“There are six,” Mike said, his voice terribly small.
But the hell hounds that encircled the front of her grandparents’ house were silent and still, regarding them with gleaming eyes. Which meant that this sound, off in the distance but coming nearer, was the seventh.
“Rose,” Mike prodded.
Her tears had gone cold upon her face, and she told herself it was the autumn breeze, not the chill inside her, that was responsible. A thousand moments played through her mind; holding her grandfather’s hand while walking to the bakery, modeling her back-to-school clothes while he clapped in delight, the old songs he used to sing, a crackly-voiced Sinatra. Rose had loved the man for his wisdom and the way he had always been able to soothe her with gentle words and smiling eyes.
No matter what he had done, she would never be able to stop loving him for the role he had played in her life. She thought she could even forgive him for his cowardice — for letting another man die simply because he was too frightened to tell the truth — but she would never forget.
The distant, whistling cry drew nearer.
Mike must have said something further, urged her on. Her grandmother must have continued to call out to her. Rose could not hear either of them. The only sound that reached her was that eerie wail, like the screaming of the damned.
Her hands seemed to move of their accord. Mechanically, she flipped open the carved wooden box. The medal glinted within. A smell rose from the box, Old Spice and cinnamon, and for a second it felt to her as though her grandfather was right there with her, standing beside her in the darkness.
Rose felt the weight of the moment, more powerful even than her grief. She took the medal from the box and tossed it onto the lawn. The hounds did not move. In her mind’s eyes, she’d pictured them leaping at it, tearing at it, even fighting over it, but they remained completely still. Rose felt the damp streaks drying on her face. There would be no more tears for her. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing, as though she mirrored the Whistlers themselves.
The last of the Whistlers howled again, oh so very close, now.
“Jesus, Rose,” Mike rasped.
She dropped the wooden box. He slipped his fingers into hers and they clasped hands. Rose squeezed his hand tightly.
“Take it, you evil fuckers!” she screamed at the hounds. “Just take it and go!”
As if they’d been awaiting her permission, one of the hounds trotted forward, bent its snout to the ground, and snatched up the medal. They seemed, in that moment, as docile as lap dogs. But they were too silent to be ordinary animals, too monstrous to be dogs, to sleek and ominous to be anything of this world.
One by one, they turned and slipped away. Rose and Mike stood hand in hand and watched them vanish into the night, black wraiths lost in shadow, and she knew that they carried a part of her away with them forever, a piece of that little girl who had once thought her grandfather the greatest man ever to walk the earth.
The carved, wooden box that had sat for decades atop the bureau in her grandparents’ room lay on the grass at her feet, empty.
CHAPTER 17
The morning of Walter Hartung’s funeral, the sun shone brightly down upon those who had gathered in their grief to pay their last respects. Whenever a breeze kicked up, sending brown and orange leaves skittering across the cemetery and piling them up against tombstones, a chilly hint of winter could be felt. But otherwise, the blue sky and warm sunshine conspired in a masquerade, a pretense that autumn had not yet arrived.
Even the day was a lie.
Early that morning, Rose had argued with her mother — loudly, and perhaps irreparably. Though she would not speak to her parents about the events of the past few days, aware that it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, she was determined not to stand with her grandmother during the church service, or at the burial. Both her mother and father had attempted to get to the bottom of her refusal, and then resorted to attempts to make her feel guilty about it. With regret, if only because she did not want to hurt her mother, who had after all lost her father, she had stood her ground.
In the front row of mourners, on that beautiful day, with the sun warming them, her parents flanked her grandmother. Rose noticed that neither of them touched her; not so much as a gentle, reassuring hand. Isobel Hartung had never been the sort of woman who invited human contact. That had not changed.
Rose stood two rows back with Alan and Jenny on her left and Mike on her right. He still held her hand. The previous night, when the hounds had all gone, she had driven him back to the funeral home to retrieve his car. There had been a moment, dropping him off, when she thought he might try to kiss her and had been torn by her desire to feel that intimacy and the knowledge that if he had done it under those circumstances, anything that might develop between them would be forever tied to that night.
Mike had not kissed her.
But this morning, holding his hand, Rose liked his firm grip and the silent strength he lent her with his touch. Last night, she’d had very little sleep. She had never felt so lonely, so isolated, and the memory of his hand in hers had lingered, helping her make it through until dawn. When she’d woken, she’d almost expected him to be there in bed with her.
She had no idea what the future might hold for them, but for now, she was grateful for the comfort of his touch. Jenny and Alan lent their support as well. Jenny glanced at Rose every few minutes, and eventually linked arms with her, as though at any moment they might dance off along the yellow brick road. The gesture lightened Rose’s heart, just for a moment, but that was enough.
