Death Trance

'This morning we went up to Tewksbury, and talked to Mr Duglass Evelith. You know Mr Evelith? Well, you've heard of Mr Evelith, at least. Mr Evelith's been making a study of psychic disturbances in Salem and Granitehead, and he agrees with us that the probable cause of all these manifestations like Jane's and Mr Edgar Simons' is — well, is something that's submerged in an old wreck off the Granitehead coast. The wreck of a ship called the David Dark.'

'I don't understand,' said Walter.

'Neither do I, completely. But apparently the hold of that wreck contains a thing like a giant skeleton, which was brought to Salem in the late 1680s from Mexico. The skeleton was said to be a demon called… just a minute, I have it written down here… Mictantecutli. The lord of Mictlampa, the region of the dead. It was supposed to have been Mictantecutli's power that created all the havoc that led to the Salem witch-trials; and even though it's sunk beneath the ocean, and several feet of bottom-mud, it's still affecting the dead of Granitehead, and refusing to let them rest.'

Walter stared at me as if I was completely mad; but I knew that the only way in which I could convince both him and myself of the true danger of Mictantecutli was if I kept on, and described what needed to be done as rationally and as calmly as I could.

'The wreck of the David Dark is going to have to be located,' I said. Then, when we've located it, it's going to have to be raised, and the copper vessel containing Mictantecutli removed, and taken to Tewksbury for old man Evelith to deal with.'

'What can he do with it that nobody else can?' Walter wanted to know.

'He won't say. But he strongly advised us not to try to tackle the demon on our own.'

'Demon,' said Walter, skeptically; then looked at me narrowly. 'You really believe it's a demon?'

'Demon is kind of an old-fashioned way of putting it,' I admitted. 'I guess these days we'd call it a psychic artifact. But whatever it is, and whatever we call it, the fact remains that the David Dark appears to be the centre of some extremely intense hypernatural activity; and that the only obvious way of finding out what it is, and how to put a stop to it, is to raise the wreck.'

Walter said nothing, but finished his second glass of whisky and say back in his chair, exhausted, tranquillized, and already half-stoned. I don't suppose I should have been giving him alcohol on top of sedatives, but for my money he needed all the numbness he could get.

I said, as persuasively as I could, 'Even if the wreck isn't what we believe it to be, raising it off the seabed will still be a profitable enterprise. There'll be all kinds of archaeological spinoffs, as well as souvenirs, book rights, television rights, that kind of stuff. And once we've raised the wreck, it could be put on public show during restoration, and we could make quite a steady income out of admission fees.'

'You're asking me for money,' Walter surmised.

The David Dark can't be raised without finance.'

'How much finance?'

'Edward Wardwell — he's one of the guys from the Peabody — he reckons five to six million.'

'Five to six million! Where the hell am I going to get five to six million?'

'Come on, Walter, most of your clients are business people. If only twenty or thirty of them could be persuaded to invest in raising the David Dark, that would only mean about $150,000 each. It would give them the prestige of being involved in an historic salvaging operation, as well as the opportunity to write off all of the money against tax.'

'I couldn't advise anybody to put their money into raising a 300-year-old wreck that might not even be there.'

'Walter, you have to. If you don't, Jane's spirit and the spirits of hundreds of other people are going to be damned and cursed for all eternity; never resting; never finding peace. And if all these recent events have been anything to go by, the power of Mictantecutli is becoming stronger. Duglass Evelith believes that the copper vessel in which it's been lying for all these hundreds of years may be corroding. The plain fact of the matter is that we have to get to Mictantecutli before Mictantecutli gets to us.'

Walter said, 'I'm sorry, John. It can't be done. If any one of my clients gets to hear why I've asked him to invest $150,000 in a salvage operation, if any one of them suspects that I've done it to lay a ghost; well, there won't be any doubt about it. My reputation will be finished and so will the reputation of my partnership. I'm sorry.'

'Walter, I'm asking you this for the sake of your own daughter. Don't you know what she's going through, what she must be feeling?'

'I can't,' said Walter. Then, 'Let me think about it tomorrow. Right now I don't know what the hell I'm doing or thinking.'

'Okay,' I said, more gently. 'Do you want me to help you get to bed?'

'I'll just sit here for a while. But if you want to get some sleep, don't let me stop you. You must be as tired as I am.'

Tired?' I asked him. I didn't know whether I was or not. 'I think I'm more frightened than tired.'

'Well,' said Walter. He reached out and gripped my hand; and for the first time since we had met, I felt that there was a bond between us, father and son-in-law, even though we had both lost everything that was supposed to keep us together. 'I have to admit it,' he said, 'I'm frightened, too.'

Twenty-Three

I spent Monday in the shop, even though there was very little business around. I sold a set of etchings of compass roses designed by Theodore Lawrence in the 1830s, and a ship in a bottle, but I really needed to sell a few figureheads and a couple of cannon to keep my profits up to scratch. At lunchtime I went across to the Crumblin' Cookie and talked to Laura.

'You're looking down today,' she remarked. 'Anything wrong?'

'My mother-in-law died over the weekend.'

'I didn't think you liked her too much anyway.'

'I've always admired you for your tact,' I retorted, a little too caustically.

'We don't serve tact here,' said Laura. 'Only coffee and cookies and cold hard facts. Was she ill?'

'Who?'

'Your mother-in-law.'

'She, um… had a kind of an accident.'

Laura stared at me, her head slightly cocked to one side. 'You're upset, aren't you?' she asked me. 'You're really upset. I'm sorry. The way you used to talk about your mother-in-law before… I didn't realize. Look, I'm really sorry.'

I managed a smile. 'You don't have to be sorry. I'm tired, that's all. A whole lot of bad things have been happening one after the other and on top of that I haven't been getting much sleep.'

'I know what to do,' said Laura. 'Come round to my place this evening and I'll cook you my Italian specialty. You like Italian?'

'Laura, you don't have to. I'm fine, really.'

'Do you want to come or don't you? I expect you to bring some wine.'

I put up my hands. 'Okay, thanks, I'd love to. I surrender. What time do you want me?'

'Eight, sharp. I may not get too hungry for dinner at eight, but I do get too hungry for dinner at eight-oh-five.'

'Even working here?'

'Brother, when you've eaten one cookie you've eaten them all.'

The afternoon back at the shop went by with unimaginable slowness. The sunlight crawled around the walls, illuminating the marine chronometers, the sailing-ship paintings, the brass cleat-hooks. I tried to telephone Edward at the Peabody, but I was told that he was out at an auction. Then I called Gilly but she was busy in the store and said she would call me back. I even called my mother in St Louis but there was no reply. I sat back at my desk reading a property magazine that had come through the door that morning and feeling as if I were totally alone on a strange planet.