Chapter 2: The Music in the Walls
The week that followed was a study in silent, careful observation for Paul. Jud moved through the rectory and the attached church like a ghost trying to remember how to be solid. He was lanky and all angles, his elbows and knees seeming to find every piece of furniture with a loud, apologetic thump. Paul watched him prepare the altar for morning Mass, the ritual movements hesitant, but the hands themselves... they were a shock. Massive knuckles, scars across the fingers, hands that belonged on a dockworker or a street brawler. They handled the frail communion wafers with a surreal, tense delicacy. What prayers, Paul wondered, what violence, had led those hands to hold a chalice instead of a closed fist?
Jud tried, God, he tried. He’d linger after parishioners filed out, offering a stiff, “Nice weather, if you’re a duck,” to old man O’Shaughnessy, who just blinked and walked on. He’d help Bev Keane sort donated blankets, holding one up and deadpanning, “This one’s seen more drama than a PBS period piece.” Bev’s lips would flatten into a bloodless line. The jokes died in the salty air, uncomprehended.
Paul, from the shadow of the sacristy door, would turn his face away and snicker, a quick, muffled sound. He got them. The weird, deflective humor was a language he’d spoken for centuries.
Bev certainly had her opinions. “He’s a disruption, Father,” she’d say, polishing a candlestick with aggressive vigor. “Clumsy. The people talk. They say he’s… odd. We managed perfectly well with one shepherd.” Her tone implied Jud was less a lost sheep and more a disruptive goat.
Paul would just murmur, “We all serve in our own way, Bev,” and feel her disapproval like a cold draft.
For Jud, the days were a tightrope. Every smile from a local felt scrutinizing, every glance from Bev felt like an indictment. He slept fitfully in the narrow room, the weight of his own body a familiar prison. He’d packed his bag three times, then unpacked it, staring at the rosary on his nightstand. Running was what he did. It had always been what he did. But something about Paul’s quiet stability, the way he didn’t flinch from Jud’s awkwardness, anchored him.
“I’m not sure I’m meant to be here,” Jud confessed one evening, his voice low in the rectory’s dim kitchen. He was staring into a cup of tea as if it held the answer. “I stick out. I always stick out.”
Paul, wiping a dish, didn’t look up. “Perhaps that’s the point. Crocket doesn’t need more of the same. It needs…” He paused, searching. “It needs someone who knows what it’s like to feel on the outside looking in. To offer grace from there, it means something.”
The words were a balm Jud hadn’t known he needed. They echoed in his head for days.
One week to the day after the rain-drenched arrival, Paul was in the records room, a tomb of dusty ledgers and the smell of decaying paper. The only sound was the scratch of a mouse in the wall. Then, a tinny thread of melody wove its way up through the floorboards.
Music. A real, upbeat song. Not a hymn. He figured he was imagining things for a moment, like his old mind hallucinated the tune of an old song he likes years ago. He hears it continue, and it’s real and chipper and it gets louder as Paul follows the music with growing confusion.
He followed it, a pilgrim drawn to a strange new altarpiece. It led to Jud’s closed door. Paul hovered, unseen, in the hallway. The door was ajar a few inches.
Inside, Jud sat on the edge of his bed. A small, old music player with headphones sat beside him, but the sound spilled freely from its tiny speaker. The jaunt, unmistakable opening of “Come On Eileen” filled the small space. And Jud was… humming. Loudly, off-key. A pencil moved rapidly in his hand, not writing, but doodling in a notebook—swirls and shapes, a cartoonish angel with a lopsided halo. His face was transformed. The habitual tension was gone, the hunted look in his eyes softened into something like peace. A small, genuine smile played on his lips.
Paul’s dead heart didn’t beat, but it ached with a phantom pain so profound his knees felt weak. He hadn’t seen such unguarded, simple joy in decades. Maybe centuries. It was a glimpse of the man beneath the priesthood, beneath the trauma, beneath the strange, painful biology—just a person, happy with a stupid song.
Unthinking, Paul found himself humming along, the syncopated “too-rye-aye” barely a breath.
Jud’s head snapped up. The pencil skidded. He fumbled, snapping the notebook shut and slapping the music player silent in one graceless motion. The vibrant air in the room froze.
“Father Paul! I’m—I’m so sorry. The noise. It’s stupid, I just… I miss the radio sometimes. I have a few tapes. Old ones.” He was flushing a deep, mortified red, shoving the notebook under his pillow. “It won’t happen again.”
Paul pushed the door open fully, leaning against the frame. “Don’t stop.” His own voice sounded rough to him. “Please.”
Jud blinked. “It’s… it’s not exactly contemplative.”
“I’ve had enough contemplation to last several lifetimes,” Paul said, and it was the most honest thing he’d said in weeks. He took a tentative step into the room. “I love music. Any music that isn’t asking me to weep for my sins. That song… it’s from the 80s, yes?”
A hesitant nod from Jud. “You know it?”
“A lifetime ago.” Paul gestured to the player. “Would you… play it again?”
Jud stared, then a slow, disbelieving smile broke through his embarrassment. He pressed play. The joyful, jangling fiddle filled the room once more. Paul didn’t ask to sit, but he lowered himself to the wooden chair by Jud’s desk, his movements instinctively careful, subdued. He began to hum again, matching the melody this time.
And Jud, after a moment, joined him. He didn’t look at Paul, just stared at his hands, a shy smile on his face as they hummed the silly, exuberant chorus together.
In that moment, Paul’s senses shifted. The constant, underlying scent of Jud’s blood—usually a bitter, metallic tang of anxiety and old pain—mellowed. It warmed. It bloomed into something else entirely, a sweetness like sun-warmed honey, layered with the bright, clean zest of citrus. It was the scent of happiness, of safety, of a momentary release. It was the most beautiful thing Paul had ever smelled, and it hurt more than any hunger. He wanted to breathe it in forever. He wanted to cry.
For Jud, the tight knot that had been his constant companion since puberty, since his first betrayal, since every rough hand and mocking laugh, simply loosened. The simple act of sharing a dumb song, of not being chastised for it, of having this solemn, beautiful man hum along… it was a kind of communion he’d never experienced. He felt seen. Not as a freak, not as a useful body, not as a mistake. But as Jud. And in Paul’s quiet, attentive presence, he felt respected.
As the final notes of the song faded, leaving a comfortable silence, Jud knew. The decision settled in his bones, calm and final. He wasn’t leaving. This bleak, windy island with its judgmental stares and this one, kind, enigmatic priest was where he would stay. For the first time in his lonely, fractured life, he had found a harbor. He didn’t look at Paul, but he felt the resolve solidify.
“I’ve got one by The Cure,” Jud said, his voice softer now, no stammer.
Paul smiled, a real one that reached his weary eyes. “Play it.”