The Sweet Far Thing (68 page)

“Do tell us another!” we plead.

“Now, I fear I shall haunt your sleep if I tell you this one,” he says, smiling wickedly. That is all it takes
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for us to fall into desperate pleas for more and fervent promises that we shall not wake in the night crying for help.

Inspector Kent takes a sip of his tea. “This tale concerns a troupe of mummers who seem to have gone missing not too far from these parts.”

“Gracious,” Mademoiselle LeFarge says. “We had a visit from some mummers recently.”

“Against my better judgment,” Mrs. Nightwing grumbles.

“It’s a strange little story. Apparently, these chaps were due to rendezvous with others of their profession in Dorset, but they never showed. Meanwhile, we’ve reports of them spotted in various villages, like phantoms. And in their wake, there have been rumors of missing persons.”

The girls delight in the story, especially when Inspector Kent waggles his eyebrows at them.

But every hair on my neck is at attention. “Were they ghosts?”

Inspector Kent’s booming laugh rings out. The other girls giggle, too, thinking me foolish.

“In my twenty years with the Yard I have seen all manner of skullduggery but never have I seen a ghost.

I shall tell you what I think. I believe these mummers, being of dubious station in life, owed money to these chaps in Dorset. That’s why they’ve not showed. And as for reports of missing persons, well, in every village there is someone who needs a means of escape from his present circumstances.”

“What sort of circumstances?” Cecily presses.

“Never you mind about that.” Mademoiselle LeFarge tuts, leaving us to wonder about it all the more.

The inspector chuckles. “With your curiosity, you should all work for me.”

“Ladies cannot become detectives,” Martha says. “They haven’t the constitutions for it.”

“Tommyrot!” the inspector answers, slapping his thigh. “My dear mother reared four boys, and it was woe unto any one of us who tried to fool her. She could have been a chief inspector, such were her talents. Someday there shall be women at Scotland Yard. Mark my words.”

“Oh, Mr. Kent.” Mademoiselle LeFarge chortles. “No more of this or these girls won’t sleep tonight.

Let us talk of the wedding, shall we?”

“As you say, Mademoiselle LeFarge, as you say,” he answers.

“I thought perhaps you girls could help us decide which hymns we might sing.” She frowns. “Oh, dear.

I’ve forgotten to bring a hymnal from the chapel. And there I was reminding myself all day long.”

“I shall get it,” Inspector Kent says, putting down his teacup.

Mrs. Nightwing stops him. “No. I’ll send Miss Doyle for it. She’s a few days of penance left, by my ledger. It will do her good. Miss Poole, you will accompany her.”

Bloody Nightwing.

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Elizabeth follows me out to the lawn. She jumps at every sound. “What was that?” she gasps. A frog hops over her foot and she yelps and grabs hold of my arm.

“It’s only a frog, Elizabeth. You’d think it a dragon the way you’re carrying on,” I grumble.

We’ve gone no more than a few feet when Elizabeth gasps and nearly climbs up me.

“What is it now?” I say, pushing her off.

“I don’t know,” she says, her eyes tearing. “It’s so dark! I hate the dark! I always have. It frightens me.”

“Well, I can’t help you with that,” I grouse, and she starts to cry. “Very well,” I say with a heavy sigh.

“Go hide in the kitchen. I’ll fetch the hymnal and come back for you.”

She nods and runs for the safety of the kitchen without so much as a thank-you. I hurry toward the chapel, my lamp leading the way. Night animals are tuning up their orchestra of chirps and croaks. It is not comforting this evening but a reminder that many things live in the dark. The dogs at the Gypsy camp start a chorus of barking that trails off into restless whimpering. It makes my nerves jangle.

Right. I shan’t tarry. The hymnal’s what I’ve come for, and I intend to be quick about it. The chapel’s ancient oak door is heavy. I pull hard and it creaks open a sliver to allow me passage. Inside it’s murky and silent. Anything could be waiting. My heartbeat quickens. I prop open the door with a rock and proceed.

