All the Murmuring Bones

by A. G. Slatter

  And I realise, if I did not before, just how very dangerous Edward Elliott is. He smothered my little sister because she cried too much and tells himself she was a monster the world is best rid of. He killed my parents, who had been his friends, to cover up his crime and he took their home. He has happily blamed Nelly, the mother of his child, for his own sin. He eradicated an entire family all for this.

  ‘Where is my mother buried?’ I ask and the way he smiles says he’ll never reveal that. Why would he? If he notices that I don’t ask about my father I cannot tell.

  ‘Who are you?’ I say before I think better of it; a kind of wonderment and despair push the words out of me.

  I see his expression change: he’d thought himself clever, thought he’d told such a tale as to cover himself, render himself free of all blame. But just as I heard the lies in his story, so he hears the disbelief in my voice. He looks like one of those ghostly robber bridegrooms who found themselves hung on a gibbet. He lives his life the same way as they did, doing as he would and fie for all consequences, figuring he could always outrun them or blame someone else.

  He smiles, wolfish. ‘Only your dear Uncle Edward, my darling girl. Who else might I be?’

  ‘I think… I think you are a man who drifts and takes what he wants.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ He rises, steps towards me, more confident now. ‘And do you know what I want?’

  ‘I’ve an inkling.’

  He’s smart enough to stay a few steps away. ‘Miren, there is everything in Blackwater for us. With your presence, what had stultified is once again blossoming. We can rule here.’ He kneels as if proposing. ‘And I will let you take your revenge on Nelly for what she did to your poor innocent sister.’

  I drop my gaze to the floor. He cannot know that I don’t believe Nelly did that. He knows I don’t believe in his identity, but he doesn’t know that I have divined the lie in everything else. All I can think of is the sister I never knew, monster or not, burning in her cradle. I want to believe she was not alive, that she’d already been smothered before the flames, but in my mind she is screaming. She’s screaming and I’m not sure she’ll ever stop.

  I stand, and I smile, I give him my full face and he makes a mistake: he takes my expression for acceptance, for yes. As he approaches, I pick up the lantern and I throw it at him as hard as I can. The glass fuel reservoir breaks and the flame devouring the wick turns its attention to the man who claims to be my uncle. He screams, and his screams mingle with the imagined echoes of my sister, so high and loud that my head aches, that I fear my ears will bleed.

  Edward Elliott or whoever he is spins like a dancer, trying to beat out the flames on his stolen finery for I’ve no doubt these things were taken from my father after his death. Edward spins and whirls, a rapidly flaring column of fire, beautiful and awful, and loud and foul-smelling as he begins to cook. He dances and dances, round and round until he comes to the tall window by the cindered cradle, the window with its cracked panes, and he dances right into it. The glass shatters, he is unbalanced, and he tips over the sill into the void of the night.

  Abruptly, his screaming stops, and so does the sound of my sister.

  I’m grateful for that at least.

  My knees are shaking and I have to sit down for long minutes before they are solid enough to stand upon. My steps are still tentative as I make my way back towards the other part of the house. To find Nelly; to ask her questions, to get the answers Edward Elliott can no longer give me.

  36

  But Nelly will answer no questions ever again.

  Nelly is too busy lying on the floor of the entry hall of Blackwater, bleeding crimson onto the black and white marble tiles. I run to her, kneel, reach out but realise that the blood has long since stopped flowing from the cut in her throat. Was this Edward Elliott’s act? Was this how he rewarded her for her loyalty? Or did she finally put her foot down? Was she sick of the glances he gave me even as he pretended to be my uncle? When I tormented her about how he would look favourably upon my requests, was that the last straw for poor Nelly? Turned into a drudge then set aside for younger meat? Nelly, with blue eyes staring and her expression one of surprise and terror: what was the last thing she saw?

  ‘Oh, Nelly. I’m sorry.’ I touch her face: her skin is still warm, her death quite fresh. Nelly gone and all her secrets with her. My lavender skirts are soaking up the rapidly congealing blood. I think… I think she would be colder if Edward had killed her before he came to me, the blood on the floor spread further. I stand, unsure what to do, what to do; tears, unreckoned for, trickle down my cheeks, onto my lips, tasting like salt. Salt daughter. Then I hear Ena – no, Meraud – crying.

