The Empty Grave of the Twins

Chapter 2: Saint Agnes

Saint Agnes stood at the edge of the woods, exactly where Clara remembered it.

The building was larger than Edward expected, a long gray structure with broken stone angels above the entrance and ivy crawling over the windows. The blue door the girl had described was faded almost to gray, but it was there. So were the iron gates, though the chain around them was new.

Edward parked the car a short distance away, not wanting to announce their arrival. Clara sat beside him, staring at the building as if it had risen from a nightmare.

"You said it was closed," Edward said.

"It was supposed to be." Her voice was thin. "My mother used to donate here when I was a child. She said the place was shut down after an investigation."

"What investigation?"

Clara did not look at him. "Missing children."

The barefoot girl, whose name they had learned was Lily, sat in the back seat. She had refused the blanket Clara offered and had not eaten the sandwich Edward bought on the road. She only watched the orphanage with the fixed attention of someone waiting for permission to be afraid.

Edward turned to her. "Lily, are my sons inside?"

She nodded. "Sometimes."

"What does that mean?"

"They move them when the doctors come."

Clara closed her eyes. "Doctors?"

Lily touched the moon locket. "The quiet boy said not to talk to doctors."

Edward felt anger rising, hot and clean beneath the terror. For three months he had mourned two children. He had watched his wife collapse in front of two sealed coffins. He had signed papers, accepted condolences, and let silence take over his house.

If his sons were alive, someone had stolen grief from him and sold it back as death.

"We're going in," he said.

Clara caught his arm. "Edward, we need the police."

"And tell them what? A little girl from a cemetery says our dead sons are in a closed orphanage?"

"She has Theo's locket."

"Yes. And I'm not waiting until whoever gave it to her disappears."

They climbed over the side gate where the wall had cracked. Lily led them through dead weeds and around the back of the building to a cellar entrance half-hidden beneath rusted metal doors. She tapped three times, waited, then tapped once more.

A small face appeared behind the narrow cellar window.

A boy.

Edward's heart stopped.

For one breath, he thought it was Theo.

But the child behind the glass was thinner, darker-haired, and older. His eyes widened when he saw Lily.

"You came back," he whispered.

Lily pointed at Edward and Clara. "They're looking for the twins."

The boy's face changed instantly. "You shouldn't have brought them."

Edward crouched near the window. "Are Oliver and Theo here?"

The boy hesitated.

Then, from somewhere inside the building, a bell rang once.

The child behind the window went white.

"They're moving them," he said.

Edward grabbed the metal cellar doors and pulled. They were locked from inside.

Clara dropped to her knees beside the window. "Please. If you know where my sons are, tell me."

The boy stared at her.

Then his expression softened in a way that broke Edward's heart.

"The red-haired one still cries for you," he whispered.

Clara began to sob.

Edward slammed his shoulder against the cellar door.

Once.

Twice.

On the third hit, the rusted latch cracked.

The door flew open, and a smell of damp stone, medicine, and old fear rushed out.

Lily grabbed Clara's hand.

"Don't let the Matron see you," she whispered.

Edward froze.

A woman's voice echoed from inside the orphanage, calm and cold.

"Lily, dear. You know what happens to children who bring strangers home."