by S. E. Grove
Nettie grinned. “Excellent. We have a deal. You tell me what you find and I’ll tell you what I find.”
“Done.” As he spoke, Theo realized he would not be able to tell Nettie about the knife and the bloodied clothes, because he could not tell her who he really was and why he had been present at the discovery of Bligh’s body. And he was reluctant to talk about Broadgirdle, since his reasons for suspecting the man were ones he would never discuss. But I can tell her some things without telling her how I know them, he decided. “You first.”
“No, you first,” Nettie replied, “as a show of good faith.”
Theo grinned. “Fair enough. The woman everyone thinks murdered Bligh—Goldenrod? I know who she is, and I know how she ended up at Bligh’s.” He repeated what Miles had told him, omitting nothing but the explanation of how he had tangled with Sandmen the previous summer. “I’ve tracked down one or two men in Boston who use grappling hooks,” he finished. “That’s the lead I’m following now.”
“Fascinating.” Nettie had listened attentively and without interruption, more than once pulling on a brown curl and giving it a pensive chew. “Especially given what I have to tell you. About the examiner’s report of the body.”
“Which is?”
“The injuries were not made by a knife. In fact, the examiner could not say what instrument made them. He said there were fourteen entry wounds, and the instrument had barbed points.”
“Grappling hooks have barbed points,” Theo said.
“They do.” Nettie twirled her hair thoughtfully. “So whoever attacked Goldenrod may have killed Bligh. There’s a story here we’re not seeing. Perhaps Goldenrod knows something about what’s happening in the Indian Territories—something she reported to Bligh, something that someone wants concealed.”
“Like what?”
“Like a railroad being built illegally or something like that.”
“Maybe,” Theo said, unconvinced.
“Or it could have to do with these Weatherers—the missing Eerie who never made it to Boston. Perhaps something happened to them, and Goldenrod was prevented from discovering it.”
“That would make sense.”
“Well, we need more, Charles,” Nettie concluded. “We need more pieces of the story.” She raised her eyebrows. “What is your next step?”
“I’m going to keep an eye on these men with grappling hooks. See if I can learn more about what they’re doing.”
“That sounds good. And I’m going to see what I can find in Bligh’s papers. Father brought several boxes of them home.” She gave a sly smile. “And he never looks at the sheet music I keep on the piano stand. You know how my teacher insists on my practicing scales.”
—19-Hour 52—
BEACON HILL WAS picturesque even in darkness. The streetlamps cast yellow light into the humid summer air, and the brick buildings seemed to lean away from them, their windows tightly shuttered. Theo walked silently across the cobblestones. He had left his stolen Goodyear at the foot of the hill, tied to a lamppost. As he approached Broadgirdle’s mansion, he slowed his pace. When he reached the brick wall, he peered through the hole in the garden door. Ordinarily, it would have been difficult to see anything in the darkness, but the back of the house was illuminated by a pair of flame lamps. Sure enough, two Sandmen were stationed before the garden shed.
Theo waited. As twenty-hour approached, he heard the footsteps that he was expecting: four police officers hurriedly made their way up Broadgirdle’s front walk. They passed through the gate, and one of the officers pounded on the door. A light went on in a second-story window. Theo smiled to himself in the darkness, but the smile was as much to encourage himself as it was to celebrate the success of this first step. He was deeply nervous.
More lights appeared, and finally, some minutes later, Theo heard the front door open. Broadgirdle’s booming voice cut through the still night. “Well, officers? What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Mr. Broadgirdle, we received an anonymous tip that your life was in danger.”
“In danger? From what?”
“The note said that you were entertaining guests this evening and that one of them meant to assassinate you.”
There was a pause. “Does it look to you like I am entertaining guests?”
“Well, no, Mr. Broadgirdle, but we would nonetheless like to be certain. Especially after the tip that warned us of the prime minister’s murder at Minister Elli’s house. That one was correct, after all.”
“Very well. Come in.”
