Chapter 41
THE QUESTION IS WHY?
Clouds swirl overhead as Jude and I work together to slide the stone slab back into place. By the time we’re through, the temperature has dropped and the sky is spitting.
Thunder rumbles.
A gust of wind rips through the ruins.
I slide my arms into the sleeves of my coat and fish my phone from the pocket. The screen lights up with a slew of missed messages.
Half a dozen from Twig and two from Dad.
The parade’s over. He wants to know where I am and why Mercy Bogaard never appeared on the Fire of 1822 float. Also, severe thunderstorms are approaching. The festival’s postponed. Could I please let him know I’m okay?
I type out a quick reply.
All good, Dad! Sorry to worry you. Something came up with a friend and I had to help. Will be home soon. XOXO.
I hate being dishonest, but I hate worrying him even more. A vague half-truth is the best I can do.
I scroll through Twig’s texts as lightning flashes in the distance and Jude covers the door with detritus—dead leaves and sticks and chunks of smaller stone.
10:12 a.m.: Fracture confirmed. Sling acquired. Ortho scheduled for next week. Zero stars. Would not recommend.
10:54 a.m.: Pain meds: engaged. Recliner: activated. Boredom: reaching critical mass. Parade update: conspicuously absent? Requesting field report.
11:11 a.m.: Gnarly storms inbound. Mom says festival is postponed. I’m beginning to suspect your battery has passed from this life to the next.
11:37 a.m.: Ground control to Major Tom. Come in, Major Tom. Your phone is ringing, which means the battery is intact. Mom says you weren’t in the parade and your dad called. Storms about to go full apocalypse. Do you copy? Over.
I shoot him a text every bit as vague but slightly more truthful than the one I sent my dad.
Sorry for going AWOL. Went on side quest. Too much to explain. Will call when I can.
I drop the phone into my pocket.
Jude finishes camouflaging the door.
“I’m going to find the tomb,” I announce.
“What?”
“According to the map, it’s right over there.” With a pair of fallen angels locked inside.
I don’t wait for permission or protest. A fork of lightning splits through the clouds as I turn toward the cemetery and go.
“Selah,” Jude calls.
I keep going.
He catches up. “We need to get indoors.”
I only walk faster. “We know what he’s after now,” I say over the wind. “Rafe wants to open the tomb. The question is—why?”
Does he think Seraphina will share her powers with him if he lets her out? Is this some foolish duty, passed down from one rotten generation to the next? Or does he simply want to unleash chaos?
Lightning flashes.
Thunder booms.
And the sky opens.
Rain falls in a deluge.
Jude begs me to stop. We can find the tomb later. But I’m done with later. After so many dots connecting, with the picture finally coming into focus, I need to see it whole. “Maybe we’ll find more answers at the tomb.”
“Selah.” He grabs my arm.
I jerk free, blinking away the rain that’s falling in my eyes. “Nobody’s making you come with. If you’re so worried about the storm, then go.”
But he doesn’t go.
And we’re almost there.
I can see the map in my mind. I know exactly where I’m headed—the oldest corner of the cemetery. We reach it soaked to the bone. Cold water sloshes in my boots. Strands of hair cling to my cheeks as I stop in front of what should be Dante’s tomb.
Only it’s not a tomb.
It’s a sunken mausoleum, cracked down the middle and choked with ivy. Ezra’s translation mentioned an archway, but I don’t see anything that even comes close.
I turn to Jude, squinting through the downpour. “The map said to use the compass.”
“Selah, this is crazy.”
“We’re well past crazy! Just give me the compass.”
With rain streaking down his face, he pulls it from his pocket and flips it open, shielding it with his hand like a makeshift umbrella.
I’m sure it will work. It has to work. Where the blood must fall, the compass will lead the way.
Ezra wrote those words for a reason. But the needle twitches wildly, as useless as ever.
Trees groan.
Branches twist.
Thunder cracks so loud I jump.
The rain turns to ice. It stings like needles as it slices down in sheets driven sideways by the wind.
Jude scrubs his face with his hand. “Selah, please. We have to get inside.”
Lightning strikes in a blinding white flash.
And for just a second, it’s there.
Illuminated behind Jude.
