What Moves the Dead, page 4
“Well, I haven’t met her yet. She might be.” Angus sniffed. “Mushrooms, eh?”
“Yes, and some nasty ones, too. Poked one with a stick for me, and it smelled like an open grave and rotten milk. And she said it wasn’t even ripe yet!”
“They say mushrooms spring up where the Devil walks,” said Angus sourly. “And where fairies dance.”
“Do you think they ever get the two confused? The Devil shows up to a fairy ball, or finds himself mobbed with elven ingénues?”
He gave me a look from under his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t joke about fairies. Sir.”
“Oh, very well. As long as I can still joke about the Devil.”
He grunted, which was Angus-speak for not approving but not caring enough to stop me. “The villagers don’t like the place,” he said.
I had passed through the village, but hadn’t thought much about it. It didn’t look bad. It didn’t look good. It was a village. It looked like every other small village in Ruravia, which also look pretty much like every small village in Gallacia, although they carve flowers on their shutters here and we carve turnips. (That is a general we. I have never carved a turnip in my life.)
“Don’t like the house? Or don’t like the Ushers?”
“The house. If anything, I’d say they pity the current crop. Sir Roderick’s great-uncle, or whoever he inherited this heap from, sold the people their land back before the creditors came for it, so they remember him fondly. ‘Our Usher,’ they call him. And Sir Roderick’s ‘Young Usher.’”
“And Madeline?”
He gave me an opaque look. “‘That poor Usher girl.’”
I sighed. Angus raised an eyebrow. “She’s not looking well,” I said, in response to the unspoken invitation. “I see why Roderick thought she was dying. I think she might be.”
Angus is a sympathetic soul, particularly for women. “Ah, the poor lass,” he said, and meant it. “This is no place for a delicate lady. I tell you, it’s haunted, moor or not.”
“Did the villagers tell you that?”
“You laugh, but aye, they did. I asked about hunting hereabouts, and they told me not to do it. Said the place is full of witch-hares.”
“Witch-hares?”
“Aye. Familiars to devils. You shoot one and the next day you find a witch with a bullet in her heart.”
“Hard luck for her. Are many little old ladies with warts turning up with bullets in them around here? That really sounds like a job for the constabulary.”
“Bah. Disbelieve me all you like. They say the hares don’t act right, though. They forget how to run. The man at the inn, he said he’d walked right up to one once and it sat there and stared at him as if it had never seen a human man before.”
“I assume a witch would have seen a man before, so I don’t know if that goes to support your theory.”
Angus drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much, and full dignity, which was considerable. “’Tis not my place to speak on the habits of witches. But I’ll not hunt hares here, I can tell you that much. Nor deer.”
I raised an eyebrow. Angus is particularly fond of eating all of God’s creatures, and this seemed like a great sacrifice. “How will you occupy your time, then?”
“I,” said Angus, still with unassailable dignity, “plan to go fishing.”
CHAPTER 4
So here I was. Roderick hadn’t expected me, whatever that meant—possibly that he hadn’t thought I was enough of a friend to come when he needed me, or perhaps he didn’t think he needed me. Maybe he didn’t. Denton didn’t know what to make of me. Madeline was … yes, dying. I had looked in the faces of enough dying soldiers to know. Sometimes people surprise you, sometimes they pull through, but there is a particular waxiness to human skin that tells you when someone is not long for this world. Madeline’s was starting to acquire that texture. If I came down to breakfast tomorrow and discovered that she had died during the night, I would not have been shocked. Saddened, but never shocked.
When I am perturbed, I like to walk. I feel slow and stupid when I sit, but walking seems to wake something up in my brain. I never minded pacing back and forth with a rifle on guard duty, because I could think more easily. Daydream, even, if I’m being honest. Mostly I daydreamed about the end of the war, about scenarios where all my people made it out alive and unharmed. It was only when we were pinned down and I could not walk that it became harder for me to keep those dreams alive.
