something was going on up here long before my aunt ever came to town, that my uncle’s whole family was into some dark, evil stuff. This only proves it.”
“Okay,” Nick said. He set the crest down on the kneeler. “I believe that they were into some dark, evil stuff. But what exactly does it have to do with the Pumpkin Man?”
Jennica turned slowly around the room, soaking in the candlelit bones and the portraits of men with dark, deep-set eyes. Presumably in-laws. She had a horrible creepy feeling that they were staring at her, watching her try to figure it all out.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, “but let’s go try those other keys in the crypt. There’s something hidden in that floor. Maybe when we find all the pieces, things will start to make sense.”
“Great,” Nick said. “I was hoping you’d say we could go back there. There just aren’t enough bones here.”
Jenn punched him and gave a feeble grin in response. “Yeah,” she said. “Right.”
Their candles seemed to flicker, and the crest slipped off the kneeler armrest and clattered to the floor. This time, Nick didn’t pick it up.
“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested.
They didn’t quite run down the narrow hall and out of the pantry into the bright light of the kitchen. Not quite.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
The basement was dank and cold as they descended the stairs, which caused visible shivers along with Jenn’s invisible fear.
“I can’t help but think that we should be using something from here,” she said, gesturing to the rows of mason jars. “Something here has to do some good.”
“I’m not sure I want to know a good use for a jar full of human eyeballs,” Nick answered. “Of course, I’m not sure how I feel about wanting to kiss a girl in a house filled with secret passages, rooms stacked with the bones of the dead, and a desiccated mummy.”
“Wait a minute,” Jenn said. “Are you saying you want to kiss me?”
He shrugged and gave her a half smile. “Maybe.”
She turned and planted her lips on his. The act filled her with happiness, and she raised an eyebrow in question as she pulled back. “Like that?”
He nodded. “Just like that. I just wish you weren’t doing it in a house where my best friend was killed. A house filled with the bones of dead people. And I wish that there wasn’t a killer who wanted to add us to these bones, take our heads and replace them with pumpkins. Just sayin’.”
Jenn sighed. “So, let’s find out what’s behind the Pumpkin Man so I can grant your wish. I’m happy to kiss you anywhere you like”—she steeled herself for whatever was to come—“but first we need to see what’s in the floor beneath the crypt.”
They wasted no time walking through the basement and the passageway beneath the backyard. When they arrived in the room with the old coffin, Nick moved straight to the serpent on the floor, knelt down with his ring and began sticking various keys into the lock. Which one would it be?
On the third try the key fit. Nick twisted and pulled first one way and then the other, not entirely sure which motion would make the lock open. After a couple of twists, Nick smiled.
“Found it,” he announced.
“Great,” Jenn said, her heart pounding. “Now what’s inside?”
The panel of black tile opened down into a fairly small space. Nick reached in, carefully felt around and discovered a small wooden box. “I don’t know,” he said, lifting it up and showing the box to her.
“Open it,” Jenn said.
Nick slid a fingernail beneath the wooden lid and pushed. The lid flipped easily back, and he gasped as he peered inside. A small blob of something organic rested there.
It was dark, almost bloodless, but clearly flesh. Forgotten or abused, but nevertheless flesh. He reached in and gingerly lifted it out, cupped in the palms of his hands. Jenn stared at the hunk of withered flesh and didn’t question her intuition for an instant.
“It looks like a heart,” she said.
Nick nodded. “That’s what I thought.” His fingers shook, then steadied. “So . . . great. We have a mummy, a bunch of bones and a desiccated heart. Now what?”
Jenn shook her head. “This is no regular heart,” she declared. “Someone hid it here, beneath the floor, on purpose. I think this is the key. But—”
“If it’s the key, what exactly is the lock?” Nick finished. “Are we supposed to do something with it?”
“Maybe,” Jenn offered. “Maybe something in the hidden room. Maybe this is the heart of the mummy.”
“Oh, great,” Nick guessed. “And now we have to stitch it back in place.”
“Maybe,” Jenn said. “I have no idea.”
She noticed writing in the bottom of the box, beneath where the heart had rested. It was faint, but she could just make out the lettering. GIFFORD it read.
“I know that name,” she said. “It was in one of the books I read.” She thought a minute. “Gifford was a British druid who performed all sorts of obscene rituals to try to bring back the soul of a dead guy. Do you think this could really be him? He had to have died, like, two hundred years ago.”
“Let’s go back upstairs,” Nick suggested. “I can’t think straight down here.”
He set the wooden box on the floor near the coffin and took Jenn’s hand to lead her away from the crypt. They alternated between a walk and a run back to the stairs.
Up in her bedroom, Jenn pointed. “Sit,” she said.
She walked over to the dresser as Nick stretched out on the bed with a heavy sigh. Digging out Meredith’s journal, she brought it back to the bed, laid down next to him and rested her head on his arm as she began turning the pages, searching for some entry that might relate to the secret places in the house.
After a few minutes of skimming and shifting back and forth, Jenn stopped and pointed at a page in the book.
“I think I found something,” she whispered, and Nick looked past her hand to read the words:
“What’s a
She smiled. As she did, it occurred to her that this pleasing attention was what made Kirstin addicted to boys. Her friend couldn’t live a day without. Jenn enjoyed the feeling, but she didn’t live for it.
But the thought of Kirstin made her eyes mist over.
“It’s like . . . a spell book, I think,” Jenn answered. “A place where you write down all of the stuff you’ve
