Before Winter

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.”

CHAPTER 9

Whispers from the Past

As Marcus turned it, the key rasped in the lock, metal scraping metal. Devin heard something rattle and shift, sending a chill up his spine, and the door cracked open. A dry draft of air billowed outward as though it had been trapped there for centuries, and both of them seemed frozen in time for an instant: Marcus, so strong and confident, gripping the key in one hand and the knob in the other, and Devin, tense with a strange suspicion of what they would find inside. He stooped quickly as the door fell open, cradling the skeleton in his arms, lest it crumble on the stone floor.

“God!” Marcus whispered. “The priest! Did you know he was in here?”

“I had a feeling,” Devin answered, afraid to move for fear part of this man of God might shatter in his arms.

“You might have warned me,” Marcus grumbled, bending over. “Let me help you.”

Only scraps of his clerical robes held the bones in place. The priest’s skull seemed to drop naturally into the crook of Devin’s shoulder. Devin doubted if he lived to be a hundred that he would ever forget the feeling.

Marcus seemed to be at a loss. “Where shall we put him?”

Devin nodded toward the open door. “Back inside? He died there. It seems we have disturbed his tomb. Perhaps we should restore things to the way they were.”

“He must have died leaning on the door,” Marcus observed. “Let’s prop him against the wall instead.”

He slid a hand carefully under the skeleton’s lower half while Devin supported the top, feeling bones loosen and shift as fabric and leathery strips of skin fell away. They moved him into the dark interior of the tunnel, arranging the remains as reverently as possible against the far wall.

Devin stood up, tried to restrain a violent shudder and failed.

Marcus retrieved the spruce branch. “My flint?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Devin tried to pull it out of his pocket but was unsuccessful; his hands were shaking so badly. Marcus reclaimed it himself and struck a spark to their spruce branch, the torch throwing its flickering light into the darkness.

The “tunnel” consisted of one austere room: a shelf held empty bottles of communion wine. The floor held only the tatters of a decayed blanket, a Bible and a small leather-bound book. Devin bent to pick the book up, disturbing a quill that rolled off across the floor. An empty ink well rocked back and forth on its side.

Devin opened the cover, his eyes squinting to keep the words from blurring: Father Sébastian Chastain, 12 Avril 1406. “God,” he breathed. “Can you believe this? It’s a journal, Marcus!”

“And this is nothing more than a safe house, Devin,” Marcus replied, gesturing with the torch. “You were right. It doesn’t connect to the other tunnels but it must have served as a secure place to hide someone who might have been running for his life.”

Devin barely listened; he turned the pages reverently, tracing the writing that grew more spidery and shaky toward the end. Not only did the writing itself change but so did the ink. Devin swallowed, hardly wanting to put his observations into words. He’d seen two other manuscripts like this once before in the Archives. He cleared his throat but it didn’t stop his voice from shaking. “He finished this by writing with his own blood, Marcus. Imagine having something so important to say that you …” He couldn’t finish.

“I think we need to leave,” Marcus said firmly. “Take the journal with you. Hide it in the lining of your jacket with Tirolien’s Chronicle. If Father Sébastian died recording all of this, then it needs to be preserved and remembered.”

“He voluntarily starved to death to preserve this account of what happened, Marcus,” Devin whispered. “He died for Albion and its people and we would never have known if Lavender hadn’t led us here.”

“We need to leave now!” Marcus instructed as Devin still stood mesmerized, fingering the journal in his hands.

Devin slipped it through the ripped seam in the lining under his left arm, feeling its weight drop toward the hem below. What did he carry with him from this place and what providence led them to find it?

Marcus shoved Devin outside, taking one final moment to place the Bible gently in Father Sébastian’s lap before closing the door. He gave the key a turn in the lock and slipped it into his pocket. “When we reach La Paix,” he said, “I will drop this key from the top of the waterfall. Father Sébastian deserves to rest in peace now that he has passed on his legacy.”

“Sébastian.” Devin repeated the name suddenly. “That’s what Lavender told us. She said Sébastian had told her we needed the key. Maybe it wasn’t her brother she was talking about.”

Devin turned away from Marcus, anxious to test his theory. He took off up the winding steps, each step firm and secure, as he dodged fallen branches, trees, and rocks.

“Devin, stop!” Marcus called behind him. “You’ll break your neck!”

But Devin climbed higher and higher into the sudden brilliant gold of that late-August afternoon, the reassuring weight of Father Sébastian’s journal in his pocket.

He stopped at the top, blinking in the strong shafts of sunlight that enshrouded the church. Lavender was gone. He knew she would be. He circled the empty crater where the church once stood but there was no sign of her dirty gown or brown, wrinkled face. In the valley below nothing moved but the water of the stream flowing endlessly to the south. A gentle wind tossed the branches above his head and he realized that up here the air was much warmer. He was glad Marcus had packed their things this morning, because he didn’t want to go back down to spend another night among the valley’s shifting mist and ghostly whispers.

Marcus reached the top of the steps. “Damn it, Devin!” he gasped, bending over to catch his breath. “What’s the hurry?”

