Gifted Ones

Chapter 14 Haven

It takes us about twenty minutes to reach the end of the tunnel. Every time the claustrophobia starts to close in on me I just lean into Chase and close my eyes, letting him lead me forward and trusting him to not let me crash into a wall. The rest of the way through seems much shorter than the beginning, and before I know it we're in the Catacombs of Paris. The tour guide talks and talks in French about the history of the place, but almost no one is really paying attention. The real star of the show is the bones.

The walls are covered in them. Femurs, pelvises, ribs, and skulls adorn the walls like the regular brick-and-mortar of an old building. The empty eye sockets seem to stare up at us, the gaping darkness giving the impression of being spied on through the gaps. And they're everywhere. There is hardly a gap where the tarnished white of bone doesn't peek through other bones. There is even a giant pillar in one of the chambers that is completely made of them, the center a bit thicker than the rest, making it resemble a grotesque beehive. When I stop to imagine the sheer amount of deceased humans in the room I shiver involuntarily. There must be millions of them, all arranged on different walls in these tunnels as peculiar mosaics tourists come to gawk at and take pictures. It gives you a sense of unrest, as if perhaps their souls have not yet moved on.

Briefly I remember the words to the riddle: They were carried in boxes, in bags, and in carts
And arranged in great patterns, a macabre art
By workers bent over, their fingers so deft
Assuming so blindly souls already left. . . I shiver again and continue on my way, still tense and sticking close to Chase. At least I know that if any mobile skeleton people show up, I'll be right next to the guy that can blow their skulls apart with lightning. Yeah right. But still, I feel much safer by him than by myself.

As we pass through dozens of skull filled corridors I begin to grow more and more restless. I want to be out of here. Usually I'd just blow it off as superstition and laugh at myself, but after seeing a red headed teenager turn into a giant cat, the concept of skeletons coming to life doesn't seem all that far fetched.

We reach the heart made of bones about half an hour into the tour. Made out of fourteen weathered skulls in total, it protrudes from the wall like a prehistoric decoration placed there by some deranged caveman. The irony of love made out of death is not lost on me. Goosebumps prick up and down my arms as I stare at the skinless faces. The fact that none of them have jaws just makes them look like their grimacing at us. It's definitely disconcerting.

"You know," Nate says from my right. "They say that, at night, people living on properties above the catacombs hear strange noises coming from beneath them. The sounds of moans and screams and people calling out for dead loved ones. They say that the people who went down to investigate never came back, but that the screams were worse the night after-"

"Pfft!" I scoff, turning away with a flip of my hair. "What are you, seven? I'm not stupid."

"I'm fifteen, thank you very much," he scolds with a smile. I am a bit surprised. He looks much older, seventeen at least.

"Well, you certainly act much younger if you're trying to scare me with ghost stories."

His expression immediately becomes serious. "Who ever said I was lying?"

Suddenly I feel something drag up my back with exaggerated slowness. All of my superstitions catch up to me at once and I let out a yelp, jumping away with my heart racing.

Nate bursts into laughter, keeling over with his hands on his sides. I turn to see a small oval-shaped rock fall to the ground just where I was standing. Damn. I thought for sure I was being attacked by an animated corpse.

Okay," Joshua starts, calling us over to the far corner of the room. "In order for this to work, we're going to have to create the veil mirage at the same time we cause ourselves to disappear. The veil people will act like us for an hour, which will give us time to get in and out of the chamber. Chase, Nate, come here." The two boys walk over, the younger stifling his laughter and becoming somber.