Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy) (4 page)

Walking in Lichport at night soothed him: the cold air, the little night noises, all so familiar to him now. He loved watching as candlelight filled the windows of the ancient leaning cottages down in the Narrows, and seeing thick curtains draw closed against the evening in the still-occupied but utterly dilapidated houses on Coach Street.

The winds had blown the clouds apart and the moon had risen. Bright stars hung over old Lichport and the sea. Across the river, he could see the small light of a lantern low on the hill of the Beacon.
Who else is up late tonight, visiting the dead?
he wondered.

He passed the small abandoned wharf, and walked through the stand of trees around the north side of Beacon Hill. He wanted to see whose lantern it was, and then, if all was well, he would visit his father’s grave before going home. He did that a lot. Even though he lived in his father’s house and was following in his father’s footsteps as Undertaker, standing beside his dad’s grave was a comfort to him, especially when he felt confused or overwhelmed, or weary from work.

Pausing at the crooked gate at the base of the Beacon, Silas could see the grave-packed slopes rising up before him in the moonlight. There again, another lantern’s light flickered among the stones. He climbed the hill, weaving his way through the tombstones, following the glow. Just ahead he could see a dark figure, heavily cloaked against the cold night, sitting on a stool beside a familiar grave.

Without looking up, the figure said, “Take a pew, Mr. Umber,” and gestured to the large hollow in the tree behind her.

Silas recognized the voice. He walked over to the tree and looked into the hollow trunk. Inside was another small wooden stool. Silas drew it out of the tree and sat down beside Mother Peale.

“It brings me heart’s ease, some nights, to sit here, among our good neighbors and kin, and now, by my John.”

Silas nodded. “I like this place too. It’s quiet, easier to think.”

“Come to visit your father?”

“Often, yes. But it was your light that brought me here tonight.”

“I see. Watching over things in general, now, are we, Mr. Umber?”

“Yeah.” Silas smiled. “I like to keep a good eye on my friends especially.”

“And we, your friends, are most glad for it. Indeed, you have made great strides these last months. Many folks are sleeping easier now that you have woken to your calling,” she said, wrapping her arm and her shawl around his shoulders. “Still, for you to be wandering about so late and not home with your nose in a book . . . I wonder if there isn’t something consternating you, Silas? Or perhaps you have been out on business?”

He nodded. “I am just coming home from work.”

“Yes, you have the look about you of a man who has been keeping grim company. May I inquire . . . ?”

“The keeper of the lighthouse.”

“And?”

“I believe he is at last at rest.”

“Well, well . . . ,” said Mother Peale with real surprise, “that is fine news indeed. That place threw a particular pall over the Narrows and no mistake, though all in Lichport suffered when it cast its light about. I am glad to hear your work went well. Maybe there will be a good night’s sleep waiting for me at home.”

Silas shook his head briefly but was soon still again. He did not look at Mother Peale, but instead down at the earth of Mr. Peale’s grave.

“But there is more to your tale, I think.”

Silas told her about his front door.

Mother Peale hesitated for a moment, then nodded. She was at least familiar with the name Arvale. “Have you told this to Mrs. Bowe?” she asked.

“No,” answered Silas more emphatically than he meant. “She doesn’t enter my house by the front door, so she hasn’t seen it. I think it would make her nervous. She would know something about it—it’s a kind of invitation, I think—and she’d just tell me all the reasons I shouldn’t accept it. She would tell me, and keep telling me, why I should try not to seek out trouble. My work worries her.”

“Your work worries everyone, Silas, because it concerns the whole town, especially when things go bad. I’m not sure you’re being fair to Mrs. Bowe, child. She has been your good friend since you arrived here.”

“I know, it’s just that sometimes . . . let’s just say I can take care of myself.”

“Well, now. It so happens I must beg to disagree with you. I believe a man in your position should cherish his connections. Do not make an island of yourself, Silas Umber. Not now. Do not forget that your profession is a community service, for the dead
and
the living.”

“Maybe we could change the subject? Just for the time being,” said Silas, shifting his weight on the stool.

