Keep sharply left or else youfll end up two floors below in the kitchen court, and again she was grateful for the instruction which was directly opposed to her instincts, which told her to go straight up the large staircase. Surely so prominent an artery led to the top of...
Lost in thought, her feet obscured by the darkness, she miscalculated the first rising and stumbled and went heavily down on one knee and protested softly with one startled gasp, yet knew no damage had been done and righted herself quickly.
In the brief interim she heard heavy padding footsteps and saw both men evolve out of the darkness, the one in the lead lifting his limited light high, the one behind inquiring, “Are you all right, Susan? Still in one piece?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Which way now, Mr. Bates?”
“To the left, I said,” the old man snapped. “If you'd only waited and...”
“...let me take the lead” was the rest of the implied scolding, and now he did take the lead and Susan had only one request and made it as tactfully as she could. “Just hurry, please,” she murmured, and stepped to one side as the glare of light rushed past, the lean old man heading toward the smaller staircase, which seemed to cut away from the heart of the castle and lead to yet another darkness.
The unearthly wail which had accompanied every step since they left the library suddenly ceased, a ghostly cessation which proved as unsettling as the wail itself.
For a moment all three froze on the narrow staircase, and as her hand was on Reverend Christopher's arm, she held it there, needing the feel of something human, though at the same time she felt a trembling and wasn't sure if it was coming from her or him.
She looked ahead and saw Bates angling the lamp upward as though all that the mystery required for a satisfactory solution was a dim and unreliable light.
“Please, let's hurry,” she begged again, pushing past Reverend Christopher, feeling like a harried mother herding two recalcitrant schoolboys.
“What point?” old Bates demanded with maddening deliberation. “I suspect now that it's all over.”
“We don't know...”
“Do you hear anything?”
“No, but...”
“Then why do you insist...?”
“Because we must see what has happened.” She looked back beseechingly at Reverend Christopher.
“She's right, Bates. Lead on, and quickly. It's been my experience that silence is worse than wailing, is not the abode of peace we mistake it for.”
Bates opened his mouth as if in protest, but then, probably curious himself, continued his upward climb.
Hurrying after, she kept her eyes downward in search of hazardous footing that might cause her to stumble again, and in the process she lost the light and looked up to see the glow disappear around the distant corner and was tempted to call out “Wait!” then changed her mind and broke into a run in an attempt to catch up and listened briefly for sounds coming from behind and heard none and determined that they'd left Reverend Christopher far behind, and increased her speed and suffered the optical illusion that she would never reach the end of this corridor in time to catch the light...
But a few moments later she saw the corridor end abruptly in a blank stone wall, saw two narrow twisting staircases lead off to the right and left, and paused in an attempt to catch her breath and tried to determine the direction of Bates's lamp, and saw to the right a pale orange glow and instantly decided, “To the right,” and took the narrow staircase running.
After three turns she encountered him as he pushed his way through a low door, which she observed led to a corridor identical to the one they'd just left.
“From now on, keep up,” he scolded. “Don't lag behind. It can be dangerous.”
She had no intention of lagging behind, even if she had to maintain a run to keep up, for while this corridor appeared to be identical in size, it was altogether different in other ways. No elegant portraiture lined these cold barren walls, no tapestry, no runner underfoot to soften the stone floor. This corridor clearly had been used only for passage. As she was thinking, with relief, that no one had inhabited this melancholy place, she saw a partially opened door, the heavy oak still a barrier, but she saw a pale elow coming from deep inside the chamber, as though someone had lit a lamp or left a small fire burning.
She hesitated. If Mr. Eden had taken up residence in the library downstairs — and there was every evidence that he had — then obviously he had not been in the castle alone. Someone else had shared his isolation. But who?
Unwilling to lose sight of Bates's lamp, she broke into a run and called out, “Wait, please,” and didn't know if he'd heard her or not until she reached the end of the corridor and looked up to the left and saw him, leaning against the stone wall, his face in shadow a map of exhaustion and rigid gloom.
“I... suppose we... are too late,” he gasped. Then, in a curious non sequitur, he added, “No decent woman would...”
“Who occupies that chamber, the one we just passed?”
“No one. There's no one in the castle except - ”
“There was a light, or fire - ”
“Not possible.”
“You passed by it as well.”
“One more staircase. Are you prepared?” He didn't wait for her answer.
Fatigue or something caused him to break his vindictive pace, and now she had little trouble keeping up, even as she surveyed this passage, the smallest yet. Two people would have difficulty passing each other. By reaching out on either side, she touched both walls, which seemed to be growing colder and damper, as was the air itself. She smelled sea breeze and knew they were nearing the top of the castle and, despite the torturous journey up, she was grateful to the old man for showing her the way, for she would never have found it by herself.
“Here... is the last,” said Bates, tight-lipped.
