Silas shook his head, and for a moment his face was terrible for Bod to behold. “She fought bravely. She fought for you, Bod.”
Bod said, “The Sleer has the man Jack. Three of the others went through the ghoul-gate. There’s one injured but still alive at the bottom of the Carstairs grave.”
Silas said, “He is the last of the Jacks. I will need to talk to him, then, before sunrise.”
The wind that blew across the graveyard was cold, but neither the man nor the boy seemed to feel it.
Bod said, “She was scared of me.”
“Yes.”
“But why? I saved her life. I’m not a bad person. And I’m just like her. I’m alive too.” Then he said, “How did Miss Lupescu fall?”
“Bravely,” said Silas. “In battle. Protecting others.”
Bod’s eyes were dark. “You could have brought her back here. Buried her here. Then I could have talked to her.”
Silas said, “That was not an option.”
Bod felt his eyes stinging. He said, “She used to call me Nimini. No one will ever call me that again.”
Silas said, “Shall we go and get food for you?”
“We? You want me to come with you? Out of the graveyard?”
Silas said, “No one is trying to kill you. Not right now. There are a lot of things they are not going to be doing, not any longer. So, yes. What would you like to eat?”
Bod thought about saying that he wasn’t hungry, but that simply was not true. He felt a little sick, and a little lightheaded, and he was starving. “Pizza?” he suggested.
They walked through the graveyard, down to the gates. As Bod walked, he saw the inhabitants of the graveyard, but they let the boy and his guardian pass among them without a word. They only watched.
Bod tried to thank them for their help, to call out his gratitude, but the dead said nothing.
The lights of the pizza restaurant were bright, brighter than Bod was comfortable with. He and Silas sat near the back, and Silas showed him how to use a menu, how to order food. (Silas ordered a glass of water and a small salad for himself, which he pushed around the bowl with his fork but never actually put to his lips.)
Bod ate his pizza with his fingers and enthusiasm. He did not ask questions. Silas would talk in his own time, or he would not.
Silas said, “We had known of them…of the Jacks…for a long, long time, but we knew of them only from the results of their activities. We suspected there was an organization behind it, but they hid too well. And then they came after you, and they killed your family. And, slowly, I was able to follow their trail.”
“Is we you and Miss Lupescu?” asked Bod.
“Us and others like us.”
“The Honour Guard,” said Bod.
“How did you hear about—?” said Silas. Then, “No matter. Little pitchers have big ears, as they say. Yes. The Honour Guard.” Silas picked up his glass of water. He put the water glass to his lips, moistened them, then put it down on the polished black tabletop.
The surface of the tabletop was almost mirrored, and, had anyone cared to look, they might have observed that the tall man had no reflection.
Bod said, “So. Now you’re done…done with all this. Are you going to stay?”
“I gave my word,” said Silas. “I am here until you are grown.”
“I’m grown,” said Bod.
“No,” said Silas. “Almost. Not yet.”
He put a ten-pound note down on the tabletop.
“That girl,” said Bod. “Scarlett. Why was she so scared of me, Silas?”
But Silas said nothing, and the question hung in the air as the man and the youth walked out of the bright pizza restaurant into the waiting darkness; and soon enough they were swallowed by the night.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leavings and Partings
SOMETIMES HE COULD NO longer see the dead. It had begun a month or two previously, in April or in May. At first it had only happened occasionally, but now it seemed to be happening more and more.
The world was changing.
Bod wandered over to the northwestern part of the graveyard, to the tangle of ivy that hung from a yew tree and half-blocked the far exit from the Egyptian Walk. He saw a red fox and a large black cat, with a white collar and paws, who sat conversing together in the middle of the path. At Bod’s approach they looked up, startled, then fled into the undergrowth, as if they had been caught conspiring.
Odd, he thought. He had known that fox since it had been a cub, and the cat had prowled through the graveyard for as long as Bod could remember. They knew him. If they were feeling friendly they even let him pet them.
Bod started to slip through the ivy but he found his way blocked. He bent down, pushed the ivy out of the way and squeezed through. He walked down the path carefully, avoiding the ruts and holes until he reached the impressive stone that marked the final resting place of Alonso Tomas Garcia Jones (1837–1905, Traveler Lay Down Thy Staff).
Bod had been coming down here every few days for several months: Alonso Jones had been all over the world, and he took great pleasure in telling Bod stories of his travels. He would begin by saying, “Nothing interesting has ever happened to me,” then would add, gloomily, “and I have told you all my tales,” and then his eyes would flash, and he would remark, “Except…did I ever tell you about…?” And whatever the next words were: “The time I had to escape from Moscow?” or “The time I lost an Alaskan gold mine, worth a fortune?” or “The cattle stampede on the pampas?” Bod would always shake his head and look expectant and soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.
Bod walked over to the pointed stone—tall, carved with upside-down torches, and he waited, but saw no one. He called to Alonso Jones, even knocked on the side of the stone, but there was no response. Bod leaned down, to push his head into the grave and call his friend, but instead of his head slipping though the solid matter like a shadow passing through a deeper shadow, his head met the ground with a hard and painful thump. He called again, but saw nothing and no one, and, carefully, he made his way out of the tangle of greenery and of grey stones and back to the path. Three magpies perched in a hawthorn tree took wing as he passed them.
He did not see another soul until he reached the graveyard’s southwestern slope, where the familiar shape of Mother Slaughter, tiny in her high bonnet and her cloak, could be seen, walking between the gravestones, head bent, looking at wildflowers.
“Here, boy!” she called. “There’s nasturshalums growing wild over here. Why don’t you pick some for me, and put them over by my stone.”
So Bod picked the red and yellow nasturtiums, and he carried them over to Mother Slaughter’s headstone, so cracked and worn and weathered that all it said now was,
LAUGH
which had puzzled the local historians for over a hundred years. He put down the flowers in front of the stone, respectfully.
Mother Slaughter smiled at him. “You’re a good lad. I don’t know what we’ll do without you.”
“Thank you,” said Bod. Then, “Where is everyone? You’re the first person I’ve seen tonight.”
Mother Slaughter peered at him sharply. “What did you do to your forehead?” she asked.
“I bumped it, on Mr. Jones’s grave. It was solid. I…”
