Gravelight (6 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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He already knew the answer to that.
But he'd pretend he didn't, just for a giggle.
Wycherly turned away from the cans on the table and
went to the door. By now it was late enough that the last rays of the setting sun webbed the clearing in horizontal bars of yellow gold. He walked out into the open air and turned back to look at his new home. The brass fittings of the door had oxidized to a blackish green, and the door of the cabin hung slightly open, despite his best efforts to shut it.
Old Miss Rahab's cabin was a large split-log building. Flowering vines grew up over the stone chimney and spread over the roof; where volunteers had sprouted, young trees grew close to the cabin, and land that might have been clear-cut in its former owner's day now sported a dense, second-growth forest. It gave the isolated cabin the look of something out of a fairy tale; an enchanted cottage set in the middle of an impenetrable wood. If the exterior had ever known paint it was a thing of the past, and time had weathered the wood to a soft, uniform grey that made it blend in seamlessly with the aspens and rowans that grew near it. Though the structure had been built less than a hundred years ago, it bore a strong family resemblance to the cabins that had dotted the rolling woodland of the Western Expansion. There was nothing in sight to tie it to the twentieth century, as if to cross its threshold was to lose one's grip on the present, and tumble helplessly down the corridors of the past. A steady pillar of smoke came from the cabin's chimney. All the windows were open, and several yards away he saw a tall narrow shed.
From the backhouse Wycherly moved reluctantly toward the creek. It was downhill, about six hundred yards from his cabin, running narrow and deep beneath a canopy of rambling rose.
Wycherly knelt painfully beside it and leaned over. The sight of a white face looking up at him out of the water made him cry out and lose his balance, until he realized it was nothing more than his reflection staring back up at him from the creek's dark surface.
He could not escape the feeling that Camilla was somewhere in that black water, waiting for her vengeance. And
when he least expected, she'd reach up with those white, white arms and drag him screaming down into Hell.
Stupid, Musgrave. Have we already gotten as far as hallucinations? Doesn't bode well for the future, I'd say.
With trembling fingers, Wycherly unbuttoned his shirt. He was not going to let her win this time.
The T-shirt beneath was also stained with dried blood. Wycherly peeled it away from his skin gingerly, and then crumpled it up in both hands and plunged it into the creek. The water was icy, despite the July heat. When the shirt was as clean as plain water could make it, he used it as a rude washcloth to scrub his face, his neck, and as much of his torso as he could reach. it hurt to move. Crusted scrapes reopened, staining the shirt a delicate pink. He blotted at his head with the sopping rag until his hair was soaked and hung down his bare back in dark copper tendrils. Last of all he simply held the T-shirt over his eyes, savoring its coldness and trying to compel his headache to go away. A drink—or several—would make it go away. He knew that from experience.
But he wasn't going to take them. Beer didn't count.
Yeah,
Wycherly jeered at himself.
That's right. You're going to quit
. He could almost always manage the first month fairly easily. And then what? Wycherly didn't know. He'd been dragged that far toward sobriety on his father's whim so many times that he'd come to look upon drying out as a short vacation, an intermission to remind him of why he drank and how pleasant it was. Like Columbus, Wycherly Musgrave wasn't really certain there was anything on the other side of the ocean.
What if there wasn't?
All at once a crushing sense of panic descended over him. Nauseated, he leaned forward and rested his head on his knees, clutching the wet T-shirt to his face. Why go through all of this just to take control of his own life? What would it be
for
once he had? He'd spent thirty years learning to be an embarrassing liability—did he think he could turn that around on a whim?
The pointlessness of everything appalled him. Wouldn't it be much better just to die?
No
. Three decades of not conforming to other people's hopes aided him now with a spasm of reflexive stubbornness. He wouldn't die just because it was probably the most rational course of action.
But if he lived, what would it be for?
He didn't know.
Wycherly faced that head-on, sitting beside the creek and letting the terror roar through him.
This
was what he'd foolishly vowed to face without the soothing peace of alcohol—a beast that wasn't even black, because blackness at least would be something, a positive attribute, and the beast was nothing at all; the abyss, the void.
And it was coming for him.
He did not fight. Wycherly had never fought back. He'd only run, and now he was here, and there was no further place to run to.
Like it or not, this was his last stand.
GRAVE MATTERS
I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.
——THE REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH
MAKING BREAD HAD DONE NOTHING TO RELIEVE SINAH'S feelings—her heart still fluttered panickily, as if at any moment the scattered inhabitants of Morton's Fork would appear outside her door with torches and pitchforks, baying demands that they be given the witch to kill … .
I won't think like that!
She needed to get away from this place—go to Pharaoh for supplies, that was it. Get out among people, where every casual closeness—sitting on a bus, standing in an elevator—brought her their life histories and secret desires, their angers and their griefs. But it was better than staying here to let her empty mind collapse inward upon itself. Down in Pharaoh, they'd never heard of Athanais Dellon or her daughter, and furthermore, they didn't care. She could shop, maybe even have dinner in the Pharaoh diner.
