Nieve heard a faint creak in the branch above her, a sound easily enough dismissed. Wind in the branches . . . although there was no wind. The night was as calm as it was black. She heard a soft cooing sound, the sort of sound a mourning dove might make . . . but not at night . . . .
Instantly, she sprang away from the tree, barely evading the hands that plunged down and snatched at the spot where she’d been resting. She whirled around and switched on the flashlight, gasping to see a pair of mottled, mud-green hands clutch at the air, clawlike hands with thick, pointed black nails that clacked together in frustration – or eagerness. For a heartbeat, she froze. She stared at the hands as they now began to motion her forward. The creature, still hidden in the tree, extended its arms toward her – extremely long arms, scabbed and scaley. Again, she heard that cooing sound, soft and strangely appealing.
But not appealing enough. Nieve began to back away slowly, keeping an eye on the motioning hands in case the creature made a lunge for her. Then abruptly she wheeled around . . . and stopped cold. Directly in front of her, blocking her way, was a figure that must have risen silently out of the long grass while she’d been turned toward the tree. She didn’t think, didn’t have time to. The flashlight, pointed at the ground, illuminated the figure’s bare feet – four toes on each foot! – and that’s all she needed to see. She swept her arm upward and struck it with the flashlight. The figure moaned and doubled-over, hands flying up to its face. She must have hit it square on the jaw – if it had one – but didn’t wait around to find out. She sprinted off, tearing back through the field, but veering away from her house. She ran and ran, putting as much distance as possible between herself and them, one of which was now chuckling softly to itself as it slithered down from the tree.
By the time Nieve got to the edge of town, she slowed to a walk and turned off the flashlight, which had begun to dim and flicker. Casting an anxious glance back, she was keenly aware that the dark was populated with unseen dangers – including the fact that she might blunder into a wall, or fall into a hole – but there was nothing for it, she’d simply have to keep her senses on high alert. She began to edge along Main Street (she refused to think of it as Bonefyre), sliding along the storefronts and slipping into doorways. Here, a few antique street lamps – another recent addition to town – cast a weak, brownish light that helped her to see where she was going.
Passing by Warlock’s store, she glanced in, recalling the display he’d been setting-up in the front window earlier that day. What she saw were books with lurid, blood-splattered covers that depicted ghouls and ghosts, vampires and werewolves. She found the images too cartoonish to be scary, too familiar to take seriously, and, oddly, she even felt some relief in looking at them. What alarmed her more was what she couldn’t see, what unsuspected horror might be lying in wait for her. She turned away from the window and surveyed the street. It seemed empty – not a single moth swirled around the street lamps. And yet . . . and yet . . . .
Nieve hurried by the pharmacy, the Wormius & Ashe signboard creaking noisily as she passed beneath it. She noted that the bat was no longer hanging from it (which might explain the dearth of moths). Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she detected an unusual fragrance in the air, sickly sweet, that went straight to her sinuses and made her eyes water. The remaining summer flowers in the streets’ planters were slumped and blackened, and the Morning Glories that had twined vigorously up the parking signs now hung as limp as boiled spinach. Not them, then. She thought of the classy woman she’d passed earlier going in the pharmacy. Perhaps a perfume she’d been wearing had lingered. More likely, the woman herself was lingering in the pharmacy doorwell, about to nab her. But, no, that wasn’t likely, either. The woman was attending the wake at Mortimer Twisden’s. Why else was she in town?
Right or wrong, Nieve expected to find out because that was where she was going. Her parents might have gone kind of funny, but they were her parents and they would protect her from weirdo truant officers and . . . other things.
Stepping off Main Street and onto the road that led out of town toward Ferrets, Twisden’s grand house, she felt the darkness close around her like liquid. The few houses that were arrayed along the road had lights dimly aglow in their windows, which did help some. Nieve figured she knew this road pretty well, knew its dips and twists, its rocky spots and potholes. Yet, the farther along she got, the less familiar it appeared. Where the road should have curved, it went straight, and where she expected to tromp through a dusty patch, she splashed through a puddle and soaked her feet. Burly, man-shaped bushes fronting the houses, seemed to shake themselves awake and lurch toward her as she passed by. It’s only the dark, she told herself, the dark changes things. She knew they were only bushes. Although knowing it didn’t stop her from keeping a wary eye on them and picking up her pace to get beyond their reach.
