Whoever it was, there had been manacles about his wrists and ankles, with chains on them. Clothing had not survived, but there had been silver buttons on his coat and trousers, and he had worn fine leather boots with silver buckles. Another buckle might have been an ornament on a hat. Lord Mathew tentatively dated these objects to the time of Charles the First. Since this was the time of the Civil War, and many records were lost then when the manor was invaded by Roundheads and many things stolen or burned, Lord Mathew despaired of finding any answer.
Still, he tried—and erring on the side of compassion, turned the remains over to the vicar of the time for a Christian burial.
Nothing else of note was taken out of the well, and that ended the tales of moaning and cursing coming from the well. Lord
Mathew’s researches were in vain; because so many people died or vanished during that time, there simply was no telling who it could have been.
They closed the book and looked at each other, the odd sourish smell of an old book still in their nostrils.
“Well,” Sarah said finally, “you have enough to write that report for Mem’sab now.” And it was true that she did, but the results were less than satisfying.
Nan nodded. “But it don’t solve the mystery,” she added, feeling obscurely disappointed.
“Crumbs,” Tommy said, clearly disappointed. “It doesn’t. Maybe Mem’sab will have some ideas where to look next.”
Nan sighed, and went to fetch pen and paper to write her report. She had no illusions about her report winning the coveted place at Mem’sab’s side, but now she was far more interested in getting to the bottom of this than going to the Horse Fair.
***
She had to wait until she was alone with the headmistress before she could bring up the topic. “I wonder,” Mem’sab said slowly, after she and Nan had finished another of her “special” lessons. “I wonder if there isn’t a way to find something out about the mysterious body in the well directly.” And she looked straight at Nan.
The implication was obvious, since Nan had just completed another lesson in psychometry, one in which she had learned to tell how far back in time a particular reading on an object had taken place. They were sitting in the parlor, and Nan had just “read” one of the old vases there, a huge blue-and-white monstrosity that was always full of fresh flowers.
“Wot? Me?” Nan said, startled. “ ‘Ow? We ’aven’t got the skellington, or even them silver buttons.” Whatever had become of those objects was a mystery, though Nan figured they had been buried along with the remains. They weren’t novel enough, nor old enough, to have entered Lord Mathew’s collection of artifacts and souvenirs.
“The well, Nan,” Mem’sab pointed out. “You can ‘read’ the well itself.”
“Oo-eck.” Nan could have hit herself for not thinking of that solution earlier. “ ‘Course I can! Mind, there’s been a lot ‘uv people gone and touched that well since, things’ll be a bit dimlike.”
Mem’sab gave her an admonishing look. “Don’t you think that’s all to the good? Considering that we are discussing the circumstances that led to a man’s perishing there, laden with chains? This is not something that I would care to experience at first hand.”
Nan shrugged. Sometimes Mem’sab forgot how little Nan had been sheltered from. Murder in Whitechapel was a way of life, so to speak. “ ‘Sides,” she continued, “I got Neville now. He stood down that nasty thing in Berkeley Square. I don’t reckon something that never did wuss than swear ‘ud bother him none.”
From the back of the chair beside her, Neville bobbed his head, fluffed his feathers, and uttered a short “quork.”
“I am more than willing for you to try this, or I would not have suggested it in the first place,” Mem’sab said, interlacing her fingers together in her lap. “However, there are some things we should consider first, and discuss, you and I, and things that I should research myself. I don’t want you plunging headfirst into this, and especially I do not want you doing this without me. Do I have your word?”
With a sigh, and with a glare from Neville that suggested that if she did not promise, he might well give her a good peck, she gave her word.
“First of all, although the memories are old and the remains are no longer physically present, a spirit could still be bound to the place of its death and you could awaken it,” Mem’sab said thoughtfully. “That could be good—we might be able to convince it to go on its way—or bad—because it might attack. So at the very least, I need to be there, and most of the children need to be kept away. I would prefer it if Sahib and possibly Agansing could also be present. Agansing’s people have a great deal of experience with Ancestor Spirits, both good and bad, and that might come in handy.”
“Most of the others—you’re thinkin’ Sarah ought to be there, too?” Nan hazarded.
Mem’sab nodded, but reluctantly, keeping her eyes focused on Nan’s. “Yes and no. Yes, because if there is a spirit, she is the one most likely to be able to speak to it. And no, because if there is a spirit, it may attempt to take her.”
“There’s Grey—” Nan pointed out. “She’s Sarah’s protector. Right?”
“Ye-es,” Mem’sab agreed, but with some doubt. “I simply don’t know how powerful a protector Grey is. And there is also the possibility that you could be harmed by this as well. These are all things that need to be balanced.”
With a sigh, Nan agreed. By this point, it was pretty obvious that Mem’sab was not going to march straight down to the well and have Nan try her power of seeing things in something’s past right soon. It was going to wait until the weekend, at best, which was when Sahib would be coming.
She did, however, go tell Sarah about Mem’sab’s idea that night at bedtime. Both Sarah and Grey listened attentively.
And Sarah, who was sitting in bed clasping her knees with her arms, shivered when she had finished. “I’m not very brave,” she said quietly. “Not like you, Nan.”
Nan snorted. “Brave enough,” she said roughly. “ ‘Ow brave is brave, an’ when does it spill over to daft? Eh? I done plenty daft things some ‘un might say was brave.”
Sarah had to laugh at that. “I don’t like to think of anything trapped or in pain, or both,” she went on. “But that horrible thing in Berkeley Square—it scared me, Nan. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”
“No more do I, but this thing, the well, it don’t feel like that thing in London,” Nan pointed out. Then she sighed. “Really, though, we ain’t got a choice. We’ll get to do what Mem’sab says we can.”
“That’s true, and Mem’sab won’t let us do anything that is really dangerous,” Sarah replied, brightening, and changed the topic to speculation on who was going to win the coveted expedition to the Horse Fair.
But Nan stared up at the ceiling after the candles were out with her hands behind her head, thinking. It was true that Mem’sab would normally not let them do anything dangerous…
Not knowingly. But even Mem’sab was concerned that there were hidden dangers here she could not anticipate.
That factor alone was enough to give Nan pause, and she tried to think of things that maybe Mem’sab would not, only to decide that this was an exercise in futility.
Oh, well
, she decided finally, as she gave up the fight to hold off sleep.
Things’ll ‘appen as they ’appen, like Gram used to say. Let’t‘morrow take care of itself
.
11
MEMSA’B, Nan decided, looked worried, but was hiding it well. Nan was more excited than worried, and Neville looked positively impatient to get things started.