“The caryatids?” Michael squeaked.
Marsden humphed. “My Greek sisters. Or at least they look it. Very popular, the Greek look, when they was installed. Bit too short, mind—cut ’em off in the middle so they’d fit. Just mouthpieces, though. Not a decent thought in any of their own heads. They mostly let the dead speak through them, but they do have some personality of their own. You’d best be nice to ’em or they won’t say nowt.”
“But they’re statues!”
“Empty iron pillars, actually. The statue part’s just clay. But y’see, the pillars reach down into the crypt. What the dead know, they know.”
It sounded as likely as anything I’d encountered in the Grey, though it had to sound crazy to most people. I wasn’t going to recount my conversation with Sekhmet to Michael, who was still staring in frustration at the rank of caryatids, so I only said, “Things are often more than they seem. Especially old things that have been hanging around a while.”
“Most especially old things what have been hanging about over a crypt and across the road from a train station. We should go inside the fence so we don’t have to yell at ’em,” Marsden suggested.
Bewildered, Michael followed us around the corner and into the church’s entryway. We started up the stairs so we could jump down into the small side yard but got no farther as a woman emerged from the church and called out to us.
We all turned.
She was a round, middle-aged woman with muddy red hair, dressed in a bland, conservative dress and low-heeled shoes. “Hullo! Come to see the church?”
Michael was the quickest of us. He turned to face the woman, nodding. “Hi! I’m at university down the street,” he said, pointing south. “We wanted to take a look at the caryatids.”
“Oh. The one’s under renovation, I’m afraid. Would you prefer the south porch? They’re all four there.”
Michael cast a querying glance at us, and Marsden shook his head. “No. It’s the renovations we’re interested in.”
“Can’t see much with the shroud on her,” the woman said in doubtful tones. “Should be much more interesting once they’ve got the work further along.”
“That’s all right—we want to see the contrast. Y’know. Track the progress over time. Is it all right if we go look at them a little closer? Take some sketches and photos, make some notes about the progress?”
“Oh. Well. Of course. Yes. You can’t get up to the porch at the moment to take a really good look—ladder’s away for the weekend to discourage children from climbing about—but if you’re satisfied looking from the ground. ”
“That’ll be fine. Thanks!” Michael added, waving the woman away with a smile. It was the same sort of reassuring blather his brother used with nervous customers, and hearing Michael do it made me sad and roused my worry over Will anew.
We hopped down and hurried around the building out of the woman’s sight.
“Nice work,” I said.
Michael grinned and took the lead to the crypt. Once in front of its red door, Marsden resumed command.
“That was cleverly done, boy. Care to be the lookout while we see who’s home?”
“Lookout for what?”
“Anyone as might think it odd that we’re talking to statues.”
Michael nodded and agreed to keep his eyes peeled. Marsden told me to lean back against the fence so I could keep an eye on the three uncovered statues while he tried to get their attention.
I put my weight on the fence and looked up. The three statues were identical except that one was the mirror image of the other two. They were all long-haired women wearing some kind of Grecian dress—not a toga, since I knew only men wore those—and each had an extinguished torch of reeds resting on the ground in one hand and a jug dangling from the other hand. They looked rather odd from my angle; like their legs were too long and heavy for their bodies. And the faces and hair didn’t seem like the ones I’d seen in museums; they were somehow more Western and smooth than I remembered.
Marsden spoke quietly. “Good morning. Anyone care to talk? We’re in need of some help.” I wouldn’t have expected such a deferential tone from him, but I suppose when you’re dealing with a potential cryptful of ghosts, you don’t start out by pissing them off.
Nothing happened for a while. The air around the crypt seemed a bit brighter than the air farther away, but it didn’t seem particularly energized and there was no sign of specific ghosts, only a single hot line of blue energy that struck through the crypt from the east side. Then something pale white seeped up from the dirty stones and wreathed around the three statues. The plastic sheeting billowed in opposition to the prevailing wind of passing traffic. A second flush of colored mist and spiderweb light crept up the figures and played over their faces, casting shadows that made them seem alive.
“Go away,” one of the statues moaned.
“It’s much too early to get up,” another groused. “Can’t you come back later?”
A girl giggled, a slightly cracked sound like someone on the verge of a breakdown, while the covered one muttered unintelligible word gravel.
None of them were actually moving at all, yet the voices seemed to come from them into my ears, not straight into my head the way some ghosts did. Michael was staring at them with eyes wider than the church doors. I motioned him to get back to his job. If he could make out the presence of whatever animated the caryatids, it was a safe bet others might, too, and that wouldn’t do.
“Mornin’, my dears,” Marsden said.
A muffled voice spoke from somewhere inside the crypt, rising upward, “Is that my Peter?”
“Of course it’s Peter. No one else bothers to come talk to us.”
“I can’t see him. Could you move aside, please?”
Someone scoffed, and the Grey pall over the second caryatid from the left rippled and turned pink, giving the statue a startling semblance of life. The eyes of the statue seemed to blink and the shadow of a smile played across the mouth. The caryatid next to it frowned.
“Good morning, Peter,” the pink one trilled in a voice so excessively sweet it could have given diabetes to abstemious sheep. “It’s so lovely to see you again. It’s been a very long time since you visited.”
“Gad,” the darker one in the middle muttered in a surprisingly deep voice. “I may be unwell if she keeps on.”
“Don’t be snippy,” the one on the far end chastised. “We don’t get so many visitors who actually listen anymore.”
“But do we have to put up with that for it?”
“Do they have to be so loud?” I asked, casting a glance at the passersby on the sidewalk.
“I ’spect it’s the iron column inside ’em,” Marsden said in a low voice. “Resonates.” He turned back to the pink caryatid. “Good morning, Hope, and you, too, Temperance, Prudence.” I guessed that was the dark, grumpy one and the pale, cautious one, in order.
The Tyvek rattled and deflated.
“What are you doing?” the statue in the middle snapped—Temperance, I thought.
“I can’t see anything—there’s a bag on my head!” a new voice whined.
“Chastity!” Prudence, the one at the open end, called. “Come over here and share with me. Leave Tempe alone. You know how she gets.”
The fourth voice muttered something that might have been “old bat,” and moved to the far end, making the shape and visage of the caryatid’s face blur and ripple.
They were like the caricatures of their names. “Don’t tell me,” I muttered. “The four on the south side are the other virtues: Faith, Justice, Fortitude, and Charity.”
“No idea. Them four don’t talk.” Marsden turned back to the masonry sisters. “I am havin’ a problem, so naturally I come to you for help.”