It didn't seem like Ireland. But it didn't seem like it could be anywhere else either. Certainly nowhere he had ever been. It was too still. Too quiet. Overwhelmingly quiet. It was a place where only someone asleep could be. A dreamscape. In the shimmering mirror pool he could see the perfect reflection of the stars, like someone had laid out a map of the heavens on the ground before him. Next to this heavenly map stood the American girl Jessi. She was watching him carefully, silently, studying him as he stood watching her. She had no clothes on, and she stood carefully off to one side, her wings wrapped around her, as if in protection. Almost like armor. Like Joan.

When Jessi finally spoke her voice was that of a child. It was the same voice he remembered from their only meeting that Saturday afternoon in the church, and later in the park. She said, "Where are your wings?"

And he looked behind him as if expecting wings on his back, like hers, but he had none.

He said nothing in reply, just looked at the child angel before him, wondering what she had meant. But he knew she wasn't a child, but a woman. And he began wondering about lust. A feeling he had put away long ago. Or thought he had anyway.

"Oh," she said, stepping slowly forward for a closer look. "Um. I know you. You're the priest from St. Mary's in Dublin."

"Yes," he heard his own voice say in response, but it seemed almost as though it had come from somewhere else. From someone else.

"Are you lost?" she inquired in a voice that sounded like a girl's and a woman's all at once.

She didn't seem at all ashamed of her nakedness, but still she hid it from him with her enveloping wings, still watched him from between them, demurely. He could see her legs glowing pale in the starlight and her face, just as pale, dark eyes watching him carefully.

"I don't know," his voice that could not be his voice said. "I must be. Yes." He paused and then realized that he was terribly lost. "I know where I'm supposed to be going," he said, looking around. "But I'm not sure...I don't know if I'm...I feel like...sometimes...like I may be taking the wrong path. Or the wrong version of the path. Or maybe looking in the wrong place."

"Hush," she said and he knew the word was aimed at calming his confusion. "I know the way."

She turned slightly, her wings moving back behind her, and he caught a glimpse of white flesh, her charms revealed to him just briefly. And he felt a strange yearning for her, maybe not exactly for her, for this angel, this woman, but for something sensual, or sexual or...what? Something in his life that was missing. He wasn't sure exactly what it was. But desire raced through him as he watched her wander slowly into the pool. Pent up emotions struggled to get out. He thought of touch: what her skin might feel like. But that wasn't all he felt. Curiosity about her as a woman and an angel, and this place, and this dream, all fell into one. And all he could do was stare.

Then he noticed that as she moved down into the water, her wings seemed to disappear, becoming translucent like the surface of the shimmering pool.

She glanced back at him and said, "Are you coming?"

He moved forward, but hesitated at the shore of the pool, watching her wings melt into the water.

"Um. I can only take you this far, show you this path. But don't worry, the light will guide your way."

What light? he wondered. The stars?

He moved into the water and when it touched him, he was reminded of the story of John the Baptist in the bible.

Is that what this was, a dream baptism?

He thought of physical touch. The water. A woman's skin. And spiritual touch. Again the water. And a sense of enlightenment. Were they the same thing? Did one lead to the other?

He realized he was naked and found it odd that he hadn't noticed this before.

"There will be struggle," the angel said, glancing back at him. "And your questions will not all be answered. At least not while you are living in the world of people. But if you stay on this path, you will know that you are going the right way."

The water was too warm, too beautiful. He watched his own figure disappearing into itself as he moved further down into the pool. He felt suddenly at peace. And filled with more wonder than his mind had ever felt.

She said, "Should you ever stray from this path, just look for the light."

And then she vanished somewhere down in the shimmering mirror. Lost in the reflection of the stars.

And Father William Hennessey woke up.

Into a room filled with unfamiliar dark shapes. And a mind wondering about spiritual desires. And seduction.

He longed, suddenly, for touch.