I stood, staring at him. “Did they move the bodies out?”

His darting ceased and he hung motionless. “’Course they moved the bodies out. You think I’m stupid? You think I’d live where there were dead humans? God help me. The bugs coming off ’em, diseases, viruses, and crap soaking into the soil and getting into everything!”

I adjusted my grip on my stuff, striding across the shady street and up the wide steps of the church. Jenks didn’t have a clue as to whether the bodies had been moved out. The gray stone steps were bowed in the middle from decades of use, and they were slippery. There were twin doors taller than I, made of a reddish wood and bound with metal. One had a plaque screwed into it. “Donna’s Daycare,” I muttered, reading the inscription. I tugged a door open, surprised at the strength needed to shift it. There wasn’t even a lock on it, just a sliding bolt on the inside.

“Of course they moved the bodies out,” Jenks said, then flitted over the church. I’d put a hundred on it that he was going out to the backyard to investigate.

“Ivy?” I shouted, trying to slam the door behind me. “Ivy, are you here?” The echo of my voice came back from the yet unseen sanctuary, a thick, stained-glassed quiet hush of sound. The closest I’d been to a church since my dad died was reading the cutesy catch phrases off those backlit signs they all put on their front lawns. The foyer was dark, having no windows and black wooden panels. It was warm and still, thick with the presence of past liturgy. I set the box on the wooden floor and listened to the green and amber hush slipping in from the sanctuary.

“Be right down!” came Ivy’s distant shout. She sounded almost cheerful, but where on earth was she? Her voice was coming from everywhere and nowhere at all.

There was the soft click of a latch, and Ivy slipped from behind a panel. A narrow spiral stairway went up behind her. “I’ve got my owls up in the belfry,” she said. Her brown eyes were more alive than I’d ever seen them. “It’s perfect for storage. Lots of shelves and drying racks. Someone left their stuff up there, though. Want to go through it with me later?”

“It’s a church, Ivy.”

Ivy stopped. Her arms crossed and she looked at me, her face abruptly empty.

“There are dead people in the backyard,” I added, and she levered herself up and went into the sanctuary. “You can see the tombstones from the road,” I continued as I followed her in.

The pews were gone, as was the altar, leaving only an empty room and a slightly raised stage. That same black wood made a wainscot that ran below the tall stained-glassed windows that wouldn’t open. A faded shadow on the wall remained where an enormous cross once hung over the altar. The ceiling was three stories up, and I sent my gaze to the open woodwork, thinking it would be hard to keep this room warm in winter. It was nothing but a stripped down open space … but the stark emptiness seemed to add to the feeling of peace.