Curfew in Rannit falls with the sun. The night belongs to the half-dead, the Watch and anybody crazy enough to risk running afoul of the former or tripping over the recumbent, snoring forms of the latter.

Curfew fell, and the big old bells on the Square clanged nine times. Before the last notes had faded Mama Hog herself was yelling “Boy, wake up,” and banging on my door.

I swung my feet off my desk, put my sandwich down on a plate and hurried to the door.

Mama Hog looked up and grinned. “The Widow Merlat found you,” she said, not asking but reporting.

“She did indeed,” I said, opening the door. “What a chucklesome old dear. She’s coming by later for tea and a seance.”

Mama cackled and trundled inside. “The Widow Merlat’s got the fear, boy,” she said. “Got it bad.” Mama plopped down into my client’s chair and started eyeing my sandwich.

“You make that?”

“It’s from Eddie’s,” I said. “Tear off a hunk.”

She tore, bit, chewed.

“You sent me a lunatic, Mama,” I said, shaking my finger. “Shame on you.”

Bite, chew, swallow. Then Mama wiped her lips on her sleeve and grinned. “She ain’t crazy, boy,” Mama said. “She’s ec-cen-tric. Ain’t that the word for rich folks?”

“She thinks her dead husband spends his evening knock-knock-knocking at her door,” I said. “Eccentric doesn’t cover that, Mama, and you know it.”

Mama shrugged and chewed.

“I have no love for the idle rich,” I said. “But I’ve got no desire to fleece sad old widow women, either.” I went behind my desk, pulled back my chair and sat. “Why not send her to a doctor or a priest, Mama?” I said. “Why me? Why a finder?”

My sandwich-melted Lowridge cheese on smoked Pinford ham-was vanishing fast. I grabbed a hunk when Mama paused to speak.

“The widow ain’t crazy, boy,” she said. “Could be she ain’t seeing things, either.”

I shook my head and swallowed. “Your cards tell you that?”

Mama Hog nodded. “Cards say she’s got a hard rain coming, boy,” she said. “Turned up the Dead Man, and the Storm, and the Last Dancer, all in the same hand. Dead Man’s rain. That ain’t good.” Mama grabbed another morsel of sandwich, guffawed around it. “But I don’t need cards to see the sun. The Widow Merlat is headed for a bad time. She knows it. I know it. You’d best know it, too.”

“Dead is dead, Mama,” I said. “That’s what I know.”

Mama grinned. “There’s other things you need to know, boy. Things about the ones that come back.”

“First thing being that they don’t,” I said.

Mama pretended not to hear.

“Rev’nants only walk at night,” she said. “It’s got to be pitch dark.”

“Do tell.”

“You can’t catch ’em coming out of the ground,” said Mama. “It’s no good trying. They’re like haunts, that way. Solid as rock one minute, thin as fog the next.”

“Sounds handy,” I said. “Do their underbritches get all misty and ethereal too, or is that one of the things man was not meant to know?”

“Don’t look in his eyes, boy. Don’t look in his eyes, or breathe air he’s breathed.”

“I won’t even ask about borrowing his toothbrush,” I said.

Mama slapped my desktop with both her hands.

“You listen,” she hissed. “Believe or not, but you listen.”

“I’ve got all night.”

“His mouth will be open,” said Mama. “Wide open. He’s been saving a scream, all that time in the ground. Saving up a scream for the one that put him there.” Mama lifted a stubby finger and shook it in my face. “Don’t you listen when he screams. You put your hands over your ears and you yell loud as you can, but don’t you listen. Cause if you do, you’ll hear that scream for the rest of your days, and there ain’t nothing nobody nowhere can do for you then.”

Silence fell. Only after Curfew do we get any silence, in my neighborhood. I let it linger for a moment.

I leaned forward, put my eyes down even with Mama’s, motioned her closer, spoke.

“Boo.”

Mama glared. “Don’t get in his way, boy,” she said. “He didn’t come back for you. But that won’t mean nothing if you get in the way.”

“Dead is dead, Mama,” I said.

Mama sighed. “Dead is dead,” she agreed. “Sometimes, though, good and dead ain’t dead enough.”

Mama rose, brushed crumbs of my sandwich off her chin, and headed for the door.

“When you going to the widow’s house, boy?” she asked, as she turned my bolt.

“First thing tomorrow,” I said. “Going to stay a few days, see what I can see. If Old Bones shows up, I’ll stuff my ears with cotton and give him your regards.”

Mama rolled her eyes. “You watch yourself,” she said. “And not just at night.”

I frowned. “Meaning?”

Mama shook her head. “Meaning them Merlat kids would as soon gut you as say hello,” she said. “Bad ’uns, the lot of ’em.”

“Whoa, Mama,” I said, rising. “You know something about the Merlat kids, sit back down. I’m a lot more likely to run into one of them than their dear departed daddy.”

Mama didn’t go out, but she didn’t back away from the door either. “Told you all I know. They bad. All of ’em.”

“How many would that be?” I asked. “Two? Four? Ten? Tell me something I can use, Mama. That was a good sandwich you gobbled.”

Mama made a snuffling noise. “Three of ’em,” she said. “Two men. One a gambler. One on weed. One woman. Not sure what she is, but I know it ain’t good.”

“Did one of them have anything to do with Papa Merlat’s plot on the Hill?”

“I reckon they all did,” said Mama. “But not in the way you mean. You be careful, boy. Real careful.”

Then she opened my door and was gone.

I thought about following her. I’ve broken Curfew before, just like everyone else, but I didn’t get up, and Mama’s footsteps were fast and then gone.

She’d said what she meant to say. I brushed crumbs off my desk, found a bottle of beer in a drawer and settled back to watch the dark.

“This will do,” I told my driver. “Pull over.”

The cab rolled to a halt. I opened the door and hauled out my Army-tan duffel bag.

The cabbie looked down at me and wrinkled his brow. “Look, pal,” he said. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but this ain’t the place for the likes of us come sundown.”

I’d hauled a handful of coppers out of my pocket to count out for the fare, and I was so shocked I lost my place. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I’ve got a job. I’ll be indoors. The Merlats aren’t half-dead, and even if the neighbors are they don’t bother the help-do they?”

The cabbie’s eyes darted up and down the empty, tree-lined sidewalk. “It ain’t the half-dead you need to watch,” he said, and then he pointed with his chin at the Merlat house. “It’s them.”

I put out my hand, and he took the coins. Before I could ask him anything else he snapped his reigns and was gone.

I watched him go. I considered chasing him down and asking him if he’d like more coins, but rich people tend to look down on common folk running through their lawns, so I heaved my duffel bag over my shoulder and set off for House Merlat.

I think I even whistled. It was hard not to, that morning-the sun was up, the birds were singing, I had a sock stuffed with silver and a rich man’s bed to sleep in.

A wrought-iron swing gate worked with griffins and roses opened to the Merlat’s yard, and the walk that wound through it. I opened the waist-high gate and sauntered through, watching the house. A curtain moved in the big window to the right of the front doors, and I heard, faint but clear, the tinkling of a bell.

Behind the house, dogs began to bark and snarl. I switched my duffel to my other shoulder and kept my pace steady. Marble knights and silent angels looked on as I passed, their blank eyes moving to follow my every step.

The house was set dead center of the big square yard. Ward-walls, each erected by the Merlat’s neighbors, covered three sides. The street-side front fence was just painted iron, a little more than waist high. Mama Hog could have climbed it, so if Old Man Merlat was really taking long evening strolls, he was entering the grounds from the street.