The officers entered, closing the door behind them. More lights were illumined on the ground floor. And then the rear door of the house opened.
“Mortify, Until!” Broadgirdle bellowed into the darkness.
Theo heard the scuffle of boots and then the rear door closing. He hurried to where the wrought-iron fence met the brick wall. Scrabbling up the fence, he peered into the garden. It looked deserted. He swung up onto the top of the wall, then dropped down. As his feet landed, the tension in his stomach crested, setting all of his nerves off like alarm bells. He did not have much time. Broadgirdle would allow the policemen to search the house, but his patience would soon wear thin.
Theo padded quickly and quietly toward the shed. A light was on inside; it shone dully through the dirty windows. The door was padlocked. Of course it is, Theo thought grimly. He could hear Broadgirdle protesting from somewhere inside the house. Rounding the shed, Theo found two windows—firmly latched—and one small casement window, facing the brick wall, that was propped open. Gotcha, Graves! he thought. The space between the garden shed and the brick wall was tight—perhaps a foot and a half. Climbing into the shed was out of the question. But perhaps the window would open wide enough to let him see inside.
Theo shimmied up the wall, propping one foot on the bricks and the other on the shed until he was just below the window. Then he pulled it open as far as the wall behind him would allow and peered in.
A single gas lamp sat on a worn wooden worktable in the center of the room. Pruning shears, a watering can, and a roll of twine sat beside the lamp. Rakes and brooms, shovels, and a few broken beams filled one corner; empty wooden planters were stacked in another. Along the walls were more worktables covered with gardening supplies: pots, spades, burlap sacks of dirt. A chair stood by the worktable.
There was nothing unusual in the room. It looked just like an ordinary potting shed. Theo squinted, willing the room to come into focus, waiting for the secret guarded by the Sandmen to reveal itself. Nothing happened.
Broadgirdle’s voice reached him clearly from an open window on the second floor. “Are you satisfied now? I would like to get back to sleep.”
Theo shook his head in frustration. He had only a moment before the Sandmen returned. Suddenly the lamp flickered, and the pruning shears, left carelessly open, took on a different aspect. Was that rust on the cutting edge of the shears, or blood?
Unbidden, a memory of driving Graves’s wagon broke over him. It was the first time Theo had been tasked with driving it, and Graves assigned it to him only because the wagon was empty. The air was deadly dry. The horses were slow and, as always, they were injured. Their smell wafted up behind them, and Theo felt like he was just one more pile of waste, sitting on the wagon bench downwind from the horses. He was driving alone from Refugio to Castle, where he would meet Graves. At the time, he had only been aware of how he hated the wagon and hated Graves and hated himself for driving one to the other. He hated himself most for not running away, now that he was left alone and in command of two horses—albeit two very worn and rather useless horses.
In later years, when he allowed himself to think about it, he understood that Graves had given him the task precisely with this objective in mind. He didn’t care about getting to Castle sooner on his own fast horse. He only wanted Theo to feel gutted by a lack of courage;
he wanted him to feel fully, during every one of those fifty-six miles, that he was incapable of running away. Graves was good at that. He knew what the slow cultivation of fear could do to someone, especially a child. It made you totally powerless, so that even when you seemed to have your freedom, you did not.
Theo had seen enough. He let himself drop down into the narrow space between the wall and the shed. As he hit the ground, the casement window that had been propped open suddenly slammed shut, and the sound reverberated through the quiet garden. He froze.
There was silence from inside the house. Then several pairs of feet hurried out into the yard. “The rest of you stay inside,” one of the officers commanded. “Secure the front door and the ground-floor windows. Did that sound come from your shed?” he asked the MP.
“I cannot say,” Broadgirdle responded gruffly. “My guess is that it is one of the neighborhood cats. I very much doubt you will find an assassin hiding in my shed.”
His voice was terribly near. Theo felt himself shrink against the wall, wishing he could disappear into the ivy.
“Nevertheless, sir, we’d like to check.”
