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“The truth,” he said, resting his hands on the table, his eyes looking into my soul, “sometimes the truth can be too much to bear.”
“Fuck that,” I said, “just tell me.”
He sighed. “Very well…”
I felt so self-assured and ready for it, but holy fuck, I wasn’t.
“Your mother is a murderer,” he said. “Or so your grandmother would have her believe.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Just, what?! What the fuck? My mother is amurderer? No. Just NO.”
“It’s true, Katherine,” Hans said. “The grand family showdown around your birth left someone else very much in the dirt. Literally.”
“Who?!”
Hans offered me a hand. “Come. Let me show you. Visions speak louder than words.”
My thoughts were rattling.My mother was a murderer? How the hell could that be?
I stepped along with Hans, following him out into the grand hallway and through a door at the side. We went through a long corridor, and he opened another door, and another to follow. We climbed down a set of stairs, and turned off into another. It was as though we were in a maze, getting dustier and mustier, heading down and down, until we were in a cellar.
Hans flicked on a low glowing light and pulled a lantern down from the shelf. He looked at the wick and the flame lit right up.
“Here we go,” he said, and opened a heavy, battered door to reveal a dark tunnel. “This is the way to the church tomb. Even now, the archaeologists haven’t been able to find it. It’s hidden deep under the depths of the Garway spring.”
My heart pounded as I stepped into the tunnel to join him. I remembered his tale of being stuck in the tomb when poor Mary was drowned up above him.
We had quite a long trek through the damp depths of the passageway before another bolted door appeared before us. It echoed when Hans opened it, and I leapt back as the glow of the lantern lit up the outlines of Knights Templar tombs. So many grand graves, covered in cobwebs. He pointed to one in the far corner, then gestured me along with him.
“This one was mine.”
It looked so cold in there as he shunted the top stone to the side, even though it was lined with purple silk.
“You slept in here?”
“Yes. For a very long time. Until I could risk being at Edwin’s. People were very suspicious.”
It didn’t matter how in awe I was of the surroundings and the snapshot of Hans’ heritage – I couldn’t let him distract me. He knew it.
“I’m coming to the truth of your past,” he told me. “Don’t worry.”
He guided me to the opposite side of the chamber, and there was yet another door and another tunnel, but this one had tiny muddy steps leading upwards, not downwards. Sharp and steep.
“Be careful not to slip,” Hans said, keeping a firm grip on my hand as he led the way.
All the years I’d been a girl spending time around Garway church felt like they meant nothing as we ascended. I didn’t know this place at all.
But it wasn’t the church itself we climbed up into via the staircase, it was the tower. Disused and abandoned, and now nothing more than a spectacle of times gone by.
Hans moved to the side so I could embrace the location as the cold night wind hit us. I could feel the open sky up above.
“Carry on,” he told me. “There’s someone up here you need to speak to.”
“Up here? On the turrets of the tower in the middle of the night? Are you serious?”
He tipped my face to his and landed a kiss on my lips.
