Old Tin Sorrows

40

Doom didnt need help doing his constraint thing. In fact, he wanted to be alone. "There are always risks in these things. I have a tendency to underestimate ghosts. It would be safer for everybody if you stayed away till I finish."

I said, "You heard him."

The party broke up. Nobody said much to anybody else. There was a lot of thinking going on.

Peters went to the kitchen to ride herd on Cook. Kaid went up to take care of the old man, probably with severely mixed feelings. I had them. It was hard to reconcile the General Stantnor of the Cantard War with the vicious monster we'd uncovered here.

Morley went outside to talk about old times with Dojango and his big green brothers. I took Jennifer up to her suite and put her back to bed, alone, to rest. She was badly shaken, seemed to want to curl up and make the world go away.

I didn't blame her. I'd be the same way if I found out my father murdered my mother.

I didn't tell her why she was in such bad shape physically. She had enough troubles. And I still wasn't sure I could accept that myself.

Nothing much to do till Doom was ready to go. I put my coat on and walked out to the Stantnor graveyard. I stared at Eleanor's marker awhile, trying to make peace with myself. It didn't work. I noticed a shovel leaning against the fence. Wayne had left it behind, as though he'd known there would be more graves to dig and why bother lugging tools back and forth? I found a spot and started digging, trying to lose myself preparing Chain's resting place.

That didn't work very well.

It especially didn't work when, after I was about three feet down, I noticed Eleanor by her tombstone, watching me. I stopped, tried to read something from features that were none too clear in daylight.

She'd been pretty substantial last night—because she'd sucked so much life out of Stantnor. Had she taken on substance at other times, to attack him by eliminating his servants? A ghost could make murder put of even apparently accidental deaths, by maddening a bull or maybe causing heart attacks. "I'm sorry, Eleanor. I never meant to hurt you."

She didn't say anything. She never did, except that once, when she found me outside Peters's room.

She seemed to gain substance. What was taking Doom so long? Was she giving him more trouble than he'd expected? I tried to think about that, the grave I was digging, lunch, the killer still to be caught, anything but the sad, futile, brief life this woman had lived.

It didn't work.

I sat on the edge of the grave, in the muck, and cried for her.

Then she was sitting opposite me wearing that look of concern, the same one she'd worn when she'd found me hurt. She didn't have enough substance not to be transparent. I told her, "I wish it could have been different for you. I wish you could've lived in my time. Or I in yours." And I meant it.

She reached out. Her touch was like the impact of falling swansdown. She smiled a weak, sad, forgiving smile. I tried to smile back but I couldn't.

There are evils in this world. It's the nature of things that there are, though it's a struggle accepting that. Because what Eleanor Stantnor had suffered, through no fault of her own, was an evil beyond ordinary evils. It was the kind of evil that goes beyond Man and rests squarely on the shoulders of the gods. It was the kind of evil that had left me an essentially godless man. I can't give allegiance to sky-beasts who'd let things like that happen to the undeserving.

General Stantnor would suffer in turn but the guilt wasn't all his. Nor did it belong to Eleanor's parents. Her mother had tried to protect her. Nor did it belong to the world as a whole. If there are gods at all, they deserved equal pain.

I looked up. Doom must have been finishing up, maybe getting an edge because she was distracted by me. She had little substance left. But she smiled as she faded. At me. Maybe the guy who had been best to her, ever. And you can guess how little that made me feel. I said, "Be at peace, Eleanor."

Then she was gone.

I dug some more, in a fury, like I was going to open a gate to hell and shove all the evils of the world down that hole. When I had a grave a foot deeper than necessary I came to my senses, sort of. I hoisted myself out and headed for the house. I had so much mud on me I feared somebody might mistake me for a draug.