Suddenly Michael understood the especially putrid odor from the bottle—the “wine” wasn’t only ancient blood, it was polluted ancient blood. But why would it ever have been bottled up and transported, like treasure, in a chest?
“Forgive me,” Charlotte said, “but it’s been a long day. What are you suggesting, Darryl? That some ship, from God knows when, was carrying a cargo of bad blood, all neatly packed away in trunks, to the South Pole?”
“It’s unlikely the ship was actually heading for Antarctica,” Darryl said. “It was probably driven off course, and who knows how long the ice has been moving the debris southward? Ice moves, you know.”
“But why?” Michael asked. “What possible use could there have been for it, anywhere?”
Darryl scratched his head, leaving a tuft of red hair sticking out on one side. “You’ve got me there. Bad blood is of no use to anyone, unless it was being used in some sort of inoculation experiment.”
“Aboard ship?” Michael said.
“Hundreds of years ago?” Charlotte chimed in.
Darryl threw up his hands in surrender. “Don’t look at me, kids! I don’t have the answers, either. But I do find it hard to believe that the bottle, the trunk, and the body—or bodies, if it comes to that—aren’t all connected somehow.”
“I’ll give you that,” Michael said. “Otherwise, it would be just about the most amazing coincidence in maritime history.”
Charlotte looked to be in agreement, too.
“And once we’re able to do so,” Darryl said, “I think it would be worth seeing if I could draw a viable blood sample from Sleeping Beauty.”
“To prove what?” Michael asked.
Darryl shrugged. “A match?”
“With what?” Michael said, in some exasperation; he felt like he wasn’t following. “With diseased blood from a bottle? Are you saying she was saving her own old blood in bottles, as a keepsake?”
“Or is it something else?” Charlotte put in. “Are you suggesting that she was keeping a ready supply of this stuff on hand for some weird medicinal purpose?”
“Sometimes, in science,” Darryl said, looking from one to the other and trying to calm the waters, “you know just what you’re looking for, and you know where to find it. Other times, you don’t know, but you just keep turning things up and following every lead.”
“Sounds like some strange leads to me,” Michael said, feeling oddly defensive about the whole thing.
“Can’t argue with you there,” Darryl admitted.
Charlotte blew out a breath and headed for her coat and gloves. “I’m going to bed,” she said, “and I’d advise both of you to do the same.”
But Michael suddenly felt almost too weary to get up. He stayed where he was, studying the mysterious black bottle.
“Michael,” Charlotte said, as she zipped up her coat, “get some sleep. Doctor’s orders.” Turning to Darryl, she said, “And you, put a cork in it.”
Darryl gestured at the bottle.
“You know what I mean.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Early September, 1854
THE HORSES. It was the terrible toll taken on the horses that drove Lieutenant Copley nearly mad.