Chapter Seventeen
Trapped
Ducking into the empty church, Felipe listened for any sign of his uncles or cousins. They rarely showed their face in the last remnant of the old Dominican mission before Sunday unless they were going on a trip and needed to pray for divine protection. His aunts, on the other hand, were often at the chapel altar with their rosaries in hand. He glanced into the baptistry and toward the altar but found no one. One way or another he needed to be alone, and he couldn’t risk running into his cousins. He could do what he had to do behind the stable or in a storeroom, but there was always a chance someone would walk in on him. When training ended for the day, he made certain to obscure his path, so no one noticed where he had gone. If anyone did notice him missing, at least they wouldn’t think to look for him in the old campanario.
Silently shutting the door to the tower behind him, Felipe climbed the steps to the platform as quietly as a cat. His entire body ached, but those pains were nothing compared to the tightness in his chest. By the time he reached the top, he could scarcely breathe. He could still feel the wounds he received the day before just below the surface. It had been a mistake, a stupid mistake. He looked away for a second, but that was enough. Galvans didn’t make mistakes. The punishment he received was far worse than any his cousins got. His uncles and father thought he must not feel it if the wounds or bruises didn’t leave a lasting mark, so they let pain be the reminder. The lashes he received were long gone, but the wounds remained as an invisible ache that had spread into numbness. Today, when he and his cousins had been forced to stay in the same position for hours without moving or letting their discomfort show, it had been too easy to slip into that state where he could pretend he was a statue or a corpse, a shadow hovering outside his body. His father and uncle had praised him for it. He should have been happy. He should have been—
Felipe’s hands shook as he sank against the cool plaster wall and rolled up his sleeve to reveal an unblemished arm. Pulling the knife from his belt, Felipe only paused long enough to confirm no one was downstairs before slicing into his forearm. Blood blossomed along the length of the wound a second ahead of the searing pain. Felipe bit his lip and savored the rush of calm that followed. The knot in his chest finally loosened as he did it a second and third time. By the time he dragged the knife across his arm for a fourth time, the first wound had healed, and he could breathe for the first time in days. The lingering numbness had sharpened into clarity and relief.
Blood dripped onto the wooden floor as the last two wounds knit shut before his eyes. At least dried blood wouldn’t draw attention. In the Galvan compound, it was everywhere. The floor of the campanario was already spattered with it from the other half dozen times he had snuck up to be alone, but without windows up there, he could always blame it on a bird or bat. Wiping his knife off on his handkerchief, Felipe stared at his bloodied arm. The wounds had disappeared, but the blood and sharp echoes of pain remained. He knew he should stop. His family would punish him for it if they caught him, but this pain was his own. He couldn’t control whether he spent his days in the hot sun or got a beating for tripping over his own feet. What he could control was how deep the knife went or how many times he drew blood looking for some semblance of release.
Raising his gaze to the bleak, grey sky peeking through the open arches of the campanario, Felipe let his head fall back against the wall as he held his stinging arm. The first time he had come to the top of the tower, he had debated if he would survive the fall. It was high and the ground was hard, but he would heal before he bled out, and breaking bones that weren’t his neck meant he would have to live with his family knowing what he had done. Felipe sheathed his blade and spat onto his arm as he mopped the half-dried blood from his skin. No, this was far better than the alternative.
Felipe dusted himself off and made certain there wasn’t any obvious blood on his clothes before crawling toward the stairs. He needed to get back before dinner started and his mother sent someone to look for him. As he crouched beneath the window, he stopped when he heard the back gate creak open. Inching over to the back window, Felipe rose on his knees just high enough to see his uncle leave down one of the half-wild paths behind the compound with a bulging satchel on his back and a grey-black goat in tow. Felipe frowned as he backed away from the window and soundlessly padded down the steps. No one went on missions alone, and there was no reason for Ramón to leave with supplies unless something important was going on.
Blessing himself as he left the church, Felipe had scarcely taken a step outside the door when an arm slammed into his chest. He started to reach for his knife when his body registered it was Alfonso before his mind did. When his older cousin shoved him back into the stuccoed brick until he could scarcely breathe, he didn’t fight it. Felipe’s instincts screamed at him to punch and thrash, but it wouldn’t do much good against Alfonso. He was three years older, a head taller, and their grandfather’s current favorite. No matter who started it, Felipe would be seen as the aggressor. After all, he would always walk away without a scratch.
