Page 32 of Stay Buried

“Perhaps we were wrong,” Uncle Thomas confessed as he leaned back in his leather chair. He poured himself another good dose of brandy and topped my glass off as well. “Perhaps the knackerman wentinto some sort of… hibernation and his heartbeat and respiration were too slow and weak for us to hear.”

“Or perhaps we’re both going mad,” I suggested, now exhausted and frustrated at our lack of answers. “Or,” I added, looking into my glass of brandy, seeing my own dark reflection there, “perhaps Henry St. James is right and it is sorcery.”

I expected Uncle Thomas to laugh or chide me for my foolishness, but he only tightened his jaw, his eyes focused on some unseen thing.

WE LEFT THEhouse earlier than usual the next morning, eager to check on Mrs. Stoddard. We found Clarice in bed, feverish, delirious, having difficulty breathing, and drenched in sweat. Her skin and eyes had taken on a yellow tone; her breath was sweet but acrid, with that same, now familiar, burned-sugar smell. Her damp hair stuck out in all directions.

“You!” she cried out, pointing to a shadow in the corner of the room. She was trembling, her face contorted with fear. “It’s all because of you!”

“Shh,” Pearl said as she stroked her mother’s hair. Mrs. Stoddard swatted her hand away, looked up at her daughter with a furious grimace.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she raged, spittle flying. “I know who you are! I know what you’ve done!” Pearl gasped and took a staggering step back, stumbling over her own two feet, and I reached out to steady her, to keep her from falling. It was clear she hadn’t gotten much rest.

“Why don’t you go get your mother some of that lemon tea she likes,” Mr. Stoddard said to her. Pearl wiped her eyes, nearly running from the room.

“Easy there, Mrs. Stoddard,” Uncle Thomas said, moving closer to the bedside. “It’s all right. It’s me, Dr. Endicott. I’m just going to listen to your chest, all right?” He spoke in a low, soothing voice.

Uncle Thomas listened closely to the rattling wheeze in her chest.

Her lips were moving, she was saying something over and over, but I couldn’t make out the words. I moved closer, listened hard.

“Can you hear them?” Mrs. Stoddard whispered. “Can you hear them? Can you hear them?”

I stepped back, shocked at her words, my legs nearly giving out beneath me.

I thought of last night’s conversation with Uncle Thomas, talk of madness and witchcraft, as I looked at Pearl’s mother writhing there in her bed, sheets soaked with sweat, thinking this could not be the same person we’d left twelve hours ago. I reached up and felt for the eye charm and was comforted to find it there, hidden beneath my shirts.

“What’s wrong with her?” Benjamin demanded. “Is it the flu?”

“I’m sorry, Benjamin.” My uncle paused for a long moment then, his gaze fixed on Clarice. I noticed his hands trembling slightly. It felt like all the air was sucked out of the room. “It appears she has the same illness as the knackerman.”

“Will she die?” Benjamin asked grimly as we stood around his wife’s bed.

“We’ll do all we can,” my uncle told him. “I’ll give her some medicine for the fever. And a sedative.”

“That’s it?” Benjamin asked.

“That’s all I have that will help,” Thomas said.

Oh, how often we’d said these words to people last fall as their family members lay dying, gasping for breath.

“Well, it’s not enough,” Benjamin said, eyes bloodshot and desperate.

Uncle Thomas said nothing, though both he and I knew Benjamin Stoddard was right: it wasn’t enough. If we’d been in the city, if there were a hospital close by, things might be different. But all Uncle Thomas had to work with were the contents of his medical bag and his own knowledge (or lack thereof, in this particular matter).

Benjamin was in the same clothing he’d worn the night before, rumpled. He had not shaved and there were dark puffy circles beneath his eyes.

“I don’t suppose you had any luck finding him then?” Thomas asked, his voice tinged with hesitation, as if he didn’t really want to know the answer.

Benjamin Stoddard shook his head. “We spent hours searching. Followed footprints up into the hills, but they disappeared. Snow was falling too fast, too hard.” He looked out the window, where the snow was still falling heavily. It seemed it might never stop.

“Is it true?” Benjamin asked through gritted teeth, looking back at my uncle. “That the man… thatanimal… rose from the dead?”

Uncle Thomas clenched his jaw, looked out at the storm. “The only logical explanation is that his heart was beating too weakly for me to hear.”

Benjamin’s eyes followed Thomas’s back to the window.

“You haven’t heard word of Emile LaRue, have you? He got separated from us in the woods last night,” Mr. Stoddard added. “One minute he was there, right behind me. Then I turned to look back and he was gone.”