Chapter One -- Our Little Hole in the Ground

The whole sordid business of being dead, frankly, embarrassed Edwin.  The thought of being worm infested, caked with decaying skin, and laden with putrefied parts, held none of the same morbid appeal for him, like it seemed to hold for the others. 

He sat on the floor of the broom closet, trying to catch a stitch of peace and quiet, admittedly hiding from Maggie Rose, a dotty old cadaver, who'd been following him around all week long, singing, hoping to woo him with her feminine wiles, although those parts of her had all but rotted away.   In her song, she had replaced the word 'ride' in Jingle Bells, with 'die', thinking herself quite the clever little minx.  Edwin nodded his head.  "Imbecile," he muttered.

He heard a clomping outside the door.  With each staggered clomp he heard spongy footsteps scuffling after it, as if to catch whatever the clomping culprit might be.  From the floor, he reached for the door handle and took a peek.  "Mr. Parker again," he whispered to himself. He pulled up to his feet. 

Mr. Parker trundled along the bowing wood floor, trying in vain to catch his teeth.  Every time he neared close enough, they'd hop away, goading him with a giddy, "Ha, ha, ha!" with each and every jump.

Edwin stepped out from the closet, coming to Mr. Parker's aid.  He caught the teeth under a tattered buckled shoe.  He wiped them off on the breast of his blue velvet coat, for he was an English gentleman and that's what gentleman wore, and handed the teeth back to a thankful Mr. Parker.

"Oh, Master Edwin, thank you, lad," said Mr. Parker.  "I thought I'd never get them back this time, wily old things."  He forced the teeth back into his puckered orifice and smiled. 

Edwin wiped his hand on his breeches, not an enthusiast of spittle, be it dead or alive.  "Mr. Parker, why do you insist on chasing after those bewitched teeth?  They'll only flee your mouth yet again."

Mr. Parker opened his mouth to give a firm answer, but only managed to allow his incisors to make another run for it.  With a sucking pop, the whole set leapt from his mouth and back onto the floor.  Mr. Parker haplessly scrabbled for them, but off they hopped down a staircase.  "Oh, blasted!" he gummed.

Mr. Parker teetered toward the stairs.  Edwin stopped him.  "Mr. Parker, leave them be.  Why do you care to keep them?  You're dead.  You've no need for them."

The old stiff sighed.  "I suppose it boils down to simple vanity, lad, my own mortification, no teeth, the sheer indignity of it."

Edwin chuckled.  "Mr. Parker, when was the last time you took a look at yourself in a mirror."

"Why, never," said Mr. Parker.  His vacant mouth whistled as he spoke.  "Not since before my reckoning.  I thought we couldn't see our reflections down here."

"You're getting the dead confused with the undead.  They're the ones with no reflections, crafty bloodsuckers.  We can see ourselves just fine.  Come with me."

Edwin led Mr. Parker down the hallway to a dingy mirror.  "Take a look."  Mr. Parker beheld himself in the mirror.  His jaw fell open, nearly unhinging at the sight.  "You see," said Edwin.  "You've one eye missing, the other as hideous as a fetid plum.  Your face is desiccated bone and shorn skin, your nose, well, that's about gone altogether.  You're utterly revolting, succinctly disgusting.  In this shape, who cares if your teeth run amuck?"  Edwin was always one for truth telling, even at the risk of hurt feelings.  He had a way about him.  He could deliver horrible news in such a way, that the receiver felt more relieved than insulted, comforted to finally accept the truth.

Mr. Parker laughed at his loathsome likeness.  "Oh, Edwin, you're right.  I'm a festering old corpse, I am.  Teeth are the least of my worries."  He looked at Edwin in the mirror.  "What of you, though?  You're certainly a bit unraveled round the edges, cracks here and there, but not too shabby looking for a dead man.  What's your secret, lad?"

Edwin jutted out his square chin in the mirror.  "I suspect it's my youth.  I met my reckoning at twenty.  They say the younger you pass, the better you'll fare on the outside.  How old were you?"

"I was eighty-four, the plague they say.  Now that I think about it, I'm surprised there's anything left of me.  Most of my counterparts were not so fortunate.  I'm lucky for that, I suppose.  Wouldn't want to be one of those bodiless spirits, meandering here and there, ignored by most--no fun in that." 