“Sneaking around again, joto? Tell me what you were doing in there, and maybe, I won’t tell the Patrón.”
“Praying for Se?or Quintero as my mother instructed,” Felipe lied as Alfonso pressed hard enough that he thought he heard a rib crack. “Not all of us spend our days chasing village girls.”
“You’re full of shit.”
In one swift motion, Alfonso let him go and flung him sideways. Felipe landed hard in the dirt, pain reverberating through his knees and half-healed arm. As he turned back to his cousin, he forced his expression neutral. Better not to give Alfonso the satisfaction of knowing it hurt, or he would do it again.
“I think you were meeting someone. Antonio from the kitchens? The priest, maybe?” A smirk crossed his cousin’s lips as Felipe glared up at him from his knees. “Yeah, just like that.”
Anger coursed through Felipe’s veins. For years, he had made himself small and kept his eyes off others, yet Alfonso still honed in on the parts of him he had tried desperately to lock away. His body pulled taut with the urge to tackle his cousin and wipe the smug smile from his face. Felipe knew he could. He knew he was faster than Alfonso, and while his cousin had more experience on missions, Felipe was surpassing him during training sessions. They both knew it, which was why he had suddenly become a favorite target when six months ago, Alfonso had barely looked at him. Stuffing down his anger, Felipe slowly stood. He needed to bide his time until he wouldn’t be punished for putting Alfonso in his place. For now, all he could wound was his pride.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been,” Felipe replied, flashing him a barbed grin. “Maybe, instead of bothering me, you should think about practicing more. I heard your father left on a mission and didn’t take you with. I guess he doesn’t even trust you to mind the goat.”
Felipe expected his cousin to punch or shove him. Instead, the venom in Alfonso’s gaze solidified into something shrewder as he looked Felipe over as if seeing him for the first time. He didn’t dare move as his cousin calmly closed the space between them until they were shoulder to shoulder .
“A word of advice, joto, know your place. If you were supposed to know about that, you would.”
As Alfonso shoved past him, Felipe jerked awake at a hand closing around his wrist. He turned, ready to swing, when he found Oliver in his pajamas and robe staring back at him with wide eyes. Felipe’s heart pounded in his ears. That wasn’t right. The clear California sky and dry warmth had suddenly been replaced by darkness and thunder rolling overhead as rain misted his cheeks. Felipe blinked against the sleep-induced haze. He wasn’t sixteen. He was… Grass poked at his bare ankles, and towering over him and Oliver were rows of dark pines and oaks. He was at the Allen Inn in Aldorhaven, but he didn’t remember coming outside. He didn’t remember leaving bed. Holding tight to his panic, Felipe didn’t dare move or breathe for fear that Oliver would sense something wasn’t right with him. He had walked out of bed, out the back door, and was a third of the way to the woods, and he didn’t remember any of it. Swallowing hard, Felipe met Oliver’s concerned gaze in the near dark.
“Felipe, didn’t you hear me calling you?” Oliver asked.
Felipe shook his head. “I— I’m sorry. I was distracted.”
“What are you doing out here alone?”
“Going to the outhouse,” he said quickly, even though it was a few yards to the left.
“Alone?”
“That’s usually how it’s done.”
Oliver let out an exasperated huff as he crossed his arms. “Oh, so the rules are for thee but not for me. Is that how it is? You have had Gwen and I going out here in pairs during the day, but you are allowed to go out at night without telling anyone? That isn’t very safe, and you know it.” Oliver’s gaze strayed to the woods before narrowing on Felipe. “You seem to have overshot the outhouse.”
“I thought I saw something in the woods, that’s all. Look, let’s just go back to bed. I promise I won’t do it again.”
Oliver looked as if he wanted to say more, but instead, he hooked his arm through Felipe’s and steered him back toward the house. “You had better not. You don’t know how scary it was to wake up and find the bed empty after what happened today. I know I can be crabby at night, but I’d much rather you wake me up for my own peace of mind and your safety. The Dysterwood is not someplace I want to lose you.”
