What Moves the Dead (12)

So. What did I do about it?

I couldn’t very well kidnap the Ushers and drag them back to Paris at gunpoint. Madeline wouldn’t survive. Roderick probably would, and be better for it, but Denton would undoubtedly object. And you can’t exactly threaten to shoot someone to save their life. Angus would be extremely sarcastic if I tried.

Burning down the house of Usher, while tempting, had similar practical problems. I grimaced. Hob slowed down, feeling me shifting in the saddle, and put one ear back in inquiry.

“Sorry, boy,” I said. “I’m not good company today.”

Hob’s ears were the equine equivalent of a shrug. Horses don’t understand a lot about the world, but I have found that they sometimes understand particular humans terrifyingly well. Mules understand a lot more about the world, but less about humans—or possibly they just don’t care what humans think. I’d buy either explanation, really.

We trotted across the countryside, steering clear of patches of the stinking redgills. They thinned out as we left the tarn behind, then began to increase again as I turned Hob back toward the manor house.

Where one finds mushrooms, one sometimes also finds redoubtable English ladies. I saw the umbrella first, then Miss Potter sitting under it. She had a sketchbook in her lap, and was staring intently at a brown lump.

I slid from Hob’s back and looped his reins over the saddle. “Stand,” I said. Hob gave me a look saying that this was unnecessary as there was nowhere in this desolate countryside he particularly wished to go.

Miss Potter dabbed carefully at the sketchbook. She was working from a small tin of pigments and I could see the pages of the book were wavy with the marks of watercolor washes.

“Unless it is urgent, officer, I will be with you in a few moments,” she called. “The paint is wet and I do not wish it to dry before I have finished this study.”

“Please, take your time,” I said. “There is nothing so urgent that I would interrupt your painting.”

She gave a short, occupied nod and bent over her watercolors.

Temporarily dismissed, I ambled over to the lake. The water was still dark and not entirely reflective. Patches seemed matte, as if the lake itself was moldering. The house squatted on the far side.

I picked up a pebble and tossed it into one of the matte places. It landed and sank, the ripples stopping almost instantly.

I tried skipping a rock across it. The first skip went well enough and left the correct ripples, but the second seemed to land in something gelatinous and the rock vanished into the water.

“Algae mats, I believe,” said Miss Potter, coming up beside me. “The lake is full of them. How are you doing, Officer Easton?”

“Lieutenant Easton, please,” I said. “Or simply Easton, if you like.”

“Lieutenant.” She inclined her head. I smiled. Most Englishwomen of my acquaintance would have to be pinned down by enemy fire for three days before they would consent to call a companion merely “Easton,” and even then, they would revert to titles the moment anyone else was present.

The lake spread out at our feet. It was so still. I am used to tiny ripples in any body of water this size, and the flatness was unsettling. There was even a slight breeze that should have caused ripples, by rights. It tugged at my hair and set the ribbons on Miss Potter’s hat dancing.

“Are there mushrooms underwater?” I asked abruptly.

I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It seemed like a child’s question. But Miss Potter did not treat it that way.

“A complex question. The simple answer is that we probably do not know of any.”

“Probably?” I tilted my gaze toward her. She had a slight frown.

“Probably. The mycelium networks of mushrooms do not seem to enjoy being completely submerged. Several people have grown mushrooms on logs that were submerged in aquaria, but we must presume that the fungus itself was present in the log before it was placed in the water. Also…” Her frown shifted into what, in another woman, might have been a curled lip of disgust.

“Also?”

“There is an American,” she said, pronouncing the word with distaste, “who claims to have seen gilled mushrooms in a river in their far west. But his report is unsubstantiated by any reputable observer.”

It must have been terribly galling to be barred from an organization merely because one lacked the proper genitals, when disreputable Americans were allowed to join and write about underwater mushrooms. I had encountered Englishwomen with similar feelings about the military. One of them had gone on to move to Gallacia and swear as a soldier, and more power to kan.

“Is there some reason mushrooms wouldn’t grow underwater? Besides the mycelium?”

“Spores float,” said Miss Potter simply. “They might well come to rest along the banks, but they could not sink to the bottom of the river to grow there. It would be like growing a coconut tree on the bottom of the ocean.”

“Ah.”

She tapped her parasol against the pebbles of the beach. “That said, mushrooms are not the only fungus. There are many, many types in the world. We walk constantly in a cloud of their spores, breathing them in. They inhabit the air, the water, the earth, even our very bodies.”

I felt suddenly queasy. She must have read my expression, because a rare smile spread across her face. “Don’t be squeamish, Lieutenant. Beer and wine require yeast, as does bread.”