His previous question had quite obviously dampened the young girl’s bubbly demeanor, but Malachi was determined not to let any worries that he’d potentially planted in her mind fester. After all, he had taken her out of the hotel room to explore and take her mind off of things, not make them worse – he just wanted her to know that there was someone in her corner.

A nod was the priest’s only reaction. Like that of his other question, Mable’s answer was vague. Another subject he was better off not prodding at, then.

“Oh, his-”

Wait, what?

Malachi felt his eyes widen subtly at that. So she really was just unaware? That ruled out the possibility of the siblings being Catholic…

“No, no,” he shook his head, smiling sheepishly all the while. “’Father’ is my title within the church, as a priest. While I was still training to become one, it was ‘Brother’ instead.”

And if the bishop was not such a spiteful old bastard (when it came to him), he could have been Bishop Brennan next.

“So it is custom for my parish-” and generally everyone else “-to call me Father Brennan, as I serve as the… well, I am meant to follow in the footsteps of God the Father. I have no children of my own – priests take certain vows which disallow things like that.”

Distractions. He understood why.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to explain any of this to anyone. It all sounded so strange when he tried to put it into words like that… he pushed a few errant strands of black hair behind his ear and kept walking.

“My brother’s name is Levi, though. He lives in London with the rest of the family.”