by Alex Grecian
Kingsley reached out and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder, and she turned and buried her face against him and he felt her small body convulsing with grief. He hugged her and felt his throat constrict with the memory of Fiona, sobbing, inconsolable at the death of her mother. He had felt useless then and he felt useless now. Anna said something, but the folds of Kingsley’s waistcoat smothered her words.
“What did you say, Anna?”
She pulled her face away from him and looked up. Tears streamed down her cheeks and snot coated her upper lip. Her eyes were bright pink, bloodshot and swollen. “I put him there,” she said. “Peter and I did that.”
“Put him where, child?”
“In the well. We threw him into the dark, and he never liked being in the dark. But we did it anyway. He was gone already and we didn’t know what to do.”
Kingsley pulled back, horrified and confused. He put his hands on the girl’s shoulders and pushed her away, held her at arm’s length and looked at her livid eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, to try to understand what she was saying, but then the world opened up and collapsed around them.
The roof broke open with an earsplitting roar, and the wind and the snow and the ice banged into the room and filled it, and the spidery black sky came crashing down. Anna was torn from Kingsley’s grip as something hit him hard in the back and sent him stumbling across the room. He heard her screaming from somewhere nearby. He hit the wall and spun around and gasped as a tree thrust itself at him too fast for escape.
Icy branches punctured the plaster wall all around him and pushed through into the next room, and Anna Price stopped screaming and the world became curiously silent.
57
It sounded like a freight train bearing down on him, and Hammersmith was half turned, off balance, when the tremor reached him and threw him face-first into a drift. It buried him completely as snow shook loose and caved in over him. It was womblike under there, but cold crystalline light filtered through the white blanket. Hammersmith panicked and windmilled his arms, pushed himself up, and shook himself off. The handful of bloodstained rags that Rose had given him lay partially buried at his feet. Hammersmith touched his fingers to his head. They came back clean. No fresh blood. The wound was healing already. Or was frozen stiff. He turned and tried to see the inn with its giant protective tree through the falling grey sky, but it was invisible. He was alone.
It was possible that something had happened at the inn. The majority of the noise had come from that direction, not far behind Hammersmith. He remembered what he’d been told, that the villagers routinely shoveled snow off their roofs in the winter before their buildings became dangerously heavy. Nobody had done much shoveling in the past two days. He shook his head and turned and continued on the way he had been going. He left the rags in the snow, the red turning to pink and slowly disappearing under fresh snow.
Somewhere ahead of him was the killer of Oliver Price. He was sure of it.
–
Vicar Brothwood threw himself upon the altar as the entire church tipped and dropped several inches into a tunnel.
The building weighed nearly three hundred tons, a fact the vicar wasn’t privy to, but he had known for years that it was only a matter of time before the ground gave way under much of the village. It was, after all, a coal-mining village. What could one do except trust in the Lord and pray for the best?
The pews, which Henry had hastily put back in place, now slid across the center aisle and tapped against the pews on the other side of the sanctuary. The latter pews were fastened to the floor and held their ground against the heavy tide. Brothwood counted three sick men who had been knocked to the ground. The others, perhaps a hundred people, had stayed in place, even as pews and candlesticks and bibles skated smoothly past them. Brothwood smiled to see that a handful of people had slept through the disaster.
He ran to help the three men back onto their pews and sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Then he crossed his fingers, hoping the building would stay put just a little while longer, just until the people of Blackhampton were back on their feet.
–
A small tree, bigger than a sapling, but not more than five or six years old, had fallen across Day and knocked him into the snow. Its trunk was as big around as his leg, and he lay there, catching his breath. Henry reached down and grabbed the tree, flung it aside, took a fistful of Day’s torn overcoat in his massive paw, and pulled the inspector to his feet.
“Thank you, Henry.”
“What happened, do you think?”
“This village. They’ve dug tunnels all under it, chiseled out the coal in the ground. Everything’s sinking now. There’s nothing to hold it all up.”
“That tree didn’t sink; it fell.”
“Its roots weren’t anchored. It was top-heavy.”
“Other trees fell, too. Look.”
“Indeed.”
They had left the road, cut cross-country toward the train depot, hoping to make better time, but the snow was deeper here and it had been a hard, slow slog. Day had lost count of the tremors they’d felt, but the tree line was a shaggy crosshatch of felled trees, their roots now exposed to the air like some other hidden forest made suddenly visible and vulnerable.
“Look.” Henry pointed through the grey at the village on the other side of the road, not far, but in another world, on the distant horizon, made so by the storm.
Day squinted and saw a fuzz of smoke. He galumphed along through the snow hoping for a better view. “Henry, is that the inn?”
“It’s a tree, sir. A big one.”
“But under the tree, Henry?”
“Under the tree, that’s a house, but it’s all gone now, isn’t it?”
“Henry, that’s the inn. Nevil’s in there! And Dr Kingsley!”
