The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (13 page)

“
She’s really going to spoil us,” Archie remarked when they had all made it safely outside.

“Everyone should have a house brownie,” Isabelle agreed.

“Look at that.” Jake nodded at the cottage as the enchanted rose vines rustled and scraped and creaked back into position, like fragrant, flowery chains spiked with giant thorns.

The four
glanced at each other in amazement, but could only shake their heads over this latest wonder.

Then they
set off through the moonlit garden on their night’s adventure of the unicorn hunt.

CHAPTER SIX

The Headless Monk

As Isabelle led them through the forest, Archie scanned the branches above them through the Vampire Monocle, watching out for any sign of tree goblins.

“
Nothing yet,” he reported.

“Good!” Dani said.

Above them, dark clouds floated across the bright October moon. The crisp night air turned each breath into visible puffs of vapor, reminding Jake of the tree goblin’s account about the black fog. So weird…

He pondered the mystery as he trudged along the path after the others, d
ead leaves crunching underfoot.

Near the top of the hill,
Isabelle stopped and turned slowly, scanning the landscape and trying to home in on the herd’s whereabouts. They all listened for hoof beats but only heard the warbling of a night bird.

“I think…that way.”
She pointed, and they followed her down another trail that slanted off to the left.

After a f
ew more minutes of walking, the path left the woods and opened out into one of the fields.

“This looks right. Come on,” she murmured.

They strode out into the sloping meadow and got halfway across it when Archie pointed toward the top of the cleared hill. “Whoa, what’s that?”

They followed his gaze and discovered the outli
ne of a lonely old building standing on the crest of the hill.

“It’s a house,” Dani said.

“No.” Archie had the advantage of the Vampire Monocle, so he could see it clearly in the dark. “It’s just ruins. Looks like an old medieval church or something. It’s missing a couple of walls. Jake, did your ancestors build a family chapel on the grounds?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Looks like it might’ve burned down a long time ago.”

“Let’s go see it!” Dani said.

“What about the unicorns?” Jake protested as the carrot-head started running up the hill through the tall grass.

He
didn’t care about some rotting old ruins now that he was finally getting his chance to see some unicorns.

Isabelle had never given him this privilege before because of the animals’ general dislike of male humans. He wanted to see them befo
re he got any older. After all, unicorns feared and loathed grown men because of all the knights and princes who had hunted them nearly to extinction in the Middle Ages, which they had done on account of the magical properties in the unicorn’s horn. It could practically bring someone back to life.

“Aw, Dani!”
Irked at taking time away from their main adventure just to see some moldy old ruins, Jake was about to demand she come back when he suddenly spotted the eerie blue glow of a ghost wandering around up there.

G
liding through the ruins, it moved too fast for him to see it clearly before it disappeared again behind one of the crumbling stone walls.

“We might as well join them,” Isabelle said to him, since her brother was already following Dani up the hill.

“Something wrong?” Isabelle asked, noticing his frown.

“Ghost,” he said
in a rueful tone, nodding toward the ruins. But then he brightened. “Maybe it’ll be able to tell me something about that black fog thing that killed the tree goblins.”

“Good idea.”

Then he and Isabelle followed the younger two, arriving a few minutes later at the ruins of the old church or abbey or whatever it once had been.

It
must have been an impressive structure in its heyday, Jake thought. What was left of the walls had pointed gothic arches and pillars with ornately carved stone tops. Pieces of the ancient slate roof had long since caved in and crushed some of the rotting pews.

“There’s rubble everywhere, so be careful where you step,
” Archie warned, inspecting the ruins through the Vampire Monocle. “Don’t touch the walls, either. This place is falling down.”

“I wonder what happened here,” Isabelle murmured.

“Look! Some of the stained-glass windows survived. Over there.” Dani pointed to the east wall. “Let’s go see!”

“You’re not going to see anything
through them,” Jake said. “It’s too dark.”

“Th
ere’s moonlight,” she replied.

As the others
began picking their way through the ruined nave to go and see the ancient stained-glass, Jake went off alone to have a chat with the resident ghost.

It did not take long to find the spirit out on the old church grounds, but Jake stopped cold when he saw it.

Blimey.
A chill ran down his spine. He had never seen a ghost in this condition before.

Namely, without a head.

Even the headless traitor ghost he’d seen when he’d been sent to Newgate Prison had had his head with him, and could put it on or take it off at will. But this poor soul…

He
winced, watching in confusion as the ghost bumped around into the ruins of the open cloister, zooming this way and that like it was lost. It wore the long, simple tunic of a monk or friar with a cord tied around its waist. Jake suspected it had been here for an awfully long time.

