Water Like a Stone (41 page)

“Good God,” said Althea Elsworthy. “How on earth did the boatmen ever get their horses across this thing? The beasts must have been terrified.”

“I expect they used blinders,” answered Gabriel. “Might be useful for people as well,” he added, with a hint of teasing.

They stood in the stern well deck of the
Daphne,
Gabriel holding the tiller, Althea on one side and the children on the other. They were crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the Dee Gorge on a crisp, clear day in early February. The great stone pillars of Thomas Telford’s engineering marvel spanned over a thousand feet, one hundred and twenty-six dizzying feet above the ground.

“Rowan loved this place,” Gabriel went on. “She was born not far from Wrexham, and she always said she felt freer here than anyplace else in the world.”

The great iron trough was just a bit wider than the seven-foot boat, flanked on one side by the towpath the nineteenth-century boatmen had needed for the sturdy horses that pulled the boats. Now people walked the towpath for the thrill, but Althea thought she was doing very well to let herself be carried across in what
seemed the relative safety of the boat’s well deck. She had a mission, however, and was not about to be deterred by a small discomfort with heights.

On a bench at her side rested two urns, one large, one small. They had come to disperse mother’s and daughter’s ashes over the expanse of the Dee Gorge.

Rowan had died in her own bed on the
Daphne
in mid-January, with Gabriel and the children at her side, and Althea standing by to make her passing as comfortable as possible. She had been at peace, Althea thought, knowing her children were safe, and no longer burdened by a secret grief. When she still had the strength to talk, she’d made Althea promise to take in hand the children’s education.

“The world’s changing,” she said. “We were the last of our generation, and past our time. The children will need to make a life outside the boats, and for that they need proper schooling.”

“I could help Gabriel find steady work here, so that the children can enroll in school,” Althea had agreed, liking the thought of continuing her connection with the children, and with Gabriel, whom she had come to like and respect.

“Unless you want to teach them yourself. That boyfriend the children have told me about could help you—”

“If you mean Paul, he’s no such thing,” Althea had protested, but she had flushed, and Rowan had smiled, pleased. Soon after that she had drifted into the twilight of coma, and then she had slipped away.

Althea had paid for Rowan’s cremation. She had also, after a visit with Ronnie Babcock before Rowan’s death, paid for the cremation of the remains of Baby Jane Doe. None of her colleagues knew what she had done for Rowan, and if anyone thought it odd that she had claimed responsibility for the body of the unidentified child, they hadn’t remarked on it.

Rowan had not questioned Althea’s knowledge of the child’s identity, and had seemed to find solace in knowing her baby would at last have the acknowledgment she deserved.

Gabriel, however, had required an explanation.

“It’s in his hands, then,” he’d said with a stoic resignation, when Althea had explained about Babcock.

“Yes. But he’s a good man, Ronnie Babcock, and he was a friend of Annie Constantine. He’ll not bring any harm to you and the children.” After that, there had been an easing in Gabriel, even through his grief over Rowan.

“Are we at the middle yet?” asked Joseph, who had been watching their progress across the aqueduct carefully. Gabriel checked aft, to make certain there were no boats coming behind them, then killed the
Daphne
’s engine. The boat drifted to a stop, suspended in the air. At first the silence seemed absolute, then gradually Althea’s ears became attuned to the sigh of the wind, the twitter of birds below, and what she imagined was the very faint groaning of the structure that supported them, almost as if the bridge were breathing.

“Are you ready?” asked Gabriel, and the children nodded, their faces solemn. Gabriel handed them their mother’s urn, and took little Marie’s for himself. Together they removed the seals and, at a nod from Gabriel, let the ashes drift into space.

They all watched in silence until the last particle vanished, then Althea took a small box from her coat pocket. She had made a request of Roger Constantine, and although puzzled, he’d willingly complied. Now Althea lifted the lid from the box, and with a swing of her arm, scattered the contents as Gabriel and the children had done.

“Top of the world, Annie,” she said.