The inky blue of late dusk surges against the stained-glass windows, casting patterns on the floor. My lamp sends shards of light through them. I find no hymnals at the back, so I’m forced to make my way down the center aisle, away from the doors and quick escape. I swing my lamp over the pews from side to side until at last I spy what I’m after in the middle of one. A sudden gust of wind bangs the door shut, and I drop the hymnal and hear it slide under the pew.

Blast.

Heart beating even faster now, I crouch on the floor, feeling for the book until I have it. A voice, hard as fingernails rapping on metal, sounds in the dark.

“Stay….”

I whip around so quickly the flame wobbles in the lamp. “Who’s there?”

The chapel is still, save for the wind that gusts against the now closed door. Hurriedly, I grab the hymnal and scurry up the aisle, breathing hard.

“You must not go….”

I turn myself around in a mad whirl. My lamp casts angry shadows on the walls.

“I know you’re here. Show yourself!”

“The woods be not safe now.”

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The windows buckle and shift. The stained-glass images move. They’re alive.

“We would keep you safe, Chosen One….”

The voice comes from the odd window panel, the one of the angel in armor brandishing a bloody sword in one hand and a severed gorgon’s head in the other. At least, I have always taken the icon to be an angel; now, in the deepening dark, I am no longer certain of anything. The angel grows taller inside its glass prison. Its body bows the front of the window, and its face looms like the moon.

“They are in the woods….”

“You’re not real,” I say aloud. The gorgon’s head drips blood onto the chapel’s floor. I hear it hit in sickening drops, as steady as rain. Bile rises in my throat. I breathe through my nose, swallowing it in burning gulps.

“If you be sacrificed in the Winterlands, the magic falls to them, and all is lost. Do not leave the chapel!”

It’s too late. Abandoning my lamp and the hymnal, I bolt for the door. I throw my body against it and it flies open. Night’s army has come with a vengeance. I can barely see my way, and I curse myself for leaving the lamp. The dogs have not ceased their barking.

I rush down the path, taking very little care. A tree slaps me in the face and I look round. I gasp for breath. Something is moving in the trees. Two men step out from behind a large fir, and I scream. It takes me a moment to recognize them—Tambley and Johnny, Mr. Miller’s missing men.

“You frightened me to death,” I sputter. My heart thumps as quickly as a rabbit’s.

“Sorry, miss,” Johnny says, his voice calm.

“We didn’t mean no ’arm,” young Tambley adds. There is something odd about them. They seem as inconsequential as dust, two shimmers of men, and when they step forward into a stream of moonlight, I could swear I see their bones glowing beneath their skin.

“You’ve given us all quite a scare,” I say, moving back. “They said you’d gone.”

“Gone?” Johnny repeats without seeming to understand.

The trees shake with the fluttering of birds’ wings. Several crows perch on the branches, watching silently. A grim voice inside speaks its fear to me:
Hide, Gemma.

“You should report to Mr. Miller straightaway. He’s worried about you.”

My hand strays out, searching for the trunk of a tree. A sound comes from my right. I slide my eyes toward the sound and there is Johnny. He was before me a second ago. How could he possibly…?

Tambley points a finger at me. His bones seem to shine under the surface of his skin, which is as pallid as a fish at the bottom of a pond.

“We’re back now,” he says. “For you.”

The birds raise a clamor with their chilling caws. Johnny’s hand grips my cape. I slip the clasp and let the
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cape drop in his fingers. I waste no time. I turn and scramble for the path. I run hard and fast the way I have just come, for they block the way to Spence. The wind rises behind me, bringing the sounds of cackles and whispers, rat scratchings, and the flapping of wings. The crows’ cries are like the screeches of hell. For all I know, I am screaming with them.

The chapel wavers before me, shaking along with my ragged breath. Whatever is behind me is gaining fast, and now I hear horses as well, horses that seem suddenly to have come out of thin air. I slam hard into the chapel doors. I tug but they will not open. The dirt of the path whirls and eddies around me.

Dogs. I hear dogs barking, and they are near. And just like that, the dirt on the path settles. The sound of horses and birds fades to a throb and then nothing. Torches flicker and smoke in the woods. The Gypsies have come—some on horseback, some on foot.

“Gemma!” Kartik’s voice.

