What Moves the Dead (27)

“For God’s sake, leave off, man,” I said wearily. “You’re like Lady Macbeth. ‘Out, out, damn’d spot!’”

Roderick let out a yelp like a kicked dog and stared at me with huge eyes. I immediately felt guilty. “Sorry, Roderick. It’s … it’s just everything.” I sat back. “Why don’t we leave? Go to Paris? It’d be good for you.”

“No!” he cried, almost a shout. “No, I…” He swallowed, his throat bobbing. “No, I can’t. Not until she’s … not until…” His voice shrank. “Not yet,” he whispered finally, and fled the table.

“Think about it,” I called after him. I looked over at Denton. “I wish you’d help me convince him.”

“He won’t go yet,” said Denton. “You should probably go, though. This is no place for decent folk.”

“When do you think Roderick might be willing to travel?”

“Not for a time,” he said. “Not until he’s … ah … certain that his sister has been properly laid to rest.”

I rested my elbows on the table and my face in my hands. “Damnable foolishness,” I said. “The dead are dead. They don’t care.”

“They don’t fear ghosts in Gallacia?” he asked. I could hear the edge of a smile in his voice, and also what that smile was costing him.

“No, we’re as superstitious as anyone else,” I admitted. “Someone must sit with the body for three days to make sure that wandering spirits don’t take possession of their flesh. But I don’t believe the dead actually care about those things.” I dropped my hands. “Come now, Doctor. How many deaths have you seen? And has any one of them ever returned to complain of how they were laid out?”

“Not one,” he admitted. “Still, I would not look for Roderick to leave just yet. Not until he is certain.”

“Certain of what?”

“That the dead don’t walk,” said Denton, closing his lips over his teeth and refusing to say anything more.



* * *



The dead don’t walk.

The thought beat at my brain like a fragment of song and rang in my ears on an endless loop. I even flexed my jaw in exactly the right way to trigger a bout of tinnitus, but as soon as it passed, the words were there again. The dead don’t walk. The dead don’t walk.

But they don’t. I had missed my shot at the hare. It was certainly dead by now, bled out somewhere, or a fox had come along and finished the job. Or a weasel, or a hawk. I didn’t know the local predators, but presumably they were the same as in Gallacia. A loose dog, a cat from the village. There were no cats in Usher’s house.

You get a cat for the rats, I thought, and there are no rats either. Why are there no rats? Is Roderick so poor that his pantry cannot even tempt a rat?

It was possible. Though it occurred to me that I had seen no animals around that staring house, except for the horses in the stables and the mad-eyed hares on the heath … which brought me back to the hares again.

The dead don’t walk.

I rode Hob, despite a light drizzle. The sound of his hoofbeats broke into a rhythm that lent itself all too well to the line. Clip-clop clip-clop. The-dead don’t-walk. The-dead don’t-walk. Clip-clop.

Christ’s blood, I was going to break into my third bottle of livrit if this kept up.

Dinner was no relief. Roderick kept absently wringing his fingers together and then catching himself. Denton was even more American than usual. If his accent got any broader, he was going to start singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and shaking hands with the tablecloth.

The dead don’t walk. Except that you’re supposed to sit with the dead for three days to make sure they don’t. And Roderick had said that he could hear her knocking on the door of the crypt. No, that was ridiculous.

I retired to my chambers and finished off the dregs of the second bottle of livrit, under Angus’s disapproving eye. “Don’t scowl so. There’s not enough in here to give a hangover to a gnat.”

“How long are we going to stay here?” asked Angus.

“I don’t know.” I licked the syrupy taste off my lips. How long did we stay? Until Roderick agreed to leave, whenever that was? Was I doing any good, or was I just eating food and burning firewood that he could ill afford to spare?

“Three days,” I said abruptly, setting the empty bottle down on the table. “Three more days. Then we’ll go.”



* * *



At midnight, I went to the crypt.

It was not a reasonable thing to do. I knew that. For all my vaunted skepticism, the thought had taken hold of me that if no one watched the body, something terrible would happen. Or perhaps it had already happened. The dead don’t walk, but what of those with catalepsy? You heard stories of people buried alive, of coffins opened to find that someone had clawed at the lid.

I crept down the slick stone steps, the candle in my hand, trying to make no sound. The crypt door was barred but had no lock. The bar itself was an immense thing, as thick as my wrist. It looked oddly new, with pale edges where the wood had not yet weathered.

I set down the candle and lifted the bar carefully, holding my breath as it scraped against the metal holding it in. Each tiny sound echoed up the steps. At least I’ll be able to hear if anyone comes down behind me, I thought. I hope.