Master of the Moors (7 page)

"He's conscious, but not
speaking and, I dare say, not entirely lucid. What you might see as
a step forward may indeed be a whole leap in reverse."

"But he woke up," Grady
said. "Surely that means somethin' after all this time?"

Campbell shrugged.
"Haven't you ever heard the expression 'waking up in time to catch
your death'?"

Kate, fists and teeth
clenched, stepped forward. Grady reached out a hand to stay her.
She kept her glare fixed on the wheezing doctor, who seemed
oblivious to the proximity of the chestnut-haired
dervish.

"Don't you ever have any
good news, you incompetent sop, or do you have so little to live
for yourself that you delight in being the bearer of
misery?"

Campbell looked at her.
"Young miss..." He paused to hack a cough into his handkerchief.
"Believe me, I wish more than anything that I could tell you your
beloved father will be up and around in a matter of days. But I
have seen nothing to contradict my belief that he is slowly
collapsing under the weight of some great and mysterious malady.
That he has managed to cling to life this long is in itself a
wonder!" He wiped his mouth before continuing; spittle still
glistened on his lips. "I've gone to great lengths to try and
understand what it is that's plaguing him. I've spoken with some
colleagues of mine in London and though they have put forth some
theories---Doctor Joyce even suggested some kind of tropical
virus!---not a one of them could shed any light on the cause of this
illness, or indeed what it might be. Therefore, you can see how
difficult it is to treat a disease alien to me, and how equally
difficult it is to offer you the hope you so desperately seek. To
do so would be merely raising the height from which you'd
eventually have to plummet when you learned the truth. I'm truly
sorry, but it is not in me to deceive a dying man's
children."

"If you can't identify his
illness, then how can you say he's dyin'?" Grady asked.

Campbell scoffed.
"
Look at him
for
Heaven's sake!"

Kate moved before she was
fully aware she was going to, but just as quickly she could move no
more. Grady's hand had attached itself to her shoulder and one
squeeze extended her patience, but not by much. Campbell raised a
hand to his throat, as if fearing she might yet try to take a bite
out of it.

"He's
not
dying," she told him. "And I
believe it's quite probable that you insist on drawing such a
conclusion only because your drunken mind has long since shredded
your expertise, allowing you no alternative but to fall upon the
simplest of diagnoses to save you the labor of having to strive for
a cure."

Campbell was appalled. He
turned to Grady. "Are you going to permit
this...this...
child
...to talk to me in such a manner? I'd cuff her ears if I
were you."

"Fortunate for the lady
then that yer
not
me," Grady replied.

"And don't you dare call
me a child," Kate added, bolstered by Grady's support.

Indignation stiffened
Campbell's posture. "
Lady?
Well, then it's clear who holds court in this
house."

Kate glowered. "You're a
charlatan and a drunk and I'd rather you not befoul the precious
air in my father's room again."

The color drained from the
doctor's face. Again he appealed to Grady. "Will you not even raise
a hand to this obduracy? Does her tone not embarrass you as her
guardian?"

"She's her own guardian,"
Grady said. "And she's not herself. None of us are, with the master
bein' ill. I would think, as a physician, you'd have seen grief and
fear in all its incarnations and would understand how ugly it can
make a mourner."

Kate felt her guts tighten
at the caretaker's words. She looked beseechingly at him. "We're
not mourning. There's no
reason
to mourn, for God's sake."

"I have seen all kinds of
grief," Campbell replied, ignoring her, "but never such insolence.
Not from a child. It's a disgrace. Furthermore, I believe it's your
responsibility to remind her in this instance of her place, and her
manners."

"Of course you do. But
perhaps yer outrage needs reinin' in, Doctor. Try to understand
what this lady's been goin' through. She's very close to her father
and the thought of losin' him..." He shook his head, glanced at
Kate. Her eyes were filled with dark fire.

Campbell, flustered, moved
to a safe distance at the head of the stairs and continued to mop
his brow. "I admit I've been wrong before," he said. "Not often
mind you, but only a fool would claim to know the secrets of the
human body inside and out. I'd just feel better not offering false
hope, that's all. I didn't mean to cause upset." His hands were
trembling and suddenly, he looked a decade older.

"Then perhaps you'd better
work on yer beside manner, Doctor," Grady suggested.

Campbell's mouth grew
tight. "Mr. Grady, you should not mistake my willingness to
compromise as an admission of ineptitude. I'm merely explaining my
reasons for not giving you the diagnosis you're looking for,
nothing more."

"We're talkin' about a man
who hasn't moved an inch in almost two years 'cept to be cleaned
and fed, a man who stares out the window as if tryin' to figure out
where and what he is. Today he moves, he actually moves
on his own
, and yer
telling us 'tis a sign he's on the way out?"

"All signs
suggest---"

"If 'tis all the same to
you," Grady continued, "I think we'll keep hopin'. At least until
Master Mansfield tells us himself 'tis a futile
pursuit."

The doctor shrugged, and
donned his bowler. "Of course. But I must caution against investing
too much hope in his recovery. It will only make it harder for you
afterward."

"Understood."

"I've given him a dose of
morphine. It will tide him over until I return."

Grady nodded.

"Why bother?" Kate
grumbled, not loud enough for the doctor to hear.

Campbell trotted down the
stairs, one hand braced on the banister for support. Halfway down
he paused, stared straight ahead a moment, and then set his bag
down on the step. Kate and Grady watched as he produced a slim
glass test tube from inside the bag, which he raised before turning
to look up at them, a sad smile on his face.

