Chương 31: Chapter 30 - Bones

"Cannibalism?" I muttered. We were in the drawing room. Since Kappa and I were wrapping his present to Iset, Olivia had pigeonholed the mummy in the library. Jacky had taken the children off to his study to give me a chance to warm up, and Conrad was sitting on the couch behind me, presumably to make sure I actually took my break from being a ghost nanny. The worrywart. Kappa was down on the floor with me. He insisted on helping wrap the present, but the water he secreted was making things difficult.

I told him he could put his finger down on the knot of the ribbon as I tied it. Hopefully that wouldn't warp the wrapping paper too badly. Darius, who had been pacing around the furniture behind me, dropped into one of the armchairs.

"Yes," he said.

"Raw too, which is unusual. But three of our missing people are now murder victims. Only the housekeeper and Mr. Bessly are still missing."

"Only their bodies are missing," Conrad muttered. The count sighed.

"I suspect you're right."

"Mera," Kappa moaned.

"Oh! Right." I turned to him.

"Which ribbon?" He pointed to the bright blue spool of ribbon that clashed horribly with the paper he'd chosen. Darius must have been really tired; he didn't even comment. As I pulled out a long length of the ribbon, I tried to figure out how to phrase the weird almost-question that was burbling around my skull.

"What did it look like?" I asked.

"The shack." Darius stared at me.

"You want me to describe it?"

"Not—no. Not exactly. But…what did it look like?" He continued staring at me. Conrad said, "You're going to have to be a little clearer than that, Emerra."

"Was it like a nest? Were the bones… thrown around everywhere? What was that place to the monster? Was it his home, or just a place he hid his dinner scraps?" I paled at the sound of my own question. Because I'm tough like that. Darius said, "It wasn't a nest, and it wasn't careless about it. Each body was given its own pile on the edge of the room. It's possible it stayed in the shack with the bodies, but I don't know.

There's also some evidence that he might have kept the humans alive for a while before eating them—but not for longer than a day."

"How can you tell?"

"Would you take my word for it that you don't want to know?"

"You know, I would." I turned my attention to the ribbon.

"Why did you want to know?" Conrad asked. I mustered a shrug.

"I guess I'm trying to figure out what kind of a creature it is." I tied the first part of the knot, then coached Kappa on where to put his bulbed fingertip. As he held the knot down, I said, as casually as anyone can say, "Jan and Jacob's parents were eaten by a human."

"Are you sure?" Darius said.

"I don't know how accurate it is. Old Moses said it when he brought them into town." Kappa let out a screech as I tied the knot over his finger. When he moved it, I finished tightening the bow. I handed the present to Kappa and told him to put it under the tree in the front hall. As my little buddy pattered off to do exactly that, I yelled after him to leave the other presents alone. Then, without turning around, I told Darius and Conrad about my latest dream. The silence that followed was longer than the story.

"It's some kind of possession, isn't it?" I said.

"That, or shapeshifting," Conrad said.

"For real? There are monsters out there that can shapeshift?" He shrugged.

"There are some shapeshifters out there that you might not even call monsters." Too late, I remembered Conrad had a wolf form.

"But I mean, like, natural shapeshifters. Not people who use magic." Darius muttered, in a distracted kind of way, "All shapeshifters use magic. Even the natural ones." He leaned forward.

"Emerra, when you and Olivia saw the creature, she said it looked human?" I nodded.

"We have to talk to Anna," he said.

"Why?"

"She saw the creature. She was right next to it. She might know something."

"What could she know? She's a child! Besides, she doesn't remember anything."

"Try again, Mera," Conrad said. I looked at him.

"You smell scared," he said softly.

"Why are you scared?"

"I'm not scared!" I protested.

"I just don't think it will help anything if we drag all this back up."

"You haven't told her about the dream, have you?" Darius said.

"What do you think a ten-year-old girl is going to know about a supernatural monster that we don't?"

"She might know what happened to it."

"She was killed by it. Why would she know what happened to it?" Darius leaned back in his chair.

"I don't think she was."

"What?"

"I don't think the monster killed her. Jacky said that all of the monster's victims passed on without difficulty. Why would Anna and the boys be any different?" I was infuriated by the fact he had a point.

"We can at least ask her," Darius said. I'm usually a wad of pride when it comes to some things, but since I was choking up anyway, and it was on behalf of someone I cared about, I didn't bother hiding how shaky my voice was.

