4

It was a swift fall and a hard landing on her hands and knees, which both sang with pain at the impact.

Catherine staggered to her feet and spat out dirt, gasping for breath. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she began to make out details. Only earth above her, a few roots poking down here and there. Damp dirt beneath her feet. Earthen walls. A dank, sweet-spoiled smell, like dead leaves. And it was so dark. The only light came from a strange green glow just ahead, down what might be a small tunnel.

No sign of her sisters. Catherine rubbed the last of the dirt from her eyes and took a few steps toward the tunnel. From behind her there was an "oof!" as Mary dropped to the floor in a crouch. Intelligently, she'd come feet-first through the hole.

"Mary! You should have stayed up there and fetched help!" Catherine hissed. Mary grinned at her, which Catherine thought not quite the right reaction for someone who was standing in a grave.

"Not a chance!" she replied. Then she pointed upwards. "Too late now, anyway."

Indeed, the hole was gone. Mary had squeezed her tiny self through the very last of it. There was no sign the hole had ever been there. The dirt had swallowed them up. Claustrophobic panic fluttered in Catherine's chest, so she took as deep a breath as she dared to try to calm herself. Mary took her camera out of its case.

"Very low light," she murmured to herself. "But maybe..."

"Oh hush!" Catherine whispered fiercely. Sometimes she thought there was something actually quite wrong with her little sister, she truly did. "Your camera, at a time like this, really!"

"Sshh!" Mary said suddenly, holding up a hand. Her head was cocked to one side, listening. "Someone's talking, this way!" And she took off at a trot down the tunnel, into the wavering green light.

"Mary!" cried Catherine, grabbing at her arm when she went by. Mary just shook her off and went on ahead. Into who knew what. Catherine bit her lip, looked up at the dark earth above her head, and took as deep a breath of the sour air as she could manage. Then she hoisted her skirts and followed after Mary.

She caught up quickly. The tunnel wasn't all that long, a few strides. Mary was standing at the end of the tunnel, where it opened into a small, cramped stone room. Catherine joined her, and peeked in, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the strange light. Rough, unfinished stone made up the floor, the walls, the ceiling. All around were recesses in the stone walls, fitted with slabs or stone boxes.

No, not boxes. Coffins.

A crypt. An old one, as old as the village, here nearest the church. A few of the niches held the remains of rotted shrouds, flung aside like bedding. Fortunately, she couldn't see any corpses or even bones. Likely they'd turned to dust ages ago.

Except for...Catherine clamped a hand to her mouth in shock and horror. There was indeed one corpse left here, and it was up and moving. Not just moving. No. It had Anne.

Catherine stood frozen for what felt like ages, trying to understand what she was seeing. A skeleton, with only a few shreds of flesh and cloth clinging here and there, stood with its back to them. It had Anne by the upper arms, pressing her against the wall. Her toes were barely skimming the floor. And there was Liddie, in the shadows to one side, sitting on the floor. What had the thing done to her? She heard Mary gasp beside her.

"Oh my dears," it was saying, in a smooth, gentlemanly voice. "My mistake. Perhaps this is even better!"

It was the dead thing's tone that got Catherine moving. That horrible, slimy tone that made every word feel like an unwanted caress. A suggestive tone that turned her stomach over and made her bristle with anger. She'd heard it a lot, mostly from much older men, quite a lot this social season. When they'd address her bosom instead of her, mostly. And she hated it. Hated it! No one, dead or alive, was going to talk to her little sister that way.

Catherine cast her eyes about for something to use as a weapon. Finally, off to one side, within arm's reach of the entrance, she saw an old metal gate. It was rusted and broken, the bars barely connected to the frame. Quietly, she moved over and grabbed one of the bars. It felt good and heavy in her hands.

"Stop!" she cried, holding the bar like a bat. Anne looked over the skeleton's shoulder to see her there, and Catherine felt a rush of sisterly affection at the relief that showed in her sister's eyes. The skeleton turned when she shouted. His eyes were yellow, and filled with malice. "Shut up and stop right there!"

The skeleton took them in silently for a moment. Catherine steadied her stance, letting it stare. She didn't know what it was doing or why and she didn't care—she just knew she was getting her sisters out of here. And getting that slimy dead thing to shut up.

"Four," the skeleton said in a condescending tone, one that also put Catherine's back up. "How terribly common."

Catherine barely heard his words. She just noticed that he'd relaxed a bit. Let his guard down. So she let fly. Without hardly thinking at all she darted forward and swung her metal rod as hard as she could. It took a second for her to realize that she'd knocked his head clean off.

