Chapter 13: The Church
1131 Words
After shaking off Jacob, Jonathan went to the mansion's garden. He searched everywhere but couldn't find the old gardener Miss Lettie had mentioned. After asking a servant, he learned that the old gardener had been fired by Miss Yolanda the previous evening.
Having found nothing, Jonathan left the mansion. Since he couldn't get information inside, he would investigate outside. Besides, with the recent attack, everyone was on high alert, and there were even police officers present. Miss Lettie would be safe during the day; he just had to be back before nightfall.
He followed the path, asking pedestrians for directions, and soon arrived at the church. It wasn't far from the Bennett mansion, only a twenty-minute walk. According to his research, the two properties Mr. Bennett had bought, gifted, and then re-donated were the library and this church. This place had to hold special significance for him. The fact that a church could be bought and sold so freely also struck Jonathan as very odd.
Once again posing as a manager from the Bennett family company, he claimed to be gathering material for the ailing Mr. Bennett's eulogy. He easily gained an audience with the respected priest and got the information he needed.
First, regarding the buying and selling of the church: the church itself had never been for sale. What had been bought, sold, and donated was the cemetery behind the church. Since the cemetery was church property, the library archives had recorded the transaction as being for the church.
As for why Mr. Bennett had bought the cemetery, to whom he had gifted it, and why it was donated back, the priest gave an unexpected answer. The church had agreed to sell the cemetery to Mr. Bennett because he promised he only wanted to build his own tomb without being disturbed. And indeed, once the tomb was complete, he returned the cemetery to the church.
Leaving the church, Jonathan followed the priest's directions to Mr. Bennett's specially made tomb. From the outside, it looked no different from the other tombs of the wealthy in the cemetery.
The tomb's entrance was sealed tight with stone, and Jonathan couldn't get inside to investigate. He knocked on it a few times; even a layman could tell the stone was incredibly solid.
The vegetation around the cemetery was lush but well-maintained, with tall shrubs and ancient trees dotting the space between graves. It was clearly very old. At the far end, Jonathan saw a gardener trimming the lawn. The man waved a friendly hello as Jonathan approached.
"Good day, sir. I can see you have a real talent for gardening. You keep this place looking wonderful," Jonathan said, laying on the praise.
"It's my duty. Before, I could only come here as a volunteer in my spare time to trim the weeds and dead branches. But I lost my job yesterday. Fortunately, the cemetery administrator hired me immediately, so now I work here full-time." The gardener seemed to be in high spirits and was eager to talk.
"You just lost your job yesterday?" Jonathan asked hesitantly.
"Yes. I was the gardener for the Mister family. Then that heartless Yolanda just had someone inform me, and I was out of a job. She showed no regard for the forty-plus years of friendship between me and Mr. Bennett".
"But working at the cemetery isn't so bad. Do you know the wealthy Bennett family here? The master of the house, Mr. Bennett, he and his wife used to live in the cemetery when they were young. He was a groundskeeper here, you know, before he made his fortune." The gardener, having experienced such a sudden turn of events, was desperate to share his story.
"You're saying Mr. Bennett lived in a cemetery when he was young? But I heard he lived in a cowshed and used to beat his wife." Jonathan sensed something was amiss and began to probe.
"A cowshed? No, no cowshed. I knew him when he lived here, in this very cemetery. You can't trust rumors. You should trust me, I was there," the old gardener said, patting his chest for emphasis. "But the wife-beating part is true. He was terrible about it. Other men, they do it in private. But him, he'd do it anywhere, anytime".
Jonathan chatted with the gardener for a while longer. Seeing the sun was about to set, he hastily said his goodbyes. Cemetery, church, dream, gardener, Ghoul. He felt he was close to untangling these messy clues.
Clink. The sound of a small stone hitting the ground drew his attention. A piece of white paper, held down by the stone, caught his eye. He looked around but saw no one. He walked over and picked it up. Written on it were the words: "The church, ten o'clock tonight".
Jonathan lifted the paper to his nose and sniffed. As expected, a foul stench clung to it. He stuffed it into his pocket and broke into a run, heading back to the Bennett mansion.
As he ran, he scanned his surroundings, wary of an ambush. A key clue had just fallen into his lap. He had already figured out more than half of the truth.
First, the information from the dream had been altered. Corroborating it with the gardener's account, the young Mr. Bennett had indeed been poor and a wife-beater, but he hadn't lived in a cowshed as the dream showed.
He had lived in the cemetery. And someone, or something, had indeed helped him get rich, but it wasn't a person. It was the Ghouls that lived in the cemetery.
They must have struck some kind of deal. Perhaps the Ghouls helped Mr. Bennett make his fortune, and in return, he built them a tomb or covered up their existence. Whatever the deal was, the foul-smelling paper and the fact that Mr. Bennett had bought the cemetery to build a tomb proved it.
The cemetery had become a Ghoul nest. Otherwise, why would this note appear just as he was leaving their turf? He had just taken a stroll through their headquarters. The meeting at the church was just a diversion. The cemetery and the church were as close as a kitchen and a living room. If he went, he'd be walking right into an ambush.
But why did the Ghouls break into the mansion? Was it because their deal was broken after Mr. Bennett's stroke? Or was there another reason? Was the magical dream their doing? If they could influence people in the mansion with dreams, why risk breaking in?
What was the Ghouls' objective? And why did Mr. Bennett want his descendants to find his autobiography? More questions plagued Jonathan.
He ran, panting, all the way back to the Bennett mansion without encountering any danger.
- Writer
