What Moves the Dead (17)

It paid no attention to me as I approached. It was descending the stairs when I finally caught up to it and could make out features beyond ghostly whiteness. White hair, flowing white cloth, skin so pale it was almost transparent …

“Madeline?” I asked.

She wore a night rail with small, high sleeves. Until that moment, I had not realized quite how much weight she had lost. The garment hung off her, and what might have been modest enough on a larger woman now fell well below her collarbone. The openings for her arms seemed to gape open, revealing a glimpse of her ribs. I prayed that it was the shadows that made them seem to stand out so far from her skin.

She took another shuffling step downward, her hands hanging limply at her sides. Her eyes were open, sweeping from side to side, though I could not tell if they were focused. Was she sleepwalking?

“Madeline…” I glanced around, hoping that no one else would come along and see her in this state of undress. Certainly not Denton or even Angus. “Madeline, can you hear me?”

She did not reply. Conventional wisdom was that you never wake a sleepwalker, but conventional wisdom had not allowed for a woman walking in the dark in a house with bad floors and a ruined wing and balconies that led directly to a thirty-foot drop into a lake. “Maddy, please wake up.”

She looked at me then, though I could not tell if she saw me or if she was looking through me. Her lips pursed and a sound came out that was half a whistle, half a question. “Whooo…?”

“It’s Easton,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if she was speaking to me or if this was something from her dream. She took another step forward. I took hold of her arm and almost dropped it. Her skin was no warmer than the air itself, and if she had not been so obviously alive, I would have thought that I touched a corpse. Probably that meant that I spoke more harshly than I meant to. “Madeline!”

She stumbled. I clutched at her to keep her upright, feeling her skin too loose under my fingers. Oh God, was I leaving bruises?

I looked down at my hand on her arm and suffered another shock.

How often does anyone really think of the fine hair on a woman’s arms? It hardly ever comes up. I suppose women who have particularly thick or dark hair there may find it troubling, but I was decades removed from such concerns and my sisters certainly never spoke of it. And on very old people, it seems like the hair simply goes away.

Madeline’s was bright white, the color of the hair on her head, with the same drifting, floating quality. Her skin looked almost pink by comparison. My hand seemed impossibly tan and the white filaments swirled over it like some kind of pale water weed.

“Come on,” I said, trying to hide my horror. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room. It’s too cold to be out.” I looked down and saw that she was barefoot. My own slippers were inadequate to the chill radiating off the stone stairs; I couldn’t imagine how cold her feet must be. I’d have picked her up and carried her, but I was afraid that I’d do her more injury than good. “Come on, Maddy.”

She breathed out something, almost a word, but I could not make it out. Then her eyes rolled in the candle flame and I thought she might collapse. I tried to catch her in my free hand, but she straightened and said, “Roderick?”

“No, it’s Easton.”

“Oh…” She blinked up at me, her eyes huge in the light of the candle. “Oh, yes. Of course. Hello, Alex.” She lifted one birdlike hand to her face.

“You were sleepwalking.”

“Was I?” She looked around. “I … yes, of course, I must have been dreaming.”

“Shall I take you back to your rooms?”

She looked down the stairs. “That’s not necessary.”

“Please,” I said. “For my peace of mind. It’s cold and I’ll stay up all night thinking you’ve frozen solid and they’ll find you in the morning looking like one of the Elgin Marbles.”

She laughed a little, as I had intended. “Not one of the ones without a head, I hope.”

“If you fall down the stairs and your head shatters, I shan’t be held responsible. Come on.” I tucked my arm through hers and tugged her gently back up the steps.

She followed reluctantly, still glancing over her shoulder at the stairs. “Really, Alex, I’m fine. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

I caught her gaze and there was something odd and furtive about her expression. I drew her arm a little more firmly through mine, seized with a wild notion that she might suddenly bolt. But I saw her to the door of her room and she kept step beside me.

“Your maid should be warned that you sleepwalk,” I said, as I released her.

“My maid … yes…” She drifted through the doorway into the dark. My own feet and heart were heavier as I made my own way back.

I found I could not sleep. The air seemed suddenly close and stifling, for all its chill. I pictured the hangings around the bed like great mushroom gills, dripping unseen spores down onto my face. Urgh. No wonder Maddy went sleepwalking.

I twitched the bed-curtain aside and grabbed for my dressing gown. Perhaps some fresh air would help. Miss Potter had helpfully explained that there were fungal spores everywhere in the air, but if I didn’t have to see them, I could ignore them.

I opened the door and made my way to the balcony at the end of the hall, overlooking the lake.