by E. E. Holmes
“It’s really heavy! You have to help me open it!” I called. My voice sounded hysterical, even to me.
Finn rushed forward, dug his hands into the gap, and began to pull. The ancient hinges shrieked with protest at being forced to move, and did not give easily, even with both of us tugging with all our strength.
Despite my best efforts to control it, my breathing was becoming rapid, shallow, and panicked. “It’s not opening! It’s not going to open! How am I going to get out of here?!” I shouted.
“Jess, it’s moving, I promise!” Finn called. “Take a deep breath and try to remain calm. Listen. Listen to the scraping sound. It’s moving!”
Finn grunted with effort as we forced hundreds of years’ worth of rust to give way. At last we had created a gap large enough for me to squeeze through. I forced myself through the opening with a guttural cry of relief and collapsed to my knees in the grass, where I began to heave and retch.
Finn dropped to the ground beside me and pulled my hair up out of my face, which was shining with cold sweat.
“It’s okay, Jess. You’re okay,” he said, over and over again, until the vomiting subsided.
“I… I’m sorry. I… I don’t know why I went to pieces like that,” I said between gasping sobs. “It… it was just so dark, and there was all this dust, and the dust smelled like dead things and the air… it’s like there’s no air in there, like someone already breathed it all. And there are these coffins everywhere. I just… I felt like I was being crushed. I’ve never reacted to anything like that before, ever. Do you think it was some kind of Casting?”
I looked up at Finn, who was wiping sweat from his face with filthy hands. He shook his head. “No. I think you just had a good old case of claustrophobia. The proximity of the corpses probably didn’t help.”
Even in the few moments I took to calm myself down, Catriona had pulled free of Fiona and was now shoving her body through the crack of the doorway without any kind of regard for her well-being. Cuts and scrapes were already visible up and down her arms as she forced her body through the opening. I had no doubt the spirit controlling her would break her limbs if it meant reaching its goal. Little though I wanted to, I grabbed the flashlight off the ground where I had dropped it, jumped up, and reached the mausoleum just in time to watch Catriona’s mane of golden hair disappear into the darkness.
“Whoa, whoa, what do you think you’re doing?” Finn asked. “You actually want to go back in there?”
“No, of course I don’t. But this spirit reached out to me, and I’m not going to let a little vomit stop me from finding this book. I think I’ll be okay now that the door is open and I’ll be able to see better.”
Finn was eyeing me skeptically.
“If I can’t handle it, I’ll just come back outside,” I said. “Look, I won’t puke on you, I promise.”
Finn rolled his eyes at me, but didn’t argue any more. With one last, almighty thrust, he wrenched the door right off its hinges; it toppled over and onto the ground in a plume of dust, rust flakes, and displaced snow. The mausoleum interior lay beyond, a yawning black hole, the renewed sight of which made my skin crawl.
Finn gestured as though to say, “After you.” I opened my mouth to tell him that chivalry was officially dead, and that he could bloody well march in there first, but then I remembered that I was the one holding the flashlight. Holding it out in front of me like a weapon, I took a cautious step into the dim interior, then another, then another. The flashlight flickered as though tired from the strain of having to cut through a darkness deepened with the immovable finality of death.
I inched forward along the path the flashlight had created for us. I felt Finn’s breath on my neck and it made me feel calmer, more sure of my steps. I finally found the courage to look around properly at what was inside the chamber.
Stone coffins lined the walls of the mausoleum, but they did not look as I would have expected. The top of each had been carved into the likeness of the corpse it contained, each a perfectly preserved granite effigy of the former owner of the rotting bones beneath it.
“What the hell…” I breathed, approaching the nearest of these with a hammering heart. Beneath the reposing likeness of a long dead woman with a hawkish profile was the name, “Virginia Larkin.”
“It’s like a pyramid in here!” I hissed. “Please tell me it wasn’t a custom to wrap the bodies of Durupinen like mummies, because I might lose it.”
