Michael's kids and his wife stared at him in astonishment.  In a weird way that none of them had anticipated, everything he had been telling them suddenly seemed like it might be making real sense.  Maybe.

"Wait a minute," Bev said, not sure what to make of it all.  "You're saying that the symbols on this cryptex thing represent the Incarnation, the Sacred K and the initials of Kerry Livgren in Greek?"

"Bingo," her husband replied.

"So this is why you've got all his music," younger Michael spoke up.

"Well, one of the reasons."

"And it brings that 'P.S.: Find Kerry Livgren' message we saw scrawled on the stage floor next to the John Brown dummy the other night full circle," Jeff added.

"Ah, young grasshopper," his father said, "at last you begin to understand."

Jeff looked at his dad quizzically, not recognizing the cultural reference but gathering that his comment was on the right track.

"So, Daddy," Katherine spoke up hesitantly, "does this mean that this Fivefold String thing really means, 'God-Jesus-Kerry-Livgren-Messiah'?"

"Now just hold on!" Bev interrupted.  "This is going way over my head, Honey.  I grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel and Barbara Streisand, but I never imagined that my favorite musical artists were involved in some kind of divine secret of the universe.  This is crazy!"

"Is it?" her husband replied.  "Think back over everything we've encountered in the last couple of days.  The coded black-light message on the floor of the stage next to the John Brown dummy.  The numerical and anagrammatic codes pointing to Kerry Livgren, his conversion and the Kansas album Masque.  The copy of Masque, somehow reserved in my name, that we picked up earlier today with the code for 'indefatigable,' the secret greeting of the People of the Southwind, scrawled across its cover in black-light ink.  The leather-bound lock box with the Point of Know Return artwork on top that opened with the combination 'P-O-T-S-W."  The cryptex inscribed with the symbols of the Sacred K and Kerry Livgren's initials in Greek."

Michael's wife stared at him.

"All these things that have happened to us since just the other night are far too 'coincidental' just to be a coincidence," Michael continued.  "You think it's crazy?  Honey, I couldn't make up a story this crazy!"

Bev looked closely at her husband, torn between trust and incredulity.  He's right about one thing, she finally thought to herself.  He couldn't make up a story this crazy.

"All right, Honey," Bev finally responded.  "It all still sounds crazy, but... I trust you."

Several seconds of silence stretched out between them before Michael finally spoke.

"You do?" he said, a smile playing across his face.

"Yes," she said. 

"Good," Michael replied.  He took a deep breath.  "Because it gets crazier still."

Crazier still? Bev thought to herself.

"Now, Katherine," her father resumed, turning toward his oldest daughter, "you had a question."

"Hmm?" she asked, drawing a blank.  "Oh, yeah.  Does the 'K-L' in that string of letters make it mean 'God-Jesus-Kerry-Livgren-Messiah'?"

"It makes Kerry Livgren sound like the Second Coming," Bev interjected.

"Well, as I said earlier," her husband replied, "there is a faction of the People of the Southwind who call themselves the Livgrenian Second Adventists, so..."

Bev stared at him, not sure if he was serious or not.  Michael smiled and chuckled.

"Don't worry, Honey," he said.  "The Parousia hasn't come yet."

"Par-what-ia?" Emily asked, laughing.

"It's from the Greek," her father replied. "It means 'presence' and it refers to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.  Anyway, getting back to your question, Katherine, no, the 'K-L' doesn't make the Holy Fivefold String mean 'God-Jesus-Kerry-Livgren-Messiah.'  It points to a much deeper meaning, a meaning both celebrated and guarded by the People of the Southwind."

"Dad," his son Michael interrupted, "you keep beating around the bush with this, and it's getting annoying.  When are you going to just come out and tell us what this secret is that the People of the Southwind protect?"

"Uh-uh-uh," his father chided.  "Be patient.  Remember, 'patience is a virtue; virtue is a grace; put them both together and you make a happy face,'" he continued, quoting a platitude of Bev's mother that by common agreement Bev's mother used way too often.

"You also get a saying that we all got real tired of about a decade ago," Graham said.

"That recently?" Bev piped up, laughing.

"Better hope your mom doesn't read this story," Michael replied.  They all had a hearty laugh together.

"Okay," Michael finally said after their moment of family hilarity, "again getting back to Katherine's question, the surface meaning of the Holy Fivefold String...

...is indeed 'God-Jesus-Lord-Word-Messiah.'  But that's merely a smokescreen to hide its real meaning.  The People of the Southwind interpret it... somewhat differently."  Michael began to write again on a fresh piece of paper.  "As I showed you earlier, the kappa-lambda coupling in the middle, represented in English by the Roman letters 'K-L,' does indeed stand for Kerry Livgren.  The theta at the beginning, however, doesn't stand for theos, 'God,' but rather the adjective theios, 'divine.'"

