Page 7

AFTER A brIEF BUT FIRM DISCUSSION with my manservant about washing his grimy hands before preparing a boiled ham and potato meal, I set off to find a tub. It took some digging, but I eventually unearthed an Oxford hip bath buried under dusty hay behind the carriage. I had to evict several families of resident spiders—odd pale things with eyes like chips of charcoal—from the hammered tin tub. I toted it back to the house, brushing aside the lonesome spirits that lived here with me. I was growing accustomed to them. They seemed gentle but lost, a lot like me, which is why I felt a kinship with them, I assumed.

Stepping inside, I found Delmar hacking at several red potatoes atop the table, the flash of a cleaver catching the light from an oil lamp.

“Did you wash those?” I asked, placing the tub close enough to the hearth to feel the heat but far enough from it to not risk an ember falling near me.

“Yes, yes, wash hands!” he called over his bony shoulder over the thunk, thunk, thunk of his cleaver.

“I meant the cleaver and the potatoes.” I removed my duster, eyeing it sadly. It would require a good scrubbing as did the rest of my attire. My top hat was also in need of a good brushing. I glanced at the imp standing on a chair after he made a sound of aggravation. “Did you wash them?”

“No, I wash hands. Bad soap burns!” He spun to glower at me, red eyes sparking. He could be a fearsome creature if one ran into him unawares. “You no say wash potatoes!” He waved his cleaver at me as he spoke. “I never wash hands or potatoes or blades. Never! Greeley Coachman no say wash things. Never! Now you want wash things all time. Stupid. Stupid cockery coachman!”

He scrambled down after gathering up his potato chunks. Sighing, I nonetheless set about getting my bath ready. A tiresome chore that required hauling buckets of water from the hand pump inside to heat in a cauldron. I did that four times. Delmar glared at me all the while as he tossed potatoes, a mauled head of cabbage, and several chunks of ham into a smaller kettle. With two hooks we could heat both the bathwater and the boiled dinner at once. After the tub was half filled, I dumped in a few buckets of cold and then stripped down fully.

The water was hotter than I expected and the tub was much smaller. When I finally managed to get my ass into the steaming bath, my knees were under my chin. Nothing unusual. I’d spent a good many years being the recipient of pointed jokes about my height, hitting my brow on doorframes, and being unable to purchase anything from the haberdasher in Avers Mill that did not need sizable alterations. Still, even folded into an origami ball, the bath felt good.

“Tell me something, Delmar,” I called over my shoulder while trying to find enough room in the hip bath to wiggle a tarnished pewter pitcher into the water.

“I wash clothes, yes, wash everything! I do wash. Good boots. Spit boots good. Polish hat too! Rub hat with elbow. You see!” he chattered away as he stirred our dinner over the fire.

“That’s good. Thank you. I wasn’t asking about my attire, though. I was wondering if you could tell me more about Coachman Greeley.” Scooping up some water, I dumped it over my head. The tingle of the hot water on my skin stung for just a moment. Then it felt glorious. I did that several times, for my hair was thick and then called for the lone bar of soap. Delmar trotted over to fetch it, then came to me, holding it between his clawed fingers as if it were something vile. “Thank you.” The soap fell into my hand. “I was speaking with Malphus and he mentioned that coachmen in the past have taken things from humans.”

“Yes, yes, not Greeley though. No, no, he no take nothing. He hate it here, hate me, hate horse, hate everything. I wash back. Big back, wide, strong. I wash good.”

“I can do it, thank you.” He hopped around the tub to stare at me. “So he never brought anything back from the world of the living?”