I did not particularly wish to walk the halls of Usher’s mansion. The tattered wallpaper, the specks of mold … Madeline with her feverish eyes and wisps of white hair … none of these were things I wished to encounter. So I rose early and saddled Hob and went out for a ride.
Hob greeted me more eagerly than usual, possibly because Denton’s horse in the next stall was a terrible conversationalist, or perhaps because the stable was so gloomy. It was clean and fairly dry, but it had the same sullen air as the rest of the manor house.
The air of the heath was cool and damp. I might have found it oppressively silent under normal circumstances, but compared to what we had left behind, it felt free and open. Mist clung to the surface of the dark lake and gathered in hollows on the ground, but Hob cantered through them and broke them up like the shreds of bad dreams.
My thoughts, unfortunately, did not break up as easily. The Ushers were not well, any fool could see that. The house was obviously terrible for anyone who was sick. Miasma, as my great-grandmother would have said. Of course, it was 1890, and no one really believed in that anymore. It was all germs now, thanks to Dr. Koch. Still, germs could linger in a place, could they not? Was there enough disinfectant in the world to cleanse the house of Usher?
So. What did I do about it?
I couldn’t very well kidnap the Ushers and drag them back to Paris at gunpoint. Madeline wouldn’t survive. Roderick probably would, and be better for it, but Denton would undoubtedly object. And you can’t exactly threaten to shoot someone to save their life. Angus would be extremely sarcastic if I tried.
Burning down the house of Usher, while tempting, had similar practical problems. I grimaced. Hob slowed down, feeling me shifting in the saddle, and put one ear back in inquiry.
“Sorry, boy,” I said. “I’m not good company today.”
Hob’s ears were the equine equivalent of a shrug. Horses don’t understand a lot about the world, but I have found that they sometimes understand particular humans terrifyingly well. Mules understand a lot more about the world, but less about humans—or possibly they just don’t care what humans think. I’d buy either explanation, really.
We trotted across the countryside, steering clear of patches of the stinking redgills. They thinned out as we left the tarn behind, then began to increase again as I turned Hob back toward the manor house.
Where one finds mushrooms, one sometimes also finds redoubtable English ladies. I saw the umbrella first, then Miss Potter sitting under it. She had a sketchbook in her lap, and was staring intently at a brown lump.
I slid from Hob’s back and looped his reins over the saddle. “Stand,” I said. Hob gave me a look saying that this was unnecessary as there was nowhere in this desolate countryside he particularly wished to go.
Miss Potter dabbed carefully at the sketchbook. She was working from a small tin of pigments and I could see the pages of the book were wavy with the marks of watercolor washes.
“Unless it is urgent, officer, I will be with you in a few moments,” she called. “The paint is wet and I do not wish it to dry before I have finished this study.”
“Please, take your time,” I said. “There is nothing so urgent that I would interrupt your painting.”
She gave a short, occupied nod and bent over her watercolors.
Temporarily dismissed, I ambled over to the lake. The water was still dark and not entirely reflective. Patches seemed matte, as if the lake itself was moldering. The house squatted on the far side.
I picked up a pebble and tossed it into one of the matte places. It landed and sank, the ripples stopping almost instantly.
I tried skipping a rock across it. The first skip went well enough and left the correct ripples, but the second seemed to land in something gelatinous and the rock vanished into the water.
“Algae mats, I believe,” said Miss Potter, coming up beside me. “The lake is full of them. How are you doing, Officer Easton?”
“Lieutenant Easton, please,” I said. “Or simply Easton, if you like.”
“Lieutenant.” She inclined her head. I smiled. Most Englishwomen of my acquaintance would have to be pinned down by enemy fire for three days before they would consent to call a companion merely “Easton,” and even then, they would revert to titles the moment anyone else was present.
The lake spread out at our feet. It was so still. I am used to tiny ripples in any body of water this size, and the flatness was unsettling. There was even a slight breeze that should have caused ripples, by rights. It tugged at my hair and set the ribbons on Miss Potter’s hat dancing.
