Lily snorts. “Nothing. Things’ve gone straight to hell since we got here.” She gives me a quick look. “Don’t you dare tell my brother I swore.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
“Anyway, soon after we arrived, things kind of fell apart. Mr. Spencer’s been hitting the whiskey pretty hard and meeting in secret with folks who want to get rid of the sheriff; Mrs. Spencer’s fallen into the laudanum.”
“What about the little ones?”
“The baby got the colic and passed right after we got here. It’s just me and Thomas right now. We’re getting by, barely.”
Her voice is heavy with emotion, and I realize that I ain’t the only one who’s had a hell of a time here in Summerland. “But . . . what about the other families? Are they happy with the electric lights, and the gourmet meals, these big houses?”
“Some of them are, sure. But if people feel a bit safer here than they did in Baltimore, it’s only because they don’t know what I know. This whole town’s got a rotten soul, Jane. Everything is built up on a house of cards that’s gonna come crashing down sooner or later.”
“What are you on about, Lily?”
“That’s what I’m about to show you.”
We stop in front of an unmarked building that looks rather like the tinkerer’s lab. A sign on the door reads “DANGER: ELECTRIC—Keep Out!” There’s a picture of a lightning bolt through the sign. I frown. “We’re going in here?”
“I ain’t,” Lily says, a tremor in her voice. “The Elkton boys told me this place was haunted, that they heard strange noises coming from it at night. That’s how I won my rifle—I went in on a double-dog dare. I ain’t never going down there again if I can help it. But if you want answers, that’s where they are.”
Before I can tell Lily thank you she’s heading back toward her house, head down, gait determined. For the first time in my life I have a real regret. I should’ve told her about Jackson.
Well, there’ll be time enough for sorrys later. I hope.
Auntie Aggie worries about you, too. It’s a cruel world, with cruel people. I hope you haven’t run afoul of too many of them. This world is a place that can eat a girl alive, even smart ones like you.
Chapter 26In Which I Make a Terrible Mistake
The building isn’t locked, and the door swings out on silent hinges. My heart pounds in my chest, and there is a part of me, the cowardly, yellow part, that urges me to turn around and scamper on back to bed. But there was too much nonsense in Lily’s words, and my brain hates a mystery the way dogs hate cats, so before I can talk myself out of it I’m descending the stairs.
There ain’t enough light to see properly, but I make my way, hands grazing the walls on either side of me to keep steady. The stairs ain’t dirt like in Mr. Gideon’s laboratory, they’re wood, but everything else reminds me of my first day here. There ain’t no electric lights, just good old kerosene lanterns set into a nook here and there, and I grab one to make my passage easier. At this point my fear of getting caught is a faraway thing, I’m more keen on solving the mystery of the angry townsfolk than anything else.
The stairs empty into a narrow hallway, and the scent of something powerful rotten hits me. I bury my face in the crook of my arm, the stink of me preferable to the stink of whatever’s down here. I’m dog-tired and still too hungry to think straight, so it takes me a long moment before I realize exactly what it is I’m smelling, and the moment I do, that’s when I hear the noises.
Shamblers.
I follow the scent of the dead, the sounds of the moans getting louder, and move cautiously down the tunnel. It ends in a large antechamber, nearly the size of a concert hall. I ain’t sure who or what dug out such a large space, but it must’ve been a pretty impressive undertaking. The ceiling extends far above my head, the light cast down by a cluster of those same electric lamps, conspicuous in their constant glow. But I ain’t nearly half as distracted by the lights as I am the sight that meets my eyes.
Before me is a giant, rolling shambler cage. And in the cage: at least fifty shamblers, running toward an old Negro man sitting in a chair, dozing, the shamblers turning the cage like a giant, metal wheel.
I ain’t even got time for my normal fear response to rise up. I just watch the shamblers turning the entire mess in a circle, my brain trying to make sense of it all. I’ve heard lots of people suppose that shamblers could be useful for labor and such. I read the story of a man who hitched his plow to a team of shamblers and tried to use them to till his field. The problem was that they took off after his boy, catching the kid and eating him and a good part of the rest of his family, before the entire clan set out for the local municipality and turned most of them as well. This was the problem with shamblers: one little slip and everyone you knew was a ravenous monster. It didn’t make much sense to do anything but put them down.
“Isn’t it terrifying?”
I startle at the voice, the fear I couldn’t feel at the sight of the shamblers finally making my heart jump painfully. Mr. Gideon walks out of the shadows, wiping his spectacles on a corner of his untucked shirt. He’s unshaven, and the scruff of beard shadowing his cheeks makes him look tired and just a bit dangerous. It’s an appealing look in a man. But I squash those soft feelings like bugs. I still ain’t got the full measure of him, and if he thinks
