays, it didn't seem to matter. Being a prophet seemed somehow wonderful when you read about them in the Bible. She had learned the hard way that being one in the modern world was simply isolating and lonely and difficult. It did not enhance or add to one's own life. Jeremiah was right to caution his young apprentice Baruch, "Seek great things for yourself? Seek them not."

She could not tell people she was a prophet. Not unless she wanted people to think she was ridiculous and pretentious, deluded and a liar. It sounded stupidly self-aggrandising.

The few people she had shared just small amounts of her experiences with had all reacted differently. Some had believed her, mainly because she had heavily edited the stories. Some had listened and said nothing but their silence spoke volumes. A few had tried to offer alternative explanations for her experiences. Over the years, she had learned just not to talk about it at all. There was no-one she now shared her prophetic happenings with. She was totally isolated with regards the part of her life that most defined her.

One thing she had learned, telling people the truth about the things she knew and saw only made them desperately uncomfortable. Few wanted to really believe in a God that vitally alive and present and involved in the world. People wanted God to stay in His Heaven and shut up. They didn't want Him to speak to them or interfere in their lives or have a loving and profound relationship with them. They didn't want to think about Him except when they went to church once a week (and then, not too deeply please). When they walked back out of church, they wanted to feel virtuous without having to make any changes to their life. They wanted a God who was distant and easily pacified.

In Sennett's experience, God was not like that at all. God was a whirlwind.

"Don't ever tell anyone, please," Sennett said tensely.

Silas wasn't sure anyone would believe him; at least, not anyone who hadn't lived with Sennett for two weeks like he had.

"I won't," Silas promised solemnly. He hesitated for a moment. Something was bothering him. "What is it like being able to read other people's hearts?" he asked.

"Well, it's not like reading their minds. I can't hear people's thoughts or anything. It's just that sometimes I'll say something at the same moment someone else is thinking it, just like their thought jumped into my mind without my even being conscious of it. The feelings are stronger. I can feel what other people feel if the emotion is strong enough. Sometimes I get mixed up and think they are my own emotions. As I get older, I do that less often. Of course, the strong emotions are usually the negative ones like anger or fear or hatred," Sennett explained carefully. She hated trying to put these things into words. No matter how hard she tried, language was simply inadequate to explain it and people inevitably misunderstood.

"Can you see what is in other people's hearts?" Silas asked curiously.

"Only vaguely," Sennett said, shaking her head to express her difficulty in explaining it, "I can see if there is a lot of darkness in someone, a lot of pain or hurt. I can sense if someone is empty or shallow. I can tell whether someone is dangerous or not, regardless of their persona. I occasionally sense a soul that is as rare as a diamond, a soul like a light shining in the darkness. That is usually a child."

"You must be a good judge of character," Silas said thoughtfully.

"If I don't talk myself out of what I sense initially," she said with a small smile.

"How do you know these things are from God?" Silas asked with a frown.

"I know its God because the things He shows me actually come to pass. I know its God because He is never what I expect. I might doubt myself if, in every encounter with God, He is precisely what I expect Him to be. However, He is never what I expect. He is more than I can imagine. I am not clever enough to invent the God that I know," Sennett said softly.

"What are some of the things he has shown you that came to pass?" Silas asked with fascination.

"He told me I was sick and needed a doctor about two years before I was diagnosed with Lupus. I had written in down in my personal journal and forgotten about it. A year after the diagnosis, I was reading through my old journals and found the entry," Sennett told him, taking a sip of her tea.

Silas could understand why Sennett didn't tell anyone about these things any more. He believed what she was saying but it was making him feel frightened, the way he had the night she had been praying in Latin before the bombing in Israel was reported on the news.

"Why does God show you these things you can't change?" Silas asked in bewilderment.

"I used to ask myself that a lot when I was younger," Sennett said, making herself some more tea. "I eventually learned that He just wanted someone to pray that His will be accomplished and evil be mitigated as much as possible in these events."

"There is far more you're not telling me, isn't there?" Silas eventually said, after absorbing all this.

"God's secrets are just that – secrets. It's not up to me to repeat them to anyone else," she said gently but firmly, "Particularly not the things he reveals to me about other people's lives on occasion."

Silas relaxed slightly. He felt more comfortable knowing that if God revealed anything about himself to her, Sennett was bound to stay silent about it.

"What has He told you about me?" Silas asked, which was the original question he really wanted answered anyway.

"He hasn't asked me to intercede for you, Silas, so I don't know any details about your life that you haven't told me. All I know about you is what you've told me and some very vague impressions about the type of person you are," Sennett reassured him.

