Chapter 15

Arcadia

Of course, my saying the mantra all night didn’t get us closer to solving what it actually meant.

But that didn’t stop our momentum.

“Okay, monster hunters,” Sam called from the front seat of the car. “Almost in Arcadia. It’s time for our daily recap. Why are we heading here?”

I cleared my throat and began. “The third stanza in Taylor’s poem is from the point of view of a bat.”

Gabe chimed in. “And the bat talks about a memento mori.”

“I thought it was someone’s name. But of course it’s Latin.”

“It means ‘a reminder of death.’”

“That’s creepy,” Sam said. “So why aren’t we looking for someplace called Memento or Mori?”

“If I may continue,” I continued. “The poem links to the chapter called ‘The Witch’s Familiar.’”

“Let me guess,” Sam said. “The familiar is a bat?”

“I knew you were a secret fan of the book!” I said. “The witch is named Cassandra Gray, and she is awesome. She flies around at night kicking butt and casting spells on people who have wronged her and her monster friends.” I started making “piew piew piew” noises, so Gabe picked up the story.

“Cassandra wears a charm that her zombie friend made for her, and it has the words ‘Et in Arcadia ego’ carved on it.”

I pulled out my notebook and read a selection, doing my best to sound like an awesome-cool English witch.

As Cassandra flew over New York, she spied Marion running through the rain-soaked alleyways. His own battalion was in hot pursuit, guns at the ready. He was unarmed, having denounced the tools of violence that had made him a soldier. A soldier for a cause he no longer believed in.

“Marion, run!” Cassandra called. But her voice was swallowed up by the fog and gloom.

“Traitor,” they had called him.

“Hero” and “friend” were the words she chose.

There was a shot, and Marion fell.

Cassandra’s rage knew no bounds.

Marion had once saved Cassandra on the battlefield.

Now she had to save him.

Another shot rang out as the witch hurtled toward earth, her broom nearly breaking apart with the speed.

As she reached the rooftops, the soldiers looked up, their eyes wide with horror.

In a flash she was upon them, kicking, slashing, casting spells.

In seconds, she had defeated them all. They lay unconscious at her feet.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEEP!

All of a sudden, Sam’s phone beeped loudly.

“Uh, you wanna answer that?” I said.

“Finish the story!”

Ooh! She was gripped.

I resumed the narration.

“Cassandra,” said a weak voice.

A mere glance at Marion showed Cassandra that she was too late. Life was leaving him.

“I will save you,” she said.

“No. I know what that will do to you. My life is not worth that.”

“It’s my choice.” She closed her eyes and laid her hands on his wound.

Lightning flashed as Cassandra spoke the words that would transfer the last of her sun magic to him. The magic flowed from her fingertips.

Was the cost too great?

Cassandra saved Marion, knowing that doing so sentenced them to never-ending separation.

Marion now rises at dawn to wander the world alone. Each night, he must die again.

With only her moon magic remaining, Cassandra must escape the sun’s rays or she too will die.

For only a fleeting moment, at dawn and sunset, can they dare to exchange a greeting before each must flee to safety.

Now Cassandra has only her beloved familiar to ease her loneliness.

She holds up the memento mori Marion left for her one day in her belfry home.

She gazes at it when she misses him and reads the words: “Et in Arcadia ego.”

“It’s all so creepily Gothic I could just die!” I said.

“Et in Arcadia ego means ‘There I also dwell,’” Gabe said. “When you jam the Latin and the translation together, you get ‘I live in Arcadia.’”

BEEP! BEEP! BEEEP!

Sam still ignored the phone.

I cut in. “Anyway, to make a short story long, Taylor is telling us to look for a church in the town of Arcadia, Indiana, because the bat and Cassandra ‘dwell’ in the tower of an abandoned church during the daylight hours.”

“We think the clue must be hidden somewhere up in the belfry,” Gabe said.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEEP!

Sam tossed her phone back to me. “Figure out why it’s making that noise.”

I picked up the beeping phone off the seat next to me and read the screen.

“There’s a text. It says, ‘Alert. Tornado warning. Morgan County. 9 a.m. to noon.’” I looked outside. Dark clouds were gathering around us. “OMG!!! That’s here!” I yelled.

“That’s now!” Gabe said.

At that precise moment, the skies opened up.

The wind howled.

A bolt of lightning struck a telephone pole just as we drove past it. The thunder shook the car.

Gabe and I hugged and prepared for the worst.

“I think I hear a tornado!” Gabe yelled.

“We’re all going to diiiiiiiiie!” I yelled.

“If you two don’t calm down right now, a tornado will be the least of your worries,” Sam said.

Rain began to pour down like someone had turned a hose on our windshield.

Sam cursed under her breath as the storm intensified. She hit the hazard lights and clutched the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Gabe and I kept hugging. I’m not sure who was shaking more.

Then another flash of lightning illuminated—

“A bell tower! Over there!” I yelled, pointing toward the church.

Sam swerved, and we sped off the road and onto a soaking wet gravel parking lot. The tires spun as the car slid across the slick stones.

Lightning struck the bell tower, sending electric blue spikes down to the ground.

