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

Rothewell used plain common sense, of course, for those days. They dug John Barrow up, beheaded him, burned him, and reburied him somewhere in the woods so he’d be away from the village. He stayed buried this time, but his spirit started walking. That’s why he’s called Walking John, by the way—because he was dead, and then he was walking. He can’t rest, you see, having been buried so far from his beloved child, and now it can never be put right.
    “There have been legends about him ever since. Sometimes it’s the woods, sometimes along the beach in Blood Moon Bay. The smugglers kept landing here for a while, but eventually they stopped. There were stories of overturned cargoes, of strange footprints and sounds, of John Barrow and his ghostly crew coming to help the crews unload.”
    “That can’t be true!” I said.
    “Perhaps not, but it was enough to make the trade stop entirely in Rothewell. No one wanted to land a boat here in the middle of the night anymore.” A cold, harsh wind had begun to blow up as he was talking, and he looked up at the sky. “It isn’t a very nice story, I think. I’ve probably talked about the wrong thing again, and for too long.”
    I smiled to reassure him. “I’m used to history lectures. I’m a student at Oxford.”
    “Are you, then?” He looked at me, raised his eyebrows in surprise.
    “If you’re going to say something about educated women, I’ve heard it ad nauseam, I assure you. I already feel like a bit of a circus sideshow here.”
    “Ah. No,” he said gently. “Not quite a sideshow. More like a unicorn, perhaps—something we’ve heard of, but never quite believed existed.”
    If it was a compliment, it had a bit of a sting to it, and yet I found I was strangely pleased. He hadn’t lectured me about traveling alone or finding a husband, at least.
    “It looks like a storm is blowing up,” he said now. “Shall we head back?”
    “I liked it,” I said as he looped Poseidon’s leash around his wrist, and we turned back to the woods. “The story, that is. It was rather good. Did you tell it to my uncle?”
    “I didn’t have to,” he said. “He already knew it. Someone told it to him the last time he was here.”
    I stopped walking and stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”
    He stopped and turned as well. “Toby was here before, years ago. Hunting Walking John. He said he’d come back a second time, this time because he’d left unfinished business.”
    “What was it?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. Your uncle wasn’t very talkative.”
    I stared for another moment, then started walking again. “This makes less and less sense the more I learn of it,” I said. “I don’t understand.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about it. It was probably nothing. We’ll say good night, then, shall we?”
    I thanked him and wished him good night. As he turned away, I hugged myself, the wind flapping my coat about my legs. Night was falling, and I turned to go inside. William was right, and a storm was coming.

Eight
    T here was no sign of the cat, though it must still have been in the house. I tried calling it—“Kitty, kitty”—but there was no response. It was likely hidden somewhere, still terrified by its encounter with Poseidon.
    I started a pot of tea as the sky darkened outside the kitchen window and the wind began to moan in the eaves. A few spatters of rain pelted the glass. When my tea was ready I took a cup, a tin of biscuits, and a piece of the sausage I’d bought at Rachel Moorcock’s store with me into the library.
    The library was just off the front parlor, through a pair of French doors. It featured a battered desk and a few bookshelves, mostly empty. A window looked out the back garden and toward the woods. I had noticed this room before, and it seemed perfect now for what I wanted to do, for the desk had a large surface and the rest of the room was rather empty. I lit the lamps, built a fire in the fireplace, and put a few pieces of