“Let’s take these upstairs. They shouldn’t stay down here.” Hanna picked up a bottle and tucked it into her shopping bag.
“What are you going to do with them?” Gillian asked as she stored another bottle in the bag.
“I’m not sure. Bury them in the garden where the rest of their remains are, maybe. These people probably don’t have other graves. Maybe we can have a priest out to consecrate some ground and put them there. At least the cook could reclaim this room for wine,” Hanna said.
In truth, she had no idea what to do with the distressing mementos of the Widow’s evil. Not such that she could explain it to a visitor who didn’t believe in ghosts.I’m going to take them outside in the sun and send them home beyond the sky. What happens to the physical remains matters less than what happens to the spirits trapped inside. I only wish I could find Stuart and Janette.
She hadn’t felt them. Not even a shiver of Stuart’s presence, or a whisper of Janette’s heartfelt pleas. It sat as oddly with Hanna as the Widow’s silence did.
They’d started their climb back up the stairs when Hanna heard Gregory’s voice. “Hanna? Gillian? Where are you?”
“The basement!” Hanna called up and quickened her pace.
“What the hell are you doing down there?” She heard the note of dire concern in his voice, then the sound of his footsteps.
He stood in the kitchen with a tense frown as Hanna emerged from the cellar. Though she knew the basement bothered him, his apparent nervousness went beyond that.The phone call.
“We found new information after you left to take your call. Marion Pritchard kept trophies of her children in the wine cellar. Doctor Turner saw them and wrote about them. After we read about it, we wanted to verify it, so we went downstairs.” Hanna touched the bag that hang off her arm.
For a moment, she thought Gregory’s skin might crawl off, which she couldn’t blame him for. Hers had given it serious consideration. It still did, as the soft whispers of spirits tickled over her senses, just beyond her hearing but well within the range of less conventional senses.
“That’s a kind of horrible I have never considered,” he said at last. “Did you find Stuart? Or Janette?”
“No. That’s the strange thing. They weren’t in the room, and I’m not sure where else they could be.”
“Me, either, but I may know how to find out. We have the blueprints to Greenhill. Maybe there’s a place we haven’t found yet. It’s a big house, and we haven’t explored it much,” Gregory said.
Once again, he proved himself her hero with the smallest gestures. “Thank you. That would be really useful.”
“But we need to do it later. That phone call was the majority shareholder’s representative. He invited himself by for dinner tonight, and I’m not inclined to say no. I’ve been trying to get hold of him for weeks. I don’t want to cut this short, but…” Gregory smiled with obvious apology.
Gillian held up a hand. “I hear my cue to bugger off. Could I ask for some help gathering up my things? They’ve both scattered and multiplied.”
“Of course,” Gregory said. “Let me help you take that stuff to your car.”
“I will, too,” Hanna said. “Just let me set these bottles down. I’ll deal with them later.”
But not much later. Before the sun set, the sparrows would fly.
* * *
Gillian’s carhad disappeared down the road, loaded with the history she never knew existed and the truths she had never expected to hear. Gregory had retreated to his office, Martin in tow, to throw together a proposal for the night’s business. Vivian had fallen asleep in her chair, still frail from the incidents of the past two nights.
Alone, and grateful for it, Hanna carried the bottles outside. The sun had long begun its trip into the west, bathing the green countryside in a splendor of golden light. Hanna tilted her face up as she walked into the garden, allowing the rays to scour away the last of the basement’s frigid bite. The warmer air of the upstairs rooms had banished the physical cold, but the spiritual chill remained.
Not for long. She found a bench among the thorny roses to set her bag upon, one the sunlight still engulfed fully before the sundown claimed it. Nearby, along one of the hedge rows of roses, a sparrow landed on a spindly branch to watch her as she set each bottle on it with care, corks pointed towards the sky.
She’d wondered if she would need a corkscrew, but the Widow had not pressed the stoppers in so far, nor did they remain tight in the necks of the bottles.Thank goodness. I don’t know how to decant a soul. I don’t even know how to do what I need to do. Not really.
Another sparrow joined the first. Then another, and a fifth, until a flock had gathered on the nearby plants. They sat with silent solemnity, all eyes on her with a fearless curiosity as if they, too, wondered how she would proceed.
“They catch the souls of the dead in gentle little feet so they never have to feel the ground again. Once they grab hold, they fly higher, and higher until the soul is past the world and into the beautiful place beyond the sky,” she murmured.
The place beyond the blue-gold sky, where the sun never set and the winds never blew cold. Hanna reached down to take the bottle labeledPatriciainto her hands.
“That is the blessing of sparrows. No more days trapped in a dark room beyond the sight of the sky. No more nights remembering when your mother betrayed you. There is a place beyond the sky where you will never feel cold again.” The cork squeaked, then pulled free with a resonantthunk.
Hanna closed her eyes against the sunlight, but she didn’t need her vision to see it. It shone bright in her mind’s eye, no longer a yellow star but a lighthouse that beckoned lost souls home. Her body felt light, as light as feathers, and she felt herself rise on wings she never knew she possessed.