“Are there mushrooms underwater?” I asked abruptly.
I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It seemed like a child’s question. But Miss Potter did not treat it that way.
“A complex question. The simple answer is that we probably do not know of any.”
“Probably?” I tilted my gaze toward her. She had a slight frown.
“Probably. The mycelium networks of mushrooms do not seem to enjoy being completely submerged. Several people have grown mushrooms on logs that were submerged in aquaria, but we must presume that the fungus itself was present in the log before it was placed in the water. Also…” Her frown shifted into what, in another woman, might have been a curled lip of disgust.
“Also?”
“There is an American,” she said, pronouncing the word with distaste, “who claims to have seen gilled mushrooms in a river in their far west. But his report is unsubstantiated by any reputable observer.”
It must have been terribly galling to be barred from an organization merely because one lacked the proper genitals, when disreputable Americans were allowed to join and write about underwater mushrooms. I had encountered Englishwomen with similar feelings about the military. One of them had gone on to move to Gallacia and swear as a soldier, and more power to kan.
“Is there some reason mushrooms wouldn’t grow underwater? Besides the mycelium?”
“Spores float,” said Miss Potter simply. “They might well come to rest along the banks, but they could not sink to the bottom of the river to grow there. It would be like growing a coconut tree on the bottom of the ocean.”
“Ah.”
She tapped her parasol against the pebbles of the beach. “That said, mushrooms are not the only fungus. There are many, many types in the world. We walk constantly in a cloud of their spores, breathing them in. They inhabit the air, the water, the earth, even our very bodies.”
I felt suddenly queasy. She must have read my expression, because a rare smile spread across her face. “Don’t be squeamish, Lieutenant. Beer and wine require yeast, as does bread.”
“Fair enough. So there is fungus in water, then?”
“Oh yes. A great deal of it. Mostly we recognize it when it becomes parasitic upon something else. Fish, for example. There are many fungi that plague the keepers of aquaria, causing growths upon their fish. It is not my field, but I know of three or four. Mostly they cause scabrous patches, but I have seen fungus that grows like a puff of cotton on the fins of fish, or sprouting forth from their mouth or lungs.”
“How distressing,” I said.
“Certainly for the fish, I would imagine. Though I do not know if fish have the intelligence to be distressed. Perhaps they simply believe that the fungus is part of them, and their fins have become larger.”
I shook my head. “And is there fungus here, in the tarn?”
“Undoubtedly. You would likely require a microscope to observe it, however.”
“I don’t suppose you have one lying around, Miss Potter? In among your paints, perhaps?”
She smiled again, though fleetingly. “I fear they are beyond my means. I must content myself with a magnifying glass.” She tapped her parasol again, in much the manner one might a cane. “You must think me a bit mad to be so obsessed with the kingdom of fungi, but it is a fascinating world. And an important one. Our civilization is built on the back of yeasts.”
“I do not think you are mad at all,” I said, which was true. “I enjoy the passions of others vicariously. One of the most pleasant interludes I have ever spent was listening to the treatise an aging shepherd once delivered to me on the inferiority of other breeds of sheep, and this has a much more general appeal.”
“High praise.” She hid a chuckle behind one gloved hand. I wished I dared to imitate the “piss ’n shit in th’ flaps o’ they hides!” speech for her, but I had no wish to alienate the redoubtable Miss Potter. I looked across the lake instead, and saw a pale white shape emerge from a little door near the lake. Madeline? It must have been, unless one of the servants wore white.
The shape made its way slowly down to the water, not stopping until it was at the edge. I could not make out whether or not it was actually touching the lake. I felt an urge to leap on Hob and ride back at a gallop to stop her from touching the water. Surely wet feet could do no good in her condition.
Surely that water could do no one any good, regardless of their condition. But what could I do?
Anemia, Denton had said. The treatment for anemia, so far as I knew, was good red meat. There was precious little of that in the house of Usher.
