I concentrated, trying to force my mind to retrieve something more useful from my vision than this solitary moment.
A hard pinch on my arm made my eyes flutter open.
“Cassie, good. You’re back. We need to get out of here.” Simone was pulling me up. “I’ll help you walk.”
I struggled to stand. I hated the feeling of being weak and fragile after an echo tracing. Then I noticed that something was wrong. “Wait, where’s Asher?”
Simone scowled. “He’s gone.”
“What?” I must’ve not understood what she said.
“The cop … he was coming this way, and you were out of it.” Simone put her arm under mine for support and helped me get moving. “So Asher took off, hoping that the officer would chase him and he’d buy us some time.”
“Why would you let him do that?” I complained even though I knew it was futile at this point. “We’re supposed to stick together. I need him in order to use the spear.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think it was a good idea, either, but it seemed to work.”
I gathered up my strength and trudged to the corner, peeking out at the busy road. “How does he expect us to find him in this place?”
Simone shrugged. “He said he’d find us. To just get you away from this street and go to that small marina on the map.”
I had the same feeling as in the echo tracing. I was with people, but still felt like I was in this mess by myself. I’d be facing the storm alone. And maybe that was the way it was always supposed to be. “With or without him, I’m going to get the spear,” I muttered. “I’m too close to let anything stop me.”
Simone gave me a strange look.
I realized how that sounded. “You know what I mean … we’ve come too far not to finish things. We have to get the spear away from your mom in order to make things right again.”
“Yeah, I know. It just didn’t sound like you.”
I shrugged off her comment. “Okay, so …” I pulled out the map, not wanting to waste any more time. “Up ahead … we can take Via dei Tribunali, then cut back down this other street that leads toward the water.”
“You feel up to walking that far?” Simone asked, her eyes still showing some concern.
“Yeah.” I nodded, my mind more focused than ever on changing the future. “I’ll stop to catch my breath if I have to, but I don’t want to waste any more time.”
All I wanted was to get to the spear. Once I had it, everything would work out. I could make things right again. It was part of my destiny and I was learning to accept it.
Via dei Tribunali turned out to be a narrow pedestrian street with shops on either side, and there were enough people walking around that we blended into the crowds. The stone buildings seemed to get older with each passing block, and when we reached a series of arches in front of a building with crumbling columns, I stopped to check the map once more.
“Cassie, look … that skull.”
“Huh?”
Simone pointed to a sign hanging from scaffolding across the street. A small church was being restored, and there, on the banner over the front door, was a picture of a skull with angel wings on either side.
“Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco,” Simone read out loud. “That picture has what looks like an angel’s skull on it, and the church has the words Souls of Purgatory in the title … Isn’t that kinda what your dad wrote about? Lost souls and stuff?”
“Yeah,” I said. She was right, but I didn’t have the energy to get excited about anything other than the spear. I just wanted to get to the port. “We can come back later. After we get the spear.”
“But we’re already here.” Simone tugged on my hand and pulled me closer to the church entrance. “I have a hunch. We should at least take a look. See what’s inside.”
“Simone …” But my protests fell on deaf ears. Simone was already passing a small stone pillar with a brass skull on it and going into the church. I followed her inside, noticing a small sign by the main door stating that tours were given every hour on the hour. I made a mental note that we were not going to stick around for any tour, no matter how much Simone begged. We’d be here for five minutes … tops.
As Simone wandered around the nearly empty church, I stayed close to the entrance. From my vantage point, the space looked like so many other beautiful but small Italian churches. It was ornate with marble and gold leaf decorating the walls and painted archways highlighting statues. There were pews lined up toward the front of the church, where a large Renaissance-style painting loomed large above a small altar. A painted cupola allowed natural light into the building. It was full of grandeur and opulence, not what one expected to see among the small shops and apartments that lined the street outside.
“Psst.” Simone motioned for me to join her as a young woman wearing a blue blazer and khaki pants handed her a flyer and walked away.
I hurried over, hoping that Simone had gotten her fill of the place so we could go.
“So, did you find it?” I asked, looking around for the picture of the angel’s skull that we’d seen outside, but not seeing it. “Can we get going?”
“Look behind the altar, underneath the painting.”
My eyes shifted over and there it was: the stucco of the skull with wings. Still, it didn’t shed any light on how we would discover the special fire that was described in the Guardian’s Journal.
“Perfect. Now we know where it is,” I said, trying to get us back on track. “Once we find Asher and get the spear, we can come and look to see if there’s a reference to a fire or something.”
“That’s just it.” Simone smiled. “According to what that tour guide told me … I think the answer is right under our feet.”
I looked down at the marble floor.
“No, not the floor.” Simone arched a single eyebrow. “A mirror church underneath us.”
“A what?”
“It’s an exact copy of this building, built underground for the dead. She offered to give us a tour in about twenty minutes, but I paid her a little extra to let us go down there and explore on our own now.”
