Moonlight Mist
Page 17
Then, from the yawning maw of the new grave, came the slinking scrape of disturbed rock, and Lynden, the nonscholar who made a point of never remembering poetry, found herself reciting aloud the eerie words of Shakespeare:
“ ‘Now it is the time of night,
That the graves all gaping wide,
Ev’ry one lets forth his sprite
In the church-way path to glide.’ ”
Suddenly a shapeless, glowing mass began to rise from the open earth, spilling toward her from the grave’s edge like a creeping vampire!
Lynden sucked in a painful, shuddering breath, clasped trembling hands over her heart, and began backing from the dismal, crouching shape which began to grow to a great height, batlike wings spreading from its sides.
“I’m done for!” cried Lynden in a choked scream. Terrified, she turned and fled from the thing, threading an erratic pattern through the tombstones that blocked her way like giant chessmen threatening a helpless pawn. The breath sobbed in her dry throat, her heart echoed the beat of each running step across the uneven ground. The terror behind her flew in great bounding leaps, lending new energy to her flight. Its unearthly mask uttered her name as if to summon her to the pit from which it issued. It drew closer. She could feel its wicked breath on her cheek, and a great horny claw closed on her shoulder. Dark folds enveloped her, and the scream that rose in her mind tore from her throat. Her face was covered with the claw; she was being smothered. Frantically, she bit at it.
“Ouch! Damn it! What’s gotten into you?” the thing said in a surprisingly human voice.
Lynden turned to look at her captor. “Kyler! Oh, thank God! I thought you were a vampire.”
“Me a vampire,” he said, supporting her sagging frame. “You’re the one who’s nearly bit my hand off.”
“I thought you were going to smother me,” she said weakly.
“Nonsense. I didn’t want you trumpeting our presence here so that we’d have half the county upon us with pitchforks. You squeaked loud enough to raise the dead.”
Lynden closed her eyes and shuddered. “Don’t even think that, Kyler. I was scared half out of my mind, and then when you came crawling out of the grave like a shimmering ghoul, I thought it was the end of me.”
“Silly chit.” Kyler gave her shoulders a brotherly squeeze. “It was only my lantern, half-shuttered; and as for crawling out of the grave, the dashed thing’s nearly six feet deep. I was lucky I didn’t break my leg.”
“It was indeed,” said Lynden, beginning to recover her spirits. “And why you were so foolish to climb into it in the first place, is more than I can imagine.”
“Because I heard footsteps. I thought it might be one of the caretakers and thought it best to drop out of sight. But now, might I ask, what are you doing here?”
“I? It was my scheme to come here, remember? You were the one full of pompous speeches about not wanting to disturb the rest of his ancestors! A fine consistent fellow you’ve turned out to be.”
Kyler’s even smile radiated warmly in the darkness. “What was I to do? I didn’t want you to think that you could follow me on grave-robbing expeditions at the witching hour. Wait! I think I heard something…” There was a padding as of soft leather soles coming from the moon-blue hillside near the church, and a tall, slender phantom floated down the hill toward them. It halted when it came near, and gave a stifled gasp.
“Lynnie?” the phantom whispered tentatively.
“Lorraine!” Lynden went forward to peep under the phantom’s hood, and then began to laugh, a happy party laugh anomalous to the stygian surroundings. “Gracious! I thought nothing would induce you to follow me to the graveyard.”
“I was lying awake thinking, when I heard someone clunk against the gilt umbrella stand in the side hallway. I knew it was you after I’d checked your bedroom and found your pillows lumped under the covers to make it look as though you were asleep. I thought you gave in a little too easily this afternoon. What could I do but follow you?”
Lynden gave a delighted trill of laughter and danced the beginning steps of the seaman’s hornpipe, which a groom at Fern Court, a sailor retired from the Royal Navy, had taught her. “Faithfullest of sisters! I wouldn’t be surprised if you changed your mind and decided to come because you know I’m right.”
Kyler joined the circle hastily and said to Lynden, “Let’s not squawk the news to the whole parish. If you’ll stop capering around like Puck, I’ll walk you both back to Fern Court.”
