Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [61]
“When is the burial?” I say, thinking of my master.
“That I do not know,” he says. “Not immediately. The body is the only evidence at present.” I think of her lying there upon the sledge, of what she was, and what she now will be—evidence at her own trial.
Not long after, Carrington arrives. He remains frail but of a piece, and the two men withdraw to her antechamber to examine her and confer. In the meantime I send for my master, thinking he should hear their diagnosis firsthand, knowing it will reflect badly upon him if he doesn’t. He arrives looking slightly more composed, for he has shaved and combed his hair, and his shirt is clean and pressed. When the physicians emerge they return again to the parlor to confer with my master, and I make a point of serving drinks again so as to be present. When I enter there is much talk of humors and imbalance, but it amounts to little in my eyes, and they conclude by saying they wish to observe her over the next few days, rather than take immediate action. My master listens in his somewhat absent way, nodding and thanking them profusely for their efforts. As I leave it strikes me that they are powerless, and wonder whether they themselves are aware of this.
And then I return to the kitchen, where Cook is busy brewing herbs. The smell is pungent, musky, and faintly exotic, and it stirs something deep within me. For we are all secretly enthralled by death.
When I was very young, the graveyard was my haven. I went there often to play among the headstones, and over time I came to know each one: its size and shape and markings. My mother told me that graveyards were the home of lost souls—those whose spirits were doomed to walk the earth forever in search of peace. This notion caught my fancy, and I resolved to search for lost souls each time I visited that place.
When I asked her what they looked like, she told me only that they could not be seen by ordinary eyes. I assumed that if I wanted to succeed, I would have to alter my vision in some way. Squinting was the most obvious means, so I would crouch behind the gravestones for what seemed like hours with my eyes narrowed to barely more than slits. When the lost souls did not appear, I tried to tilt my head as far as possible to one side, so that the graveyard and its headstones were turned upside-down.
It was in this way, with my forehead resting lightly on the grass, that I was startled one day by the bedraggled figure of a man, his face bloodied and his tunic soaked with dark stains. He came limping into the graveyard, one arm crooked tightly against his side, and collapsed not two lengths from where I hid behind a tree. He fell to his knees panting, his good arm propped in front of him, his eyes wide with pain. He stayed that way for several seconds, gasping for breath and staring at the ground, and I watched as the blood trickled from a deep wound upon his forehead, gathered on his brow, then fell in a tiny crimson thread upon the grass. He did not see me and I was terrified to move—so I watched him from my upside-down position. Here at last was a lost soul, though he was not at all what I’d expected.
After a minute he suddenly spewed up blood and with a strange gurgling sound he collapsed facedown upon the earth. This was too much for me and I gave a little scream and jumped to my feet. But in the next instant I was struck by the complete stillness of his body: death had taken him as I watched. I remained motionless for several moments, and then I crept up to his side and settled myself next to him, hoping that perhaps his soul would rise up in front of me so I could follow it. I sat and watched as two big horseflies landed on his tunic, and slowly made their way across the carpet of blood. And then I was startled by sounds of shouting in the distance. After a moment a man came running toward me, followed closely by two others. The first man was also bleeding in the face, though not as badly, and when he reached me he stopped short and stared down at the body, nudging it slightly with the toe of his boot.