“But... the door is closed,” came the breathless voice from above her. As she climbed up the staircase, she saw him beyond the last turn, the lamp on the step below where he stood, pushing upward against what appeared to be a trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Here, let me,” she offered, and sidestepped the lamp and counted hastily, “One... two... three!” On the count of three, both pushed, and she heard a scraping, felt the heavy door lift, felt Bates, the taller of the two, take the brunt of the weight on his shoulders and ease it carefully to one side.
At that moment a strong downdraft from the exposed opening swept over them and extinguished the lamp.
In the sudden darkness she closed her eyes, weary of obstacles. “Did you bring a lucifer?” she asked, lifting the dead, though still smoking, lamp in an attempt to show it to Bates, who now appeared decapitated, his head invisible through the opening of the trapdoor.
If he replied, she didn't hear, and foolishly she continued to hold up the dead lamp as though it were capable of giving off light.
When Bates continued to stand in the opening, apparently disinclined to move through it or step out of it, she called out, “Can you see...?”
“Nothing”
“Let me...”
“I said I could see nothing.”
Amazed at this final obstacle after a night filled with obstacles, she was on the verge of pulling on his trouser leg when she heard a scuffle of steps coming from the opposite direction and turned on the sound.
“Who...?” she gasped, terror mounting. The long passage through the castle had taken a toll. Nothing could evolve from out of those shadows...
Still they came, struggling footsteps which Bates apparently had yet to hear.
“Please...” she begged the inhabited darkness, “speak and identify...”
“Susan?” came a gasping raspish voice. “Who do you think it is? No one in their right mind...”
She felt a small collapse of relief at the voice and in her imagination sketched the body around it, Reverend Christopher, who obviously had navigated the treacherous castle corridors on his own and had at last found them.
“I say, why the bottleneck?” he inquired on the step below her.
“Mr. Bates,” she said wearily, confident that that would suffice as explanation.
“I can see that,” Reverend Christopher replied, a bit snappish. “Here, let me...”
All at once Bates withdrew his head and collided on his way down with Reverend Christopher, who was just starting up. For a moment both threatened to dislodge the other, and all three would have tumbled down to the first landing had there been room for such a tumble. But for once the narrow confines kept them intact, save for awkward balance, until at last Susan edged past both and moved to the recently vacated position directly beneath the trapdoor.
“No need,” Bates called out.
“I don't...”
“It's empty,” he announced, “as I thought it would be. No one in sight, no one at - ”
“I can't believe that,” Susan protested.
“I tell you, you won't find Mr. Eden there...”
“Then where will we find him?”
“In hell, where he belongs.”
Again she heard the disturbing hate and wondered why he felt thus for his tempter when he had been the one who had given in to temptation.
In the dark she was aware of Reverend Christopher trying to comfort the bitter old man, while at the same time trying to relight the lamp.
At that precise moment a small flame flared in the lamp and she found a rough stone shelf, like the stirrup on a saddle, obviously designed for a foot up, and without hesitation she took it and reached through the opening for something of leverage and grasped at handfuls of air. Yet with surprising ease she gained the roof and for her efforts received a wintry blast of channel wind directly in the face with such force that her eyes stung. Quickly she averted her face and looked down through the trapdoor to see a pool of light and at the center the grinning Reverend Christopher extending the lamp up and commending her. “Good girll Now, be quick. What do you see?”
Again she shivered, painfully aware how ill-equipped she was for this task. The rescuing of lost souls was Reverend Christopher's domain. If she possessed any ability to serve, it was only in a secondary way, after the physical pain had been eased if not obliterated.
“Go on, Susan. You can do it,” urged Reverend Christopher, who appeared only from the head up in the opening of the trapdoor. Clever man to sense her doubt.
“You're the only one.”
Doubly clever to remind her that there was no one else. Now with a sense of mission she secured the hood of her cloak and turned once in a tentative circle, her eyes searching for a glimpse of the specter she'd seen from the headlands below.
Nothing — but as yet she hadn't turned full circle, and she required a few moments to get her bearings, facing south now, the force of the wind blowing at her from behind, pushing against her as though urging her back down into the safety of the trapdoor. She looked carefully at all the angles and aspects of the place, and saw nothing except the occasionally deceptive outlines of chimneys, endless configurations of red brick to accommodate the countless fireplaces below. Silhouetted against the night, some resembled broad, squat, square men.
If he wasn't here... But she canceled the thought.
“Susan? Anything...?” Reverend Christopher was still by the trapdoor.
“No. I can't find...”
“Look over the edge. Go on...”
The command was delivered sternly, as though he knew she had been postponing it. In a curious self-comforting litany she repeated two words, “Please God,” beneath her breath as she approached the edge and stopped short by about five feet, a vantage point which revealed nothing but a breathtaking view of the channel, like a broad black ribbon stretching endlessly in either direction, and the large brooding dark landmass which was Wales.
Move closer. There was nothing in the distance that required her as witness. Distances generally accommodated themselves. Only the close at hand...
Closer...
To the edge. So close now she could lift her foot to it, and with it she suffered a moment's lightheadedness. The abyss came quickly. Nothing now for her eyes to inspect save the gray yawning emptiness.
