Hide Me Among the Graves

Crawford started to speak, but he feared that his voice might catch if he spoke, so he just reached across the table to pat Johanna’s hand.

Johanna noticed Christina’s evident disapproval. “At least I know better than to wake up devils,” she said, “and I’m only thirteen.”

Christina opened her eyes and nodded. “A valid point, my dear.”

“Where is the statue,” asked McKee, “that you need to get permission to go there? A vault in a museum?”

Christina looked distressed. “I can’t — it’s not my secret to reveal—”

“It’s in a grave in Highgate Cemetery,” said Johanna casually. “He dreamed about it a lot when I was with him.”

Christina turned to face the girl. “Do you know if it’s still there, in the grave? We fear that his recent activity might be the result of the statue having dug its way out.”

Johanna shook her head. “Do I still look bitten? I haven’t been with him since that day you killed him.” Then she shivered and clasped her hands. “But the statue doesn’t have to be out of the grave for him to be out.”

“That’s true,” conceded Christina.

“It’s in her coffin?” asked Crawford. “Lizzie’s? Or was, at least? You buried it that day?”

“No,” blurted Christina, “it’s in my father’s coffin — in his throat, to be precise!” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and patted her forehead. “We buried Lizzie right on top of him and put mirrors in her coffin to reflect him back on himself.”

“Then it must have unburied itself,” said McKee, “or else somebody dug it up.” She shook her head. “No use you getting permission to open the grave — and was that your whole plan?”

Christina took a breath. “Yes,” she said, exhaling.

“Damn. I was hoping you could do the 1862 thing again. I wonder if we could flee to America.”

“We offered you passage to America ten years ago,” said Christina, “as an indentured domestic, and you can still do that.” She looked at Crawford. “And they might need veterinarians.”

“And their child?” asked Johanna.

“I’m — not sure,” Christina admitted.

“Tom would never agree to go,” said McKee hopelessly.

For several seconds no one spoke. And, thought Crawford, in any case they probably have as many spoon sellers in America as they need.

He cleared his throat and said to McKee, “I wouldn’t go without you, not again.”

“That’s the boy!” said Johanna.

“We, my family and I,” said Christina hurriedly, “are going to find out, try to, tonight, whether in fact the statue is still in the grave.”

McKee raised her eyebrows. “Find out how?”

“We’re going to try to talk to Lizzie.” She shrugged and rolled her eyes upward. “We’re going to hold a seance.”

THE BAY WINDOW HAD been repaired since the devils had crashed through it four evenings ago, but the side panels were now unlatched and swung open to the cool night air. A bell at the nearby Church of St. Luke tolled eight P.M., giving punctuation to the fainter bells of boats on the river.

Gabriel and his assistant had carried a smaller table into the dining room and pushed the long table to the side. A pad of drawing paper and a handful of pencils had been laid out on the smaller table.

The gas jets had been turned off, and a candle on the table, and half a dozen more on the mantel, made the long room seem churchlike and much bigger.

Maria sat at the far end of the room, expressionless but nevertheless radiating disapproval, and Christina sighed and got up from beside her to cross to the table.

“Where have you sent Algy tonight?” she asked Gabriel.

He sat down beside William and waved his sister to the third chair. “He’s off at … some club he belongs to. He probably won’t be coming back here.”

“Just as well,” said William. “He wouldn’t be serious.”

Christina suppressed a smile as she sat down. Who would have thought that the skeptical William would be so earnest about fishing in the supernatural? But of course he considered it science.

“How do we do it?” she asked, ignoring a sigh from the far end of the room.

“I’ve written the alphabet,” said Gabriel, “on the top sheet of paper. One of us asks a question aloud and then touches each letter in turn — the table will rap, or perhaps tilt, when the right letter is touched. If the question can be answered yes or no, one rap means yes, two means uncertain, and three means no. Five is a request to use the alphabet again.”

“They’re not always … precise,” warned William. “Even the brightest of them has trouble spelling, sometimes.”

“Do they lose their intelligence, when they die?” Christina asked, remembering her father’s fishlike ghost in the river.

“I think it’s more that they don’t clearly see the paper,” William replied, “and … well, and they do seem to lose some power of concentration.” He smiled. “So we have to concentrate especially hard.” Formally and more loudly, he said, “Is any spirit present?”

Several seconds ticked past.

Then a knock shook the table, and Christina shivered and glanced at her brothers, but they were both frowning intently at the paper.

“Spell your surname,” said William, and he began touching the penciled letters slowly, one by one.

As he touched the letters, four spaced knocks shook the wood under Christina’s hands.

“E-R-O-S,” said Gabriel. “Eros? Hardly helpful.”

William said, “Is E the initial of your Christian name?”

A single rap.

“Is R the initial of your surname?”

Another rap. Gabriel’s face gleamed with sweat in the candlelight.

William said, “Are you Lizzie, my brother’s wife?”

Gabriel’s “Yes” overlapped the single knock.

“Do you know I love you?” asked Gabriel, his voice a controlled monotone.

Ten seconds passed with no knock.

William cleared his throat. “Do you—”

“Give her time!” interrupted Gabriel.

Another ten seconds passed, and Gabriel looked away and fluttered his hand.

William said, “Do you know if the statue of our uncle is still in our father’s grave?”

Three knocks sounded, then, after a pause, two more. No, thought Christina. Not sure.

Abruptly there were five knocks in a row. Christina jumped.

William obediently reached out to touch the alphabet letters again; and he touched S-T-O-P-T- H-I-S. Then, after a pause, G-O-D-B-Y.

“Lizzie,” said William, “are you still with us?”

Three sharper knocks shook the wood. No.

“Are you a different spirit?”

A single rap. Yes.

God help us, thought Christina, who is this?

“Do you know if the statue is still in our father’s grave?”

A single knock sounded in reply.

“Is it?” blurted Christina. “Still there?”

Again a single knock.

“This might be anyone,” William cautioned softly. More loudly, he went on, “Can you tell us your