“I saw…I saw…” I put a hand to my stomach. I cannot talk. Can’t breathe.

“Here,” he says, taking my arm to steady me. “What did you see?”

Several gulps of air and my voice returns. “Men…in the woods. Miller’s men—the ones who disappeared.”

“You’re certain?” Kartik asks.

“Yes.”

Immediately the Gypsies fan out. The dogs sniff the ground, confused.

“Mrs. Nightwing sent me to the chapel for a hymnal,” I explain.

“Alone?” Kartik’s eyebrows arch.

I nod. “In the chapel…the windows came alive,” I whisper. “They warned me not to go into the woods!”

“The windows warned you,” Kartik repeats slowly, and I am aware that I sound mad. For all I know, I am.

“The angel, the one with the gorgon’s head…it came alive, warned me. ‘The woods be not safe.’ And that’s not all. He said something about a sacrifice—‘If you be sacrificed in the Winterlands, the magic falls to them, and all is lost.’”

Kartik chews his lips, thinking. “Are you certain it wasn’t a vision?”

“I don’t think it was. And then, on the path, I saw those men, and they seemed like specters. They said they had come for me.”

A sudden, startled cry rings out from the Gypsy camp. It’s followed by more shouts.

“Stay here!” Kartik instructs.

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There isn’t a prayer that I will stay here alone. I’m right on his heels. With each footfall, the angel’s voice rumbles through me:
The woods be not safe.
The camp is in chaos—screams, curses, men’s shouts.

There are no spirits here. It is Mr. Miller and his men. They pull the women from the tents and ransack the wagons, stuffing their pockets with whatever they find. When the women try to protect what is theirs, Mr. Miller’s men threaten them with torches. One woman rushes a slightly built thug, beating him with her fists until she is struck across the face by another.

The dogs are loosed. They attack one of the men, knocking him to the ground, where he screams and cowers. Daggers are drawn.

“Inspector Kent has come to call at Spence. I’ll run for him,” I say, but when I think of the unquiet woods, where ghostly figures seem to wait, my feet are like lead. I hesitate, and in that moment, Mr.

Miller raises his pistol and fires two shots into the air. “Right. Who wants lead in his belly? I want to know where my missing men are.”

He takes aim at one of the Gypsy men. There is no time for the inspector. Something must be done at once.

“Stop!” I shout.

Mr. Miller cups his hand over his brow, peering into the dark. “Who said that?”

“I did,” I say, stepping forward.

Mr. Miller breaks into a huge grin and a big cackle. “You? Aren’t you one of them Spence girls? What ya gonna do, then? Pour me tea?”

“Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard has called upon us this evening,” I say, hoping I sound much surer of myself than I feel. My insides have gone to jelly. “If you do not leave at once, I shall send for him. In fact, he may very well be on his way now.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Miller nods and two of his men come for me. Kartik steps between us.

He gets off a solid punch to each of them, but another joins the fray. He is outnumbered. He is hit hard across the mouth, his lip bloodied.

“Stop!” I growl.

Mr. Miller’s feral grin returns. “I told Missus Nightwing them dirty Gypsies would sully her girls. Guess I was right.”

I hate him for that. I wish I could show him how much, and at once, the magic eats through me with a terrible velocity. I am inside Mr. Miller’s head, an unwelcome guest.

I know what you fear, Mr. Miller, what you desire.

Mr. Miller whips around wildly. “Who said that? Which one of you?”

These woods know your secrets, Mr. Miller. I know them, too. You like to hurt things. You like it
very much.

“Show yourself!” Mr. Miller’s voice is raw with fear.

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You drowned a kitten once. It struggled and scratched for its tiny life, and you squeezed harder.

You squeezed till it hung limp in your hands.

“Don’t you hear that?” Mr. Miller screams at his men. They regard him as one would a madman, for they hear nothing.

Retribution rumbles over my soul. I make the wind gather force. It rattles the leaves, and Mr. Miller sets off running, his men chasing after, all thoughts of revenge abandoned for now. The magic calms, and I fall to my knees, gasping. The Gypsies regard me warily, as if I were something to be feared.