Chapter Fifteen
Old Friends
Every feeling Oliver had managed to hold in check in the Dysterwood came pouring out of him the moment he was in Felipe’s arms. If it hadn’t been raining so heavily, he might have sat on the grass in the cemetery a little longer and gotten all the ugly tears out, but Felipe was right about going back to the inn.
They were both cold and exhausted, and overwhelm was rapidly approaching whether he liked it or not after losing hours of his life.
Oliver held Felipe’s hand tightly as they walked back down Cemetery Hill toward the inn.
Every few steps his partner glanced at him as if checking that he was still there.
Watching Felipe unravel with relief upon seeing him emerge from the woods unscathed scared Oliver far more than anything he had encountered in the Dysterwood.
He had assumed that as long as he kept his hands to himself and didn’t do anything obviously foolish, he would be fine, but Felipe didn’t underestimate dangers.
He had seen too much in his twenty years with the society to not predict the likeliest outcome, and to him, that outcome had been death.
Any thoughts of asking Felipe about it were dashed when they entered the inn.
“Felipe, is that you?” Gwen called from the parlor. Her voice was edged with fear and rough like when her asthma kicked up. She dashed to the front room, and Oliver watched as her expression went from devastation to realization to joyous relief. “Ol!”
Before Oliver could move, Gwen collided with his chest and hugged him fiercely.
Oliver nearly stumbled into Felipe, but he patted her back and held his best friend close.
It wasn’t like Gwen to be quite so unrestrained.
The sickening suspicion that he should have been far more scared in the Dysterwood grew into a leaden weight in his gut.
“You’re going to get your dress wet if you keep hugging me,” Oliver said, trying to keep his voice light.
“I don’t care. I thought we lost you.” Letting go only long enough to grab Oliver’s shoulders, Gwen locked eyes with him. “Don’t you ever scare me like that ever again, Oliver Barlow. Felipe and I were worried sick. I had a theory and hoped I was right, but we couldn’t—”
Gwen abruptly cut off when Felipe cleared his throat and darted his eyes toward the doorway behind her.
Following his gaze, Oliver found the innkeeper staring at him with equal parts amazement and confusion written across his features.
His blue eyes narrowed as if probing Oliver’s form before widening with something akin to fear.
Oliver wasn’t certain if it was because he had escaped the Dysterwood or because he looked dreadful after being dragged through a bog.
“I need to clean up,” Oliver remarked stiffly with a wince. The longer he stood in the warm, dry inn, the more obvious it was that he was covered in a thin film of slime. If he thought too hard about it, the sensation turned his stomach.
“Mr. Allen, is there any way Oliver could take a bath and we could dry our clothes?” Felipe asked.
The innkeeper blinked and shook his head as if coming out of a fog. “Of course, follow me.”
As Mr. Allen motioned for them to go ahead of him into the kitchen, his eyes never left Oliver’s back. He couldn’t help but wonder what Mr. Allen wasn’t saying when he looked at him like that.
***
QUICKLY TOWELING OFF beside the wooden tub, Oliver had never been so happy to put his clothes back on.
He had feared taking a bath in a strange place without Felipe might be the thing to finally send him into panic and tears, but washing off in frigid water seemed to shock him back into normalcy for the time being.
He was too cold to be overwhelmed. The kitchen was warm from the dinner Mr. Allen was cooking in the oven, but the water was straight from the pump.
Oliver hadn’t been willing to wait for it to be boiled on the stove, so it was his fault that it felt like icicles were forming in his hair and his fingertips were numb.
Then again, he would have chosen hypothermia over feeling slimy a thousand times over.
Oliver buttoned up his pajamas with chattering teeth and tugged on his robe before pushing the half-full tub toward the back door.
Tipping the water into the grass, Oliver had never been so grateful for the Paranormal Society’s indoor plumbing and water heaters. He would not miss this inconvenience.
Tidying up as best he could, Oliver slipped out of the kitchen and followed Felipe and Gwen’s voices to the parlor.
Oliver stood in the hall just out of sight, merely observing the room as he gathered the fortitude to join the conversation.
Mr. Allen sat at the very end of the sofa with Argos curled at his feet and a smoldering pipe in his hand, listening to Gwen speak two cushions down.
While Oliver was in the bath, Felipe had changed into his pajamas and robe as well.