“Simone, we can do all this later after we find Asher and the spear.”
“But this place closes early … We might not get another chance. Come on.” Simone pulled my arm. “It won’t take long. If there’s nothing there, we leave.”
We entered a dark passageway and descended a stone staircase. A light flickered above us as we exited onto a balcony overlooking the underground church.
A slight gasp escaped my lips as I gazed down below.
It was an eerie replica of the church above us … minus any of the decorations, marble columns, or artwork. There were no pews and no altar. The walls here were stripped bare, not even covered with a single coat of paint, and the entire place was dimly lit. On the far wall, there was a large black cross and nothing else. It looked like something out of a movie. A scary movie.
“This place is so incredibly awesome,” Simone whispered, rushing down the stairs to explore the area.
I hesitated. It felt like we were dropping down into another world. A place of death.
“C’mon, Cassie,” Simone called out, her voice reverberating through the empty room.
As much as Simone seemed to be enjoying this, I hated it. This was not where I wanted to be. I watched as Simone disappeared through an archway, leaving me by myself up on the balcony. But being alone in a place like this was far worse than exploring with Simone.
I raced down the steps to find her.
Once at the bottom, I looked around the cavernous church. Without pews or an altar, the place seemed less like a church and more like an empty shell.
“Simone?” My voice echoed eerily in the space. “Where are you? We need to go.”
“Here,” she answered, sounding upbeat. She really did like all this stuff. “Wait till you see this.”
I reluctantly trudged toward her voice. I found her in a room off to the s
ide of the main church. “Can we go? I don’t …” I stopped talking as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The place was full of skulls and bones. They were stacked in cubbyholes along the wall and on the floor. “Whoa … are all these real?”
Simone nodded. “The tour guide upstairs says they used to bury bodies down here and that people pray for the souls that might be in purgatory.” She gestured at the flowers and notes that were tucked in among the bones. “See, they leave things for the dead. Isn’t it freaky cool?”
I glanced around at all the bones, my skin crawling with goose bumps. “Okay, but there isn’t a fire that can release destiny in here, so let’s go.” I rubbed my arms. “You know I don’t like this stuff.”
“Are you looking for something?” a raspy voice asked from the far corner of the room.
A woman with long, gray hair stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing a black dress, and I noticed that there was a chair next to a stone pillar where she must have been sitting.
“We were just leaving,” I replied, not wanting to intrude on whatever she had been doing.
“You speak English,” Simone noted, taking a step closer to her. “Can you tell us a little more about this place?”
The old woman looked at the entrance behind me. “You came alone? No tour guide?”
“She said we could look around on our own,” Simone answered.
“Mm-hm.” The old woman stared past Simone and focused on me. “And you? Are you also interested in learning more?”
There was something about this woman that gave me the sensation that she either knew us or knew what we were doing. Or maybe I had seen a glimpse of her in the echo tracing. I wasn’t sure.
“Well?” The old woman had an irritated tone in her voice.
Simone nudged me, so I gave a small nod.
“All right.” She motioned for us to follow her back to the far end of the room, where we were surrounded by more skulls and bones. She pointed to them. “Here, in this place, alliances are formed. The living pray for lost souls with the hope that once those souls reach salvation, they will return the favor and help those that prayed for them. It’s a way to keep the fire burning.”
“Fire?” I asked. “Did you say fire?”
The old woman smiled. “I did. The fire of faith, but that’s not the one you seek … is it?”
Simone and I exchanged a quick glance. Did this woman know about the fire that was referenced in the Guardian’s Journal?
“You would be surprised at how much I see and hear. No one seems to notice when I come and go.” She sat down in the chair, and from a basket on the floor, she pulled out a pair of shiny scissors. Ignoring us, she began to cut small strings from a large embroidered cloth.
“Um, this fire that we’re looking for,” I said. “Do you know where we can find it?”
She didn’t look up. “Depends.”
“Depends on what?” Simone asked.
The old woman kept snipping away at the strings. “On whether you have the correct answer.” She put down the scissors and showed us the embroidered cloth she had been working on.
I drew closer to read the words written in gold thread.
From dawn to dusk we rise and grow,
Our scheduled destiny we always know,
To disappear into the night
Or choose a candle for the light.
We follow, mimic, or sit as stone
Fated to never call one our own.
“It’s a riddle,” Simone whispered.
“I know.” I reread the words. “I think it might be the sun,” I said to Simone.
“You have a guess?” the old woman asked. “You only get one chance.”
“Not yet,” Simone answered, then got close to my ear. “Look.” She pointed to the second half of the riddle. “The last lines don’t make sense if the answer is the sun. It’s got to be something else.”
“Time is up.” The old woman took back the cloth, folded it, and stuffed it into the basket along with the scissors. “What is your answer?”
I couldn’t think of what it could be. A person or thing that grows during the day, disappears at night, and copies another.
