Free An Inquiry Into Love and Death by Simone St. James Page A

course it’s very old now.”
    “Fascinating,” I said. “He must have been rich.”
    “Not quite, though he wasn’t poor either. A lot of men grew rich, though not in this part of the country.”
    “Why not?”
    “Well, we’re on the wrong side of England for an easy trip from France. And with the currents, and these waters, and the rocks . . . there are easier places to land a boat in the middle of the night. Still, there was enough money to be made that the risk was worth it, at least some of the time. Am I boring you?”
    “Not at all,” I said truthfully. “Go on.”
    “Very well. Even with the risks, John Barrow did rather well, and he never got caught.”
    “Wait.” My skin had gone cold. “Did you just say
John Barrow
?”
    He regarded me with a twinkle of amusement. “You’re staying at Barrow House, aren’t you? Yes, that was his name, and that’s his house you’re in, in easy reach of the cliffs. It’s actually modern; the original burned down in the 1740s, the site was left alone for a good long while, and what’s there now was merely built onto the foundation. The house isn’t haunted that I’m aware of, but it is close to the woods, and there are stories of strange sounds.”
    “Yes, so I’ve heard.”
    “You mustn’t look so worried. It’s a strange thing, having a local ghost—every time an animal pulls down a clothesline or a bird gets caught in a chimney, it gets blamed on the poor spirit. But Blood Moon Bay at night . . . that’s a different matter.” He gazed out over the water. “No one comes out here after dark. The bay is where he died, you see, rather tragically.”
    “What happened?”
    “A shipment came in one night,” William said. “Barrow’s wife had died and they had one child, a boy of about seven, whom he doted on. On this night, after his father had left, the boy slipped out of his room and out of the house to follow his father to the bay. He was probably curious; most boys are. He would have come right by where we’re standing, I think, and gone on down the path through the woods.”
    He was deep into the telling of the tale now, and I could tell he was relishing it. I could do nothing but give in and follow where it was going.
    “Barrow knew nothing about it, of course,” William went on. “No one knows quite what happened, but somehow the boy ended up slipping in the water as the men unloaded the ship, hitting his head in the dark, and drowning.”
    “Oh, no,” I said.
    “It gets worse. When Barrow saw what had happened, he lost his mind with grief. He pulled the boy’s body from the water and held it. He wouldn’t let go. He crouched over the body and wouldn’t be moved, making horrible sounds.
    “Now, the operation depended completely on speed and stealth, as you can imagine. Barrow’s madness threatened to bring down the entire plan. They tried to talk to him, but he was having none of it. Finally, the rest of the crew decided he had to be moved. But when one of the men tried to take the body from him, Barrow pulled his pistol and shot the man in the head. Then he took the dead man’s pistol from his belt and turned it on himself as he knelt over his son’s body.”
    “My God! This is horrible.”
    “Yes, and there’s more. They buried the boy in the churchyard, but they buried John Barrow just outside it. They’d never had a murder here, you see, and they didn’t want to put him in with the other good citizens of Rothewell.
    “Within a few days, Barrow’s grave was found dug up, his body lying sprawled a few feet away. They buried him again, and it happened again. And again. Those who saw it said it looked like he had been crawling, trying to get to the churchyard and his son.”
    I crossed my arms. “Now you’re pulling my leg.”
    “That’s the legend, Miss Leigh. I’m just repeating it.”
    “My name is Jillian, please. And do tell—what happened next?”
    “All right, I’m William then. The citizens of