The Digger's Rest (37 page)

What could have driven Malcolm into such a
deranged state of insanity that he could believe himself to be a
wolf and do such a thing to another human being?

***

Three thousand miles away, Jack
Edgeworth was looking at a printed copy of the second email from
Simon.
Maddie abandoned the project?
he thought and read it again. Can’t be.
Not the Maddie I know. She’d be on it like a hungry pit bull
on a bone.
Something must have happened, and he heard
his little voice speak to him in the back of his mind.
“Something’s wrong.”

“
Alida,” he called into the box on his
desk. “Could you try to reach Lord Cotswold for me, remember it’s
England and it’s five hours later there.”

“
Chess, Dr. Edgeworth,” Alida’s voice
came back through the box.

***

Less than a thousand miles to the north,
another secretary in another office called into another black box
on another desk. The name on that door read, “Julian Bramson III,
President and CEO.”

“
Mr. Bramson,” his pretty, young,
blonde secretary spoke into the box on her desk. “There’s a man
here to see you. He says it’s a private matter. His name is Robert
Kinsella.”

“
Send him in, Michelle,” the voice came
back out of the box to her.

“
You can go right in,” Michelle said
getting up to show the small black-haired man to the door, opening
it and allowing him to pass into the office. “Is there anything I
can get for your meeting, Mr. Bramson,” she asked over the man’s
shoulder.

“
No, Michelle, I don’t expect we’ll be
long, just hold all my calls until Mr. Kinsella leaves please,”
Bramson said smiling until she closed the door behind her, then his
expression changed. “Do you have anything on him yet?” Bramson said
as the black-haired man sat in the chair opposite his big modern
desk.

“
Only that there hasn’t been any
activity on his credit cards for over two weeks and no sign of him
at the Dakota, or the Museum, in the same time period. I don’t
think he’s in New York. I have an associate checking the airlines
to see if he’s flown anywhere, and since there doesn’t seem to be a
need for medieval scholars in Miami, Chicago or Los Angeles, my
guess is that he’s out of the country somewhere. I have my guy
checking all the international flights for the last month. Don’t
worry. I’ll find him,” the small black-haired man said, his eyes
twinkling at the dollar signs that were dancing before them in the
form of the check the old man had in his hand.

“
Don’t come back until you have
something, and I want you to keep an eye on Jack Edgeworth, too. He
may lead you to him, and I want to know if he leaves New York,” the
old man ordered then stood up dismissing the man, not bothering to
shake his hand before he left.

***

The plan of action decided, Deck went to
fetch Ivy and take her to the hospital, leaving Mitch and Simon
alone at the table.

Out of the corner of his eye, Simon saw
a small black car pull up outside the front door of the inn and
heard a soundless voice, but this time it wasn’t the old man. It
was-the black haired woman, Gayle.
“Come,”
it said.
“We have
work to do.”
Simon stood up.

“
I don’t feel so well, Dr. Bramson. I
think I’ll go lie down for a while if that’s okay,” he said,
looking a little green around the gills.

Mitch saw it and agreed; having
completely forgotten what kind of effect the violence of the
previous day’s discovery must be having on Simon, especially with
his background.
The poor kid. It really
must have been an awful strain on him.

“
Yes, Simon. I’m so sorry you had to
see all that,” he said, taking Simon’s hand and giving it a
squeeze. “You go and get some rest. I’ll stay here and keep an eye
on things until Deck gets back,” Mitch said, his own eyes red and
bloodshot from the strain and lack of sleep. Simon moved slowly to
leave the table. He didn’t want to let go of Mitch’s hand; leaving
him that way, all by himself. He heard the voice again.

“
Hurry, boy! We haven’t much
time.”
He followed it obediently, going to his room,
climbing out of the window and into the black car waiting for him
by the side of the building. They made a strange pair that morning
as they walked into the hospital entrance; a very tall, very
stylish woman, all in black, and a smallish young man with curly
black hair and a limp.