Oliver felt a bit conspicuous in his bedclothes, but Felipe had been adamant that their informality would be forgiven after getting soaked so late in the day.
His partner sat near the fire with a damp towel around his neck and his curls sticking up at odd angles, though beneath his eyes were dark circles Oliver hadn’t noticed in the cemetery.
A small smile crossed Oliver’s lips as he listened to Felipe recount what he had seen when Oliver reappeared in the cemetery.
The warmth and relief in his voice was evident, but as Felipe finished, Mr. Lewis’s grip on the pipe tightened and his brows drew together.
The entire time they had been there, the innkeeper had seemed affable, but the shadow that fell over his features didn’t sit well with Oliver.
With a final fortifying breath, Oliver poked his head into the doorway.
Felipe’s face broke into a wide grin as he patted the chair beside him.
“Your friends told me someone pushed you into a swamp, Dr. Barlow. It isn’t every day someone falls into the Dysterwood and comes out the other side,” Mr. Allen said with a stilted laugh that could have been from nerves or disbelief, though Oliver couldn’t tell which.
“I don’t know of anyone who has lived to tell what they saw in the woods beyond a select few. ”
Oliver gave him a tight smile. “I guess I was very lucky.”
“Are you feeling better?” Felipe asked.
“Much, just cold.”
“I have a hot water bottle filled and waiting for you,” Mr. Allen replied, nodding toward the fireplace where a water bottle lay slumped against the hearth. “I meant to grab a blanket while I was up. No matter, I’ll get it now.”
As the innkeeper tried to stand, he winced and leaned heavily on his cane. Gwen looked like she was about to move when Oliver raised his hand for them both to stay seated.
“I can get it myself if you tell me where it is. I’m already up,” Oliver said quickly.
“Thank you, son. There’s a linen closet upstairs two doors down from the room you’re in. You can’t miss it. Feel free to borrow whichever blanket you’d like.”
Sighing, Oliver left the warmth of the parlor and trotted up the steps.
As he rubbed his arms and scanned the hall of doors for the linen closet, he wondered what had become of his wet clothing.
Felipe had interrupted his bath to scoop them up and leave his pajamas behind.
He hoped someone in town could clean them as he didn’t want them polluting the other clothes in his bag.
Not that it mattered, considering his other charcoal suit stunk of corpse.
If he kept this up, he would need a whole new wardrobe.
Opening the linen closet, Oliver wished he had asked Mr. Allen specifically what he could use.
Even when someone said anything, there were always unwritten rules.
It felt invasive to go through the man’s things and take what he wanted, but it would have been worse to force him to go up the steps when he was perfectly capable of getting his own blanket.
What would Felipe do? He would grab the first one he saw, Oliver thought.
He pulled a thick woolen blanket off the pile and was about to close the door when his gaze snagged on a wad of brown fabric that had fallen behind the stack of blankets.
Oliver’s hands shook as he pulled out the familiar brown quilt.
It couldn’t be the same blanket. There were probably hundreds of bolts of the same material made and shipped all over the country, he told himself.
Carefully unfolding it, Oliver’s heart juddered at the sight of the appliqued horse.
The blanket looked so much smaller than it had when he was a boy, and it had grown thin and dingy with use, but it was the same quilt made of scraps of brown, white, red, and blue fabric his nana had made.
He would recognize her work anywhere. Flipping over the top corner, Oliver found her mark stitched into the underside.
Oliver stared at the blanket in disbelief.
He hadn’t seen it in over thirty years, yet here it was in the linen closet of a stranger.
It made no sense that Mr. Allen should have something so precious, that he should have any connection to his grandmother or to him.
Oliver’s fingers tightened around the quilt.
He didn’t like how the man had looked at him after he fell out of the Dysterwood, and the blanket was the final straw.
Storming down the steps, Oliver found Felipe already rising from the sofa when he arrived in the parlor.
“Where did you get this?” Oliver demanded, thrusting the blanket in Mr. Allen’s direction.
Mr. Allen gave Oliver a gaping, wide-eyed look but said nothing.
“How did you get this blanket?”
Gwen looked between Oliver and Felipe in confusion as Argos let out a low growl. The innkeeper stammered a half answer, but Oliver missed it because Felipe grabbed his elbow and steered him into the hall with an apology.