The year is 1879. When thirteen-year-old Ruth Merritt Holbrook emerges from her family's burning estate, bloody and charred, but entirely numb--She makes headlines. Reporters believe she is deranged. They accuse her of having set the fire. All the h...
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Gabriel and I have spent most of our time at Green Parish sitting in the chapel itself. As a girl, I was trained to play the piano and I was happy to find that my fingers still remember. It takes some time to find the correct keys during certain hymns, but the preacher here is a jolly gentleman and neither he nor Gabriel seem to mind my stumbling.
I was halfway through the third chorus in What A Friend We Have In Jesus when Gabriel approached me. I shifted on the bench to allow him room to sit with me and he did, waiting until the last note had faded into the rafters before he said, "Would you be terribly afraid if I went home for the evening?"
"To Lily House?"
He nodded.
I considered it. "Not terribly so."
"But still afraid?"
This was a hard question to answer because I'd been filled with the most dreadful sense of foreboding since I'd awoken from my last nightmare. It was like a dark cloud hung over me and I could not seem to shake its looming presence. I could not decide if this was a premonition or just the accumulation of a months worth of fears. Regardless, it seemed silly to worry Gabriel with it.
Hesitantly, I started to play Room At The Cross, it was a more recent hymn, one I'd learned just after I'd arrived at St. Agatha's. I missed a note, and then another in my attempt to get back on track, and shook my head, flustered and wishing Gabe wasn't watching me so closely. "If you are needed at Lily House then I, of course, will not stop you from returning there," I said, still fiddling with the song.
"Sariel is growing increasingly worried by the growing population of demons and nephilim in London. The house has suffered a few different incidents since we left—"
I stopped playing and turned to look at him. "Do tell me no one was hurt."
He nodded. "All is well, Sariel requests that I just return for the night so that our staff might rest easier knowing there is a man in the house."
"Then you should go."
He smiled. "Perhaps, but will you be okay?"
I nodded. "It's just in the evenings. You'll return during the day to sit with me?"
He nodded. I started to play again, missed three notes in a row, and quit. "You know you aren't alone in this, Cassiel."
I did know, I just did not always feel it.
I leaned into Gabriel's shoulder and looped my arm through his. "Do not worry for me," I told him. "It's only a matter of time before this whole ordeal is over."
Feelings are fickle things and ought not be trusted.
"It will just be in the evenings," he promised, "if things become worse for you then I will remain here. As for now, you are safe as long as you are on holy ground."
