Chapter One

Not At Home

"Our Victor? An adulterer?" William Van Dort asked. His nasal voice was expressive of his worry, but it still held a note of merriment. "There's obviously been a mistake." Ah, good-natured fellow! He adjusted the thin, gold bifocals that were perched on the edge of his nose, but as soon as his old hand left them, they slid right back to where they'd been.

"There's not been a mistake!" insisted Pastor Galswells. His grey eyebrows were furrowed into a frown to match the one he wore beneath his long, thin nose. His yellow eyes were nearly bulging out his head with frustration. "I saw him! Making unholy alliances! Your son has been joined to the devil!"

"Oh, pish posh!" replied Nell as she pressed on the pastor's shoulder and forced a spoonful of cough syrup into his open mouth.

"Woman!"

"Pastor Galswells, I am terribly sorry, but you trudged all that way through the snow last night, I'll not have you catch cold under my watch!"

"Now, dear, the pastor has every right to leave our home if he wishes, you know."

"Enough!" howled Pastor Galswells. Nell and William Van Dort stood suddenly silent. The pastor hoisted himself painfully from the bed in which he'd been laying, painfully because he'd suffered minor injuries in his fall the night before. Dark bruises decorated his legs and left arm, but they were conveniently hidden beneath the thin fabric of his nightime garb. He struggled to his feet, gingerly touched a hand to his hunched back, and shuffled across the room. Nell and William watched as he neared the door, then covered their eyes when he fell. Pastor Galswells let out a cry of pain. William hurried to the fallen man's side.

"Fetch a doctor!" he cried, and his fat wife was instantly scuttling down the stairs. William could hear her quick footsteps on the hardwood floors stop. "Leave the fan, dear!" he yelled and the footsteps resumed. He could hear the door open and close. He could hear her footfalls become lost in the clippity-clop of horse-drawn carriages and the bustle of the town outside the window.

The pastor's face was drawn and still. William touched his forehead. Warm. He was running a fever.

He wanted to kiss her.

He was so close!

He could feel her soft breath on his neck; feel her warm body pressed against his own. Their fingers were intertwined in the most delicate way. Fingers! So unlike the cold, thin bones he'd held earlier that night! He stared into her eyes. Both were filled with longing. He could tell she felt the same when he noticed that she too had stopped breathing for several moments.

She looked away. Their breathing resumed. The moment was lost.

Victor moaned softly in his sleep, regretting his lack of gall even in unconsciousness. He would have tossed and turned now, but only one toss was needed to awaken him because he rolled off the seat the moment he began. He groaned and touched the right side of his head where he'd slammed into the side of the carriage. This hadn't been one of his most ingenious ideas, he thought. With such long limbs as his, sleeping inside a horseless horse-drawn carriage wasn't advisable.

Stepping out of the black box, he glanced around his family's shed. Fair sunlight was fighting to make its way through the layer of dust that had settled on the clerestory windows. Was it morning? Or afternoon? He couldn't tell. Victor tripped over an oil can on his way across the floor, the same one he'd fallen over in the darkness the previous night, opened the door, and shielded his eyes against the sunlight until his eyes readjusted.

"Do you think Victor is all right?" Nell asked of her husband in hushed tones. Their sitting room was quiet except for their whispered conversation and the ticking of the clock. In the room above, the town doctor was examining Pastor Galswells.

"I hope so dear," William answered. "He's a resourceful boy,"

"Resourceful? He wet the bed until he was eight!"

"Well, I didn't say he was brave..."

"Of course he isn't!"

"But I would have thought that he might have come home last night,"

"What if he really did marry a corpse?"

"He very well might have,"

Words did not answer this remark. But a fan whacked upside his head did.

"Well Victor's never been one to really care about high society," William protested.

"He wouldn't marry a corpse!" Nell exclaimed, her high pitched whisper rose to an incredulous, high pitched gasp. "You saw how nervous he was at the rehearsal!"

"Then why didn't he come home last night?"

She rapped him on the head again, then fanned herself in a frantic manner. "You don't believe Pastor Galswells, do you? You don't really think he was making 'unholy alliances', do you?" A note of sincere worry had entered her voice.

"Of course not, dear! I'm sure he'll be back home shortly!" William took Nell's hand in his own and patted it. "Perhaps he'll bring his corpse bride home to meet us!"

He smiled a wry smile. She slapped him with her fan.