Marcus Sedgwick - The Book of Dead Days

There were two large barns, into one of which the coach driver had vanished with his horse. The other was a little smaller. And there was the church.

There was no one around, though they could see firelight inside some of the windows and could hear the sounds of a village preparing to rest at the end of a winter’s day. A dog barked behind one of the houses. A rickety door slammed. They felt utterly alone.

“I don’t like the countryside,” said Willow.

“Hmm,” said Valerian. “It can be a little… quiet.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Boy. “Where are we going to sleep?”

“We’re not,” said Valerian. “The first thing to do is find what we came here for-the book. Then we’ll get a horse and take ourselves back.”

“You mean… steal one?” asked Willow.

“If we have to,” said Valerian. “I’ll be damned if I spend the night in this hole.”

He realized the other meaning of his words and fell silent.

It did not go well.

They made their way to the churchyard.

“We’ll need to find a spade,” said Valerian. “There’ll be something in the mill…”

He tripped and fell forward, landing on his knees.

Willow and Boy knelt beside him.

“Don’t fuss!” he snapped, and they jumped back.

He struggled to his feet, but this time when Boy and Willow each put a hand out to help him, he did not argue.

They staggered to the churchyard, where they leant Valerian against the wall on a low buttress that ran around the outside.

He shook his head.

“You’ll have to do it,” he whispered. He drank the first of his last bottle and pulled a face. “You two will have to do it.”

Boy and Willow looked at each other.

“Dammit!” cried Valerian. “I can’t move for pain. I can’t walk and I certainly won’t be able to dig. You’ll have to do it.”

They nodded in unison.

“Boy! Go to the mill. They must have some sort of shovel for moving the corn. Girl! Start looking. Remember, Gad Beebe is the-”

“Of course I remember,” said Willow. “I found the name for you!”

She glared at Valerian, who hung his head. He lifted his hand and waved them feebly away.

“Come on,” said Boy quietly.

The light was failing fast but there was just enough to see the names on the gravestones, though Willow had to scrape the snow off a few of them to be able to read the name of the grave’s occupant.

Before Boy returned with the spade, Willow had made a full circuit of all the stones in the small yard.

Boy found her standing in a far corner of the graveyard.

“Which one is it?” he asked, clutching a long-handled wooden spade.

She shook her head.

“He’s got it wrong,” she said. “It’s none of them.” Boy stared at her.

“I’m too afraid to tell him.”

“You must be wrong. Let’s have another look.”

“Boy-”

“We can’t tell him that,” said Boy. He looked over at Valerian slumped against the wall of the church. “Let’s have another look.”

Boy felt a strange sense come over him as they searched the stones. A sense of being outside himself, of not needing to be there in the snowy village deep in the countryside. Yes, he was cold and hungry and miserable, but it was something more than that. It felt as if he was in the wrong place, going the wrong way.

Though they searched the graveyard until the light was nearly gone, Gad Beebe’s last resting place was not to be found.

When they got back to Valerian the snow had stopped but it was very, very cold. He looked old and on the point of freezing.

His eyes read their faces as they approached and they were spared the job of having to tell him.

“He’s not there, is he,” Valerian said. His head dropped.

Boy, still clutching the spade, opened his mouth.

“Don’t say ‘What are we going to do?’,” Valerian said without looking up, “because I don’t know.”

“We need to get inside somewhere,” said Willow.

“Yes,” Boy said. “Let’s get inside somewhere.”

“What about the church?” suggested Willow.

“Very well,” said Valerian hoarsely. “Help me up.”

Gratefully, Boy and Willow pulled and levered Valerian into a standing position. It seemed that his legs had practically frozen solid where he leant against the church. Boy put the spade under his arm for him to use as a crutch, and they crept slowly forward.

Once again they staggered through the graveyard, taking the path to the church door. It was not locked and they pulled Valerian out of the bitter, biting wind.

The heavy oak door swung behind them, pulled shut by a counterweight. A massive church silence descended.

They settled Valerian on a pew at the side of the aisle. There were candles burning all around the altar and in other alcoves. Having been lit for the festival, they would be kept alight for twelve days. Willow was mightily glad to see them.

“Come on,” she said to Boy, and started to collect them two at a time. They took about two dozen thick and tall goose-white candles back to where Valerian lay on the pew, and placed them on the flagstones in front of him. The effect of the flames from the tallow candles was impressive, like a small fire, and slowly Valerian came back to life.

Using the spade as a prop he pushed himself upright, until he was sitting more or less vertically on the pew.

“Well,” he said, “let me ask you two a question. What are we going to do now?”

“Don’t joke,” said Willow.

“I’m not,” said Valerian. “Everything I have tried has failed. I have been foiled at every twist and turn. All my decisions have turned out badly and now we are sitting in a freezing church in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting home and even if we did… my prospects are not good. So, I think that you may as well decide what we do next.”

What is there to do? thought Boy miserably.

“We ought to find something to eat,” he said. “We could ask at one of the houses. The driver must be staying in one of them. Maybe he’ll help us.”

“Him?” said Valerian. “That swine!”

“Well,” said Willow, “we can’t just sit here.”

She looked at Valerian, who was staring into space behind her head.

“Non omnem videt molitor aquam molam praeterfluentem!” he said.

“Valerian!” Boy cried. “Stop it! You’re scaring me!”

But Valerian rose to his feet and pointed at the wall. “ Non omnem videt molitor aquam molam praeterfluentem! ”

“Stop it!” Boy shouted.

“No! Look! Non omnem videt molitor aquam molam praeterfluentem. ‘The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.’ Willow and I have seen that before!”

There on the wall behind them was a huge shield, a coat of arms, painted onto the stone. Its central image was a waterwheel, just like the sort frozen solid in the winter’s night outside the churchyard. Emblazoned across the top was the motto Valerian had read.

“Look!” said Willow. “There!” She ran over and pointed to the name beneath the crest.

William Beebe.

“Beebe! This is his family crest!” said Valerian. “It must have been a wealthy family. He’s not buried outside at all. He’s in here somewhere! Look! There’s another!”

He pointed.

A little farther down was the same coat of arms, with another name. Daniel Hawthorn Beebe.

“Quick!” Valerian cried, his strength miraculously returning. “Quick!”

But Boy was already scampering down the church.

Joseph and Sophia Beebe.

John Israel Beebe.

And then, there it was.

Gad Beebe.

“Here!” called Boy. “It’s here!”