Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell

Author:Jennifer Lee Carrell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2007-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

27

THE DAY HAD been hot and humid. At dusk, the heat was still oppressive, but at least a small breeze was blowing. All the same, under the cloak, my clothes clung damply to my skin.

Head down, my ears pricked for the sound of following footsteps, I passed the Library of Congress on my left, and the Supreme Court on my right. I heard no one behind me. Pulling off the cloak, I looked up. In front of me was an expanse of marble, green lawn, and barricades, and beyond that soared the dome of the Capitol.

Two blocks west, Dr. Sanderson had told Athenaide. A fine view westward. I felt a surge of affection for him as I walked around the south side of the Capitol, hurrying along on the pebbled cement, passing beneath elms and maples. It was cooler here, or at least I could make myself think so, listening to the soft papery rustle of air moving in the trees.

As promised, the front of the Capitol, facing west, had one of the best views in all of D.C. The obelisk of the Washington Monument rose white against the horizon, while the sun hung low in the haze. Strains of Sousa tumbled jauntily from a bandstand across the water. Day in and day out, I still preferred the hurly-burly of New York and London, where the chaos of the present collided cheerfully with the past, instead of standing hushed before it. But I had to admit that the Mall was lovely in the quiet of a summer sunset.

I scanned the wide expanse of marble and pavement in front of the Capitol. For a Fourth of July weekend, it seemed strangely empty, save for a strolling pair of lovers, and one or two suits hurrying somewhere, heads down. But it was too late for tours, and the office staff had mostly gone home. And it was too early—and still too hot—for most of the nightlife. What little there was clustered around the band on the other side of the water.

Dr. Sanderson was nowhere to be seen, but I was a little early. I turned and climbed the stairs, amid the potted palms, looking up at the white dome crowning its hill. On the first landing, I turned and looked again across the green-and-white city.

Below and to the left, beyond the balustrade, darkness exhaled from beneath the grove of magnolias that clung to the hillside—a few late flowers still hanging like small spiced moons among the dark gloss of the leaves. I went down the stairs toward the trees. Halfway down, a movement in the bracken below caught my eye.

I took a step forward, and then another. Far below, on the dark ground, as if in the bottom of a deep hole, someone lay sprawled in the bracken.

“Hello?”

No answer. I hurried down the steps, and around the marble balustrade, stepping gingerly up the slope into the darkness beneath the trees. Night had already fallen here, and I stopped to let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

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