Spider Light(111)
George himself told the sergeant that Miss Thomasina had mentioned to him the possibility of starting Twygrist up again. He had been careful to say this as if it was something he had only just remembered, and he thought this had helped tip the balance to the verdict of accidental death. Clearly, said the coroner presiding over the inquest which was held at the nearby Rose and Crown, these two unfortunate people had gone out to the mill to take a look at its condition, and become trapped in the kiln room. He was not a local man, and appeared to have thought up for himself a happy little picture of two cousins–he made no doubt they had been good friends and childhood companions–going off on their little expedition to see if their family’s business might be revived. On a sterner note, he added a little homily about the proper securing of old and potentially unsafe buildings, although, as a number of people said afterwards, Twygrist had belonged to Miss Thomasina anyway, and she of all people ought to have known the dangers of the kiln room.
Now the funeral was over, the shock and speculation were dying down. No one had given Maud a thought, other than to commiserate with George about the child’s illness. One or two ladies had even pressed little gifts for her onto George, which had made him feel dreadful at deceiving them all. He had put the embroidered handkerchiefs and the lavender water into a drawer in Maud’s bedroom for when she came home, and had thought, guiltily, how kind people could be. Cormac Sullivan had been kindest of them all, of course: when George remembered how Sullivan had behaved that night, he thought he owed the man a debt of gratitude that he might never be able to repay. It was amazing how you could misjudge someone.
But the small gifts for Maud might have to remain in the drawer for a very long time. George was only just now admitting to himself how very disturbed Maud really was. How much of that might be due to her parentage, he did not know. Louisa had unquestionably been unbalanced–those bouts of melancholy, those later years when she had cowered in her room. Had she actually been mad? And what about the man who had been her real father? George loved Maud dearly, and he thought of her as his own daughter, but he had never forgotten Louisa’s description of Maud’s real father–the man who had broken out of Latchkill, and who had laughed as he raped her. What was in the meat came out in the gravy, as the saying went, and George was already wondering if Maud’s stay in Latchkill might have to be a longer one than he had originally thought.
He had also never forgotten what had happened on the morning Louisa died–the morning when he had sent Maud to wait for him, and how he had set about dealing with what was inside Twygrist…
It had still been very early–no one had been about, and mist had been lying thickly on the Twygrist’s reservoir like a shroud. George rather liked autumn, with crunchy leaves underfoot and the scents of bonfires and chrysanthemums, but that morning the scents inside the mill had been those of the spilled blood on Twygrist’s millstone. Dreadful.
Louisa’s body had lain broken and bloodied on the ground, and the millstones themselves had been spattered in blood. George had stared, horrified, and there had been a moment when he thought he might be sick. But then he remembered Maud. He scooped her up in his arms, took her outside, and told her to wait there, to be a good girl for papa.
He went back into the mill, and flung his coat over Louisa’s body. Only when he had done that, had he turned to look at the other occupant of the mill.
He was huge, Louisa had said, all those years ago. He had great grinning teeth–like a giant’s teeth–and immense clutching hands.
The rotating millstones had caught the man a glancing blow that sent him reeling back against the wall. He was lying in an ungainly sprawl, and there was blood on the side of his head. He was breathing with an ugly harsh sound and a rim of white showed under his eyelids.
Trying not to look at what lay beneath the millstones, George went unsteadily across to the sluicewheel, and wrenched it around until he heard the groaning sound of the gates descending. The waterwheels slowed and shuddered to a stop, and the water drained away leaving silence. Except that Twygrist was never wholly silent; it was always filled with rustlings and creakings, and with its own strange murmuring voices just out of human hearing.
George stared down at the unconscious man. He was a great hulk of a creature: even in the dimness it was easy to see that standing up he would be much taller than even the tallest of men–quite frighteningly so. It was almost as if his bones had gone on growing after he reached adulthood, but had done so in a haphazard way. His jaw was massive and lumpen–as if a slab of clay had been slapped onto the lower half of his face and left there without being shaped, and his hands were gross and hugely disproportionate to his body. It was chillingly easy to imagine those hands reaching avidly out to a victim, and to visualize that great jaw grinning with evil intent. Against his will, George remembered the old biblical words: There were giants in the world in those days, and a shiver of atavistic fear trickled icily down his spine.
I don’t know what you are, he said, silently addressing the unconscious figure. I don’t know if you’re sick or only misshapen, or if you’re plain bad. I don’t know how you come to be here, either. But I’m as sure as I can be that you’re the man who attacked Louisa all those years ago, and if that’s so, I can see she didn’t exaggerate about you.
As if this last thought had penetrated the man’s mind, he opened his eyes and looked straight at George. With a dreadful grunting cry, half of pain, half of fury, he lurched upwards and came lumbering forward.