And yet from her vantage, she could now hear the second voice.
“May I remind you of the bargain the two of us struck.”
Something about the pronunciation of those whispered words, so deep and heavy winded—almost hissed—sucked the breath from Minerva’s lungs.
“I’ve already done so much for you. You don’t even understand what you’re asking,” said Lyman. “Do you want more food? Another hog—”
“No more food. That would be tedious.”
Mr. Sutton’s John Tyler. Here was a conundrum solved—true to Sutton’s suspicions, the animal had been stolen and butchered. But in the solution lay a thousand more dubieties.
Minerva heard a sound like muffled thrashing. “I can’t do anything like this.”
The other voice did not respond. In the silence, Minerva felt every grain of earth beneath her feet grinding like millstones, ready to betray her.
“I confess, it gladdened me a little to hear what he said. Your appetite is so unchained, an abundance of your kind would be a plague upon the earth.” Lyman’s tone held a controlled spite. “I wonder, what did you eat before I came to Bonaventure? How did you survive?”
“We supped upon the venery of the greenwood.”
Lyman grunted in dismissal. “There haven’t been deer or animals in these woods for years—deserts have more life than this farm. No, you hunted the local game into oblivion long ago, or at least anything large enough to sustain you.”
No reply.
“I’ll ask again: What did you eat before I arrived? The farm sat uninhabited for decades. I can guess what Garrick did. But what of the years in-between?”
There was a long sigh. “We supped upon each other.” Almost ashamed. “Maid swallowed gammer, strong compeers supped weak compeers. We separated, each to herself. Until the end.”
“And you are the last.”
“We are the strong.”
Nothing about the sibilant voice metamorphosed except its diction. As a draft horse pulls a plow and then a cart without altering its gait, the voice’s cadence and pronunciation were unaltered. Only its grammar regressed, its vocabulary suddenly becoming almost Biblical, like a fire-and-brimstone preacher who, having read too much scripture, adopted the King James eloquence for his own sermons.
“So why not leave here and go where you can hunt? Why do you stay?”
The other voice didn’t answer immediately. “We came hither to sup. For many twelvemonth the supping was good. ‘Struth, but we delved too many tunnels. Too many crumbled. The bowlders shifted and hereupon we were insnared.”
Lyman said, “So why leave now? Is it because —”
“We are your compeer. No scaramouch we are. Mr. Doyle and Mr. Myerson, you remember. May I remind you of the bargain.”
“What do you think I can do against them? You’re asking for me to defend you when —”
Suddenly a breeze blew down the tunnel onto Minerva’s face, the air sulfurous and rotten. Lyman swore and an instant later the entire basement shook under Minerva’s feet as if the ceiling dropped onto the floor.
“You now own a full share in our enterprise.” Louder and clearer, the voice much closer than before, its diction once again changing, reversing from the ancient to the modern. “If you don’t, we’re going to have to hurt I’m Minerva.”
Minerva jammed her hand into her pocket, squeezing the medallion in an effort to constrict the panic within her; and yet some small sound escaped her throat, some infant shriek strangled in its crib.
“I agree!” Lyman’s voice rose almost hysterically. “I will do as you demand—just, please. I beg of you. Please.”
In the other cellar, something scraped and flailed, then withdrew. A long moment of silence stretched over the basement as if the two speakers considered each other. In those seconds Minerva became convinced she had been overheard—the pounding of her heart and blood would alert a deaf man.
“You’re leaving?” said Lyman, cooler now. “How am I supposed to help like this? Who will free me?”
There was long snarl, a grumbled note of threat. “Who will free me.” The words repeated but the emphasis altered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
No answer came. A scrabbling noise recessed into silence.
The window of her eavesdropping was closing, Minerva knew, the sash nearly at the sill. Now was the moment to retreat softly toward the stairs and up and out of the house—and yet iron weighed her limbs and each foot was shod in lead. The lamplight in the other room flickered upon the brick.
Yet no one approached. She heard more of the soft thrashing, then panting breath.
Minerva crept glacial inches into the shadows beyond the tunnel mouth, stopping to listen. When she heard silence, she continued, and by slow measures passed through the tunnel. Like a mouse nosing from its hole, she peeked around the corner into the dome-shaped room.
She saw the open mouth of the cistern and the lamp beside it, its oil burning low. And beside that lay Tom Lyman, alone and unaccompanied by any other speaker, staring straight back at her, his hands and ankles bound with rope.
THREE
After breakfast David Grosvenor, scarf wound tight about his throat, passed through the kitchen on his way to the door. He kissed his wife on the cheek as she bent over the stove, beginning her long day’s labor of canning the green beans from the garden. Retta and Nancy wiped and sorted the empty jars on the tabletop. From the cellar emerged little Tilly, running yesterday’s jars to the shelves below, where she arranged them like chessmen beneath the bags of carrots and onions hanging from nails in the floor joists.
“Mind you don’t bump your head,” he said to her.
The young woman laughed. “I’ve a few inches to spare,” she said, waving to the empty space above her.
Outside, Kit stacked firewood from the hand cart along the back wall of the house. “Morning, David!”
David breathed deep on the stoop. “A good morning to you, Kit. What a fine day.”
“I reckon it will be warmer this afternoon, with no rain.”
“I reckon you’re right.” Grosvenor hopped down the short flight and left him to his stacking.
As he passed the barn,
