The girls pushed themselves to their feet and crept around the base of the building. Theresa held the lamp low at the back of the structure, but the ground around it was bare. There wasn’t a weed to be found.
“They must have torn it all out,” Catherine whispered.
“All the better for us,” Theresa said. “I was going to make one of you girls walk through it to find this decaying stone.”
“Why not you?” Eliza demanded.
“I’m highly allergic,” Theresa snapped in reply, as if Eliza shouldn’t have even asked. “If I get poison ivy, I could die. Do you want me to die, Eliza?”
Maybe, Eliza thought, then immediately admonished herself. She didn’t want anyone to die. Not really. But she wouldn’t have minded seeing Theresa covered in poison ivy welts, scratching her skin like mad.
“There!” Catherine gasped. “That stone near the drain. It’s far more decayed than the others.”
Eliza dropped to her knees to get a better look, swiping away some of the grime from the rotted brick. Her fingertips grazed several indentations. They felt like numbers or letters, but she couldn’t quite make them out. Overhead, the wind whistled again, and for a moment all four girls froze. When the noise finally died down, Eliza spoke again. “Theresa! The candle!”
“Well, look who’s suddenly issuing demands,” Theresa said, pulling a matchbook from her pocket and lighting the candle.
Eliza rolled her eyes, then held the candle right up against the brick wall of the building. Squinting, she could just make out an uppercase E. She used her fingernail to scratch the dirt out of the next few numbers and letters, then leaned back to read what she’d found.
“E 150 p. N 100 p.,” Eliza read. “What could that possibly mean?”
Catherine swung around and looked back in the direction from which they had come. “East and north! The E and the N probably mean east and north.”
“You’re right! And the numbers must be paces. That’s what the p stands for,” Eliza said, feeling an exhilarating tingle as the answer dawned on her. “It means we are to walk one hundred fifty paces to the east, then one hundred paces to the north.”
“It can’t be,” Theresa said. “Everyone’s paces are different. What kind of direction is that?”
Clenching her jaw in frustration, Eliza was about to protest. But then, suddenly, she heard a window slamming, and the sound obliterated every thought in her mind. Someone had seen them. Someone was coming. She looked up into the terrified eyes of her friends and could think of only one word.
“Run!”
God's House
Eliza pumped her arms as she ran. Her breath was so loud that, combined with the ridiculous pounding of her heart, she could hear nothing else. As she raced up the steep hill, the locket bounced against her chest. All she could think about was making it to the tree line through which her friends had just disappeared. She felt that if she could only get there, somehow she would be safe.
Pressing her lips together against a panicked sob, Eliza hurtled herself into the woods and right into Catherine’s waiting arms.
“It’s okay,” Catherine said in her ear as Eliza’s chest heaved. “It’s okay. No one’s there.”
Alice, meanwhile, leaned back against a tree trunk, sobbing softly. Clearly she had reached her limit.
“No one’s there?” Eliza repeated, relief flooding through her. She turned around to look back toward McKinley. The moonlight bathed the entire campus in a white glow, and she could see now that the campus was deserted. “Thank God,” she said, leaning into Catherine’s side. “I thought we were done for.”
“So you doused us in darkness?” Theresa demanded, ripping the candle out of Eliza’s hand. “That was my last match.”
“I didn’t want us to be seen!” Eliza replied, stung.
“And now we can’t see anything,” Theresa shot back.
“I did what I thought I had to do, Theresa!” Eliza half whispered, half shouted. “Why are you the one who always decides what is right and what is wrong?”
“Girls,” Catherine said.
“I get to decide because I know best,” Theresa replied.
Eliza blinked. She couldn’t be serious. “And who decided that you know better than everyone else?”
“Girls!” Catherine shouted.