Silence for the Dead(73)

The lamplight, still lit in the corridor at this hour, flickered on the square of floor I could see through the doorway. I had no time to run.

He came into view, slender and white, the naked line of his narrow shoulders clear against the rising light. I saw him through a curious double vision, blurred yet distinct. I did not see his face. He looked down at his feet, which I saw for the first time were bare. He took one step, and then slowly pulled the other foot forward, his heels slipping on the floor. Sssh. The movement was defeated, despairing. Stop, I wanted to shout. I wanted to get the sound out of my head, wanted the vision to go away and leave me alone. Please, please, don’t look up and see me . . .

My breath came in short, terrified gasps now, puffing before me in icy steam. My arms tingled and my hands burned hot with panic. He wasn’t this slow before, I thought wildly, but did I know for certain? I had seen him only as he had disappeared through the doorway, had followed him only after he had gone down the stairs. It had seemed so fast at the time.

His steps now took forever, but never wavered. He walked through the doorway and onto the landing below me, then down one riser, down another. I rose and stood, grasping the railing, just as I had that long-ago night. I moved away from it, from the cold and the despair that came off it in waves, from that inexorable descent down the stairs. My own breath coming high and whistling in my chest, I ran up the stairs again without looking back. He’s doing it over and over, I thought. That descent. The same thing, again and again. Why?

And something new came to me, now that I had seen him in full. I hadn’t seen his face, but his body had not been the body of a grown man. His had been the sleek lines of a teenage boy, not yet twenty years old.

? ? ?

I switched staircases and came downstairs another way. I bypassed the kitchen and slipped out the kitchen door, no longer hungry. I saw no one, but as I stepped out into the grounds, trying to put some distance between myself and the house, I saw a solitary figure. It was Jack, heading for the stand of trees that led to the clearing. He was half in a run.

I picked up my skirts and followed. He noticed me almost immediately, turning and waiting for me to catch up. “Did you see her?” he said as I approached.

I shook my head. “Who do you mean?”

“It was Maisey, I think. I saw her come this way, but I don’t see her now. She might have left letters for me.”

It was early to be getting replies to the letters he’d sent, but I followed him as he jogged ahead of me through the stand of trees around the clearing. I was glad to see him. My skirts slowed me down, and when I reached the clearing, he’d already checked the hiding spot under the bench. “Nothing,” he said.

He stood and turned to me, and I almost found myself smiling. He looked rested and alert, and his gaze took me in inquisitively. I was so used to seeing him in his hospital uniform that I briefly wondered what he looked like in any other clothes. “You’re up early,” he said.

“I’ve had the strangest morning,” I managed.

His blue gaze traveled over me, up and down again. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

“What—?” His gaze moved past my shoulder. “That’s not Maisey.”

I turned. Through the trees, I briefly saw the figure of a girl; then it disappeared.

I was frozen to the spot, but Jack touched my arm. “Was that the girl you saw the other day?”

“I don’t—I don’t know.”

“I’m going after her.” He started to move.

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“She might lead me somewhere,” he said. He turned and looked at me. “How much damage can she do if I’m awake?”

I had no choice but to follow him as he took off at a trot. When we emerged, we saw only a flash of fabric through a stand of brush fifty feet away. “Hello?” Jack shouted, but she was gone again before we got there. We fought through the brush until we could see clearly, and then we were only in time to see her figure descend the other side of the rise. She had her back to us and she did not turn. She was slender and she wore the same simple blouse and skirt I’d seen before, her blond hair wound behind her head, her gait stately and unhurried. Her shoulders dipped behind the rise, and then her head, and she was gone.

“Bloody hell,” said Jack, and he took a run up the rise, his strides taking him up the slope with no effort at all. I was still halfway up when he reached the top. “Where the hell did she go?” he cried in frustration.

I pointed. “Over there.”

She’d made it to Portis House. She was back by the west wing, where I’d seen her before. There were footprints flattening the grass. As we watched, she picked up her skirts and turned the corner out of sight.

“She’s not a damned ghost,” said Jack.

“No.” The realization drained me of fear as I stared at the trail she’d left. “And she’s not Maisey, either. Let’s catch her.”

We ran. He was faster than me, but I’d been working hard and climbing the stairs dozens of times a day; I nearly kept up with him. We followed her trail around the house, giving a wide berth to the patch of weeds in front of the isolation room. We saw nothing, not even when we fanned out and looked from all angles.

“She can’t have gone far,” Jack said. “We’d see her. She must be hiding somewhere.”