And that revealed a low stone wall.

“We’re headed right for it!” I yelled.

Sam slammed on the brakes. They squealed, and the car began to rumble and bounce. Then we stopped. I could see the stone wall just outside my door.

“And that’s how a boss parks a car,” Sam said. She turned off the engine.

The double doors of the church swung slightly in the wind about twenty feet away.

“Let’s make a run for it,” Sam said. “It’s just a little rain.”

Little rain? Who was she, Thor?

“Can’t we get closer first?” I asked.

The wind roared, and I’m pretty sure I saw a tree and a cow flying past us. Why was nature always out to get me?

“Forget running,” I said. “Staying in the car has got to be way safer.”

“I don’t think you know how tornados work,” Sam said. “This is the worst place to be right now.”

“I’ll take my chances.” I looked out at the driving rain. “Maybe you’ve noticed that your brother and I are not wearing bathing suits.”

“I’m not either, doofus.” Sam pointed at the church. “We’re heading there—now.” Rummaging around on the floor, she found an old newspaper. She spread it over her head and opened her door. “Follow me on three.”

She got out.

“One . . .”

Gabe started to open his door, but that was hard with me grabbing on to him for dear life. The rain was joined by pellets of hail.

“Two . . .”

The rain fell harder.

I shook my head. “We are never—”

“THREE!”

Sam sped away and disappeared through the doors.

I was still holding on to Gabe.

“I just saved your life, Gabe. And my sweater.”

“It’s just rain,” he said.

“It’s a TYPHOON!”

“We have an umbrella.” Gabe reached under the seat in front of him and pulled out something that might once have been a working umbrella but now resembled a mangled spider.

“It looks like something Jimi tried to fix,” I said.

“It’ll keep us dry.” He opened his door all the way.

“Are you bonkers?” I asked. “An umbrella attracts lightning.”

“Um, no. Science.” Gabe stepped outside and opened it up. It had so many holes, it stopped precisely zero percent of the driving rain.

“You look like a demented Mary Poppins.”

A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.

Gabe shrieked, tossed the umbrella to the ground and leapt back into the car, soaked completely through.

“Next great idea?” he said, shivering.

Before I could answer, there was a loud thump on his window.

“AHHH!”

Gabe and I jumped.

A shadow filled the window.

“The angel of death,” I whispered. “I knew it!”

Then a face appeared. A kindly woman smiled.

“I’m Darlene Stamford,” she said, cupping a hand around her mouth to be heard through the door.

Gabe opened the window a crack.

“I’m the minister here. Your sister suggested you might need some help?”

Darlene was wearing a dark suit and a white collar. The shadow we’d seen was an enormous umbrella. It appeared to have steel girders helping it withstand the wind.

Darlene noticed me eyeing the contraption. “Yes, we do get some very epic storms around here. Helps to be prepared. Your sister came and found me. I told her to wait inside. C’mon, let’s get you two some hot chocolate.”

Magic words.

The wind died down. The rain seemed to lessen. The lightning and thunder moved farther away. Birds tweeted.

Gabe and I poured out of the car and under the wide berth of Darlene’s umbrella.

To tell the truth, the rain was still beating down pretty hard.

We hustled toward the church. The spire rose so high it seemed to be lost in the low clouds. The rain made the old stone slick and glossy, like a giant candle.

“It’s a beautiful old church,” I said.

“Mm-hmm. And much drier inside than in your old car!” She let out a loud throaty laugh. I liked her instantly. “But you’re right—built just after the town was settled, about two hundred years ago or so. But the bell is the real beauty.”

Gabe and I exchanged looks.

“The bell?”

“Mm-hmm. It was made just after the Civil War. Out of melted-down bullets and cannonballs. That’s a powerful image of peace, if you ask me.” She lifted her head. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares . . . And nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Amen.”

As we approached the doors, I looked down and saw two deep grooves filled with water. Tire tracks. But there were no other cars in the parking lot.

We walked inside.

Sam was sitting by a warm radiator, sipping a cup of tea. She had a large blanket wrapped around her.

“Your hair looks like wet snakes,” I said.

“You’re lucky Darlene is a better human being than I am,” Sam said, then sneezed. “I’d have left you in the car until tomorrow.”

I pretended to be offended. Darlene had already told us that Sam had asked for her help.

“You are a monster,” I said.

“From you, that’s a compliment. But next time I tell you to run, RUN!”

I pinched my sweater sleeve and smiled. “And yet, I’m safe and bone dry.”

She scowled and sneezed again. “I notice you let my little brother take the brunt of the storm.”

Gabe looked down at the pool of water that had formed around his sneakers. “Good for flowers, good for me,” he said with his patented shrug.

Sam decided her tea was more interesting than this conversation and turned away.

“The storm warning is still on for a little bit,” Darlene said. “But the worst does seem to have passed.”

A ray of light even shined through a window, sending a beam of gold across the floor.

“Before the hot chocolate, can we have a look at the bell tower?” I asked Darlene.

She got a strange look on her face. “Wow! Three months with barely a visitor, and now two people on the same day wanna see our bell.”