“Very well.” There was a brief pause as Broadgirdle fussed with his keys, and then the shed was unlocked. Theo crouched down. “As you see, I have nothing here but gardening supplies.”
Theo realized that this was his only moment to escape unnoticed, unless he wanted to spend the entire night crouching in the damp darkness. While they were searching the shed, he would have to circle around it and flee through the garden. Theo knew he had to, but he could not bring himself to do it. Graves’s presence, so close and hidden by only the thin wall of a garden shed, muddled his thoughts. He felt like he was nine years old again, and shifting even a foot from where he had hidden himself seemed impossible. You can’t stay here, a voice in Theo’s head shouted at him. Move. Move now!
With a burst of effort, he stepped as quietly as he could along the wall, away from the main house and into the darkness. Once he was clear of the shed he took a deep breath. The garden spread out before him; it seemed a mile long. I can’t do it, he thought. Someone is going to see me. Before he could doubt what he was doing, he turned to the garden wall and hauled himself up it, struggling with the creepers that tore, tore again, and finally held him. He rolled himself over the top and landed blindly in the neighbor’s garden. Crouching against the wall, he fought to steady his breathing.
Theo could hear the men on the other side hurrying out of the shed. “A cat, you said?” the officer asked tersely. “I believe your garden has been invaded by something rather larger. I will leave two officers here—”
“That really is not necessary.”
“I insist. And we will wake the neighbors to see what manner of ‘cat’ has visited them.”
Theo closed his eyes and pictured himself from overhead. He was sitting against the wall, and beyond it was the street, and beyond the street lay all of Beacon Hill, twinkling with lamps on every corner. His Goodyear was only a few blocks away. There were any number of escape routes. He just had to take one of them.
Rising quietly from the damp ground, he walked to the rear of the much smaller garden. Broadgirdle’s neighbor, he realized with relief, was a reasonable human being who didn’t hide bloody shears in his shed. There was a simple back gate with a latch and no lock. Theo opened it and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He closed the gate soundlessly behind him and took a deep breath. Walking slowly, steadily, as if he had decided to take a turn around the neighborhood to get some fresh air, he crossed to the other side of the street. He thrust his hands into his pockets. They were shaking.
As he walked downhill toward the Goodyear, he began to feel better. He had learned something and he had not been caught. The euphoria started to make him giddy, and all that had seemed so frightening minutes before seemed suddenly laughable. I’m on to you, Graves, he thought, grinning fiercely in the darkness. You’re guilty as sin, and I’m going to prove it. This time, you won’t get off so easy.
24
Errol’s Pursuit
—1892, June 29: 17-Hour 15—
It was thought at first that the plague befell only those who ventured into the Dark Age, but it soon became clear that it was not so discriminating. What has been observed in the decades since is that travelers from other Ages, particularly later Ages, carry a greater resistance. This has caused the papacy to suspect, logically, that some devilry practiced in future Ages protects their inhabitants unnaturally from the plague.
—From Fulgencio Esparragosa’s History of the Dark Age
ERROL FORSYTH, THE phantom hunter, sat at the table, mending his cape by the faint light of the fire. Seneca, the falcon, stood at the far end of the table, preening his feathers. They both glanced occasionally at the girl, Sophia, who, some half an hour after sighting the phantom, was still visibly upset. She had not protested when Errol began dragging the heavy wooden crate on wheels, but instead followed him dumbly, half weeping into her cupped hands. Now the planter stood outside in the courtyard of the abandoned house where he had been taking shelter for the past week, and the chickpea stew he had made earlier was bubbling over the fire.
The girl reminded him powerfully of his younger sister Catherine, whom he had not seen for so many years. She had the same unyieldingly serious face, pensive when she was glad, brooding and sorry when she was upset. Errol smiled to himself, thinking of the time he had banished that sorry look by teaching Cat to make the thrushes eat seeds from her palm. Observing the girl, he thought to himself grimly that it would take more than a few thrushes to expunge the memory of the phantom. Poor child, he thought. He finished the seam, tied a knot, and snapped off the thread with his teeth. Then he got up and ladled the stew into two ceramic bowls painted white and blue. He placed the bowls on the table, placed a pair of spoons beside them, and turned to Sophia.
