Chapter Twenty-Five #3
“I don’t like doing it, but Dr. Miller says it’s for his own good, to keep him from hurting himself and others.
It’s happened before. I only bring it up because as I was injecting him and trying to get him to calm down, Will made me promise to pass on a message to the three of you.
I want to preface this by saying the medicine was already working, so I don’t know if it truly means anything.
But he made me promise to pass it on. He was very agitated, you see, and it seemed the only way to calm him down.
Hence why I played along.” When Felipe motioned for him to go on, he said, “He wanted me to tell you, the seal is broken. Does this mean anything to you?”
Felipe’s blood ran cold, but he shrugged and shook his head.
“Ah well, I figured it was another of his ramblings, but at least I kept my promise and my conscience is clear. Well, inspector, I had better let you get back to your business. Give my regards to the others.”
Tipping his hat, Lucien ambled back down the road toward town.
As Felipe watched him leave, he reached for the tether to confirm Oliver was still safe.
Fear tightened around Felipe’s heart at the realization that Daphne Stills would soon know Oliver was Stephen’s son, and there was no telling what she might do with that information.
***
WHEN GWEN AND OLIVER came through the front door not even an hour later, Felipe nearly launched himself into his partner’s arms. The only thing stopping him was that Oliver’s arms were occupied by a heavy wicker basket and a flat box.
Not ten minutes earlier, he had debated grabbing the steamer key to go look for them, but the plan had fallen apart when he realized he probably couldn’t steer the steamer down Aldorhaven’s narrow streets with only one arm.
He needed to tell Oliver about Will’s message, but before he could get the words out, Oliver noticed him sitting behind the front desk and his face lit up.
Oliver dropped the basket beside the door, and in three strides, he crossed the room and wrapped his arms tightly around Felipe.
Slumping against Oliver’s chest, Felipe let himself be held.
His anxiety had been ratcheting up in time with the pain in his shoulder and the itch of his stitches, but with Oliver near, things felt right again.
As Oliver pulled back to look into Felipe’s eyes, a wave of nervousness rolled off him like a miasma.
His hand tightened around Felipe’s shoulder a second before the words tumbled out of him in a rush.
“Felipe, I am so, so sorry we were gone for so long. Please don’t be mad at me. Time got away from me, but it was for a good reason. I swear I had Gwen with me the whole time.”
“I’m not mad?” Felipe replied with a raised brow.
“But I thought I felt—?”
“It wasn’t about you.” Felipe opened his mouth to tell him what happened, but Oliver looked a moment away from bursting with whatever news he had. “Go on. What were you two up to?”
“Standing in line forever,” Gwen replied over Oliver’s shoulder as she took something out of the basket before levitating the rest up the stairs ahead of her. “I’m going to put our things away.”
Oliver nodded, and another wave of anticipation flickered across the tether as he turned back to Felipe.
“We did wait a long time to get into the general store. They didn’t have any nightshirts or pajamas that would have been to our liking, so robes and underthings it is.
You should have seen the line for the butcher.
People are already panicking about the lack of food deliveries.
I can’t blame them, but I worry the town will be out of meat very soon. ”
Felipe let out a silent sigh at the thought of feeling like shit until they got back to the society.
“But when we went to the pharmacy, I saw this and thought it might help,” Oliver said, handing him a jar of brown paste with a tight smile. “It’s peanut butter. It’s a meat substitute that’s supposed to be very nutritious. It might be a halfway decent supplement until we get home.”
Felipe stared at it in confusion and wondered if the peanut butter had inspired Oliver’s excited anxiety or if it was something else. “I’ll give it a try.”
“I also bought more supplies, so I can clean your wounds and change your bandages after dinner. How are you feeling? Were you able to get some more sleep?”
“I’m okay. I slept for a while after you left. Oliver, are you all right? It feels like you’re practically vibrating.”
“I am... for many reasons.” Oliver bit his lip sheepishly and the sensation on the other end of the tether dulled a fraction.
Laying his hand over Felipe’s, Oliver said, “Something wonderful happened. When we went to the pharmacy, Mr. Hughes Sr. heard me talking to his son, and he came out to see who was there. Apparently, I sound like Stephen. I confessed I was his son, and oh, Felipe, he told me so many stories about him. That’s what took us so long.
Once he started, I couldn’t bear to tell him to stop. I wish you had been with us.”
“I wrote everything down, so you can read it all later,” Gwen called as she came back down the stairs.
“I’m sure he didn’t tell me the worst stories, but,” Oliver gently squeezed Felipe’s hand as his eyes glistened with moisture, “it sounded like my father tried very hard to be a better person. After all this, that’s all I could ask for.”
“Did you tell him about the box?”
“Not yet. Mr. Hughes saved all the belongings my father left behind at the pharmacy after he died. He’s been holding onto them for almost forty years.” Oliver sniffed. “I haven’t looked at them yet. I thought we could do that together.”
Felipe opened his mouth to tell him about Will, but the words died on his tongue when the tether pulled taut in his chest. It could wait.
Huddling close to Felipe, Oliver placed the box on the counter and motioned for Gwen to open it.
She batted away a plume of dust with a cough before leaning closer.
Inside the box was a jumble of yellowed papers and bits of newsprint.
On top of everything sat a pair of reading glasses in a battered case and a wooden carving of what looked like a dog or a cow.