  Not from upstairs but from the library. The library Edward had made his own; and I cannot recall that he ever had her in there. She was his, I believe, but I did not see him hold her or tend to her; he spoke of her fondly to me, but that was only how he created his camouflage. Truly she was of no interest to him. I wonder how long she might have survived if she’d started to make too much noise or lost her sunny nature; if I’d not cured her teething pain when I did so she stopped her weeping and wailing. How long before he snapped and sent his own baby the way of Ena?

  I move towards the library, anxious to get the child away from a house where both her parents lie dead. She’s not my sister but I too am a girl in a place where both of my parents have lain dead. I would spare her that though I know she’s too small to understand. Just outside the library door, I pause.

  I pause because I hear a voice I’d hoped never to hear again.

  ‘Miren, join us please.’

  I hesitate only a fraction, but it’s long enough for him to raise his volume and say, ‘Miren, if you do not get in here, I will wring this brat’s neck.’

  I step through the doorway.

  Aidan Fitzpatrick has lost a lot of weight, presumably from the vicissitudes of the road. He looks harder and his gaze is unfriendly, like I’m a recalcitrant child who’s caused him considerable inconvenience. His trousers and shirt and jacket are travel-stained, and his overcoat’s been discarded on another chair; I can see dust and mud patterning it. Ena is sitting in his lap, tears streaking her face.

  ‘Hello, Aidan.’

  ‘Throw me that wicked little pocketknife I know you carry, then take this’ – he jiggles Ena as though she’s some sort of rubbish to be removed – ‘and sit down.’

  I do as told, watching sadly as the mother-of-pearl handled knife flies to Aidan’s hand. Then I take Ena – Meraud. No. She’s always been Ena to me and Ena she shall remain. She clings and I kiss the top of her head, shushing her gently. I sit in the chair Aidan indicated; it’s across from him in front of the unlit hearth. He steeples his fingers beneath his chin and contemplates me as if ordering his thoughts, marshalling his arguments to best make me understand all the ways I’ve disappointed him.

  ‘How did you find me?’ I ask, thinking to distract him.

  ‘Well, I imagine that you are quite aware I sent a man to look for you.’

  ‘The man you paid to murder Aoife,’ I state and he startles.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The man you sent to find me, Aidan.’

  ‘Is he here? What deal did you do with him to make him quit my employ?’ His colour is high and I can see him imagining all the womanly ways I might have drawn a man from his side.

  ‘Do you really think, Aidan, that I would have any sort of truck with the man who murdered Aoife?’ I suspect he misses the double meaning in that. He doesn’t need to know about before the green-eyed man murdered Aoife.

  ‘Then where is he? He came highly recommended.’ Aidan demands in the same way as a man complaining his sheepdog has failed to fulfil its duties.

  ‘He’s dead, Aidan. Oh, he was determined to bring me back to you, but I was equally determined not to go, so one of us had to be removed from the equation.’

  ‘You?’ He looks at me as if he simply cannot believe it
. ‘But you’ve always been so quiet. So obedient Aoife swore. Yet you’ve proved anything but.’

  ‘Nonetheless, cousin, I’m Aoife O’Malley’s granddaughter, a fact both of you seem to have forgotten – and there was very little Aoife did that she did not wish to.’ Ena has quietened in my arms and I’m glad, for these men who think children can be shut up with violence make me most uncomfortable. ‘And so I ask you again, Aidan: how did you find me?’

  He sits back in his chair and crosses his fingers over a belly that’s a good deal smaller than it used to be. ‘When my man failed to return, I decided not to bother sending anyone else. He’d sent me a missive from Bellsholm, that he’d found your trail there so I took myself that way.’

  The green-eyed man hadn’t told him who helped me, but he had told Aidan where I’d been. Easy enough to find the troupe. ‘It seems rather a lot of effort to go to for a runaway bride, Aidan, surely there are plenty willing in Breakwater.’

