Page 48 of In the Pursuit of Haven
She’d know exactly what to say. Sure, she was the worst when she thought I was making horrible mistakes, but she was also the best at comforting me after the consequences came back to bite me.
Taking a steadying breath, I tried again. “You were right, but I… I don’t want to let him go, just like you couldn’t let Matthew go, but I’m so scared.” My chin trembled. “I’m failing our marriage. I see the end of us in sight, and it feels like I can’t stop any of this, and the way he throws himself into danger and keeps it from me?” I shuddered in the cold and wrapped my arms around myself in the hug that Haven couldn’t give me. “I think you understand, and uh… I found your hidden room, by the way. I figured you wouldn’t mind me looking at your mystery board, but… I also don’t know where to turn anymore. What secrets did you stumble onto?”
Behind me a crack of something snapping sounded in the darkness.
I twisted around, my pulse shooting to the hundreds. Something with wings swooped past my head. Letting out a shriek, I threw my hands up to protect my face and ducked behind the gravestone. That had better be a bird, not a bat!
Haven knew how much bats freaked me out, but… I cracked a smile. What a way to break my sad mood. “Nice, Haven.”
My hand rested on the gravestone. Before I could straighten, I skimmed past the relevant dates to read the inscription on her gravestone: “Haven Story—Aunt, Friend, Sweetheart, Shepherd of the Relics.”
Interesting. That had been written on the silver handle of Corwin’s cane. In Latin it meant “Pastor’s remains,” but, wait…is she trying to tell me something?
The spurt of energy that had filled me at the sight of the bat shot me back to my feet. Patting Haven’s gravestone, I turned and went in search for Samuel Cheever’s gravestone on Ministers’ Row, strengthened as I remembered the romance of Haven hiding out here with Matthew.
I laughed under my breath, and felt overcome with wistfulness, too. That was their first kiss, in a place not too far from Jessie’s and mine.
Maybe this placewasa little magical.
It took me a while to find the reverend’s gravestone, though the full moon had finally drifted through the grumbling clouds to encircle the cemetery in its pale light.
I momentarily got distracted from my search when I saw the immensity of the burial place of my adopted ancestors—the Storys’ family tomb. These stone boxes had been sealed for a hundred years or more. Strange thought.
The huge cement tomb was an enclosed rectangular container above ground with a flat top. Inside would be stairs that led to a crypt below where the coffins could be stacked, one on top of the other; very similar to what was done in New Orleans, only this was underground.
It didn’t flood here, much… although I’d heard a few rumors about what happened to the Salem cemetery on Charter Street the last time it had. A coffin had gone careening into the main room of the tavern that had been built against the cemetery’s cobbled retaining wall where the coastline used to be.
The patrons had to jump out of the way of their crashing tables, their dinner interrupted with a ghoulish surprise.
It made me wonder how deep these crypts ran. The surface of that cemetery in the next town over was quite a ways above the tavern.
And now, looking at the Storys’ family tabletop tomb, I noticed multiple names written on the stone surface to represent who was buried here—two names had been completely redone, the others lost in the erosion of time. My fingers ran over them.
A hand landed against my back.
I screamed out and twisted around, seeing the man from the docks behind me. Without another thought, I scrambled away from him, my hip scraping against the cement tomb.
He held his hands out. “It’s all right! It’s all right! I’m not going to hurt you.”
His words took a second to penetrate my brain, though I was also very aware that a bad guy would also say this. That didn’t stop the flush of embarrassment heating my face. “Oi, aiii,” I tried to bite down the odd sounds my mouth was making. “You startled me,” I said finally.
“I came to pay my respects to your aunt and didn’t want to disturb you, but…”
I was taking a really long time talking things out with her.My face was burning by now. “How do you know my aunt or—or even me?”
His hands were still up and he’d taken a few steps back. “You’re very similar to her, uh…” His eyes swerved to my dark hair. But I actually didn’t get my looks from her at all—my mom was adopted. His lips curved up. “In mannerisms. She’s talked about you a lot and um, you called her ‘Auntie’ back there too, so… I figured… I had it right.”
I felt like an idiot. “Sorry for the heart attack,” I said.
“No, I apologize. I saw you yesterday too. The thing is… I met you when you were only a small thing, so I’d wondered when I saw you if you were who I thought, but, well… I think I might have scared you yesterday too.”
I laughed. This guy was growing on me the more humiliated I became.
Before I could ask for his name, he turned to look at the tomb. “Is this part of your family?”
“Distant relatives,” I said, pulling my hair from my scorching neck and face. The frigid breeze wasn’t cooling my embarrassment. “I’m just looking at the different gravestones while I’m here, trying to find something… special.”
His brows went up. That was a lousy explanation. He clasped his hands behind his back, tipping on the heels of his heavy brown leather shoes. He wore the same coat from yesterday, but had on a gray cable knit sweater and his hair was combed.
