Page 10 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
Thirty years? I followed after her into the woods, panting to keep up. “What happened then?” I managed to ask between gasps.
But she just shook her head and continued down the path. Not the most auspicious response. Another five minutes or more, we continued through the orchard, trudging through ancient tangled undergrowth that had flourished where dappledbits of light broke through the thick canopy overhead. Unripe apples dripped from the branches with promise of a harvest yet to unfold. It was bucolic—peaceful even—or would be, if not for the heavy stillness of the shotgun on my shoulder, and the ever-growing dampness of my palms. The birds sang, chittering out their summer songs oblivious of what had occurred here.
SIREDWARDCHENOWYTHwas laid out in the middle of the orchard beneath a verdant canopy, with lace-like bits of sunlight breaking through the leaves casting a pattern on the ground below. At first blush one might assume the fellow had fallen asleep watching the wind play in the leaves above, were not his body contorted in a peculiar serpentine position. Or were his face not ripped beyond recognition. Bits of white bone peeked out through the gnawed flesh. His mocking mouth, largely unscathed, was twisted into a snarling and cynical smirk—even in death. My pulse quickened. Breath grew short as the dream from the night before thundered back to the forefront of my memories. I’d seen that smile. That sinister line of his mouth as he came for me.
But he hadn’t been dead in the dream.
Instead he’d had a knife.
One I’d taken from him.
I stumbled backward from the body, reeling. It had to have been a dream.
Had to.
A knot of bile lodged in my throat as I tried to swallow it back down, my gaze fixed upon his rent-open belly. The same one I’d driven the knife into… No. No… It was a dream. A dream. I couldn’t have killed a man. Icouldn’t. My thoughtscame so violently and fast I nearly doubled over with the force of them.
Misunderstanding altogether, Mrs. Penrose laid a warm hand on my shoulder and I jumped. She shushed me like a mother cat. “I warned you, maid. ’Twasn’t a pretty sight.”
I swallowed hard, trying to gather my wits. To let my old companion—rationality—win again. One did not commit murder in one’s sleep. I sucked in a breath, then another, before my pulse began to slow. There was a logical explanation. Surely.
A pair of crows flapped down from the branches overhead, pecking at his face, and the bile returned. Gathering what remained of my addled thoughts, I fumbled in the waxcloth bag at my hip, loaded two shells into the shotgun, and braced it against my shoulder. I set my feet and fired a round up into the air to scare off the blasted creatures. White-hot pain ricocheted through my shoulder. But it was worth it, as the nuisances fluttered off in a wave of indignant squawking and flapping. I broke the shotgun open and plucked out the empty shell before dropping it into the sack. Once the birds settled into their new position in the branches above, the woods grew silent again, except for the cacophony in my head.
I drew nearer Edward’s supine form. The stench of his rent bowels was overpowering. Surely, if I’d had a hand in his demise, I’d recollect the scent if nothing else. I brushed a sweaty lock of hair back from my brow and peered down. Edward’s stomach had been opened much like one would a fish, entrails ripped and spread across the grass giving the appearance that whatever had gotten into him had been startled away. An animal then. Yes. That made a great deal of sense. I hugged the shotgun to my chest and stepped even closer. A great moving sea of black with flecks of green undulated upon his abdomen, making his chest appear to rise in breath.
Flies.
Hundreds of fat ones feasting upon him. And at long last I lost my nerve, the bile returned for the third time, and I turned away.
Coward.I wet my lips and took a step back from the body, careful to remain upwind of the ill-fated Sir Edward. “What do you suppose did it?”
Mrs. Penrose didn’t answer.
“You don’t happen to have wildcats about?” I gnawed my lower lip while pacing about, feeling slightly reassured that I probably hadn’t gutted a man in his sleep.
A vee formed between the older woman’s brows and she gave her head a shake. “Not in many a year. Perhaps a boar could have done it. Aye. That would make sense, maid. A boar…”
A rustling came from the bushes nearby and I spun around, closing the shotgun with a click. Satisfied—for the moment—that my dream was just that, my imagination ran amok with all sorts ofothercreatures lurking in the wood with a newfound taste for human flesh.
A few seconds later, a slight man came through the underbrush, his head bent beneath a low branch. Neatly dressed in an ill-fitting suit. His hair a medium brown beneath his similarly hued low-slung cap. As he stretched upright, I discovered he was also in possession of a rather spotty set of whiskers grown to cover up the inexpert surgical repair of his lower jaw.
“Ah, Constable. Thank the Lord you’ve come! I wondered if she’d found you.” Mrs. Penrose’s shoulders immediately slackened with his arrival.
The man eyed me curiously as I realized I still had the shotgun aimed at his chest. I hastily dropped the barrel and broke it back open, cradling it against my body.
“What’s happened here, Mrs. Penrose?” he asked as he approached the body cautiously. The constable wasn’t a largeman. No taller than me, but he exuded an air of competency and calm, which in this moment was worth more to me than all the works of David Hume—Locke as well for that matter—sitting in Mr. Owen’s private library.
“I’m not certain what befell the poor soul. I came out to pick some blackberries to make a tart and came across him… I haven’t seen anything like it since…”
The constable grimaced as he stooped down to inspect the body. Since what? But Mrs. Penrose did not continue.
“Who is she?” he asked gruffly, not bothering to look in my direction.
“A guest from up at the house. She came to help me keep an eye on him after I chased away a fox who was having his supper.”
The constable withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket, covered his nose and mouth, and gently began probing the body. He tilted Edward’s head from side to side cataloging the wounds, as the flies grew annoyed at the intrusion.
Mrs. Penrose averted her gaze.