“I don’t think so,” Finn said. “Did you see where Catriona went?”
“She’s got to be in here somewhere,” I said, tearing my gaze from the stone effigy. “Wait, I hear something.”
A dull, thumping, scraping sound was coming from the far corner of the room. We followed the sound, shuffling forward and searching with the flashlight beam until, at last, it fell upon Catriona. She was crouched beside one of the stone coffins, pounding her fists against it and gouging at the edges of the seam that ran all the way around it. Her fingernails were already broken and bleeding with the desperation of her efforts.
“Little book!” she was positively sobbing now. “Little book! Little book! Little book!”
I knelt down beside her and took her face in my hands. “Little book?” I said, tentatively.
She froze in her efforts and her eyes locked onto mine. “Little book,” she answered, nodding solemnly.
“Inside this coffin?” I asked with a convulsive swallow. My mouth had gone completely dry.
“Little book. Inside,” she whispered, and she pointed emphatically at the coffin. Then, her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped against the stone, motionless.
Finn reached past me to press two fingers to Catriona’s neck. “Pulse is quick, but strong,” he said. “I think she’s alright, for the moment, but it will be best to find this book quickly and get her back up to the castle where Mrs. Mistlemoore can keep an eye on her.”
We dragged Catriona away and lay her on her side, to give us room to work, and then returned to examine the coffin she had been so frantically trying to pry apart. The stone likeness on the top of it was of a young woman with high cheekbones and a gentle smile on her lips. Her hands were folded demurely over her white marble chest. The name carved along the edge of the coffin’s lid was “Harriet Larkin.”
The name did not bring the jolt of recognition, the instant clarity I thought it would. I felt no tingle in my fingertips. I turned to Finn. “Do you really think this is right?”
He stared incredulously at me. “Catriona damn near tore her own fingers off to get into it, so it bloody well better be right. Why are you asking me that?”
“I just… I thought the name would ring some sort of Muse bell for me, but it doesn’t. I don’t think this is the spirit that’s possessing her.”
“Look, maybe it’s her and maybe it isn’t, but there’s clearly something here she needs us to find, so let’s open the bloody thing and find out what it is!” Finn cried.
“What’s going on in there?” Fiona called from outside. Her anxious face appeared around the doorway, bathed in pale moonlight. “Have you found anything?”
“Catriona… or rather, the spirit possessing Catriona, wants us to open this coffin,” Finn told her, pointing to it. “Do we have the Council’s permission to do that?”
Fiona rolled her eyes. “The Council’s highest priority is containing this Shattering. I hereby give you my permission to crack the bloody thing open. Now get on with it, it’s fecking freezing out here and the Council is bound to send someone looking for us soon, if they haven’t already.”
“Awesome,” I said, with a slightly hysterical laugh. “Officially adding grave robbing to my resume. Let’s file that under ‘sentences I never thought I’d say.’ So, now what?” I turned to Finn, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. He was wandering the room, scanning the walls and floor.
“What are you looking for?” I asked him.
“Something we can use to pry that cover off. It’s muc
h too heavy to move without proper leverage,” he said and then clapped his hands suddenly together, making me jump. “Ah-ha! This will do nicely.” He pulled a long metal bar from under a pile of ragged, tattered fabric on the floor in the corner, the remains of a velvet privacy curtain. He strode over and held it out to me.
“I’m going to try to lift that cover. As soon as you see a gap, shove this pole in there as quickly as you can, alright?” he said.
“What? Oh. Yeah, okay, I’ll try,” I said.
Finn squatted on the ground beside the coffin and placed his shoulder beneath the lip of the lid. Then he grasped it with both hands and poised himself, ready to lift.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” I said, my eyes focused unblinkingly on the seam.
With a guttural cry, Finn shoved with all his might against the lid of the coffin, pushing off the ground with his legs, the muscles in his arms trembling with the effort. A narrow gap appeared between the lid and the coffin, barely a couple of inches wide. As soon as I saw it, I thrust the stick forward, wedging it between the slabs of stone with a horrible squealing, grating sound.
