WITHOUT HENRY, THINGS are busier.
Maybe he works more than I’ve noticed. Once the shipment is unloaded and the customers have filed out, George leans on the counter and sighs.
“So. Have you visited any of the universities in London yet?”
There’s something about the way he says it, the overly casual way he looks at me as he scrutinizes one of the ignored action items on my London itinerary. It isn’t a George question. It’s a Kristina question.
“Did my mother put you up to asking?”
He creases his eyebrows and makes an offended tsk. He starts to say something—a denial maybe—but then thinks better of it and changes direction.
“Your mother adores you, Jo.”
I grit my teeth. Rather than talking to me, she prefers to have her friend watch me and report back. I’m certain that’s why George had Henry follow me to the Crow, now that I think about it.
“Adoration in the form of spying is always my favorite.”
George sighs. “She isn’t spying on you. She’s checking in.”
“With you. Not me.”
“It’s hard for her not to talk to you.”
“Which was her idea.”
“She’s giving you space.”
“Is she, though?”
George sets down the stack of albums he’s collected from the listening center. “I don’t tell her everything.”
Record screech. This feels like a trap to get me to admit something. Definitely not falling for it.
“I haven’t done anything I wouldn’t tell her about.”
George quirks a brow. “Nothing?”
“Nope.”
“Not even drink so much you get sick on the street?”
I stare at him, wondering why Henry would’ve told him about that. Especially after all the sneaking around and tiptoeing and apologizing that night. I let the anger simmer for a minute before I say anything.
“Okay. Maybe not that.”
“Nigel told me, by the way,” George says, as if he’s read my mind. “Henry tells me nothing.”
Oh.
“Nigel knew my dad,” I say.
George turns the depth of his gaze on me now, a sincere look in his eyes. “I absolutely hate that you lost your father. It’s miserably unfair.”
I take a deep breath. George knows all about unfair, too, I remind myself.
“But go easy on your mum, okay? She worries about you. We all worry, as parents. I worry about Henry. But I can’t talk to him about it or he gets defensive. And he stays angry with me.” He dumps the records into their respective shelf space and returns to the register. He punches a few buttons to zero it out.
“I never noticed,” I say.
His face stretches out with surprise. “Oh, you never got the perpetually angry vibe from him?”
Okay, to be fair, yes. But I’m feeling strangely defensive on his behalf. I glance sideways at George but just shrug. His aura’s still muddy brown. Maybe he’s too wrapped up in his own struggles to understand Henry’s.
As I’m making my way to the front of the store to lock up, a flash of yellow zips by the front of the plate-glass windows and opens the front door. I’m just about to tell the person we’re closing up when I realize it’s Zara.
“Made it!” She looks past me, a little out of breath. “Sorry I’m so late! My evening class ran over.”
“Come in,” George says. “I have them for you.” He digs beneath the register for the photos Henry left for her.
“You look better than last time I saw you,” Zara whispers to me conspiratorially. “You doing okay?”
I nod, suddenly nervous. Like I need to impress her in some way.
“Hey, you don’t happen to know what days Saint Catherine’s does tours for prospective students, do you?”
“Oh. I have no idea. Why? You thinking about Saint Catherine’s?” She wears a proud smirk as she says it.
George rounds the counter with a sealed envelope marked DO NOT BEND. “Good luck with this,” he tells Zara. She takes it and thanks him.
“Thinking about it,” I answer her question.
“If you want to come over tomorrow around ten, I could show you around myself. I’ll be on campus and should have a break then.”
I look at George. “What do you say?” I ask him. “Would it be all right if I come in a little later tomorrow so I can tour Saint Catherine’s in the morning?”
George narrows his eyes at me, not at all fooled by my performance. “Of course. I think it’s a splendid idea.”
“Here.” Zara hands me her phone. “Put your number in.”
I do.
“Text me later for details.”
I lock the door behind her when she leaves with her pictures. Before I go upstairs, I turn to George.
“Make sure you tell Mama I’m taking a private guided tour of a liberal arts university tomorrow. With a current student.” I give him a little wink.
: : : : :
In my room later, I study the atlas Henry left for me.
I flip to the Liverpool page and read his notes again.
Two main lines, perpendicular: Glastonbury Tor to Aberdeen, 2nd longitude W, and Tibradden (passage tomb) to Ohlsdorf (cemetery), 53rd parallel N.
The note strikes me as familiar for some reason. I remember something about Glastonbury on his Instagram page, so I pull it up. A few moments of scrolling brings it front and center.
I almost choke when I see the picture of Glastonbury Tor: the rolling green hillside with the perfect angle of sunlight. A tall stone tower in the background. It’s only missing a picnic blanket and two very specific people. Flashes from my dream come back to me.
This explains why I had such a perfect visual of the place stored away in my brain: I’d seen this picture before. His caption beneath it says, “yet some men say in parts of England that King Arthur is not dead…” —Thomas Malory.
I scroll his photos. Every single landscape picture correlates to places plotted in the atlas. Based on the dates—they go back two years—Henry has been visiting ley lines for quite some time.
The map is color coded, and there are notes for each that list the endpoints. I try to make sense of them but can’t see exactly where they are at the street level. Frustrated, I pull up the browser on my phone and type ley lines Liverpool.
The very first result is a link for a site called Magical Mystical Locator. The home page has an interactive map of the entire United Kingdom. I zoom in on Liverpool. Two ley lines intersect just south and inland from Liverpool, perpendicular. They appear to match Henry’s hand-plotted lines. The longitudinal line connects Glastonbury Tor with standing stones in Aberdeen, Scotland. The latitudinal ley connects a place called Tibradden in Dublin with Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg, Germany. I skim for more information and conclude that all of these places have rich history and are shrouded in myth of the dead—or undead, as the case may be.
I know from my amateur research that a place where two ley lines intersect is called a vortex. What that means, exactly, I don’t know. But the internet’s explanation goes something like Magic! Fantasma! Much Amaze!
I zoom in as far as I can. The intersection occurs in a green space just beyond Church Road in Woolton.
I pull up another browser window and put Church Road into Google maps. Zoom in. In. In. In. And oh my God, I suck all the air out of the room. It’s the road St. Peter’s church is on.
My fingers fly furiously over the screen. I compare the two maps and zoom in to street level, to the exact location of the intersect. The screen fills with a street view outside a graveyard, a large red-brick clock tower in the background. I stare gape-mouthed, no sound but my roaring pulse.
The vortex is in the graveyard where Eleanor Rigby’s grave is located.
: : : : :
That night, I dream of a bright green piece of paper.
It’s folded four times, lines creased like it’s been left in a pocket too long. Maybe even put through the wash. As I’m unfolding it, one rectangle at a time, Pop’s voice whispers in my ear: It’s a good idea. But before I get the paper completely open
to see what’s on the inside, my alarm wakes me up.