Marcus insisted that they look for Lavender, and they did, but if she still existed, she had blended back into the landscape like a native flower or shrub. Nothing remained but the little carved head of Marcus and their memories of her.
“I made her cry,” Marcus said gruffly, stuffing the carved head in his pocket.
Devin sighed. “Perhaps it wasn’t you as much as the situation. It’s been hard on everyone.”
“Do you think she was …” Marcus hesitated.
“A ghost?” Devin asked. “Perhaps. But we touched her, smelled her, she ate our food.”
“The food sack,” Marcus said suddenly and set it down to rummage through it.
Devin knew what Marcus would find before he announced it. “The heads are all gone. Every last one of them.”
“Except the one she carved for you,” Devin pointed out.
Marcus withdrew it from his pocket, held it humbly in his hands for a few moments. “Did I ever thank her?”
“I’m sure you did,” Devin replied.
Marcus slipped the token back in his pocket.
Devin’s eyes still searched the rocks and bushes around them, hoping that he might catch sight of a scrap of tattered brown fabric or a tiny footprint to convince them that Lavender had traveled with them and touched their lives for several days.
Marcus grabbed his sleeve. “Come on, then,” he said finally. “Night falls earlier now. We need to go.”
They left the ruins of Albion’s church behind. Above the deep ravine, the terrain flattened out. Statuesque spruce trees circled a small clearing knee deep in long grass and scattered wildflowers. Here hawks soared, and rabbits and deer grazed in the late-afternoon shadows. It was like another world compared to the valley behind them. Light, fragrant, and warm.
Devin tripped on a raised stone. He dropped his pack, hoping it might be a headstone, and knelt to pull the weeds away.
“The Town of Albion, Destroyed by Flood, 12 Avril 1406,” he read as Marcus bent to look. “It’s the same day Father Sébastian’s journal begins.”
Devin walked in a wide circle from the stone, swinging his foot to crush the tall grass. “I’d hoped there might be some gravestones,” he said in disappointment.
“The bodies would have washed downstream and Father Sébastian couldn’t have dragged bodies up that slope anyway, Devin!” Marcus said. “Not only that, whoever destroyed the dam, would have searched for survivors. Had even a few of the bodies been buried, it would have been obvious that someone survived. Anyone who knew the truth about what happened would have been killed.”
“And yet, Lavender knew the story.”
“The person who created the story may have made an assumption as to who destroyed the dam.”
“But the Chronicles are very precise,” Devin objected. “The story of Albion’s destruction would never have been included in Tirolien’s Chronicle if there was some doubt about its veracity.”
“Lavender never said the story came from the Chronicles, Devin,” Marcus pointed out. “She said that her father told her about it.”
Devin inclined his head. “That’s true.” His eyes drifted over the clearing, watching as the tall grass bent like waves in the wind. “But if this really was one of the first settlements in Llisé, it existed for hundreds of years before its destruction. There would have had to be a cemetery for the church. All of those graves would predate the flood.”
“I’m sure you’re right but we don’t have time to look for a cemetery, Devin. We need to get back to La Paix as quickly and safely as possible. I’m sorry.”
Devin exhaled. “I understand.”
Marcus skirted the clearing, startling the deer, their white tails flashing as they dashed into the forest beyond. “Perhaps the journal will answer some of your questions.”
“I hope,” Devin said. It was as though the book was physically hot, burning a hole in his jacket lining. He wanted desperately to take it out and read it, to sit down right in this field and discover the secrets it contained. Had it been possible, he would have read it as he walked.
“Perhaps Father Sébastian wrote a list of the dead in his journal,” Marcus suggested.
Devin nodded. “I saw a list of names when I was flipping through the pages.” If Father Sébastian left a journal chronicling the fate of his parishioners, Devin felt certain it was meticulous. How strange that it had lain there waiting several hundred years to be found and read!
“We’ll look at it tonight,” Marcus promised. “We need to find a protected place to sleep. Despite what we left behind us, that valley sheltered us well and kept us safe.”
They continued around the clearing, but much to Devin’s disappointment they discovered no gravestones along the way. He wanted to stay and search, to learn all the secrets this valley had to offer but he knew it was impossible now. In the few minutes he had spent with the villagers in his dreams, he had felt a connection to them in a raw, emotional sense. He’d shared their laughter and their terror and they were bound to him in a way he couldn’t explain to Marcus or anyone else, except maybe Jeanette.
Perhaps in the future he and Jeanette could return together just as he hoped they could go back to the ruined Archives and discover whether anything remained there. The more he saw of the provinces, the more he loved them. Each one held riches that the residents of Coreé never could dream of in their insular little worlds. Perhaps there was a way of combining his love of the Archives with his desire to add the wealth of history the provinces also offered.
Their route dipped into one valley after another and by twilight their legs were tired from climbing. “I see now why the road was built where it was,” Devin observed, as he dropped down onto a grassy knoll where oak trees’ massive trunks formed a kind of fortress.
“It’s too dark to walk any further,” Marcus said. “This will do as well as any other for a place to spend the night.”
Devin let his pack slide from his shoulders, his hand immediately working the journal up through the tear in the lining and slipping it out. He stretched out for a moment, the journal open in his hands. “It’s too dark to read,” he said in disappointment. “I don’t suppose you’ll allow us a fire?”
“No,” Marcus said. “I’ve no idea how far we’ve come and what villages might be nearby. It’s best to be safe. And put that book away if you can’t read it. We’re not at an inn. You have no idea when we might have to leave suddenly.”
Reluctantly, Devin slid the journal back in its hiding place. It was only after they had decided to stay for the night that the ground seemed overrun with exposed roots. Under the trees, there was little grass and the ground was hard as rock. Marcus produced a bit of moldy bread for dinner; it was too late to hunt. They drank their fill of the water from the skins Marcus had replenished earlier and resigned themselves to empty bellies until morning brought another chance for a meal.
Devin’s mind was busy with the details of the safe room they had found. “Father Sébastian locked the door from the inside,” Devin observed. “He must have been afraid for his own life.”
“I’m sure he wanted it to appear to whoever blew up the dam that everyone in Albion was killed,” Marcus said. “If Father Sébastian was seen, he would have been hunted down.”
“And yet Lavender claimed he told her that we needed the key to unlock the door,” Devin reminded him.
Marcus unrolled his blanket. He raised his eyebrows at Devin. “I don’t believe Father Sébastian appeared in person.”