Chapter 49: Without Price

At eleven thirty, every light in Waverly House came on, including two fixtures a previous owner had removed in 1996. Luxury, Sau-lin had observed, improved when the wiring was dead. The tin deed box came into the cellar between two employees in green vests. They set it beside the capped drain, cut away the archive wrap, and left without looking at the gray bins ringing the walls. Vivian came last. She knelt on the old concrete and opened the box, and Silas Merritt's memorandum lay inside, yellowed, her black ink still crisp under his. The thing under the park struck below the drain. Roots entered the box through its dented corner, crossed Silas's terms, pierced Vivian's signature, and spread through the floor. Each bin answered. Coffin hardware clicked against plastic, and soil lifted under the lids. C-417 pulled at Sau-lin from two directions: the fragment in one bin, still wearing…