Where the Dead Talk (8 page)

"What in the hell is going on?" he said.

Someone was waving their arms, just beyond the trees, not quite in the meadow. The moon slipped from behind the high clouds and Pomeroy recognized the boy, Thomas. He was waving his arms with urgency, motioning him to come. Again there was a noise from the roof, a quick series of muted thuds.

"His skin was white. And cold," Hawkes said.

He retched again. Another sound from the roof.

"Damn it," Pomeroy said, looking up. He bolted through the door and off the creaking porch. He sprang forward, but something caught his cloak. The movement put him off balance and he fell headlong to the ground. He rolled onto his back. A shadow draped the ground before him. The shadow rose up, the shape of a person – almost. The angles were wrong. Neck too long, arms differing lengths, thin and twisted. The face was stretched and white, and the eyes shown a cold, rippling silver. The red of the British uniform shown maroon in the night.

"Cooper?" Pomeroy said.

It was him, but not at all the way he’d seen him last.

"Good god, what’s happened to you?" Pomeroy said. He pushed himself backwards.

The private cocked his head to the side and regarded him with those eyes. His head leaned forward, chin pointing at him. A line of liquid hung down from his mouth. With an uneven long stride, he closed the distance to Pomeroy and leaned down, his back arching, his eyes fixed on Pomeroy’s own.

"You left us, coward," the thing that was Cooper said. "Left us to our feast."

His voice was a harsh whisper. Fetid breath washed over Pomeroy.

"I didn’t –" Pomeroy started.

"But now you’ll taste what you missed, and dream forever of her."

"Her?"

Cooper grabbed him by the collar and lifted him until he was an inch from that horrible face, gagging on the putrid smell.

"Young Darcy," Cooper said, "dancing fleshy in the night. Oh, you’ll dream of her, and dream of the times you touched yourself. Had her touch you, tricked her, used her. Dream as you crawl forever."

Pomeroy struggled to pull free. How could Cooper know about Darcy?

Darcy was his step-sister, and had been all of fourteen when they’d spent a summer hiding their twisted games from the entire family. It had all ended quite suddenly with him being shipped off to the military by Lord Pomeroy. No letters of his had been answered by Darcy, and he’d never once received a letter from her.

Cooper leaned close and a roll of black liquid slid from his mouth. Pomeroy pushed, but the hands and arms and chest were all taught, unyielding as oak. An explosion belched from behind and a flash lit the figure. Cooper was knocked backwards, his head driven back like a whip. Somehow, he stayed upright. His right eye was extinguished and his hand ran back and forth across his face like a crab, feeling around where the shot had gone in on the high spot of the socket. Pomeroy spun around and got to his feet. Cooper was hunched over, his arms out in front of him, bent at the elbows. A second explosion went off and the private’s head was knocked sideways; a rain of bone and bloody matter hit the grass.

"Run. Now!" came the voice behind him, the muted voice of the boy.

He didn’t need to hear it twice. He leaped from where Cooper staggered and sped towards the trees. Just in front of them, the boy stood, the musket still up to his shoulder. On the ground next to him was a second musket.

"Told you I could shoot," the boy said.

"What are you doing here?" Pomeroy said.

"Knew you’d be back. I waited," the boy said.

The figure of Cooper lurched across the rolls of the meadow, hands in front of him. The back of his skull was gone and his one remaining eye glimmered. The boy picked up the first musket and handed it to Pomeroy, then ran across the path and into the trees. Tracing the boy’s path, he crashed through the slender branches that marked the start of the woods. A ways in, tall pine with few branches at the bottom formed a sort of enclosure, like a large tavern room with wooden columns and a green roof that blotted out the stars and moon. Two horses were tied to low branches. Pomeroy knelt in front of the boy and took a handful of the his shirt.

"What about Hawkes?" he said.

Thomas shook his head, his face unreadable in the darkness.

"It’s too late," he said, "He already got him."

Pomeroy let the boy go and took his hat off, ran his hand through his hair.

"Piss on it all," he said.

