He sat on the box in March’s cell and drained his flask, felt the honey-colored liquid warm him from his chest out in a radiant spreading wave. When the flask was empty, he corked it and put it away. He used the branding iron and stood as well as he was able, went to March, and woke the elder inspector.
March was weak, but he could stand. The two of them leaned on each other and made their way out through the tunnel. They passed the ancient ruined city and the underground wilderness where few humans had ever set foot. They saw a pack of wild dogs from a distance, but the dogs were chasing a deer that bounded through the darkness and they showed no interest in the two men.
At last they found a ladder sunk into the wall. They pushed and pulled each other up the ancient wooden rungs and shoved against the ceiling at the top. They came up through a trapdoor in the floor of a small room that was filled with religious artifacts. They crossed the room slowly and quietly, picked a lock on a door, and stepped outside into the waning sun.
They were in yet another churchyard and, far across the grass, under the trees, they saw a lane where people walked and carriages rolled past. Day drew the handcuffs from his pocket and turned and snapped them shut around Adrian March’s wrists.
“I told you I would place you under arrest when we were free,” he said.
“You are as good as your word. And I don’t have the strength to fight you, Walter.”
The sound of March’s voice sickened Day. He didn’t want to talk to his mentor. He wanted to make sure his wife was all right. He wanted to collapse into bed and hold her. But he knew that once he left Adrian March in a cell, he would never go back to see him. And there were things he needed to know.
“Tell me who the others are. Tell me where to find the rest of your Karstphanomen.”
“So you can arrest them, too?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t do that.”
“No matter. I’ll find them.”
“I believe you might. But I won’t help you do it.”
Day nodded and held March’s arm above the elbow, and together they staggered across the churchyard.
Day kept his eyes wide open and focused on that distant thoroughfare. He prayed that it wasn’t a dream or a mirage.
63
Claire shut her eyes tight and pushed. She wanted Dr Kingsley to come back, to come and take her new baby away from her so that she could concentrate properly on whatever was happening now. She was afraid that if she pushed too hard she might let the baby fall from the crook of her arm, that her daughter would roll off the bed and be injured.
She had given birth already. Why was it happening again? Why hadn’t it stopped? She was helpless. She wanted to rest and her body wasn’t allowing it.
Above the sound of her own hard breathing, she heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone moved past the foot of the bed, and then the light from the bedroom window was blocked.
“I heard noises,” Claire said. “A lot of them. From downstairs. What’s happening?”
“Nothing that need concern you, Claire.”
It was not Dr Kingsley’s voice.
She opened her eyes and saw the dark shape of a man silhouetted against the window. He had long wavy hair, and the light haloed around him, making it seem as if he were glowing. She shut her eyes again.
“You’re not Dr Kingsley! Get out! Leave at once!”
She wrapped her arm around her crying daughter and used her free hand to rearrange the sheets on the bed, trying to cover herself, but the man chuckled. It was a warm sound, sympathetic and caring.
“Your baby is perfect,” he said. “What a transformation you have wrought.”
“Leave this room.”
“Dr Kingsley is very tired and I’m afraid he’s fallen asleep. But I’m. . Well, Claire, you could say I’m a good friend of your husband’s. Walter Day and I were just talking a short while ago, and he asked me to stop and look in on you.”
“Walter’s all right?”
“I should imagine he’s on his way here by now.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“I must be. Else why would I be carrying this black bag?” He looked down at her diary on the bedside table. “Is this yours? How delicious.”
He flipped it open and riffled through it from back to front. He stopped at the first page that wasn’t blank.
“It hurts,” Claire said.
“It’s a poem.”
“Why does it hurt when the baby’s already come?”
“May I read this? Do you mind?”
“Please help.”
He began to read out loud, and Claire was quiet. The urge to push subsided for a moment and the baby stopped crying. The new doctor’s voice was deep and pleasant as he read:
“Baby hears a sound at night:
A silent footstep in the hall.
Something moves, but nothing’s there.
It’s just a shadow on the wall.
Baby pulls her blanket tight
And she reaches for her doll.
‘’Tisn’t very nice to stare,’
Remarks the shadow on the wall.
Shadow’s voice is soft and slight,
But evil lurks where shadows fall.
Listen to it if you dare,
To that dark shadow on the wall.
Baby says, ‘I think you’re right,
But, as you see, I’m awfully small.
Just now you gave me quite a scare,
You wicked shadow on the wall.’
Shadow moves, that evil sprite.
It starts to creep; it starts to crawl.
It stops to perch upon a chair.
It waits, that shadow on the wall.
Shadow grows to its full height.
It’s ample, dark, and terribly tall.
Oh, Baby, Baby, please beware
Of that black shadow on the wall!
Baby says, ‘I’ll make a light
And then you won’t exist at all.
You’ll disappear into the air,
You silly shadow on the wall.’
Candles fill the room with light
For brightness is the shadow’s pall.
Baby sleeps without a care.
There are no shadows on the wall.”
When he had finished, he closed the covers of the diary and held it clasped in his hands.
“I quite like it,” he said. “It appears you were expecting me, after all. May I keep this?”
“Keep it?”
“Consider it your gift to me. You ought to give me something for the occasion, don’t you think?”
Claire felt a new wave of pain ripple out from her abdomen. “I don’t. . Can’t you help me? Tell me what’s happening?”
“You haven’t finished what’s begun, Mrs Day. Say please.”
“Please.”
“You had only to ask properly.”
She felt the weight of her daughter lifted from her and she opened her eyes again, too late to see the new doctor as he passed beyond her sight near the foot of the bed.
“You know,” he said, “this little one and I have something in common.” There was a gentle singsong quality to his voice, perhaps left over from reading the nursery rhyme. “We share a birthday. Did you know that? Although in my case, I suppose you’d call it a rebirthday.”
“My baby. .”
“She’ll be fine here with me,” he said. “Don’t you worry about her. You’ve got quite enough to do right now.”