Hide Me Among the Graves

Have flowed as if my body were not such

As others are; and I could never die.’

— William Wordsworth, “The Excursion,” lines 804–811, as copied by Christina Rossetti into her commonplace book, 1845

WILLIAM AND MARIA were at Tudor House when Christina arrived there at one thirty in the afternoon. Gabriel was sitting at a small table by the bay window in the long drawing room upstairs, cradling a moldy notebook in his hands and looking out over the river, when young Henry Dunn showed her in, and William and Maria stood in the far corner of the room, whispering.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed William, stepping around the long table. “You’re all wet and muddy! Did you fall somewhere?”

“I was saving a girl from our uncle,” Christina said, “for a while, at least.” She walked up to Gabriel and waved toward William and Maria. “Have you told them?”

He looked up at her blankly, but Maria said, “We know the statue is not yet destroyed — Gabriel has misplaced it here in the house somewhere.” She was staring at Christina’s dress. “I thought you were going to a wedding! Did you get in a fight?”

“I had to climb down a hole in a street in St. Giles, and”—pointing at her stained sleeve—“lose some blood.”

Maria drew in a breath with a hiss, and Gabriel looked away.

“Algy didn’t take it,” he said. “I asked him.” He idly flexed the old notebook in his hands, and bits of the cover flaked off in his lap.

“You’ve read his poetry,” Christina said witheringly, echoing Trelawny.

Gabriel shrugged.

William cleared his throat. “We think Gabriel may have misremembered where he put it last night. I should have helped him hide it, after he woke me and told me he had retrieved it. But I just said, ‘Good,’ and went back to sleep.”

Gabriel nodded. “I had a lot to drink before I finally went to bed. Understandable, I think, under the circumstances.”

Christina’s mouth was open in astonishment, and she said to him, “But you saw those two creatures this morning! — you saw them appear! — in your bedroom! And you must—”

“They’ve appeared in this house before,” interrupted Gabriel irritably.

Christina looked out the window, and after a moment she pointed to a passing wagon. “And what is that?” she demanded.

Gabriel looked out the window. “What,” he said, “trees, a street, a wagon…”

“What kind of wagon?”

Gabriel peered through his spectacles. “I don’t know. A yellow wagon. Have you lost your wits?”

Maria had stepped up behind Christina and was peering over her shoulder. “Comer India Pale Ale,” she said, giving Christina a mystified look.

Christina bent over to hug her brother and sighed. “Oh, I’m so glad your eyesight hasn’t recovered!”

For a moment Gabriel’s face clouded in real anger, and then he just laughed softly and pushed her away with one hand. He took a deep breath, then said, “You thought I blooded it? That wasn’t what our uncle wanted — I was never one of Boadicea’s victims.”

And how can you be certain of that? wondered Christina; but she said, “It would nevertheless have constituted renewing your vows to him, I’m sure.”

William was standing by Christina now. “We need to search the whole house, attic and basement too, and the garden,” he said. “Gabriel might have hidden it anywhere, in his … distracted state last night. And Gabriel, you must try very hard to remember! Walk around the house with us! Christina, do you think you could sense the statue, if you were near it?”

Christina frowned and glanced at Gabriel.

He was staring out the window again. “Never mind, William,” he said softly. “Christina is right. Algy has certainly taken it and rubbed his restorative blood on it.” He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “The only thing my midnight escapade accomplished was to make our uncle stronger.”

“And to recover your poetry,” William pointed out, nodding at the moldy notebook in Gabriel’s hands.

“Yes.” Gabriel laid it down and wiped his hands on his waistcoat. “My poetry.” Christina could smell the book’s mildew.

Gabriel put his spectacles back on and stood up, and he gripped Maria’s shoulders. “He almost took Christina by force on Wednesday night,” he said. “The only thing that saved our sister was the timely intervention of Charles Cayley!”

“I know,” said Maria, staring straight back at him, “of no way we can use to trap our uncle.”

She turned and left the room.

Christina called after her, and crossed to the doorway to call again down the hall, but a moment later she stepped back into the room, shaking her head.

“Moony won’t play,” she sighed.

After a pause, “‘No way we can use,’” echoed William, “Christian scruples of some sort?”

“Yes,” said Gabriel, sitting down again. “And immovable.”

“Can we … get it,” said Christina, “from Algy? He’ll have hidden it.”

“We could torture him,” said Gabriel with a shrug, “but he’d like that.”

“Appeal to him?” suggested William. “In friendship?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Try appealing to a drunkard, in friendship. And this is vastly more compelling than drink.”

“We must none of us marry, or have children,” said Christina. “William, you and Maria have been safe up till now, you’re apparently considered members of its family somehow — possibly because you grew up with the statue, you participated in its renaming of us all as card suits — a provisional protection at best, I think. You both need to begin taking precautions. Whenever—”

“Never marry?” protested William. “Never have children? Because a ghost would be jealous? I’m forty years old, I can’t—”

“He’s more than a ghost!” interrupted Christina. “You were there at the seance on Tuesday — and I think you saw him, and he even spoke to you, in your vision! I think he spoke to each of us.”

William opened his mouth and then looked away, and in that instant Christina was sure that William had somehow met their uncle again, since the seance.

“You said he kills people we love,” William went on stubbornly, still looking away. “Whom has he killed?”

“Well — he killed that veterinary surgeon’s wife and sons…”

“He did?” William was looking at her now. “When was this? Killed them how?”

“Fifteen or twenty years ago,” admitted Christina. “They were on a boat on the river…”

“I’ll wager the coroner came to a different conclusion than ‘killed by a ghost.’”

“Oh — your children will die, William, trust me! Gabriel, do seances have to be done at night?”

“Hmm?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. They always seem to be.”

“I can think of one ghost that might know how to unmake our uncle — your son. The dead boy. And ghosts don’t seem to be able to lie.”

“Oh God. He’s not my son. No, damn it, he is my son — how did our poor father do this to us?” He got to his feet, looking much older than his forty-one years. “Not that we didn’t cooperate.” He held up one trembling hand. “Me too, ’Stina; I did it too.”

“I haven’t done it,” said William, and Christina was unhappily sure that the statement had an unspoken yet at the end of it.

“Fetch your pencils and papers,” said Christina. “If the creature can appear in your bedroom during the day, it can likely participate in a daytime seance.”