Day galloped ahead, sending sprays of powder up on either side, but not moving very quickly despite the energy he was expending. Henry opened his overcoat and checked the little box inside. Baby bird Oliver looked up and chirped, snug in his nest, warmed by Henry’s body heat and the tangle of straw in the box. Henry closed the box again, made sure it was securely tucked away, buttoned his coat, and then strode along easily after Day.
58
Sutton Price helped his daughter down the rungs, took a lantern that hung from a hook on the wall, and lit it. Opened the shutter and grabbed Virginia’s hand. He pulled her into the black mouth that led to the warren of tunnels and away from the active seam. He moved along, slow and steady, matching her pace. She seemed unperturbed by the darkness, the damp, the strange echoes of their footsteps that faded away from them under the earth.
At least here it was warm.
Neither of them spoke until they reached a place where the tunnel widened out and formed a sort of unnatural cavern, roughly ten yards around. No digging had been done there in a generation, but it had been inhabited. There was a bedroll, unkempt and dirty, kicked against one wall, and evidence of a recent fire in the center of the room. A thick coil of rope, a stout wooden crate, and three jars of water kept the bedroll company. The entrance to another tunnel across from them led to more tunnels. Between the coal and ashes of the campfire and that other tunnel mouth there was a mound of settled dirt. The mound was six feet by three feet and rounded across the top. Two short sticks had been lashed together in the shape of a cross and stuck into the cavern floor at one end of the mound. A trench had been dug next to the mound, also six feet by three feet. An upright shovel rested against the wall, its blade biting into the dirt floor.
Virginia followed her father around the room by the wall without taking her eyes off the mound of dirt.
Sutton set the lantern on the floor, leaned against the wall, and eased himself down onto the bedroll. He crossed his legs and beckoned to Virginia, and she came to him, sat in his lap. She turned her head so that she could see her father’s face in the flickering lamplight. He smiled down at her, and she smiled back. But there was sadness in his glittering eyes, and
Virginia’s forehead creased with worry.
“What’s wrong, Father?”
He stroked her hair and grimaced. Shook his head.
“Is it what I told you?” Virginia said.
“Yes,” Sutton said. “Tell me again what you did.”
“He was coughing, Father. And crying. Keeping everyone awake.”
“Was he?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Is that why. .”
“Well. .”
“Tell me, Virginia.”
The little girl frowned and turned away from him. She scratched her nose. “It’s dusty in here.”
“You get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. I want to go home and I want you to come home, too.”
“I don’t think we’re going to go home.”
“Don’t be silly, Father. We can’t stay here. It’s filthy.”
“Tell me again.”
“What’s that?” She pointed at the mound across from them. At the tiny cross that marked it.
“It’s there because of a mistake I made.”
“And what’s the hole next to it?”
“That was for me, but I was too much of a coward to lie in it.”
“It would have been fine for Oliver.”
Sutton breathed out heavily through his nose and rubbed his forehead. “It’s my fault. All of this is my fault.”
“Oh, no, Father. Don’t say that. It’s all Hester’s fault, really.”
“What about Oliver?”
“Well, of course it’s his fault, too, but he’s only a baby.”
“What did Hester do?”
“She took Mother away and she made Oliver. She made everything wrong. And then I saw her leave that night with the other man and I knew it was my chance to make things right again.”
“Make things right.” There was no emotion in his face.
“If only you’ll come home,” Virginia said, “then Hester will leave and we’ll be a happy family just as we were meant to be.”
“You can’t have done what you said. You’re lying. You saw something happen and you’ve made up a story about it.”
“I practiced first,” Virginia said. “I took Mr Baggs’s smallest pig, the runt that he was going to kill anyway, and I took it to the woods, and it followed me just exactly like Oliver did.”
“A pig.”
“Yes. And really, Father, the pig was so much harder than Oliver, because it tried to run away from me, and then I got blood all over my best dress. Oliver did just what I told him to, but he was coughing and coughing and so I had to do it to him faster and he got blood on me, too.”
“You murdered your brother.”
Virginia snorted. “He isn’t my brother at all.”
“And you put him in the well. Like rubbish, you tossed him aside.”
“No, Father. He was too heavy for me. Peter and Anna found us and they put him in the well and they said not to tell anyone.” She smiled at him and put her tiny hand on his arm, her knuckles dimpled into the chubby flesh. “But I can tell you because I did it for you.”
“No,” Sutton said. A single tear turned his pale cheek pink and lost itself in his beard.
“Now you don’t have to be with Hester anymore.”
“Stop talking, Virginia.”
“I know it was bad.”
“Stop now.”
“You’re not too terribly angry with me, are you, Father?”
Sutton closed his eyes and reached for his daughter. He pulled her to him, and she snuggled against the warmth of his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her hair and put his lips against the top of her head.
“Shhh,” he said. “Quiet now, my princess.”
59
Peter Price was shouting, and so she eventually opened her eyes to see what he wanted. The first thing she saw was a billow of brown and white, and she blinked hard, refocused her eyes, and saw that she was in the top of a tree. But she was lying on the floor of the inn, and gravity seemed to be all wrong. She blinked again and now the top of the tree was above her, and the world spun and righted itself around her. Or rather, her perception of the world righted itself.
