Let the Ghosts Speak by Bryan Davis

Author:Bryan Davis
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781943959617
Publisher: Mountain Brook Ink
Published: 2020-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

As Joan held the lamp and whispered directions, I hurried through low, narrow corridors, some littered with bones, some covered with ankle-deep water, and others clear and dry. The lantern provided enough light to see only two or three steps in front, making the forks and turns appear without warning.

Although Joan weighed no more than a hundred pounds, after a mile or so, her weight became quite a burden. I whispered to her, “I know you’re able to disappear or become semitransparent. What would happen if you did that now? Could I still carry you? Could you travel with me?”

“No, Justin. I would become immaterial and pass through your grasp, and I am too weak to travel on my own.” She sighed. “Stop. You should rest.”

“This passage is wet. Let’s find a place where I can put you down.” I turned into a wider, dry corridor and set Joan next to a wall. The lantern’s glow revealed the wall’s construction—stacked skulls from floor to ceiling. “Do you still feel your life lantern?”

“Yes. It is close. We should start looking again when you’ve rested.” Joan stared at our surroundings with sad eyes. “Hundreds of people lie entombed in this chamber. Maybe thousands.”

“And millions more in other chambers.” The diary’s entry returned to mind. Could this be the wall of skulls it mentioned? A stone glittered from the nose hole in a skull near the floor, likely placed there by a devoted visitor. I plucked it out and looked it over—a white oblong quartz stone, worthless to thieves but perhaps valuable to the deceased or his visiting loved one.

After setting the stone back in place, I reached into my pocket and touched the brooches. Maybe soon they would light the way to solving a mystery.

“Joan, I have to check something. I won’t go far.” I took the lantern and walked along the wall, holding the light close to the skulls. Their hollow eyes seemed to stare with black orbs, and their dark mouths called out in silent mourning, as if crying, Why have we been abandoned here? They once lay in places of honor and respectful memory. Now they were nothing more than an odd curiosity for occasional visitors, a wall of macabre humor to draw gasps from thrill-seeking adventurers.

I paused and tried to recall the exact message in Francine’s book. Didn’t the last sentence say something about finding the ring near the wall of skulls?

“Just another minute, Joan.” I walked across the corridor to the opposite wall, this one made of a conglomeration of bones and fewer skulls.

“Justin?” She extended a hand, gasping. “Justin, I need you.”

I rushed to her side and let her lean on my shoulder. “What is it?”

“My last moment is nigh. I feel the end coming. Pierre Cauchon has killed me again.”

“No. No. I don’t believe it. I won’t.” My thoughts scrambled, but one question bullied to the forefront. Might the ring really provide protection? If I could find it, maybe I could stop her second death.

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