Ashtown Burials

by N. D. Wilson

  A mile to the east of the sinking plane, Lilly the bull found something strange. Two somethings. She could smell them. She could feel their vibrations in the water running down her skin. One of them was a people. He smelled like a people, looked like a people, and moved like a people. She mustn’t eat the people or taste the people or be seen by the people.

  But the other was not a people. Parts of it smelled people, but more of it was like dog and monkey and … vile tiger shark. It had gills. She could feel the gills vibrating as it swam. It was not slapping the water like people. It was slithering through it, dragging the people on its back.

  She needed to know what this new thing was. And, for a shark, there is only one way to be sure.

  After trial, after hardship and horror, even after the darkest night, the Earth still turns. The sun still burns, though its light may discover many changes. When the morning sun rose into blue sky over the freshwater sea that is Lake Michigan, when its light kissed the stone walls and towers and windows of Ashtown, the chapel held twelve bodies in need of graves—eleven members and staff of the Order of Brendan who had not survived the night. One who had been murdered in the office of Cecil Rhodes.

  Rupert Greeves stood beside them, his brow furrowed, his hands crossed, studying the faces of those he had lost. Five of his guards. A man and a woman, newly engaged, both cooks. A smiling Keeper. A monk. A wrinkled Sage. A young Acolyte. And Eleanor Elizabeth Eldridge. Alone, Rupert had already uttered blessings over each of them.

  Jax had wept over each of those he had not reached in time, and he had paced every corner of Ashtown with his antivenin until Rupert had forced him to bed.

  Rupert himself had not slept, and it would be a long time before he did. There were too many things to do, and the list wouldn’t stop scrolling in his head.

  Cecil Rhodes was missing. The other captured traitors were in containment, waiting for Rupert’s arrival.

  The young Oliver Laughlin was comatose.

  Wisconsin authorities were waiting for his call about a reported plane crash.

  An elevator needed fixing. The Brendan—soon to resign, no doubt—was probably hungry.

  The O of B had lost its cook, but that wouldn’t stop people from wanting breakfast. He hoped everybody liked French toast, because that’s all he knew how to make.

  Phoenix had the tooth.

  Rupert dragged a heavy hand down his jaw and through his pointed beard. He didn’t even like to think about what that meant—old images, scars on his memory, flickered past, and he was again digging graves for the misshapen and disfigured remains hidden by a younger Phoenix in the walls and floors of Ashtown. His own brother’s body …

  Rupert closed his eyes. He was going to need help from the other Estates. And he would have to train up help for himself within Ashtown. He opened his eyes, staring straight ahead. The future was invisibly dark, but to Rupert Greeves, it smelled like war.

  He looked down at the row of bodies in their open boxes. Twelve dead in two days.

  Sighing, Rupert Greeves turned and left the chapel. Everything else could wait until he’d been to the hospital.

  John Horace Lawney was sitting up in his bed when Rupert arrived, carrying a large envelope under his arm. Gunner was snoring in the bed behind his uncle.

  “Horace,” said Rupert, nodding.

  “Greeves,” said Lawney.

  The two of them looked at the row of beds.

  Daniel Smith. Katie Smith. Antigone Smith. Cyrus Smith.

  Diana Boone was curled up with a blanket on the floor. Nolan was hunched over, snoring in a chair by the window. Breeze-rustled curtains dragged through his hair. A slightly frayed red-winged blackbird hopped on the sill behind him.

  Groaning, Daniel Smith opened his eyes and stretched his thick, bruised arms above his bandaged head.

  “Mr. Smith?” Rupert asked.

  Daniel opened his eyes. “Mr. Greeves!” He sat up carefully. “Are you here, too? I mean, were you there last night? In the boat. That part seemed like a dream. I didn’t know why you would be here. Don’t you live in California? You know, in the house? Sorry, I’m really foggy right now. Good to see you, though. It’s been a long time.”

  “Likewise,” Rupert said. “I have something for you. And I wish I’d given it to you sooner.” He handed Daniel the envelope. “If you recall, I bought it from you furnished. Since that time, no one has set foot inside it. I owe you an explanation, and at some point, I intend to give you one. But for now, this will have to do.”