With brisk determination, Sinah changed her flour-spattered jeans and T-shirt for a sundress and denim jacket more suitable for a grocery shopping expedition. Even the mutter of the storm approaching through Watchman's Gap
wasn't enough to deter her—she could wait it out in town and come back afterward.
She opened the door and stepped out, mildly surprised to see that the evening was clear. The storm must still be on the other side of the Gap, then; well, it could stay there for all she cared. Holding her keys in her hand, she stepped toward her Jeep Cherokee, her lifeline to the outside world, her means of escape.
That was when she smelled the smoke.
Something was burning.
She looked wildly in all directions, but there was nothing in sight. Only the soft summer twilight slanting through the white stands of birch trees, and the purling of a creek somewhere in the middle distance.
And the smell of smoke.
Why couldn't she see anything? The smell of smoke was so strong, the fire must be close by. The dappled sunlight burned on her skin like falling embers; the sky was darkening fast and suddenly she couldn't breathe … .
The smoke was choking her. Sinah stared in horror. Fire made bright walls around her; the heat of it tightened her skin. She stared into the flames, unconsciously searching for the gas jets that would tell her this was all a fake, a movie set.
But this was no set, no stage. There were no cameras, no audience. This was real.
Sinah stood in the middle of a burning room, one that she'd never seen before, not even in pictures. There were brightly colored banners edged in fire, and tall candlesticks whose melting candle wax trickled down like water. Around her she could hear screaming, as though a hundred people suffered here just beyond her sight.
“Hello!” Sinah cried, and almost immediately began to choke on the acrid smoke.
Fire climbed the walls. Now the bright silk banners were all aflame. Soon the flames would reach her. Choking on
her own panic, Sinah took a tentative step backward, away from the worst of the fire.
There was a door beneath her hands, its handle already blisteringly hot. With a sense of trapped unreasoning horror she flung it open—there was darkness on the other side, and blessed quiet. Sinah rushed through the door and slammed it. She held it closed for several seconds before she dared look around.
She'd thought this place was dark. And it was, but somehow she could see her surroundings, as if she knew them so well that her memory was something she could trust. Stairs. Old and worn and shallow, leading down into the body of the earth, to where the crushing weight of rock became a separate living intelligence, waiting to crush her. Sinah put her foot forward and felt the edge of the first step.
The wood of the door behind her grew warm against her back, reminding her that there was no retreat. She must go forward, down into where something waited—waited for her specifically, for Sinah Dellon. This was the past she'd so recklessly conjured; this was her heritage.
It was waiting for her.
This is a dream!
Sinah thought wildly. She was—
She could not remember where she'd been a moment before. All she could remember was the fire. Fear, and grief—and a wild sense of failure and despair.
She had failed—herself, and the Line. And that which she had failed was here, waiting for her. In the dark.
She could hear the sound of underground water, its plashing bizarrely magnified by the staircase beneath the earth. It was that insane adherence to the laws of physics that frightened her most; as if the reality of the small details of this vision were the most damning proof of her madness. What she'd called her gift was next to madness, after all. Perhaps this was only some logical evolution.
The thought was unbearable.
It's a dream
—
it's a dream
—
it's a dream
—Caught between the soft seduction of the darkness and the fire's roaring destruction, Sinah
flung open the door and ran back out into the fire.
No, no, NO—
First heat, then pain. Unbearable brightness that seemed to penetrate her flesh and her perceptions. She died in flames.
And was reborn.
Sinah opened her eyes. She was rolling on the ground, covered with the flecks of last year's leaves, weeping with the terror and the pain of being burned alive. It took a long time for her battered mind to comprehend that those things were not real. That she was here, and safe. There wasn't even the smell of smoke in the air.
The memory of the vision began to fade even as she grasped at it, until all the images were shadowy, as inchoate as any nightmare.
What … happened?
Slowly Sinah got to her feet. The fear of madness—never far from her—returned afresh. What had happened had not been a secondhand experience stolen from another's mind. It had been something else—
she'd
been someone else. And instead of remembering what she'd taken from that other mind, she'd been drowned in it and discarded.
As though she hadn't quite fit.
“You let it burn!”
Luned's accusation was the first thing Wycherly heard as he came through the door. His undershirt was balled up in his hand, and his tattered shirt was draped across his shoulders, still damp from the sluicing he'd given it.
He glanced around. The room was oven-warm from the fire in the wood stove, and the iron pot was still sitting on top of the stove, steaming gently. The table was set with napkins, bowls, and spoons, and there was a tin box of crackers placed prominently on the table. Beside each plate there was a tin cup filled with tawny liquid. Luned was sitting in one of the chairs waiting for him. Her hands were
in her lap and her whole demeanor was one of painful dignity.
“I'm not the cook.” Wycherly went to the table and picked up the cup at the unoccupied place. He sniffed at it suspiciously.
“It's hard cider,” Luned said, relenting. “Don't they have that where you come from?”
“I doubt Mother would let it cross the threshold,” Wycherly said absently.
