“What sort of circumstances?” Cecily presses.
“Never you mind about that.” Mademoiselle LeFarge tuts, leaving us to wonder about it all the more.
The inspector chuckles. “With your curiosity, you should all work for me.”
“Ladies cannot become detectives,” Martha says. “They haven’t the constitutions for it.”
“Tommyrot!” the inspector answers, slapping his thigh. “My dear mother reared four boys, and it was woe unto any one of us who tried to fool her. She could have been a chief inspector, such were her talents. Someday there shall be women at Scotland Yard. Mark my words.”
“Oh, Mr. Kent.” Mademoiselle LeFarge chortles. “No more of this or these girls won’t sleep tonight. Let us talk of the wedding, shall we?”
“As you say, Mademoiselle LeFarge, as you say,” he answers.
“I thought perhaps you girls could help us decide which hymns we might sing.” She frowns. “Oh, dear. I’ve forgotten to bring a hymnal from the chapel. And there I was reminding myself all day long.”
“I shall get it,” Inspector Kent says, putting down his teacup.
Mrs. Nightwing stops him. “No. I’ll send Miss Doyle for it. She’s a few days of penance left, by my ledger. It will do her good. Miss Poole, you will accompany her.”
Bloody Nightwing.
Elizabeth follows me out to the lawn. She jumps at every sound. “What was that?” she gasps. A frog hops over her foot and she yelps and grabs hold of my arm.
“It’s only a frog, Elizabeth. You’d think it a dragon the way you’re carrying on,” I grumble.
We’ve gone no more than a few feet when Elizabeth gasps and nearly climbs up me.
“What is it now?” I say, pushing her off.
“I don’t know,” she says, her eyes tearing. “It’s so dark! I hate the dark! I always have. It frightens me.”
“Well, I can’t help you with that,” I grouse, and she starts to cry. “Very well,” I say with a heavy sigh. “Go hide in the kitchen. I’ll fetch the hymnal and come back for you.”
She nods and runs for the safety of the kitchen without so much as a thank-you. I hurry toward the chapel, my lamp leading the way. Night animals are tuning up their orchestra of chirps and croaks. It is not comforting this evening but a reminder that many things live in the dark. The dogs at the Gypsy camp start a chorus of barking that trails off into restless whimpering. It makes my nerves jangle.
Right. I shan’t tarry. The hymnal’s what I’ve come for, and I intend to be quick about it. The chapel’s ancient oak door is heavy. I pull hard and it creaks open a sliver to allow me passage. Inside it’s murky and silent. Anything could be waiting. My heartbeat quickens. I prop open the door with a rock and proceed.
The inky blue of late dusk surges against the stained-glass windows, casting patterns on the floor. My lamp sends shards of light through them. I find no hymnals at the back, so I’m forced to make my way down the center aisle, away from the doors and quick escape. I swing my lamp over the pews from side to side until at last I spy what I’m after in the middle of one. A sudden gust of wind bangs the door shut, and I drop the hymnal and hear it slide under the pew.
Blast.
Heart beating even faster now, I crouch on the floor, feeling for the book until I have it. A voice, hard as fingernails rapping on metal, sounds in the dark.
“Stay….”
I whip around so quickly the flame wobbles in the lamp. “Who’s there?”
The chapel is still, save for the wind that gusts against the now closed door. Hurriedly, I grab the hymnal and scurry up the aisle, breathing hard.
“You must not go….”
I turn myself around in a mad whirl. My lamp casts angry shadows on the walls.
“I know you’re here. Show yourself!”
“The woods be not safe now.”
The windows buckle and shift. The stained-glass images move. They’re alive.
“We would keep you safe, Chosen One….”
The voice comes from the odd window panel, the one of the angel in armor brandishing a bloody sword in one hand and a severed gorgon’s head in the other. At least, I have always taken the icon to be an angel; now, in the deepening dark, I am no longer certain of anything. The angel grows taller inside its glass prison. Its body bows the front of the window, and its face looms like the moon.
“They are in the woods….”
“You’re not real,” I say aloud. The gorgon’s head drips blood onto the chapel’s floor. I hear it hit in sickening drops, as steady as rain. Bile rises in my throat. I breathe through my nose, swallowing it in burning gulps.