When the jaws of time open wide
Mouths not to speak, clues to guide
Destruction marches forward, a veiled threat to all
To break the cycle, to stop the fall
Eternal Triad can end evil untold
Because time, never ending, salvation will uphold
Sacrifice the one, deny the four, kneel the Sentinels, the eight to fight.
Smother the darkness, shed the light.
My mind grabs onto “Jaws of time” ... the clock in the Sanctum has skulls whose jaws opened when the clock started running again. “What do we do with this?” I shake the notebook at JJ. “It doesn’t tell us much.”
“That's what we need to figure out,” Aaron adds.
“Leave Biz out of this, please.” Even if the intent is to unscramble this screwy cipher message, her involvement will rip her from me. I know it will.
“Bizzy knows a lot aboutThe Divinities. What if she is the only one who can crack this riddle?” Aaron asks, his eyes narrowed.
There has to be another way. JJ, Rob, and Birman got this far… now Aaron and I can help. No. She has to stay out of it.
Standing up, I hand the notebook back to JJ. “She’s already suspicious. If you tell her anything or ask her about the painting, it pulls her in deeper. She’s your friend… do you really want to jeopardize her safety that way?”
“You have a point,” JJ admits.
“She’s already involved,” Aaron says, scratching his neck. “No way she lets this go.”
A surge of anger grips me as I point at my roommate. “Because you told me about the painting knowing I’d tell her. If I lose her… if something happens to her, it’ll be your fault.”
Chapter Seventeen
Elizabeth Housman
There’s a park near JJ’s apartment where we both enjoy people watching for inspiration. On this unseasonably warm early May day, I’m perched on a picnic table, sketching the split oak near the road while he busies himself interrupting me.
“You are going to the party tonight, right?”
Shifting to avoid wood splinters, I smooth down my jean shorts. “That’s the plan.”
He’s been flipping through one of my sketchbooks, telling me which pieces he wants. I humor him by agreeing, fully intending to keep them for Eric.
“Turns out yours truly is attending now.”
“Huh. Are you being bribed?”
JJ is more at home shoeless, in mismatched, oversized clothing, his hair unkempt. My mom would call him a hippie.
I find him lovable. One of my best friends, he and I share an affinity for all things art related.
“Hardy har. I’m going on a fact-finding mission of sorts.”
“Oh? Do tell… does it have anything to do with a certain painting disappearing and then magically reappearing?” No matter how many times JJ and Eric tell me to let it go, I can’t.
It’s been a week. Every day, I slip away to check on it. When the real painting turned up back in the chapel, I realized the thief’s goal wasn’t the actual painting. Maybe they were trying to get something from it.