As they walked past the reception desk, the
desk attendant spoke to them. “Pardon me, but you have to sign in
and get a p…” Gayle raised her hand; nonchalantly pointing her
finger at him. The attendant’s lips stopped mid-word and he sat
back down as they walked past.

It took them only a few minutes to find the
room where Malcolm was lying unconscious. “How did you know…” Simon
started to ask.

“
I can smell him. Can’t
you?”

Simon took a second as they walked, trying to
smell him before they pushed open the door. He picked up a gamey,
earthy smell. It reminded him of what he imagined hunters might
smell like, and he knew she was right.

Once they were in the room, the voice
told him,
“Pull the curtains,”
so he did. Gayle stood back from the bed and the voice
said,
“Heal him.”
Simon looked
at her…frightened…his big blue eyes rolling like marbles at what
she’d told him to do. He heard it again, insistently.
“Heal him!”
And she handed him one of
the black roots and a small, sharp-looking knife from her purse. He
took them, remembering what the old man had taught him.

His hands shaking, he sliced the root in half
with the knife then sliced the palm of his right hand; rubbing the
cut part of the root with his blood. Gayle went over to Malcolm on
the bed, dead to the world.

She lifted up his head and pulled back
the bandage covering his wound. Simon went over and put the
blood-soaked end of the root on the stitched wound at the back of
Malcolm’s head and held it there.
“Now say
the words,”
her soundless voice said to him. Simon’s
lips started to move, mumbling in the language the old man had
taught him.

Malcolm’s body started twitching
uncontrollably; little, pulsing jolts of electric current running
through his nerves. His eyes flew open and his lips moved to speak.
Gayle waved her hand in front of his face,
“Sleep!”
Malcolm’s head fell back into Simon’s
hand. Gayle nodded and backed away from the bed, handing Simon a
pillowcase she picked up from the fresh linen on the chair beside
the bed.
“He will not wake until I tell
him. Now wrap the root. Take it back and burn it in the open air.
Say the words when you see the smoke rise into the sky and he will
be free,”
her soundless voice said to him.

They passed Deck and Ivy on the road as they
left the hospital parking lot and drove back to the Inn in silence.
Before Simon got out of her car, Gayle looked at him, her eyes
softening in a way he hadn’t seen before and said with her own
voice, with sound. “You have done well, Holly. I apologize for
being harsh with you the other night. Old Amos was right and I was
wrong. Call on me if you need me…” and she handed him a small
figure of a bird, carved out of wood, painted black and attached to
a thin leather string, “…and I will come.”

When he held out his hand to take it,
he saw the cut in his palm was healed. He looked at her, saying in
his own soundless voice,
“How?
When?”
She gave him a saucy wink. Then as he went to
get out of the car she smiled at him and said to him in her
soundless voice,
“Your Master smells like
ripe wheat, fresh from the harvest. I like that. Guard him well. I
will guard you.”

“
I will,” Simon said in his own voice,
smiling and blushing as he got out of the car.

***

Lady Madeline rushed frantic and breathless
through the entry doors at Cotswold Manor; her hair askew, her eyes
wild with urgency. “Neville! Neville!” she cried out as she ran
through the entry hall and burst through the drawing room doors. No
one. Silence. Panicked, she ran out and down the hall towards the
sun room in the back of the house, crying out, “Neville! George!
Somebody, please!”

Shadows moved behind the opaque glass of the
sun room doors. She ran to them, throwing open the doors wildly.
“Nev…” and stopped, stunned by what she saw. Lord Neville Cotswold,
the love of her life, was standing before her for the first time in
five years, a wooden cane in each hand. George was standing
guardedly next to him, expressions of surprise on both their faces.
“Maddie! What…?” Lady Madeline’s eyes blinked for a moment and she
collapsed on the floor.

***

She woke to the taste of brandy on her lips,
finding herself lying on the drawing room sofa, Lord Neville
stroking her hand lovingly and smiling, “Yes, it is a miracle isn’t
it, my love?” She leaned up and threw her arms around him, holding
him tightly. “I dreamt…I dreamt that you were dead.”