A marble archway carved with three symbols.
The candle.
The eye.
The heart.
I gasp.
He whirls around.
But the light is gone and with it, the vision. Only the broken mausoleum remains.
A tree limb crashes to the ground.
Our phones blare in unison
SEEK SHELTER NOW.
Rain patters against the roof in a soft staccato and runs down my window in rivulets, blurring the night outside. The day’s storms have calmed into a steady downpour with the occasional flicker of lightning and the distant rumble of thunder.
The festival has been postponed until tomorrow. The rain is supposed to continue through the night. Power crews are still out, clearing away the debris. There wasn’t a tornado—just a dodgy funnel cloud. But the winds were strong enough to tear down tree limbs and damage power lines.
I slip a long-sleeved thermal over my head and tug my hair free, exhaustion settling into my bones. It’s as though I’ve run a mental marathon, and still, I can’t turn off my brain.
If only there were a switch.
Something to stop the thoughts.
I remove the skeleton key from around my neck and open the bottom drawer of my desk.
I set the key on top of Simon’s journal, which sits on top of the shoebox filled with keepsakes, which sits on top of the book my mother read to me on my birthday.
I remove Enoch’s worn copy of The Great Gatsby, which reminds me of my mother now, too.
Daisy Buchanan to Simons’ Dorian Gray. Maybe reading will help quiet my mind.
Maybe losing myself in a story my mother once loved will lull me into peaceful, dreamless sleep.
I turn off the light, turn on my bedside lamp, and crawl beneath the covers. I open the book and flip through the musty pages when something falls loose—a pair of photographs pressed together face-to-face.
I sit up and take them in hand.
The one on top has been labeled in a slanted scrawl.
1927, me and Reuben.
I flip it over.
In black and white, three people sit at a poker table. A very young man, perhaps yet a boy, with a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He leans back in a velvet-upholstered chair too large for him, his posture cocky but not quite comfortable.
And beside him …
My heart begins to pound.
A man who is not a boy, sharply dressed in a pinstripe suit, drink in hand. A woman with a feathered headband and a fringed dress sits on his lap. He smiles at the camera—a familiar wicked grin—like he can see through the lens.
Like he can see through time.
Like he can see me.
My heart pounds harder.
It slams against my sternum as I flip to the second photo. This one is square with a thick, white border—an early polaroid. On the bottom, written in the same slanted scrawl:
Frank Vandenberg, 1960.
This is a candid shot.
Frank Vandenberg didn’t know he was being photographed. But his face is captured clearly as he stands on the edge of a familiar terrace, a cigarette between his lips. His posture is elegant. His eyes, detached. And his face—
My blood runs cold.
Here they are.
The photographs Jude and I couldn’t find when we searched Enoch’s trunk. They’ve been here this whole time, tucked inside The Great Gatsby. Daniel sent them to his brother in a letter, asking if he was going mad. And here is why.
Reuben and Frank don’t just bear a strong resemblance.
Reuben and Frank are identical.
One and the same.
My hand curls around my throat, as though the gesture might help me breathe. But my lungs won’t cooperate. I stare at these photos, mouth open, throat dry.
Suddenly, the letter Gabriel Vandenberg sent his mother—the one Jude showed me inside The Cobbler—comes into crystal clarity.
He couldn’t find his father’s cousin in Winchester.
Nor any account of the Vandenberg name. Which never made sense.
If Raphael married in Winchester, had children in Winchester, and died in Winchester, there would at least be an account.
But Gabriel couldn’t find one.
Because Winchester was a ruse.
Raphael Vandenberg may have gone there, but he never married there. Or had children there. He certainly didn’t die there.
The room tilts.
My hands shake.
Rafe isn’t from a spoiled bloodline.
There never was a spoiled bloodline.
Reuben is Frank.
Frank is Thomas.
And Thomas …
My skin erupts in goosebumps.
Seraphina brought Raphael back to life.
And he’s remained that way ever since—the bad egg through history, frozen in time. Torturing first his brother, then his nephew, then his great nephew. All the way down the line.
Why does Rafe want to open the tomb?
Because he’s the one who loved her.
Raphael is Rafe.
And now, he wants her back.