3

At first Anne couldn't make sense of what was happening. She twisted and turned as she was pulled into the dirt. Chunks of it got into her nose and eyes. With a thud that rattled her teeth she landed on her back. She'd landed on damp earth, it felt like, but she didn't have much time to think about it before she was hauled to her feet.

"At last!" a man's voice said. It was an older man's voice, a posh one. And when Anne looked, she discovered it was coming from a skeleton.

It was a skeleton that had her. Had her by the upper arm. Only the barest hint of skin clung to him here and there. Whatever clothes he'd worn had rotted away long ago. He was oily grayish-yellow bone. A few strands of hair were plastered to his skull. Eyes, though. Those he still had. Yellow and almost glowing. The corpse pulled Anne in close, so close that if he'd had a nose it would have touched her face. Anne could only squeak with terror. She tried to twist away but the grip was like an iron manacle. Her arm was going numb, and she felt weak with shock.

"It's been many, many years, my dear," it said, those horrible yellow eyes staring into hers. "But-oh, and what's this?"

To Anne's horror, Lydia had just fallen into the ground at their feet. She'd come down headfirst, and had only barely managed to catch herself on her hands instead of landing on her face.

"Run!" Anne tried to tell her, but it came out in a broken whisper that was lost under the skeleton's menacing chuckle. Lydia only had time to gasp before the skeleton snatched her by the shirtfront and pulled her to her knees.

"I thought I heard two voices," said the dead man. "Why, it's a regular reunion. Shall we?"

And then he turned and started pulling them along. Anne's feet barely touched the ground. After a moment she realized that the skeleton was dragging Lydia by her shirtfront. Liddie was struggling a lot harder than Anne was, and not gaining any purchase. Everything was dirt and roots and a terrible sour smell, close and damp. Anne couldn't feel her arm any longer.

At last they stopped. By now Anne's eyes had adjusted enough to see that they were in a crypt. A few niches were set in each of the three walls. The ceiling was low and the floor was old stone. The smell was close and musty. It was cold as death. A low green light that didn't illuminate much cast strange shadows in the dimness. Anne couldn't locate its source. Then the skeleton shoved her against the wall and pinned her there with one hand. The force knocked out her breath. She could feel the rough chill of the stones of the wall through her thin dress.

"Have you any idea what they did to me?" the dead man shouted. The almost purring way he'd spoken before was gone. Now his voice was shrill with rage. Anne closed her eyes and cowered at the force of his raving, at the pure insanity in those yellow eyes. "They pulled me to pieces, bones and all! Then they shoved me in here, in this prison, left me to rot alone! And it's all your fault!"

This last he punctuated by shaking both of them, hard, with each word. Anne's head bounced painfully against the wall.

"But oh, I managed to pull myself back together eventually," he went on, a bit quieter now, a growl rather than a scream. Anne thought it was worse, somehow. "I've been able to hear you. Alive up there. All this time. And what right have you? I should have killed you then! I was going to kill you then!"

"What?" Lydia finally managed. She was trying to pull the skeleton's arm off of her, clawing at his fist and trying to pry his fingers apart. Anne didn't know how she could stand to touch him. "What are you talking about?"

"I'll take care of you next," it growled. "Here, for old times' sake." It let go of Lydia's shirt and kicked her in the stomach. The blow was so hard that she skidded along the ground after she fell. There was a wheezing moan from the shadows. At the sound, Anne found her voice.

"Lydia!" she cried. "Liddie!"

The dead man was silent. As he had no face she had no idea of what he was thinking. But Anne didn't like the way those yellow eyes were regarding her. Then he glanced over at Lydia, huddled on the floor, wheezing and holding her ribs.

Liddie's hair had come loose—her braid was spilling over her shoulder. A few buttons had popped off of her work-shirt, and her corset was visible through the gaps.

Understanding appeared to dawn. Those yellow eyes rolled back to Anne, finally really looking at her. The corpse looked her up at down, and then peered into her face. Anne thought she was going to faint.

"Oh my," the dead man chuckled. The sound made her flesh crawl. "Oh dear. Oh, my dear. My dears. My mistake. But perhaps this is even better!"

"Stop!" came a shout from behind them. "Shut up and stop right there!"

Anne's heart leapt. Over the skeleton's shoulder she saw Mary and Catherine in the doorway of the crypt. The skeleton turned to look, but still held on so tightly to her arms that Anne didn't dare to struggle. She wanted to call to her sisters to run, to leave, to get help, before the dead man got them, too. But her throat was dry with fear.

Mary's loose hair was matted, her bow long gone. The skirt of Catherine's fancy dress was torn almost from hem to hip and she was smeared with mud all up her arms. Her hair was escaping every which-way from her elaborate updo. It was Catherine who'd shouted. She looked like a broken porcelain doll—barely five feet tall, plump in an hourglass way, usually perfectly dressed and coiffed. It should have looked funny. But she didn't look funny. In that moment Catherine looked Amazonian, big and strong and angry. The length of metal she was holding, like a batter about to swing, helped the image.

A bit of the madness left the dead man's eyes then. His whole manner eased just a bit, as did his grip on Anne. Another facet of his personality was uncovered, just slightly, from where it had been hidden beneath his rage.

"Four," he drawled in a deprecating, cool way. "How terribly common."

And in that instant he let his guard down, Catherine sprang forward and knocked his head off with her metal rod.