Heaven's Bones (20 page)

If someone had been watching they would have seen the house flicker and vanish and leave an empty swirl in the fog.

After a moment they would have seen it coalesce out of the mist again.

It was a week at least before a wayfarer went by: a man from St. Agnes Town in search of a straying lamb. On the grounds he found it. The animal had panicked and darted into the thick, untended undergrowth and the dead branches and thorns had trapped it.

Sighing at the stupidity of sheep in general, he kneeled to the work of releasing it, glancing up at the bulk of the house as he did so.

It reared up against the sky as it always had done: the noblest house in these parts, and yet now there was something incomplete about it, as if the walls were eaten away and would tumble down at a touch. Although its bulk of bricks and timber was still whole it seemed an empty shell, insubstantial as the fog, eaten away from the inside and desiccated as a dried crab's shell caught above the water line, and as hollow.

But that was an absurd notion, of course, and the man from St. Agnes worked the lamb loose and bore it away in his arms, trying to ignore the sensation that someone in the house was watching him with no friendly eye, that an invisible presence passed him on the overgrown path and touched his arm with cold, foggy fingers.

Miss Sophia Huxley had a new dress for visits; it was a pretty pink with many ruffles and she would have liked it if it had not been so very itchy, especially about the waist. As her mother paused, waiting for the street to clear, she dug surreptitiously at the band across her back.

Something pressed into her slipper uncomfortably and she moved her foot, feeling something hard and round grate on the cobbles underneath. She glanced down and flicked the offending object with her toe.

It was round, and shone dully in the paltry morning sun. Was it a coin? It looked about the size of a shilling.

Her waistband dug into her skin unpleasantly as she bent to retrieve the disk, and her mother tugged at her other arm.

“What are you thinking, Sophie? That sidewalk is filthy.”

Determined, Sophie made herself stoop lower and caught up the object between two fingers.

It wasn't a coin, or perhaps it was a foreign one. On one side was a blob that, when she looked closer, revealed itself to be a heart with a crown of flame. On the other side was the figure of a woman, robed like the illustrations in her storybooks, with a strange creature that looked like a snake twined around her legs.

“Sophia Huxley, what are you doing? Now you've ruined your glove.”

She had: a circlet of greasy dirt had transferred itself onto the palm of her white glove, new this past week. She glanced guiltily up at her mother.

“I'll clean it, Mama. But look at this!”

Her mother bent to consider the trinket in Sophie's hand.

“It's a saint's medal, child. A bit of papist trash.”

“You mean Catholics?” To Sophie, raised a socially respectable Anglican child,
Catholic
seemed as exotic as
Persian
or
Hottentot
. She looked closer. While the woman's face didn't have much detail, she could determine that there was some sort of crest, maybe of feathers, on the snake-thing's head.

“Now come along, child, and drop that filthy thing. We're late to your aunt's, and I shall never hear the end of it.”

But Sophie tucked the little disk into her pocket, wiping off the last of the grime with careless abandon for her glove.

Aunt Marabelle did notice the dirty glove, and made several helpful suggestions to Sophia's mother about the proper grooming of little girls. To her credit, Mrs. Huxley smiled though clenched teeth, did not respond the way she would have wished, and wasn't as snappish with Sophia on the way home as she might have been.

Dr. Huxley was reading his newspaper beside the fire, as was his custom in the evenings.

“Don't bother your father, dear,” said Mrs. Huxley in a patient tone as Sophia ran to him, crumpling his paper before he could lift it out of the way. Smiling, Sophia's father pulled her into his lap, dropping the wrinkled newsprint on the side table.

“And how was Aunt Marabelle?” he asked, in a tone that implied he was rather glad not to be part of the visit.

“We had lemonade, and no biscuits, and I've ruined my gloves,” declared Sophia.

“You needn't make that a point of pride,” commented Mrs. Huxley, examining a list Cook had left for her with a slight frown. “Aunt Marabelle was less than impressed.” Although certainly, she thought to herself, terms like
hellion
and
tomboy
were exaggerations when applied to Sophia. The girl had spirit; that was all.

Sophie was fumbling in the pocket of her jacket. “Look what I found, Father,” she said. “Mummy says it's a saint's medal.”

Dr. Huxley examined the disk with interest. “It certainly is.”

He pushed his glasses up and rubbed the worn surface between his thumb and forefinger.

“Looks like Saint Margaret,” he said. “See the dragon at her feet?”

“Margaret! Like my middle name!” Sophie squinted at the crude rendition. “Did she have a dragon as a pet?”

“Oh no. A dragon ate her, if I recall correctly. A dragon sent by the devil himself. It didn't do him much good, because she burst from the dragon's side, killing the poor beast.”

“Goodness!” said Mrs. Huxley, busy at her dinner planning.

“But she was martyred none the less, like the rest of the saints,” he continued. “She was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and if I recall correctly she's the saint who looks after women in childbirth.”

“I'll keep it for good luck,” declared Sophie. “Since it is my name, after all.”

“Very good. Now run off and have your supper like a good girl, and let me finish my paper,” he said, reaching for where it lay in its sad crumpled state on the table.