The skull sailed into the darkness on the far side of the room, and she heard a sickening crack when it hit the wall. A howl of rage echoed through the crypt. It couldn't be pain. The thing was already dead. Knowing that she couldn't really hurt it, strangely enough, made her swing harder. A lot harder.

Next she went for the arms, thinking only to get Anne free. She brought the rod down on the skeleton's forearms and they broke like brittle sticks. The hands dropped to the floor and scuttled away, like roaches. Anne slumped hard to the ground. After that, Catherine just swung.

"Off! Get off, get off!" she screamed, hardly recognizing her own voice, punctuating the blows from her rod. She screamed the same way she always screamed, she was embarrassed to realize later, when there was a bee on her.

But still she swung.

The headless skeleton swung toward her after she'd knocked its arms off. So she went for the spine next. One blow cracked its spine in two, and the torso fell to the ground. A few ribs fell off on their own, but Catherine gave the ribcage an almighty kick, finishing the job and sending it spinning in pieces off into the shadows. The kick had torn her skirt even worse, but she barely noticed.

"Behind you!" Lydia cried. Catherine jumped in surprise, turning and looking about frantically. She saw nothing but Liddie, disheveled and her shirt torn open, holding a long bone.

"What?" Catherine asked. Then she was knocked to the floor, her legs kicked out from under her. She landed painfully on her knees. Her knuckles were scraped where she still clutched the metal rod. She looked, and saw that it was the skeleton's legs that had kicked her. A bony foot was rearing back, aiming for her face. Catherine ducked and tried to roll away.

The blow never landed. Liddie got there first. She raised the bone high over her head, and brought it down hard on the skeleton's pelvis. The pelvis shattered, and the legs fell harmlessly apart. Catherine stumbled to her feet and went after them with her metal rod, crushing and splintering the knees and scattering the toes.

Lydia gave a cry of anger and disgust that made Catherine look up. The skeleton's hands were scuttling up her legs like spiders. Lydia plucked them off and flung them to the floor. Before they could scurry away, she stomped the daylights out of them with her heavy boots, turning the fingers to dust.

After that, it was quiet and still.

Catherine stood in the middle of the dingy room, panting and still clutching the rod. Only now did she realize how much her hands hurt. She dropped her weapon and it fell with a dull clunk. A glance at her palms showed several small cuts and rusty splinters. Some were bleeding. She flexed her hands, then wiped them on the outermost layer of her skirt, leaving streaks of dirt and blood. Sweat ran down her face and her underarms were damp. She could feel her hair tumbling over her shoulders. Heedless of the dirt she'd leave, Catherine wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand.

"Is everyone all right?" she asked, looking around.

"I think so," Liddie replied, also breathing heavily. There was a hitch to her breaths, though, and she winced as she put a hand to her stomach. She tossed the bone into the shadows, where it hit a wall with a thud. Anne was still slumped right where the skeleton had dropped her, hugging herself and looking hollow-eyed. Mary, incredibly, was taking a photograph of the carnage. Catherine moved to swat the camera out of her hands but Mary danced away.

"Have you been taking photos this entire time?" Catherine shouted. "What is wrong with you?"

"You and Liddie were doing fine!" Mary shouted back. She fiddled with her camera, stowed it safely, and then said in a nicer tone, "You were great, actually. That was amazing. You'll be glad I took pictures, you'll want to see!"

Catherine shared an exasperated look with Lydia, then went to kneel beside Anne. "Are you all right?" she asked gently, petting her sister's hair before wrapping her in a hug. Anne was shaking. She nodded jerkily. Catherine took her by the elbows and got her slowly to her feet, keeping an arm about her waist. The green light was fading around them. In no time it was gone. The bones were just oily bones, some crushed to dust, on the floor of the crypt. It was nearly full dark without the otherworldly glow. She could only make out the outlines of her sisters now.

"We have to get out of here," said Lydia. "Before that...before he...before it comes back. Come on." She made a move to go back the way they'd come, back into the tunnel.

"It's gone!" Catherine called after her. Liddie stopped. "The hole. It closed up behind us. We're...we're stuck." For the first time, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, icy dread filled Catherine's stomach. How much air was in a crypt, anyway? And it was so dark...

"That's impossible," Lydia replied flatly. There was a long, long silence at her words.

"You and Catherine just beat a skeleton to death," Mary reminded her slowly, incredulous. "A magic hole is impossible?"