“Well, thanks.” I hold my phone light out to reveal a staircase that winds down below the church. “There’s a basement or cellar or something. I’m going to check it out.”
“Yeah, I’m good up here,” Zoey says, eyeing the stairs skeptically. “Just yell if you encounter a ghost.”
I amble down the curved staircase, counting fifty-three steps until I’m at the bottom. I hold my phone light out, but it’s futile here. If I thought the church was dark, this is a whole other kind of darkness. I walk around, trying to find something of interest. I follow the wall, wary of the cobwebs. There’s nothing here. Slightly annoyed, I pull up my text messages.
I’m at St. Lawrence’s Church in Brentford. There’s nothing here. What’s so special about this place?
He answers almost immediately, and I’m a little surprised I have cell service down here.
Salem: Did you go into the cellar?
Me: Yes. I’m in here now. What am I looking for?
Salem: Then you didn’t look hard enough. The kerosine wall sconces still work, by the way. There’s a lighter on one of the tables.
Me: Tables?
Salem: :)
I sigh.Well, that helps. I follow the wall as it curves a bit, and I’m about to turn around when my phone light illuminates an old, wooden worktable a few feet away.
“Well, well, well…” I mutter. And just like Salem explained, an old, silver lighter sits right in the middle. I take it and flick it on, satisfied. Glancing around, I notice a wall sconce. I turn the dial, light the wick, and the lamp flickers to life.
When I turn around, I gasp. “What the fuck is this?” I say out loud, eyes wide.
All along the opposite wall, swathed in the plaster, are skeletons. Skulls, leg bones, hand bones. They’re embedded into the wall. Hundreds of them. Like someone scraped the mortar around them, smearing it over parts of skull and femur.
I pick up my phone, dialing Salem’s number with shaky hands. He picks up on the third ring.
“Well?” His voice is way too chipper for someone trying to show their friend a giant wall of skulls.
“Please tell me you were referring to the Hannibal Lecter wall?”
“Amazing, right?”
Shaking my head, I let out a nervous giggle. “Um, sure. Am I missing something?”
“Didn’t you read the engraving?”
I sigh. “Of course there’s an engraving. It wouldn’t be a Salem Tempest adventure if it wasn’t also a Dan Brown novel.”
“Just look at the engraving,” he answers, laughing.
I creep over to the wall, holding my phone out until I find a chunk of text on the lower left side.
Hither lies the bones of the traitors, the rapists, the cowards. He who witnesses the crimes of the sir, most notablie the crimes towards women, shalt becometh a monster. Within theseth walls theie shalt lieth for eternity, their sins forever on displaie. God is a woman, from her flesh weth art born.
“Whoa.”
“I thought you’d like it. Apparently, for a good chunk of time in the 16th century, this church was run by a group of renegade women who had been accused of witchcraft. They barricaded themselves in here during the day, and at night, they went into London and hunted men—specifically men who harmed women.”
“Um, that is amazing.”
He chuckles. “I have to go. Delilah is refusing her nap, and Lily is on her seventeenth rendition of Frère Jacques. I should probably go rescue her.”
I laugh. “Okay.”
“See you next weekend?”
