Читать книгу Before Winter - Nancy Wallace K. - Страница 13

Devin halted at a chasm that yawned open where the nave of the church had been. Near the altar, which hung suspended above the abyss, a spiral of mossy stone steps wound downward, disappearing into the darkness below.

Lavender came to stand beside him, humming some tuneless lullaby as she rocked one of her brothers’ heads in her arms. “The mossy steps,” she pointed out proudly, as though she had created them herself.

“What’s down there?” Marcus asked her.

She jerked one shoulder nervously and avoided his eyes. “The tunnels,” she said. “But I don’t go there.”

Marcus huffed in exasperation. “Then how do you know what is there?”

She rubbed one of her brothers’ heads against her cheek, like a child with a comforting toy. “I went there once with my brother when the church was still here. There was a room in the cellar but the door that led into it was locked.”

Devin glanced at Marcus. The key in his jacket was a token of passage, not made to open a lock. “Perhaps we can open it. If the door is wooden, it’s bound to be rotted by now. We could force it.”

“You need the key,” Lavender said.

“Do you have it?” Devin asked.

Lavender shook her head. “You have a key. I know you do,” she insisted.

“I don’t have the key to this door,” Devin replied irritably.

“You need the key to reach the tunnels,” Lavender insisted. “He told me that you need it!”

Marcus grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Who told you that?”

Lavender shook in his grip, her face as white as a sheet. “Sébastian,” she whispered. “Sébastian told me.”

“Who is Sébastian?” Marcus shouted.

Devin stepped between them, breaking Marcus’ hold with his shoulder. “Her brother,” he said. “She says her brother Sébastian told her.”

Marcus put a hand to his head. “Holy Mary Mother of God!” he muttered. “I swear I’m the one who’s having nightmares. I just pray I’ll wake up soon. What possessed me to allow you to come with us, Lavender? This has been nothing but an ill-fated, insane undertaking from the start!”

“Can I go down?” Devin asked.

“We have no light and apparently we have no key to open the door at the bottom.” Marcus threw up his hands in disgust. “I can’t even see the bottom of the steps, Devin, let alone inside these tunnels she’s babbling about. Leave this, would you? We need to be on our way!”

Lavender sank down on a rock, a stray tear rolled down one cheek before she swiped at it with her ragged sleeve. She began rocking back and forth and humming, her arms clasped tightly around her. Devin felt she had never seemed so pathetic.

“Surely, we can make a torch from pitch,” Devin suggested. “This pine will burn.”

“Of course it will,” Marcus answered roughly. He glanced at the sun climbing the eastern sky. “I will give you until noon, Devin, and then we leave whether or not we have found whatever you think is waiting to be discovered here.” Devin started to object but Marcus interrupted him. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it!”

“I’ll take it,” Devin said. He cut a sturdy branch from a spruce tree and dipped the tip in the excess sap that seeped out of the trunk. He held out a hand to Marcus who reluctantly put his flint in it.

“That’s the only flint I have,” Marcus warned him. “Don’t lose it!”

“I won’t,” Devin assured him. He glanced back at Lavender, wanting to say or do something to counteract Marcus’ harsh words. He held out his hand. “Will you come with us, Lavender?”

She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t want to,” she whispered.

Devin touched her shoulder gently, afraid of upsetting her more. “Call down if you need us.”

She glanced up, her face softening for a moment. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Devin turned toward the ruined church, feeling Lavender’s desolation and Marcus’s irritation following him like a malevolent cloud. The steps were remarkably easy to descend although Lavender stayed behind, sitting dejectedly on her rock. Whether she was hurt or angry at Marcus or simply afraid of the tunnels, she seemed anxious to keep her distance from both of them. The moss provided a cushiony if slightly slippery layer to the stone as they made their way down. The smell of dampness, earth, and rot was overpowering. Ferns had rooted here, too, pushing up feathery foliage from fallen tree trunks long since decayed, surrounded by clusters of red mushrooms with yellow spots.

Devin thought of supper. “Those are beautiful. Are they …”

“No!” Marcus snapped. “They’re not. They’re Amanita muscaria and they are poisonous!”

Devin raised his eyebrows. “That’s good to know.”

The steps ended, lost in the deep shadow from the walls above. In places part of a floor remained, cut from massive squares of stone and fitted together almost seamlessly. In the corner, there was a door, arched at the top as the original church door might well have been, too. There was no ornate locking mechanism, just a simple keyhole. Marcus gave it a hefty yank but it didn’t budge. Devin slipped out the tip of his knife and fitted it into the lock, feeling it jam after half the length of the blade had entered.

“It’s locked from the inside,” he said. “I can feel the key.”

Marcus looked askance. “I had no idea you’d trained as a locksmith.”

Devin laughed. “Oh, never a locksmith, Marcus, but I didn’t get through the université without learning how to pick a lock.”

Marcus went down on a knee and ran his finger under the door. He turned to see if Lavender was watching. “Can you give me a piece of parchment from your jacket?”

“The only parchment I have is Tirolien’s Chronicle,” Devin hissed.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Marcus whispered. “If I slide it under the door do you think you can loosen the key enough that it will fall onto the parchment? We can slide it out under the door.”

It was easier said than done. Devin tried manipulating the knife but the blade wasn’t long enough. The blades on two of Marcus’ knives were too thick to enter the keyhole but the third one, that he withdrew from his boot, looked long, slender, and deadly.

“What’s that one for?” Devin asked.

“If you have you to ask, you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” Marcus remarked lightly. He stood up stiffly. “Here, you get down on your knees with the damn parchment! You’re less than half my age.”

Marcus fit the narrow knife into the keyhole, jiggled it several times and gave it a practiced twist. The key dropped but when Devin started to withdraw the paper, he could hear it bump the door.

“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” Marcus cautioned, extending a hand. “Let’s see if we can dig out under the paper a bit and give it more room. It’s probably a thick key.”

They cautiously brushed dirt away from the threshold as the sun rose higher in the sky. Not once did Marcus comment on the time of day or urge their departure. He lay with his eye on ground level, carefully shifting the parchment back and forth. Finally, he maneuvered the parchment forward, bringing a heavy iron key with it.

“Got it!” crowed Marcus, swooping to grasp the key from the parchment. Holding it aloft, he squinted over his shoulder at Devin. “Would you like to do this or shall I?”

Devin bent to retrieve the parchment, brushing it off before returning it to his jacket. He took a step back and motioned to Marcus. “You can open it.”