The House of Dead Maids

by Clare B. Dunkle

  Next, a group of women came, led by the one who had touched me with her thimble, and they brought me to the room with the fine leather paneling. Miss Winter was already there.

  Justice compels me to give Miss Winter her due: she looked particularly handsome that evening. She had taken pains with her hair, and she wore her black dress with a poise that none of the clay-faced village women could emulate. She came to stand beside me, but she did not look at me. None of them looked at me.

  A hand waved from the fireplace, and the company grew still. The woman who had fetched me from my room beckoned to Miss Winter, who bent gracefully beneath the mantel and disappeared into the hidden corridor. Then the woman beckoned to me. I ought to have bolted and made them chase me down, but such a course of action did not occur to me. I could scarcely stand on my feet as it was; I could not have run just then even to save my life.

  I walked down the narrow tunnel, following the light of Miss Winter’s lamp, and stepped outside behind her. A passing wind whipped at my skirt, and the night sky arched above me, with a bright moon and pinpricks of stars shining through patches of shimmering cloud. I suppose I must have stopped just then to gaze at them because a grimfaced woman with a guttering torch prodded me to keep walking.

  The rest of the women and girls filed out behind me, and we made our way down the steps. Meanwhile, the men and boys were emerging from the archways below, presumably having come through the underground passage.

  Miss Winter picked her way delicately along the edge of the open grave next to one of the piles of bones, and the lead woman signified, with grimaces and gestures, that I should take my place by her side. I felt dizzy so close to the yawning pit; it seemed that I walked above a precipice. Himself and Mr. Ketch were taking their places opposite ours, the latter but a hollow-eyed remnant of the bright, good-looking gentleman who had charmed me upon his arrival. The villagers packed together into a tight crowd one or two paces back from us, and Arnby walked to the mound of dirt, holding a spade.

  I saw my young charge looking at the grave, and fierce, hot tears scalded my eyes. He was only a little boy, a very little, half-famished boy, with scrawny limbs and thin hands no stronger than a bird’s wing. Did no one in this company understand the meaning of compassion? Was no one here capable of pity? I left my place and walked briskly to the head of the grave. “Come here, boy,” I ordered. And Himself came to me with relief shining in his eyes, although he resisted when I would have embraced him.

  “Here now,” said Mr. Ketch uncertainly, drifting towards us. He reeked of spirits, and his footing was unsteady.

  “Doesn’t matter,” rumbled Arnby, and he pushed by to stand between us and Mr. Ketch, perhaps to avert a drunken tumble into the grave should Mr. Ketch attempt any further movement.

  “The Master of Seldom House,” Arnby intoned, “having enjoyed the luck of the land and lived by our honest labor, is called upon to fulfill the contract he made when he took his place in the Master’s Seat. Master, do you and your maid stand ready to perform your office?”

  “Oh, aye,” quavered Mr. Ketch in a thick accent quite unlike his accustomed gentlemanly tones. Miss Winter favored him with a withering look of contempt.

  “But you have brought others,” continued Arnby, “who have accepted their positions and taken their place as your proxies in this house.”

  Little choice we had in the matter, I said to myself as I squeezed my charge’s hand reassuringly.

  Mr. Ketch nodded gravely several times and then, realizing he had to speak, trebled, “Yes.” Miss Winter rewarded him with another venomous glance.

  “And do you guarantee that the proxy who takes your place as master is at liberty to dedicate his allegiance to these rites, free from the bonds of Christian service?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mr. Ketch, brightening. “No trouble over that one. Ain’t that right, my little heathen git?”

  “He’s no heathen,” I declared, “and fie on you for making light of it! You would have sent him to his death unsanctified. I christened him this very day. His hair is damp yet.”

  Every face turned towards me, with an awestruck expression, as though I had spoken with the tongues of men and of angels. The entire gathering stared with open mouths, while the moment stretched on and on.

  Then Mr. Ketch gave a high-pitched giggle.

  “She’s lying,” he said, quick and breathless. “She didn’t! She can’t do that.”

  Beside me, Arnby set down the spade.

