I jerked my head toward the open courtyard and squeezed out an exhausting, “Turn around.”
“Where’re we going?” asked Dave.
“To church,” I said and stopped to pant.
“I don’t think all the praying in the world is going to help us, Finn. In case you hadn’t heard, God is on their side.”
I made the effort to shake my head. “Jen, how long...cover us?”
I couldn’t see her from Dave’s arms, but her voice was tight. “Ten minutes tops.”
“Good enough, that way Dave.” I nodded him forward.
The center of the building complex was shaped roughly like a Templar Cross surrounded by a U of other connected buildings. There was an enclosed courtyard on the east side and the open courtyard that we were in on the west. The chapel, the vertical part of the cross, stuck into both courtyards. Its iron-banded, cross-laden, wooden double doors sat in the central place of honor where you would find the main entrance in a normal estate. It was the original chapel that was built on this site seven or eight hundred years prior. Get it? Prior—abbey—priests? Sigh.
Well anyway, the rest of the monastery had been built around this ancient church over five hundred years ago by the Delacroix family. They’d been guarding the True Cross for more than twice as long as the United States had existed. I grudgingly had to admit that they had proven themselves apt guardians.
It only took us a few minutes to get to the entrance of the chapel. Jen reached out to open one of the wooden doors, and stopped when we heard the crunching of gravel behind us. Jen and Dave froze. I dangled. Whoever it was stopped, then started coming closer—headed our way.
I did an internal inventory to see if I could at least rouse some hoodoo, but that cupboard was bare, raw, and bloody. In fact, I was immersed in silence. Spring wasn’t there, I couldn’t feel her. I had a moment of panic before I found her deep in the hibernation-slumber she called winter’s death.
I was completely useless, and if Dave had to fight, he’d rip through people like tissue paper. He wouldn’t be subtle or quiet, and someone I knew would die. It wouldn’t stop there, others would come running.
“Hey!” shouted a voice from a goodly distance away. “Come here! I found something.”
Oddly, the voice was speaking English, but the gravel walker’s footsteps stopped, then crunched away from us at speed.
Quickly, we were through the door. Jen pulled it shut behind us, closed her eyes, and collapsed to the stone floor in front of the door.
“Oh, pus buckets,” said Dave. “Do I gotta carry you, too?”
Without opening her eyes, Jen lifted one forearm and waved for Dave to back off. “Just give me a second, blondie.”
Dave turned around, and I finally got a good look at the Chapel. I remembered spending many hours here. One of three chapels, this was the largest with high rows of northern and southern windows. It was very plain and unadorned with wooden double doors in the centers of the right and left walls leading to the arms of the building’s cross shape. There was an altar at the far end on a low dais of rock with a single, plain wooden cross displayed upon it. The roof far overhead was supported by ancient wooden beams, which left a nice spacious openness to the room. I automatically recalled that the low original ceiling and stone columns had been removed and upgraded to this more open ceiling a few hundred years ago. The only furniture consisted of four or five rows of backless wooden benches. They were hard and guaranteed a backache if you slouched.
Belatedly and happily, I realized we were alone. That would have been awkward if we’d come in on someone praying. What do you say in a situation like that?
“Don’t mind the blood, stigmata can make such a mess sometimes.”
“Okay Finn,” said Dave. “Is this your cunning plan? We’re gonna make our last stand in a church, so we all go to heaven?”
“No,” I said. I managed to raise one of my arms and point to a single wooden door in the far back wall.
Dave looked back at Jen. “Can you walk yet, Jen? We’ve only a little further to go.”
Jen nodded tiredly. “That voice trick kicked my butt.”
Dave said, “That was you?”
She nodded.
“Damn, girl! You are a goddess!”
Jen smiled and struggled up to her feet. We headed back into what the family called the Vestry despite the chapel’s complete lack of other Catholic features. The Vestry was really just a stone walled rectangle with a wooden table holding the sacraments, a rack with some robes, and a couple of wooden chairs. Normally, the family attended a local church, but special services, such as weddings, were held here from time to time. There was one other door in the Vestry, it was in the floor at the very back, behind a wooden railing designed to keep people from falling in when the door was open. I pointed it out to Dave.
