Megan, who had been fidgeting in place and telling herself that it had not really been very long since they left, frowned, her stomach tightening. “I’m not sure. They probably had to hide. They may have had to wait for Coffey to leave. Theo said they would be out within twenty minutes, but…”
She knew, as she felt sure her father did, that the two of them were there more to keep each other out of trouble than for any other reason. No one, including Megan herself, had really thought that she and Frank might have to go in to rescue the rescuers. But now, as she stood there, a feeling of dread was burgeoning in her stomach.
Something had happened to Theo.
She waited, watching the house, hoping for some sign that Theo and the others were all right. She glanced at her father and found him studying her as anxiously as she was staring at the house.
“What is it?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just…I feel…anxious.” There was a sudden, fierce stab of pain in her chest, and her vague, generalized fear changed to something compelling and dramatic. Megan looked at her father, alarmed. “Something has happened to Theo. I can feel it.”
Her father was not one to question such a feeling. “Then we had better go in. They’ll need us.”
Megan nodded and started toward the house. But Frank grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the shadows, nodding meaningfully. She turned and looked where he was indicating. There were two men hurrying along the driveway.
They looked, Megan thought, as though they were late. What if the ceremony had started earlier than Barchester thought? What if Theo and the others had walked in on a house full of people instead of an empty one, or one occupied by only Julian Coffey?
What if Barchester had lied to them, and had led Theo and Dennis into a trap?
Her stomach twisted nervously, and she had to force herself to wait, watching the two men enter. She and her father held back for another long moment to give the men a chance to move out of earshot.
She looked at Frank, and he nodded, and they slipped across the driveway and up to the rear entrance. They hesitated for a moment in the shadows, looking carefully all around. There was no sign of anyone coming up the path that ran from the drive to the back of the house.
Megan moved forward to the door and twisted the knob. It was locked. The last men to enter must have locked it behind themselves.
Frank touched her arm and moved around the shrubs to the window that lay beyond it. It, too, was locked. The anxiety in Megan was building almost to a fever pitch.
“There is a window down there.” Frank Mulcahey pointed to a long opaque window set low in the wall, almost on the ground. “I’ll bet it goes into the basement.”
Megan nodded. “Let’s try it.”
That window, too, was locked, but Megan was too worried to search for an easier ingress. Instead, she picked up a rock and rapped it sharply against the glass near the catch. Careful to avoid the jagged shards, she reached in through the hole she had made, then found the catch and released it.
They lay down on the ground and peered inside. It was dark in the room below, but they could make out, dimly, boxes stacked below them. Across the room there was an outline of a door, light coming in around the cracks. Megan looked at her father, raising an eyebrow. He nodded back and turned around, wriggling feetfirst into the space. He hung for a moment, then dropped down.
Megan peered in. He had landed on the crates and boxes, and seemed unharmed. He stood up and motioned for her to enter. Megan nodded and followed his example, twisting around and crawling backward through the window. There was a stomach-churning moment when her feet dangled in the emptiness and she clung to the sill of the window, but then she drew a breath and let go.
The drop was not far to the crates, and though she crumpled onto them, she did not hurt herself. She turned and scrambled off the box onto which she had fallen and onto the floor. Her father was waiting for her, and they made their way across the room. Though they could see very little in the dark, they could make out the thin line of light around the edges of the door. Frank stumbled against something low on the floor and cursed softly, but they moved on.
She was glad to find the door unlocked, and Megan opened it a crack, peering out into the hallway. They were, indeed, in the basement of the museum. The hallway was lit only dimly by light coming from a corridor that crossed it. Megan opened the door wider and slipped out. On tiptoe, she and her father went lightly down the hall to the crossing corridor, which, she suspected, was the main hallway of the basement. When they reached it, they edged forward and took a peek around the corner.
This was the hall in which she had been knocked unconscious, Megan thought. It was empty at the moment, but she could hear the sound of voices coming from one of the rooms down the way.
The two of them crept along the corridor, the sound of voices growing ever louder, until they reached the door from which they issued. Carefully, Megan pushed the door open a crack, and she and Frank put their eyes to the slit between the doors. Megan had to clamp her mouth firmly shut to keep from gasping aloud.
They were looking at a large room, empty of furniture. Around the walls were brackets into which flaring torches had been lit, lighting the room with a reddish glow. A group of people stood in a loose semicircle, facing a slightly raised dais. They were all dressed in brightly colored cloaks made from layers of long feathers. They wore elaborate headdresses, hammered from gold or silver, with feathers stretching high up from them. They were, Megan realized, the same sort of cloaks and headdresses that she had seen on the walls upstairs in the museum. Perhaps they were the very same ones. In addition, each participant wore a mask. Some were half masks and others full. Some were more elaborate than others, but they all served the purpose of rendering their wearers both exotic and anonymous.
On the dais, where they were all gazing reverently, stood a marble altar, about three feet high, and on it lay a child. Megan’s breath caught in her throat, for the child was very still. But then she caught the slight rise and fall of the girl’s chest, and she let out a silent sigh of relief. Caya was still alive.
She was dressed in a long garment of finest white linen, and her arms were decorated with gold bracelets. A small headdress had been placed on her head, and the colorful feathers were a bright contrast to the long black bob of hair below. Her eyes were closed, and Megan suspected that she had been drugged.
At the four corners of the table stood iron stands with small braziers sitting on them, and strong-smelling incense curled up from them, perfuming the air.