  ‘But none with Hob’s Hallow to their name. None with the old O’Malley blood, Miren. None like you.’ He leans forward, elbows on knees. ‘None with the power you’ve got.’

  ‘I’ve got no power, Aidan, I just want to be left alone.’

  ‘No power? Yet you gleefully murdered a man, didn’t you? There’s power in that, there’s will and determination, Miren. There’s your blood and your belly and the children I’ll plant there. We need offspring from you, we need to reconsecrate the covenant with the sea. Only you can do that, you and I.’

  ‘I will not see those old ways come again. There is no we, Aidan. I will not feed my babies to the waters because of your greed.’ He reaches for Ena and I pull away, thinking quickly, thinking that he might not hurt her if he thinks she’s one of us. ‘This is my sister. This is Isolde’s child.’

  The surprise on his face is clear. He sits back. ‘Ha. Isolde, always doing what wasn’t expected of her. Well, the brat might prove useful, after all. Perhaps I can replace you with her.’

  ‘Do you have the time to wait for her to grow?’ I ask lightly, thinking of the assassin’s words, that Aidan had made a deal with someone who’s demands might outstrip what he could deliver. ‘Would Bethany Lawrence be pleased to wait another couple of decades?’

  He slits his eyes. ‘Little gatherer of information, aren’t you? I shall have to watch you more carefully, Miren, you’re more than you appear.’

  ‘Really I’m not. I just want to be left alone.’

  ‘Alas, that is not to be, for others have needs to supersede yours.’

  ‘Again, how did you find me?’ ‘In Bellsholm. Imagine my surprise to learn of my friend Ellingham’s presence there. Imagine my greater surprise to go to the theatre one evening as they performed, and sit in the audience only to hear the automaton do something new. Its lovely songs, and then a tale, oh such a tale, a tale no one else but an O’Malley would know, and told in an O’Malley’s voice.’

  ‘I’m an Elliott,’ I say, but he ignores me.

  ‘And if that wasn’t enough, there was the small matter of the earring you left with that woman. Ellingham wouldn’t sell it so she’d turned it into a rather fetching pendant. It didn’t take long to extract the information I needed from him.’

  ‘What did you do to him?’ My voice rises higher.

  He lifts an eyebrow. ‘Nothing. Not to him anyway – he cares more for others than himself – so I threatened that woman, the one with red hair. And he told me of this place, this Blackwater, drew me a tidy map.’

  He doesn’t mention Brigid so I can only hope he doesn’t know about her and Ellingham. Aidan plucks at his clothing, and I ask, ‘Where are your men? Where is the carriage? Where are all the folk you pay to do your dirty work?’

  He does not answer, so I poke a little more. ‘Where is your fine carriage, Aidan?’ I think of Jedadiah saying his father had said something had been trying to surmount the hedge. I look anew at the tears in Aidan’s trouser and jacket, the spots where blood has seeped through. ‘Where are your men, your clean clothes? You’ve been sleeping rough, travelling hard. What has happened, Aidan Fitzpatrick, to all your lordly things?’

  He glares. ‘You must understand, Miren, that your departure has greatly affected my life. Our marriage was part of an agreement I made – without you, that deal is void, so I will have you back whether you want to or not.’ He leans forward again. ‘You cannot possibly imagine that you are worth all this trouble for the sake of yourself alone?’

  I think again of the green-eyed man’s words about unwise bargains and deals that link to other deals, about bigger fish eating little fish. ‘I have enough value to you that you traipse across the country, all unsupported, to drag me back. What,’ I ask evenly, ‘does Bethany Lawrence think our union can bring her?’

  ‘I promised her silver,’ he says, slumping in his chair. ‘Silver like the O’Malleys used to produce in the old days, silver that used to come from the sea. An endless supply. And that required you, the last O’Malley, you with the most pure blood, you and your womb and the children you’d produce.’ He snorts with a sort of amusement. ‘But your little escapade made the Robber Queen think I couldn’t deliver, that I wasn’t in control of all I said I was. She has sequestered my assets until such time as I return with you. This venture, she said, would be good for me, make me use my own hands again and remember how important personal oversight is.’

