there.”
“I gets word from Pot Lockney, now and then. Just got some after you left. This man. She might have kilt him, boy.”
“If she did, I’m sure she had her reasons. Not my problem. Not my business.”
Silence. I let it linger, and then got up and started rummaging around for food. I heard the door open behind me, and got a glimpse of Mama walking through it.
“You’re welcome,” I said. And then I ate.
In the end, I wound up sneaking outside via the tunnels.
Lady Werewilk’s homebrew charm might have gotten me a step or two beyond the door before some sharp- eyed lad at the edge of the yard ruined another of my hand-stitched shirts with his rude crossbow. The lady of the house seemed, for the first time since I’d met her, a bit crestfallen by the admission.
I’d had coffee and a roast beef sandwich, though, and I assured her I’d put her hard work to good use.
I had a plan. Lady Werewilk would loose a purposely-clumsy charm at the clump of singed chokeweeds just beyond the door. The weeds would quickly begin to shake and toss about, and they’d light up like a beacon to any wand-wavers nearby. Meanwhile, I’d rise out of the ground in the distant cornfield, while Darla stayed behind to lower the works and let me in only after I issued the secret password. Marlo would be handy to keep her company. Evis would be at my side. Victor and Sara would be somewhere nearby, ready to engage in halfdead mayhem at any threat to Evis and, coincidentally, me.
I felt as safe as I could possibly feel, going outside to meet the likes of Encorla Hisvin.
Darla, Marlo and I waited until what Marlo called hard dark before we moved the oven aside and descended into the dark. That’s when the only variation to my clever planned emerged, in the form of Mama and her infamous oversized meat-cleaver.
“Boy! You down there?”
I cringed. We’d not even reached the bottom of the stairs, and there was Mama’s shaggy head blocking out the light up above.
Darla clutched at my arm. “I swear I didn’t arrange this.”
Mama came stomp-stomping down the stairs. The freshly honed edge of her cleaver gleamed in Marlo’s torchlight.
“Don’t you even think on sending me off to baby-sit no banshees,” she gruffed.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t suppose I could impose on you to keep your voice down to a mere shout?”
“I’m as quiet as a mouse, and you knows it. You better wipe that fool grin off your ugly mug or I’ll wipe off for ye, Farmer Brown. I ain’t to be trifled with.”
The last was delivered to Marlo, who wisely turned away so that the torch no longer lit his face.
“Hush,” I said. “Voices carry, Mama. I know better than to argue with you, and you know better than to get in my way. You speak when you’re spoken to, and you follow my lead, whatever that is. Got it?”
She just nodded. It was the best I could hope for. Whether she’d actually do anything I asked was anybody’s guess.
Evis came ghosting back out of the shadows ahead.
“All clear,” he whispered.
We set out. Darla kept her hand in mine, and I kept my free hand on Toadsticker’s hilt.
We hadn’t gone far when Marlo halted and began to carefully pick up and move the various cast-off treasures that made their home down in the dark with the crickets and the ghosts. Now I knew why I’d missed the cornfield tunnel my first time here-the entrance was covered with junk.
We all joined in, moving slowly and carefully. There might be soldiers hiding ten feet up, through the roots and grubs and soil. The last thing anyone wanted to do was bring a mob with shovels and picks down on our heads.
We cleared the entrance to the new tunnel in minutes. Marlo’s torch illuminated a much smaller, narrower passage, lined with bricks obviously older than the ones used elsewhere.
Marlo pointed, and aside from Mama we ducked and pressed on.
I picked half a dozen crickets out of Darla’s fine black hair. They never fell into anyone else’s. Darla never made a sound, though the things were fat and cold and wet in my hands.
I tried to picture our location, imagining that we walked up on the lawn. The tunnel ran more or less straight, which meant it took us under a couple of outbuildings. In three places, huge old blood-oak roots broke through the bricks, and by remembering the trees I was able to sense we were very close to the end of the tunnel.
I was right. Iron stairs, like the others, shone from Marlo’s torch.
We all moved to the foot of them and stood looking up.
These stairs were practically new. There was rust, here and there, but only in small patches, and they’d been sanded and painted recently.
The same system of chains and weights and pulleys was in place. But again, these lacked rust, and much to my delight they were liberally coated in a thick, fresh application of grease.
Marlo blushed.
And I knew.
This was how he managed to spend the night with the Lady without raising eyebrows at such a mismatched pairing. He could sneak in and sneak out of the House proper, at least while the corn was up. And I imagine he and his ladylove had a way to accomplish the same even in the cornless dead of winter.
Love will find a way, as they say. Often it’s a way that doesn’t speak well of the intelligence or maturity of the lovers in question, but it finds a way nonetheless.
I spared Marlo any speculative comments on the well-maintained state of the workings.
“I go first,” I whispered, as I put boots on the treads. “Then Evis. Then Mama.”
Nods all around. Darla squeezed my hand, and let it go.
“Not to worry,” I said. “Let’s go.”
And up we went.
Marlo worked the crank with practiced ease. Chains moved over pulleys with all the fuss and commotion of a carefully stirred cup of tea. I stood under the steel slab and watched it rise. Within a few moments I could see cornstalks, and a few moments more revealed sky.
Marlo stopped and nodded. I lifted myself out of the ground, lay flat and rolled away from the door.
Evis popped up next, rising like a shadow from the dark. Mama was next, silent save for her usual huffing and puffing.
Darla popped her head up, and before I could speak she was out too.
I glared. She pretended not to see.
Marlo reversed his machinery, and the door closed. It had a lip that ran all the way around and held an inch or two of dirt. We smoothed out the crack left in the earth, shuffled around on it a bit, and after a few minutes all sign of the opening was obliterated.
Darla came and stood beside me, not saying a word. I let her hand take mine.
“I go alone.” She squeezed my hand twice, our secret code for yes. Heads nodded in the starlight.
I let go of Darla’s hand, and walked down the row, toward the woods.
No one followed, though I knew Evis was probably slipping off and flanking me a row or two on my right.
I kept walking. The wind rustled the stalks, surrounding me with dry whispers.
And there he was.
I halted, for a moment, my heart pounding, trying to pick out some detail in the dark.
All I could see for certain was that a man knelt in the dirt a stone’s throw away. His back was to me, his head bowed. He might have been sketching something, in the soil.
I dared another dozen steps, and then stopped.
The man rose. I could see a little better. He was tallish and thin and-
Skin, the beekeeper. It was Skin, no doubt about it.
I let out my breath.
Skin turned to face me.
There were four crossbow bolts buried in his chest. His face was the pale bloodless white of the new moon.
