“I think we might skip the leeches tonight, Giles. She’s been through enough already.”
“Misunderstood creatures,” he moaned, lifting up the jar and stroking it. “They simply want to help.”
As they talked, I sipped the sweet, thick restorative, warmth spreading through my body, all the way down to my toes. The ache in my throat and head eased, as if the pain were being drawn out of me like poison from a bite. I might have fallen asleep right there in the comfortable chair near the fire, but Chijioke peered into the parlor, pulling off his scarf and stamping his feet.
“Do any of you bother to knock?” Giles asked with a frown.
“Apologies.” Chijioke did not look in the mood for an argument, going directly to the fire and holding his palms to it. Francis arched against the thick fabric of his trousers. But he ignored the cat, pulling off his coat and turning to the undertaker with a grim expression. Maybe it was a trick of the firelight, but his eyes flared crimson. “The bodies are below, Giles. We should get started. The blood moon is full and their souls are viler than most and I want to be rid of them for good.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The cellar was cool and smelled of wet stones, and two dead bodies lay naked and washed on the table.
The scene playing out before me had the hazy quality of a dream. I drank the hot restorative and huddled under my patchwork blanket and looked openly at the face of the man who had tried to kill me. Well, what was left of his face.
My foot tapped anxiously under the blanket. I needed Lee to listen to me without worrying, and that would not happen without the creams and tinctures to cover up the last visible evidence of Merriman’s attack. Unlike the sitting room upstairs, this chamber was packed with chemicals of all kinds, and I squinted, trying to find promising labels on the tins stacked throughout the place. Many of the chemicals just seemed like various perfumes to cover up the smell of rot on the bodies. Chijioke made another trip upstairs, then reappeared with the undertaker, who nattered on constantly about his new competition in Malton. Two doves cooed softly in a cage carried by Chijioke, though the birds quieted when they were brought to the table with the corpses and the cage placed there. To my right, high wooden shelves lined the wall, hundreds of tools, knives, shovels, and odd medical devices heaped in glistening rows. As upstairs, the whole room smelled faintly of vinegar.
There were two entrances to the cellar, one from the stairwell I had used and the other from a tall, wide set of doors in an alcove behind the bodies. Scuff marks and a trickling of dirt led from those doors to the table. Chijioke must have unloaded the bodies through that back entrance.
Mary hummed as she set out a few candles around the tall, sturdy table with the bodies. Her gaze flitted to me more than was strictly necessary.
“I can hardly feel the blows now,” I told her, ducking down behind the drink. I needed to get out of there, but giving all three of them the slip right that minute, when their concern was fixed so intently upon me, felt impossible.
“You’re strong,” Mary replied, pausing with a lit candle in hand. Some of the black wax dripped onto her skin and she hissed, shaking out her fingers and then blowing on them. “I wouldn’t have recovered as quickly.”
“In the last week, I’ve been attacked by shadows, a flock of birds, and a madman who ate his own daughter. I wouldn’t call it strength so much as self-preservation. If I examine it all too closely, I’ll wind up like those murderers on the table.”
Mary smirked and placed the last candle, then wiped her hands on her skirts. “Still.”
The undertaker loped around the room, dousing any candle that wasn’t black. The flames dancing around the dead bodies burned bright purple with scarlet cores. Chijioke positioned himself between the two corpses and opened the birdcage. Neither of the doves took their chance at freedom. I couldn’t blame them; the room was cold and unwelcoming, the reddish-purple flames glowing like unholy eyes in the gloom. Giles St. Giles disappeared behind the stool I sat on, rounding the corner into a little alcove separated from the larger cellar by a curtain. There was silence for a moment, and then the metallic squeal of gears grinding together, an ancient mechanism coming to life and churning. I could hear him start to pant, and pictured him laboring against a massive crank. One could all but follow the pipes and shafts that made up the machine overhead. I saw a few wheels turning, and then a trapdoor I hadn’t seen before opened right over Chijioke and the table.
It did not lead above to the sitting room but straight up to the sky, flooding the cellar with scarlet moonlight.
I gasped and hunkered down farther under the blanket. It was beautiful and strange, the corpses on the table all but glowing with the intensity of that light. The screeching and churning of the machine ended, and a loud thud echoed around us as the skylight locked into position. Giles St. Giles joined us again, coming to sit on the empty chair beside me. He dropped down into it with a whoosh of excitement and slapped his hands together, rubbing them.
“My child, have you seen a ferrying before?” he whispered, as if we were about to be in for a night at the theater.
“She’s very new to all of this,” Mary explained. “Perhaps this will be too much.”
Yes, perfect. I nodded in vehement agreement, even beginning to rise out of my seat. This was my chance to run. But Giles clapped a hand over my arm, tugging me back down again.
“Tosh! There is nothing more beautiful, more breathtaking than the ferrying of souls. Why, she should feel honored to witness it. Privileged. And so soon after arriving at Coldthistle! I was a trusted servant of Mr. Morningside for ten years before I was ever invited to spectate. Consider yourself beyond fortunate, young—”
“Oh shut it, Giles; all this bickering is distracting,” Chijioke muttered, pushing up his sleeves and pinching his nose.
Mary came to stand on my other side, placing a gentle, comforting hand on my shoulder while Chijioke inhaled deeply and dropped his head back so he could look at the ceiling.
“When I tell you to shut your eyes and mouth,” he said in a low rumble, “do it.”