Oliver inspected them and passed them to Felipe and Gwen before reaching for the papers.
“Mr. Hughes said there should be a photograph in here,” he said as he shuffled the papers into a sloppy pile and handed them to Gwen.
At the very bottom of the box was a framed diploma for Stephen Jarngren from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and a daguerreotype of Oliver’s parents on their wedding day.
A soft rush of breath escaped Oliver’s lips as he held the photograph between them, so Felipe could see it better.
Joanna looked nearly the same as she had in the picture Oliver had shown him back home, but Stephen was a surprise.
After seeing Oliver’s cousins, he hadn’t expected to find so many echoes of Oliver’s features in Stephen Jarngren.
They shared the same nose and the same hairline.
Though Stephen’s hair looked lighter, their hairstyles were nearly identical, but it was their sturdy, strong-shouldered build that made Stephen look like a shadow of his son if Felipe let his eyes fuzz.
As Felipe passed the photograph to Gwen, he realized he didn’t have a photograph of Oliver, and he suddenly wished he had one of him and Oliver together to set on the mantle or their bedside table.
Evidence of a life together could always be used against them, but he wanted to leave evidence behind.
One day they would be gone, and that photograph of them would be all that remained of their life together.
Maybe in the future, the right people would stumble across it, and they would see the rings on their fingers or the tilt of their bodies and know.
They would know they were more than roommates or friends.
They would know they had lived their lives together and how much they meant to each other.
If— when they got back to the society, Felipe would bring up the idea to Oliver.
Clearing the thickness in his throat, Felipe watched Oliver and Gwen pick through the papers and sort them into levitating piles.
There were newspaper clippings, notes scrawled on old mail or delivery receipts, lists of things Stephen had to order or orders he had to fill, and shorthand recipes of what Felipe assumed were medications.
On the other end of the tether, Oliver was rapidly slipping into the deep concentration he had during an autopsy. He had to tell him now.
“While you two were gone, Lucien stopped by.” At the gravity in his voice, Oliver looked up at him with wide eyes. “It sounds like Will has been compromised. There’s a good chance Daphne Stills knows who you are or that you have the ring.”
“Are you sure?”
Felipe nodded and repeated everything Lucien had said to him. As he spoke, Oliver’s expression went from concerned to furious.
“We need to do something. We can’t leave him with these people.”
“I know, but I don’t think we should be staging a rescue mission right now.
They’ll know we took him, and there’s nowhere to run.
” Felipe sighed and ran a tired hand over his jaw.
“As much as I hate to say it, I think our best bet would be to figure out how we can break the Lady’s hold on the town or change the covenant without Will’s help first.”
Oliver deflated and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. The sooner we figure things out and get the road into town open, the better. Should I get our notes?”
“You might want to see this first,” Gwen said as she levitated a ratty envelope in front of them.
Compared to the other notes hanging in the air around Gwen, the handwriting on this one had gone thin and slightly scratchy.
Almost the entire surface of the envelope had been written over, but most of it had been crossed out.
As Felipe’s eyes grew accustomed to Stephen’s handwriting, he realized what he was looking at.
They were notes about how to change the covenant with the Lady.
Thirty-seven years ago, Stephen Jarngren had been going through the same process.
When he wrote it, Stephen had a pregnant wife, a child on the way, and a clock ticking down to the end of his life.
If anyone had thought through and exhausted all the possibilities, it was him.
“This should be very helpful. Before we look at that, let’s start by writing down everything we know about the Lady and the Dysterwood,” Felipe replied, flipping to a clean page in his notepad.
“Once we figure out the rules, the pieces in play, and the pitfalls everything will become clearer. Hopefully, your father has some useful insights as well.”
“There is one more thing,” Oliver said slowly as tension crept across the tether. “We need to figure this out by Sunday.”
Felipe’s throat tightened at Oliver’s bleak expression. “You’re serious?”
“If we don’t make it out of the Dysterwood, someone will need to go back to the Paranormal Society to tell them what happened.
The barge coming in on Monday morning might be their only chance to leave if the Dysterwood keeps advancing.
We can’t assume there will be a way out next week.
” Turning to Gwen, Oliver swallowed hard.
“It has to be you, Gwen. I don’t want you to stay behind, but you’re the only one I trust to get help if things go wrong. ”
The papers hovering around Gwen wavered as she held Oliver’s gaze. Even if Felipe couldn’t feel her emotions like he did Oliver’s, he could see the hesitance and fear writ large across her features. With a tight nod, Gwen looked away and cleared her throat.
“It won’t come to that. I won’t let it. Before either of you sets foot in the Dysterwood, we are going over every inch of this plan for holes, and we’re making at least four contingency plans just in case. Then, and only then will I stay behind.”
“That’s fair,” Oliver replied with a ghost of a smile.
“All right, we have approximately thirty-six hours to get this plan in shape. Oliver, get your notes. Felipe, get a pot of tea or coffee going. I’m going to grab more paper. We will reconvene in the dining room in five minutes!”
With a clap, she and Oliver took off up the stairs.
Releasing a tired sigh, Felipe turned to the envelope hovering beside him.
He traced Stephen’s logic and dead ends with his eyes until he reached a line that had been crossed out, circled, and crossed out again.
Can you kill a god? Felipe hoped they wouldn’t have to find out.