Page 16 of What Happens at Nightfall

“The Vanderwilts didn’t stint themselves,” said Adam.

Unlike a TARDIS, the tomb was much smaller inside than out. The space they were standing in was only the size of a Manhattan apartment foyer, which in itself was roughly equivalent to a California bathroom. But every inch of that space was a riot of richness.

The walls weren’t the plain gray that Jess had expected, but a melody of colored marbles, from creamy beige to darkest chalcedony. Directly ahead, pink marble caryatids in Grecian drapery supported an arch in which two angels, white against a reddish background, held a winged urn in their clasped hands. But that was just the trimming. It was what was in the middle of the arch that caught the eye.

The light of a dozen squat candles glittered over a stained glass window in brilliant reds and yellows and blues. A woman, veiled, vaguely Biblical, stood in a landscape that could only be Green-Wood, but Green-Wood as imagined by Louis Comfort Tiffany, all stylized flowers and trees of a thousand shades of green and orange and yellow. The woman looked over her shoulder at the viewer, her veil slipping to show elaborately arranged hair, as though she had strayed on her way from Bethlehem to a Vanderbilt ball. Or a Vanderwilt ball. At her feet, on a curling scroll, were inscribed the words “Je Maintiendrai.”

In one arm, she held a stylized urn. In the other hand, she held—something. Jess couldn’t tell what it was, because there was a hole in the window where whatever it was had been.

Adam took a step forward and stopped abruptly as glass crunched under his feet.

“Damn it, Ben,” she heard him mutter.

He shone his flashlight at the floor, creating a dizzying rainbow, as light refracted off a confusion of colored shards. Some of the pieces were bigger than others. Except for the ones that Adam had stepped on, which had returned to their native dust.

Instinctively, Jess knelt—she was used to being the one cleaning up after everyone else—and picked up one of the larger pieces. She couldn’t resist running a finger along the gentle curve of the glass, a milky blue that shimmered the way opals were supposed to shimmer, but only rarely did. Even in fragmentary form, it was exquisite.

“What was this?”

“This,” said Adam succinctly, “was a stained glass orb that was part of that window. It is—was—very rare. There’s only one other three-dimensional window like it that anyone knows about, and that one’s in Woodlawn, in the Bronx.”

“You might be able to salvage some of it.” Hitching her bag higher on her shoulder so that it wouldn’t fall and crush any other bits by accident, Jess bent over, gently assembling the larger shards. The leading was so fine, it was almost invisible.

“I can’t believe Ben did this.” Self-blame leeched through Adam’s words like a stain seeping across the stone.

“This doesn’t look like a complete write-off.” Jess looked up at Adam. “My mother runs a gallery. I’ve done my fair share of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. Trust me, I’ve seen worse.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Too late. “Ouch.”

Adam hunkered down next to her, taking her hand and turning it palm side up. A tiny speck of blood welled up from the ball of her index finger. “You’ve cut yourself.”

“It’s just a scratch.” Jess stuck her finger in her mouth, sucking the blood away. “See? Nothing to write home about.”

“You’re bleeding again.” Adam set down his flashlight, bulb up. “Hold on. I have a Band-Aid in my pocket.”

Adam produced not only a Band-Aid but a slightly crushed tube of Neosporin from his fleece pocket.

“If you hold still . . .” He cradled her hand gently in his, rubbing in a dab of ointment before expertly tearing open the Band-Aid with his teeth and applying it one-handed with the aplomb of Zorro carving a letter in a wall.

“Thank you, Mary Poppins.” Jess inspected her finger, which now sported a crumpled picture of Peppa Pig. “Or should I say Mummy Pig?”

Adam rose easily to his feet, holding out a hand to help Jess up. “I prefer Bluey, but we stockpiled these during the pandemic, when you could only buy things in enormous quantities, and we’re still using them up, much to Ben’s distress.”

We. Jess wondered what the story was there. A lot of couples had broken up over the pandemic, the sudden, intense proximity laying bare incompatibilities usually hidden by distance. In the general rush of cohabitation, she and her then boyfriend had tried a precipitate experiment in communal living that had led to an even quicker breakup. Not that she’d ever believed it would last. Not really.

Jess took the hand Adam offered her, rising stiffly to her feet, careful not to step on any precious glass. “If we could find a box to put this in . . .”

Adam released her hand. “Leave it. I’ll talk to the conservators tomorrow, but I’m not sure what they can do.”

Jess’s fingers felt very cold. She stuck them in her pocket. “Can you lose your job over this?”

“No. It’s my wife’s family’s crypt, so theoretically we can do whatever we like with it.” His lips tightened, and Jess wondered, again, what had happened there. None of her business. “There was one man—a century ago—who used to have parties on the grounds of his mausoleum. While he was still alive.”

“Better than after.”

“After, we don’t know about.”