  When he’d gone, Horace stood up and shuffled over to Daniel’s bed.

  “What is it?”

  Daniel dropped the papers onto his lap. “It’s the deed,” he said. “To our old house in California.”

  With hot eyes, Daniel Smith looked down the line of beds, and he laughed.

  twenty-two

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  CYRUS SMITH RAPPED his knuckles on the table and slowly rolled his head. His right leg was bouncing. A notebook was open in front of him, a pen was in his hand, and a large leather-bound volume faced him on a small stand.

  He stared at the window. The world outside was white. Snowflakes were drifting on the sill.

  A clock was ticking. Worse, across the table, an hourglass was busily draining its sand.

  Beside the hourglass, Nolan was tipping back in his chair, yawning and slowly peeling the skin off his forefinger like he was taking off a sock.

  “Do you mind?” Cyrus asked. Nolan set the finger skin upright on the table. It was only missing the fingernail.

  “I got a splinter,” Nolan said. “That’s it. This is what happens when I get a splinter.”

  “Lame sauce,” said Cyrus. “On the other hand, you don’t die.”

  “Shut up and do your Latin. This is your third time taking this test, Cyrus. No more chances. You can’t sluff it again.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Cyrus said. “I passed that Creole thing this morning, didn’t I?”

  “You did. But this isn’t a ‘Creole thing.’ It’s Latin. And you have to pass it, too.” Nolan slammed his chair down. “Get to work, Cy. Seriously. You have to finish this time. After all you’ve been through and all you’ve learned, I don’t want you kicked out over Latin.”

  “Rupe wouldn’t really do that,” Cyrus said.

  Nolan laughed. “Rupert Greeves? Cyrus, please. You know he would. He’d have to. And you’ve still got your Medicinal and Occult exams later. Both long ones. Did you finish with Jax already?”

  Nodding and scrunching his lips, Cyrus turned back to his Latin.

  The distant sound of steel on steel crept into the room. A crowd oohed and aahed.

  Cyrus tried to ignore it. He was supposed to be there, watching Antigone’s Weaponry exam with Greeves. He glanced at the hourglass, and then at the dead language in the dead book in front of him.

  A red-winged blackbird landed on the snow-drifted windowsill.

  Why were there so many distractions?

  A piece of skin shaped exactly like a nose drifted across the table.

  Breathing hard behind her wire mask, trying to stand tall, Antigone walked back to the weapon table. The Galleria was full to overflowing. She scanned the faces. Clumps of girls and boys in long white trousers and white sweaters—black symbols patched onto cable-knit chests. Men in jackets. Nervous women. Even the fat-faced monk who had once attacked her in the dining hall. The Galleria had been full for Cyrus’s exam, too, but he’d passed Weaponry two months ago, even before she’d passed Linguistics.

  “Saber!” Rupert yelled. “One adversary!”

  Her last one. She’d done well enough with the foil. Not so well with the dagger. But saber was her worst—the most tiring and the most painful of the fencing blades. Slashing was harder for her than touching with a point.

  Setting down her dagger, she picked up the heavier blade and returned to the starting position. The crowd was silent, all except for Dan. He was whistling like a football fan—not exact
ly in keeping with O of B decorum. Adjusting her mask, she patted the symbol embroidered onto her own chest. Cyrus’s leather jacket had chosen it for them. A boxing monkey inside a shield—the symbol of the Polygoners.

  A thick Journeyman walked out in his white suit and wire mask, taking his position across from Antigone.

  “Dice him, Tigs!” That wasn’t Dan. Cyrus had arrived. She almost smiled. For good or ill, his Latin exam was over.

  The signal came, and sabers clashed.

  Diana Boone stood in her large Eskimo coat, bouncing in the snow and rubbing her hands together. The airstrip was clear of drifts—for now—and the old Bristol Scout biplane sputtered beside her, idling, remaining warm until Antigone arrived.

  Poor girl. Diana didn’t know who had it worse. Cyrus was spending his day moving from dry paper test to dry paper test, while Antigone’s day was a trial of physical endurance. Lifesaving and resuscitation, the gun range, fencing, and now her first solo flight—and in a canvas-bodied museum piece, too. How either of them could fit it all into a day, she didn’t know. But the year was dying. By midnight, one way or another, they would no longer be Acolytes.