As for tears, however, this morning Rose had none. All her crying had been done the night before. Her last goodbye had taken place on the front lawn of her grandparents’ house, staring into the night. The funeral service felt almost like an afterthought.
Her grandmother and her parents obviously did not agree. Whatever injury she’d done them by not standing with them at the graveside, she added insult to it through her inability to summon tears. Rose felt strangely numb to this knowledge. Many in the crowd had been at the wake the night before and witnessed her departure — followed swiftly by her grandmother’s — and those who had not been in attendance had surely heard rumor of it by now. Rose’s refusal to stand with her grandmother only reinforced the awkwardness that already existed.
The priest had his say, dust to dust, and all of that. Rose tuned him out. She knew the true fate of the man they were lowering into the ground, and she could not stand to listen. The sun made her sleepy. A chilly wind danced around her legs, swirling leaves past her and fluttering the hem of her long, black coat.
“You’ll get through this,” Mike whispered to her.
She nodded. That much was true. A man had died, but men died every day. Rose and the other people she loved were still breathing. Her friends had gathered protectively around her. One death, one funeral, wasn’t the end of the world.
Not this time.
When the graveside service had come to an end, the priest beckoned for her grandmother to take a flower and throw it on top of the coffin, a gesture of farewell. Rose stared at the porcelain-masked old woman, waiting for Isobel to look up at her. But her grandmother never did look up. She behaved as though entirely unaware of Rose’s presence, or even her existence.
Rose found she could not bring herself to care. But when her mother dropped a flower on Grandad’s casket, weeping, and shot her a look of confusion and sorrow, she felt her heart go cold. Rose had done nothing wrong, but her grandfather’s sins had cost her a great deal.
Still, when it came her turn to drop a flower on his casket, she prayed for the old man’s soul, though she already knew the answer.
When the mourners began to disperse — black and gray figures under a gloriously blue sky, walking back to their cars across rustling beds of crisp autumn leaves — Rose paused a moment to watch her grandmother and her parents climb into the limousine that had brought them there. Those who had troubl
ed themselves to come out this morning would be invited back to that strangely empty house to reminisce about the one who had died, who they thought had gone on before them to whatever awaited them all.
Rose and her friends drove to the Pennywhistle instead, and raised a single toast to Walt Hartung, not for his sins but in spite of them.
In February, on a day as bitter and cold as Isobel Hartung’s heart, Rose returned to the cemetery to listen to the same priest utter the same hollow assurances and remembrances. Most of the mourners were the same, but the crowd was smaller. Whether this could be attributed to the harsh winter weather or to the simple fact that fewer people had liked her grandmother enough to be bothered showing up, Rose couldn’t have said, and wouldn’t hazard a guess.
Isobel had followed her spouse to the grave the way that so many men and women do, after a certain age.
Once again, Rose did not stand with her family at the graveside. Her mother had forbidden her to do so, but she would have refused in any case. Instead, she stood four rows back on the frozen, snow-covered ground, accompanied by her closest friends. Mike had his arm around her, and she huddled against him for protection against the wind, and against the winter that sometimes encroached upon the human heart.
Rose did not pray for her grandmother. She only stood and scanned the February shadows cast by crypts and headstones, and the trees that encircled the cemetery, searching for dark, silent figures that did not belong, and listening for their telltale whistle.
— END —
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
AMBER BENSON is a writer, director, and actor. Currently, she is writing book five in her Calliope Reaper-Jones urban fantasy series for Penguin, while Among The Ghosts, her middle grade book from Simon and Schuster came out in paperback this past fall. She co-directed the Slamdance feature, Drones — which was picked up for distribution by Phase Four Films — and directed (and co-wrote) the BBC animated series, The Ghosts of Albion. As an actor, she spent three years as Tara Maclay on the hit television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
CONNECT WITH AMBER BENSON ONLINE
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https://twitter.com/amber_benson
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Official Blog
http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com
YouTube Channel
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CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of such novels as Of Saints and Shadows, The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in Town, and Strangewood. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including Soulless, Poison Ink, and The Secret Journeys of Jack London, co-authored with Tim Lebbon. His current work-in-progress is Cemetery Girl, a graphic novel trilogy collaboration with Charlaine Harris.
A lifelong fan of the “team-up,” Golden frequently collaborates with other writers on books, comics, and scripts. He has co-written three illustrated novels with Mike Mignola, the first of which, Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, was the launching pad for the Eisner Award-nominated comic book series, Baltimore. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of the book series Magic Zero and The Menagerie, as well as comic book miniseries such as Talent, currently in development as a feature film. With Amber Benson, he co-created the online animated series Ghosts of Albion for the BBC.
As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies The New Dead, The Monster’s Corner, and British Invasion, among others, and has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at http://www.ChristopherGolden.com.