"What type of person am I?" he asked in genuine perplexity. He didn't know himself.

Sennett didn't answer. When he looked up at her, he found her staring at him with tears in her eyes. In the entire two weeks he had been in her flat, he had never seen Sennett cry.

"Lost," she finally said but there was heartbreak on her face and suddenly Silas knew that although she may not know the details of his past, she knew the truth of it more accurately than any other person ever had. Her knowledge of him went through and beyond the facts. She saw his heart and what she saw hurt her to see.

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "You're lost Silas. You need to find a home somewhere in the world; a place where you feel you belong. Somewhere safe for you where you can heal from the past and have healthy relationships and know who you are," she said and then sighed.

"That's why you were never afraid of me," Silas said quietly.

Sennett nodded slowly. "I knew you weren't a murderer by nature. There are those that are," she said, "But you're not one of them."

That afternoon, Sennett went out to visit a friend who was only in London for the day.

Silas went and lay down taking one of Sennett's many books with him.

He couldn't make head or tail of the things she had told him but she had warned him that people didn't understand when she tried to explain. He did not think for a moment that she was lying about any of it. It was just that he couldn't understand it, never having experienced God in that way himself. It did awake a curious hunger to have a relationship that vital with God too. Was it really possible for him?

He did understand a great many more things about her. Why, although she seemed to have such a diverse range of friends and a large extended family, she lived alone. Why she lived alone even though she was sick. Why she had never married and didn't even have a boyfriend regardless of her physical attractions. Why she was not afraid of him and why she seemed to have an uncanny ability to anticipate his needs. Why she didn't talk about herself a great deal unless asked specific questions. Why she had such authority when she spoke about spiritual matters. Why she attracted friends like Seraphim into her life.

There was a large part of Sennett that she was unable to share with anyone. He imagined that must be very lonely but then it was hard to imagine she could be too lonely with so many friends and colleagues and so much family in France. Her isolation was almost self-imposed because of her strange calling. His had been as a direct result of circumstances he had no control over. It didn't matter why either of them was lonely, the fact remained was that they were. Yet another thing they unexpectedly had in common.

On her way back from seeing an old friend that she had studied with at Oxford as an Undergraduate, she popped in to see Seraphim. She had bought him some cookies from the café. He had a weakness for sweet things.

"I just wanted to thank you for all the kind things you're doing for Silas. It's doing him the world of good to have a friend," Sennett said, handing over the bag of cookies.

Seraphim was very pleased. He bustled around making them a cup of tea in his small flat.

"It's all my pleasure," he said truthfully, "I like the boy."

Sennett reflected that a person who was in their mid-thirties was hardly a boy but she supposed to Seraphim he probably seemed that way. She probably seemed like a girl to him too.

"Mind you, I think I'm not his first or best friend," he said, looking meaningfully at Sennett.

"Mmmm," Sennett said noncommittally, taking the offered cup of tea and sitting down at Seraphim's table.

"How has it been for you, having a stranger in your flat and taking care of him?" Seraphim asked kindly but with a shrewd look.

"It's forced me to be less selfish," Sennett admitted with a wry smile.

"He is a very unusual person. As you must know, he's had a tragic life," Seraphim said matter-of-factly.

"I had gathered that," Sennett agreed.

"Very few people would know how to deal with him. You've done a wonderful job giving him a space to heal," he said.

"He's no trouble at all," Sennett said.

"I'm only afraid that he may get too dependent on you," Seraphim said, the kindly shrewd look back in his eye.

"He's looking at joining an Order once he's healed," Sennett said, "He just doesn't want one with any connections to Opus Dei, so enquiries are going to have to be made discreetly."

This surprised Seraphim. He didn't know if going back to religious life would be the best thing for Silas. Silas needed to learn that the world was not always a scary place. He needed to find out that it could be friendly and safe and good. He would not learn that behind the thick walls of a monastery. He would have too much time to brood and think and magnify all the terrible things in his past if he went into a contemplative Order.

It also meant that Silas was not developing an unhealthy attachment to Sennett. That was a good thing. Sennett was good company and a real friend but she did not allow too many people too close. That could be hurtful for Silas if he became too attached in the wrong way. It was the last thing he needed.

"Why don't you come back to my flat for dinner? You mentioned bringing Silas Holy Communion," Sennett suggested.

"Yes, I've got it here," Seraphim said, pointing to the brass pix on the table, "And I would love to come for dinner."