Thomas turned and untied the nearest of the horses. He used a branch to step up, getting himself high enough to reach the stirrup. Then he swung up onto the horse and looked down at Pomeroy.

"We have to go," Thomas said. "Now."

Pomeroy couldn't hold back the laughter. Just minutes ago, he’d been scared for his life, appalled at what had happened to Cooper and Hawkes. Now he was taking orders from a child – a colonial child at that, too short to get onto a horse without aid. Pomeroy hurried to the other horse. At least someone had some guts – and a bloody plan.

Long Enough For The Rope

Something woke her. Carolyn Bucknell sat up in her bed and listened, irritated. She had finally fallen asleep – the events of the day kept running through her mind, especially the thought of Jonathon running around somewhere, hunting or being hunted by British troops. The ticking of the grand clock in the hallway was loud. She got out of bed and wrapped a robe about herself, then went to the window. The yard was darkness. Off in the center of town, candles shone at the tavern and at the Reverend Watts’s home. This talk of invasion and rebellion was evidently keeping others awake. She crossed the room and out into the hall. Light came from the stairway. The tall clock began to chime a quiet ring – it was 3 a.m. A lantern burned in her father’s study. Carolyn went down the stairs in her bare feet and stopped outside of his door. He was at his desk with a quill in hand, staring hard at the page. After a moment, he dipped the quill and continued writing.

"Father?" she said.

He started and turned to her. His writing lenses were low on his nose.

"You surprised me, child," he said.

"I’m sorry."

"Why aren’t you sleeping?"

"I was," she said. "Why aren’t you?"

He sat back in his chair and took off his glasses, put the quill into the ink well.

"These times," he said, indicating the night outside the windows, "are worrisome, and won’t go the way of those that don’t rise to them. I’m sending out correspondence that I pray will bolster our cause."

"Jonathon says that liberty is their cause."

He lowered his chin and gave her a weary look.

"Cheap talk, nothing more," he said, "laid out by those who intend to steal away that which they already possess in abundance. These are coarse men, darling; small of mind and brutish in nature. Likely you are unaware, but the Chase men themselves have quite a reputation in the village – the kind of reputation you wouldn’t want to have haunting you. They and all the others like them will, I’m afraid, pay a steep price for their talk. Talk is no substitute for character."

"Character," she said.

"Carolyn, I understand that the Chase boy seems like a fiery idealist to you – not much different than his father, truthfully – but idealism isn’t character, no matter how hard he may wish it to be. What we have and what the King has given us are unbreakable. We’re meant have these ties – they can’t be lost or stolen or broken. He has nothing to offer you – and the sooner you realize that, the happier you’ll both be."

"At least he cares about something other than himself," she said. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion.

"A young man wears passionate belief as a Parisian wears fashion – always changing, and it is always about himself."

"You told them of the powder-store," she said.

He put his focals back on his nose and regarded her over them.

"Who said that?" he said.

"Did you?"

"Hardly. They never invited me to one of their parade exercises, nor did they volunteer the location to me."

"But the officers who were here - "

"I studied medicine with the Lieutenant-Colonel’s father, as I told you at the time. It was a social call – and, if you must know, an opportunity to introduce you to some worthy young suitors. Now if you’re asking me if I would have told them of a weapons cache, had I known – well, then we might have that conversation."

"And the one who died because of it, Nathan Chase?"

"Darling, there will be many who die because of this. Some rightly, but most not. As I said, the price will be grievously high for those who seek glory in rebellion. They may in the beginning think they can control the course of events through the force of their intentions – but the end is hidden, and fraught with peril."

The clock ticked softly in the hallway. She asked him the question that wouldn’t let her sleep.

"They wouldn’t really hang him, would they?"

"Sedition and treason are serious offenses. They very well might hang all of them – if they even spare them long enough for the rope. They might bring them justice on the battlefield."

"But not Jonathon," Carolyn said, refusing to believe her father's words.