Felipe nodded but didn’t meet Oliver’s eyes as the reality of the danger he had been in hit home. This was the second time he had had a dream about his family and woke up out of bed. The first time, he hadn’t left the room; this time, he had made it outside. How far would he have gone if Oliver hadn’t found him? Felipe’s pulse rushed in his ears. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of this. Nearly losing Oliver had probably rattled him more deeply than he imagined, and Mr. Turpin’s ominous warnings about threats to his and Gwen’s safety hadn’t helped. Felipe’s lungs strained against his ribs. Stress could cause sleepwalking, couldn’t it? Then again, the dreams centered on his family. He had stuffed his mother’s letter in his bag with the intention of replying when he had a spare moment. Maybe, if he wrote his reply to her, it might be enough to get them out of his head and stop the dreams. Tightening his grip on Oliver’s arm, he hoped his partner couldn’t feel him tremble. He needed to keep it together. He couldn’t crack under the pressure and fall to pieces. Not now.
“Felipe, are you all right?” Oliver asked, stopping at the back door. In the dull glow of the kitchen window, he searched Felipe’s features. “I was speaking to you again, and you seemed a thousand miles away. You’re worrying me.”
Opening his mouth, Felipe hesitated. He wanted to tell Oliver about the sleepwalking and the memories haunting his dreams. Oliver would ultimately understand, but he didn’t know where to start or how to say it. If he started telling him about eavesdropping on his parents or cutting his arm in the belltower, then Oliver would ask questions about why. He would want to understand, and that would require telling him more about those years before he left the Galvan compound and the person he was supposed to become and still be. Oliver, sweet, Quaker-raised Oliver, who stuck so hard to do no harm that it complicated things and who was unequivocally loved by his grandmother, would be appalled by it. Felipe didn’t think he could speak and give life to those memories again, especially if it meant Oliver looked at him differently after. Scratching at the stinging bite on the back of his leg with his slippered foot, Felipe shook his head. In a few hours, they would be back in Manhattan, far from the Dysterwood. The sleepwalking would probably stop back home, so there was no point in worrying Oliver and opening Pandora’s box for nothing.
“I’m sorry. I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. What were you saying?”
Oliver frowned as he opened the door and let Felipe go in ahead of him. “What I was trying to tell you is that you should probably wear your sun spectacles if you go out at night. Your eyes are glowing. I know I wasn’t keen on going back to the Paranormal Society without having solved the case, but maybe it’s for the best. At least at home we don’t need a chaperone to use the facilities.”
Felipe sighed and kept his gaze low as he followed Oliver up the steps to their room. When they settled back into bed, Felipe still felt Oliver’s eyes on him. He dutifully snuggled close to him and pretended to sleep, but the moment Oliver nodded off, Felipe laid back and stared at the ceiling. He lay still as death until the shadows on the ceiling lightened with the coming dawn. It was only a few more hours before they left for home. He would finally sleep when they were safe.
***
Felipe snapped to attention at the sound of raised voices. Scrambling out of Oliver’s arms, he grabbed his gun from the bedside table and pointed it at the door before registering that the voices were coming from outside the inn. His pulse pounded in his temples as he scrubbed a hand over the stubble peppering his jaw and let the revolver drop into this lap. Beside him, Oliver stirred and squinted at the light. When he raised his head, he flinched at the sight of the gun .
“What is going on? Why is there a gun in our bed?” Oliver asked, his voice high with alarm.
“It’s fine. I thought I heard something.”
“It is not fine. Put that thing back in its holster where it belongs.” Rolling over with an annoyed huff, Oliver pulled the blanket closer and mumbled something about the early hour. “Go back to sleep. It was probably a rodent, and I’m sure Mr. Allen would be very cross if you shot a hole in his floor dealing with it.”
“It wasn’t a mouse. It’s—”
Before Felipe could reply, he heard it again: someone yelling and others replying or arguing; he wasn’t sure which. The voices were raised more in alarm than hostility, but they still had that unmistakable twinge of fear that could set off a powder keg. Felipe’s mind raced as he threw off the blanket. Had another person risen from the dead and attacked someone while they slept? Padding to the window, Felipe listened and tried to look through the glass; whoever was speaking was out of sight. He forced the window open and stuck his head out, but he still couldn’t see what was going on. Felipe didn’t want to wake the whole house running outside or give himself away not knowing where they were or what he was walking into. Climbing onto the sill, Felipe swung his legs out and tested the sturdiness of the porch roof. He carefully inched forward, sticking close to the roofline, until he could see the crowd gathered in the middle of the road running beside the inn.
