Ghosts of Averoigne

If there were anything she’d learned from the Hallowed Order, it was to follow her instincts. When it came to men, her instincts had always gotten Kara in trouble. But in every other aspect? They were generally right.

What’s wrong… what’s wrong…

She stared down at the photo. Rudolph Northrop gazed back at her, his blank stare traversing time. She hoped something would happen. That she’d feel the ‘whoosh’, and be shown something she needed to see. But as the minutes ticked by, there was nothing. No sense of falling away. No tingle at the back of her neck.

Something’s not—

Suddenly she saw it. It was subtle, a change of color, of texture. Very hard to make out, in the faded old photograph.

“It’s not here!” Kara declared abruptly.

The men stepped up on either side of her. They stared over her shoulder.

“What’s not here?”

“This,” she said, shaking the photo. “The whole room is wrong. This isn’t the place where he performed the ceremony.”

“How’s that—”

“Look,” Kara pointed again at the old photograph. “The floor. It’s not wood. It’s dirt.”

There was a long pause. Jeremy took the photo from her and squinted at it.

“Well it’s too late now,” said Logan. “We don’t have time to go looking for—”

Jeremy snapped his fingers. His whole expression went wide with discovery.

“I know where it is!”

Kara’s heart started beating faster. She felt her mind working, racing to the same conclusion. “The basement,” she breathed.

Jeremy nodded. “It’s gotta be down there. Beneath the hotel.”

Logan seemed thoroughly confused. “But this is the mirror,” he said. “This is the place—”

“No,” said Kara. “Just because the mirror is here doesn’t mean anything. Victor Walcott’s farmhouse was torn down, and the Averoigne built over it. There was no refrigeration back then. The original footprint would’ve included a cellar hole.”

Logan scratched his chin. “But Radcliffe said there was no basement,” he argued.

Kara shook her head. “’No ‘usable’ basement. That’s what he said. Those were his exact words.”

They stared at the photo again, together this time. It was more obvious now. Even alarmingly so.

“If Rudolph Northrop was trying to undo whatever Walcott did,” Jeremy theorized, “he would’ve gone down to the cellar. To the only original structure left over from Walcott’s place.”

“That’s why everything looks off,” Kara agreed. “None of the furnishings are here either. His ceremony never took place in this room.”

She looked up at the mirror. The glow was even brighter now. It was shifting, moving, but a distinct shape was starting to form.

“So how do we get into the cellar?” asked Logan. His gaze shifted over to the glowing reflection. “Uh, quickly?”

Kara put one hand on her head, grabbed a handful of her own hair. She squeezed hard…

And then it came to her.

Forty

“Grab the mirror,” Kara shouted as she flung open the door. “And the rest of the artifacts!”