Catherine’s insides twisted. “A resurrectionist, then.”
Most people considered the practice horrific. At least Catherine and her sort left the bodies in their coffins. At least they provided a comfort to grieving families. Resurrectionists unearthed cadavers and sold them off to anatomists in need of bodies to dissect.
“He could help,” Guy said.
Catherine looked back toward the pinpoint of her lantern light. What she saw there—or rather, what she didn’t—froze the blood in her veins. She grabbed Guy by the sleeve.
“The boy,” she said. “Where’s the boy?”
Guy snapped his head around.
“Oh,” he said.
In the space between piles of grave dirt and Catherine’s lantern, where Owen had stood waiting, there was only empty air.
The boy was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CATHERINE NEVER SHOULD’VE let him out of her sight.
She made a dash for the grave, snatched her lantern, and held it high over her head. It was as good as casting light down a well—the darkness around them was unyielding, near tangible, and Owen could be anywhere among the trees and stone monuments.
“He can’t have gone far,” said Guy, coming up next to her. He surveyed the empty grave before turning his attention toward the front gates. In the gloom, the sharp-tipped finials were set in relief by the lamps lining the street. Catherine clutched her lantern tighter. She started down the path, peering between the rows of headstones.
Guy Nolan followed after her. “Poor fellow. He’s likely scared out of his wits.”
“Yes, I imagine so.”
She headed for the cemetery’s entrance, drawing closer to the rattling of carriages, the muffled calls and laughter from the doorways of gin palaces.
Owen, as Guy surmised, hadn’t gone far at all. As they neared the front gates, Catherine found him standing to one side of the fence. His hands were curled around it, his forehead pressed to the iron. Guy moved forward and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The touch seemed to undo him in some way—he let out a shuddered breath, as if he might burst into tears. His voice was little more than a whisper as he said, “What am I supposed to do?” He turned, facing the two of them, yet he seemed to be looking elsewhere, his eyes far away. “Where am I to go?”
“I have somewhere you can stay,” Guy told him.
Catherine gestured back with her lantern. “We need to fill in the grave,” she said quietly. “Before sunrise.”
Owen’s knuckles whitened where he still held the fence. “Do not ask that of me.”
“Mr. Nolan and I are more than capable. And the sooner we do, the sooner we can get out of this cold.” Catherine looked to Guy. “Shall we?”
Shoveling the dirt back in wasn’t as arduous as the initial dig. As such, her attention wandered from the grave to the boy it once contained. Owen stood watching them, shivering, his arms curled about himself.
“Oh, gracious,” said Guy. He put aside his spade to remove his coat and hat, pushing them onto Owen. “You’ll catch your death the very night you woke from it.”
This time Owen took the items offered. The coat was a looser fit on him—Guy was taller by a couple of inches, his shoulders broader—and Owen dug his hands into the pockets, tucked his chin into the coat’s collar, making himself appear even smaller.
“I truly died, then,” he said, voice wavering. “I really… I was really dead.”
“But now you’re alive,” Catherine told him. “Isn’t it a wonder?”
“Not a wonder.” Owen sniffed. “Magic.”
“Not magic of our doing. It’s a powerful sort that brought you back as you are.”
Guy heaved another pile of dirt into the slowly filling pit. He said, “Miss Daly, you did make an attempt.”
All she’d done was set down her piece of type. Guy turned to her, his spade balanced in his hands. He went on. “Perhaps your magic worked as a spark.”
She looked away. God only knew what Ainsworth might do if he found out. She certainly couldn’t tell him. The timepiece wasn’t where he thought, and its magic had brought the coffin maker back to life.
Over the stone monuments, the first flush of dawn lit the sky. Catherine hadn’t slept at all this night, and little the night before; she felt the heavy pull of exhaustion at her eyelids, her head clouded, that dizzy, unsteady feeling. She looked to Guy in the blue-black of the coming morning. He wiped at his eyes, offering her a tired smile.
“Come along,” he said once they’d finished. “We’ll head back to mine.”
They left their spades behind the cemetery fence. Making their way to the watchmaker’s shop, they passed by dustmen and lamplighters with their ladders and poles, extinguishing the streetlights. Guy stopped outside the shop and pulled a key from his trouser pocket.
Owen gazed into the darkened window. “You’re a watchmaker?”
“Yes.” Guy’s tone was crisp, the pride in it quite plain. “My family has worked here for three generations.”
Owen looked silently at the shadowed clockwork beyond the glass.
“Do you recall it?” Guy asked, unlocking the door.
After a pause, Owen shook his head. “Perhaps not.”
Catherine ducked inside behind them. The interior of the shop was dark, the still audible ticking of the clocks made eerie in the dimness. It seemed a different place at night, somewhere strange and unfamiliar.
“There’s a spare room upstairs,” Guy told Owen. “You may stay there for the night.” He took his coat and hat from him, setting them on the rack near the door. “What’s left of it, rather.”
“Thank you,” said Owen. He glanced over at Catherine.
Even in the shadows, she made out the curiosity in his eyes. She spoke before it resolved into a question. “My place is at the Invercarn Chronicle. It’s a few blocks from here.” She turned to Guy. “If I may, I’ll call on you tomorrow.”
“Of course, Miss Daly.”
She wanted to say something else. Something like Thank you or My apologies. She’d paid him to inspect a timepiece they hadn’t been able to find. Now they were in this quandary, with this boy who hadn’t any memory of his previous life, let alone the timepiece. But she said only: “Good night, then.”
With her lantern in hand, she stepped back out into the darkness of the street. Tired as she was, the light seemed to flare and oscillate, spots dancing in her vision. She reached the print shop, the door opening with a groan under her hand. The presses were still, dark shapes across the floor, the sheets on the drying racks ghostly silhouettes above her head. She started upstairs and eased open the door to her room. Bridget was asleep, curled up facing the wall. Catherine placed her feet just so to avoid the creaks in the floorboards, not wanting to wake her. She set her lantern on the desk and changed into her nightclothes.
She needed just a few hours’ rest, just a moment to close her eyes.
And as she got into bed, she considered once more what had occurred in the cemetery. Until sleep pulled her down into the dark.
CHAPTER EIGHT