Free Face Down under the Wych Elm by Kathy Lynn Emerson Page B

monosyllabic answers to her questions about his cousins but later he had been somewhat more forthcoming on the subject of Mill Hall and its environs. What had once been shoreline, he'd told her, was now anywhere from a quarter to half a mile from the sea. Mudbanks and a great buildup of shingle had added to the land, filling in harbors. Where once ships could have sailed right up to the foot of a hill, now it was surrounded by marshland. As if to repay the inhabitants for the loss of convenient shipping, in time this came to provide a most luxuriant feeding ground for cattle. Grass grew in abundance hereabout.
    The footpath was wide enough to allow Susanna and Jennet to walk side by side. As they followed it, the cries of gulls and guillemots faded, replaced by the song of a yellowhammer. Soon they came to a small chapel built of golden gray sandstone that gleamed in the sun. Two gigantic elms rose one on either side, each higher than the spire.
    "A remote spot for a house of worship,” Jennet remarked.
    "When it was built, this area was more populous. There are Roman ruins atop that rise.” She pointed to the ancient walls, only just visible from their vantage point. They were lost from view when the trail meandered into a small wood.
    Trees clustered thick around them, ivy clinging to many of the trunks. Here and there roots were exposed, some of their gnarled surfaces big enough to sit upon.
    Jennet kept glancing back over her shoulder. When they surprised a squirrel, causing it to dash across the path and into the underbrush, she let out a little squeak of alarm.
    "We should have brought Fulke and Lionel along,” she mumbled.
    "Why?"
    "This is an evil place, full of ghosts and witches. And there are smugglers, too."
    "Smugglers I will believe. And no doubt they are the ones who've spread rumors of ghosts and witches, the better to keep curious folk away."
    Jennet chewed on her lower lip as she contemplated whether to accept the logic of this argument. She said no more until the path descended into a rectangular clearing. They had reached Lucy Milborne's cottage.
    "Are you certain this is the right dwelling?"
    Susanna could understand her confusion. What everyone had called a cottage was in truth a substantial black-and-white timber-frame farmhouse with an upper story.
    Before entering, she surveyed the lay of the land. There was only one wych elm in sight. It stood less than a bowshot from the door but the ground beneath it was obscured from sight by a heavy growth of bushes. It was possible that a body might have lain under this tree and not have been seen by anyone at the cottage ... unless they chanced to glance out an upper window.
    Had Peter Marsh been there while Constance and Lucy dug in Lucy's garden? Susanna also had to wonder if he had arrived alive or had been put in place after he was already dead.
    The door to the cottage was not locked.
    Two rooms, linked by a passage, ran the length of the north side. If anyone before them had been in to look at Lucy's possessions, they had taken care not to disturb anything. The authorities, Susanna thought, might have decided to rely upon the examination of witnesses. Others would have been put off by their own superstitious fear.
    Moving through the lower level, she came to the well-equipped stillroom in a separate building at the back, next to the herb garden Constance had told them about. Susanna examined both, then reentered the house to climb to the upper story, pausing on the landing to note that the window there did not face the wych elm. What she could just make out over the tops of the surrounding trees was the spire of the chapel they had passed and the chimneys of Mill Hall on the high ground beyond.
    At her mistress's heels, Jennet continued to grumble to herself. Susanna heard her mutter something about a “street of demons” but ignored this obscure reference in favor of exploring Lucy's bedchamber. It had its own fireplace and a comfortable feather bed,