Page 94 of Winterset
We passed the portraits tilted against the wall, then ducked under a low beam. She slowed when we reached the attic corner. Thebarrencorner.
I glanced around the space skeptically.
“Look closely,” she said and pointed at the wall.
Squinting, I could see the faintest outline of a piece of furniture and a smoke stain on the wall above it. But I couldn’t guess what might be remarkable about this corner. I looked at her in question.
“I believe Mrs. Owensby told you about Winterset’s tragic history?” she said.
“She did ... Am I about tobecomepart of this tragic history?” I eyed her teasingly.
“What?” Kate laughed. “Of course not!”
I glanced at the wall again, thinking I might find evidence of another priest hide, but saw nothing. “So, you brought me up to this hidden part of the attic to ... ?”
“Show you some of the things the priests left behind.”
Thatgot my attention. “They left things behind?”
“They did.” She took a tentative step forward, tapping the floor with her toe. She did so a few times until she heard a hollow sound. She knelt and lifted the floorboard to reveal a small space. There was something inside, but it was covered with cloth.
Kate carefully peeled back the cloth, then looked at me as if to gauge my reaction.
It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. Candlesticks, a platter, a cross; the vessels once used for mass. “I can’t believe it,” I said, kneeling beside her. “How long have these relics been here?”
“Likely since the time of Queen Elizabeth.” Kate grinned at me.
“Over three hundred years.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Incredible. May I?” I looked at her in question.
“Of course. This house and everything inside it are yours.”
Not everything.
When I made no move to retrieve the relics, Kate lifted one of the candlesticks toward me. I knelt beside her and took it. I turned the sacred item over in my hands. It was heavy. Silver. “There is a small fortune here,” I said. “It is a wonder these items have not been sold.”
“I believe they would have been had anyone before me discovered them.”
“What did your father think of these?”
“He didn’t know,” I admitted.
“You never showed him?”
“He forbade me from coming up to the attic. With the exposed nails and uneven floorboards, he thought it was too dangerous. And if I’d told him about these, he would have known I’d been disobedient.”
“You havealwaysbeen sneaky?” I grinned at her.
“I have always beencurious.” She corrected.
“Curious Kate,” I said, trying the moniker on for size. “I like it.”
“I don’t. I already feel bad about disobeying him. You have no need to tease me,Odious Oliver.”
“Nowwho’s teasing?” I bumped my shoulder lightly into hers.
Even in the dark, I saw how her cheeks pinked. I liked it. I liked that I’d been the one to put it there.
I turned back to the relics, put the candlestick back in its hiding place, then ran my hands reverently over the other items: the lavabo dish used for washing hands, a chalice that once held wine as well as the matching communion cups, and the patten that had held the bread.