  “Do you think so? I don’t,” he replied, the picture of calm. “This good, honest girl wouldn’t tell an untruth. And as to doing, of course she can. Every man his own priest, eh, little maidie?” To my surprise, he gave me a wink.

  “But she didn’t, she didn’t,” said Mr. Ketch rapidly. “He wouldn’t have it, I tell you.” He lurched forward and threw himself on his knees before the little boy, so that the two of them were eye to eye. “Tell them you didn’t let her pour water on you,” he begged. “I know you wouldn’t have it.”

  Himself looked at him and then up at me, puzzled. “But she promised me a kingdom,” he said.

  Mr. Ketch shrank back, his mouth wobbling. Arnby spoke quickly in the silence.

  “So that’s how it’s to be. John Cookson, you had fair play, but she’s a canny lass, and it’s on your own head for squandering the luck. You made the promise, and you ratified the contract. Time to show a good spirit.”

  “But . . . but . . .” sputtered Mr. Ketch, “but I’ve been christened, too!”

  “Have you? Have you, now?” Arnby laughed. “Then shame on you for a weakling! Your parents suffered in prison for the privilege of not baptizing you.”

  “Not then,” babbled Mr. Ketch. “Not then; in London. And your spies there never knew.” He attempted, I think, a triumphant smile, but what emerged was half a grin and half a titter. “So you see where you are,” he said, turning to the crowd. “You’ve got no master at all.”

  At last, my charge found something in the conversation to understand. “I’m master,” he said resolutely.

  “You’ve been disqualified, my boy,” Arnby informed him. “You’re christened, so you forfeited your chance.”

  Himself turned to glare furiously at me and gave me a painful pinch. I smacked his hands for it, and Arnby caught us by the shoulders and gave us both a warning shake. “As for you,” he said over our heads to Mr. Ketch, “you’re wasting our time. You know as well as I do that once you’ve sat in the Master’s Seat yonder, you might become Archbishop of Canterbury if you like, but it makes no difference to us.”

  The Master’s Seat. Arnby had nodded at the curious boulder Himself had climbed to be king of the castle. Himself had sat in the Master’s Seat already, and before his christening, too. He wasn’t disqualified after all.

  To my horror, I saw my charge gazing on the boulder and reaching the same conclusion. He turned to Arnby. He meant to speak and kill us both. I bent to distract him, but he was too smart for me, and he shrugged out of my grasp.

  What would have happened next makes me shiver yet to think of, but just then, Miss Winter began to laugh.

  She had stretched out her hand to point at the terrified Mr. Ketch, and her whole body convulsed to do it: a loud, ghastly, raucous sound, half a scream, half the bray of a donkey. It stunned my charge as no ghost or goblin had; he flinched and put his hands over his ears. Before he could think to interfere again, I threw my arms around him.

  “That’s enough,” said Arnby, and he gestured to the men standing nearby. They stepped forward with coils of rope.

  Miss Winter did not seem to feel the loops of cord; she had eyes only for her partner’s pitiful terror. On and on went her laughter, while the men bound her hands and feet, until the slate tiles rang with it. Her mouth stretched wide, and the screeching rose higher and higher, until it ceased to be a human sound. Then three strong fellows picked her up and slung her into the grave, and the laugh stopped with a splash and a thud. I drew breath agai
n and found I had tears on my cheeks, and I prayed God the fall had broken her neck.

  Mr. Ketch was stammering nonsense now, shreds of phrases meant to be arguments no doubt, but strung together so that they were robbed of meaning. The men threw him into the pit next, and the jabber went on in the darkness below. “Look lively,” commanded Arnby, handing the spade to the person nearest and gesturing towards the pile of earth. The fellow dug out a great clump and cast it into the pit, and the jabber broke up into coughing.

  One by one, villagers took turns with the shovel, ignoring the groans and mindless babble, the splashing and slithering. Gray-haired matrons and slender girls took up the spade. Boys dropped dirt in by cupped handfuls. Slowly and methodically, they went about the work of filling in the hole in which their fellow creatures lay. I cannot describe the horror of their indifference.

