Anatomy: A Love Story(48)

“Would you like to stay for a cup of tea or something?” Hazel said after they had stood in the dim half light for a few seconds. “We can walk up to the castle; I’m sure Cook will be up if you want some breakfast.”

Jack shook his head. He pushed his hair away from his face. “Nah, I best be getting back to town,” he said. “On foot.”

“Oh. All right, then.” Hazel looked down at the body, still wrapped in Jack’s sheet. “I’ll need more than one body, I think,” she said. “If there’s another one that died of the fever that you hear about.”

“No shortage of those,” Jack said. Hazel looked up at him, alarmed to see that he was smiling. “Let’s say same time next week.”





23




TO HAZEL’S SURPRISE, JACK ARRIVED BACK at Hawthornden sooner than Sunday night. Just a few days after their successful dig, Hazel saw him standing sheepishly by the stables when she came out after breakfast for her walk.

“I was thinking,” he said, “that if you happened to be free today, you might show me how to ride. I’m not expecting to be able to learn in one go, especially if you put me on a brute like that Beetle—whatever his name was.”

“Betelgeuse,” Hazel said, trying to hold back her smile as she approached. “One of the brightest stars in the night sky visible to the naked eye, they say.”

“And impossible high up, just like the horse.”

Hazel had already entered the stable and brought the tall black Arabian out of his stall. The pair of them approached Jack, who began to look as though he regretted his decision to revisit riding.

If Betelgeuse were capable of smirking, that’s exactly what the horse would have done as it gazed down at Jack with a look in his eye that couldn’t be construed as anything other than a challenge. Jack raised his arm as if to pet the horse, and then thinking better of it, used his already lifted hand to tidy his hair, pretending that was what he had intended the entire time.

“So,” Hazel said, “we’re going to want the horse to get to know you.”

“I feel like we already had a fairly intimate introduction,” Jack said.

“No sudden movements. Move very slowly. Reach out your hand—yes, very good, just like that, and now walk all the way around him, but keep your hand on him the whole time. He needs to know where you are.”

Jack obeyed, feeling slightly silly walking around the horse while Hazel watched.

“Now, put your left foot in the stirrup there. Always mount from the left side.”

“Why?”

“Actually, I’m not certain. I was just taught that way. I assume it has something to do with the aristocracy, but I have no idea what.”

“Well, far be it from me to want to disrespect anything to do with the aristocracy,” Jack said, his eyes finding Hazel’s.

With surprising grace, Jack smoothly pulled himself onto Betelgeuse’s back. “Aha!” he cried. “I did it!”

Betelgeuse leaned down to chew on some yellowing grass, and Jack gripped the reins in terror. “It’s in your thighs now,” Hazel said.

Jack cocked an eyebrow.

“Squeeze from there. And keep your back straight. And try not to be afraid. Horses can sense that sort of thing.”

“Right. Yeah. Fearless.”

“You dig up dead bodies in the middle of the night in graveyards, and you’re afraid of riding a horse?” Hazel asked.

“See, here’s the thing,” Jack said as Betelgeuse decided to start drifting off to the left. “Dead bodies are never going to bite you. They’re never going to do anything to you. It’s living things that hurt you.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Hazel said.

Hazel mounted Miss Rosalind, and after a bit of effort, the two of them managed to get their horses walking side by side down the long Hawthornden drive.

“That’s probably all we should hope for today,” Hazel said when they made it back to the stables. “But if you want, you could come back tomorrow. It could be good for my studying—taking a break, getting some fresh air.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “That sounds about right.”



* * *



THE SECOND TIME THE PAIR WENT riding, they made it all the way to the edge of the farm the next property over, where sheep grazed placidly against the rolling green hills. After that, Hazel took Jack on the narrow path down through the woods to the back of Hawthornden, along the stream.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Hazel asked as they passed the imposing cypress trees by Hawthornden’s back gates. She had always imagined it to be a foolish question, the type children whisper to one another while playing, but the past few weeks fixated on the human body made her more curious about death, and what happened beyond the veil.

“Why do you ask?” Jack said. He rubbed Betelgeuse’s neck. The horse wasn’t so scary once you got to know him, he found.

“I’ve never seen any evidence for them myself, but I suppose there has to be something more than electricity animating our flesh. A soul that lives on.”

Jack’s expression tightened. Death had always been a constant in the Old Town, but over the past few weeks, the streets had become eerie with a new silence, thick as candle wax. No one talked about it, but Jack knew: the disappearances were continuing. It wasn’t just resurrection men—the girl who worked at the fishmonger’s, who used to wink at Jack whenever he passed the market, was gone, and the man behind the counter had just shrugged when Jack asked about her. No one had seen Rosie, a prostitute who used to smoke cigars with the actors at Le Grand Leon, not for months. Once word got out that the Roman fever might be back, no one asked too many questions when the narrow, crowded rooms of the Old Town contained a few fewer bodies.