I didn’t know how to fix catalepsy, but red meat I could manage. The only trick was how to get it into the larder.
I took my leave of Miss Potter, pausing to compliment her painting. She turned the compliment aside with a practiced air. “I’m well enough. You should see my niece Beatrix. Twice the talent, and an artist’s eye. And a very gratifying interest in mycology.”
I mounted my horse and rode back to the house, looking for Angus to put my plan into action.
* * *
“So we’ll say you shot it,” I said, as we approached the house that evening.
“Like hell we will,” said Angus. “I’d take a bullet for you, same I did your father, but damned if I’ll have you besmirching my shooting to a nob.”
“He’s not a nob, he’s Roderick. We all had the runs together over the same trench.”
“He’s Lord Usher now, and I don’t care how much shit we passed, I’ll not take the blame for this one.”
I drew breath to argue, but he added, “And I did the negotiatin’, did I not?”
I sighed. His accent was getting thicker and that was never a good sign. “Fine, fine. Come in with me and make it convincing.”
It had been a ridiculous plan, but straightforward enough. I walked into the parlor and found Roderick sitting alone at the piano, toying with the keys in a desultory fashion.
“Roderick,” I said, “I fear I’ve got a confession to make.”
He looked up, his pale eyebrows drawing together. “A confession? What do you mean?”
“Well. You know Angus and I went hunting this afternoon.”
He nodded. “After birds, yes.”
“Well…” I drew out the moment, took a deep breath, and said, “Roderick, I’ve shot a bloody cow.”
Roderick stared at me blankly.
“I told kan it weren’t never a deer,” said Angus, his accent even more pronounced than usual. “But does ka listen to me? Me, who taught kan to shoot at me very knee?”
“It was one of the little brown ones they have around here!” I said, exasperated. (I didn’t have to fake the exasperation. Angus was laying it on thick.) “They’re deer-colored and it wasn’t very big and it had its head down…”
“Those hip bones were never a deer! And did I not teach ye never to shoot afore ye had the shot absolutely clean? If you were a recruit, I’d box your ears for it. Better that than ye kill a man!”
“Regardless, I did not kill a man,” I said frostily. I turned back to Roderick. “I paid the cow’s owner twice what it was worth, but I’m terribly sorry if this makes trouble for you with your people. I genuinely thought it was a deer.”
Angus muttered something into his mustache. Roderick’s lips had begun to twitch and his shoulders shook.
“Anyway,” I said, giving Angus a hard look, “there’ll be a delivery from the butcher in a day or so.”
“From the butcher?” said Roderick, in a high, strangled voice.
I hunched my shoulders. Angus aimed a cuff at the back of my head. “Well an’ I taught kan, ye eat what ye shoot! Yer no nob to go huntin’ the little beasties for sport—begging pardon, Lord Usher—and leavin’ t’poor creature where it falls!”
“He made me field dress the cow,” I said to Roderick.
This was too much for my old friend. He let out a howl of laughter and fell back against the piano, clutching his chest and gasping. I folded my arms and failed to smother a smile.
“Angus…” said Roderick, when he finally stopped laughing. “Angus, you old devil, you haven’t changed by a hair. Field dressed the cow!” This set him off again.
“I,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, “am going to go wash the cow off my boots. And trousers. And the rest of me.” I stalked to the door, leaving Roderick collapsed over the piano. Angus followed me, uttering dark commentary on my field dressing of the cow, which, I wish to state for the record, was perfectly adequate.
“Phew,” I said, when we were safely out of earshot. “That went well.”
“Aye, the laugh’ll do him good. And a good piece of beef’ll do her ladyship good as well.” Angus’s accent had returned to its normal proportions. “Not a bad plan, youngster.”
“It was a bloody stupid plan,” I said, “but it did the job. I couldn’t very well just have a side of beef delivered to the house.”
“Pity you couldn’t have got a younger one,” said Angus, a bit sadly. “That cow they sold us will be tough as a boot.”