At the center of the chaos stood a long, a horsedrawn cart with a tarp over what looked like giant rolls of paper. Painted on the side was H Felipe had insisted he keep it with him just in case. Part of him wanted to hurl it back into the woods in hopes that would make things right, but if it didn’t, they would have no other options. Gwen had suggested he wear the ring while asking the trees to part like Moses in the Red Sea, but he would have to wait for everyone to leave before he tried that. Asking nicely had worked once after all.
Sinking onto the step, Oliver watched Felipe weave through the crowd with practiced ease. As much as he wanted to be a good partner to Felipe, he couldn’t bring himself to join him. After everything that happened the previous day and night, he was too afraid someone might recognize him as Stephen Jarngren’s long-lost son or that he would say something that would make it obvious that this mess was probably his fault due to trespassing in the woods. When he and Felipe first came outside, things had calmed down a little after the initial shock of finding the road blocked, but with every passing moment, the tension grew with the crowd. The new arrivals were asking questions the men who first discovered the severed road had no answers for. Some of the men, especially the younger ones, were getting louder, and even from his perch on the porch, Oliver could feel the hornets stirring in their nest.
Mr. Hughes had mentioned that it got ugly in town during the days after Horace Ridder turned up dead, and Oliver feared the townspeople were already primed to revolt. Across the road, Felipe locked eyes with Oliver as he spoke to Mr. Allen. Patting the innkeeper on the shoulder, Felipe cut through the crowd and returned to Oliver’s side with an uneasy smile. Under his eyes were deep, halfmoon bruises despite the jerky and cheese Oliver had pressed into his hands. He knew it hadn’t been enough to replace breakfast.
“So what’s the verdict? Am I going to be tarred and feathered for this?” Oliver asked softly, nodding toward the woods.
“I doubt you caused this. It was just unfortunate timing.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences like this. It has to be connected.”
Settling on the porch beside him, Felipe sighed and whispered, “Even if it is, the tension is less about the woods and more about Mayor Stills ignoring them. They sent someone up to tell him what happened over half an hour ago, and he still hasn’t showed. Some of the men were talking about trying to drive the cart through anyway or taking an ax to the trees.”
Oliver’s heart leapt in his throat with panic. He had no true tie to the Dysterwood, yet the thought of the trees and creatures being subjected to such violence pained him. “Do you think they would really do that?”
“Mr. Allen seems worried they will.” Dropping his voice and leaning closer, Felipe added, “I overheard him telling someone that he lost his older brother to the woods years ago. He was reminding one of the younger men from the mill that people who go in don’t come out.”
Except me , Oliver wanted to say. “I don’t understand it. Why live in a place like this if people disappearing is the norm? I’m surprised someone hasn’t tried to burn it down or destroy it already. If it took you, I would.”
“Do you think people haven’t tried?”
When Oliver looked up, Mr. Allen stood watching him with a tired frown.
“If you take a swing, you get pulled in. Fires smolder but never take hold. Those who try are usually swiftly met by misfortune.”
“Why put up with it though? Before all this, you could leave and go somewhere where things like this don’t happen. You did leave for a time.”
“I did, but tragedy can happen anywhere. If my brother hadn’t disappeared into the Dysterwood, he could have fallen from a horse or drowned in a creek or died of fever. We put up with it because Aldorhaven, strangeness and all, is home. And I left to start over as someone new, not to escape the town itself. As long as we respect the Lady and her woods, we’re cared for. The Dysterwood feeds the mill and ironworks, which keeps most of the town employed. Without its steady flow of bog iron and mature trees, there would be no Aldorhaven.”
Mr. Allen paused as if he wanted to say more but stopped himself. Felipe caught the pause and looked to see if Oliver had noticed as well. Before either one of them could ask him about it, an engine grumbled in the distance. The men milling in the road quickly stepped aside as a steamer trundled down the road. It was at least a decade older than the one they were borrowing from the Paranormal Society, but it was far less utilitarian with its excessive brass trim and midnight blue exterior. In the driver’s seat, Lucien Stills swallowed hard as he looked at the chaos around him before he carefully inched the steamer as close as he could to the second cart.
Lucien had barely put it in park when the back door swung open and Mayor Stills swept out in his frock coat and top hat. His dark grey brows were drawn low as the waiting crowd parted to let him through. He stomped over to the tree line, giving the uncanny pines a wide berth. For a long moment, the mayor stared into the woods in silence as the crowd waited. While Oliver couldn’t see the mayor’s face, he thought the man’s shoulders and jaw slowly tightened beneath his mustache the longer he stood there. By the time Lucien clamored out of the idling steamer, the crowd had converged again. He tipped his bowler and greeted everyone he passed as he wove through the crowd to find his father. Oliver watched from the porch as Lucien finally reached the end of the road. His mouth opened in silent horror and his green eyes widened. He looked to his father, who said nothing, before half-raising a hand to his lips. Lucien turned to the men, looking as if he were going to speak, when his father gave him a hard, quelling look and turned to the crowd instead.
