Lilith’s visit was more than strange. As soon as she was gone, Mare couldn’t settle down again. She ran to the window, watching the intruder make her way in high heels back through the snow. It felt as if any chance of seeing her aunt again was slipping away. Mare had to do something.
She rushed to the door, grabbing her coat on the way, and flung it open, only to find Frank standing there.
“I’ve been waiting in the car. What’s going on? You’re not running after her, are you?”
“I have to,” Mare said, peering over his shoulder to see if she could still catch a glimpse of Lilith.
“Whoa. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Why not? She’s figured out everything, and we know nothing.”
Mare was biting her lip hard; the tic had returned. But at the sight of Frank she began to calm down.
He came in, shutting the door behind him. “I couldn’t just leave like that. God knows what she’s capable of.”
“Please, don’t freak me out any more than I already am.”
Mare began pacing the small open patch in her cramped apartment, running her hands through her hair.
“I’m so stupid. I didn’t get her number. I don’t even know her last name.”
“It’s okay. We’re both wound up right now,” Frank said.
“My mouth feels like cotton.” Mare opened the battered fridge in the corner and grabbed some bottled water off the shelf, knocking over the two bottles next to it, which she ignored. “I shouldn’t have let her in the door. Now she’s filled my head with such strange ideas.”
“She was spouting nonsense,” Frank said firmly. “You know that, right?”
Mare was walking in circles now, taking big gulps of water. Suddenly the phone rang, and she jumped. It had to be her family again. They weren’t about to let this die down.
She looked at Frank. “I’m not going to answer it. What could I tell them?”
They both understood her predicament. Even if you subtracted the Lilith quotient, the mystery of Aunt Meg was squarely on Mare’s shoulders.
Frank felt a momentary paralysis. There are moments when one step forward or backward makes all the difference. He wasn’t going to sweep Mare into his arms and murmur, “It’s all right. I’m here. I have your back.” He couldn’t promise that. So taking a backward step was the smart choice. He could extricate himself now and return to the newsroom. Thompson, the crusty city editor, would scorch him for blowing off his deadline, but he wouldn’t fire him. Mare could get through this on her own, somehow. Having worked it all out, Frank stepped forward anyway.
“Let’s sit down and think this through,” he said, touching Mare’s arm.
She took a deep breath and did what he said, draining the last of the water in one gulp.
He began thinking out loud. “Lilith had her suspicions before she came here, and now she’s sure we have the object. But think back. She said it belongs here.”
Mare was bewildered. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out from your aunt. You really have no idea where she might be?”
Mare shook her head.
“Okay, then it’s like the news business. If you lose your best source, you fall back to the next best. I hate to say it, but that means Lilith.”
“She might not talk to you, not after what you said.”
“Right, but if anybody knows the whole story, she does. That’s why she was doling it out bit by bit.”
Mare was rolling the crumpled plastic water bottle between her hands. Her panic had passed. She could think as logically as Frank now.
“So Lilith doesn’t want to get the shrine for herself.”
“No, otherwise she’d have tried to scare you—more than she already did, I mean.”
He won a faint smile. Then Mare said, “I get the strongest feeling that the shrine isn’t stolen, which means somebody gave it to Aunt Meg. Why? And if she’s not dead, why pass it on to me?”
“To draw you in.”
Frank was stating the obvious, but only now did it hit them. They stared silently at each other. He racked his brain for what to do next.
“You said there was a note. Let me take a look at it.”
She fetched it, and for such a short message, Frank realized, it said a great deal.
Hello, Mare,
This is from the thirteenth disciple. Follow where it leads.
Yours in Christ,
Meg
He began to decipher it. “You see how it begins, so casually? She starts talking as if you two are close, as if she’s sure you’re the one who will read the note first.”
“I see that.”
“Then she plants a tease. Who is this thirteenth disciple? Your aunt knows already, but she wants you to find out for yourself. The shrine holds the answer.”
“That’s brilliant!” Mare exclaimed.
“It’s all between the lines. When you get to the end, she says ‘Yours in Christ,’ which means that leaving the convent had nothing to do with losing her faith. She’s reminding you that religion is the focus, not how much the treasure is worth. But she signs off with her old name. She could have used her nun’s name, but she wanted you to know that she’s family again.”
He turned the note over before handing it back to Mare, who was looking at him with admiring eyes.
“That’s all I can see,” he said.
Mare was thoughtful now. “So Aunt Meg is drawing me in. What happened to her in the convent? Why did she decide to vanish a second time after all these years?”
“I don’t know. But Lilith isn’t acting on her own. Let’s say the two know each other, and maybe Meg is orchestrating everything. She must have a reason for staying in the shadows like that. Your aunt could have just phoned. She could walk in the door right now and tell you what’s going on without sending somebody else. Either she’s toying with you, which leaves us where we started, or this is a test. ‘Follow where it leads.’”
Suddenly Mare became animated. “I have an idea.” She went to the closet and brought the golden church out from its hiding place.
“Maybe there’s some writing on it we didn’t notice before. It could be the clue we’re supposed to follow.”
She started examining every surface minutely. But except for the etched grass and flowers, the outside surface was perfectly smooth. A dead end.
“We need to get inside,” said Frank, following his first hunch. “At least let’s shake it.”