  Afraid of losing my reason, I stopped my ears and shut my eyes. The single thought consuming my energies was a frantic resolve to quit this place, a resolve so powerful that my muscles tightened and my legs shook with the desire to run. Himself would assert his right as master, claiming he had been on the Master’s Seat before he was christened, but he was young, and my word would count against his. I would lie—I would have to lie—there was no help for it. And then we would be free.

  The odd boulder named the Master’s Seat took hold of my imagination then. I glanced towards it, and it seemed to move ominously in the torchlight. Then I noticed a pale object lying across one stone armrest, and I swayed on my feet while the torches and villagers melted together into a bright red haze.

  The pale object was Rogue. Himself had left his pirate behind when I had pulled him down that morning. The boy could prove he had sat on the heathen rock before he was christened. He could prove his claim as master.

  I felt a terror so intense that I thought I would die of it, and yet my mind was clear. In that instant, I held as certain things I had not even guessed before. The dead maids were no friends to me. They had not come to warn me of danger. They had gathered before the sacrifice to gloat over me, the newest member of their sisterhood of death. I was the old maid now, trapped and shackled just as Miss Winter had been. I would idle out my meaningless years, choosing others to die in my place, until my bones took their turn at the bottom of the pit.

  I must escape. We must escape together, the boy and I. But Arnby stood by us with a hand upon my shoulder, and the crowd pressed in all around.

  Then a roar burst from the pit, and grimy hands clutched the edge of the shovel. Mr. Ketch had heaved himself upright. His face wore a slimy mask of dark mud, and his bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets. He glared at us without the least flicker of intelligence: he was stark staring mad.

  The old woman holding the spade struck out instinctively and gave Mr. Ketch a blow to the head. Arnby moved quickly to take the tool from her.

  “No blood!” he commanded. “We’ll have to stake him down. You and you, fetch rope and stakes. You two, jump in with him. Wrestle him down, no fisticuffs now, the blood needs to stay in the body.”

  As soon as Arnby moved from my side, I said in my charge’s ear, “Let’s play hide-and-seek to vex the old man and pay him back for locking us up.”

  I pulled the boy through the ring of villagers, who had no thought to spare for us in the excitement of Mr. Ketch’s resurrection. We hurried around the back of the crowd, heading for the stairs. But once there, I dragged Himself to a stop.

  “What ails you?” he whispered.

  “Can you not see them?” I asked.

  The dead maids crowded the stairs from top to bottom. Their gray faces were blank, and their motionless forms bespoke no eagerness by natural means, yet a powerful feeling rolled through me from them, a single horrid sensation of greed. One spirit ruled all their shapes; their own spirits were gone. Only the shadow remained in possession of their empty husks.

  “Over here,” I said to Himself and, holding hands, we darted through the nearest archway into the open cellars beneath the house. The many torches of the villagers standing by the pit illuminated the gravelly space, and each squat square pillar cast a dozen shifting shadows, until the ground fairly seethed with flickering forms.

  I hurried towards the tunnel we had passed through that afternoon, but now it was Himself’s turn to stop. “So many!” he whispered in consternation.

  I saw no figures in the dark opening before us, but I could feel the presence of the dead masters. I could feel their passion and violence, the evil and gloomy despair, and the mindless force living through them that yearned for the sacrifice as a starving man yearns for food. Necessity made me brutal, however. We must get through. “You wanted to take them on,” I reminded the little boy. “Don’t be a coward now.”

  He bared his small teeth, but then gave a shudder. “Not all at once,” he groaned.

  I was frantic with fear, and for an instant I thought of leaving him behind. But I couldn’t do that to the motherless child. I knelt before him and drew him close.

  “I’ll help you,” I promised. “Wrap your arms tight around me. Then it’ll be just as you said—we won’t be scared, and we’ll take on these ghouls together.”

  He nodded and threw his arms around my neck.

  Half carrying, half dragging him, I stumbled into the passageway crowded with black-hearted spirits. Fiery eyes seemed to glitter in the gloom, and puffs of wind whispered and plucked at me from all directions, tugging at Himself as though they would have me drop him. The air grew thick with a foul stench, until I thought I should suffocate, and sparks showered behind my eyelids from the effort of carrying on. But I held fast to my charge and drew courage from his trust in me. They should not have him while I could prevent them.