“This is it?” he snapped. “From what your messenger said, I was expecting to see the road buckling or a pit to hell opening in the center of it. They’re merely Dysterwood trees, like all the rest of them surrounding town. I don’t understand why there are twenty of you standing around gawping at them or why you bothered to call me out here. There’s nothing I can do about this.”
“But it’s the only road out of town, sir,” said the man who had been driving the cart from the papermill. “I can’t deliver the paper to Camden if I can’t get out of town.”
“Well, the road is closed. You will have to deliver the paper when the barge comes in.”
“That’s four days from now! My boss will—”
“And what about food? We’ll run out eventually if deliveries can’t come in.”
“The mail can’t come in more than once a week then.”
“My wife’s great-aunt is supposed to come next week. I can’t put her on a barge.”
The mayor scoffed and shook his head. “I doubt you wanted to deal with your meddling in-laws anyway, Tom. Consider this a gift from the woods,” Luther Stills replied dismissively. Turning to the rest of the crowd, he scowled. “You all need to pull yourselves together. This isn’t the first time the woods have blocked a road, and it won’t be the last. You know the Dysterwood can be fickle. The road will open when it opens, so there is no reason to get hysterical over a little missing mail or a few late deliveries. There’s enough food in town to last us for weeks, so spare me your melodrama about becoming the Donner Party. If you’re so worried, Jackson, you can ration your meals. The rest of us will be fine. As I said, this has happened before, and it will happen again.”
“When was the last time it happened, Stills?” a redheaded man in his late twenties shouted. “I don’t remember a time when the road disappeared.”
A murmur trickled through the crowd, and Lucien looked nervously between his father and the other men as he wrung his hands. The mayor straightened and narrowed his eyes at the younger man.
“I’ve been mayor longer than you’ve been alive, Anthony Ekland, so I think I would know the goings on of this town far better than you do.”
An older woman with grey hair stepped up to Anthony’s side. “Well, I’m as old as you are, Luther, and I don’t remember that happening either. First, the dead. Now, this. Something is going on.”
Luther’s face reddened with anger. “You all have short memories. The road to the creek disappears from time to time and the river leads you in circles, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that this one did too. It will appear again soon. In the meantime, make plans to use the barge when it comes through. If you can convince your brother and mother to loosen their purses, Anthony, I’m sure you can convince Captain Langdon to make a few more trips to Aldorhaven. Now, get back to work and go about your business. Staring at the trees won’t make the road open any sooner.”
A fair-haired man near the carts yelled, “What about the bog iron and log supply? My brother told me we’re running low. Some days nothing comes down the river.”
“Yeah, there’s talk of letting people go.”
A muscle ticked in Mayor Stills’s jaw. “Your brother should be horsewhipped for spreading lies and discord. The supply of iron and logs coming out of the Dysterwood is the same as it always has been this time of year, not that it’s any of your business.” Stepping back to address everyone, the mayor shouted, “When the road reopens, Mr. Allen will let everyone know. Until then, go about your business and prepare for the barge coming on Monday.”
Without answering another question hurled at him, the mayor stormed back to the idling steamer, threw it in reverse, and left. At the edge of the woods, Lucien Stills watched as his father peeled away and left him behind. Oliver grimaced as Lucien gave the crowd a pained, placating smile and sighed as if this had happened before. The auburn-haired man looked to the woods again before turning back to the milling crowd.
“I promise I will speak to my mother about this. She might know a way to clear this up faster,” Lucien offered as the trees shuddered in an unseen breeze. “In the meantime, we should plan around the barge’s arrival. Just in case.”
“The Witch of Aldorhaven is better than nothing,” the grey haired man said before turning to speak to one of his companions.