CONNECT WITH CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN ONLINE
Official Website
http://www.ChristopherGolden.com
Twitter
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No Rest for the Wicked Blog
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Join the Wicked Street Team
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Excerpt From "Astray" From Ghosts of Albion: Collected Tales
Coming Soon From Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
CHAPTER 1
On a late summer afternoon, long fingers of sunlight reached deep inside Ludlow House as though it might at last dispel the darkness that seemed to linger in every corner. But this place, the ancestral home of the Swift family, had been touched by shadow, and no matter how much laughter and light might be spread about its rooms, it would never completely escape that taint until every stone had been pulled down and exposed to the sun.
Even so, in spite of all the darkness that encroached upon their lives, the young Swifts — siblings Tamara and William — had attained a modicum of happiness. It was a constant struggle, and yet they continued to engage in that effort because the only alternative was surrender, and brother and sister were both too stubborn and too courageous to even consider such a thing.
The estate in Highgate, North London, had been built early in the Eighteenth century at the order of Sir Edward Ludlow. His only child, his daughter Helen, married Cheswick Swift, the son of the city’s most prominent moneylender. The combination of the two families created the most respectable bank in London, with investments all over the burgeoning Empire. Helen and Cheswick had three sons. The oldest, Ludlow, was the reluctant inheritor of the family business, and was much relieved when his own son, Henry Swift, took to it with a passion.
And now Ludlow Swift was dead. Henry’s wife had passed away at a young age and the man himself was incapacitated, leaving the control of the estate, the family fortune, and the bank itself, in the hands of Henry’s children. Both Tamara and William appreciated the legacy they had inherited, and yet they felt burdened by the responsibility. So much had changed in their lives since their grandfather’s passing. Life . . . the world itself . . . had turned out to be not at all what they had imagined. Their lives now were full of newly-discovered dangers that lurked in the shadows and so often landed upon the very doorstep of Ludlow House.
Yet on that late summer day, the sun did seem just a little brighter, the shadows not quite so deep. It had rained softly that morning and a mist had covered the city, but it had burned off not long after breakfast and it was a rare gem of a day, the sort that seems to stretch on forever and required leisurely walks upon the grounds and a lingering afternoon tea.
Tamara Swift had not indulged in any of those things.
William had taken over their father’s study to conduct the business of the bank. A new chairman of the Board had been chosen to replace their father for the duration of what the siblings had reported as his “illness,” but William had taken his seat at that table. Despite his youth he was still deferred to in nearly everything. After all, he held the purse strings that were the very foundation of the bank. But somehow he still hoped to balance out his obligations to the bank and his aspirations toward architecture. Even with all of the obstacles that had recently presented themselves, William was determined to find the time.
His sister would have mocked him, but she was equally resolute about her own ambitions. William had taken over Henry’s study, so Tamara had ensconced herself within their grandfather’s chambers. So much had happened in those rooms since the start of the year, things both tragic and remarkable. Yet she felt safe here, close to him, surrounded by the trappings of his forays into stage magic and his travels to exotic locales. It was as if Ludlow could watch over her here, though she knew that his spirit had moved on.
So, perhaps, wherever his spirit had gone to its rest, it wasn’t so very far away after all.
Tamara’s pen paused upon the paper before her and a dollop of dark ink beaded upon it
s tip, then dropped upon the page. She chided herself and set the pen into the inkwell while she picked up the blotter and absorbed much of the ink. A spot like a black tear remained in the midst of the sentence she had been writing, but it was hardly the first, nor would it be the last. The first drafts of her novels were always a mess.
She sat back in the chair and took a moment to enjoy the warm summer air that breezed through the open window above the desk. The sun was warm upon her hands, but its light did not stretch far enough into the room to reach her face. Still she enjoyed the view out that window, with the grounds and the trees of the estate visible, the peak of the carriage house just at the edge of her vision, and then London unfolding in the distance.
For a long moment, Tamara allowed herself to drift. Then, with much reluctance, she turned her attention back to the fresh manuscript pages she had produced that day. The tale was called Stained Scarlet, and it concerned a bride who discovered on her wedding night that her new husband was not completely human. She was quite fond of the title, thinking it clever enough. And it had better be, she knew, for it had been many months since she had written anything new for Lane & Jones, the publishers of her previous novels. Tamara had written the gruesome, occult tales before she had discovered that the horrors in them were not as fictional as she might have wished. It had taken her some time to find the will to write again afterward.
Once she had begun, however, she found herself relishing the escape Stained Scarlet gave her. And if such works were more and more being dismissed by those who called them “penny dreadfuls,” why, Tamara did not mind the mockery so much. The sales spoke for themselves. The people wanted these stories, and the publisher wanted to fulfill that desire. Tamara was happy to oblige.
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