“
No, no, my dear. I’m fine…more than
fine. I can walk,” Neville said consoling his wife and giving her
another sip of brandy. “But I had the strangest dream, too. I
dreamt that three men came to me in the night. One of them spoke to
me telling me that you had done them a great service and that it
was your heart’s wish that I should walk again. He touched my legs.
The next morning when I woke, I sat up in my bed by myself, just
like I used to and could move them over the side.”

As she looked into her husband’s
sincere gray eyes; a fleeting remembrance, a whisper from deep in
the back of her mind,
“Thou hast done well,
daughter of Eve, and for thy aid we shall reward thee both now and
hence.”
Lady Madeline broke into great heaving sobs of
relief, clinging closely to Lord Neville, weeping on his shoulder
as he held her closer, stroking the beautiful auburn hair that
would never have to be colored again, feeling the same way he had
on their wedding night.

***

Mitch sat alone at the table, the
repercussions of the previous twenty-four hours ganging up on him.
It started with Sandrine. She still couldn’t come out of her room
or even look at light, for God’s sake. Then Lady Madeline
disappearing, out of nowhere, without a word. Now Malcolm losing
his fucking mind and killing that boy and him sticking his neck out
to cover it up.

It all seemed to come back to him
somehow, just like Ivy had said. He was a spoiler. If he hadn’t
come there none of it would have happened.
Could that be true? But why?
He saw Sean Donnelly
walk into the inn and Sean’s words came back to him, ‘Leave it
alone,’ he’d said that first night. It struck him like yet another
sharp slap to the face.
It couldn’t be.
It’s just not fucking possible, or is it? Could it be that there’s
something wrong with that place?
He’d heard of such
things happening, but in all his travels, he’d never had any reason
to believe it was anything more than local superstition.

“
I hear you might be in need of an
extra man, Dr. Bramson,” Sean said as he sat down next to him, Yale
lying down on the floor by their feet. Mitch snapped out of it. “I
just heard from Constance Farrow over at the café that Malcolm’s
had an accident and is in hospital. I also heard about the French
girl and the antique shop.” Mitch looked at him, arching his
eyebrows, picking up on the ever so subtle tone in his voice,
controlled but implying nonetheless, and could tell Sean was going
to go into that spooky nonsense about the site again.

Deciding to give him free reign to vent
whatever he’d come there to say, Mitch took a deep breath, pressing
his temples with his hand. “Okay, Sean, what exactly is it about
the site that makes you think there’s something wrong with it?”

“
Has it not occurred to you, Dr.
Bramson, to think how or why a medieval castle in England of all
places, could go undiscovered or unnoticed and untouched for so
long?” Sean asked him pointedly. “Unless someone or something
wanted it that way? Could it be that for all those centuries it’s
given off some sort of subliminal signal to anyone coming close; a
warning to stay away, like reverse radar? Then when I stumbled into
it, blind to what it was trying to tell me, I was struck
blind?”

“
Sean, please, what are you asking me
to believe, that it’s haunted? Cursed in some way?” Mitch asked,
incredulous.

Sean shrugged.

Mitch couldn’t help but think then of the
look in Malcolm’s eyes when he’d first met him and then again as
the Mal-wolf. He wasn’t the same person or even a person at all at
that point.

“
Take me out there, Dr. Bramson. Now.
Today,” Sean said, putting his hand on Mitch’s wrist as he’d done
that first night; this time most certainly not drunk.

“
But if that’s what you really think,
then why would you want to go back out there? Aren’t you afraid?”
Mitch asked him, trying logic to convince him not to continue on
with this.

“
Yes. I am very afraid. At first I
wanted you to take me with you to prove to myself that I was not
insane, or maybe that I was. But now, after the French girl and
Malcolm, I need to do something to keep something from happening to
anyone else. If it kills me, so be it. But at least it will
convince you to leave it be and go home,” he said, gripping Mitch’s
wrist tighter and doing his best to find Mitch’s eyes with his
blind ones.