“As you wish,” said Mother Peale. “How have your dreams been, since taking up your father’s work?”

“Nothing to speak of,” he said quickly, trying to cover the lie. While he hadn’t had any dreams recently, that was because he hadn’t been sleeping. But before that he’d had some dreams, all right. Terrible, most of them. But he was tired of doing nothing but worrying the women in his life, so he said nothing.

“No nightmares? Nothing strange?”

Silas didn’t answer.

“I see. Well, all right, then, young master. Keep your own counsel if it pleases you.”

Silas could see she was willing to let the matter go, but he could read her sincere desire to help him, so he relented. “Mother Peale, how could I tell the difference? Everything in my life is strange in one way or another. Sometimes I dream I’m drowning. Two weeks ago, when that warmer wind came in, I thought I could feel someone watching me in my dream. I mean, someone not actually of the dream, but present just at the edges of it, looking in at me, watching from around a corner. But when I wake, it’s a blur. Whenever I try to remember the details, I get sleepy and my mind wanders to something else, and before I know it, I can’t remember what it was I was trying to remember.”

“Best not to make too much of it,” Mother Peale said, though her eyes went small and her brow formed furrows of concern.

It was getting to the part of the night when morning just begins to rouse itself, but darkness is still deep and the air is very cold. The sky was completely clear now and the bright congregation of stars looked down and gossiped among themselves.

“I guess I’ll head up the hill to visit my dad,” said Silas, rising from his seat and returning the wooden stool to the hollow of the tree.

“Just a moment.” Mother Peale reached for Silas’s hand, grasped it, and pulled herself up from her seat. “Is it your intention, then, to pay a call at . . .
that place
?”

“You mean Arvale? Yes, that’s my plan. I believe I have been summoned.”

“Perhaps, but, Silas, it is your choice and yours alone whether you answer that summons now, later, or never.”

“Mother Peale,” Silas said with a sigh, thinking she was trying to talk him out of it, “I am going very soon. I think it is somehow required of me, and honestly, I’m curious.”

“So be it. But, Undertaker of Lichport, if you are leaving us for a time, allow me a moment to make preparations.”

“Leaving?” Silas asked. “Why do you say it like that? I’m not leaving Lichport.”

“Silas, every great house is its own world. If you are going
there
, you are leaving
here
, one way or another. Distance has nothing to do with it. Now, let me give you something.”

Reaching down, she pushed her fingers into the cold ground, took a handful of earth from her husband’s grave, and put it in a pocket of her dress. She picked up another handful of grave dirt and put it in the front pocket of Silas’s jacket.

He looked at her questioningly.

“Oh, dear! Have you learned nothing from your father’s many notes in this town’s great book? You see, there is always something we may learn from our friends when we keep good company. Grave dirt can be very helpful in a pinch, for it is said, and said truly, that if that stuff is thrown upon a ghost, it shall then become quiet and easy and perhaps even wait upon command or be banished, for a time. Though, it is also said that any banished in this way will surely return, and not so happy as when they left. And besides, it’s always best to carry a little bit of home with you wheree’r you roam! I’ll sleep better knowing you have it, Silas.”

Mother Peale patted the pocket in her apron filled with earth. “There, now. Go where you like. I shall be able to keep things quiet in your absence for a short time, if absolutely necessary.”

Silas was relieved that she’d put the dirt into the empty pocket and not the one holding the death watch. “But I am not leaving you. I am going to visit my father’s grave, an errand of but a moment. In a day or so, after a little more research, I will walk to a house on the far side of town and be back before dark in all likelihood.”

“Silas! I took you for a learned man!” exclaimed Mother Peale. “That house, well . . . it’s neither here nor there. That is what folks say of it. Neither here nor there. It is a queer place, if you don’t mind my saying so. And as I’ve told you, where you think it is has very little to do with it.”

“Do you mean to suggest that there is something strange about my family and their habitations, Mother Peale?” Silas said in mock surprise.

But Mother Peale grew serious and concern flushed her cheeks. “I only mean to say, a visit
there
may take longer than you think, and I pray that when you return, I shall still be here to welcome you.”