Sophie made sure to retrieve her medal before she left, and tucked it into her treasure box on her bureau, which contained an amber cross on a thin gold chain—a christening gift from her Aunt Jane—and a tiny silver ring her mother had given her and which she rarely wore for fear of losing.

Riverbend

Weldon stood on the bank of the river, watching the water crest up the boulders that protruded midcourse. Here the current was swift and dangerous, and the unwary swimmer likely to be pulled under despite their efforts. The sun was low in the sky and the ripples atop the water ran amber.

He was still holding his leather case. Now he crouched on the long, bladelike grass and opened it. Carefully he took out the cloth bundle in which his scalpels were wrapped and laid it reverently on the ground.

The needles were next, in their black enameled case, and three different sizes of scissors, the larger two with wicked, serrated cutting surfaces. The spreader, and two bone saws—one long and delicate, the other heavy with a wide, flat blade.

Then several lengths of leather, stained with sweat and something darker. These he caressed as he laid them on the grass.

The black bag gaped open. He found four double-fist sized, water-smooth chunks of granite, and placed them inside, then strapped the bag shut again.

With an effort, he heaved the bag and two of the leather strips to the waterside. He stripped, carefully laying each article of clothing neatly on a boulder, folded lengthwise. Topcoat. Vest. Collar, with its stud beside it. Shirt. The shoes side by side at the base of the boulder, with socks and garters tucked inside. Trousers.

He looped the leather strips through the handle and straps of the medical bag with its burden of stones, and tied it around his waist. The restraints cut into his flesh a little. Holding the bag, he stepped into the water and waded knee-deep, his skin goose-pimpled at the chill.

There were sharp little rocks in the river bottom, and he wished he'd left his socks on.

Here the submerged lip of the bank dropped away into deep water. He looked down into the depths of the river a long time, starting to shiver as the cold penetrated, watching the geometric patterns the fading light made in the current until the advancing dusk made it too dark to see.

His legs were numb. Without allowing himself to think about it, he stepped off the underwater lip and plunged into the heart of the river. The water closed over his head as the weight of the bag pulled him to the bottom.

After a minute his body cried out for air, and he couldn't stop his arms and legs from thrashing, trying to reach the surface. He rose slightly, but the weight bore him back down. Of their own volition, his fingers fumbled for the knots in the leather, but he had known that would happen and had knotted it tight at the small of his back.

The dispassionate part of his mind noted his vision going velvet black with hard white spots of light, the involuntary, weakening, thrashing of his limbs, the ache in his chest as his lungs filled with the cold water. For a brief moment he was suspended in pain, and fought against the panic of his animal mind.

Then warmth and lassitude filled his body, and he relaxed, feeling the current as a caress, and the blackness as welcome sleep.

Weldon woke with a start. At first he didn't understand where he was.

But the firm softness of the bed was familiar, as was the morning light through the sheer curtains. He was on the bed in his dressing room, lying on the coverlet, fully dressed save for being barefoot, and completely dry.

He found his shoes, socks still neatly tucked within, beside the bed. On the bedside table was his medical kit, dry as well.

He opened it. All his gear was packed inside, as handily as if he'd done it himself. The leather straps he'd used to bind the bag to his body were neatly folded, and he pulled one out.

In the center it felt just a little damp.

He replaced it and pulled on his shoes.

Beatrice's room was beside his own. He paused outside her door and laid his hand upon it. The door felt hot to the touch, as if the room behind it were still burning.

Something heavy, sounding lopsided, dragged itself around inside.

With a shudder he passed on, toward the guest wing. The stranger was sitting at the edge of the bed, looking at the greenery outside the window.

Weldon had half-expected Fanny to be standing vigil at the bedside, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Weldon cleared his throat. The man on the bed slowly turned to look at him. His dark eyes made him look even more like a gypsy. He rose, carefully, as if still unsure of his legs. At some point someone—the invisible hands, doubtless—had dressed him in a nightshirt that Weldon recognized, with a twinge of annoyance, as one of his own.

The man gestured at his abdomen, where he had been slit open and repaired.

“Your work?” he said. His accent was strange, but not uncouth.

Weldon inclined his head slightly. “I found you in the fog,” he said. “You seemed to have been … injured.”

The man nodded. “Yes.” He smiled ruefully. “It was a woman, naturally,” he continued.

“Naturally,” Weldon returned.

“I thank you for your aid and skill …”

“Weldon. My name is Weldon, and this is my house.”

“… and your hospitality, Doctor Weldon.”

He sat back on the bed, as if speech exhausted him.

“There was a little girl here when I woke …” He looked around, frowning.

“Fanny. My daughter,” said Weldon, sourly.

The man didn't seem to hear him. “A strange look about her.”

Weldon didn't want to talk about Fanny. “And your name, sir? And your business on my property?”

The man looked at him a long moment, his dark eyes narrowing. The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Can it be?” he murmured. “Jaelle's Breed, even here?”

Weldon felt a dull, cold shock in his belly. Long ago the gypsies Nicolae and Tariel had called him that, when they thought he didn't hear.