Once she’d left the last house behind, she began to hear an eerie rustling noise, as if someone were passing through dried grasses along the side of the road, someone walking exactly parallel with her and keeping pace step for step. Nieve stopped and the sound stopped; she started walking again and the rustling sound started up. She stopped and turned on the flashlight, playing the weakening beam over the place where the grasses had been – someone had scythed them down. Her light began to flicker again, about to die entirely, but still she could see that nothing was disturbed, nothing was moving . . . no one was there.
She turned off the flashlight, conserving whatever power remained, and kept on. The rustling resumed, only now she began to hear a voice as well. An extremely soft voice, so faint as to be almost inaudible. Nieve, the voice sighed, Nieve, Nieve . . .
This was too much. Unnerved, she took off, determined to outrun it whatever it was!
But she didn’t outrun it, nor did the pounding of her feet on the road drown out the whispering in her ear . . . Nieve, Nieve.
She stopped again, fists clenched. She didn’t turn on the light this time, no point. That voice . . . it reminded her all too well of how she’d been taunted by Alicia and her pals when she’d first started school. Nievy, Nievy, nick-nack, they’d chanted over and over as they formed a tightening circle around her. Closing in, they’d started to shove her from one to the other, Nievy, Nievy, nick-nack, Nievy Nievy, nick-nack!
Nieve didn’t cave, didn’t give them what they wanted: outrage, or tears. She didn’t even fight back. Or not in the way they might have been expecting. She simply stared them down, calmly, if intently, one after the other. The taunts died in their mouths, their arms dropped limp as ropes to their sides, and they turned away, startled and speechless. She’d given them a good blue-eyed “blasting” as Gran called it, and they’d never bothered her since.
But on this road, in the dark, there was no one she could see to blast.
Instead, frustrated, she said, “Whisht!” She didn’t know why she said it, why it came to mind, but it felt good. So she said it again, louder, “WHISHT!!”
And weirdly . . . it worked. The voice ceased; the rustling sound, too. “Whisht,” she repeated, softly, to herself. Silence. Complete silence, except for the distant sound of a dog barking, but once only, a short, clipped report.
Cautiously, Nieve started to move forward. Thinking about that word, Gran’s word, it struck her: Gran is home. She was sure of it, positive. Gran had come by the house that morning when Nieve was out, but her dad had forgotten as usual, or what had become usual. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before? The book Nieve had picked up and flipped through while sitting on the couch hadn’t been there yesterday and must have been a present from Gran. She paused, undecided about what to do. Retrace her steps and try to find her way up the lane to Gran’s? Her preference, definitely, but she had to be nearing Twisden’s place by now, and the less time spent wandering around in the dark the better.
Switching on the flashlight briefly to get her bearings, Nieve saw Ferrets’ massive fieldstone gateposts only a short distance ahead. She decided to keep on, get a ride home with her parents, and visit Gran first thing in the morning. There was a ton of news to tell her. Most of it disturbing, but the thought of sharing it with someone sympathetic and smart lifted her spirits. A “cunning woman” Dr. Morys had once called her, which didn’t seem an altogether nice thing to say, although Gran had been pleased.
Urn-shaped lamps sat atop the gateposts but hadn’t been turned on, or weren’t working. Nieve wondered how many guests had missed the turnoff and had gone wandering into the night. Cheery, welcoming lights might not be appropriate for such a sad occasion, though they sure would have been useful. The wrought iron gates stood open in any event, and, starting down the drive that led to the house, she did see a light glimmering in the distance.
When she was about halfway down, she heard a car turn in off the main road. She heard it, but couldn’t see it, because its lights were turned off. She scrambled to get out of the way and groped around on the side of the lane for something to hide behind. Mainly, she didn’t want to get run over, but she also didn’t want to be seen. Not by anyone who drove a car without lights, yet had no problem navigating in the dark. The strangeness of this vehicle was only heightened as it neared. It seemed to be muttering to itself as it cruised along . . . closer, closer. Nieve ran her hand over the rough grainy surface of a large rock and slipped behind it as the car glided smoothly past, someone, someone . . . Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that strange. She’d heard of cars that told you to fasten your seat belt and that sort of thing, although no one she knew in town owned one.
