Master of the Moors (6 page)

"That mountebank Doctor
Campbell thinks you'll never get out of this spell of yours, but
he's a fool. You know that too, don't you? I remember you used to
say so." She smiled. "You used to say he was probably just some
tramp masquerading as a medico to get the respect he was sure he
deserved. Well, I think you were right. He was in here on Saturday
reeking of whiskey and tobacco. What self-respecting doctor would
dare show up to the house of an ill man in his cups? Even Neil says
the man can't wear cologne because it would crawl from his own
cheeks at the stench of him." She laughed, but the sound was so
hollow in the room, it almost summoned tears.

"Why won't you wake up?"
She drew her hand down to his chest, to where the faint thump of
his heart assured her of life, and leaned in so that her hair
trailed over her fingers. "He says you're going to die," she said
in a broken whisper. "And Grady and Miss Fletcher, they don't say
it, but I know they already think you're lost to us. Sometimes I
think even Neil has given up on you."

Her brother seldom visited
this room, but when he did he never spoke to their father, but sat,
as if waiting, only to leave moments later. Once, when Kate
questioned him about the brevity of his vigils, he'd retorted,
"Unlike you, I can't see him, so all I can do is listen. I can't
stand to hear that terrible tortured breathing. He breathes like a
dying man. But it should be much worse if the room fell suddenly
quiet, so I do not linger long."

In truth, there was no
question in her heart that Neil loved him, and yet she could never
quite convince herself that his love for their father was quite as
strong, or as pure as hers. A pronounced streak of callousness ran
through her brother's heart. She had, on occasion, caught him with
the most unsettling look on his face, as if he were envisioning
scenarios too awful for benevolent minds to comprehend. She tried
to tell herself that she gave those looks far too much import, when
perhaps he was only daydreaming. If so, however, she did not want
to know the nature of the things that kept him
enthralled.

As she watched her father,
a slight shape beneath the sheet, she felt a sorrow so deep it
caused her stomach to clench. She grimaced, and the gasp that
escaped her ended in tears. "What happened to you?" She lowered her
head to his chest. "I know you can hear me."

She closed her eyes and
cried quietly, her hand smoothening out the wrinkles in her
father's shirt. She imagined his arms moving suddenly, the thrill
that would overwhelm her as his fingers clawed his hands up around
her back. He would embrace her, his mouth opening to whisper words
of comfort---
I'm here my love, everything's
going to be fine
---and she would cry until
she felt as if her own life were draining from her. She would hug
him until he protested, and scream for all to hear that the
damnable Doctor Campbell had been denounced as a fraud by his own
patient, who had defied him by coming back to life. There would be
a celebration, festivities that would last until Christmas, and the
house would be alive again.

"Come back," she said
again, her chest filled with mourning. "Come back to
us."

She raised her head.

Upon the moors, a bird
cried. The sunlight shifted ever so slightly as the mist twisted in
on itself. There was no breeze. No sound.

But for a single, gurgled
breath.

Kate gasped, a chill
scurrying down her spine.

Her father's head was
still turned toward the window, but the one visible eye had
shifted, the lids widened. He was watching her, in apparent fear,
out of the corner. She saw the angry red veins stretched across the
whites, like tiny ropes attempting to drag his gaze back where it
belonged, and as she stared, petrified despite the implications of
this startling new development, his lower lip twitched.

She was on her feet in an
instant. "Oh God...
Father?
"

Everything in her wanted
to cry out, just as she had envisioned, but for the moment, she was
not yet certain enough to summon anything but the slightest of
whimpers.
He heard me
, she thought, her nerves humming with excitement.
He's waking!

He stared at her from the
corner of his bloodshot eye. There was a click as he swallowed, a
slight
pip!
as his
dry lips parted.

Kate moved back to him.
"It's me," she said, her voice choked with tears, "I'm here.
It-it's all right now." She had never given much credence to the
power of prayer, but what was happening now---though she scarcely
dared believe it---was nothing short of a miracle.

The eye widened until it
seemed there was only red-veined white. A shudder passed through
her father, his breath emerging in stuttered hisses, his chest
rising and falling rapidly.

"Daddy..."

Then the mist reached up
and choked the sun, darkening the room and sending confused shadows
sprawling across the bed.

Kate felt a cold
uncertainty at the stark, unbridled terror in her father's eyes.
Did he not know her? Was he seeing a phantom in her place? The
petrified look seemed to be screaming a silent plea to her:
Stay away stay away stay away stay
away...

"Don't be afraid," she
sobbed. "It's me, Father. Please don't..."

He convulsed, once. There
came the sound of what might have been a splintered cough, quickly
followed by a tortured gurgle, as atrophied organs struggled to
reacquaint themselves with life.

Then she did scream, as,
from her father's slightly opened mouth, something began to
run.

***

"Tobacco."

"Who's that?" Neil asked.
The customer brought with him the smell of wet clay and burning
leaves, an autumnal odor that might have been pleasant if not for
the underlying stench of death that accompanied it.

"I do apologize if I
startled you."

"You didn't." Neil heard
no apology at all in the unfamiliar voice. While the accent
suggested someone local, the deep, rumbling timbre was completely
alien to his ears.