"Please don't." Darius looked away, so I knew my shot had hit home. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I went on, "She's happy now. Why would you make her remember something so painful? Do you even know what it's like—""I was a soldier, Emerra." Darius's voice was cold and abrupt.

"I know what it's like." My mind drifted back over history, trying to orient itself. Conrad must have seen my blank expression.

"Both World Wars," he supplied. I stared at Darius with a sense of horrified awe.

"I know it's awful," the vampire said, "and I know you don't want to do it, so I want you to decide, here and now, what's more important—protecting Anna from her painful memories or possibly saving lives." I fumbled around with the wrapping paper as I put it in the pile with the others. I stacked the rolls of ribbon back in the basket and laid the scissors on top. That gave me enough time to gather myself up.

"I'll go get Anna," I muttered as I got to my feet. I went over to Jacky's study, opened the door, and beckoned to Anna. Big Jacky was lecturing Jacob and Jan on the game theory of Connect Four. He waved me away when I asked if he would keep an eye on the boys for a while longer. After I shut the door, Anna said, "Are you all right?" I knelt down in front of her.

"Anna, something terrible is happening in my town. We wondered if it might have something to do with what happened to you and Jacob and Jan." She bounced up on her translucent feet.

"How can I help?" I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Either this child didn't remember enough to know how bad it would be, or she was the bravest soul alive. I mean—dead. The bravest soul…dead. Whatever. I stood up.

"Come on." I took her into the drawing room and led her into the magic circle. Darius wished her a good evening, which I relayed to her. She nodded to him. The way she looked at the count reminded me of the awe I had felt staring up at Patroon Krusen in my dream. When she looked at Conrad, she offered him a wave. Apparently, students didn't get the same respect as manner-obsessed vampires. Conrad waved back. Then I went through one of the most uncomfortable half hours of my second life.

At first, when I told Anna about what was happening in town, I had to draw the parallels for her, reminding her what had happened in her own time, but when I mentioned the smell, she nodded and took over describing it. As I went on, she started to add details to the stories that I couldn't remember from the dreams, so I knew at least some of her memories had returned. She grew more and more somber. Her face lost all character, and she wouldn't look at any of us.

"Anna, do you remember the night Dominie went to talk to the mayor?" I asked. She didn't move. She might as well have been a statue made of mist.

"Anna—""I don't remember," she said.

"There's something there, but…I don't remember." I glanced over at Darius. He was leaning forward in the armchair with his elbows on his knees. He didn't twitch. He wouldn't even raise one of his stupid eyebrows—after all, he'd left the choice to me. When I looked back at Anna, I'm sure my face looked just as scared and sad as hers.

"It was cold," I said.

"There was a fire in the fireplace. The boys were asleep in their bed, and Dominie was at his desk by the window, writing by candlelight." She listened to the story in silence. When I got to the part when she divided up the food, she suddenly broke in.

"I told them!" she cried.

"I told them he would come back." She seemed so upset, I groped for a way to reassure her.

"He did come back." She violently shook her head.

"It wasn't him." I turned to Darius and Conrad.

"I think she remembers now."

"Anna," Darius said, "what happened to Dominie?" I relayed the question.

"He was dead," she said.

"It wasn't him."

"Then what was it?"

"The monster."

"What monster?"

"Jacob and Jan knew it. They woke up, and they smelled it. We had to pretend we didn't know." I burbled out a rough translation as she spoke.

"I lied," she said.

"I took them out to go to the privy, but instead we ran. We ran out into the woods, away from town." She hesitated, then fell silent.

"Do you remember where you were going?" I asked. There was a long silence, then Anna said, "We shouldn't have gone." The moment she muttered those words, I remembered the voice from my dream—the panicked command, "Don't go." The tone had been completely different from Anna's sad, quiet whisper, but the anguish in the voice was the same. I had been kneeling beside her, but now I dropped onto my butt. If I hadn't put my arms behind me, I might have fallen to the floor.

"The sisters," I said.

"You went to the sisters, didn't you?" She shook her head.

"You did. You weren't supposed to go, but you did."

"We had nowhere else to go! The villagers wouldn't let Jacob and Jan near them. The children threw rocks." My heart burned with indignation. It's a good thing those villagers were already dead, or I would have found some seventeenth-century butts and given them a hard kicking.

"Why would they do that?"

"They said it was their fault—that the boys were cursed."

"Mera," Conrad said, "what's going on?" In my shock, I had stopped translating. I took a second to fill them in, then turned back to Anna.

"Do you remember going to the four sisters?" I asked.

"I remember the woods. The snow was hard."

"Nothing else?"