"Yes, not a way in which I like to travel.  It would be torture, not being able to speak or touch, barely a sputter of light--pure agony for me."

"There's one now, a Phantom Spirit" said Mr. Parker, pointing.  A purple spark hovered round their heads for a brief moment, quickly guttering into nothing.  Mr. Parker continued to examine Edwin in the mirror, thinking him blessed to only have incurred some minor rips and tears, no absent appendages, no seeping lesions.   "Lad, tell me again, I forget, how did you meet your end?"

Pulling a piece of twine from his waistcoat, Edwin gathered his disheveled hair into a ponytail.  "My lover's husband cleaved me to death, nearly severing me in two, nasty business that was."

Mr. Parker rubbed his hands together, savoring the memory of female companionship.  "Yes, how deliciously scandalous, what a libertine life you must have led."

Edwin patted Mr. Parker on his back.  Filth wafted from his coat.  "Yes, yes, some life, I daresay.  Look where it got me, murdered at twenty.  I had a title, you know, and quite a sum of money.  If not for my carousing, I'd have sat fat and pretty for the rest of my days."

Mr. Parker nudged him with an elbow.  "Most men would give their eyeteeth to be where you've been, if you catch my meaning."  Mr. Parker's bobbing eyebrows made his meaning hard to overlook. 

"Yes, I see what you're getting at, quite witty."  Edwin headed towards the stairs.  "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Parker, I've a prior engagement.  I must be off.  Goodbye, for now."  He bounded down the stairs and out the front door, suddenly needing to be free of the fusty manor's confines.

#

He trounced down the manor steps, slamming the gate behind him, glad to be out into the night.  It was always night.  Fitting, he thought, rounding the corner.  He lived by night, now he died by it.  Alive, he'd found the daylight rather annoying.  It may have been his nagging headache from the prior night's merriment, but even as a youngster he favored the witching hour or thereabouts.  He thought more clearly, felt more inspired--his mind and body more alive.  As he grew older, so did his affinity for the covering of night--the comforting, cloaking arms of darkness that seemed to always take him somewhere brilliant, more brilliant than the most brilliant of suns could ever create.

Edwin glanced at his pocket watch.  It read midnight, as usual.  When in a hurry, he'd forget from time to time, that there was no real time in his world, the underworld, the afterlife, the booming necropolis, whatever you wished to call it, it all meant the same--you were dead. 

In any case, the time didn't matter.  When the moon had reached its highest point, Maura Elizabeth Lancaster could always be found sitting in the café, at the same table, reading a mildewed book, wearing the same crimson chapeau.  She was happily predictable.  Predictability, something he would have most certainly recoiled from in his living years, now it meant everything to him. 

The world of the dead had the predictability of a drunken sailor waving around a loaded pistol.  At any given moment, a new weirdness entered his realm.  One could not slink by on normality.  It simply did not exist.  He supposed he was used to it all now, the constant oddities.  Death, same as life, was never straightforward. 

He crossed the street to the café, barreling through--literally--an elderly couple, who'd spotted a child floating near a lamppost, not in any hurry to get out of Edwin's way.  They tried to call the toddler over, but to no avail.  He stuck out his tongue and kept on drifting, not interested in new dead grandparents.  His living ones comprised of a reprehensible crew. 

"Ah, there she is," said Edwin.  He beamed.  Maura was the only inhabitant of his world that could make him smile, let alone beam.  Despite her shortage of frippery, her pursed lip grin, which highlighted her already high cheekbones, made him melt.  Even in death, most women required their daily dose of praise, at least the ones Edwin lazed with.  He didn't need to flatter her and never attempted to.  She'd see right through that. 

Dead at eighteen, consumption the criminal, Maura was not the pretty sort.  Not that she was lacking in the looks department, but more that she didn't care so much to attain them.  In life, she'd been what most would call a bookworm, now dead; she took on the more literal sense of the term. 

As she flipped through the pages of her novel, a maggot escaped her ear and dropped onto the table.  "Sad little fellow," she said.  She flicked it away with her thumb and index finger, sending it hurling into the fireplace.  It burst into blue light.

"Good shot!" called Edwin, from the street.

Maura was neither the pretty sort nor the giggling sort, but she giggled all the same.  She beckoned him in with a gaunt finger.  "Come sit, you fool," she cooed from her seat.

