Doors smashed, burst into splinters, some of them charred and crumbling, as though struck with a fist formed of lightning. Holes in the walls. Burnt spots on the floor. A long double-edged knife, half the blade melted in a puddle of bright steel just beyond a broken door.

But no bodies. Doors smashed, one after another, as though someone-three murderous children and their two surviving hirelings, for instance-ran from room to room, shutting and barricading each door behind them, watching as each door was shattered and broken. Running and hiding, until at last they passed into a room with no way out, with Ebed Merlat’s thunderous footfalls drawing nearer with each moment.

That last door, too, was shattered. A final shattered door, another empty room. We never found the Merlat children. Never found the men they’d hired. Even the man I’d stabbed in the ballroom was gone.

I never told the widow, but I think that their father gathered his children up and took them with him. I think that if we were to open Ebed Merlat’s grave we would find them all there, broken and bloated in his relentless embrace.

Despite the sun beaming down on me, I pulled my arms across my chest and shivered.

The widow had insisted on calling the Watch. We told everything. But since there were no bodies, we might as well have been putting on a clown-and-king puppet show. In the end, the Watchmen shrugged and scratched their heads and went away.

Jefrey and I decided the Merlat children’s special helpers snuck in somehow with the grocery wagon. The delivery kid went missing the next day, right after someone saw him buying a horse. I wish him luck, down south. He’ll need it.

I stomped my feet, pulled away from my angel, stretched my arms out and winced, but stretched them out anyway. Only an idiot stands in the sun and muses on the dark.

So I looked up. The sky blazed the dark, well-scrubbed blue that you see only after truly vicious storms. The close-cropped grass atop the rolling hills was thick and green, the air smelled cool and clean, and all around oak leaves whispered peacefully in a gentle breeze. “Peace,” said all the gravewards, in the tall plain script of the Church.

“I hope so,” I said aloud to the stones. “I hope so.”

I heard rapid footsteps behind me but did not turn.

“There you are, boy,” said Mama.

I feigned deafness. I wasn’t quite ready to forgive Mama her stunt with the hex, though my curiosity about where she got such a charm was beginning to wear down my need for silence.

Mama came, huffing and puffing, to stand beside me. “Thought you’d be here,” she said, rummaging in the huge, ancient canvas bag that hung at her knees. “Lady Merlat and Master Jefrey came by lookin’ for you.”

I stared ahead.

“The widow was wearin’ a grey dress,” said Mama. “Smilin’, too. Said she wants you to come around for supper, some evening. Jefrey wants to ask you something about a dog.”

I picked out a graveward and decided to count the carved angels that flew about its shaft.

Mama guffawed.

“Thought you might be hungry, waitin’ for your Sergeant’s widow,” she said slyly. “Ham and cheese, ain’t that what you like?” Wax paper rustled. “Lowridge cheese and Pinford ham?”

The smell rose up, and my traitor stomach grumbled in reply.

I made her wait a handful of seconds. Then I reached down and took the sandwich, broke it in two, handed half to Mama.

“Thanks, Mama,” I said. Pride has its place, but so do Eddie’s sandwiches. Mama cackled victoriously.

“You’re welcome,” she replied. She wrapped her half, shoved it back in her bag. I bit and chewed. Mama was silent while I ate.

“You ain’t hearin’ his scream still, are you?” she said when I was done.

“Just in dreams,” I replied. “Not often, anymore.”

“That’s good,” said Mama. “Real good.” She looked out across the long, silent ranks of stones and shook her head. “I reckon you might be thinkin’ it ain’t fair,” she said, still not looking at me. “Poor men stay dead. But you just seen a rich man walk.”

I nodded. I had indeed.

“I saw his face, Mama,” I said. The sun didn’t seem so warm, while I remembered. “It wasn’t his money that brought him back.”

Mama nodded. “Guilt,” she said. “Guilt and rage. He found no peace, did Ebed Merlat. Like as not he never will.”

Then she looked up, patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “I reckon your Sergeant is better off,” she said. “I reckon he’s at rest, knowing his friend is seein’ to his widow, seein’ to his daughters. He won’t walk, boy. He won’t walk because he don’t have to.”

I looked away from her. The Sarge and Petey and a host of others-were they really watching, looking down on us from somewhere? Was another, warmer sun beaming down on them, making all they’d suffered under this one seem long ago and far away?

“I hope so,” I said, again.

Mama didn’t answer. She just nodded and clasped her hands behind her back. We waited together in the bright and warming sun while distant hammers fell and the blue jays sang and flew.