He had to put me down to get the door open and hooked to the wall. Then he hoisted me back up with a grunt. “Shit, Finn, I wish you were still a muscleless dough-boy nerd.”
I smiled thinly. “Yeah, well you’ve bulked out quite a bit, too.” It was a side effect of carrying around the bear whistle. He’d also gotten bushier, but his hair was so blond as to be practically invisible.
We went down a steep, narrow staircase into darkness. It was tortuously slow going, but when we hit the bottom, no one had fallen or broken any bones.
“I can’t see shit down here, Finn,” said Dave.
“Just put me down right here, then go up and close the door. No one will look for us down here. It’s an old wine cellar.”
Dave deposited me non-too-gently onto the cold stone floor, and Jen plopped down beside me.
“It’s probably filled with spiders, too,” added Dave. “You know it’s just going to get darker when I close that door.”
“Oh, poor wittle boy,” said Jen. “Are uuu afwaid of the dark?”
“Nope, just the monsters hiding in it. This seems like a perfect place for goblins or slimes or lurkers.”
I thought about reminding him that we didn’t live in a fantasy world, but then realized I wasn’t so sure. “Dave, here.” I handed him my brand new iPhone. It functioned as a perfectly serviceable flash light. “Don’t drop it!”
The cold light of the phone illuminated the familiar space around us, creating deep black shadows and emphasizing the air’s unwavering chill. We were in a six-and-a-half-foot tall stone room about ten feet wide by twenty deep. It contained a half dozen stone columns, a few old, broken wine racks, and a couple of long-empty bottles. I remembered the low ceilings seeming cozy, but now it just seemed claustrophobic. I guess I was bigger than Colette.
Everything was coated in dust, and due to some fortunate happenstance or good engineering, was quite dry. In the far right corner, a nest of blankets called up fond memories. This was where Colette came to be seriously alone or partake in a biology lesson with a distant cousin or two. I recoiled from exploring those memories. The old mattress and blankets mitigated the discomfort of the cold floor and air. It was useful for a lot of things—which I wasn’t going to think about. Sleeping! Sleeping was good. I concentrated on sleeping. It wasn’t difficult because sleep came at the top of my bucket list about now—if I could just get the energy to crawl over there.
Dave came back down, picked me up and took me to the nest where he deposited me in a cloud of dust and fabric bits. He explored around the room as Jen sat down next to me.
In the back left corner he found the iron-banded wooden door with no handle.
“What’s behind the door?” asked Dave standing in front of it.
“Don’t know, Colette’s never been through it.”
“How could she stand not knowing?” he said. “It would kill me.”
I huddled next to Jen for comfort and warmth. Absolute exhaustion was trying to pull me down into sleep. My arm, miraculously wrapped in a piece of someone’s shirt, throbbed in pain. I watched Dave give the door a couple of experimental shoves, but it didn’t budge. I closed my eyes for a minute...
And, woke to a body and brain full of aches and pains and a stomach demanding attention. I opened my eyes to dim, flickering light poorly illuminating a small circle of the cellar around me. I was in the nest, lying amidst timeworn, dusty, and disintegrating blankets. Jen and Dave were sitting at the end of the mattress, facing the stairs with their backs against the wall. A lighted candle sat on the stone floor, and they were both chewing on something. Something that smelled like bread. That was all the motivation I needed.
I pulled myself up and said, “Feed me!” I’ve found that a very handy line to have these days.
Jen smiled at me and tossed me a four-inch piece of French bread. I dug into it. It tasted divine, but it was dry and hard to swallow.
“Anyfing to drink?” I murbled hopefully around a mouth full of bread.
Jen handed me an ornate decanter. “It’s wine, so be careful drinking it. We’ll have to make a water run soon.”
The green glass decorated with tin was heavy, but the lead weights on my arms had been considerably reduced, so I managed to only spill about half of it down my face. I didn’t care. I desperately wanted to swallow, so I took a second good-sized swig and let the blessed moisture carry the bread down with it.
“Oh, that is so good!” I devoured the rest of the bread with a few more wine chasers. I looked hopefully at my friends, “More?”
Dave looked astonished. “More? He wants more? Never before has a boy wanted more.” It was right out of
Oliver Twist
. On a lark, he, Gregg, Jim, and I auditioned for the school production, and to our surprise, we made the cut. We were even more surprised when we enjoyed ourselves—even if our dreams of meeting hot actor chicks didn’t pan out.