Edwin shot through the wall in a flash, too eager to see her to go in through the door.  She could tell he was in good spirits, not his normal restless soul.  He sat at their usual table, placing his hat on the floor by his feet.  It couldn't possibly get any worse for wear.  Everything in their world was dusty, forever covered in some griminess or other.  After all, this was the afterlife, what did they assume dust consisted of?

Edwin leaned on his elbow, resting his cindery chin in the palm of his hand.  He stared with dreamy eyes at Maura.  The kind of dreamy eyes the living had upon waking from a deep sleep.

Maura cocked her head, probing his face.  "What's got you in such a fanciful state?"

"Why, you, of course."

"You're a liar and a bounder, Edwin Copperpot.  Now, tell me."

Not of a patient nature, Edwin loved to make Maura wait.  It killed her.  "Steady now," he said.  "I'd like to order up some tea, if you can spare a few minutes of eternity for me."

"You're simply wicked."  Maura scowled, she swiftly raised her arm and snapped; the click of her fingers like cracking twigs. 

A diminutive hunchback, with droopy features, wobbled over on notably uneven legs.  "Madam?" rasped the Frenchman. 

"If you please, Didier, my companion would like a tea, no sugar, extra cream.  And please, Didier, the cup, do make sure there are no uninvited guests this time, will you?  It's such a bother fishing them out."  Edwin watched Maura as she spoke, so refined, even when ordering tea. 

"Madam," said Didier, with a stiff nod of the head.  He lumbered off to the kitchen, grunting with every step.

Edwin chuckled.  "Madam--I believe that's the only word I've ever heard that one utter.  Was he cursed at his reckoning with a one word vocabulary?  You'd think his looks would be curse enough."

Maura set down her book, not amused.  "Out with it.  Why are you not your usually dour self?  Your face is far too angelic."

"If you must know, which I know you must--I've been called to meet with the Warrants."

Even when surprised, Maura rarely showed it.  She pushed to the edge of her seat and opened her delicate, slightly mummified, yet still lovely mouth ever so slightly.  "The House of Warrants has called you forward?"  She set her hand over his, tapping it impatiently.  "Edwin, how excited you must be.  How did this come about?  Tell me everything!"

Edwin sat up.  "I was biding my time in the manor parlor, when there was a knock at the door.  No one ever knocks on the manor door.  One and all come and go as they please--day and night bursting in and out of the walls.  Being far too slothful to open the door myself, I waited for someone to greet the poor soul, but no one did, in fact, no one seemed to hear the knocking but me.  Long story short, unless I wanted to hear the blasted banging for the remainder of the evening, which I most certainly did not, I had to answer it myself."  He smacked the edge of the table.  "Lo and behold, the ugly chap was knocking for me!"

"Thank goodness your low tolerance for noise outweighs your indolence or you'd never have known you were called upon."

"Ah, yes, my comedic companion, you are correct.  That being said, the caller was a Servant to the Warrants.  The bald bloke informed me of my calling and said he'd be round to fetch me when timing deemed appropriate."

"And when will that be?"

"I've nary a clue.  I only know it is happening and for now, that's good enough for me."

Maura sat back in her chair, thinking it over.  "Did this servant give you any indication as to what the Warrants' proceedings entail?"

"So dumbstruck, I forgot to ask.  I've never met anyone who's been before the Warrants.  Everything I've heard concerning them came through someone who knew someone, who happened to be an acquaintance of someone else, and so on and so forth.  No first hands accounts.  It's all very mysterious."  His air shifted.  "Will you come with me when I'm formally called upon?"

Maura's lips coiled impishly.  "I'd rather die than miss it."

Edwin grinned.  He flicked another maggot off the table that had escaped her hair. 

"Maura Lancaster, you are my favorite dead person."

The tea had arrived.

#

Reasonably lovelorn, Maggie Rose slumped before the parlor harpsichord, tapping on its keys with her pinkies, the only digits on either hand which had yet to win their freedom.  Her nose tickled, it needed adjusting.  With lumpy knuckles she smashed the sagging feature skyward.  As of late, it seemed to be sliding down her face, akin to unset pudding. 

Perhaps, if she swooned and fell to the parlor floor Edwin might rush to her side, thereby falling deeply in love with her.  Oh, the thought.  After all, she had to be the reason he continued to reside at the manor.