She leaned farther out and saw... Nothing. The place where the villagers had stood in excited company was empty. Obviously there had been a conclusion of some kind. She stepped yet closer and searched the headlands in either direction.
“Susan, please tell us...”
Slowly she backed away from the edge, and out of consideration made her way to the trapdoor. “Nothing, I'm afraid, Reverend Christopher,” she said, keeping her voice down despite the blowing wind.
From someplace lower down the narrow staircase she saw a scuffed pair of black boots. They seemed to give off a feel of sullen impatience.
“That's not possible,” Reverend Christopher protested. “He was there. You saw him with your own eyes. Look again, Susan.”
A useless suggestion, she thought, as the place where she was standing was limited, as was the place below. Still, she humored the old man and exactly retraced her steps, moving first to the edge of the parapet. Though she was looking out over the channel, she was seeing more clearly the massive portrait of the women of Eden. Suddenly she sensed movement. She glanced toward the trapdoor, thinking that Reverend Christopher had called to her again. But the trap-door was empty. Only the glow of the lamp was visible, like an opening into a limited hell.
Slowly she started back away from the edge of the parapet, the feeling growing stronger. She was not alone. There was unquestionably company somewhere, hidden from view, in the shadows, close by.
As the feeling grew, she increased her step, astonished that she only felt it now, the presence of another, the absolute conviction that there was someone else.
Yet where? She moved quickly to the far side of the roof, that distant crenellation that she had never inspected, focusing on the side where she'd first seen him. But perhaps, sensing rescue, he had taken refuge in one of those distant shadows.
As she passed close to the open trapdoor, she looked down, hoping to see Reverend Christopher to inform him that she would be beyond his line of vision for a few minutes and that he was not to worry. But he was no place in sight. Even Bates's scuffed boots had disappeared.
For a moment she stared down into the vacuum and felt a profound sense of abandonment. Where had they gone? She might have need of them at any moment. And this was their domain, not hers. She was just...
She caught herself in time. No need to assign blame. She retrieved the lamp, hoisted it upward, and made a conscious attempt to hoist her courage with it, and took a few tentative steps away from the safety of the trapdoor to the all-encompassing darkness of the roof.
Please hold, she prayed, and cupped her free hand around the windguard, lending the lamp double protection. In the exact center of the castle was a large protrusion which appeared to comprise the core of the castle itself. What it contained, she had no idea. Perhaps storage, perhaps the children's nursery. Whatever, it protruded like a squat, square fortress which had to be circumvented. Beyond this large obstruction, the roof was jagged with other, smaller protrusions, some chimneys, the purpose of others unknown.
Now she made her way carefully around these smaller obstructions, stopping about every three steps to listen to the wind, hoping a human voice would evolve out of it, something to signal a location.
She halted her step again. Now she thought she heard breathing, a heavy labored sound which at first seemed to arise from the wind and pulsate rhythmically with it. But in the next moment the wind rushed by and she continued to hear a faint rasping, like a slowed pulse.
“Is anyone...?” she began, feeling a sudden and urgent need for the sound of a human voice. At the same time, she moved all the way to the crenellation, still searching the shadowy horizon for an outline more flexible than stones and mortar, something malleable of flesh and blood. But still she saw nothing save the rigid sawtooth design repeating i
tself in endless duplication.
The wind was behind her now, a discernible pressure which seemed to be pushing her closer and closer to the edge. Suddenly weary of fighting the wind, she turned on it, and in the process her eyes fell on what appeared to be a shapeless lump collapsed against the south wall of the large rectangular protrusion.
For a moment she gaped at it. Quickly she looked away, then looked back, only to see it constant, a gray-black something which was neither brick nor mortar and did not accommodate a chimney or a nursery.
Her eyes felt sealed to the mysterious shape which, if it was human, lacked a recognizable head and shoulders. What it most resembled was a fisherman's discarded tarpaulin, which, worn with overuse, had been pitched against a brick wall to rot.
See it clearly, a voice urged from within her. Move away, came a countering voice. Though the latter was the wiser of the two voices, she obeyed the first and lifted the lamp. Steadily her steps guided her closer, until at last the limited light caught too much and she saw first the cradled cargo, a frail woman's frame held in a most loving embrace, her face completely obscured by a black covering of some sort and even the covering doubly obscured by the angle at which she was being held, and from both came no movement. Even the persistent wind seemed loath to ruffle their garments, which, while thick, spoke strangely of deep chills.
The immediate relief that she had found them alive was instantly replaced by the question: Were they alive? When she was about ten feet from them, she stopped and sent the lamplight in a limited arc. It did well to reach the mottled hem of what appeared to be a very worn and soiled black gown. The folds, caught up in the embracing arms, revealed highlights of a light substance, like chalk or dust.
She shifted the lamp, covered it, and found the most revealing clue to date, a small, slender, naked white hand resting limp in the black dusty folds, one small piece of human flesh, clearly a woman's, thus providing an accurate map to the rest of her.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 5