“Come eat,” he said.
Sophia got up wordlessly. Before sitting down, she opened her battered satchel and took out an equally battered half-eaten loaf of bread. She gazed at it a little mournfully. “It tastes better than it looks.”
“Thank you,” Errol said gravely.
“Thank you,” murmured Sophia. “For taking me in.” She looked up and met his gaze. “And for before, in the street. Though I don’t understand what happened.”
“I will explain all of that to you soon enough. For now, let’s eat.”
Sophia found, to her surprise, that the chickpeas were delicious. She was so eager to eat them that she burned her tongue. Without saying a word, Errol ladled more into her bowl and sat back to eat his own. After the second bowl, a hunk of the bread, and a glass of water, Sophia began to feel somewhat better. She looked around the room.
They were in a house that had once been comfortable. The shelves were carefully built into the wall and stacked with the blue-and-white dishes. The mullioned windows had fine lace curtains, and copper pots hung above the open fire. The table and chairs were worn but well cared for, and above the table hung an iron candelabrum that at one point had fully illuminated the room. Now there were only two candles, burned down to pale stumps.
The phantom hunter looked entirely out of place among the pretty crockery and dainty curtains. Even without his gray hood, he seemed like a creature more fit for the wild outdoors than a candlelit kitchen. Tall and angular, he had broad, callused hands with blunt fingers. His dark blue eyes met Sophia’s and held them, making her more uncomfortable by the second. She could read nothing in those eyes about the man behind them, but she felt that her every thought, every moment of her past, was visible to him.
“Does your bird eat bread?” Sophia asked, scattering crumbs on the table. It examined them coldly.
“Seneca is a falcon. He eats meat, and he hunts it himself.”
“Oh. So you are both hunters.”
“I suppose you could say that. Seneca hunts mice; I hunt
phantoms. You can see which one of us is wiser.” Errol lifted his finger and Seneca clacked closer to him, then pushed his head against it. “I found him near Córdoba when he was only a ball of white feathers. Could not hunt at all, then.” Seneca bit his finger gently in protest. “Even now he is a lazy hunter. You are more philosopher than predator, are you not, Seneca?” The falcon turned away from Errol and walked back to his corner of the table, then contemplated the fire with a beady eye.
Sophia gazed solemnly at the falcon and then turned back to Errol.
He put his spoon down. “You want me to explain what the apparitions are,” he said flatly.
“Yes.”
“People here believe they emerge from the Dark Age. That they are sent to lure us into those dark pathways so we will be eaten to pieces by the spines.” He stood up, stretched, and put another log on the fire. Though the day had been blisteringly hot, the warmth had vanished with the sun, and now the night was sharp and cool. Errol sat back down. Despite his height, he moved smoothly, almost gracefully, as though every motion had a foreseen and intended conclusion. “Perhaps they are right. I do not know for certain what they are. I can only tell you how I have come to know them.”
“All right,” she agreed.
“I come from the Closed Empire. You may have noticed it from my speech.” Sophia nodded. “I serve a lord there, my family does, near York. I was the falconer before I left three years ago. My twin brother worked with milord’s horses.” He looked up at Sophia, as if expecting some response. She looked back at him expectantly. “My twin brother is named Oswin,” he went on. “It was three years and seventeen days ago that I saw Oswin drawn away by a specter.”
Sophia caught her breath. “Drawn away?”
Errol gave a small nod. “He saw an apparition—unclear, insubstantial, but still recognizable—and was transfixed by it. I saw it all happen, for I was not far away. We stood in the field at dusk. I was returning from the stables, and he waited for me, as he often did, so that we might walk together and talk before sitting down to supper. But before I reached him, the phantom appeared.”