It surely wasn't on account of ancient Mr. Parker, always chasing after his pesky teeth, skulking about the manor like a testy ol' skinflint, searching for a lost penny.  Then there was Monsieur Bastia; he spoke no English, barring a few obscenities, which he spewed out in a guttural accent at the most inappropriate of times.  Besides, he was rarely around, always off playing chess somewhere, babbling on in French that all his opponents were cheaters and would soon rot in Hell for their treachery.  Yes, she decided with resolution, Edwin Copperpot must in fact be there for her.

Hearing Edwin's familiar footsteps nearing the front door, Maggie seized her chance.  Upon hearing the twist of the doorknob, she heaved her carcass backward, tumbling gracelessly onto the Oriental rug.  She squirmed dramatically on the floor.  She felt no pain being dead and all, but it was the effect she was going for.  How could any man leave a lady in such distress?  This was it.  He would be hers.  "Oh dear, oh dear," she moaned pathetically. 

Spotting Maggie Rose from the corner of his eye, Edwin trotted past the parlor.  Maggie lay sprawled on the parlor floor in the most cockeyed, unladylike of positions.  Quickly forgetting she was supposed to be in abject misery, she cheerfully waved to him from her most improper arrangement on the rug. 

Trying his best not to cringe, Edwin tipped his hat in acknowledgement.  "Miss Rose," he said, jogging up the stairs.  He was quite accustomed to her attempts at beguiling him.  Why give the pitiful dear false hope? 

Other things were weighing on his mind.  He stuck a finger through his ear, adjusting the gray matter.  Somehow it had been knocked slightly askance. 

#

It had been a strange night.  One of buried memories--life, people, and feelings all dredged up to the murky surface.  High Warrant, Lord Spencer Fitzroy took off his reading spectacles and rubbed between his eyes.  He slumped back in his chair, much concerned.  Pulling on the end of his beard, he mulled over the proposal.  Outwardly benign, he still didn't like the idea of it.  It set precedents that should never be set--never.  And then there was the other matter, but he chose not to address that, not unless his hand was forced.  He'd done enough damage on that front already.  For now, he owed a debt and it needed to be paid.   A man in his position had to sometimes do things, take actions.  Actions he dearly did not want to take, but if removed from office, who then would claim his seat?  What corrupt measures might they take?  With the power his position granted, he did not want to risk finding out.  A bit of collusion came with the title. 

Lord Fitzroy swiveled around in his chair and stared out the window into the impervious dark.  He wondered what could possibly be the driving force behind such a request.  It seemed rather odd, especially after all this time.  He determined as much as he disliked it, it would be honored.  There was no other choice.  A long time back he had to make a decision--a most fateful choice.  It had finally come back to haunt him, he always knew it would.  One misstep forever hung over his head, now compelling him to make yet another, or in any event, it felt that way.  Here he was for a second time doing the very thing he tried so hard not to do--interfering with fate.

Someone knocked on the door.   Straightening himself up, Lord Fitzroy turned back towards his desk.  "Come in."

A short, bald gentleman, with a spindly, black mustache, glided through the closed door.  "Pardon me, sir."

Lord Fitzroy looked up from his papers, as if hard at work.  "Yes, Mr. Butcher, what is it?"

"The task, sir--it's done."

"I see," said Lord Fitzroy, exhaling inaudibly.  "Thank you for your haste."

"Thank you, sir."  The man turned to go.

"Mr. Butcher, wait a moment.  Out of curiosity, what was the response?"

"Happiness at first, same as most, I did in fact detect a hint of fret, smelled a smidge of panic, but perhaps that was merely the gentleman's nerves getting the better of him, the excitement of it all--the puzzling House of Warrants.  It tends to play with the head."

"That it does."  Lord Fitzroy leaned back wearily.  "He has nothing to be fearful of--nothing at all." 

"Well sir, good night then."  The man, Mr. Butcher, evaporated into the wall. 

Lord Fitzroy turned back to the window.  He knew his last statement bordered on a lie, but possibly not, only time would tell and that he had plenty of.  There was much to distrust in all of this, an overwhelming feeling of foreboding he seldom experienced--a grim sensation, far different than the weight of souls' fates, which forever rested on his shoulders.  He wanted to believe the requester's intentions altruistic and perhaps they were.  If that were the case, then all would be well and his doubts were for naught.  But something left him feeling hollow, an intangible feeling of ill will, cloaked in the guise of purity--like unwittingly making a deal with the devil.  

