“Well, eventually, we all head back here, don’t we?” Catherine said.

“My, that’s grim. Though,” Guy added, raising the lantern, “we ought to take care. I’ve heard one of those stones fall, and the sound alone almost sent me to my grave.”

Catherine saw what Guy meant as they approached the church. Large blocks of stone were scattered about the grass, some of them grown over with moss and lichen. The church was missing a piece of exterior wall, the roof partly caved in. Perhaps in time it would wear away to nothing.

As they neared, Catherine caught movement at the entrance. She held out an arm, bringing Guy and Owen to a stop. “Wait,” she said.

A person stood at the doorway, a man indistinguishable aside from his dark coat and hat. He started back toward the main gates, head ducked, walking across the grounds with the same confident familiarity as she did.

It was her foreman, Spencer Carlyle.

She almost called out to him—yet the surrounding quiet and the briskness of his pace brought her up short. In a whisper, she said, “It’s Spencer Carlyle. I don’t know what he’s doing here.” She looked around to Guy and Owen, the two of them standing wide-eyed and still. Guy’s lantern light flickered over their faces, turning them ghostly.

“He was asking about the timepiece,” Guy said, his voice hushed. “He’s likely looking for it, just as we are.”

Once Spencer was out of sight, they made their way toward the gloomy heap of stone. At the doorway, Catherine peered inside.

Timber beams arched across the ceiling, the floor space cleared of pews. Dead leaves and branches collected at the base of the rough stone walls, carried in by the wind. She took a step over the threshold, Guy following with the lantern. There was no evidence of what Spencer could’ve been doing in here. Guy’s light made strange patterns against the walls, flashing upon the twisted branches on the floor, the uneven stone. Owen came after them, and Catherine turned to see him holding on to the brim of his hat, his head tilted back as he peered into the broken rafters.

His voice cracked as he said, “What if there’s something up there?”

Catherine shuddered. The words painted a visceral picture in her mind of someone watching from above, clinging to the rotten beams like a nightmarish gargoyle.

“Yes,” replied Guy. “Dust and cobwebs. That’s all.”

Catherine headed through the empty nave to where the roof had collapsed, the jagged hole revealing the night sky. A gust of wind blew in, the splintered beams groaning.

“Catherine,” Guy said, his tone threaded with anxiety. “Be careful.”

“Bring the light,” she told him. “I can hardly see.”

Guy and Owen walked over the detritus toward her. The lantern light shone across a section of wall that enclosed a small room, as dark and empty as the rest of the church. Catherine ducked under the lintel, her stomach giving a sickening lurch as she missed a step at the threshold. “Mind,” she told the boys, “there’s a step here.”