Book One: Chapter 23

“Are you ready?” She asked.

“Not quite.” The statue tucked near the door had caught his attention again. “What do you know about this?”

“Not much. It’s buried in creeper vines.” Naia stood on the edge of the fountain. “It seems familiar though.”

“Yeah. I bought some clippers.” Mike pulled them from the toolbox. “I’ve always had a fascination with statues. When I was a kid, there was a park with a bunch of sculptures, surrounded by a lake. I would go out onto this little island that you got to by a footbridge, and sit beneath the statues there.” Mike examined the vines, cutting them near the base of the statue and then unwinding them. “We would move all the time, so whenever we were close enough to the park, I would stop by and just sit with them for a while. There was one set of statues, three figures standing and a space between them as if a fourth one was missing. Sometimes, I would stand in that empty spot, willing myself to turn to stone for a hundred years and