Luned got up and picked up one of the bowls, moving toward the stove; Wycherly walked past her into the bedroom.
The bed had been made up with fresh sheets and blankets, topped with a patchwork quilt. The white window curtains, which looked to have been at least shaken out, if not washed, swirled gently at the window. Most of the obvious dust was gone; the room looked like one in some over-quaint bed-and-breakfast.
What in the name of all that was reasonable was he doing here?
“Do you guess you'll want dinner now?” Luned asked from the door-way. She sounded uncertain. She wiped her hands down the apron she had tied around her waist.
I'd rather have a drink
. Wycherly pushed the automatic thought aside out of some reflexive perversity. “You don't have to wait on me,” he said instead.
“I don't mind,” Luned said shyly. “I'm sorry I rowed at you before; I was just scairt, is all. Looks like you're going to need someone to do for you, cooking and cleaning … and like that.”
“I'll manage,” Wycherly said shortly. Shouldn't this girl be in school somewhere, or off playing with dolls? An odd suspicion made him ask: “Look, exactly how old are you anyway, Luned?”
“I'll be seventeen next birthday,” the girl replied. “And I guess I could take care of you right well, Mister Wych.”
Oh, Lord. Not a backward twelve as he'd vaguely imagined,
but sixteen. Old enough to think of herself as an adult, with what could be disastrous results.
“No,” Wycherly said carefully, “I don't really think you could. I'll be happy to have you come here and clean for me, and bring me things from the store, Luned. I'll pay you for that. You see, I'm going to be … sick for a while. I won't really need someone to, ah, ‘do' for me.”
“Was it the church bells?” the girl asked eagerly. “Ev an' me, we figured it'd be something like that, with them ringing the bells down to Maskelyne for that Prentiss boy that drowned—”
Drowned. It was silly, but Wycherly felt real fear. As if the possibility of drowning were a tangible and concrete thing, that could rise from a riverbed and seek him out as surely as a silver bullet. As if the waters could give up all the dead they had swallowed, and Camilla Redford could come back for him.
“Drowned? Where is there around here that anyone could drown?” he asked sharply.
“In the river,” Luned said, as if this were something everybody ought to know. “The crick out back's the Little Heller; she runs right into the Astolat, and the Astolat runs pretty fast just below the dam. The funeral was this morning, and Reverend Betterton was going to ring a long peal at sunup, so we figured the church bells must be what made you crash … .”
Wycherly stared at her, wondering if Luned were a violent maniac or just delusional. What in God's name could
church bells
have to do with his accident this morning, or whether he was going to dry out?
“Did I say something wrong?” Luned asked anxiously.
“Just who is it—precisely—that you think I am?” Wycherly said slowly. “And don't lie,” he added, “because I'll know.” He took a menacing step toward the doorway.
Luned Starking turned pale enough for her faint freckles to show plainly, proof enough that she took the threat seriously.
“You're a conjureman, Mister Wych. Wouldn't nobody
else be coming to Morton's Fork to live in old Miss Rahab's cabin. And you've got red hair—that's the mark of Judas—and you drank down Gamaliel Tanner's best shine like it was well water. Couldn't any mortal man do that.” Her confidence seemed to return as she enumerated the reasons for Wycherly to be a “conjureman.”
“And you said you'd know if I lied,” Luned added seriously, “so that proves it.”
Hearsay, innuendo, and half-truths.
If this was some elaborate rural practical joke, Wycherly intended to see that its perpetrator got no joy from it.
“This is medieval,” he said bluntly. “Do you know what year this is? It's practically the twenty-first century, and you're going on with this—nonsense. Who do I look like to you, the Flying Nun? There's no such thing as a ‘conjureman'—and if there were, I wouldn't be one.”
His angry speech did not have the effect he intended. Luned's eyes filled with tears, and she fixed her eyes on her feet. “Then you cain't help me?” she said in a low voice. “I thought maybe you could.”
Ghoulish apprehension kept Wycherly from speaking for a moment, while his fancy made him imagine every sort of terminal illness beyond the help of medical science. The vigor with which Luned had polished and cooked now took on the luster of a desperate act—a bid for aid from a fantastic creature summoned up from her own imagination.
“Tell me,” Wycherly said harshly.
Luned launched into a rambling explanation so filled with euphemism and dialect that Wycherly couldn't really understand it. “Haven't you seen a doctor?” he demanded, cutting through her words.
“Doctors just want to put you into the hospital,” Luned said scornfully. “Doctor Standish comes around four times a year from the County so the babies can get their shots for school and all, but he won't
do
nothing. There's the sanatorium up the hill a ways—if you go on up the ridge you can probably see it, if you go in daylight—but it don't do folks around here much good.”
“Why not?” A sanatorium implied a medical staff of some sort, and the doctors there should at least be willing to refer local emergencies—though if Luned's assessment of the County Medical Service's Dr. Standish was any indication, the inhabitants of Morton's Fork would do anything rather than be sent out of the area to the hospital.

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