  ‘Does she know about Blackwater?’ I ask as casually as I can. Gods forbid Aidan should find out about the mine – about how Isolde made it produce.

  He laughs. ‘I’m neither fool nor minion, no matter what she thinks, I don’t provide reports on my progress. She knows nothing about where I am, only that if I want my life back I will return with you.’ He grins and it’s an ugly thing. ‘And you will give me children, Miren, and I will feed one at least to the sea and our bargain will be reforged. Or rather, the sea-queen.’

  I catch my breath. How much did Aoife tell him? How much did she share with him that she did not share with me, to get him to agree to her scheme? Before she realised too late he had plans of his own, bigger and better; bigger fish eat smaller fish. Can he know what I merely suspect? He sees the question in my face.

  ‘Oh, Aoife told me about Isolde and her light fingers, what she stole.’ He smiles. ‘Quite handy, in the end, that you ran away and led me here.’

  And I think about the size of the mer I’ve seen, and think again that the sea-queens are even bigger, so how did Isolde take such a thing? I think about Malachi saying that Isolde had a talent for making things big or small, and the silver scale in the rill. I think about Maura telling me tales of a witch who wished for immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth, so as she aged she shrank down, down, down until she could be put into a bottle, there she stayed making noises everyone around took for summer insects. I think about the glass boxes I’ve seen in Isolde’s workroom, how they might be perfect for something the size of a healthy bass or cod.

  ‘And now, I think, Miren, it’s time for me to take back that stolen item.’

  ‘You have no right to it,’ I say. ‘You’re not an O’Malley, you’re some by-blow who thinks he’s better than he is. Do you think if Aoife had any other choice she’d have made a bargain with you?’

  His colour heightens; he’s not quite angry enough to hit me, but he’s angry enough, I hope, to become careless.

  ‘No matter what you think of me, Miren, I will be your master. And I like breaking spirits. The longer you resist, the happier I will be.’ He rises. ‘And now, it’s time for me to collect my property.’

  ‘And precisely how are you going to take her back to Hob’s Hallow? Have you learned spellcraft, Aidan? Can you do with Isolde did? Shrink the thing down so you might put it in your pocket?’ I laugh.

  ‘I will make arrangements. Now, there is a cellar?’

  I nod. ‘But I’ve never been able to find a key to the locks, of which there are three.’

  He snorts. ‘Do you think Isolde would ha
ve wasted her time with ordinary keys?’

  I think about the cellar door at Hob’s Hallow with no mechanisms at all because the latches had all be removed; there were only the old warnings from my grandparents and Maura not to go down there. ‘I have what we need. Take the child, she will keep your treacherous hands busy and I’m sure I’ll find another use for her.’

  And I worry that I’ve not bought Ena any time at all.

  37

  Ena has fallen asleep in my arms and she is heavy as a bag of wet sand. She snuffles against my neck and all I can think of is how to keep her alive. I’ve killed two men without a second thought, but they earned their deaths. This child, though she is nothing to do with me, has done no wrong. I’m walking slowly as we leave the library and Aidan registers his annoyance.

  ‘If I go any faster,’ I say mildly, ‘the child will wake. And if she wakes she will cry. Do you want to listen to that again?’

  He harrumphs in response. ‘Which way?’

  ‘Follow me, the entrance is in the kitchen.’ The corridor seems suddenly far shorter than it ever has in this enormous empty house.

  ‘Who was the man?’ asks Aidan and for a moment I think he means Jedadiah and I’m not happy at the idea of him knowing about my lover, but then he continues, ‘The man who went into the other wing of the house and did not come out. He was arguing with that slattern. More importantly, where is he?’

  Nelly probably was a slattern, but I bristle at him calling her such. ‘Dead. He fell out a window. He claimed to be my father’s brother, said his name was Edward Elliott. I believe he wormed his way into my father’s good graces, then murdered him and Isolde. He’s been playing lord of the manor for months.’

  Aidan laughs. ‘Liam Elliott had no family. He was just some pretty boy from the Breakwater docks that Isolde fancied.’