“Lavender’s gone,” Devin said, reaching to retrieve the freshly carved head she had left for Marcus on the rock where she had been sitting. He held it out to him.

Marcus made no move to take it. “What are you trying to say?” he asked.

Devin shook his head and gently placed the wooden image of Marcus into his bodyguard’s hand. “I’m not trying to say anything, Marcus. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

CHAPTER 10

Mysteries and Discoveries

Marcus insisted that they look for Lavender, and they did, but if she still existed, she had blended back into the landscape like a native flower or shrub. Nothing remained but the little carved head of Marcus and their memories of her.

“I made her cry,” Marcus said gruffly, stuffing the carved head in his pocket.

Devin sighed. “Perhaps it wasn’t you as much as the situation. It’s been hard on everyone.”

“Do you think she was …” Marcus hesitated.

“A ghost?” Devin asked. “Perhaps. But we touched her, smelled her, she ate our food.”

“The food sack,” Marcus said suddenly and set it down to rummage through it.

Devin knew what Marcus would find before he announced it. “The heads are all gone. Every last one of them.”

“Except the one she carved for you,” Devin pointed out.

Marcus withdrew it from his pocket, held it humbly in his hands for a few moments. “Did I ever thank her?”

“I’m sure you did,” Devin replied.

Marcus slipped the token back in his pocket.

Devin’s eyes still searched the rocks and bushes around them, hoping that he might catch sight of a scrap of tattered brown fabric or a tiny footprint to convince them that Lavender had traveled with them and touched their lives for several days.

Marcus grabbed his sleeve. “Come on, then,” he said finally. “Night falls earlier now. We need to go.”

They left the ruins of Albion’s church behind. Above the deep ravine, the terrain flattened out. Statuesque spruce trees circled a small clearing knee deep in long grass and scattered wildflowers. Here hawks soared, and rabbits and deer grazed in the late-afternoon shadows. It was like another world compared to the valley behind them. Light, fragrant, and warm.

Devin tripped on a raised stone. He dropped his pack, hoping it might be a headstone, and knelt to pull the weeds away.

“The Town of Albion, Destroyed by Flood, 12 Avril 1406,” he read as Marcus bent to look. “It’s the same day Father Sébastian’s journal begins.”

Devin walked in a wide circle from the stone, swinging his foot to crush the tall grass. “I’d hoped there might be some gravestones,” he said in disappointment.

“The bodies would have washed downstream and Father Sébastian couldn’t have dragged bodies up that slope anyway, Devin!” Marcus said. “Not only that, whoever destroyed the dam, would have searched for survivors. Had even a few of the bodies been buried, it would have been obvious that someone survived. Anyone who knew the truth about what happened would have been killed.”

“And yet, Lavender knew the story.”

“The person who created the story may have made an assumption as to who destroyed the dam.”

“But the Chronicles are very precise,” Devin objected. “The story of Albion’s destruction would never have been included in Tirolien’s Chronicle if there was some doubt about its veracity.”

“Lavender never said the story came from the Chronicles, Devin,” Marcus pointed out. “She said that her father told her about it.”

Devin inclined his head. “That’s true.” His eyes drifted over the clearing, watching as the tall grass bent like waves in the wind. “But if this really was one of the first settlements in Llisé, it existed for hundreds of years before its destruction. There would have had to be a cemetery for the church. All of those graves would predate the flood.”

“I’m sure you’re right but we don’t have time to look for a cemetery, Devin. We need to get back to La Paix as quickly and safely as possible. I’m sorry.”

Devin exhaled. “I understand.”

Marcus skirted the clearing, startling the deer, their white tails flashing as they dashed into the forest beyond. “Perhaps the journal will answer some of your questions.”

“I hope,” Devin said. It was as though the book was physically hot, burning a hole in his jacket lining. He wanted desperately to take it out and read it, to sit down right in this field and discover the secrets it contained. Had it been possible, he would have read it as he walked.

“Perhaps Father Sébastian wrote a list of the dead in his journal,” Marcus suggested.

Devin nodded. “I saw a list of names when I was flipping through the pages.” If Father Sébastian left a journal chronicling the fate of his parishioners, Devin felt certain it was meticulous. How strange that it had lain there waiting several hundred years to be found and read!

“We’ll look at it tonight,” Marcus promised. “We need to find a protected place to sleep. Despite what we left behind us, that valley sheltered us well and kept us safe.”

They continued around the clearing, but much to Devin’s disappointment they discovered no gravestones along the way. He wanted to stay and search, to learn all the secrets this valley had to offer but he knew it was impossible now. In the few minutes he had spent with the villagers in his dreams, he had felt a connection to them in a raw, emotional sense. He’d shared their laughter and their terror and they were bound to him in a way he couldn’t explain to Marcus or anyone else, except maybe Jeanette.

Perhaps in the future he and Jeanette could return together just as he hoped they could go back to the ruined Archives and discover whether anything remained there. The more he saw of the provinces, the more he loved them. Each one held riches that the residents of Coreé never could dream of in their insular little worlds. Perhaps there was a way of combining his love of the Archives with his desire to add the wealth of history the provinces also offered.

