Page 64 of In the Pursuit of Haven
And now we were sealed inside this tiny passageway. My heart fluttered against my ribcage. Closing ourselves off in here wasn’t the wisest thing, but Hunter was messing with the wrong woman. He wasn’t getting to this map, not if I could help it.
There was nowhere to go but forward. Breathing heavily, I did my best to shut my imagination off to whatever was sharing this darkness with us. Dirt clung to my skin as I wriggled through and plummeted down a steep ledge. Unable to keep back my shriek, I hit a cobbled floor at the bottom.
Jesse toppled after me. His flashlight rolled across the ground, illuminating a strange kind of cavern.
I wasn’t sure what we were seeing. It looked like a mausoleum from this angle. Had Hunter actually gotten it right? How could this all possibly be under the cemetery? I straightened, every part of me trembling and out of control as Jessie ran his flashlight over this strange underground sanctuary. We’d officially entered the Twilight Zone.
I knew the retaining walls to the cemetery meant these grounds ran deep, but I had no idea how far down this could really go!
Caskets were lined up in a somber order. “What is this?” Jessie asked.
“It’s a—a… I don’t know.”
Jessie’s flashlight ran over me next. My knee was skinned where it had run into the wall on my way through, and I knew I looked like I’d been through a rock tumbler. Jessie had also been through it—his face was scraped up. Dirt caked his neck. His jeans were ripped. Backing up against him, I stole his flashlight to check out these elaborate burial grounds for myself.
The aisles of tombs were untouched by time; other than an occasional flood, they weren’t in as bad a shape as the ones aboveground. My pulse quickened when I recognized the names engraved in the stone.
Well, well… Reverend Higginsonhadbeen busy, and yet the rumor about the last bad flood sending caskets flying through the pub on Liberty Street should’ve given me a clue that something was off about this cemetery. I knew that the reverend had objected to the witch trials, but his rebellion had gone a step further than we suspected… if he’d truly been the one behind this.
This was huge! We’d found our missing witches, and yes, they’d quite literally been buried deep into hallowed ground.
I could just imagine the headlines that would go with a find like this. The map we were hunting couldn’t possibly be as important.
When I found Ann Dolliver’s name, a surge of emotion I wasn’t expecting squeezed my chest. Was this truly where the reverend’s daughter had been laid to rest and not just a memorial?
It would be truly miraculous. My hand ran over the smooth stone and the loving epitaph. Something like this could only be crafted by the hands of someone who loved her.
Jessie let out a surprised shout to the side of me. Both of his hands landed on the casket next to Ann’s. “Crabb! You old pirate! You’re here.”
“I don’t think you should disturb…” I whispered.
Jessie was already pushing the stone open, and I took a few steps back. “This place seems like it would have booby traps.”
“Booby traps?” His eyes met mine. They glittered under the flashlight he set to the side. “Man, I love you, Roxy.”
He loves me?
A loud crash followed his words and the ground shook. I fell against Ann’s tomb with a scream. The stone holding in the wily old pirate split in half. Jessie turned to me with a wry look. Sometimes, I really hated being right. His brow arched up at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” My answer came out a little uneven.
He turned back, hesitating before reaching inside and tugging out a leathery document.
Wow. This was all so unreal.
“I’ve got it,” he breathed out. A smirk took over his face, creasing into deep dimples on either side of his cheeks. He was legitimately holding a treasure map. The significance wasn’t lost on me. His family had pursued this for centuries. They’d spilt their own blood for it.
My hand went to my mouth as we stared at it in silence.
A bump farther away in the walls propelled us to action. Jessie folded the map under his arm. “We’ve got to find the back way out of here.”
Yeah, talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Hunter was on the other side of this with guns. Jessie moved to the far side of the tomb to the pile of rocks that seemed to be holding up the back wall. He began pulling them out of the way. “I can hear cars on the other side of this.”
Did this make up one of the retaining walls on the other side of us then? To Derby Street or Liberty?
“We can’t just break through!” I said. The ground would be frozen and hard from winter—just trying to dig our way out would alert everyone to our presence down here. “If we get caught…?”
His eyes met mine. “It’s not the end of the world if everyone else knows about this tomb, Roxy. I hate the thought of Hunter and his team looking like heroes as much as you do once this secret gets out, but we’ll be long gone.”
