Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(105)

“What are you doing over there?” he asked again.

I didn’t answer him until I had the tool free, and in my grip. I knew the weight of it, and I felt reassured to have it. What a random thing, really—or else the universe is fond of patterns after all, as my dear departed Doctor Seabury had always insisted.

? ? ?

I insisted it, too, didn’t I, Emma? I said there was a pattern to the mayhem, though I was seated too near the action to see it for myself. I always believed that if I could just extract myself enough—if I could remove myself to a distant place, with a wider perspective—it would all become so clear that I’d feel silly for having ever missed it.

Who was it who said . . . I don’t know, was it some dead Greek or Roman? I can’t recall. But it was something along the lines of, “Show me a place to set a fulcrum, and I will move the world.” Is that right? Probably not. But it was something like that. We spoke of it before, you and I. Back in the old days.

That’s what I mean. Does that make sense? I bet it doesn’t. Or maybe it does to you, wherever you are, and whatever you can see. Maybe, being dead and long gone from this world, you have the perspective I’ve longed for. All I’m trying to say is, I am certain that the universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it . . . it has an inordinate fondness for patterns.

Because, God help me, Emma. I was holding an axe.

Somehow, I believe, I retrieved it from that fabled middle distance . . . where Nance disappeared to and where Storage Room Six serves as a portal. I understand that now. I brushed against it, and escaped with my soul. With such a near miss, I suppose, there come privileges.

? ? ?

Either Simon decided that the way was clear or his curiosity overwhelmed his sense of self-preservation—because he unshuttered one sliver of the lantern so he could see me better. I hope he saw me as I saw myself: armed, fierce, and invigorated.

If he didn’t, he was kind enough to keep it to himself. “Would you look at that! Well played, Lizbeth. The look suits you.”

“It’s familiar and versatile, and I can hide it behind a skirt if I need to—even these slimmer silhouettes that are all the rage these days.” I tested it in my hands, turning it over, getting a feel for the balance of it. It would be an exaggeration to say that power flowed through me; it would not be an exaggeration to say that I felt more confident, and on firmer footing than the loose, damp dirt that made up the floor beneath me. The axe was something I understood, in a world full of things I didn’t—and I would cling to it, brandish it, and swing it if I needed to.

“If you’re happy, I’m happy,” he assured me. “But what next? Ruth has escaped to the great outdoors. God, if she’s found the car . . . I should have left the keys in it.”

“Does she know how to drive?”

“I haven’t the faintest.”

“And if she took it, how would we flee when the time arrives?” I asked, though, in truth, I would trade our safe path out of Chapelwood for her to escape safely.

“I know, but still.” I think he was considering the same. “But here we are, and the cards have already been dealt. With that in mind—and I do hate to suggest it—perhaps we should part ways. Whatever lies below must be attended to, but likewise we must make every effort to save poor Ruth.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t happy. “Ruth has escaped of her own volition; are you sure she needs our help?” God, I hated myself for saying it. I sounded like a coward, but it was true—I didn’t want to flee the only company I had for certain.

“No. Yes. I . . . Lizbeth, I have no better idea than you do.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Then . . . then I’ll go after Ruth, and help her return to the main road. We might get lucky and catch Chief Eagan as he arrives. He will arrive, don’t you think?”

“I know he will. He might not get all the way to Chapelwood proper, but if you and Ruth can meet him at the edge of the road, he’ll be happy enough. And your plan is solid, madam. I’ll go below and see what lurks in this ‘Holiest of Holies,’ if ever there were a worse sacrilege. Here, take the lantern.”

I almost argued with him. I almost wanted to see it for myself—whatever it was—and I was almost jealous of him, but that’s nonsense, isn’t it? He was better suited to that task, for he had more experience than I did. I only had articles, ordered from libraries and read in the sunroom at Maplecroft. He had been in the field for thirty years or more, and we hadn’t discussed it much, but I knew he’d seen terrible, strange, even horrible things in his time behind the badge.

Instead I said, “But you have no light!”

“Neither do they. Or rather . . . they do, I think. Can’t you see it—down there, a little glow?”

Hardly, but maybe. I squinted down the stairs and he might have been right; there might have been a faint gray lurking somewhere near the bottom, rather than the wholesale black that blanketed everything else.

“Simon . . .”

“No.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. Give me a few of those matches, in case of absolute emergency—and we must wish each other well, and part ways for now. Let me give you the car keys.”

But I refused them. “I don’t know how to drive,” I admitted. “They won’t do me a bit of good—and if you hand them off, then you may deprive us all of a ride to freedom. I’ll see if I can find Ruth, and I’ll take her back to the car. We’ll try to meet you there, but if we don’t . . . if we can’t find you . . . then . . . I suppose we’ll head down the side road, and hope to meet Chief Eagan somewhere along the way. I won’t leave you behind—you know that, yes?”