Their route dipped into one valley after another and by twilight their legs were tired from climbing. “I see now why the road was built where it was,” Devin observed, as he dropped down onto a grassy knoll where oak trees’ massive trunks formed a kind of fortress.

“It’s too dark to walk any further,” Marcus said. “This will do as well as any other for a place to spend the night.”

Devin let his pack slide from his shoulders, his hand immediately working the journal up through the tear in the lining and slipping it out. He stretched out for a moment, the journal open in his hands. “It’s too dark to read,” he said in disappointment. “I don’t suppose you’ll allow us a fire?”

“No,” Marcus said. “I’ve no idea how far we’ve come and what villages might be nearby. It’s best to be safe. And put that book away if you can’t read it. We’re not at an inn. You have no idea when we might have to leave suddenly.”

Reluctantly, Devin slid the journal back in its hiding place. It was only after they had decided to stay for the night that the ground seemed overrun with exposed roots. Under the trees, there was little grass and the ground was hard as rock. Marcus produced a bit of moldy bread for dinner; it was too late to hunt. They drank their fill of the water from the skins Marcus had replenished earlier and resigned themselves to empty bellies until morning brought another chance for a meal.

Devin’s mind was busy with the details of the safe room they had found. “Father Sébastian locked the door from the inside,” Devin observed. “He must have been afraid for his own life.”

“I’m sure he wanted it to appear to whoever blew up the dam that everyone in Albion was killed,” Marcus said. “If Father Sébastian was seen, he would have been hunted down.”

“And yet Lavender claimed he told her that we needed the key to unlock the door,” Devin reminded him.

Marcus unrolled his blanket. He raised his eyebrows at Devin. “I don’t believe Father Sébastian appeared in person.”

“She did have a brother named Sébastian. You don’t think they could be one and the same?”

“Only if she were a ghost, Devin, and I’m not ready to accept that explanation yet,” Marcus replied. “I think she was a very sad old lady who somehow lost her family and her way. I’m not sure anything she told us was accurate.”

“But those carved heads were so meticulous. May I see yours?” Devin held out a hand.

Marcus handed it over with reluctance, placing it on Devin’s palm.

Devin traced the carving with his fingers; the frowning forehead and spray of wrinkles around Marcus’ eyes were typical. Only the mouth was unusual. “She made you smiling!” he said in surprise.

“Well, I do smile occasionally,” Marcus blustered. “Give that back!”

Devin chuckled and handed it over. “If Lavender was a spirit, she could actually have been the little girl who lost her pony in Arcadia’s Chronicle.”

“Then why didn’t she appear to us as a little girl?” Marcus asked.

Devin shrugged. “Because she may have lived a long time, searching these mountains for the pony she loved. We have no idea how old she was when she died.”

“I’m not sure we will ever discover exactly who or what Lavender was. There is really no sense speculating about it when there is no way to prove whether one theory or another is correct!”

“That’s true,” Devin agreed. “But I would rather think she was a spirit than a very old woman wandering alone out here in the night. I do wonder about her brother named Sébastian.”

“Do you know the last name of the Lavender who appeared in Arcadia’s Chronicle?” Marcus asked.

Devin shook his head. “I don’t believe Armand ever told me. So many of those stories aren’t dated either; we can only assume they took place at a certain time from hints in the story. Even if the Chronicle doesn’t specify her last name, Armand might still know.”

“You’ll have to wait to ask him then,” Marcus said, stifling a yawn.

Devin pulled his knees up and crossed his arms on them. “Do you want me to take the first watch?”

“If you like,” Marcus answered. “How do you feel? No more voices in your head?”

“None,” Devin answered. “I believe those voices were only meant to lead us to Father Sébastian and this journal. I don’t think I will hear them again.”

“Still,” Marcus said, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders and curling into a ball at the foot of an oak. “Wake me if you do.”

Devin smiled. “You’ll be the first to know.” He looked west, toward Calais and the sea and saw the full orange globe of the moon rising. The wind increased, rattling the branches in the grove of oaks and the air smelled of rain. Overhead, an owl asked questions of the night as small animals scurried through the grass. In the distance, a wolf howled and was answered by another.

It was a relief to hear normal night noises and not the unearthly quiet of the valley where Albion had stood. If ever a place was haunted – that one was. He thought of Comte Aucoin’s chateau and the ghosts that seemed to chasten Angelique. If spirits linger simply to correct a wrong, why had Angelique’s family tormented her dreams, turning them into nightmares? Or were nightmares something else altogether?

For the past few days, he’d felt as though his dreams had become muddled with his daily life and it was hard to separate one from the other. He’d always had a problem with “waking dreams.” It had started when he was a child and seemed to happen when he was just at the point of waking up. Something or someone in his room would appear to be something else – usually something frightening. The malady had followed him into his adult years and had proved a great source of amusement to his roommate and best friend, Gaspard, when he was at the université. After Dr. Verstegan, a friend of one of his older brothers, had prescribed valerian before he went to bed, the dreams had stopped, only to return on this trip. Lavender had brought back the uncertainty of what was real and what was not. Thankfully, Marcus had seen her and spoken with her, too, or he might have doubted his own sanity.