  Diana heard the crowd before she saw it. Rupert Greeves, hatless, snowflakes tangling in his pointed black beard, was walking between Cyrus and Antigone, followed by the many spectators eager to see the testing of the outlaw Polygoners.

  Antigone was still in her fencing suit. She walked straight to Diana and gave her a hug.

  “Whatever happens,” she said, “thanks for everything.”

  Diana nodded. “You ready?”

  “I have to be, don’t I?”

  “She’s ready,” Cyrus said. “You should have seen her with the saber. Carved through two Journeymen. It took an Explorer to bring her down.” He gave his sister a boost and watched her climb into the open cockpit.

  Once seated, Antigone brushed back her short hair before pulling on her cap and goggles. “Cy-Rusty there didn’t do too bad, either!” she yelled above the engine. “He actually finished a Latin translation.”

  “Without strangling Nolan,” Cyrus said. “That’s the impressive part. We’ll see if I passed.”

  Antigone wrapped a long white scarf around her face. The crowd stepped back, and the old World War I biplane sputtered and bounced down the snowy airstrip. Slowly, perfectly, effortlessly, the plane rose into the air and climbed out over the icy lake, a hillful of people whistling and whooping as it did.

  Cyrus raised his Quick Water and waited. His sister’s bundled face, the sprawling lake, the tail of the plane, Ashtown—all of it appeared in the palm of his hand, bent and warped in glorious fish-eye. Cyrus smiled at Antigone, and then scrunched his lips and flared his nostrils, knowing she could see his clownish face.

  For a moment, and only a moment, the image in his hand flickered. Cyrus blinked, and he was again looking at Antigone. But in that brief flash, he was almost certain that he’d seen a black beard, an ear, and a wobbling golden bell.

  That night, New Year’s Eve, the new cook put out his best spread yet—and it wasn’t any good. But no one cared. Snow was falling while the old year died, and fireplaces were roaring in every room in Ashtown.

  Cyrus and Antigone Smith sat on an empty bed. Dan sat between them. Their mother, still lost in peaceful dreams, slept on the bed in front of them.

  “I’m proud of you two,” Dan said. He slapped their knees, and then pulled them in tight. “You did it. And I think it’s good that you’re staying. We’ll still be together a lot.”

  “And I’m glad you’re starting school,” Antigone said. “Get rid of your lazy ways.”

  “Right,” said Cyrus. “California is good for that. Can we go eat? I did Latin today, so I’m starving.”

  Antigone started to stand, but Dan pulled her back down. His once-blue eyes had been darkening over the past few months, and his pupils seemed to bulge a little … vertical. The Order hadn’t been willing to let him leave at first. They’d poked and prodded and tested and observed until they’d been sure that he was fine—that his mind was undamaged and that he was, well, who he thought he was. But that didn’t mean that Antigone was used to his eyes. She didn’t mind his new height or the size of his shoulders or the shape of his teeth or his quick bursts of strength when he picked her up or squeezed her. He was more than healthy, and that made her happy. But she missed the blue sparkle when he smiled.

  Dan cleared his throat. “Just one more thing I need to tell you. Not a big deal, but I thought you’d be interested.”

  “And …,” said Cyrus.

  “I sold the Archer.”

  “What?” Antigone asked. “How? Who would buy it?”

  “Well, it’s not like I was asking a lot for it, and it does have a certain truck-stop beauty.”

  “Who?” asked Cyrus. He felt a strange tug inside him, a tug he knew well. This was another goodbye. Another piece of him gone. But he didn’t mind. Not this time.

  “Pat and Pat. They’re fixing it up. The pool, too. And they’ll move their diner in. I threw in the waffle maker.”

  Laughing, three Smiths stood. Three Smiths bent and kissed their mother on the head, and as they left the room in each other’s warmth, outside the window, a red-winged blackbird sang.

  In the dining hall, the men and women of the Order mingled, laughed, and occasionally shouted. But one table—a round table in a corner beneath a battered and bullet-pocked vent—was especially rowdy. People called them the Polygoners, but only three of them were actually members of the O of B.

