Hide Me Among the Graves

Crawford followed behind Christina; she was taking short, scuffling steps, and he hoped their quest wouldn’t involve too much walking.

Traffic in the next radius street was simply stopped, the drivers shouting and shaking their fists, and McKee led her group through the mud between the halted horses to the far side of it.

A crossing sweeper was busily establishing a path between a high-piled furniture wagon and a couple of hansom cabs, waving his broom at the drivers as much as using it to sweep the puddles aside, and a couple of timid-looking men in bowler hats tottered behind him across the wet gravel. At the far curb the old sweeper looked back, and he nodded when McKee waved her hat at him. A moment later he came scampering back between the wheels and hooves so nimbly that Crawford was startled to get a better look at him.

Under a floppy hat, the man’s hair was sparse and white, and his face sagged in deep wrinkles — but his eyes were alert and merry.

He didn’t seem to be at all winded. “A ha’penny to cross,” he told McKee.

McKee tugged on Crawford’s sleeve. “Give him a shilling,” she said quietly, “and tell him you want it all back.”

This felt like some kind of ritual, so Crawford did as she said; and the old man gave them all a reappraising look but nodded cheerfully and handed Crawford two sixpences in exchange for the shilling, a transaction that made the old man no profit at all.

“Like that, is it?” he said, and then without waiting for an answer he scuttled to the doorway of a nearby druggist’s and left his old broom there and came back with another.

“A new broom sweeps clean,” he said, and paused as if for a reply.

“Er,” said Crawford, “but the old broom—”

“—Knows all the coroners,” finished McKee.

Crawford had handed his umbrella to Johanna, and in their haste he had left his hat at Gabriel Rossetti’s house; and now he wanted to spit out the coconut taste of macassar oil in the rainwater running down his face from his hair.

But before he could complain about the delay, McKee seized his hand and pushed Christina, and then they were all sprinting across the muddy gravel — glancing back to make sure Johanna was following, Crawford saw that the old man was right behind her, sweeping so furiously that muddy gravel as well as sprays of water flew to the sides. On the far side of the street McKee gathered the others up onto the curb.

“Till the rain stops, I reckon” the old man said, “and no more’n a hundred yards.” He was not even panting as he touched his hat brim; and then he was hurrying back through the river of vehicles to where he had left his ordinary broom.

“It’s about noon,” said McKee, “and our footprints have been erased. Are you still with us, Sister?”

Christina had been leaning against a post-box, but now she took a deep breath and stepped away from it and took a fresh grip on the handle of her umbrella.

“I used to walk for miles,” she said, “when I was a little girl.” She tilted her head, as if listening. “And I don’t feel his attention!”

Johanna held her hand out in the rain from under the gleaming umbrella. “I don’t either, right now.”

McKee nodded. “On to Dudley Street.”

“I’ve heard of Dudley Street,” Johanna said.

“It’s good enough in the daytime,” said McKee, starting forward, “though I’d have had us dress less grand.”

Their way led them down a narrow side street where children and goats huddled in the shelter of eaves far overhead, and open doorways let out gruff voices and the smells of beer and dubious cooked meats, and then McKee guided them down a cross street to the left.

The houses on this street were all of blackened brick with haphazard ironwork over the windows, and a lone hansom cab moving down it was having to proceed slowly because of the multitude of shirtless boys kicking a ball around in the rain; they had marked out some intricate pattern on the street in white stones and seemed to be trying to kick the ball in a particular zigzag course across it.

Crawford noticed the recessed squares in the pavement only when he saw McKee crouch beside one, her blue silk dress trailing in the puddles, and wiggle a short pole that stood up from it.

After a moment a square of brown canvas was pulled aside from below, and Crawford saw that it had blocked a hole, and a squinting bearded face was now peering up out of it.

“We need translator shoes,” McKee said, leaning forward to politely hold her umbrella over the hole. “The hide kind.”

Crawford thought most shoes were made of hide, but the man seemed to comprehend a distinction.

“Farther up the street, under the shrouded cross,” he said, jerking his head to the east, “for hiding shoes. And may God have mercy on you.”

The bearded head withdrew down the hole, and the canvas cover was fumbled back into place and secured again from below.

Christina glanced up and down the unsavory street. “Perhaps this isn’t a good idea after all,” she said timidly.

“We’re bringing your blood,” said McKee, straightening up, “not God’s. Come on.”

But two of the boys who had been playing ball stepped in front of McKee now, and Crawford saw that they were older than the others — their cheeks were lined, and their chins were dark with whiskers.

“You two,” said one of them, pointing at Christina and Johanna, “you got the smell of stony blood on you.”

The other boy pulled what appeared to be a rough oval stone out of his pocket, and Crawford stepped in front of Johanna — but when the boy held it out on his palm, Crawford saw that it was some sort of oyster.

Rain was still thrashing down onto the puddled gravel of the street. The oyster opened, and a hollow voice clearly came out of it: “Some of your blood,” it said.

The skin of Crawford’s face seemed to tighten, and he found that he and his companions had all taken an involuntary step back.

“They’ve got a ghost in that oyster,” said McKee. Crawford noticed that her knife was in her hand, and then he saw that Johanna had drawn her own blade from under the pink velveteen coat — but the two boys now pulled knives of their own from the backs of their waistbands.

“We heal fast when Mister Clammo gets fresh stony blood,” said the boy with the oyster in his free hand.

Crawford braced himself to spring at the boys and try to block their blades with his gloved hands, but Christina Rossetti stepped forward — and pursed her lips and began to whistle.

Even in this tense crisis, the whistled melody jarred Crawford with its abrupt changes of key and its apparent distortions of some long-familiar tune…

No one moved as the shrill notes batted between the close black housefronts, and the only thought Crawford could hang on to was the bizarre idea that the very raindrops were halted in the air overhead.

And the oyster convulsed right out of its shell and fell with a tiny splash at the boy’s feet. The rain came hammering down.

The boy crouched to pick up the limp white thing, while his companion stepped back uncertainly.

“Be damned,” said the first boy. “It’s dead!”

“Yes,” agreed Christina with a cold smile. “And I know more stopping melodies. Shall I whistle another?”

The first boy let the white blob fall to the mud again, and then both of them were running away.

McKee and Johanna had tucked their knives away, and McKee was again leading the way forward.

“Where did you learn that?” she muttered over her shoulder.

Christina was stepping along at a more lively pace now. “From the girls at the Magdalen,” she said breathlessly. “After your time, it may have been.”

“Who … wrote that terrible music?”

“Nobody seemed to know.” Christina shrugged. “Some mute, inglorious Merlin.”

“That must be the shrouded cross,” said Johanna, her hand pointing ahead from under her umbrella.