"It sounds the same," younger Michael pointed out.

"Yes," his father replied, "it's a homonym in Greek and, as you might guess, related to theos."

"So the theta here doesn't stand for God but for a word related to God, 'divine,'" Jeff said.

"Right," Michael replied.

"And I'm guessing that the iota doesn't stand for 'Jesus' but for a word related to Jesus," Bev added.

"That's true; you're absolutely right," her husband answered, quoting the punchline of an old Bill Murray-Jane Curtin Saturday Night Live skit from the 1970s.  Michael waited in vain for laughter that never came.

"It was a comedy skit on Saturday Night Live... oh, never mind," Michael finally relented.  "Wait a minute, that was a Saturday Night Live skit, too..."

"What does the iota stand for, Honey?" Bev finally interjected.

"Hmm?  Oh, right," her husband replied, getting back on-topic.  "The iota here stands not for Jesus but for a theologically related word, ilasterion."

"Elastic-terry cloth?" Katherine, who hadn't been paying complete attention, piped up.

"Hi-las-te-ri-on," her father enunciated.  "It's a technical term in Greek that's rendered in the New Testament as 'expiation.'"

"I don't remember reading that word in the Bible," Bev said, confused.

"It's used infrequently, but it's there," Michael responded.  "The most prominent occurence is in Romans 3:25, where the Apostle Paul says that God put forward Jesus 'as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith.'  The short definition is that in the New Testament it deals with Christ's sacrifice on the cross and our being reconciled to God through him.  It has to do with the broader idea of atonement, which has to do with forgiveness of sin, reconciliation, the closing of a rift."

"Now I have heard 'atonement' before," Bev said.

"Yes," her husband replied, "'atonement' is used frequently in the Old Testament regarding the animal sacrifices that were carried out in the temple that were supposed to provide forgiveness of sin and make the people right with God.  In the New Testament, the idea is applied to Christ as the 'once for all' sacrifice that reconciles humanity to God.  In fact, some people so emphasize the idea of reconciliation that they recast 'atonement' as 'at-one-ment,' which is more of a modern 'spiritual' interpretation."

"So getting back to what you were saying about the Fivefold String," younger Michael spoke up, "the theta and the iota as the People of the Southwind understand them here stand for the words theios, 'divine,' and ilas--whatever it was."

"Theios and ilasterion," his father answered.  "Well, theion ilasterion, if we're going to be grammatically correct about gender, number and case."

"Which together," younger Michael continued, "mean... 'divine atonement'?"

"You are not far from the kingdom of heaven," his father replied, "nor, for that matter, from Beginning Greek."

"So the theta-iota-kappa-lambda mean 'divine-atonement-Kerry Livgren'?" Bev asked.

"Yes," her husband replied, "which leaves the mu at the end of the string."

"I'm betting it doesn't stand for 'Messiah,'" Graham suggested.

"That's true; you're absolutely right," his father confirmed.  Still no laughter.

"I know!" Emily exclaimed.  "The mu looks like the letter 'm' I drew when you asked me to draw a bird...

...so the mu is a bird which means 'Spirit'!"

Michael looked at his youngest daughter.  "Out of the mouths of babes and infants..."

Katherine glared at her younger sister, envious that Emily had answered first.  "Oh, man, don't tell me she got it right!"

"Well, actually," her father replied, "she didn't..."

"Aww!" Emily yelled laughingly, mock disappointment in her voice.

"...but it was a good guess," Michael continued, "and an excellent display of inferential logic for a grade-schooler."

"See, Katherine?" Emily said, sticking out her tongue at her big sister.  "I'm logical.  Daddy said so."

"No, he didn't," Katherine retorted, sticking out her own tongue.  "He just said you were inferential."

Katherine and Emily took turns sticking out their tongues at each other as Jeff asked, "Well, if the mu or 'm' doesn't mean 'Spirit' or 'Messiah,' what does it mean?"

"First make sure you understand the significance of the first four letters, theta-iota-kappa-lambda," his father said.  "'Divine-atonement-Kerry-Livgren.'"

"Well," Jeff replied uncertainly, "it sounds like it means that Kerry Livgren has to make some kind of divine atonement."

"Right," his father said.  "Not the divine atonement, of course, since Jesus already brought that about on the cross, but there is a healing, a reconciliation, an 'atonement' in the eyes of God that only Kerry Livgren can make."

"What kind of atonement?" Bev asked, not sure if she felt comfortable thinking of Kerry Livgren in semi-messianic terms.

"Ah," her husband replied, "that's the secret guarded by the People of the Southwind.  The Holy Grail itself.  And the mu or 'm' at the end of the Holy Fivefold String points the way."

"But what does the mu mean?" younger Michael asked, exasperation in his voice.

Michael fixed his gaze upon his middle son and then quietly spoke one word.

"Monolith."