Oh, blazes.
The pitiful thing lowered itself onto its hands and knees and began feeling around in the grass, trying to find its missing head.

“Uh, h
ullo?” he called. “Are you all right?”

It did not respond.

He moved a few steps closer. “Do you need any help?”

But s
till, nothing.

Then
he realized why. It didn’t have any ears. It couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t see him, couldn’t talk to him, either, without its mouth.

It probably wasn’t even aware
that he was there.

Oh, this is terrible,
Jake thought, wishing there was something he could do.
Nobody should have to go through eternity without their bloomin’ head.

Before long, the ghost gave up its search for its missing cranium, as it had surely done too many times to count over the pa
ssing centuries.

Jake looked on
, the hairs on his nape standing on end as the spirit’s bluish-gray shoulders slumped with disappointment. Climbing unsteadily to its feet, it went sailing back toward the church, bumping into things now and then along the way.

The poor thing.
Jake followed as it floated back into the stone shell of the ruined church.

The others
turned when he stepped into the wide opening that had once been the doorway.

Dani beckoned to him with an air of excitement. “Jake, come and see! You’re not going to believe this!”

“Bit busy,” he replied, hurrying after the ghost as it crossed the church.

The
headless apparition made its way across the rock-strewn nave to a small side alcove that was somehow still standing. It glided away, disappearing through the ornate stone archway that served as entrance to the alcove.

Still following, Jake scrambled
over fallen chunks of roof and stone pillars in his effort to keep up with the headless monk ghost.

“W
here are you going?” Dani persisted.

Jake didn’t know where the ghost was leading him, so he gave no answer. The others grew curious and
followed.

With his head start,
Jake was the first to arrive under the ancient archway into the side alcove.

T
o his dismay, the ghost had already disappeared.

But what he did find
astounded him.

Ins
ide the alcove were three large marble tombs, bathed in the beams of pearly moonlight slanting in through the gothic window.

Each pale
stone sarcophagus was elevated on its own rectangular dais. Each also had a white marble statue carved on top of it, depicting a sleeping person—a knight, a lady, and a priest—their stone-carved hands folded in prayer.

Jake stared in wonder.
Eerie.
He knew that back in London, lots of dead folk were buried in the great cathedrals like St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey, with its Poet’s Corner, where many of England’s greatest writers were laid to rest. But he had hardly expected to find ancient tombs in this small, time-forgotten chapel—probably the tombs of his own ancestors who had built the place, he realized, moving closer.

It seemed logical
to assume that the lifelike statue on top of each grand coffin was a three-dimensional portrait of the dead person buried inside.

Which meant he was looking at
likeness of his own long-dead ancestors.

Jake
quickly circled the coffins, searching until he found engravings on the sides of the platforms to tell him who they were. Unfortunately, he could not decipher them.

“Hey, Archie!” he called over his shoulder. “You read Latin, don’t you?”

“Sure do!” the boy genius answered as the others joined him in the alcove.

“Criminy
,” Dani muttered when she saw what Jake had found.

Archie
came over to stand beside him at the sarcophagus of the knight. The knight statue wore a funny pointed helmet, his shield and broadsword resting on his chest.

“
What does it say?” Jake asked, pointing to the Latin words engraved along the side of the dais.

Archie leaned closer
, reading the Latin inscription in the dark with the help of the Vampire Monocle. “Great Euclid, Jake! This is Sir Reginald himself—the page boy who found the gryphon egg!”

They all stared in amazement at the tomb.

“Was Sir Reginald the first Earl of Griffon?” Dani asked after a moment.

Archie shook his head.
“No, if he’s a ‘Sir,’ that means he only got to the rank of knight or maybe baronet during his lifetime. After that, his descendents would’ve had to be promoted to Barons, and then Viscounts before they worked their way up to Earls through their service to the Crown. That’s generally how it works.”

“I see.”
Dani grinned and elbowed Jake. “So, if you play your cards right, maybe you could get promoted to Duke when you grow up.”

Jake
snorted, then he wandered over to the lady’s coffin. “So, would this be Sir Reginald’s wife, then?”

Archie followed and read the inscription.
“Must be. Her name is Lady Agatha Everton.”

“
Agatha?” Jake murmured.

“
Good medieval name.” Archie nodded. “I’m glad we came up here and got a chance to pay our respects.”

“
Me, too.”

“So, what about
the priest?” Dani asked, nodding toward the third sarcophagus.

“Monk, ac
tually,” Archie replied.

T
hat was probably the headless ghost, Jake thought, but he remained behind for a moment, lingering by the knight and his lady.

Now that he knew who they were, the pair of sleeping marble statues of his long-dead ancestors
brought back an uneasy memory of something he had seen on his last adventure. Something that still didn’t make any sense.