Rosemary Jones: City of the Dead

"No," whispered Sophraea, too terrified to either scream or run. Then she repeated something that she had heard a hundred times around the family table but never understood. "I am a Carver. Carvers can't get lost."

"Of course." The corpse nodded in solemn agreement. "But it is close to sunset. Perhaps you should go home now."

Sophraea just stared back, still frozen into place by this unexpected encounter.

"You came through your family's gate. The Dead End gate." Each word that the corpse spoke was carefully enunciated, much in the manner very ancient relatives used to speak to the youngest Carvers. This mixture of not quite a question, not quite a statement was exactly like the type of conversation Sophraea endured during the visits of her grandmother's elderly lady friends. Perhaps the gentleman was not a corpse, she thought, but simply the male equivalent of the wrinkled, white-haired ladies who sat around the kitchen table.

"Did you come through the Dead End gate?" asked the elderly corpse man again. "Do you know your way there?" Sophraea bobbed her head in tentative agreement. "I will walk with you. It is time that I returned home."

One pale and age-spotted hand slid into a deep pocket. Slowly he withdrew his closed hand and extended it toward Sophraea.

"Would you like a sweetmeat?" he said.

Sophraea shook her head violently. Seeing the ancient face crease with an odd look of uncertainty, as if he knew he had said something wrong but wasn't sure how to correct himself, she added, "I am not supposed to take sweets from strangers. And it is too close to my dinner time. Mama would scold me."

Stepping into the last full rays of the sun, the elderly gentleman leaned over the child. "You are a good girl."

He patted her awkwardly on the head, like a man more used to hounds or horses than children, and pocketed the sweet.

That close, Sophraea saw the wrinkles and spots on his skin looked exactly like those on the hands of the old ladies who came to eat cake with Myemaw and gossip about how the city was once so much grander. Even the mustiness of the elderly man's coat held the same smell of preserving herbs and old house dust as the ladies' cloaks.

"I thought you were a dead man," Sophraea burst out in her relief and the old gentleman's gtay eyebrows rose to his scanty hairline at her pronouncement. "But you're alive! I am sorry, saer."

Removing his wide-brimmed black hat, the old man bowed with exquisite courtesy and stated, "Lord Dorgar Adarbrent, most certainly alive and entirely at your service." A rusty sound came bubbling out of his throat, something halfway between a polite cough and a chuckle, as he replaced his hat.

"Sophraea Carver," said Sophraea, dipping into a brief curtsy as she would to one of her grandmother's friends.

"Now, child, let me walk you home. You should never be in the City of the Dead after dark." The old man scratched his chin as he stared at the child. "Hmmm… in fact, even though you are a Carver, you are quite too young to be here alone at any time."

"That is what everyone says. Sophraea, stay here! Sophraea, don't go there!" confided the little girl, turning obediently at the wave of the nobleman's hand and leading him back along the path toward the Dead End gate. "But the boys were kicking their stupid ball. It is so boring! All I do is sit! So I left and nobody told me to stop."

Lord Adarbrent gave another rusty chuckle. "Ah, I see that the boys were the ones at fault."

Sophraea skidded to a halt. Although she was five, and growing up in the tail-end of a big family had left her with a large vocabulary, she wanted to make certain that she undetstood Lord Adarbrent.

"Does that mean the boys are in trouble?" she asked carefully.

"I rather suspect that they are." Lord Adarbrent nodded, hooking one finger over his nose to hide a smile.

"Oh, good!" cheered Sophraea. "I want to see that!"

As she drew nearer the gate, Sophraea heard shouts, but in a higher and much different tone than when she had left. Recognizing her mother Reyes cries, Sophraea quickly climbed the steps to the Dead End gate.

"Wait for me, child," cried the old gentleman.

Sophraea paused at the top of the gate stairs. Behind her, Lord Adarbrent peered uncertainly through the twilight gloom.

"Come along," said Sophraea. "I must go in."

At the sound of her voice, his head swung up and he stared directly at her. "Ah," he said with satisfaction, "I see the gate now".

"Are you coming?" Sophraea asked.

"Certainly," the old man said, climbing up the moss-slicked stairs.

At the sound of another shout from her mother, Sophraea turned and ran to the center of the courtyard.

All her brothers and all her younger cousins were lined up before her mother Reye. Her uncles Perspicacity, Sagacious, Vigilant, and

Judicious stood in their workshop doors, attracted by the noise. Ail had worried lines creasing their big foreheads. Out of the windows hung at least two aunts and Sophraea's grandmother, each adding her shouts to Reyes scolding.

"How could you have lost her!" yelled Reye. "You were supposed to be watching Sophraea!"

"Don't know," muttered Leaplow.

"Wasn't me," added Bentnor.

Lord Adarbrent gave a small cough behind Sophraea. Reye whirled around and, catching sight of her daughter, sped across the courtyard to snatch the child up. "Where have you been?" she Said. "Look at your skirt. You're all dirty down the front. Where were you?"

The scolding and questions Sew so fast around Sophraea's head that she didn't know when or how to answer. Her father came up to them more slowly. A giant of a man, he looked over his wife's head at Lord Adarbrent and nodded at the old gentleman. "Thank you for bringing our Sophraea back."

The nobleman waved one age-spotted hand in dismissal. "The child knew her own way back. Quite a clever girl, Carver."

With a final bow, Lord Adarbrent crossed the courtyard to the street-side gate and let himself out.

"You've been in the City of the Dead!" shouted Reye. "Oh, you bad, bad boys, to let her go through that gate! She's much too young!" Reye swatted bottoms right and left. The boys fled howling with excuses of "didn't see her!" and "it's not my fault!"

Sophraea's smirk at the rout of her brothers quickly ended as her mother whirled back.

"You bad girl!" cried Reye, swatting Sophraea hard enough to be felt through her petticoats and then hugging her even harder. "You must never go into the City of the Dead alone! It isn't safe! Especially after dark!"

"Sorry, Mama," mumbled Sophraea.

"Now, Reye," said her father. "No harm was done." He squatted down to look Sophraea straight in the eye. "But you must promise never to go through that gate without me or one of your uncles."

"Never?" protested Sophraea, who knew "never" could last as long as a year or more.

"Not until you're a grown girl, pet. The City of the Dead is no place for small children alone. Especially at twilight." Her father hoisted Sophraea up on his shoulder, to give her a ride back to the house. She wrapped her hands around his broad neck and leaned her cheek upon the top of his curly head. "Oh, oh, you're strangling me!" cried her father in mock terror. "What must I do to get rid of this terrible monster!"

Sophraea giggled and kicked her heels upon his shoulder. "Take me home!" she cried.

Despite all the excitement and fussing that followed at supper, Sophraea did not completely forget her father's orders nor to venture alone through the Dead End gate, perhaps because Leaplow made his own promise "to wallop her good" if she ever got him in that much trouble again. But like many Carver family rules, it became relaxed and stretched until she routinely trotted up and down the mossy stairs on errands with the rest of the family.