Page 89 of Malady

The church.

I’m beneath the church.

I try to push myself upright, but my hand slips, and my palm bumps against something hard. It makes a little scraping noise against the flagstones, and my numb fingers brush its curved edge.

A stone, perhaps.

I reach for it again, hoping to use it to steady myself, but my fingers close around something smooth and rounded, with a peculiar hollow on one side. I turn it over in my hand, feeling along its edges until my thumb slips into a hole.

“Come away from that, pudding.”

Oh. Oh, Christ.

I know what this is.

I drop the skull with a startled cry, its hollow clatter echoing through the chamber as I snatch my hand back. And then I see the others. Hundreds of them, stacked amongst great heaps of bones in the recesses along the walls, their empty sockets staring out into the darkness. Some have fallen from their places, spilling across the flagstones, and there’s another skull lying so close beside me that I can make out the teeth still lodged in its jaw.

I’d known there were old burial chambers beneath the church. Gideon once told me that the bones were brought here when the churchyard grew too crowded, though I’d never given much thought to what became of them afterwards. I’d certainly never imagined there would be so many, or that they’d be left sitting in the dark with nothing but a few inches of stone between them and the living.

And now I’m down here with them.

I look away from the skulls, searching desperately for the stairs, but the darkness swallows the far end of the chamber. Old stone coffins line the opposite wall, their lids covered in dust, and beyond them I can just make out the outline of a door.

I don’t know whether it’s the one Gideon brought me through.

I don’t even know how long I’ve been lying here.

The prayers swell above the grating. “…Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me…”

“Mum?” I whisper, my teeth chattering. “This isn’t the well. They’ve shut me in with the dead.”

The voices grow louder, their words trembling through the stone above my head.

“Gideon,” I wheeze. “He’s right up there. Why won’t he come down? Why won’t he help me?”

“Oh, pudding. You know what your brother’s like,” Mum says softly. “Our Gid’s always been frightened of the things he can’t mend. Even when he was little, he’d rather kneel beside his bed and pray for a thing to be put right than come and tell me what was wrong.”

“But he knows I’m here.”

“I know, sweetheart. Trouble is, he’s spent so long believing the Lord will show him what to do that he’s forgotten he has two perfectly good hands of his own. And when he’s frightened, he only prays harder.”

“Stupid,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut as my head sinks back against the freezing stone. The prayers carry on above me, Gideon’s voice rising over the others while I lie shivering beneath them, too weak even to lift my hand towards the sound. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“Hm. Do you know what else is stupid?”

My head lolls sideways. “What?”

“You, lying there like a kicked dog, waiting for somebody to come and put you out of your misery.”

I manage a feeble huff. “Thanks, Mum.”

“Oh, don’t take that tone with me, young lady. You’re an apothecary, aren’t you? My brilliant, beautiful girl, with all those books and clever little remedies of hers.” Her voice softens. “Now, you’re dying, Ophi. There’s no getting around that, I’m afraid. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to make you a little more comfortable.”

“How?” I whisper, swallowing painfully. “I haven’t got anything. My medicines, my tools… My shop’s gone, Mum. They’ve burnt it all.”

“Ophelia, when you were barely five years old, I found you crouched beside little Godfrey Longpace with his hand in your lap.”

I frown. “Who?”