Ballykea seemed to have an inexplicably high rate of premature death, and certain survivors seemed to get over their grief all too quickly. Only one explanation made sense, and it was the most ludicrous thing...

Here's the funny thing about faking your own death: When one person is guilty of it, it's unconscionable, cruel, social deviance. When a whole town is guilty, it becomes a quaint local custom.

But tradition doesn't always survive the handoff from one generation to another. Sometimes, when truth and tradition go to battle, truth wins.

MANCHESTER

Three years had felt like the blink of an eye.

An unwilling blink, true - like when one's in a playground staring contest, and blinking is the ultimate defeat. Father Peter Clifford had not wanted time to pass following the loss of Assumpta Fitzgerald. He had not wanted the world to turn in her absence, nor the sun to rise. For so long he'd hidden away entirely, slept all he could, eaten little, gotten most of his calories from drink.

And yet he'd survived, moved home to the house his mother willed to him. He'd shaved, one day; finding the liquor cabinet bare, he'd decided not to restock it; and after some serious penance, he'd taken on again with the home parish in Manchester. He was once more Father Randall's curate, saying mass, christening babies - and today, hearing confessions.

The penitent opposite him now was on the confessional's kneeler, staying anonymous, and speaking in the barest audible whisper.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been...probably about two years since my last confession."

The voice was male, and Peter detected a hint of Irish lilt. It made his heart ache. "You are lapsed, then?"

"You're really Father Clifford, then," the man responded.

Peter frowned. "I am."

"Father, I did something terrible in 1999."

"Go on."

"My wife had fallen in love with someone else, so I abandoned her and our little boy."

Peter tried to override the pain the accent was causing him. If I didn't know any better... "Go on," he finally managed.

The penitent's own voice was breaking, the timbre of it leaking slow into the cracks of the whispers. "I didn't want my son to grow up in a divorced family, so I..."

"You just left," Peter volunteered,, reeling, hoping to rush this along.

"No, not just."

"What do you mean then?"

"I found an opportunity, Father, and I...I gave up everything. Do you understand, do you?"

"I'm trying."

"Father..." That voice. It was coming into its own now, going from whisper to speech. Like a pen, once thought to have run out of ink, but which only really needed a warmup scribble.

Back to life.

Lazarus.

Jesus.

Focus. "It's okay, take your time." My child, he wanted to say, but the man was near his own age. He would almost swear...

"Father, in my hometown...It wasn't unheard of..."

"What wasn't unheard of?"

"I'd heard rumours about the local GP. That if you needed to disappear, he'd help you. One afternoon I came up to a cliff. Some stranded men down below were crying for help. I knew I'd be useless but I had to try, and then I thought only if I'm even meant to survive this... I didn't care anymore! Do you understand?"

Too well, Peter thought. "I do."

"When I fell I hit water. Deep water. Thought I'd drown but I buoyed right to the surface. I was scraped up and full of adrenaline, but I was unharmed. The sea immediately washed me onto the rocks below and I realised the men were screaming. I thought this is it. This is my chance. My wife can have the man she loves without a divorce, and the doc will help me go away. So when they came for me I didn't move. I felt cold from the water. No one asked why I wasn't bleeding from the trauma. It was as if it was simply understood. Michael took my pulse and he pretended to feel nothing."

Michael.

"You faked your own death?" Peter whispered, his heart slamming shut.

"I did." The penitent was at full volume now. "Father..."

"I'm not supposed to guess who you are unless you tell me," Peter said gently as he could. He wanted to rip down the barrier between them. He also wanted to fall over.

"But you know, don't you? Tell me you remember me, Father."

"Of course, Ambrose. Does anyone else really know? Back home?"

"That's the other bit I have to confess."

"It's okay, Ambrose. Go ahead."

"He said I wasn't the first. And I don't think I've been the last."

Peter felt his mouth going numb on the inside, felt cold sweat beading on his lip. "Ambrose," he pleaded.

"Brian Quigley's done it," Ambrose said. "There's a chance my own father did it years ago."

Peter's heart broke again. It had been too much to hope, and sure enough-

"And Assumpta, Father."

Peter heard himself sob.

"Doc Ryan told me. I've found out where she is. She did it for you, so you could keep your job."

Peter felt his skin get clammy, felt his fingers and toes go on pins and needles. Then everything went black.