#

The high moon had only just poked through the fog.  Maura would soon be sitting prettily; waiting at their table with half drank tea.  Edwin lounged in his favorite wingchair, biding his time, bored to death with the book he'd chosen.  A syrupy romance, meant for tittering young girls who picked sprays of baby's breath and gave rosy cheeked recitations of cherished bible verses.  He snorted scathingly at it and tossed it to the floor.  "Dull," being the only word he could muster in respects to the narrative. 

The door rattled in its frame.  Someone was knocking.  Edwin sprang to his feet.  The Servant to the House of Warrants, it must be.  His shriveled heart raced.  The more he waited, the more he wondered, and worried, what his summoning was all about.  Most souls never got called to the House, they'd moved on before they had a chance.  He smoothed his unkempt hair and dusted off his coat.  Not wanting to appear a jittery fool, he calmly walked to the door.  Too late! 

Maggie Rose cut him off at the pass, stealing his thunder, rather quick for such a hindered little thing.  She marched on her heels which pounded the floor like hammers.  Jerking open the door with a determined pinky, she blocked Edwin's view.

Scrutinizing the caller from stem to stern, Maggie's face promptly pickled in righteous indignation.  "What you be wanting, Missy Thingy?" she demanded, her Irish brogue thicker than cheese. 

"Pardon my interruption, Madame.  I'm here to see Lord Edwin Copperpot."

As the visitor's words slipped into his ears, Edwin's clenched jaw relaxed, his body released itself from its vise like state; especially relieved it was not the Servant to the Warrants.  He had not mentally readied himself.   Smoothly pushing past Maggie Rose, he greeted his guest.  "There she is--the face that launched a thousand ships!"

Maura laughed.  "Yes, but only to sink them all, sending their fatalities to this ill fated place!"

"Ah, my preferred giggle," said Edwin.

"I don't giggle."

"Of course you don't," he said with a wink.  "Now, do come in."  Edwin ushered her in with an exaggerated sweep of his arm.  Maura entered the manor, curtsying to Maggie Rose, who Edwin had all but forgotten.  With the lethal stare Maggie gave Maura, had she not already been done in, she surely would be now.

"And who might this be?" asked Maura.

"Where are my manners?" said Edwin, full well knowing where he had put them.  "Do pardon me.  Miss Maggie Rose Sullivan, may I present to you Miss Maura Lancaster, a dear friend of mine."

Maggie sniffed.  Curling what remained of her lower lip, she looked at Edwin, not yet acknowledging Maura.  "A friend," she said, knotting her pinkies together.

Sensing the tension, Maura kept her tone overtly cordial.  Maggie looked about to rip her own pinkies off.  "Why, yes, Miss Sullivan," she said gently.  "Mr. Copperpot and I have been friends for ages--absolute ages."

"That's all then, friends?" asked Maggie.

Maura nodded.  "Edwin's like a brother to me.  He speaks quite highly of you, I might add." 

Like a brother, thought Edwin, raising a probing eyebrow at her.  He expected Maura to save him from Maggie Rose, not give her more reason to hope.  Maura ignored Edwin and his eyebrow. 

Maggie's face lifted, figuratively speaking.  Her tart voice now turned to warm molasses.  "Well, then, come right in, Missy Lancaster, do make yourself at home with Master Edwin in the parlor."

"Please, do call me Maura." 

"And you call me Maggie, no need for formalities."  Maggie unfurled a welcoming arm, nearly slapping Edwin with it.  "Come right in."

A kind soul, Miss Maura Lancaster swept past Edwin, all tattered silk and hushed charm, her crimson skirts brushing his legs.  She smiled at him with pursed lips, as if to say, 'you’re a horrible scamp and how dare you taunt this girl this way'.  Maggie's jealousy was as flagrant as the brownish broth seeping from her left eye socket.  Maura acted as if she never detected an inkling of envy.   The oozing socket, on the other hand, was downright impossible to overlook.

Maura took her place on the settee, folding her limbs neatly, as Edwin reclaimed his wingchair.  Maggie Rose proceeded to mill around the parlor; fussing with curios and looking at books wrong side up, never having bothered to learn her letters.