"Do you know what this
is?" he asked, giving the vial a violent shake. The silver liquid
within moved sluggishly.

"Mercury?" offered
Grady.

Campbell shook his head.
"I show you this in an effort to convince you that it would be best
to mourn your father now," he said, looking at Kate. "And get the
worst of it over with."

Kate huffed. "I'll do no
such thing, you---"

"Emetics do nothing,"
Campbell said, interrupting the imminent insult, "and salts are
worthless. This," he said, and gave the tube another shake, "is
what my lancet drew forth from your father."

Grady expelled a stunned
breath and when Kate looked at him, she saw him struggle to regain
his composure for her benefit. Heartsick, she looked back at the
doctor. "What is it?"

"His blood," Campbell
said, as he returned the tube to his bag, snapped the clasps shut
and descended the stairs.

***

She was like a cyclone.
Grady wished he'd just gone ahead and started mending the fences,
but it was too late now. Kate slammed the parlor door behind her
hard enough to set the ornaments on the mantel rattling, her eyes
wild as she looked around the room. Grady, who feared she might
break something in her turbulent state, went to her, arms held out
for an embrace. To his surprise, she pushed him away, took a few
steps and then turned, her face contorted with rage and
frustration.

"You're a man of the
world, aren't you?" she demanded, but continued before he could
answer, "Or so you keep telling me anyway. So tell me this: What
makes a man bleed silver?"

"Kate, I---"

"Don't
lie
to me, Grady, just don't bloody
lie to me or I swear I'll send you out of this house for
good."

He had seen a thousand of
her tempers, but never in all his years had she threatened to expel
him from the house. It hurt, but he reminded himself that she was
incensed by the doctor's disturbing announcement and most likely
didn't mean it.

"I've never lied to you,"
he told her.

She stepped close, eyes
blazing. "Then tell me now what you've been afraid to tell me
before. What happened to him? There was a search, a missing woman,
that much I know. But what
aren't
you telling me about that day? Something was done
to him, some kind of a seed was planted in him on that hunt that
eventually felled him, made him what he is now. What made him
sick?"

"Darlin'...there are
things people should---"

"Grady, I'm not a fool, so
don't treat me like one."

"I'm not," he protested,
but she wasn't listening.

"The villagers, those who
haven't fled far from here still talk of that search on the moors."
she said. "I've seen you struggle to get those fences up even
though we have no animals left to keep in. Are you're trying to
keep something
out?
On those few occasions when you go into the village, you
cross yourself whenever you pass by the gate to the moors and I've
seen the way you look at it from your window. I
demand
, right this bloody second,
that you tell me why you're so afraid and what has made a breathing
corpse of my father."

Grady felt a cold finger trace a path
down his spine at the thought of having to tell her anything about
that day. But the steely set of her jaw and the fury in her eyes
told him she would persist until he did so. And he had to admit
that she deserved to know why her father was dying after all these
years of watching over him. Only his desire to protect her had kept
him from telling her the truth.

He rubbed a hand over his
face and sat down with a sigh. "I don't know enough to satisfy you.
I only know what I saw with my own two eyes, and over time I've
grown to doubt even that. But if you insist on hearin' my account
of it..."

"I do." She was calmer
now, but only a little. He knew it wouldn't take much for her to
fly into a rage again. She was scared, and he wondered if on some
level she already knew, or at least suspected, some of what he was
about to share.

She sat on the rocking
chair opposite him, her arms crossed, waiting.

Grady looked out the
window at the gloom. "It started with an early morning visitor," he
began.

***

Mansfield shuddered, came
awake. Immediately he felt the cold fire overwhelm the sluggish
tide of morphine. His hands began to tremble, his head snapping to
the left and the right, teeth clenched behind lips tightly shut to
silence the scream. He grunted softly, opened his eyes and saw the
room had turned white---bone white, fog white...moon white. Mist rose
from the foot of the bed, curled up like surf around the sheets and
collapsed back down into the seething white mass. He convulsed as
if shocked, his heart ramming against his ribcage as if desperate
to be free of the torture. A single drop of silver blood trickled
from his nose.

He closed his eyes, and
concentrated on the sound of his own ragged breathing. Prayers---and
there had been a century of them whispered to the dust in this
room---had no effect. The pain remained, crawling like snakes beneath
his skin, pausing often to chew and bite his organs, to tear like
maddened dogs at his nerves, to push against his skin as if seeking
an exit. Sometimes he saw them; their diamond-shaped heads heaving
against the skin of his chest, forcing it upward like hands beneath
rubber, until he could watch no more, could only dream of screaming
before he passed out. At first he had assumed they were
hallucinations, vile imaginary representations of an even viler
pain. But then he touched them, felt them shift beneath his flesh,
felt them press against his trembling fingers, and knew they were
real. This most hideous invasion instilled in him a rage, a grim
determination to linger, suffer on, and deny the parasites their
meal.

He thought of Neil,
sitting quietly on the window sill, almost close enough to touch
and yet a million miles away; Kate, sobbing against his chest while
his arms ached to hold her and his tongue yearned to speak, if only
to let her know he heard and felt everything, that he was still
here. But he couldn't, the parasite stemmed the flow of words
before they ever reached his mouth. He could only lie beneath
blankets that felt like steel wool, while snakes writhed inside his
skin, maddening him, torturing him.

Changing him.

6

His tale told, Grady rose
from the sofa and went to the sideboard by the window. As he poured
himself a glass of brandy, he caught a glimpse of Kate's pale face
reflected in the sideboard mirror. Her eyes were wide, her fingers
interlaced to keep them from shaking.