"No."

"Do you know if you arrived there?" By now she looked so miserable, I would have asked someone to kill me again if it meant I could hug her.

"It was my fault," she said.

"None of this was your fault!" I yelled. Now I knew how my therapists had felt. Wow, kids try to take a lot on themselves.

"Anna," I said, "please try to remember. Did you make it to the sisters' house?"

"I think so."

"What happened?"

"Something bad."

"Do you remember what?" She shook her head again. I told Conrad and Darius what she'd said.

"If she doesn't remember, how does she know it's bad?" Conrad asked. I knew the answer, so didn't bother asking.

"Because she's scared to remember." Darius said, "Ask her if she remembers what happened to the real Dominie." I relayed the question.

"He's dead," she repeated.

"How did he die?" She stared at me for so long, I repeated the question, thinking she hadn't heard me. She continued staring at me, as if I might have the answers.

"What happened to him?" I said. Her gaze drifted away. As my eyes followed hers, I realized she was staring in the direction she always fixated on whenever she haunted the front door. Bones. A horrible suspicion stole over me.

"Anna, were you watching Dominie's bones?"

"Yes." She sounded happy and sad at the same time, like someone had been kind enough to return her treasured box of grief.

"We watched over him." I turned to Darius and Conrad. I couldn't think how to explain it, so all I did was repeat her answer, word for word.

"Is that what's tethering them here?" I asked.

"Are they stuck watching over his body until it's properly buried?" Darius shook his head, then forced himself to sit up.

"The dominie was a respected religious figure. When he died, the townspeople would have made sure he was properly buried—""But they didn't know. They said he was missing, presumed dead."

"Emerra, even if the children knew where his body was, they couldn't be tethered to the bones themselves. Bones don't last that long. As the body deteriorated, their tie to this world would have deteriorated as well." Conrad said, "Could their intention be what tied them here?"

"Then it would have faded as their memories did."

"But Anna remembered," I said.

"She was obsessed with it…" My voice trailed off. She had been obsessed with it, but her memory had also been confused. She knew she had to watch the bones, but until I had told her, she didn't even know whose bones she was watching. Darius raised his hand in a shrug.

"We don't know enough yet to know what's going on. Something is binding them to this world, and it's more powerful than anything I've encountered before—powerful enough to keep three souls captive for almost four hundred years. Whatever's binding them must have lasted that whole time." He paused, then said in a quiet voice, "And we need to be asking more about the monster." Reluctantly, I turned back to Anna. She had been watching us talk with a troubled look on her face.

I asked her about the monster, but we learned nothing new. Jacob and Jan had never told her about how their parents died. Anna knew the thing in the house wasn't Dominie because its face had been wrong. Even though every feature was undoubtedly his, a kind of eerie strangeness was visible from every angle. The way he moved was unnatural, and he limped when he had never limped before. She had very few memories after they left to go to the sisters' house.

There were snippets of images and sensations, but the only thing she remembered well were the emotions. We could see the sorrow and horror on her face as she relived them. When it was obvious that Anna wasn't going to remember any more, Darius got down from the armchair and came over to us.

"Miss Anna," he said, "I'm very sorry we had to ask you all these questions." I translated. He said, "Thank you for your help." She nodded when I repeated it.

"I hope, that if you remember anything else, you'll please tell Emerra—anything at all, no matter how unimportant you think it might be."

"Yes, sir," she said. Darius gave her an appraising look, then said, "Emerra, ask her if she knows what she's bound to." I asked. It was obvious she didn't understand, so I tried to explain. Anna was still confused. I said to Darius, "It's no good. She doesn't know." He sighed.

"Keep an eye out for it tonight, Emerra."

"What?"

"In your dreams." My feet and legs tingled as I stood up.

"What makes you think I'll see it?"

"You mean you haven't noticed?" Conrad said.

"Noticed what?"

"You learned that Dominie went missing, then you dreamed about the night he went missing. You saw the monster, that night you dreamed about when Anna saw the monster."

"You think my dreams are…what? Following my life?" The wolfman shrugged, but Darius said, "Why not? Dreams are the brain's way of sifting and working through our daily lives. Maybe that's what your brain is doing, but your poor brain has some extra information to sift through."

"Okay, you didn't have to add that 'poor brain' bit. It's doing the best it can. It doesn't need your pity." Darius smirked.

"You don't think it's a trifle overburdened?"

"See, I knew that's what you were thinking." He patted my shoulder.

"Let's hope we're right. Then maybe we'll be able to figure out what's going on."