Dr. Bucknell sighed and went back to his letters. She went to the window. She stole a glance at her father, then turned back to the glass panes. She traced a line down the glass with her finger. Outside, the stars were bright and the moon had set. The town was still.

A Cursed Lot

Elizabeth looked out the window and across the dark town common. The tavern lanterns shone. She let the curtain fall and turned to the door of her room, listening. The pounding from the study had stopped. Adonijah had been having one of his spells – and was now likely sprawled on the floorboards, asleep. His spells had mystified her when she’d first arrived from London. Locked away in his study, he would mumble, sometimes rant, knocking on the boards. Peering through the keyhole, she could watch as he stood in the corner of the room, rocking back and forth, tugging at his own hair. He often knocked his forehead against the wall. On other occasions, he crawled around the edges of the room, speaking to the walls, cursing the demons that dwelt in the slats. During the rest of his hours, he was often no less strange. He complained that mice inserted their droppings into his Bible, and accused Elizabeth of baking lye into their bread. He was obsessed with an Indian whom he claimed lived below the stairs leading to the second floor. When he was in the throes of a spell, he forgot about her entirely. A misplaced item here, a carefully planted mouse turd there, a set of muddy prints made with his own boots in the night – over time, Elizabeth learned the value of feeding these obsessions: some measure of peace.

This evening, it had taken no effort on her part to divert the Reverend’s attention. As the light had fallen, he’d started making his way around the house, tapping on the walls with his walking stick, his face scrunched up in irritation. When she’d asked him if he wanted supper, he’d looked at her as though a statue had spoken, and then continued his tapping, not saying a word.

Elizabeth hurried down the path that led back through the orchard against the Boston Road. The trees were blossoming early this year and air was fragrant. In another minute, she came out behind the tavern. A pair of candles burned in the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of Jude, passing by the window. She bit the inside of her cheek, then went to the door and gave three quick knocks. Jude opened the door. The tavern's kitchen was warm. Fresh loaves of bread sat cooling on the table.

"Elizabeth," he said, "I didn’t know what – he hit you?"

All day, she’d worried about what he would do when he saw. Her composure cracked, just a bit.

"It’s nothing," she said. As though she had no choice in the matter, her hand went up and grazed the swollen bruise around her eye, now fading from a mean red to a patchwork of purple, blue, and yellow.

"He found out," Jude said.

Elizabeth reached over and grabbed his hand, large between his own.

"He doesn’t know," she insisted, "he didn’t even know that I was gone yesterday. He was in his study the whole time – he didn’t hear me come back in. I brought him a plate and he started in on his nonsense about putting lye in his meals. Knocked the plate from my hands and struck me. Began yelling at me for bringing the devil into his home –"

"If he starts talking – accusing me – " Jude said.

"Adonijah accuses most of the community of being adulterers," she said.

"That doesn’t mean that folks aren’t going to believe it, especially here. I’m the tavernkeep, remember?" he said. "This village hasn’t been kind to tavernkeeps, not when they’re accused of adultery – and no one knows that better than I do."

"People trust you."

"Don’t be so sure. Most folks here already think I’m craven for not going off to Boston. And besides – we’re not innocent of it, are we?"

"Adonija is a hard man, with a bitter, cold heart. Some will listen, because they want the world to be like that. Forget what they think," Elizabeth said.

"Didn’t help Daniel Turner, forgetting what they thought."

"Then we’ll leave. Start somewhere else."

The words hung there.

"I can’t walk away from this."

"But you could sell it, buy another."

He shook his head.

"Not so simple. Most towns, I just couldn’t afford a place like this. Salem, Andover, Ipswich – those places are different. Not a lot of folks find themselves out here, not on purpose, anyway. But even so, I scratch by here. And it’s mine."

Elizabeth walked around the kitchen, looking at the crockery, iron pots and pans, rows of tallow candles.

"Then what about us?" she said. She looked up at him.

"I don’t know," he said.

That hurt more than Adonijah’s fist had. Jude saw.

"I – this is so fast."

"It’s been there for a long time," she said, "at least, for me."

"I never thought that –"