A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(32)

“Oh, Audey, it’s so much fun!” Delphine says, practically bouncing over to her fiancé. She gives him a quick kiss on his cheek, and then beams at me as he slides a hand around her back. “Poe found some old books with pictures of parties in the thorn chapel.”

I hate myself for how much the sight of his hand on her back bothers me.

“Well, I don’t think they were parties as such,” I say as I approach them. I hold out the book, open to the page I’d bookmarked for Delphine. “They sounded like rituals.”

Auden’s eyebrow quirks the tiniest bit. “Rituals?”

I meet his gaze and try not to shiver as something vivid and uncomfortable arcs between us. I think I’ve dreamed this too, this moment, this part where I hold a book open for him to read, and the déjà vu is dizzying.

“Yes, rituals,” I say after clearing my throat. “See?” I gesture down at the open pages, one of which is a lithograph of the chapel ruins, showing it overflowing with roses and empty of people.

Auden and Delphine bend over the book, with Delphine reading aloud from the page next to the picture. “The thorn chapel was required for the seasonal ceremonies then common to the valley,” she begins. “The first was Imbolc, when the folk would bless the village’s well, and afterwards, would go by torchlight to the forest sanctuary where its lord awaited them. The next ceremony was Beltane—what is called May Day in other, more civilized, parts of the world—then there was Lammas Feast, and the unholy frolic of death on All Hallows’ Eve. There are unspeakable rumors of many heathen acts done at these country revels; thankfully these crude and unschooled rituals have been burned away by the light of modernity, and Thornchapel is now regarded in its valley as an upright and Godly place.”

We all let out a breath as soon as Delphine finishes.

“Does it say what they did on Imbolc?” Auden asks.

“No,” I say. “But I think the ‘lord’ it mentions must be the lord of Thornchapel—or at least that’s what the other book implies. And torches or lanterns seem to be required. But what happens when they get to the ruins—none of these books say.” Then I quickly describe the rest of what Delphine and I learned from yesterday’s book.

Auden makes an unimpressed noise. I peer up at him.

“It seems a bit gossipy to me,” he says. “All these books have are rumors and hearsay and the usual kind of illustration Victorians go mad for, with the gowns and flowers and things. Nothing of substance.”

I think of the picture I found in the book last night, of the torc my mother had laughingly held out to Auden’s father. The same torc in the first book’s illustration. “So you don’t recall any talk of things happening in the thorn chapel? It wasn’t something your family did?”

Auden shakes the hair out of his eyes to study the lithograph more closely. “No,” he replies. “I saw the ruins before I’d ever even heard about them—with you all that summer. And I assume they went out to the chapel on Lammas night, if they went through the maze, but I don’t know that for sure.”

“It’s too bad,” sighs Delphine. “I thought it would be fun for us to have our own little Imbolc.”

Auden blinks at her as if she’s suggested we all join a cult. “Why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It just seems like a lark, a little bit of an adventure. We used to have them in school and now we don’t do any fun, uncivilized things anymore. We’re such adults and it’s very boring.”

I trail a finger over one of the chapel’s walls in the illustration. “There would be a certain symmetry to it,” I remark.

“Would there?” Auden asks, looking at me like I’m just as delusional as Delphine.

When I close my eyes, dreams crowd against my eyelids. I see Auden and the thorn chapel, I see a door behind the altar that’s not supposed to be there.

I blink the memory of my dreams away and try to sound rational. “This is your time with this house, isn’t it? You are the lord of Thornchapel now. Why not bring back an old tradition, just the once? Why not do something your father never did, claim a part of Thornchapel’s history for yourself?”

Auden’s mouth pulls over to one side as he stares down at the image of the chapel. “It is a thought,” he says softly.

Our moment is cut short by Rebecca, who comes in wearing a sapphire-blue jumpsuit hugging her narrow body like a dream. She has her braids down and hanging almost to her waist, and there’s a long gold pendant dangling between her breasts. She looks every inch a glamorous architect from London, even down to the we have a problem, let’s find a solution expression on her face.

“I know that look, Quartey,” Auden says. “Everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” Rebecca emphasizes. “Becket is coming in now, and he brought someone with him, and everything is fine.”

Auden frowns. “He’s bringing someone with him? But who—”

His question is answered before he can even finish asking it, as Becket appears in the doorway of the library . . . trailed by an uncertain Saint.

Silence fills the room; the fire pops once, loudly.

“Um. Hi,” Saint says. Everyone stares.

I’m the first to break the scene, and I stride over and give him a big, old American hug. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say as I pull back, and Saint looks a little grateful. Becket smiles at me, also looking grateful.