“Oh,” said Lorraine. “Have you already been inside the mausoleum, then?”
“No,” replied Kyler, “and as much as I like your company, there’s no need for the two of you to be here when I do. It’ll be no sight for a lady.”
“Hen’s teeth!” retorted Lynden. “What do you know about the sights ladies see? Ladies attend childbirth and nurse vomiting children. In fact, ladies even lay out the dead.”
Kyler tilted his chapeau-bras to the back of his head. “Maybe so, but I’ll bet you’ve never done any of those things. Besides, laying out a body right after death is a far different story than looking into the coffin of a twenty-year-old corpse. Just now you thought I was one of the immortal awake, and ran from me like you had ten bogies on your trail. Lord knows what you’ll do when you see the real thing.”
“At least I’m not irreverent enough to call my great-aunt a bogie!” said Lynden indignantly. “This is what she wanted—that’s why she told your stepparents about the clue on the sundial!”
Lorraine came to stand by Kyler, laying a hand upon his arm. “I think—well, it may be so. How could we ignore the message on the sundial? This may be the thing that she wanted us to do. Surely that makes it right. I want to come with you. Please.” She looked down, biting her underlip, her face like pale china in the moonlight, the dark hair curling like a glossy veil from beneath the hood of her cape.
At last he said, “You don’t have to do this for me.”
Lorraine conquered her shyness and met his gaze. “I know that. And it doesn’t matter.”
Incredibly, then, he was the one who was shy, or, at least, unsure. “Lorraine…” he whispered her name, like a prayer. “This may not work. If it doesn’t…”
“If it doesn’t, that doesn’t matter, either,” she answered him from her heart.
As though unable to stop himself, Kyler took her, pressing her softness to him with gentle arms, his fingers sliding under her hood to mingle in the flow of her hair. “You’re wrong, princess. And so is this,” he said, releasing her from his arms in a gesture Lorraine found endearingly noble and Lynden, frustratingly stupid. “Unless I can prove that I’m something more than a smuggler, anything between us is impossible.”
“Then we shall prove it,” said Lorraine with simple faith.
Lynden regarded the romantic pair with disgust. “If the two of you stand there May-gazing, by morning we won’t have proved anything except that it’s possible to spend the night in the cemetery without being eaten by werewolves. Kyler, are you or are you not going to let Lorraine and me come with you to the mausoleum?”
He had scarcely heard Lynden’s remarks, his attention being occupied by Lorraine’s dark eyes; but at Lynden’s last question he turned to her. “What? Oh. Very well. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, if you don’t like what you see.” He grinned. “I daresay you’ll be some use reviving me after I faint. To the mausoleum!”
Kyler had abandoned his half-shuttered lantern on a headstone near the grave pit during his pursuit of Lynden. He stopped to retrieve it as they walked through the sighing fog toward the Crant tomb. Steps in native stone sank to the crypt’s entrance, a massive arched door of joined-oak surrounded by the mausoleum’s facing of dirty grey marble that glistened with fog-sweat. Kyler tried the bulky, four-century-old handle without success before crouching in front of the keyhole, drawing a long iron rod with an angled end piece from his pocket, and beginning, with impressive nonchalance, to work it inside the lock.
“I was worried about how we’d get in if the door was locked! You know what to do, though, don’t you, Kyler? How fortunate that you’re a criminal! What’s that device called?”
“Pardon the circumstances,” said Kyler, his concentration centered on the lock, “but they call this a skeleton key.”
“And it can really open any door?”
“Not every one,” he replied, “but most.”
Lynden shook her head in wonder. “I wish I had one. When I think of the possibilities, well, one can only regard them with awe.”
“Or horror, belike, if the thing’s in your hands. Promise me you won’t use it to get yourself in trouble and I’ll give you this one as a souvenir once the door’s open. I’ve got more of them.” There were a few tiny, sharp clinks of metal against metal. Kyler swore once in frustration, and then came a hollow clunk and a rusty scrape. The lock dangled free. “There,” said Kyler, picking up the lantern. The circle of yellow light surrounding them moved wildly as he swung it to his side. He pulled open the door, which groaned in protest like a zombie about to walk, causing the twins to jump. But no fiend or goblin came skittering and laughing out at them, so there was nothing to do but enter. Kyler went first—the tomb seemed to swallow him and the light.