He turned his back on the
man and began to feel the notches in the wood for the appropriate
shelf. Greg Fowler, the storeowner, had carved symbols in them to
indicate what each one held. Neil only had to run his fingertips
over them to find what he was looking for. Of course, initially
he'd protested what he'd perceived as 'special treatment' but
Fowler had marked the shelves anyway and secretly, Neil was glad of
them.

"It's up there, one shelf
to your right."

Neil clenched his teeth in
irritation. "I
know
where it is." He grabbed the small pouch, turned and tossed
it onto the counter.

"You must be Neil
Mansfield," the stranger said. "Jack Mansfield's boy."

"Who are you?"

"A past
acquaintance."

"Well then, I'll be sure
to tell my father that a
past
acquaintance
says 'hello.'"

The man laid his coins out
on the counter. "How is your father, anyway? I'm surprised I
haven't seen him ambling about."

Neil collected the money,
ran his thumb over the coins to ensure he'd been given the correct
amount, then deposited them into a small tin box behind the
counter. "He's sick. Has been for a long time."

"Sick? Really? Well, that
is indeed a shame."

Again, Neil was struck by
the lack of sincerity in the stranger's voice. "Can I get you
anything else?"

The man said nothing.

Neil frowned.
"Well?"

"If you were offered your
sight, would you take it?"

Neil clenched his fists.
Few things angered him more than when people assumed they had to
right to discuss his disability just because he didn't hide it. "I
beg your pardon?"

"I think it's a rather
simple question. Your eyes are quite remarkable as they are. Don't
misunderstand me. I'm merely hypothesizing. Say if you could see
again, if someone could return your sight to you, would you accept
the gift?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's an absurd
question."

"You think so?"

"It's not something that
can be cured, so if you're done being ridiculous..."

"Oh, don't be so sure of
that, young Mansfield. Small villages breed small minds incapable
of seeing the breadth of the sky above their own chimneys or the
world beyond their gates. But not everything is so simple, or
clearly defined. There are ways of fixing even the most impossible
problems. There are
other
ways of seeing."

"Yes...well right now
nothing would satisfy me more than to have
you
see yourself to the
door."

"Aren't you at all curious
why I asked?"

"Are you a
doctor?"

"Insofar as I offer people
what they need, I suppose I am."

"I don't have much time
for doctors. Our current one leaves a lot to be desired. To
describe him as shabby genteel would be complimenting the drunken
lout."

"So I've heard." Boots
scuffed the floor as the stranger drew closer. "But right now I'm
more interested in you, Neil."

The boy felt a pang of
unease and slowly moved away until his back was pressed against the
notched shelves. "Why?"

"Because I believe I can
change your life."

"What makes you think
I
want
my life
changed?"

"Come now, every boy your
age has a wish, something that they'd give everything to have. And,
as preposterous as it might sound, I do believe I'm in a position
to give you exactly what it is you need."

"I need you to leave. Can
you grant that wish?"

"My, my. You are spirited,
aren't you?"

It was not a question, so
Neil made no attempt to answer it, but the silence the lack of
response provided made him uncomfortable. To his relief, it didn't
last long. "I've upset you," the stranger said, "and for that I
apologize, but I do believe we'll speak again, young Mansfield. In
fact, I dare say we're bound to become steadfast friends, once you
realize I mean you no harm. Quite the opposite, in
fact."

"Believe what you like.
You've wasted enough of my time." Neil turned back to the shelves
and began to trace the notches, even though there was nothing he
wanted but to preoccupy himself with something other than the
stranger.

"You're correct. We'll
have ample time to discuss our secrets," the man said. "Perhaps
when our paths next cross you can tell me more about that pretty
young girl who came to see you earlier."

Neil froze. The idea that
this foul-smelling, deranged stranger might know about Tabitha
disturbed him more than it had any right to. "Mind your own
business," he grunted, but the sound of boots crunching gravel told
him the man had already left. He turned to face the breeze soughing
in through the open doorway. The man's voice, seductive and cordial
and yet colder than anything he had ever heard before, echoed in
his mind.

I believe I can change your
life.

5

"I wouldn't celebrate just
yet," Doctor Campbell said, as he stepped into the hallway and
pulled the bedroom door closed behind him. The sleeve of his
oversized coat snagged in the jamb and he muttered first an
apology, then a slew of obscenities as he struggled to worry it
free.

Typical
, Kate thought.

At last he tugged and the
door slammed shut with a bang, the echo like thunder in the quiet
house. The doctor grimaced, ran a hand over his coarse hair and
licked his lips. As usual, he reeked of whiskey. While Grady waited
patiently, Kate tapped her foot on the floor in a staccato
rhythm.

Pale light washed the
walls and cast the winding staircase in shadow. Wind swept the
chimney dust from the roof, scattered it across the moors and into
the thickening fog.

Campbell set his battered
Gladstone bag at his feet and straightened with a grunt. "He's
awake, I can tell you that much."

"That's very
illuminating." Kate crossed her arms to avoid kicking the
information out of the doctor. "But is he all right?"

Campbell leaned against
the banister of the stairs. Grady winced at the creak it gave and
stepped closer to the old man. Kate guessed it was in case he might
be required to save the doctor from a sudden fall.
I'd let him fall
, she
thought,
it might teach him some
manners
.

Campbell was sweating
profusely and, when not gesturing emptily at the air---a habit Kate
assumed was his attempt to cull long forgotten medical terminology
from the air---daubed his brow with a soiled linen
handkerchief.