His brow furrowed. “One time bring lady,” he whispered, his ruby eyes darting about. “She come just once, saggy like wet shirt. He make plans. I warn him. I say bad ride. Bad ride, but he throw me out the door. Lock it. Not let me in. Then crow boss show up. Mad! Oh so mad!” He clambered up to sit and balance on the of edge of the tub like a gargoyle. Water dripped off my nose. “He rip door off hinge. Drag coachman out, kick in his head. Kick, kick, kick! Then take lady spirit and Greeley away to the pits. I clean the floor. Blood everywhere. I wash and wash. For days. Bury body alone. So hard! Dig for days behind stable. No food only tree meat and bendy carrots. Then you arrive. End of story.”

I sat back to ruminate as I scrubbed days’ worth of road dirt, ash, and the clinging stink of brimstone from my skin and hair. So my predecessor had brought a corpse here. Into purgatory. And he had made plans of some sort. The kind of plans a man made with a cadaver was beyond me. As I scrubbed under my arm, the soap lathering nicely in the thicket of dark hair, I wondered what kind of schemes they had made or was Delmar inventing things. How did one bring a human into the realm of shades? The myth of Orpheus popped into my head as I ran the soap over the pelt of curls on my chest. Greeley had not journeyed into the depths themselves to bring a loved one out, but he had brought a cherished one to purgatory. How? Was this not the realm of those who were not ready for the glory of Heaven and required purification? The living should not be able to enter this place.

“The lady that he brought back,” I asked after a moment or two. “Was she alive when she arrived?”

“Why so nose about Greeley? He is roasting in pits for disobeying rules,” Delmar said while picking his nose. I pointed at the soap. His lips twisted into a grimace, but he splashed about in the bath, those long claws coming dangerously close to my cockery. Oh glory. Now I was using that term.

“I’m curious as to how a moribund can bring a human here.” I closed my legs quickly as he made a show of washing his hands.

“She on cusp.”

“Cusp of death?”

“Yes, cusp.”

“Did she not have a judgment at the time of her passing? And if she were sent here she would be a spirit like those outside.” I waved a wet hand at the window, my sight drawn to the passing psyches as they wafted by the smudged glass.

He rolled his eyes while shaking water from his hands. “You big, pretty but dumb as horse.” I frowned at the imp. “He bring body before judging. Cusp. Race fast. Horse foamy on face when arrive. Final breath of lady wife leaves. No judgment. Her soul is here. With him. He catch it, in jar, like beetle. So bad. So bad. Malphus come, huge and angry, take jar. Kill Greeley. I hide behind tree until they fly off, then I come inside. Bury body. Make ready for next coachman. Then you come in his arms. I peek from bedroom. He is prettiest of pretty. More pretty than you even. He drop you on bed. Burned bad. Face not pretty. Ugly human fire log. Bid me to wash you and feed you soup.”

“Who did this? Malphus?” I asked, even though I knew otherwise. There was only one in this realm whose beauty was so blinding.

“No, he is ugly like horse ass.” He jumped down to poke our dinner with a wooden ladle. “Our dark lord bring you. Pick you for his coachman. Always this way. He loves the horse. Wants a good coachman. Greeley not good. Greeley wants his lady wife. The dark one chose poorly with Greeley. Ham, ham, ham! Pig meat for dinner!”

He sang as he stirred. I lounged back into the tub as much as I could and rinsed at my leisure. The hot bath had eased some of my knotted muscles, but even as my body calmed, my thoughts spun like that whirlpool I’d once seen.

“So moribund can bring others here?” I posed the question gently as if it were just a passing thought.

He fished a potato from the cauldron and poked it with his finger, a long claw cutting it in two. “Bad ride. Bad ride. Humans not good here. No good. They wither and die, souls lost forever no moving on to final fate.”

“So humans who come here still clinging to life die.” He nodded as he threw the raw potato back into the pot to cook longer. The soft tapping of those who wait brushing on the window seemed louder now.

“This place not for living,” he stated, licking the ladle.

So there was no way of me reaching out to Theo. He could not see me on Earth, and if I somehow managed to get him into the carriage, he would expire as soon as he stepped foot in purgatory. Sadness and loss lay heavy on my shoulders. I’d had a spark of hope when Malphus had said coachmen could take what they wished from the humans. Women or men. But stealing them away would only bring about their early passing. What manner of cruel bastard would do such a thing to ease his own loss?

