He gurgled and went still. The widow pulled me up. The sharp end of the bolt stuck out of my arm, flopping loose, but at least it hadn’t lodged in the bone. Then I saw the blood begin to pool at my feet, felt the giddiness that comes as harbinger to shock.

“Got to get this wrapped up,” I said. “Got to get out.”

The widow bit her lip. Then she reached out and snatched the bolt free from my flesh.

I nearly passed out. She propped me up and took off her scarf and tied it tight around the wound.

“Get up, boy,” said a voice. The widow heard it too.

“Get up. You ain’t done yet.”

Behind us, Jefrey groaned and stirred. I blinked back tears, began to hear music again-though this time, it was a funeral dirge.

“Got to get out,” I said. I rose, managed to step over the dead man and take up his blade. “Got to go.”

The widow rushed to Jefrey’s side. She had him sitting up when I got there, and he even tried to open his eyes. But he wasn’t walking, and I wasn’t carrying him.

Shouts sounded, up the stairs, and I saw the flash of a lamp.

We took Jefrey between us and stumbled away. I steered us toward House Merlat’s tall, wide doors, but then I heard a warning growl beneath the thunder and saw dark shapes mass in the shadows ahead.

The widow halted. “See!” she hissed.

I squinted, looked. There-was that light? Down the hall, past the doors?

“This way,” cried Elizabet. “Check the closets!”

I cursed. The door was that way. The door and the lawn and the Watch-but we’d never beat Elizabet there, and whoever might be with her.

The widow yanked us around. “This way,” she said, panting under the burden of Jefrey’s weight and my own growing weakness. “There’s a safe-room.”

“I cannot,” wailed the voice, through Mama’s hex. “I cannot, please, please, no.”

Footsteps sounded, behind the light.

We went. I tried to remember hallways, tried to place windows and turnings and ways. Was there a sitting room to the right, with windows that might be opened? Where was the hall that led to the pantry?

But Mama’s hex filled the darkness with faces, and as my arm began to throb in earnest, my head seemed to swell and grow light. I could smell Petey’s wet musk, feel his breath hot and moist at my knees. I heard mourners cry amid the music now, and as we passed down yet another hall, it seemed that we merely joined a line of weeping shades already bound for the faint, faint light at the end of a long, cold tunnel. They shuffled and they moaned as they walked, and just as I realized I was moaning softly with them, Petey reached up and bit my hand.

I jumped and pulled the sagging Jefrey up so that his knees no longer dragged on the floor.

“In here,” said the widow. She let Jefrey go, fumbled with the latch and key. And then the door opened with a groan, and Jefrey and I fell inside.

“What is this place?” I asked. “Is there another door?”

“There they are!” shouted Elizabet, from down the hall. Someone answered, though who it was and what they said was lost to the thunder. “Wait, Mother!” she shouted. “There’s someone here I want you to meet!”

The widow heaved the door shut. More clicks and throws sounded in the dark, and after a moment I heard a crossbar being dropped.

Blows sounded on the door. “Oh, do come out, Mother,” shouted Elizabet from the other side. “Don’t be an old bore! Isn’t Daddy waiting for you, just outside? Haven’t you seen him, calling for you?”

The widow didn’t reply. I heard her fumble in the dark, open a drawer and lit a match.

I looked about. The room was maybe ten-by-twenty, no windows, one door. The walls and floor were plain, smooth stone, bare and unadorned. The ceiling was of banded iron. The only door, the one the widow had just barred, was also fashioned of old banded iron.

Chairs lined one wall. A dusty cask sat in a corner. I was betting it was dry and empty.

“Safe,” chuckled the voices. I groaned and let myself sink to the floor.

The pounding on the door ceased. “I’ll be back soon with the others, Mother,” said Elizabet. “I’ll bet Roger has a chisel in his bag. You’ll like Roger, Mother. He’s such a dear. I doubt he’ll even hurt you much, before he breaks your neck.”

Then she laughed, and the room fell silent.

I gasped. My arm throbbed and I imagined it was swelling and wondered if it would soon burst. The widow helped me up, tried to move me toward a chair.

“Rest,” she said. “They’ll not be soon through that door.”

“They don’t have to be,” I said. I turned, put my hands upon the cold, rusty iron. “They can take their time, chisel away the hinges. Might take two days.” I licked my lips. My mouth was so dry I could barely speak. “How long can we stay here?” I said. “How long will we last?”

The widow opened her mouth and quickly shut it. I watched the realization sink in-the realization that we had neither escaped nor found safety.

My head reeled, but I stood. “We’ve got to go,” I said. “Before she gets back. Let them think we’re in here.” I reached for the latch.

The widow knocked my hand away. “No!” she cried, her voice loud in the small bare room. “No! We cannot. We cannot open the doors.”

“I cannot,” came an answering cry, and now I knew the voice. “Do not ask that of me.”

The widow whirled, and sobbed, and I knew she heard it too.

The room flickered in the widow’s shaky candlelight, and Mama’s hex and my blood loss and shock rose up and conspired to show me another room, and another time. I saw Lord Merlat on his deathbed, saw the Lady Merlat-not yet the widow-kneeling at his side. “I cannot,” she cried over and over. “Do not ask that of me.”

She clenched a dark bottle in her hand. Medicine. A certain amount brings ease. More than that-and perhaps the doctors even stressed this, as the wet fever raged-more than that brings peace.

“I love you,” she sobbed, and this time her mouth moved silently with the phantom words from the hall. “I love you, but I cannot take your life away.”

“My God,” I said. The room spun, and I was back with the widow and the doors of rusty iron. “You think that’s why he’s back? You think he came for you because you couldn’t kill him at the end?”

She couldn’t meet my eyes. She looked away, the matches fell from her hand and she sank to her knees.

“I cannot,” cried the phantom.

She let out a wracking, wordless sob that sounded louder than all the thunder, all the hex-cries still ringing in my ears. She sobbed and caught her breath, and her thin body shook.

“He begged me,” she said, after a moment. “So much pain. I wanted to. I tried to. But. God forgive me. I couldn’t kill my Ebed.”

I backed away, toward the door. The throbbing in my arm rose into my shoulder, crept toward my neck. Dark spots began to dance before my eyes. Poison, I thought, and heard laughter in the distant storm.

Something wet stroked my good hand. Petey tugged at me, scratched at the door.

Do what needs doing, boy.

You’ll know what that is, when the time comes.

I lifted the crossbar. The widow didn’t see what I was doing until she heard the latch click.

“No!” she cried, but I opened the door.

The hall was empty. Thunder grumbled. I stepped outside, turned.

“Lock it again,” I said. “Lock it. And cover your ears.”

“You can’t go out there!” she screamed. “You can’t!”

“I’m not,” I said. I hesitated. Words were getting hard to form.

“It isn’t vengeance,” I said. “It never was.” I licked my lips, panted a bit, forced it out. “The kids know about the will. Know you’ve got to have an accident before you make it legal.”

Jefrey moaned, pawed at the air.

“He only came back on the nights the kids had plans for you,” I said. “He came back to save you. Came back to rouse the house. It isn’t vengeance he’s after, Lady. And it isn’t you.”