Tim Powers - Hide Me Among the Graves

The steam said, “The river, now — it’s cold and dark, and full of eely things.”

McKee opened her mouth to repeat her question, but the steam went on, “Her father is swallowed in Highgate; she brings him flowers.”

“Swallowed,” said McKee, frowning, “flowers — is he buried? Is he buried in Highgate Cemetery?”

“Often I’ve seen Johanna there,” whispered the blurry oval over the globe of water, “at night. Perhaps I’ll fly to her now.”

“Does she … live at the cemetery?”

“For now she does, I think. Soon she’ll be busy being dead there.”

McKee nodded at Chichuwee, then straightened up and took her birdcage from the shelf and handed it to Crawford. “Take this into the other room,” she told him. “I don’t want her getting back in.”

Chichuwee was dropping handfuls of rusty nails and screws into the water now, and it stopped boiling.

Crawford nodded and crawled back through the curtain into the shaking cacophony of cheeping birds, and stepped down from the wagon to the creaking wooden floor. He walked quickly to the archway through which they had entered, and looked at the bright-eyed bird in the little cage he was holding.

“I imagine you’re glad to be rid of her,” he said quietly.

The bird just blinked at him.

A moment later Chichuwee and McKee emerged from the low wagon doorway; the old dwarf sat down on the wagon bed, nearly invisible again below the bright glare of the lantern, and McKee walked down the steps and crossed to where Crawford stood.

“Piping bullfinches,” came Chichuwee’s deep voice. “Two dozen of ’em.”

Crawford saw McKee wince.

“And four dozen miscellaneous,” the old dwarf added.

“That’d be larks and linnets, mostly, in winter,” McKee said.

“Fine. And scrapings of church bells, Fleetditch or St. Catherine’s.” He glanced at the excited birds and then looked squarely at Crawford. “Any reason you got cat ghosts following you?”

Crawford actually looked behind himself but saw no diaphanous cat forms. “Uh,” he said, “I’m an animal doctor. I—”

Chichuwee interrupted with a wave like a benediction. “You’re mad if you try to find the girl,” he said, “but in any case don’t get killed before you pay me. Travel by day, wear metal, and do you know the crossing sweeper who takes only a ha’penny?”

“I know him,” said McKee.

“Pass through the eye of his needle when you can.”

“And you keep your dice rolling,” said McKee.

She turned away and led Crawford back into the spiral tunnel, and the light quickly faded behind them. Crawford couldn’t see at all now in the darkness after the hard light of the paraffin lantern. He remembered to keep his head down.

“Carpace won’t get a bird to live in,” he guessed. “An ave.”

“No,” came McKee’s voice from ahead of him. “She’s spilled into the sewers, and good enough for her — she’ll wind up in the river with everybody else.”

Crawford didn’t say anything.

“Promises to ghosts don’t count,” McKee said. “They’re promises to nobody.” She plodded through the wet sand for a few moments, then went on, “Piping bullfinches he’ll wait for, they need training, but he’ll want the miscellaneous pretty quick. I’ll have to bring my nets out to Hampstead or Tottenham — used to be I could get hundreds at Primrose Hill, but the railway has frightened them all away. But—” Crawford heard her fist hit the damp brick wall. “But merciful God, how will we get her away from the devils? She was such a sweet-natured baby!”

“I’d — bring a priest,” said Crawford helplessly. “Two priests, big ones.”

“I’m not sure what side of the line priests would see her on. But at least she hasn’t died yet.”

“If Carpace was telling the truth, in any of this.”

“Ghosts are stupid, but they can’t lie.”

Crawford could tell by the curve of the brick wall under his sliding hand that the tunnel was straightening, and soon they were able to stand up in what must have been the circular chamber with the seven arches and the hole in the ceiling, though he still couldn’t see anything.

From some direction he heard again the gasping, moaning sound he’d heard on the way down, and it seemed louder, or closer, now.

“How do we get back up the well?” he asked, barely remembering to whisper.

“We don’t go back up it. Come on.” She patted his arm and took hold of his hand and began leading him forward. “Two to the left from Chichuwee’s is the way out.” They were moving up a slope now.

“What is that noise?”

“Vox cloacarum, the voice of the sewers. Tide and pressure changes force air through all the clogged channels, and you get that.”

The sound trailed off in indistinct syllables this time, though, and Crawford thought he heard sand shifting and rocks grating in the blackness behind and below them. His forehead was cold, and he was suddenly achingly aware of the vast volumes of earth above him, between the windy streets of London and this dark intestine of the earth.

McKee’s hand brushed his face, and then one of her fingers pressed firmly against his lips; and she began tugging him along more quickly.

From behind them, echoing, came a woman’s voice: “John.”

Crawford’s ribs went tinglingly cold. He didn’t stop, but he looked back — a dim blue glow stained the darkness behind them, possibly beyond the curve of the low ceiling.

Veronica! he thought.

“That’s my wife’s voice,” he whispered shakily.

“She’s dead, I believe?”

“That’s right.”

“Keep moving. Don’t say her name.”

They plodded more quickly up the tunnel, their boots sloshing in muddy sand. Crawford dragged the fingers of his free hand along the wall and trusted that McKee had an arm extended in front of them.

The subterranean breeze was at their backs, and the seaweed-and-rot smell was gone — the air now smelled of mimosa.

“Her perfume?” whispered McKee.

A strangled syllable: “Yes.”

“John,” came the voice from behind again; Crawford could hear motion back down there, but the grinding sound seemed to imply a very big body moving. “Be safe. Stay. Forget everything. Never be afraid again.”

The mimosa scent was stronger, cloying. To his surprise, Crawford found himself wanting to obey the voice; he didn’t let go of McKee’s hand or slacken his trotting pace, but the thing behind them was at least to some extent mimicking Veronica, his wife — wouldn’t staying down here with an imitation of her, even a grotesque imitation, be preferable to his empty life in that unroofed world of cold sunlight so far above?

He remembered thinking, at the salon, that McKee was attractive — and now he couldn’t understand why he had thought so.

The breeze from behind was coming intermittently now, in puffs — was it breath, her breath?

“Father,” came a boy’s echoing voice, closer, from back in the darkness. It was the voice of his younger son, Richard. Crawford moaned behind clenched teeth.

“Johanna is still alive,” came McKee’s breathless whisper.

That was right, he had a daughter up there somewhere.

But pledged to death and eventual resurrection.

“I named her,” panted McKee, “after you.”

John, Johann, Johanna. Six or seven years old now. Unbaptized, like the poor animals he cared for.

McKee pinched his thumb hard, and then gripped his hand tightly. Her hand felt hot.

“Stay with me,” she said, quickening their pace still further and pulling him along. “I’m alive.”

And so am I, he thought, suddenly very tired. And a thousand, thousand slimy things lived on, and so did I.