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Just as the thought occurred to her, a cold sting of wind whizzed past, gusting in from the direction of the harbor. Sharp and knifelike, it carried the scent of the salty sea air. It made her hair whip at her face while, above, she heard one of the flag lines clank against its metal pole.
Isobel grabbed the cuffs of her long-sleeved T-shirt and pulled them down over her fists. She hunched her shoulders as she hurried to the curb where the Cadillac waited.
Opening the rear passenger door, she all but fell into the backseat, where she found her backpack waiting for her.
With the winds picking up, she only had to pull lightly on the handle and the door swung shut on its own. Behind them, someone laid on their horn.
Without so much as a “long time no see” to Isobel, Gwen cranked down her window, just enough to stick her head out and shout “Bite me!” at top volume. The offending car blasted its horn again in a string of Morse-code bursts. Collapsing back into her seat, Gwen shifted the car into gear. She put her foot to the pedal, and Isobel was slammed backward as they lurched away from the curb.
Other horns joined in now, honking like a flock of feather-ruffled geese.
“Try telling him!” Gwen railed at the surrounding cars. “Think anybody here’s ever heard of the phrase go around? Look at the blinkers, you schmendricks. When the blinkers are blinking, that doesn’t mean you sit there and blink with them. You go around!”
As they gained speed, Isobel twisted to peer through the rear window. She saw the young waitress staring after them. Dropping her cigarette, she stamped it out with one foot, crossed her arms against the cold, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“What is it?” Gwen asked. “Somebody see you?”
“Gwen, to quote you directly, I think everybody saw.”
Gwen switched lanes, putting on her signal before veering left as the light changed. “Did you expect me to just put up with that back there?” Isobel heard a click from the dashboard area, followed by a burst of heat. “By the way, I hope you packed a coat in your bag of tricks back there, ’cause it’s supposed to start snowing, and there’s no way we’re playing pass-the-parka with mine.”
Isobel grabbed her backpack and, placing her thumb under the silver wings of the butterfly watch, popped them open to reveal the time as just after eight.
“Gwen, they locked the cemetery gates an hour ago,” Isobel said. “How are we supposed to get in?”
“Actually, they locked them an hour and seven minutes ago, if you want to get technical about it,” Gwen said. “On the website, Westminster lists their hours as eight until “dusk,” and I have to say, they were pretty accurate.”
“Wait a second, you were there?” Isobel grabbed the seat in front of her and leaned forward as Gwen made yet another turn.
“Of course I was there,” Gwen said. “What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? Crocheting mittens? It’s called doing reconnaissance. Why aren’t you wearing your seat belt?”
“Jeez, Gwen! You could have texted me. I mean, I’ve been going crazy thinking you might be stranded on the side of the road somewhere or lost or, I don’t know, kidnapped!”
Gwen rounded the next curve, then slowed to a stop as the traffic light switched from yellow to red. Around them, the glowing window fronts of bars and businesses grew fewer and farther between. The number of pedestrians plodding along began to dwindle as well.
“While you seem to underestimate my abilities concerning self-preservation,” Gwen said, making a point to press down on her door’s locking mechanism, “I think you also over estimate my creativity. So sorry if I couldn’t think of a good New York–related activity that might accurately compare to scouting a creepy fan-freak-filled cemetery. Did you know there was a guy in there actually dressed as a raven? At least I think it was a guy. Not to mention that I was a little busy trying to explain how I’d found my way into the catacombs when they did the five-man sweep to clear the grounds before locking the place up!”
“Wait,” Isobel said. “Did you say catacombs?”
“Yeah,” Gwen said, “I did. But it’s not underground like you’d think. Not really. Turns out the whole church was built on top of a huge portion of the graveyard. I found them by slipping in through one of the gated doors on the side of the church.”
Isobel yanked off her shoes as she listened. She dug to the bottom of her backpack, took out the hiking boots, and pulled them on. Next, she rifled through the pile of clothes and took out the black hoodie she’d borrowed from Danny’s closet. She drew it on over her head and tugged it down, grateful for the fleece lining. Finally she went to unroll Varen’s jacket.
“I thought the door led to a cellar where we could hide,” Gwen went on, “but guess again. Now, I can’t say it’s the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, but at least it cuts down on the wind. I figured it’s as good a place as any to lie low. At least until midnight.”
Isobel brought Varen’s jacket carefully into her lap and smoothed her hands across the silhouette of the upside-down bird. She let her fingers trail the rolled edge of the patch of white cloth safety-pinned to the thicker green material.
An image of the long black coat she’d seen Varen wearing in her dream of the bookstore flashed in her mind. It was not lost on her that in addition to being reversed, the bird on that coat had been white.
Slowly Isobel lifted the green mechanic’s jacket from her lap. She threaded her arms through the stiff material and allowed it to settle onto her shoulders, heavier somehow than she remembered.
“We’re here,” she heard Gwen say.
Isobel glanced toward her window, noticing immediately how it was quieter in this area, the road narrower, the atmosphere darker, with fewer lampposts to offer relief amid the accumulating shadows.
The Cadillac slowed to a crawl as they rolled past a set of tall iron-gate doors. Isobel slid into the opposite passenger’s seat for a better view. Through the window, she saw that the metal bars of the gate were knotted together in the center by a snakelike coil of silver chains. Through the iron rungs, Isobel glimpsed a smattering of what looked like squat stone houses. Tombs, she thought. There were traditional gravestones, too. Slanted and flat-faced, they stood crooked amid patches of grass.
The stones slid out of sight behind a wall as the car continued to move forward.