As the gathered crowd broke up into smaller groups to speak amongst themselves or headed back to town, Lucien stood quietly at the edge of the road with his hands folded as if waiting for his father to realize he had forgotten him. Oliver watched him from the shadows of the porch. He had lamented to Felipe that he feared he was related to the mayor, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. If Mrs. Stills was Stephen’s sister, then Lucien Stills was his cousin. With his ruddy complexion and auburn hair, the commonalities in his face and Oliver’s weren’t obvious, but the anxiety with a twinge of sorrow that flashed across his features was all too familiar. Overall, they were roughly the same height and shape, even if Lucien was autumn and Oliver was winter. Oliver doubted anyone would realize they were related unless they were told. When the mayor never returned and the crowd grew even sparser, Lucien started up the hill toward the inn. Spotting Oliver, Felipe, and Mr. Allen on the porch, Lucien’s features brightened as he waved and quickened his pace. When Oliver looked back, Mr. Allen was gone.
“Guess you three won’t be leaving any time soon. Bit of bad luck about the road, I’m afraid,” Lucien said with his best approximation of a blithe grin. “I’m sure you can hitch a ride with Captain Langdon once you’ve dealt with the dead if the road isn’t open by then.”
“Is there a telegraph in town, Mr. Stills?” Felipe asked.
“Yes, in the mayor’s office, though it isn’t used often. Why? Would you like me to send something for you?”
Felipe frowned thoughtfully but nodded. “If you could send a telegram to the New York Paranormal Society about the road being blocked, I would greatly appreciate it. Our boss will get suspicious if we disappear off the face of the earth.”
“Consider it done, Inspector Galvan. I should probably contact everyone the mill and ironworks do business with and warn them about what’s going on, but I’ll do yours first since it’ll take longer to make its way to Manhattan.” Glancing around the porch, Lucien asked, “Where’s your lady librarian?”
“Miss Jones is inside, staying out of the fray,” Oliver said flatly. Even if Lucien Stills was his cousin, he wasn’t certain he trusted him. He didn’t have much faith in people who placated both sides or never took a side in the first place.
“That’s probably for the best. For a moment there, I thought Father would come to blows with them. He and Mother have been so touchy lately. Dinners are exhausting. I spend most of it trying to talk at least one of my parents down instead of eating. At this rate, I’ll waste away by Christmas,” Lucien said with a half-hearted chuckle before flashing another placating smile. “I know I said I was going to ask Mother to host you all for dinner, but I think I would be a bad host for inviting you at this point.”
Oliver bit back the response on his tongue about not wanting to go anyway, but even if it was true, no one wanted to hear it.
“Is this something that commonly happens?” Felipe asked, eyeing the blocked road. As he waited for Lucien’s answer, his expression hardened as it did during an interrogation.
They both already knew the answer from Lucien’s expression upon seeing the trees.
“Father says it has. I don’t remember it doing so in recent memory, but I don’t leave town hall or the house that much. The road could close for a few hours every day, and I’d never notice. Will says I’m frightfully unobservant, and Mother says I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached, so I’m not the best judge of the Dysterwood’s comings and goings,” he replied with a shrug. “Oh, speaking of Willard, he wanted me to give you this.”
Reaching into his breast pocket, Lucien pulled out what Oliver assumed was a folded piece of paper or an envelope. It was hard to tell as every edge and opening had been dipped in what looked like black candle wax. Lucien shook his head with a tut and held it out for Oliver to take. The soft, tacky texture of the wax sent a wave of revulsion through Oliver as he held it aloft with two fingers.
“My apologies, my cousin is a tad paranoid. A proper seal or the glue it comes with is never enough for him, not that he sends many letters. But as soon as he heard I was heading over here, he gave it to me and said I was to give it to you if you were still here. I guess based on the other investigators, he assumed you would be gone by now.”
“To me or to us?” Oliver asked slowly.
“To you. Give it to the tall, pale one , were his exact words, and before you ask, I don’t have a clue as to what he wrote. One can never tell which Will we’re going to get. Well, I had better be off. I promise I will send your telegram as soon as I get to town hall. At least I’ll be able to get in my daily constitutional before the telegram requests roll in.”
With a tip of his hat, Lucien set off up the hill toward town. The moment he was out of eyeshot, Felipe held out his hand for the note. He examined it in the light and turned it over before handing it back to Oliver along with his smallest knife. Slipping the blade beneath the half-melted wax, Oliver pried the plain envelope open and was relieved to find a clean, dry card on the inside.
In spidery, crooked script that meandered across the paper, it read, Meet me at seven SHARP behind the big house near the fountain. Keep to the shadows. DO NOT knock on the doors. Bring your friends. Welcome home, cousin.