  Dennis Gilly, sailing instructor, was explaining the origins of certain rules to Nolan, who was telling a joke to little Hillary Drake from Accounting, who didn’t get it but was laughing anyway. Jax, the twelve-year-old zookeeper, was singing a song he’d written about turtles. Gunner, too tall for his chair, was joining in whenever the chorus came around, but was refusing to sing the right words. Daniel Smith was emptying a third plate. Diana Boone was telling Antigone an old family story. Cyrus had been interrupting to show them both tricks with bread. Oliver Laughlin, the boy, sat quietly smiling with his arms crossed beneath a boxing monkey on his chest.

  Laughing, Cyrus leaned back and watched the circle of faces around him. He’d been late to this already very late celebratory dinner—he’d had a Latin test to sink through the ice off the end of the jetty.

  But his chair had been waiting for him. He looked at his sister, his brother, at Diana and Dennis. In the end, he would say goodbye to them all, or they would say goodbye to him. Life would pass. They would all find their ends. But not now. Not yet. For now, they were alive. Together. And that was enough.

  Rupert Greeves and John Horace Lawney walked up to the table.

  “Excuse me,” said Horace. “And a happy New Year to you all.”

  When the replies had died down, he continued, adjusting half-moon glasses on his nose. “Mr. Cyrus Smith and Miss Antigone Smith, Mr. Rupert Greeves, the appropriately appointed Avengel of the Order of Brendan, informs me that you have completed the requirements established at your presentation this past summer, and have met the standards for Acolytes, 1914.”

  “Huzzah for the Polygoners!” Jax yelled, raising an empty milk glass.

  “Quite,” said Horace.

  “I know Latin!” Cyrus yelled.

  “Not quite,” said Nolan.

  Horace plowed on through the laughter. “As the representative of one William Cyrus Skelton, Keeper, now deceased, it is my duty to inform you that, in the eyes of the Order of Brendan, you are now—finally—considered to be Mr. Skelton’s full, complete, and uncontested heirs. Barring, of course, any specific exclusions in Mr. Skelton’s Last Will and Testament.”

  The table went silent. Horace peered at Cyrus over his glasses.

  “Well,” said Cyrus, “what do we get?”

  “That,” said Rupert, eyeing Horace, “is between you and the Order. And as the New Year has now arrived, I am here to invite you to join me in my office for an unseal
ing of the documents and a formal reading of the will.”

  Cyrus and Antigone stood up and pushed back their chairs.

  Antigone waved to the group. “We’ll be right back.”

  “No,” said Horace, laughing. “I don’t think you will. This should take some time.”

  Beside a quiet country road outside of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, not too far west of the frozen freshwater sea called Lake Michigan, there is a lady on a pole. She stands as silent and pale as the snow falling around her, crowning her head, chilling her extended arm.

  Behind her, the Red Baron slept in a bed of snow beside an enormous bulldozer. Beneath her, an old green pickup idled. A large woman leaned against its hood.

  A man, as big and bearded as a musk ox, came hustling toward her. He was holding a silver box and switch, dragging an electrical cord behind him.

  He put his arm around his wife. She put her arm around her husband. The two of them looked up at the Pale Lady.

  And then the New Year erupted with life, with silent, slow-falling flakes of wealth. Snow became golden. Darkness crept away.

  Cyrus gripped the worn leather on the arms of his chair and glanced at his sister sitting next to him. She tucked back her short black hair and bit her lower lip. Across the top of the large desk, John Horace Lawney adjusted his half-moon glasses. Rupert Greeves stood behind him, arms crossed.

  The little lawyer set a blue glass brick the size of a shoe box on top of his desk. Dust ghosted off its sides. Cyrus leaned forward. It wasn’t glass all the way through. It was some kind of package wrapped in glass. Heavy folds met on the top beneath a large black seal.

  “Will the Avengel please break the seal?” Horace asked, leaning back in his seat. Rupert stepped forward, sliding a gold ring onto his finger. Clenching his fist, he dealt the center of the seal a quick, crisp blow. The glass cracked through the corners. Horace delicately peeled the pieces away like giant petals.