Chapter 17 #3
Leo doesn’t try to argue with me. “It’s a starting point.”
“Then let’s go.” Topaz is already halfway to the door.
The rest of us zip up our jackets and follow.
I blink the cold drizzle out of my eyelashes as Leo, Aaron, and I round the right side of the chapel, and the others disappear around the left.
Unfortunately, someone decided to plant thick evergreen bushes all along this side.
Good thing we have a plant weaver in our midst. We glance over our shoulders and around the corners of the building.
Thanks to the crappy weather, no one’s out strolling around the area.
Leo crouches by the first bush and holds out a hand, face up. When he curls his fingers into his palm, the branches bend away from the wall like a row of dancers taking bows.
“See anything?” he asks, peering into the space he’s made between the bush and the wall.
“Grates, but no windows,” I say.
Aaron concurs. “It’s probably a crawl space, but let’s keep looking.”
The ground slopes gently downward the further along the wall we go, suggesting the possibility of a cellar. So we inch along, Leo coaxing the branches out of the way, and all of us peeking behind them.
With each bush, Leo performs a little ritual, brushing light fingers over its needles and murmuring a soft “thank you” once it’s returned to its original position. Intrigued, I join in, meeting Leo’s smile with an unapologetic shrug.
Around the back corner, we converge with the rest of our cohort.
“Nothing but grates,” Aaron tells them.
“Same here,” Avery reports. “But we need Leo to move a holly bush.”
We follow her around the other side to check behind the holly, but all we find is a stone foundation.
As Leo reaches out to urge the bush back into place, he pauses and looks over his shoulder at me. “Want to help?”
I nod, my heart knocking about my chest like a captive moth. He urges me in front of him and invites me to lay my hand, palm up, on top of his.
“Won’t I mess it up?”
“I don’t see how,” he says, his breath tickling the shell of my ear.
I settle against him as he encloses my hand in his fist. It feels too good, too natural, to nestle my head under his chin. I suck in a breath and pray we’re not being watched.
Energy prickles in my palm, startling me and causing me to briefly pull away.
“You’re okay,” he insists.
I let him take my hand again, folding it into his.
“I pull in the energy like this,” he says, squeezing my fist. “Then I let it go.” He opens our hands and releases a surge of warm vibrations. The holly branches stretch like a cat waking from a nap, then settle back into place against the stone wall.
After we give them a caress and whisper our thanks, I look up at Leo and smile. “Thank you, too.” I’m tingling all over, yet completely relaxed. I just had a silent conversation with a plant. Well, Leo did, but it felt like I was listening in on the line.
An “ahem” snaps me out of my daze.
I whip around to shoot Rime a death stare—Leo and I weren’t doing anything. We were focused on the mission—but it’s Avery’s eyes I meet. And she’s smirking.
Meanwhile, Topaz and Rime are deep in conversation, their backs to us.
I’m pretty sure Avery just spared Leo and me a lecture.
Aaron, who was intently studying the sidewalk a second ago, breaks the silence, “Is it possible this chapel isn’t built on the old seminary church?”
“Anything is possible,” Leo admits, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets and gazing up at the chapel’s steep roof. “The records are pretty scanty. Reverend Stone’s journals are our best source, and he had a tendency to use a lot of vague, metaphorical language.”
Yeah, like calling a haunted forge an “ungodly place.”
I fold my arms and bounce on my toes, trying to ward off the chill. “So what now?”
Topaz issues the orders, “Everywhere we go we look for that window.”
“Make note of any plants in the way,” Leo tells us. “And I’ll get to you as soon as I can to help.”
I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but it needs to be said. “You all know there’s a chance that window doesn’t even exist anymore.”
Everyone nods, and Avery adds, “Or it may be nowhere around here. That candlestick could’ve come from Europe, for all we know.”
We let out a collective sigh, all except Topaz. “But there’s an even better chance that it’s here,” she insists. “So, everyone look.”
Like a football team, we break our huddle and go our separate ways, each of us armed with a photo of the window.
On my walk back to Newberry, as the sky darkens from hazy white to charcoal gray, my anxiety mounts.
I may’ve dodged a bullet this evening, but now the metaphorical shooter has me in his sights.
Avery’s window puts us a step closer to the weapon and me a step closer to Ember’s energy.
Inevitability blankets me heavier than the twilight.
I will come face to face with it; it’s going to happen.
And the emotional assault will shatter me.
I gulp and dash through the cold mist the rest of the way to my dorm. The moment the door slams behind me, I tap out a text to Leo:
I need your help.