The car pulled into the circular drive that fronted the house and stopped before the wide steps that led up to the front door. Above the door a single lamp shone dully, yet was bright enough for Nieve to see that it was a singular sort of car. Long and sleek, a soft silvery colour, it reminded her more of an animal than a machine. The driver jumped out and hurried around to open the back door for a solitary passenger. A woman emerged, dressed in a long black gown, a lacy shawl, and a large hat covered in a swirl of black feathers. The hat’s thick smokey veil concealed her face. It might have been this, or something else about the woman, as magisterially tall as the chauffeur was short, goblin-short, that made Nieve change her mind about going up to the front door herself right away and asking for her parents.
As soon as the woman reached the top step the door swung open and she swept in, wisps of her shawl fluttering and snapping around her. The driver then moved the car ahead, parking it some distance from a cluster of others in a graveled area off to the left.
Nieve moved ahead soundlessly, stepping off the drive and onto the lawn, keeping to the right and well away from the silver car, which, while no longer running, still seemed to be muttering to itself (boring, boring). She stole around the side of the house, hoping that there weren’t any security lights or alarms to set off. Or guard dogs!
So far so good. Somewhere deep in the woods behind the house a fox barked, but no other sound other than chirring crickets disturbed the night as she crept along.
All of the windows were dark with the exception of a large, central one, and even that was illuminated with the meanest of lights, as if nothing were happening here at all. According to Gran, wakes in the Old Country were lively affairs, with lots of talking and singing and drinking. But this wasn’t the Old Country, and Nieve suspected that everyone was sitting around the coffin – would there be a coffin? – hushed and respectful, while her parents cried their eyes out. They must be doing a terrific job, she thought, and was glad she hadn’t interrupted them. Best to wait until the soppy stuff was over.
Since the window was too far overhead for Nieve to reach, she scouted around for something to stand on. After checking out a fallen birdbath and a broken chair – a surprising amount of litter was scattered around – she settled on a small wooden crate, first testing it for sturdiness. Overturning it beneath the window – it was a bit wobbly – she climbed up and grabbed the sill, stretching herself to her full height. Standing on tiptoe, Nieve peered into a huge gloomy drawing-room, the only light source being a couple of fat candles flickering in tall ebony stands beside the . . . the . . . there was a coffin! But to her horror, she saw that it contained not one body, but . . . six or seven, it was hard to tell how many. They were carelessly heaped one on top of the other, this way and that, like a haul of fish in a basket. The topmost body she even recognized . . . Theo Bax!
Several people were casually milling around, drinks in hand, chatting and laughing, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about partying near a pile of corpses. Dunstan Warlock, grubby fingers clasping a sweaty glass and cowboy hat pushed back on his head, was sniggering at something he must have said to a young woman who was standing beside him. Even in the dimly lit room, with juddering shadows cast on the walls from the flickering candles, Nieve recognized her as the woman she’d seen going into the pharmacy. So she was here . . . and there was Sophie, not working at all, but standing near a cold marble fireplace talking with a man who was dressed in a white tuxedo with black fur trim on the cuffs and lapels. Mortimer Twisden. Nieve recognized him from newspaper photos. He sort of resembled a ferret, she realized now, with his pointy face and small eyes. He and her mother appeared to be deep in conversation, while her father . . . where was he? She cast around and finally located him seated off to one side of the coffin, almost lost in its shadow. He looked lost, dry-eyed and stunned.
Nieve felt stunned herself, horrified by what she was seeing. She had no idea what it all meant, or how she was going to get her parents out of there. She was still staring at her father, when the tall, veiled woman stepped out of a darkened entranceway. As she glided regally toward the centre of the room, all talking, all laughing, all motion stopped; even the shadows froze on the walls. The woman inclined her head minimally, this way and that, acknowledging those assembled. Most bowed or smiled nervously back, except for Dunstan Warlock, who beamed goofily at her as if they were the best of friends. She turned toward the coffin briefly and gave a faint nod. Then she turned toward the window. She stood very still, lifting her chin slightly, and Nieve caught a silvery flash beneath the veil.
Quickly, she ducked below the sill. Which is when something – something with sharp teeth – seized her by the leg and yanked her off the crate.