Finn collapsed to the ground, panting. “Well done,” he gasped.
“Me? Well done, you!” I said. “I can’t believe you actually lifted that.”
“Won’t mean much of we can’t pry it off,” he said dismissively, standing up and dusting himself off. “We’ve got to push down on it, like a lever, and it should slide off. Help me, will you?”
“Of course,” I said. We both placed our hands on the pole, preparing to push. A foul, musty odor was beginning to permeate the room, and my stomach roiled at the thought of what we might be about to see when the lid was removed.
“On three, then,” Finn said through gritted teeth. “One, two, three.”
We shoved downward with all our might, lying nearly flat along the length of the bar as we put every ounce of weight into our efforts. The cover lifted, tipped precariously, and then, with a floor-shaking crash, it toppled off the coffin and landed on the ground in a choking cloud of dust.
As we coughed and spluttered, Fiona’s face appeared around the doorway again. “What in blazes was that?”
“We’re fine. We’ve got it open,” Finn said between coughs.
As the dust finally began to settle, we walked very slowly forward. For all his heroics, I could tell from his very grim expression that Finn did not want to look over the edge of that coffin any more than I did. I took in a deep breath and held it.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected to see; a pile of bones, or something rotted and maggot-eaten, I guess, like out of a horror movie. But the body within the casket, whether by Casting or by a strange combination of natural elements, was almost perfectly preserved beneath its translucent white shroud. The face, which I could only assume belonged to Harriet Larkin, was waxy, and the eyes, still closed, were somewhat sunken, but long black eyelashes still rested on her cheeks, and her lips were still closed demurely over her teeth. She lay just as the figure above her had done, with her hands folded over her chest. Except…
“Little book,” I whispered, my heart pounding.
“What’s that?” Finn asked.
I pointed to Harriet Larkin’s chest. There, tucked between her hands and her dusty ivory silk gown, was a small, black, leather-bound book.
Finn stepped forward, hand outstretched, but I grabbed onto his sleeve.
“What?” he asked.
“We can’t just… I mean, are you going to just… take it?” I asked.
“Jess,” he said impatiently. “We just shattered the window of the mausoleum and broke into her coffin. I think we’ve said ‘sod it’ to any modicum of respect we had here. So, let’s just do what we need to do to end this, shall we?”
I blinked. “Right. Yes. Good point. By all means, defile the corpse.”
Finn reached his hand forward, but then stopped suddenly.
“I can’t.”
“What?”
“I can’t defile the corpse.”
“You picked a really weird moment to have a crisis of conscience, Finn,” I said.
“No, I mean a literally can’t. Look.” He thrust his hand forward as hard as he could but is seemed to meet with some kind of invisible resistance. “My hand won’t go any closer than this. It must be some kind of Casting.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Well, now what the hell are we supposed to do?”
Finn withdrew his hand, brow furrowed with concentration. Finally, he said. “You try it.”
I stared at him. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Who else would I be talking to!”
“But why would I be able to do it, if you can’t?” I asked, fighting back an urge to be sick. I did not want to stick my hand in that coffin. I did not want to touch that body.
“I have no idea. I have no idea what this Casting is. But whoever put this book here obviously wanted to protect it. They may have wanted to keep in out of certain hands.”
“I would think burying it in someone’s cold dead hands would be a pretty effective way of doing that,” I hissed.
“Yes, but it apparently wasn’t enough. Perhaps this Casting ensures that only a Durupinen can remove it? We won’t know unless you try!” Finn growled.
“Okay, okay!” I cried. I tried to take a deep breath to steady my nerves, but the air didn’t make it past my throat. I shuffled forward on legs that were protesting the responsibility of keeping me upright until I was leaning right up against the edge of the coffin. I took what little breath I could in though my mouth, in a desperate attempt to avoid the smell of death that was permeating the room. Very slowly, I stretched out a violently shaking hand, careful to keep my eyes just on the book and nothing else. My hand moved closer and closer without meeting any resistance until, finally, I was able to brush the fabric of the shroud with my forefinger.
