Read Online Riverkeep by Martin Stewart - Free Book Online Page B

know anyone apart from Pappa and Mrs. Wurth.
    The undertaker’s footsteps approached the door.
    Startled, Wull tried to replace the face, but fumbled, dropping it mouth-first into his mug.
    â€œOh no, no . . .” he said.
    The handle turned.
    Mrs. Wurth stamped the snow from her boots.
    â€œI’m fair convinced aboot this,” she said, holding a newspaper out in front of her. “On the second page ther’s . . .”
    She looked at Wull, who was clutching a mug of tea that held a piece of human face.
    â€œWhat are ye doin’ with that, lad?” she said slowly.
    â€œIt fell in,” said Wull.
    â€œIt’s mibbe best ye take the deid man’s head oot yer tea. O’ course, folk make tea oot all kinds o’ things—there’s a brew made frae the soil o’ beavers is meant to be right bracin’. I like root tea mysel’, pref’rably wi’oot bits o’ cadavers in, though I will admit to likin’ it sugared.”
    â€œRight,” said Wull. He took the skull fragment out of the mug and shook away the liquid. There were some tea leaves in the mustache.
    Mrs. Wurth looked at him a long moment. “When’s it goin’ to be you as keep?” she said.
    â€œOh,” said Wull, “a few days. I’ll be sixteen on Thursday.”
    Mrs. Wurth looked at him another long moment. “A lot can change in even a few days, I’ve always found. Things’re always changin’—’cept deid folk. They’re always the same, ’cept when they’re diff’rent, an’ they can be, dependin’ on circumstances, which can vary to a fair degree.”
    â€œRight,” said Wull. “What was in the newspaper?”
    â€œAye,” said Mrs. Wurth, brushing some of the tea from the dead man’s face. “It’s on the second page there, sketch of a gennulman lost in the waters oot in the estuary. Look at the ’tache there an’ tell me that’s not the same one ye jus’ dipped in yer cup.”
    Wull looked at the sketch, looked at the section of face, then back again. Although puffed and creased by its time inthe water, there was a definite resemblance, especially in the shape of the round, squashed nose.
    â€œIt does a bit,” he admitted.
    â€œAn’ there’s plenty bits o’ him missin’, says the paper,” said Mrs. Wurth. “Bits, I shouldn’t wonder, like parts o’ his face, such as ye was jus’ dippin’ in yer tea.”
    â€œI wasn’t . . .” said Wull. “You know I’m not plannin’ on drinkin’ the tea now, Mrs. Wurth? It was an accident it fell in my mug.”
    â€œâ€™S up to you what you do, Masser Keep. I ain’t never had an interest in either the contents of another’s larder nor any food whut has a flavor. I mind o’ a time I tried this pickled thing—they said it was a farmyard oyster, but I foun’ out that meant—”
    â€œWhat does it say under the sketch, Mrs. Wurth?” said Wull, rubbing his eyes. “What happened to the man?”
    â€œAye, seems he was killed by a creature, an’ quite a big one,” said Mrs. Wurth. She smiled with the lower half of her face, her eyes remaining expressionless and dull. “There’s spec’lation it could be a mormorach, if they even exists anymore.”
    â€œWhat’s a mormorach?”
    â€œWell, it’s a big long eel sort of a thing, but they’ve no’ existed for thousan’s o’ years. ’S a story, really, now, an’ I don’t hold with stories much mysel’—not in favor o’ things ye can’tput yer hands on. If I can’t see it, I don’t want it. ’S why I got rid o’ my sense o’ smell. Made that decision aroun’ the same time as the food pois’nin’ which, come to think of it, was shortly after I ate those