All humor had left her voice, and her words made Silas nervous. Her tone reminded him just how little he really knew about the world that he’d entered, all his put-on confidence aside. Below, somewhere near the bottom of the hill, a dog howled and Silas jumped. “What the hell was that?”

“What the hell, indeed,” replied Mother Peale, unshaken by the wild night call. “That is surely the black dog. Have you not heard it before, Silas? It is often here, upon the hill, when someone is about to die.”

“I’ve never heard that sound before, Mother Peale. Do you mean someone is going to die . . . now?”

“Soon, I expect,” she said, looking up as another low howl broke the surface of the night. “I wouldn’t let it worry you, Silas, unless you actually
see
the black dog. That is a grim omen to be sure.”

Silas kept looking back over his shoulder with a worried expression.

“You don’t like dogs?” Mother Peale asked wryly.

“I don’t feel one way or other about them. But
that
dog sounds . . . very large.”

“My mother told us as children not to trust a great black dog if we met him on the road. ‘That’ll be the Shuck, and no mistake!’ my mother told me. Road hounds are an odd sort. Wanderers. Though the ones you see in cemeteries are just as strange by my reckoning.”

“Have you seen a dog here before, on the Beacon?”

“Oh, yes. And elsewhere besides. I saw a black dog just before you came to Lichport. I thought it boded ill for your arrival, but then, it was your uncle that was taken, so that was all right, wasn’t it? Oh, aye, I’ve seen one here on the Beacon before. Just after a funeral, that was years and years ago, but I can still see its ember-eyes and feel its cold breath on my hand. My mother told me that once, folks would make sacrifices to the dead, to keep ’em peaceable just after their dying time. And those offerings were given at the burial plots. But times changed and folk weren’t as keen to leave all them good victuals and finery about just to rot or get stolen. No one likes waste. So, it became the custom to leave a guardian to watch over the burial places between funerals. The spirit of the last one buried had to remain until the next person died and was buried, then it would be their turn to keep lookout. Well, that was all right for a time, but the dead can be a restless lot, eager to be about their business if they can. So then the dogs were left. A dog, usually black, was buried near the more recent grave and the dog’s ghost took up the watch. Usually it was all right, and that dog stayed put and watched over the dead.”

Silas’s eyes were fixed on Mother Peale.

“Other times, when the burial plots were left lonesome too long, abandoned by the kin of the dead, them dogs took to wandering themselves. Who can say what they are, really. Mind you, I’m not sure they are truly dogs at all, but whatever they be, they have
the know of a dog
,” she said. As if to put a period at the end of her story, the dog howled again somewhere down the Beacon. Mother Peale rose slowly from her seat.

“Well, this evening’s chat and the night air have indeed cleared my head. I shall take my leave of you. I am ready for bed!” said Mother Peale. “Dear Mr. Umber, I wish you well upon your travels.” She hugged him quickly but hard, then began to slowly make her way down the hill, her lantern growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

Silas was nervous now and kept looking back over his shoulder, but continued up the hill and easily found his father’s grave. The small mound had settled a lot already in the months since Amos Umber had been buried. Silas his put his hand upon it. The earth of the grave was cold.

As much as he usually loved being on the Beacon, Silas now felt impatient. After his talk with Mother Peale, he was eager to set his feet forward on their road. He also sensed he was being watched. He looked around the hill, hoping to see the sexton, that kindly spirit who was often here keeping watch over his “flock.” But there was only the cold wind tearing dry leaves from the ground and casting them up into the sky. Then something else stirred the air. He paused, not sure he wanted to turn around. Silas could hear breathing, something or someone panting just behind him. He tightened his fists and whipped about. Sitting next to his father’s grave was the biggest dog he’d ever seen. Silas wasn’t sure what breed it was, maybe part Labrador, but it was shaggier, larger, and wilder. Its head was massive, and Silas could see that it would come up to his chest. There was a light in the dog’s eyes, and Silas was not at first sure whether he looked at an animal of this world or some other. The dog looked at Silas, its tongue lolling to one side. It was wagging its tail.