“I’m waiting.” His voice echoed eerily from the confines of the crypt. The twins entered. Kyler was standing in the middle of the tomb, hoisting the lantern high to widen the lamplit sphere. He gazed about him, fascinated. “Nobody in here but us Crants,” he said.
The room was small inside, indicating the thickness of the walls. A fetid dampness permeated the air. Ancient Gothic statues of the first Marquis of Crant and his lady reclined on the two massive sarcophagi which stood in the center of the room under a vaulted ceiling. The knight wore a coat of mail over a knee-length tunic; a double-edged broadsword hung from a stony belt at his left side. The lady was clad in a flowing girdled robe. The circular room, walled in white-ribbed sea-green marble, was quartered by four large flying angels sculpted in white marble in a later German Gothic style. Each angel had a long, straight right wing and a curled left wing, and jutted perpendicularly from the wall, to which it was attached by the wide base of its roiling gown. The angels were playing aggressively on the mandolin; a pouting, rounded mouth and bulging forehead were carved into each smooth marble face. The position of the eight wings, the swooping posture of the angels, and their high placement, as well as the curved walls, created an illusion of four celestial troubadours, doomed to fly in an endless circle, trapped for eternity in a charnel house like Lucifer’s henchmen. The light from the lantern gave their stony eyeballs an eerie gleam, and spiders had festooned the tuning pegs of the mandolins with a thick, dusty gray webbing.
Burial trays—thirty in all—were lined three high and placed flush into the wall. Each one was faced with a stone marker and bordered with a green marble frieze.
“ ‘Marble hast a chill which no warmth can kill; / Frigid from the breath of those who supped with Death,’ ” quoted Lorraine in an undertone.
“A pleasant thought,” said Lynden. “This place gives me the green dismay.”
“It oughn’t to,” said Lorraine uncertainly. “Don’t you recall the vicar back home told us that Christians have nothing to fear from graveyards? He said that churchyards are no more frequented by apparitions and ghosts than other places, and, therefore, it is a weakness to be afraid of passing through them.”
Kyler had been examining the markers in the lantern light, going down the line reading the names to himself, lantern held high; He turned to the girls, a broad smile on his lean, dark face.
“There’s your comfort, hornet. There are no more spooks here than anywhere else.” He passed the lantern over a few more slabs, the light rising and falling, causing the shadows to shift eerily. “She must be somewhere near here—I’ve gotten up to seventeen… yes, here it is! Irmingarde Marlene Grubelholtz Wishke. Born 1717, died 1797. Repose in Sweet Gardens. Why don’t you two stand back and I’ll see if I can open it.”
Lorraine and Lynden gladly obeyed, both of them looking pale, Lorraine leaning on her sister. “Tell us if it’s frightful,” said Lynden, with a swallow.
Kyler pulled a lever that had been painted to match the marble and cleverly designed to form part of the frieze. There was the squeak of the lever, a long-drawn stony metallic scratch… and a sound as of water sloshing back and forth in a metal tub. Kyler gasped.
“Is it too awful?” said Lynden in a shaken whisper. Lorraine’s eyes were tightly closed.
“No.” Kyler’s voice sounded reassuringly normal. “In fact, it’s empty, b’God! Empty except for… just a minute.” The twins watched in some consternation while he went on to open several more of the grave slabs. “The same!” Suddenly he began to laugh—a light ripping laugh that must have shocked the grim angels in their mandolin flight. “This ain’t a tomb, it’s a sponge!”
Chapter Thirteen
“A sponge?” asked Lorraine, creasing her smooth brow in puzzlement.
“Has Satan stolen your wits, Kyler?” demanded Lynden. “I wish you would talk sense. Instantly!”
“Very well,” cried that young man, his voice still filled with laughter. “Come with me, then, and look. What’s this, fighting shy after all the fuss to come with me here? Along with you, fainthearts! Now. Well, open your daylights, you can’t see a thing with your peepers shut!”
