With infinite care, Celia lifted the top off the jar that did not have a bone hanging from it - to reveal another pair of longish bones, slightly less bleached, and with strips of what must have been clothing on it. Tiny finger bones lay inside the jar.
"What Ronald thought was that this poor woman died as she performed a last desperate act. Clever, too, if you see it from their perspective. She cut her wrists - you can see how the tendon is shriveled in the better-preserved arm - and then she let the entire contents of her bloodstream flow into the urns. We do know that the urns show a heavy precipitation of blood on the bottom. She was trying to lure something in - or perhaps something back in. And she died trying, and the clay that she had probably hoped to use in her last conscious moments held her bones to the jars."
"Whew!"Alaric ran a hand over his forehead, but shivered at the same time.
Take pictures! Elena was mental y commanding him, using al her wil power to transmit the order. She could see that Bonnie was doing the same, eyes shut, fists clenched.
As if in obedience to their commands, Alaric was taking pictures as fast as he could.
Final y, he was done. But Elena knew that without some outside impetus there was no way that he was going to get those pictures to Fel 's Church until he himself came to town - and even Meredith didn't know when that would be.
So what do we do? Bonnie asked Elena, looking anguished.
Well...my tears were real when Stefan was in prison.
You want us to cry on him?
No, Elena said, not quite patiently. But we look like ghosts -
let's act like them. Try blowing on the back of his neck.
Bonnie did, and they both watched Alaric shiver, look around him, draw his windbreaker closer.
"And what about the other deaths in your own expedition?"he asked, huddling, looking around apparently aimlessly.
Celia began speaking but neither Elena nor Bonnie was listening. Bonnie kept blowing on Alaric from different directions, herding him to the single window in the building that wasn't shattered. There Elena had written with her finger on the darkened cold glass. Once she knew that Alaric was looking that way she blew her breath across the sentence: send all pix of jars 2 meredith now! Every time Alaric approached the window she breathed on it to refresh the words.
And at last he saw it.
He jumped backward nearly two feet. Then he slowly crept back to the window. Elena refreshed the writing for him. This time, instead of jumping, he simply ran a hand over his eyes and then slowly peeked out again.
"Hey, Mr. Spook-chaser,"said Celia. "Are you al right?"
"I don't know,"Alaric admitted. He passed his hand over his eyes again, but Celia was coming and Elena didn't breathe on the window.
"I thought I saw a - a message to send copies of the pictures of these jars to Meredith."
Celia raised an eyebrow. "Who is Meredith?"
"Oh. She - she's one of my former students. I suppose this would interest her."He looked down at the camcorder.
"Bones and urns?"
"Well, you were interested in them quite young, if your reputation is correct."
"Oh, yes. I loved to watch a dead bird decay, or find bones and try to figure out what animal they were from,"Celia said, dimpling again. "From the age of six. But I wasn't like most girls."
"Well - neither is Meredith,"Alaric said.
Elena and Bonnie were eyeing each other seriously now.
Alaric had implied that Meredith was special, but he hadn't said it, and he hadn't mentioned their engagement to be engaged.
Celia came closer. "Are you going to send her the pictures?"
Alaric laughed. "Well, al this atmosphere and everything - I don't know. It might just have been my imagination."
Celia turned away just as she reached him and Elena blew once more across the message. Alaric threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"I don't suppose the Island of Doom has satel ite coverage,"he said helplessly.
"Nope,"Celia said. "But the ferry wil be back in a day, and you can send pictures then - if you're real y going to do it."
"I think I'd better do it,"Alaric said. Elena and Bonnie were both glaring at him, one from each side.
But that was when Elena's eyelids started to droop. Oh, Bonnie, I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you after this, and make sure you're okay. But I'm falling...I can't...
She managed to pry her lids open. Bonnie was in a fetal position, fast asleep.
Be careful, Elena whispered, not even sure who she was whispering it to. And as she floated away, she was aware of Celia and the way Alaric was talking to this beautiful, accomplished woman only a year or so older than he was.
She felt a distinct fear for Meredith, on top of everything else.
Chapter 14
The next morning Elena noticed that Meredith stil looked pale and languid, and that her eyes slid away if Stefan happened to glance at her. But this was a time of crisis, and as soon as the breakfast dishes were washed, Elena cal ed a meeting in the parlor. There she and Stefan explained what Meredith had missed during the visit from the sheriffs.
Meredith smiled wanly when Elena told how Stefan had banished them like stray dogs.
Then Elena told the story of her out-of-body experience. It proved one thing, at least, that Bonnie was alive and relatively well. Meredith bit her lip when Mrs. Flowers said this, for it only made her want to go and get Bonnie out of the Dark Dimension personal y.
But on the other hand, Meredith wanted to stay and wait for Alaric's photographs. If that would save Fel 's Church...
No one at the boardinghouse could question what had happened on the Island of Doom. It was happening here, on the other side of the world. Already a couple of parents in Fel 's Church had had their children taken away by the Virginia Department of Child Protective Services.