  Then a breeze flowed over us, cool and sweet. We were outside, on the path to the village, and the moonlit night stretched high over our heads and touched the distant hills. I set my charge on his feet, and we ran down the path together. We raced through the silent village and reached the boats pulled up on the shingle, with the water purling quietly a few feet away.

  I unhooked the canvas cover from Arnby’s boat and pushed it back. “Hide,” I said to Himself. “Arnby will never think to look for us here. He’ll be so angry to know that we chose his own boat.”

  Himself dove under the canvas, and I set my weight against the bow, but my size was against me. The boat didn’t stir.

  Now I heard footsteps crunching on the shingle. I huddled against the boat and screwed my eyes shut, praying for this one kindness, that the steps would pass me by. But they came up to the boat and stopped. Only the sounds of night and water remained. After a long moment of waiting, I could endure no more. I peeked through my hands to see who it was.

  Mrs. Sexton stood gazing down at me, her pipe between her teeth. She had no need to ask what I was doing.

  I got to my feet, miserable, crushed with disappointment, spreading my hands in a hopeless gesture. “I can’t launch the boat,” I said.

  For a few seconds, she considered me. Then she bent, set her shoulder to the bow, and pushed with such force that the gravel screeched beneath the hull. She scooped me up and flung me, and I landed in loose canvas folds. The boat swayed and rocked with my weight.

  I sat up. The bank was slipping by with alarming speed. Mrs. Sexton was already lost in the darkness. Only I thought I saw, as I gazed astern, a curling wisp of pipe smoke shimmering in the moonlight as it mounted up to the star-filled heavens.

  Himself’s head popped up, and he rapidly unhooked the rest of the canvas and stowed it in the bottom of the boat. “Don’t sit at your ease,” he ordered. “Take an oar! We’ll pull for the bank yonder.”

  I took both oars from him. “We’ll stay here where the water is swiftest.”

  “You’re a fool, and you shouldn’t have brought us here,” he said angrily. “We can’t row against this current. I want to go home. I want to sleep in Master Jack’s bed tonight and laugh at him when he haunts me.”

 
“What a ghastly notion!” I exclaimed. “An idea unbecoming in a Christian. We shan’t go back to that place, tonight or any night. We’re free of it forever.”

  “Free! I don’t want to be free of it, and it shan’t be free of me. I own it now that Master Jack is in the ground. I inherited it, just as you said.”

  “A grave and two piles of bones, and ghouls and demons by the dozen,” I said. “That’s a fine inheritance!”

  “My house and my land, and my luck,” he retorted. “And you are my maid—you have to do as I bid you. Pull for the bank, or we’ll lose the way. Streams like ours are flowing together, and we’ll have trouble following the proper one back.”

  He peered worriedly at the dark water, measuring the distance to the shore. His anxiety gave me comfort: boats he might know, but he plainly could not swim.

  “I quit your employment,” I said. “I’m not your maid anymore. The honor is scarcely worth the promise of a living grave at the end. But never fear, I mean to be a good friend to you, and that’s why we’re not going back.”

  “Then who wants you for a friend?” howled the little wretch. “What good is a friend who won’t follow orders? Run away, then, you coward, if that’s what you want, but leave me on the bank yonder.”

  I could perhaps have done it and kept the boat afloat, but I remembered that masters and maids came in a set. If Himself went back to be master, they might hunt me down. Besides, he was too young to understand what was best for him.

  “Never mind that,” I said. “We’ll find a properly run house, and we’ll live happier there than at Seldom House, though we might be bootblacks. And we’ll see you instructed, too, and lose your heathen ways. You’ll see—you’ll thank me in time.”

  “Thank you? I’ll curse you every day, you damned lying slut!” he cried. “I don’t want to be a bootblack! And you may take your heaven back and keep it for yourself, and I hope you rot in hell with it! I don’t want heaven! I want to go home!”