Would I ever see Theo again? What fate would befall him if I rode to Avers Mill on a summons and took a side road to his home? Would that be disobeying one of the vague rules, or would that be acceptable? And did I wish to view him again only to know that he was forever lost to me? No. That would be too painful. Best to let him grieve me and then move on with his life, find a wife someday, and have children. It was what he was expected to do.

I let out a long sigh, deeply felt. This was a bleak existence. Locked into indentureship with no friends save a heavenly being who hovered on the cusp of life and death just as I did.

I blinked. The water on my lashes fell to my whiskery cheek. “Delmar, what knowledge do you have of coachmen sprucing up this cabin?”

He poked at the fire with his toe, his head craning in my direction. “There is no other coachman. Just one. Just you.”

“Yes, I know. I’m just asking if any of my predecessors tried to make this cabin less depressing?”

“I do not know about deep ressing. I am cooking and cleaning for you. Why ask think questions?”

“Aren’t you curious?” I stood up, water sluicing down me, realizing that in my rush to bathe I had forgotten to locate something to dry with. Dripping wet, I stepped out of the hip bath and bent to pick up my dirty shirt. It would have to do.

The list of things that I would need to find on the other side of the portal kept growing and growing. What did Greeley do here? Obviously, not bathe or eat. Perhaps he gardened during his downtime or read, although there were no signs of books of any kind.

“Ask think questions get head kick,” Delmar replied as he threw a pinch of something that looked like pepper—please let it be pepper—into the boiling dinner.

“That’s a reasonable reply,” I said as I rubbed at my face to dry it. Keeping one’s little red head down kept one’s brains inside one’s skull. “Still though, if you do not question things, you never learn. I’d like to know how I was chosen, for example, or how it is that Abyss is treated so well, but Lucifer’s coachman only has one set of clothes.”

“Lucifer like horse better,” he answered matter-of-factly. “He craft mean horse from hot rock then blow life into big lungs. He only take you from fire then throw on sofa for Delmar to wash like bad burn meat. Stink too! Stink bad. But no thanks from dark lord. No thanks at all. I make quits soon!”

I turned my head to hide my smile. Quitting seemed a rather large boast from such a skittish little beast, but three cheers for his bravado.

“I hope you stay on,” I said. He threw me a suspicious look from the hearth. “Truly, I do. I’ve come to think of you as a friend. Of sorts. That is pepper you are dousing our dinner with, yes?”

“Yes, yes, pepper pig meat!” He began to do a macabre jig. It would be horribly upsetting to see—this little imp dancing in front of the flames—if I had just arrived. Now, it simply made me wonder if he ever planned to sew that rip on his britches. Viewing the scarlet stub where his tail had been was less than pleasant.

“When next I have a chance, I shall speak with Malphus about asking for more coins to make this house more of a home.” I rubbed at my thighs with my shirt as my mind wandered off to the small room I had had in Hester and Norman’s house. A tiny little place with one bed and a dresser, no more than a closet really, but it was mine. Despite what Norman claimed, I was grateful for them taking me in. I’d have been tossed into the orphanage in Liverswell if they’d not claimed familial rights.

Many were the nights I slept in the stables as a lad to avoid hearing the shouting of the adults that kept me awake. Even as I grew older, the soft rustle of horses calmed me as nothing else ever had, short of falling asleep in a lover’s arms. Theo popped up in my mind’s eye as he was the last I had seen him. Or was it the last? The time of my death was hazy, fogged over like a winter window, so maybe we had managed another assignation. Or mayhap not. I would never know unless the murk around my passing lifted. In time, possibly. For now, I would have to keep prodding Malphus for information as I ferried unfortunate souls to the dark, hot depths while seeking something bright to hang on the windows.