What Moves the Dead (30)

“Is it a fungus?”

“It’s a dead woman’s hair.”

Miss Potter stopped in the middle of the hallway. I had hustled her into the manor, hopefully without alerting anyone, and was trying to get her down to the crypt. It would have been easier if she hadn’t kept stopping and demanding explanations.

“I must assume you refer to Miss Usher? Lieutenant, I have come to think of you as a sensible person, but there is something quite unsavory about all this.”

Unsavory seemed like such a dire understatement that I gave a bark of laughter. “I know. It’s utterly appalling. But, Miss Potter, I swear to you on my honor as a soldier—”

“I have,” she said, in blighting tones, “known far too many soldiers.”

I could not argue that. Frankly, I’d only said it because I thought it was the sort of thing that might appeal to an Englishwoman, pip-pip, cheerio, God save the Queen, and so forth. I placed my hand against the peeling wallpaper and took a deep breath.

“Miss Potter,” I said, “I swear to you on the graves of soldiers that I have buried with my own hands, I mean no harm to you or anyone in this house. But if I try to explain it, you will think me completely mad. It is easier to show you. And if you tell me that I am mistaken, then I will escort you back to town and make a clean breast of everything to the master of this house.”

Eugenia Potter looked at me with her small, bright eyes, then gave a single sharp nod. “Very well. ‘Lay on, Macduff!’”

My heart was in my throat that we would meet Denton or Usher or one of the servants on the way to the crypt, but that vast house worked in my favor for once. We saw no one. I led her through increasingly dim corridors, only to realize that I had no lamp or candle.

I swore softly in Gallacian. Miss Potter cocked a jaundiced eye at me. “I do not know what that word means, Lieutenant, but I have my suspicions.”

“Sorry, Miss Potter.”

“Mm. If you will hold my umbrella, I will provide a light.” She reached into her enormous bag and withdrew a small shuttered lantern. It was my turn to stare.

“Miss Potter! Is that a housebreaker’s lantern?”

“It is none of my affair what others may use such a design for,” she said primly. “The shutters are most useful for providing specific directional lighting when I have been working on a painting long enough that the sun has changed position.” She lit the candle inside the lantern and adjusted the shutters, then handed it to me.

“Madam,” I said fervently, “you are a wonder.”

“Hmmph!”

We navigated the stairs to the crypt with the aid of the lantern. I pulled the bar from the door and pushed it open. The light from the shuttered lantern fell upon the empty slab, the shroud lying forlornly on the floor, and nothing more.

Madeline was gone.





CHAPTER 10


“Lieutenant. Lieutenant.”

My ears were ringing so loudly that I could not hear the words, only see Miss Potter’s lips moving. I was on my knees. The damp chill of the crypt was sinking into my bones. My shoulder throbbed.

Madeline was gone. Her body was gone. Someone must have moved it. Yes, of course. Usher, perhaps, to conceal his crime. She had been dead for three days, so it was a bit late for that, but it was the only explanation. It was foolishness to think that she might have moved on her own, sat up on the slab, pushed the shroud aside like a blanket. The dead don’t walk.

“Lieutenant.”

I heard that word faintly. It had the force of command to it and I straightened involuntarily. “Yes,” I said, probably too loudly. “I apologize. There should be a body here. It was a shock.”

Miss Potter helped me to my feet. “Lieutenant, I fear that after the loss of your friend, your nerves may be somewhat overset.”

This was a polite English way of saying that she thought I was a squalling lunatic, and I couldn’t argue the point. At least the shroud was still here. I picked it up and spread it across the slab, looking for the white hairs that I had seen.

The relief when I found one was intense. At least this much was real. I pointed to a patch and said, “These. Are these hyphae?”

She gave me a narrow-eyed look, perhaps for dragging her mycology into my madness, but she took out her magnifying glass and set the lantern on the slab to look. I waited with my heart in my throat, looking toward the open door. A tiny voice whispered that it would swing shut and we would hear the bar fall into place and we would be trapped down here. I took a few cautious steps toward the door, wondering if I could rush to it in time if I heard the hinges creak.

“Hmm,” said Miss Potter.

“What is it?”

She made an impatient gesture. “Give me time.”

“Sorry.” I went back to my maudlin imaginings. Would it be Roderick Usher, determined to hide his crime? Or something worse? Would it be a figure in white, animated by some terrible force? The force that had moved a hare missing half its head to stand up and stare?

The dead don’t walk. The dead don’t walk. If they did, then … then … I don’t know what. Something dreadful. I had killed so many people and seen so many die, and what if none of them were peaceful in the ground? What if they were roaming around? What if I would have to face them and explain?