Edwin cleared his throat.  "Maggie Rose, I hate to be a nuisance, but I hoped you wouldn't mind making the three of us a little tea.  As I'm sure you've noticed I'm all thumbs in the kitchen."

Maggie's bones prickled.  She grabbed the edge of her soiled apron with her pinkies, trying not to fidget.  "Oh, yes, I'd be more than happy to, I would.  I'll conjure up some tea right quickie!  I'll be back in a jiff, Master Edwin.  You and Missy Maura just stay put."   Maggie Rose stomped off to the kitchen, cruelly abusing the floorboards with every stride.

Edwin lowered his voice.  "Like a brother, eh?  I thought you were going to help me."

"Did you see that face?  I couldn't dash her hopes like that.  It would be downright criminal."

"I know," whispered Edwin.  "I do hate to push her off under such false pretenses, but there's truly no other way to be rid of her.  She's as clingy as the lice in her hair.  In her condition, making tea is equivalent to building the pyramids.  She'll be gone for decades."

Maura leaned in.  "Poor little lamb.  She's positively love struck.  Edwin, what have you done to the wretched dear?"

"I can assure you, nothing, she is most certainly not my type," said Edwin.  "I have a soft spot for ladies still claiming the majority of their fingers and toes."

"Wouldn't you agree that beauty is more than skin deep?"

"I would," said Edwin.  "But in order for me to believe in such an insane statement, one must have skin, mustn't they?  Our fair Irish lass seems to be missing a large part of the primary ingredient." 

"Edwin, I fear you are as shallow as a puddle."

"Indeed.  Now, Miss Lancaster, never once have you come for a visit, which is incredibly rude, by the way.  I'm afraid to say your curiosity has gotten the better of you, hasn't it?"

"To be sure," she replied.  "I'm absolutely fascinated with your circumstances.  Summoned to the House of Warrants, I simply can't imagine--the adventure of it all."

Edwin stood up and went to the window, gazing at the putrefying willows.  His chitchat tone turned sober.  "Maura, in truth, I'm feeling more than a little apprehensive about this calling from the House.  What if it's not all ribbons and roses?  What if it's bad, some sort of punishment?"

"Punishment, what could you have done to earn such a penalty?  Edwin, we've been thick as thieves for quite some time now, you and I.  You've kept me from going mad in this place.  You've been a friend and an advisor.  No one would dare punish you for that."

He sat next to her on the settee.  "I'm not speaking of my actions in death.  I'm speaking of my actions in life."  He studied the buttons of his sleeve.  "You see, in life, my character...well, it was far from what one would classify as reputable.  I expect I'd be labeled a cad."  He shook his head.  "No, more than that, to be more direct, a philanderer, a womanizer, those would be the proper terms, I'm ashamed to say.  Not to mention, cold and pretentious.  I decided early on if a person did not come with wealth, land and title I was not to bother with them.  They were below me in every regard and that's how I treated them.  As for women as a whole, I daresay I was not a kind one, horrible without a doubt."  Maura sat still--listening.  "I broke many a ladies' heart, not to mention their marriages.  I can only imagine the families I destroyed--the children whose childhoods were far less than they should have been, all because of the likes of me.  I was useless, the latter part of my twenty years consisting of debauched soirees, tartish women and drunken nights, most of which I cannot remember and the rest of which I care not to.  When we spoke of our deaths, I brushed over the circumstances of my reckoning quite purposefully."

"You were stabbed."

"Yes, true.  But not by any random fellow as I'd claimed."

"A lover's husband then," said Maura, without a hint of indecision.

"Yes--how did you--"

"I've often wondered about your reckoning.  Always so private about it, I didn't want to upset you by asking.  Truth be told, you're simply too polished, too perfectly charming.  You had to be a lothario of some sort.  I knew this to be the way your passing came to be.  I think I knew from the moment we met."  Maura shifted awkwardly.  "Edwin, I can overlook all of it.  You've been nothing but good to me, although, one thing does bother me."

"What's that?"

"Knowing that if we had met before our reckonings, you would never have spoken to me and had you, the words would not have been kind.  I suppose that stings a bit.  It's hard to imagine you considering me mere rubbish under your feet.  It's true though, isn't it?  I was born well below your aristocratic station.  You would have been cruel to me, wouldn't you?"