The ceiling was only partially there. Above it, the top floor seemed to be gone and had been replaced by the very old tree that had always stood beside the inn. Branches of the tree, each of them as big as any normal tree she had seen, had invaded every nook and cranny of the inn’s many rooms. At least, all of the inn’s rooms that she could see from her position on the floor, and she could see a surprising number of them. Snowflakes and errant brown leaves fluttered down and about, and already there was a fresh skin of snow everywhere inside.
Of course, inside no longer seemed to be quite so inside as it usually was.
Peter Price was still shouting. Jessica sat up and checked herself for injuries. Aside from a multitude of scrapes and scratches, she seemed to be fine. The tree had apparently pushed her down and across the common room without doing her much damage.
Next, she looked around for Peter. He was pinned against the far fireplace by a tangle of strong and flexible branches. He was waving at her, his eyes wide and frantic.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I seem to be fine,” Jessica said. “How about you?”
“My arm hurts.” She looked through the massive wooden nest and saw that Peter’s arm was twisted strangely. Possibly broken.
“Can you move?” she said.
“No,” he said. “And I think it’s on fire.”
It took her a moment to figure out what was on fire, but then she saw the tendrils of smoke weaving their way around the boy and realized that the tree had inserted part of itself into the fireplace.
“Wait there,” she said, then realized it was a ridiculous thing to say since Peter had already admitted he couldn’t move. But it did seem to calm him.
The roof had slowed the tree’s progress through the building, but it had been moving fast. Thin, strong wooden limbs had thrust their way through her dress, just missing her legs, and into the floor. She broke through them with her wrist. Quick jabs. She looked around for her missing left shoe and found it under a lot of brown. She grabbed it and stuck it on her foot. She took hold of a bigger branch above her and pulled herself up, groaning with the effort, then looked around for the next big branch between herself and the fireplace.
“Where’s Anna?” she said, shouting to be heard over the rushing wind.
“She’s upstairs. You sent her there.”
Jessica looked up. There was no upstairs.
She hiked up her skirts and straddled a branch that was as big around as her body, swung her other leg over, and hoped Peter wasn’t looking her way. There was no time for modesty. Her feet touched the floor and she gauged the distance to Peter again. Closer, but it was going to take a while to navigate through the sudden thicket, and she was worried about the smoke forming behind the boy. She considered kicking off her shoes. She could move faster that way, but the floor was covered with splinters, some of them huge, jagged, dangerous. Bare feet would quickly become a liability.
“Peter!”
“Yes?”
“Look around you. Look for a fireplace poker or a stout stick.”
She watched him swivel his head around, then he disappeared from view as he bent from the shoulders to look at something. She heard him stifle a gasp of pain. He must have wrenched his bad shoulder even more. She continued to make her way toward him, but too slowly. Her hip still hurt from her fall at the Price home, but it took her weight.
“I found this.” Peter’s head popped back up into view and he raised his good arm. He was hefting a long flat iron bar, twisted nearly in half, with wicked hooks set at regular intervals. It was the mount for the inn’s fireplace tools. It had been securely bolted to the mantel, and Jessica wondered at the force necessary to wrench it loose and bend it. She nodded, excited.
“Yes, that’s brilliant. Can you use it to
lever yourself loose?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t see what’s pinned you down. I can’t help.”
“Come closer.”
“I’m trying, but there are too many branches in the way. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but you must try to help yourself.”
The boy swallowed hard, and his head disappeared once more as he bent to his task. He could only use one arm and he wasn’t a heavy boy. He didn’t have a lot of upper-body strength to put into the effort. On the other hand, he was skinny enough that she hoped he might be able to slide out from behind the tree limbs if he could create just a little more space for himself.
“Peter,” she said. She pulled herself up onto a limb and balanced, teetering there for a second, looking for a place to put her other foot. “Hurry, Peter.”
“It’s a little bit loose now,” he said. She still couldn’t see him and she held on to a solid branch beside her, going up on the toes of one foot, the other foot still dangling in the air. The smoke was denser now where Peter was, but it had thickened imperceptibly. She hadn’t realized that she couldn’t see the stones left from the crushed fireplace until they were gone. She couldn’t tell if Peter was standing or was still bent over his task. Then she saw shuddering orange tongues flicking in and out of the smoke. The great broken tree was on fire!
“Peter!”
“I’m loose!”
“Move!”
“Which way?”
“Toward my voice!”
“I can’t see where you are!” Then, softer: “My arm hurts.”
“Peter, listen for me and follow my voice.”
“I can’t!”
The air in the room wavered as flames licked out toward Jessica, and there was a rending sound as if two trains had gone off their tracks in unison, locked in combat. She lost her grip on the branch and slipped, fell hard against the trunk of the tree, and the breath went out of her. She shook her head and sat back up. Her leg was bleeding.