Lynden was the first to venture a glance, and a second later Lorraine, too, opened her eyes. Kyler had drawn them to the side of the burial tray. They looked down into it and saw that it was filled, not with the grotesquely sunken features of a grinning corpse, but with more than three inches of brackish water. Rust had taken jagged orange bites from the blistered metal lining of the tomb and a queer mossy growth climbed the marble outsides.
“How curious. It’s—why, does the roof leak?” Lorraine tilted her face to look at Kyler.
“Like a sieve, m’dear. They couldn’t bury anyone here for a Grail. Can you imagine the first marquis laying out his bloss for this tomb only to find the thing was no use once the first rain came? I’ll wager there was hell to pay at the next stonemasons’ guild meeting!”
“Could they not repair it?” Lorraine asked him.
“For twice the cost it took to build the thing in the first place.”
Lynden groaned. “That must have been what Mrs. Coniston was about to tell me then, after she said that there was a Crant mausoleum by St. Andrew’s. She said, ‘but it’s the castle chapel where…’ She must have been about to add ‘where the Crants are really buried’ when the chef came into the kitchen complaining that the Penrith spice-seller had fouled the pepper with mustard musks!” She picked up the lantern and went to the end of the row, holding the light on the first tomb head in the line. “Look at these inscriptions—none earlier than 1694. I’ll bet they began inscribing these plaques as memorials to impress the tourists! The sexton probably shows them through in the summer for sixpence a head.” She returned to set down the lantern and peered into the tray’s dripping length.
“What a strange thing… how short the drawer is. I’ve heard it said that people were of a shorter stature in the Middle Ages, but this appears to be no longer than three feet. Surely they couldn’t all have been pygmies?”
Kyler leaned over beside Lynden to look. “Whew! Smells like cooked dog flesh, don’t it? You’re right, though, the length of it does look too short.” He reached in and pressed thoughtfully on the rusty metal plate which formed the rear of the burial tray. “What harm can come from us prying around a little here to see… wait! I’ll be… it’s going to come off! It’s a false back!”
“And there’s a box behind it!” cried Lynden, her voice sky-pitched with excitement. “They’re in there, Kyler! I know your documents are in there!”
&nbs
p; The round-lidded box behind the false back was designed in enamel-on-glass and of a size that might have fit easily on the seat of a dining-room chair. Kyler lifted it to the floor and set it next to the lantern. Rejecting Lynden’s eager offer of her flannel petticoat to dry the water scum from the box’s exterior, he drew off his own wool tweed muffler and began to polish the smooth surface.
“Maybe a genie will pop out,” suggested Lorraine with a nervous giggle as she dropped to her knees, tucking the skirts of her cloak beneath her for warmth.
“More like a frog!” Lynden joined the other two on the floor. She touched the box’s side and frowned at the slimy film it left on her gloved fingertip. Deep green fused glass began to sparkle through the wet grime under Kyler’s cloth.
“Pretty,” said Kyler. Tight, badly tarnished brass hook-and-dot hasps held the lid closed; Kyler released them and gently raised the weighted lid.
Inside lay the musty memorabilia and mystic treasures of the fey and introverted Lady Irmingarde Wishke. There were small parcels tied with faded, fraying ribbon; numerous scavenged scraps of folded paper; a piece of runnered silk stuck with rusty embroidery needles.
Unwrapping the parcels revealed a tiny, empty, Bristol-blue glass perfume bottle; a doll’s miniature tea set with pots, cups, and candlesticks in silver etched with flowers; a fan of tortoiseshell sticks painted with carriage fares for day trips in London; and a square gilded tile ringed for hanging and embossed in a flowery print with the words:
May Peace and Plenty
On Our Nation Smile
And Trade With Commerce
Bless the British Isle.
The parcels contained no clue, so Lorraine divided the papers into three roughly equal stacks and began a careful scrutiny of her pile after handing one each to Lynden and Kyler. The lantern light glowed waveringly on the trio of intent faces; the only sound was the shuffle of paper.