Mare nodded in agreement. She didn’t bring up her premonition that someone, not something, was hidden in the church. If she still thought so, she kept it to herself.
Frank lifted the heavy golden object next to his ear and shook it hard. There was no sound from inside, no rattle of bone, no whisper of ashes.
“Damn it. There has to be something.” He was quickly growing frustrated.
Mare’s face changed, and she took a deep breath. “Please don’t laugh. Maybe we should pray for the answer.”
He did laugh, abruptly and sarcastically. “Come on.”
Mare didn’t back down. “There are only two ways to look at the treasure. Either it’s a precious artwork or it’s sacred. Aunt Meg didn’t leave it to me as my inheritance. It’s not the gold that matters to her. I mean, isn’t that obvious?”
“All right,” said Frank reluctantly. “But you do the praying. I’ll sit back and watch.”
This wasn’t good enough for Mare. “Are we in this together or not?”
“I didn’t say I was pulling out.” Nor did he say that he had never prayed in his life, unless you count “Now I lay me down to sleep” when he was five.
“Okay. You hold one end, and I’ll hold the other. Is that asking too much?”
It would have been under other circumstances. The golden church hadn’t lost its spell, however, and something about it was irresistible to Frank. He slipped his fingers under one end while Mare took hold of the other. They grew quiet; she shut her eyes. He was sure that praying would lead nowhere. It was all on her.
So what was on him? Had he committed to anything? Frank felt a guilty twinge. Mare’s face had taken on a childlike innocence. Who was going to rescue her before she was pulled farther down the rabbit hole? Not him. He wasn’t gallant enough to rescue anyone, if it came to that. His motives ran more the other way. He was nosey enough to pry deeper into the ongoing weirdness. He’d probably wind up writing a helluva story. All kinds of people would read it and start prying into Mare’s business. In the end, she’d hate him.
This gloomy line of thought went nowhere, because the room suddenly turned black. Not dark, but as black as a starless night. Frank looked in Mare’s direction. He couldn’t see her, but he could sense that she was still there, breathing but invisible. A strong gust of wind ruffled his hair, which was impossible. The wind was cold enough to prick his skin, raising goose bumps. He heard Mare gasp, and Frank reached out into the surrounding darkness, catching her arm. There was no golden church between them, no cramped apartment even. They were standing outside on a chilly night.
“What’s happening?” he asked, but the words made no sound, the way words in a dream don’t make a sound.
Even if Mare had heard him though, there was no time for her to answer. From behind them Frank caught voices. He whipped around, his right shoulder hitting up against a rough plastered wall. The voices continued, quiet and close by. There were two people, a man and a woman. They spoke in a foreign language. No sense came through, but the woman sounded bewildered and scared. The man sounded older, and his voice was calm, as if he was trying to reassure her.
The blackness obscured everything. Frank jumped when Mare’s hand found his and clutched it tight. If he was delusional, she was right there with him.
He tried talking again. “Where are we?”
Mare gave no sign of hearing him, but the impenetrable darkness cleared a bit. The plastered wall that Frank had banged his shoulder against belonged to a house; there were windows high up that cast a faint glimmer of flickering candles or oil lamps. He realized that he wasn’t afraid. His heart didn’t pound in his chest; his legs weren’t rubbery. The whole thing was more trancelike than frightening.
The two people who were talking came closer, then stopped. He could hear the woman breathing raggedly; she was quite agitated. The man said only a few words more, and then he turned to walk away. He was headed in their direction. Frank pulled Mare beside him and pressed his back to the wall. The man’s approaching steps were measured, and when he got nearer, Frank could make out the silhouette of someone shorter than himself. He wore sandals that flopped against the cobblestones, and each step made a swishing sound, as if he was dressed in robes. If he was armed, the dim light didn’t catch the glint of steel. A minute later, he was right on top of them, two figures pressed against the wall.
Now Frank was afraid. His pulse thudded in his ears, and it took all his willpower to stand there. The man must be used to moving around in the dark. He had to see them. But he gave no sign, not turning his head or changing his gait as he passed in the narrow alley. The flop of sandals began to fade away.
Suddenly the woman ran after him, crying out. She rushed by so close that her skirt brushed Frank’s leg; in the dark he made out that she was quite tiny. Her cry was that of a girl, not a woman. The man didn’t stop. She cried out again, and a shutter swung open overhead. Someone leaned out, waving an oil lamp to see what the commotion was.
Almost with a click, Frank was back in Mare’s apartment, holding on to his end of the golden church. The other end was trembling.
“You saw it too?” he mumbled. Mare could barely hold on to her end, and they lowered the church together to the floor. Mare sank down beside it.
“Oh, my God,” she mumbled.
He sat down next to her, taking her hand. It felt very cold and small. Frank wasn’t so dazed that his mind wasn’t working. He could feel a crack in his skepticism.
“It was your prayer. What else could have triggered something like that? I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there.”
“Where is there?” Mare asked weakly.
He was at a loss. Between them sat the golden shrine, glowing by the light of the dangling bulb in its paper lantern. The scene was more or less the same as when Frank first walked in. The only thing that had changed was a small sign, white with red lettering, hanging right in front of him. It didn’t matter that the sign was invisible, because the lettering was unmistakable: “No Exit.” Frank could bet on that.