Jen delivered me from dredging up the obligatory return lines. “Sorry, Finn, that’s all we’ve got.”
A warm buzz rose up within me and took the sting out of her words. It also took a little of the edge off the pain in my arm and head and made the dim candlelight all cozy and romantic. This fit my memory better.
I frowned. “Where did you get this food?”
“Upstairs,” said Dave with a happy laugh. “We went up to explore and found this sitting on the table in the back room.”
I sat up and my head swam with the buzz. “What? That’s the sacrament you stole. They’re going to miss it and come looking.” I scowled. “That’s where you got the candle, too!”
Dave waved his hand at me in dismissal. “We took it hours ago, and no one’s come down here looking for it. We were hungry, and we knew you’d need some fuel in a big way. Dying of thirst and starvation didn’t seem like a good plan, anyway.”
“How long have I been out?”
Dave pulled out his phone. “About thirteen hours.”
I checked in on Spring. She was still hibernating. I probably didn’t have the mojo left to keep her conscious. It was okay because my head was swirling and pounding hard enough to make even thinking painful. “Sheesh, I could sleep another thirteen. I’m going to need some water, too.”
“We’ve been talking about it. Jen’s going to make a scrounging run.”
“What? That’s crazy!”
“You got a better idea?”
“Well... no.”
“Okay then,” said Dave. “Why don’t you tell us what went on between you and Colette?”
I related what happened as quickly as possible. The guilt chewed on me, and I didn’t want to feed it any more than necessary.
We ended up waiting till after midnight. The time went by in the blink of an eye for me, since I fell back asleep. I woke up feeling even worse than before. Working around my dry mouth and pounding headache, I gave Jen the layout of the entire estate and told her how to get to the kitchen. I ended with, “No one stays up this late. They get up early to pray, work the vineyard, and take care of the livestock.”
That got me queer looks from both of them. They intellectually knew what had happened to me, but gut understanding proved elusive.
Jen insisted on going alone. It was considerably easier for her to do her trick with just herself.
I had a hard time letting go of our last hug. I was terrified for her and had a bad feeling that I’d never see her again. When she pulled back, she just smiled at me and said, “I’ll be back in a flash.”
She went up the stair and through the door without even checking for sounds. The door swung shut with a very final thump.
We waited in the flickering dark. After a long time I asked, “How long has it been?”
“Five minutes.”
“Oh.” I waited for another head-pounding eternity. “She should be back now, shouldn’t she?”
“Finn, it’s only been thirteen minutes.”
“Oh.”
I started pacing the cellar, and soon found myself looking at the iron-bound door. I put my hand to it and felt...something.
There is something back there,
said Spring.
Yeah, I feel it to.
The feeling was familiar. It was the feeling I’d gotten whenever I was close to a buried artifact. It was the feeling that I’d gotten this spring that had had led me to the Seaman Mound—the burial mound where I’d found the Caduceus and Wendigota.
Let’s leave this one alone
,
shall we?
said Spring.
Where is she
,
Spring? What’s taking her so long?
It hasn’t been that long, just go lay down and rest. You’re running on empty, and it’s making you crazy.
At the forty-five minute mark I was ready to climb the walls.
“Dave, we’ve got to go find her.” If something happened to Jen...
“No we don’t. You can hardly walk.”
“I don’t care, I—”
The door up top swung open, and I shut my mouth. There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, and then, to our relief, the door thumped closed again. I pushed myself up and shambled over toward the stairs where I was soon rewarded by the sight of my girlfriend’s precious smile.
“I got a delivery here,” she said in goofy a Brooklyn-ish accent. “Did either of you guys order the escargot?”
After receiving laughing hugs all round and a very satisfying kiss, we chowed down. Jen had even managed to grab some aspirin for me. After scarfing down a few pounds of bread, cheese, and ham and downing about a gallon of water, I was finally sated. I’d just leaned back against the stone wall when another of nature’s necessities raised its ugly head. I wasn’t the only one with sudden needs. In the end, we answered nature’s call in a dark corner of the front courtyard while Jen made us as uninteresting as possible with her mojo.