“Can we each get a guess?” Simone asked, trying to stall.
“No.” The woman picked up the basket and stared at me.
“And who exactly are you?” Simone continued talking while I kept thinking. “I mean, how do you have what we’re looking for?”
“I’m Aisa, and I’ve had it for a long time. But that’s enough questions.” I could hear her foot tapping under her long skirt. She was growing impatient. “Do you have an answer for me?”
“Um … I …”
The old woman turned her back on us. “You are no different. Your understanding is still cloaked.”
Cloaked. I looked at the dark corner behind the old woman. An answer hidden in the shadows. That was it.
“Shadow!” I shouted. “The answer is a shadow. It grows during the day, disappears at night, copies whatever the object does, and can never have one of its own.”
The old woman turned, a pleased look on her face. “Finally,” she muttered. She reached into her basket and gave me something wrapped in blue velvet. “Perhaps my sisters were right. You do have potential.”
“Sisters?” Simone asked.
The old woman shifted her gaze to Simone. “You … well, they’re not too fond of you,” she lamented. “Never a second chance for a first impression, but I believe in redemption.”
I eagerly tore aside the blue velvet. When the cloth fell away, it revealed a glass paperweight. Not exactly what I expected. “I don’t understand. What is this?”
“The fire. Once you are out of the shadows, and in the light, you will see the flame. Just remember to use it to see what is unseen.”
“Is that another riddle that—”
Voices carried into the room. Simone and I spun around, quickly realizing that a tour was being given in the main part of the underground church and that they would likely be coming in here to see the skulls and bones.
“You must go,” the old woman urged us to leave. “They will be coming in here soon.”
“But …” Simone wanted to ask more questions.
“Mi seguano.” The tour guide was already telling the tourists to follow her.
“This place is too small … someone might recognize me,” I said to Simone. “I have to go.”
Simone knew I was right and followed me as we made our way past the tour group, up the stairs, and into the well-lit upper church.
“What exactly did she give you?” Simone asked, looking around to make sure we were alone.
“I’m not sure.” I pulled out the glass object. It was in the shape of a leaf. It had swirls of red, yellow, and orange in the middle and, along the edges, the glass was tinted a dark green.
“Looks like a Murano glass paperweight.”
I held it up, and as I did it caught the sunlight, causing the center to sparkle and glow.
Simone bounced up and down. “Cassie! That looks like—”
“A flame!” I exclaimed, still staring at it. “I know.” I put my eye to the glass to see if it made things look different. I turned to the angel’s skull behind the altar to see if some secret knowledge would be revealed to me … but nothing happened. It was like looking through any other piece of tinted glass.
“It’s got to be the key to the code written in the Guardian’s Journal, right?” Simone was almost giddy with excitement. “We can use it to end all of this. That piece of glass might allow us to read what was written in the journal. Kinda like my match idea. You could go back to normal and not have to worry about choosing the future.”
“I guess so.” I slipped the “flame” into my jacket.
Simone scrunched her eyebrows together. “You don’t sound too thrilled.”
“I am. It’s just …” I cradled the glass ornament inside my pocket, then gave it a squeeze. “We don’t know what this all really mean
s or if this thing will actually help us free destiny. Getting the spear has to still be our first concern. For now, we need to keep our focus and hope Asher finds us.”
Simone snorted. “Yeah, sure, but can you imagine Asher’s face when we tell him what we found? He’s not going to believe it.”
I gave her a halfhearted smile, but I was now starting to worry about how this might affect things. If this was the key to releasing destiny, should we use it? Perhaps that wasn’t a good idea. How long had it been since destiny was truly free? There were some really bad people in the world, and they shouldn’t be allowed to shape our future. By using the spear I might be able to stop them. Become a real hero.
In fact, the more I thought about it, releasing destiny might be the worst idea of all.
We had finished walking down a long path of stairs that took us straight to the water’s edge, and still there was no Asher. I had assumed he’d wait for us somewhere along the way, but the fact that we were already by the marina made me worry.
“Do you think the cops got him?” Simone asked as we gazed out at all the boats.
“I don’t know.” I moved closer to the side of a nearby hotel, away from the outdoor cafés that lined the street. “If they did, we’re going to have to find a way to get him out.”
“Let me check something.” Simone squeezed into a narrow gap between two buildings and pulled out her wallet. “I have about seven hundred euros total,” she said, counting her money. “Is that enough for bail?”
“If he’s been arrested, they’re not going to let him out at all. He’s wanted for the death of his uncle.” If only Asher hadn’t taken off, we’d be on our way already. “We’re going to have to break him out somehow,” I said, thinking of the different scenarios we might face.
“Or we could get the spear without him,” Simone suggested.
“We can’t. He’s the only one who can get me out of the Realm of Possibilities and—”
“The Realm of what?” Simone interrupted.
Return Fire Page 9