Edwin stared at his hands.  The thought of meeting Maura before his reckoning troubled him.  They would never have met, and not only for the reason that he died roughly twenty years before her.  He quite simply would not have allowed it, a country doctor's daughter running in his illustrious circles of the young elite.  A person of Maura's station would not have been worthwhile to even mention in passing.  "Yes, I would have been categorically vicious."

They sat in silence for a moment. 

Maura at last spoke.  "Forgetting all the nonsense of rank and title, what was your standard opinion regarding the female persuasion?  Our gender, did we have any redeeming qualities in your eyes, other than the obvious?"

Edwin swallowed uncomfortably.  "Well...I found girls--and bear in mind I speak in the past tense--I found them dim, easy to influence and even easier to lie to.  I looked at my conquests as I would a game of chess, cleverly maneuvering my pieces round the board only to do my bidding, and when things got too complicated, too messy or frankly, too boring, I'd simply quit the game in the most offensive of manners.  To be candid, I callously ignored any girl who began to think my heart belonged to her."

"And what if she paid no heed to your blatant snubbing?  What then?"

"I'd openly scorn her, waging such a contemptuous assault on said girl's reputation, she'd either leave me be or lose any and all societal respectability forever, sealing her fate to a life of spinsterhood."  He rested his head on the settee, staring up at the ceiling.  "One such girl nearly took her life on account of my sneering remarks.  So distraught by my harshness, she locked herself away in her chambers for days, refusing to eat or drink.  Her parents finally had her door removed from its hinges, the family doctor nursing her back from the verge of death, or so I'm told, forcing food and drink down her throat.  When the scare was over, her parents asked who the man responsible for her misery was, yet she refused to tell them.  Insisting that I did truly love her...but I simply didn't know it."

"My word, Edwin," said Maura.  "What did you do to the unfortunate girl to bring her to such a brink of despair?"

"Even back then, I didn't quite recall what I had said to her, what lies I had woven to obtain what I desired.  She was merely one of many.  I suppose you'd call me a true devil in the flesh and rightly so.  Had her plan succeeded, her love struck suicide successful--I feel her blood would be on my hands, mine and mine alone.  When I landed here, I thought of that quite frequently.  My death was a just one--a cruel fate some might say, but one I undeniably deserved.  Perhaps that's why my hard and fast opinions began to change." 

Maura reached out and lifted his chin with the tips of her fingers.  "Don't look so guilty, Edwin," she said tenderly.  "It doesn't change our friendship one bit.  That life, that man you were, that person lived lifetimes ago.  Your afterlife is now.  If anything, I like you far better knowing the truth.  I'm so pleased you told me.  It shows character."  She smiled, trying to lighten the mood.  "Moreover, you're much more fascinating now--wicked ol' lecher."

Edwin exhaled, glad he finally told her, the weight of words gone.  "Why are you so good to me, Maura?  You're different than any other girl--any other person--I've ever known.  I truly don't deserve you."

"You're right" said Maura.  "You absolutely don't deserve me.  I'm quite wonderful.  What can I say?  I'm a fool for dead men in breeches."  Maura suddenly sat up straight, her dry spine cracking in sequential pops.  "Edwin, I've been meaning to tell you this, but with your exciting news about the House I all but forgot."  She looked at him with the excitement of a child.  "Did you know we have a graveyard?"

"We have a what?"

"You know, a graveyard, a cemetery, a place where dead people like you and I are buried in the ground, languishing away in pine boxes."

"Ha, ha, how very funny," said Edwin.  "I know what a graveyard is, what is one doing here?"

-

#

Percy Poole and Edwin rounded the corner, after exiting the theatre.  They were on their way to the café, meeting Maura, Charlie Redgrave and Bunny Black, then off to explore Maura's puzzling graveyard.  The topic had become of some interest in their little circle of the dead and it seemed the perfect night for investigating.  Truth be told, they had nothing much better to do.

Edwin stuffed the playbill in a breast pocket.  "I must say, I've always been one for supporting the theatre, keep Shakespeare alive and all that wonderful stuff, but never, and I truly mean never, did I think I'd see the fair Juliet dragging her legless carcass across the stage to meet the severed head of her star crossed Romeo.  It made the romantic scenes rather awkward, don't you think?"

