I was glad, since I had no desire to get in a fight inside a church. “Do you, um, usually lay down here?” I smiled back.
She shrugged. “I do lie on the pews whenever I can, rather than sit on them. Gives you a much better view, I think. But I’ve never been here before. I’m only visiting. What about you? I’m guessing you’re not a regular parishioner, since you don’t have a Scottish accent either.” Her accent was slightly higher pitched, although it was definitely still British.
“No, I’m from America,” I said. “I’m just visiting too . . . Well, I guess I do live here now, but I’ve never been in here before. I was just delivering these for my grandmother.” I held up the basket.
She jumped to her feet and thrust out her hand.
“I’m Hunter,” she said, pumping my hand up and down while rattling off her personal information as quickly as all the other British girls I’d met. I wondered what made them all talk so fast. “I’m from Brixton, it’s near London, or I was from Brixton anyway, before my parents passed. Now I’m in Westminster, at the Catholic Children’s Society. Only for three hundred forty-two more days, though, since I turned seventeen last month.”
“Both your parents are dead too?” I didn’t mean to blurt it out, but I’d never met another orphan. I kind of thought they only existed in Dickens novels and my own unlucky life.
“Aye, they died in a car crash three years ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” I stuttered.
“No worries. Not your fault,” she answered, pushing her champagne-colored bangs out of her eyes. They fell right back.
“I’m Maren,” I said. “My mom just died recently. That’s why I’m in Scotland now . . .” I faltered, not wanting to talk about my mom, fearing if I picked at that scab, I might lose it. I had to change the subject. “So, how long are you here?”
“Just today,” she answered. “The Mother Superior had to come speak with the pastor about some new adoption laws that just passed Parliament.”
“So, you work at a children’s society?” I asked.
“No, I live there. It’s an orphanage. Although we all know no one’s going to adopt me now. That’s why I’m counting down until I’m eighteen. Then I get my pass, get some tin money, and off I go.” The look in Hunter’s eyes was weary, as if she’d seen too much. But it couldn’t hide her prettiness.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe the Abbey.”
“You want to be a nun?” I asked. Somehow, Hunter didn’t strike me as the no-talking type.
“No,” she explained. “Not an abbey like a convent. The Abbey, like where our parents worked.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “What do you mean, our parents?” I asked.
“Oh, sorry, I just assumed you knew . . . because of your necklace . . .” She motioned at my throat.
“What about my necklace?” I asked. I immediately put my hand over the dangling flower and rubbed the petals under my thumb.
She crinkled her forehead. “Where’d you get it?” she asked suspiciously.
“It was my mom’s. I found it in a box of her stuff.”
Hunter looked relieved. “That’s what I figured. My mom had one too. See?” She opened her sweater a bit at the neck to reveal she was wearing the exact same necklace. “It’s the Tudor rose, the symbol of the Abbey. Girls get the necklace; guys get cufflinks. They used to get tattoos, but that’s too hard to hide if you’re captured.” She sat down matter-of-factly, as if she’d just told me her favorite ice cream flavor, and picked at a piece of fuzz on her skirt.
“Captured?” I said. “What are you talking about? My parents didn’t work for a place called the Abbey. The necklace is just a coincidence.”
Hunter stared at me, suddenly very serious. “There’s no such thing as coincidence,” she said. “And there’s only one way to get these necklaces, and that’s by working at the Abbey.”
I wasn’t convinced. “What’s so special about them?” I asked. “How do you know my mom didn’t buy it on the Internet?”
“The rose is an ancient symbol of secrecy, and I know because they don’t sell it on the Internet,” she answered. “They don’t sell it anywhere. You have to earn it.”
“By doing what? What’s the Abbey?”
“You really don’t know?” Hunter seemed worried for me. “Where do you think your mom worked?”
“She worked for a foreign company called T.A., Inc.” I answered, confidently. More confidently than I felt since discovering her journal.
“T.A. . . . The Abbey . . .” Hunter rolled her hands as she said the words, as if she might somehow fan understanding into my brain.
I shook my head. “Coinci . . .” I stopped myself. “She was a systems analyst.”
“So was my mom,” Hunter answered. “What about your dad?”
“He died before I was born—well, the day I was born, actually. I never met him.”
“But where did he meet your mom?” she countered.
I knew the answer, but for some reason, I didn’t want to tell her. It fit too easily into her insane story. “They met at work,” I said slowly. “They both worked at the same company . . .”
“Mine too,” she answered. “That’s pretty typical, since they spend so much time away on missions together; although the Abbey strongly discourages couples from having kids. Clearly, that doesn’t always work out.” She motioned at both of us.
“Missions?” I said. “Are you serious? So what is the Abbey, exactly? Like the CIA?”
“Sort of,” she answered. “Except it’s not political or tied to a certain country.” She looked around nervously, like she wasn’t supposed to be telling me if I didn’t already know. She lowered her voice. “It’s a secret organization that helps fight evil forces around the world.”
“Like terrorists?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She shrugged. I could tell this wasn’t the entire truth.
“I’m pretty sure my mom wasn’t involved in anything like that,” I said, although at this point, I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure about anything that had to do with my mom anymore.
“Really?” She raised her eyebrows at me. “You didn’t find anything in her belongings that was unusual? Or encrypted?”
“Nope,” I lied. I hoped she couldn’t read the truth on my face.
“Well, if you find anything weird, be careful,” she said. “You don’t want Abbey information falling into the wrong hands. And they’ll come after you if they think you have anything. Remember, there’s no such thing as an accident.”
Who was this crazy girl practically quoting my mother’s warning message to me? And she didn’t believe in coincidence or accidents? Of course there were accidents. My mom . . . Hunter’s parents . . .
“But I thought you said your parents died in a car accident?” I prodded.