What Moves the Dead (2)
“Vile!” I said, holding my arm over my face. “Are you a mycologist, then?”
I could not see her mouth through the handkerchief, but her eyebrows were wry. “An amateur only, I fear, as supposedly befits my sex.”
She bit off each word, and we shared a look of wary understanding. England has no sworn soldiers, I am told, and even if it had, she might have chosen a different way. It was none of my business, as I was none of hers. We all make our own way in the world, or don’t. Still, I could guess at the shape of some of the obstacles she had faced.
“Professionally, I am an illustrator,” she said crisply. “But the study of fungi has intrigued me all my life.”
“And it brought you here?”
“Ah!” She gestured with the handkerchief. “I do not know what you know of fungi, but this place is extraordinary! So many unusual forms! I have found boletes that previously were unknown outside of Italy, and one Amanita that appears to be entirely new. When I have finished my drawings, amateur or no, the Mycology Society will have no choice but to recognize it.”
“And what will you call it?” I asked. I am delighted by obscure passions, no matter how unusual. During the war, I was once holed up in a shepherd’s cottage, listening for the enemy to come up the hillside, when the shepherd launched into an impassioned diatribe on the finer points of sheep breeding that rivaled any sermon I have ever heard in my life. By the end, I was nodding along and willing to launch a crusade against all weak, overbred flocks, prone to scours and fly-strike, crowding out the honest sheep of the world.
“Maggots!” he’d said, shaking his finger at me. “Maggots ’n piss in t’ flaps o’ they hides!”
I think of him often.
“I shall call it A. potteri,” said my new acquaintance, who fortunately did not know where my thoughts were trending. “I am Eugenia Potter, and I shall have my name writ in the books of the Mycology Society one way or another.”
“I believe that you shall,” I said gravely. “I am Alex Easton.” I bowed.
She nodded. A lesser spirit might have been embarrassed to have blurted her passions aloud in such a fashion, but clearly Miss Potter was beyond such weaknesses—or perhaps she simply assumed that anyone would recognize the importance of leaving one’s mark in the annals of mycology.
“These stinking redgills,” I said, “they are not new to science?”
She shook her head. “Described years ago,” she said. “From this very stretch of countryside, I believe, or one near to it. The Ushers were great supporters of the arts long ago, and one commissioned a botanical work. Mostly of flowers”—her contempt was a glorious thing to hear—“but a few mushrooms as well. And even a botanist could not overlook A. foetida. I fear that I cannot tell you its common name in Gallacian, though.”
“It may not have one.” If you have never met a Gallacian, the first thing you must know is that Gallacia is home to a stubborn, proud, fierce people who are also absolutely piss-poor warriors. My ancestors roamed Europe, picking fights and having the tar beaten out of them by virtually every other people they ran across. They finally settled in Gallacia, which is near Moldavia and even smaller. Presumably they settled there because nobody else wanted it. The Ottoman Empire didn’t even bother to make us a vassal state, if that tells you anything. It’s cold and poor and if you don’t die from falling in a hole or starving to death, a wolf eats you. The one thing going for it is that we aren’t invaded often, or at least we weren’t, until the previous war.
In the course of all that wandering around losing fights, we developed our own language, Gallacian. I am told it is worse than Finnish, which is impressive. Every time we lost a fight, we made off with a few more loan words from our enemies. The upshot of all of this is that the Gallacian language is intensely idiosyncratic. (We have seven sets of pronouns, for example, one of which is for inanimate objects and one of which is used only for God. It’s probably a miracle that we don’t have one just for mushrooms.)
Miss Potter nodded. “That is the Usher house on the other side of the tarn, if you were curious.”
“Indeed,” I said, “it is where I am headed. Madeline Usher was a friend of my youth.”
“Oh,” said Miss Potter, sounding hesitant for the first time. She looked away. “I have heard she is very ill. I am sorry.”
“It has been a number of years,” I said, instinctively touching the pocket with Madeline’s letter tucked into it.
“Perhaps it is not so bad as they say,” she said, in what was undoubtedly meant to be a jollying tone. “You know how bad news grows in villages. Sneeze at noon and by sundown the gravedigger will be taking your measurements.”
“We can but hope.” I looked down again into the tarn. A faint wind stirred up ripples, which lapped at the edges. As we watched, a stone dropped from somewhere on the house and plummeted into the water. Even the splash seemed muted.
Eugenia Potter shook herself. “Well, I have sketching to do. Good luck to you, Officer Easton.”
“And to you, Miss Potter. I shall look forward to word of your Amanitas.”
Her lips twitched. “If not the Amanitas, I have great hopes for some of these boletes.” She waved to me and strode out across the field, leaving silver boot prints in the damp grass.