"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night, quite literally!" said Percy.  Laughing riotously, they made their way across the bustling avenue, always busiest at high moon.  "So Edwin, what do you make of our little boneyard of interment on our already interred island?"

"I truly have formed no opinion.  We're all dead and buried already.  Why would anyone want to go through all that nonsense again?  Maura had a good thought on the matter.  She deduced that possibly the graveyard belongs to those never buried.  Those poor souls whose bodies were never found or perhaps buried in unconsecrated ground, dumped unceremoniously in a hole, something like that.  Maybe their dead relatives made a burial ground, a cemetery, to honor those not honored properly at death."

They approached the café, when from out of nowhere a man materialized directly in front of them, he was short and stocky, his forehead appearing just inches from Edwin's nose.  Normally Edwin would have walked right through the stranger, but the man's severe façade unnerved him, nearly sending him backward.

Edwin grabbed his hat so as not to lose it, while he reclaimed his footing.  The bald man with a bushy mustache stood before him, his eyes vacant.  His spoke coolly.  "Lord Edwin Copperpot, I presume."

"Your presumption is correct, sir."  Edwin took two steps back, not comfortable with the man's proximity.  He studied the man, his stony face, unfamiliar, but recognizable all the same.  "Who, may I enquire, is asking?" 

The man wasted no time with pleasantries.  "You have been formally summoned to the House of Warrants.  As a servant to the High Warrant, I have been sent to collect you--now." 

Percy slapped Edwin on the back.  "Our Mr. Copperpot--called by the Warrants, what an exciting turn of events, to be sure!  Well done, Edwin!"

Edwin ignored his chum's good wishes, quite taken aback and uncertain, to some extent dubious of the man's intentions.  "You’re a different chap than before, a bit taller and your mustache, it's quite different.  You do look similar to him, but you're not him nonetheless.  I thought he would be fetching me."

The man's deadpan expression did not change, however his eyes flashed an unfamiliar shade of purple, and then quickly shifted back to their lifeless gray heather, as if saying something without saying it.  Edwin grew confused.  Now he did look like the first man, shorter with a thicker, blacker moustache.  "Who says I'm not the same chap?" asked the man.  He motioned to the street.  "Now, get in."

Percy gasped.  "Good God, now that's a carriage!" 

Before them stood an enormous black coach led by four imposing stallions of the same color, all at varying stages of putrefaction.  Slithery braids of smoke wafted from the horses' dingy, sable coats, as they whinnied and snuffled in the night air, impatiently cracking at the cobbles with their hooves, bobbing their heads anxiously in their ostrich plumed harnesses.

"Sir," said the man to Edwin, motioning to the open carriage door.

Edwin did not want to go.  An ill feeling swept over his entire being.  He'd never felt this way since well before his reckoning.  He felt unsure of everything.  "I promised to bring along a friend of mine, Miss Maura Lancaster.  She will be accompanying me to the House of Warrants.  She's only just round the corner, in the café.  I can go fetch her right--"

The man spoke brusquely.  "No one goes to the House of Warrants, who has not been summoned to the House of Warrants.  Called alone, you must go alone."

Edwin turned positively queasy, his gray face draining to white. 

Percy put a hand on Edwin's shoulder, steadying him.  "Edwin, don't be so nervous!  You'll be fine.  I'll go round and tell the others of your good fortune.  Maura can wait.  You can tell her everything upon your return.  You know how she loathes waiting for news.  This will be sheer torture for her, all the more fun for you!"  He escorted Edwin, who was simply too staggered to speak, towards the carriage.  "For goodness sake, man, don't look so serious.  You look as though you're going to the gallows!  We'd all die for a chance to be in your shoes!  Now off you go."

"Sir," said the man once more.

Edwin climbed into the coach, feeling as though he couldn't say no and honestly wasn't sure he could push the word from his lips if he tried.  Percy shut the door behind him.  The bald man had already disappeared from the street, reappearing atop the carriage, with the reins in his hands.  "Ya!" he commanded, snapping the reins.  The horses took off, speeding down the cobbles. 

Edwin poked his head out the window.  Holding his hat in the wind, Percy Poole waived to him, his figure growing smaller and smaller with each revolution of the carriage wheels.  Percy swiftly dashed round the corner to the café, on his way to inform everyone of Edwin's remarkable news.

The pit of Edwin's stomach curdled.

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