There were, all told, some ten thousand souls in the graveyard, but most of them slept deep, or took no interest in the night-to-night affairs of the place, and there were less than three hundred of them up there, in the amphitheater, in the moonlight.
The stranger reached them as silently as the fog itself, and he watched the proceedings unfold, from the shadows, and he said nothing.
Josiah Worthington was speaking. He said, “My dear madam. Your obduracy is quite, is…well, can’t you see how ridiculous this is?”
“No,” said Mrs. Owens. “I can’t.”
She was sitting, cross-legged, on the ground, and the living child was sleeping in her lap. She cradled its head with her pale hands.
“What Mistress Owens is trying to say, sir, begging your honor’s pardon,” said Mr. Owens, standing beside her, “is that she dun’t see it that way. She sees it as doing her duty.”
Mr. Owens had seen Josiah Worthington in the flesh back when they were both alive, had in fact made several pieces of fine furniture for the Worthington manor house, out near Inglesham, and was still in awe of him.
“Her duty?” Josiah Worthington, Bart., shook his head, as if to dislodge a strand of cobweb. “Your duty, ma’am, is to the graveyard, and to the commonality of those who form this population of discarnate spirits, revenants and suchlike wights, and your duty thus is to return the creature as soon as possible to its natural home—which is not here.”
“His mama gave the boy to me,” said Mrs. Owens, as if that was all that needed to be said.
“My dear woman…”
“I am not your dear woman,” said Mrs. Owens, getting to her feet. “Truth to tell, I don’t even see why I am even here, talking to you fiddle-pated old dunderheads, when this lad is going to wake up hungry soon enough—and where am I going to find food for him in this graveyard, I should like to know?”
“Which,” said Caius Pompeius, stiffly, “is precisely the point. What will you feed him? How can you care for him?”
Mrs. Owens’s eyes burned. “I can look after him,” she said, “as well as his own mama. She already gave him to me. Look: I’m holding him, aren’t I? I’m touching him.”
“Now, see reason, Betsy,” said Mother Slaughter, a tiny old thing, in the huge bonnet and cape that she had worn in life and been buried wearing. “Where would he live?”
“Here,” said Mrs. Owens. “We could give him the Freedom of the Graveyard.”
Mother Slaughter’s mouth became a tiny O. “But,” she said. Then she said, “But I never.”
“Well, why not? It en’t the first time we’d’ve given the Freedom of the Graveyard to an outsider.”
“That is true,” said Caius Pompeius. “But he wasn’t alive.”
And with that, the stranger realized that he was being drawn, like it or not, into the conversation and, reluctantly, he stepped out of the shadows, detaching from them like a patch of darkness. “No,” he agreed. “I am not. But I take Mrs. Owens’s point.”
Josiah Worthington said, “You do, Silas?”
“I do. For good or for evil—and I firmly believe that it is for good—Mrs. Owens and her husband have taken this child under their protection. It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will,” said Silas, “take a graveyard.”
“And what of food, and the rest of it?”
“I can leave the graveyard and return. I can bring him food,” said Silas.
“That’s all very well you saying that,” said Mother Slaughter. “But you comes and you goes and nobody keeps track of you. If you went off for a week, the boy could die.”
“You are a wise woman,” said Silas. “I see why they speak so highly of you.” He couldn’t push the minds of the dead as he could the living, but he could use all the tools of flattery and persuasion he possessed, for the dead are not immune to either. Then he came to a decision. “Very well. If Mr. and Mrs. Owens will be his parents, I shall be his guardian. I shall remain here, and if I need to leave I shall ensure that someone takes my place, bringing the child food and looking after him. We can use the crypt of the chapel,” he added.
“But,” expostulated Josiah Worthington. “But. A human child. A living child. I mean. I mean, I mean. This is a graveyard, not a nursery, blast it.”
“Exactly,” said Silas, nodding. “A very good point, Sir Josiah. I couldn’t have put it better myself. And for that reason, if for no other, it is vital that the child be raised with as little disruption as possible to the, if you’ll forgive the expression, the life of the graveyard.” With that he strolled over to Mrs. Owens, and he looked down at the infant asleep in her arms. He raised an eyebrow. “Does he have a name, Mrs. Owens?”
“Not that his mother told me,” she said.
“Well, then,” said Silas. “His old name won’t be of much use to him now, anyway. There are those out there who mean him harm. Suppose we pick a name for him, eh?”