“I can touch it!” I cried, snatching my hand back out of the coffin as though it had been burned, and barely repressing the impulse to turn and run right out of the mausoleum.
“Brilliant!” Finn said. “So, go on, then. Take it.”
I looked at him, and I knew there was a plea in my face, but he ignored it, as we both knew he had to. And so, I swallowed back the horror rising in my throat and extended my hand once more into the coffin. I pinched the gossamer fabric of the shroud and peeled it gently back from Harriet’s form, until the little book lay exposed in her hands, ready for the taking. Then I closed my fingers around the book, which was shockingly cold, and pulled experimentally. It didn’t budge. I tugged a little harder. Still nothing.
“Oh God, the corpse doesn’t want to let go of it!” I cried. My voice was shrill with blind horror.
“Just yank it out of there!” Finn cried, his voice sharp with the same taint of hysteria I was drowning in. He didn’t like this any more than I did.
I grabbed onto the book with both hands and, with a thrill of absolute dread, pulled with all my might. There was a dull cracking sound, and the book came free in my hands. I stumbled into Finn and we both fell backward onto the floor, where we lay utterly still for one long, horrified moment.
“Finn.”
“Yeah.”
“Look down at the book I’m holding and please tell me there aren’t corpse fingers still attached to it,” I whispered in a strangled voice.
Finn actually laughed, easing the deep tension of what we had just done. “No. Corpse finger free, I promise you.”
I sat up and opened my eyes, looking down at last upon the “little book,” and wondering what I would find within its pages.
As though he read my mind, Finn said, “Now, just what do you suppose we’re going to find in there?”
“Only one way to find out,” I replied.
And by the quivering beam of the flashlight, we peeled open the damp, moldy pages and began to read.
Eleanora: 21 July 1864
21 July 1864
Dearest Little Book,<
br />
I must write quickly, for fear they will discover that I have you. I have kept you hidden in a crack between the stones, and that alone, I believe, has kept you safe from being burned.
I am alone now. My mother has refused to see me. She has sent me a letter, in which she begs me to understand why I must be imprisoned “for the greater good of the Durupinen.” She has chosen her position and her power here over her own daughter. She has bent to the will of the Council as easily as a blade of grass to the wind. And poor Hattie was so overcome at my imprisonment, that she fell terribly ill. She lingered for days while I begged to see her, to show her that I was alright. But even as her life hung in the balance, the Council never relented. They could not risk me being reunited with the other half of my Gateway, could not fathom that I could refrain from wreaking ultimate destruction upon them, when all I wanted was to see my sister. Now it is too late. She is gone.
Tomorrow, my sister’s funeral will commence without me. It will be lavish, a black silk-draped confection of an affair. The mourners will have been hired by the dozens, and the coach will be a bower of blooms in which to bear my sister home from London to our mausoleum at Fairhaven. I wonder how my family will account for my absence. Perhaps they will instruct one of the mourners to take my place in the family pew, draped in a thick black veil and too devastated to speak to anyone. After that, they will explain me away with some elaborate tale: I am so overcome with grief that I have gone mad and must be confined to my room. Or else, eager to find a fresh start away from the sorrowful memory of my sister’s death, I have been sent abroad to further my studies in music, or else to wed a foreign nobleman. Yes, mother would love to spin out that story. I can just see her now, waving around a stack of forged letters detailing my lavish European lifestyle, trips to exotic locations, and a manor house too large and full of visiting dignitaries to spare me for even a short visit back home. She may even start to believe the stories herself, as she weaves them into her own reality. Perhaps that is how she will be able to live with herself, and to forget the hand she played in the demise of her own daughter. I shall be erased from the world with a lie, my truth lost forever to all that knew me.