by Shane Lee
“Well...” Monty brought himself back to that night. He remembered the Kettle family on the platform. “The whole family was sad. In tears. Audrey was quiet, though. Like she was lost.”
“Distraught,” Iselle commented. “Natural at a sending, for the family. She was married, correct? Children, a big family? How were they?”
“Sad,” Monty recalled. “But not like Audrey.”
Iselle asked, “And after the sending? Did either of you see Audrey?”
“I did,” Monty said. “Kind of. She was the next person to die, and the Judge and I were there, too. Before she died, my mother had tried to visit her, but she couldn’t. She was unwell, just lying in bed. And by the time I saw her, she was dead.” His mouth twitched, and the words started coming faster. “Mostly. She moved. Her head turned toward me and the Judge, and I saw her eyes move under the eyelids. Then it was...it was like she took a breath. Her arm fell off the bed and just...hung there, making a fist. And then the fingers uncurled and everything just stopped, and she was dead.”
Iselle’s eyes widened the tiniest bit. “You may have witnessed Nal’Gee leaving the body...or trying to.” She paused, and her fingers wound up in the scarf again, turning it over and over. Her eyes dropped down to it, briefly, before rising back up to meet his. “Are you speaking truly to me, Monty? This body moved in that exact way, and the doctor’s body spoke to you?”
“I swear it,” Monty said. He would never forget what he’d seen. “I swear it on the souls of my mother and father.”
“If you were older...” She rubbed her thumb at a frayed patch on the scarf, not looking down. “I might think you were having a trick with me. Some well-read townsies will do that, and then they’ll laugh when I get excited. What you’re describing here matches many...many of the legends I’ve heard about vengeful spirits and possession.” Her eyes narrowed, crisp and sharp. “Only people who knew what I know would be telling me things like this. Storytellers. Orators.”
Iselle leaned back in the chair, and the tension in her shoulders slackened a little bit. “Since you are neither, I believe you. I admit that I don’t want to. After we’re done here, my people and I are leaving this town, barricaded or not. Death lives here. Audrey was taken because she had given up—you understand? Her potential was gone, and it made her an easy target.”
“Bella,” Terra said, tapping Monty on the leg. “Bella was crying because Dr. Tobias died. And then Nal’Gee got her, too!”
“Just like that?” Monty said. “He wasn’t her father.”
A small smile snuck onto Iselle’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it came. “Nal’Gee is stronger now. It’s harder for people fight back.”
“But...my...our mother...” Monty watched the pity gather on Iselle’s face, and all at once he understood.
“It was my fault.” He looked down, speaking the words to the ground. It suddenly made perfect, horrible sense. “I abandoned her. I went to go and live in town even though she didn’t want me to. I worked for a man she hated. I...I told her I wanted a different life!” Monty clutched at his thighs, digging his fingers into his skin. “I killed her. I let her die.”
“No!” Terra cried. “Monty, you didn’t. Mom wasn’t sad!”
“She wouldn’t show it to you,” he muttered, “or to me. But she...I weakened her enough to let Nal’Gee take her. She must have thought I was going to abandon the family, or...I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I thought she was getting better, but it only took days and she...she...”
A hand on his knee. It was Iselle.
“Don’t presume to understand what’s happened,” she said. “No one truly knows how a spirit chooses their victims, or how their power works. All the same, no one knows what is inside another person’s mind. Nal’Gee had consumed two human lives before taking her. She was strong, and so was your mother.”
Monty’s eyes were dry, but his chest felt both empty and painfully heavy. He managed to pull in some air and look back up.
“If your mother survived as long as she did with the spirit inside her, I am certain that she did not give up.” Iselle squeezed his leg, then she blinked and pulled back. She brought her hands to her head and pulled her hair up, tying it back into the scarf with practiced, fluid motions. “I’m sorry, to both of you. But I can’t help, and to be honest, I’m not sure that anyone could.”
She stood up, her chair sliding back a few inches and hitting the desk behind it. “I’m leaving. If you want to live, you do the same.”
43
“Wait!”
Terra followed Iselle out of the house, and Monty went after both of them, leaving behind the guilt at the role he had played in his mother’s death—for now.
The woman was a fast walker, and she didn’t look back. Terra ran to catch up with her.
“You have to help us!” Terra pleaded.
“There’s nothing that I can do,” Iselle said. She kept her eyes forward...but glanced down briefly and said, “Don’t trip.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” Monty told her, coming up on the other side. “We just want to talk some more. Learn what you know, and see if there’s anything that we can use. You can still leave tonight.”
Though, he wondered, can she really?
“I can assure you that I know nothing about fighting spirits,” Iselle responded. Their place was not terribly far from the Montgomery; already, they were only one short street away. “In fact, all I know is what great harm they can do to people. Not things you want to hear right now.”
“Any of that could help!” Monty said.
“We won’t know unless you tell us,” Terra added, her breath coming a little harsher with keeping up their pace.
“There’s nothing to know,” Iselle said, and Monty heard the annoyance there. But she was the only person who even had a chance of offering something that might help. He couldn’t let it go.
“I’ll pay you,” he insisted, promising money he didn’t have. “Whatever you want. I’ve got—”
“What in the world?” Iselle stopped dead, raising a hand, reaching out for nothing.
Monty had been so distracted trying to stall the storyteller, he hadn’t been paying attention. He looked up and saw the Montgomery across the road. The outside lanterns were lit, throwing soft light onto the sign and on what appeared to be three bodies lying in the dirt outside. Smoke rose off them in fading wisps. Lying on their backs, their faces were easy to see. Even through the burns, Monty knew them. He didn’t get a long look at them, but he had seen the three of them less than an hour ago.
It was Iselle’s caravan. All of them. Dead.
A few other people were outside, gathered around the bodies. He thought some were inn-goers, looking shaken and scared—but he clearly recognized three of the men there, even partially clad in darkness. It was hard to mistake people that big. He’d seen them talking to Mullen in the days past.
It’s true, he thought. They’re really doing this.
And then he thought, Mullen has gone completely crazy.
Iselle unfroze and lunged forward toward the inn, and Monty grabbed her around the waist. It was a fast move, and he didn’t get good purchase, but he had her. Thank the saints it was a dark and cloudy night—he didn’t think they’d been seen. Hurriedly, he pulled her back, deeper in the darkness by a storefront.
“What are you doing? Let me go!”
“Monty!”
“Both of you, quiet!” Monty’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Iselle, if you go over there, you’re going to be killed.”
“If you don’t—”
“Those men work for the Judge!” he spat through gritted teeth. “Iselle, they’re looking for you. They want you dead.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” She spun in his grasp, twisting an arm around to grab at his face. He pulled back, narrowly avoiding her long nails. “You let me go you little monster, that’s my family out there!”
“I know,” Monty said, and he st
ayed strong in his grip. “I know.”
It was coming together in broken little pieces. Mullen’s vitriol toward the rumors; Bradley’s talk about the so-called residency enforcers; the Moon barkeep’s cryptic comment about getting to Iselle first. How close had they come to losing her, too?
“I’m sorry,” Monty said to Iselle. “Really, I am. I didn’t—I had no idea the Judge would go this far.”
Iselle said nothing, but her pulling and twisting felt half-hearted now, like the weight of what happened was beginning to hold her down.
“We have to go back to our house,” Monty said to Iselle, and he pulled harder, bringing her close. She had stopped struggling, but he wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t bolt away. “Please. You have to trust me. We can’t help them, but we can save you.”
“Let me go. I won’t run. Just let me go.” Iselle was still, her arms hanging down. Her scarf had shaken loose, half her hair spilling out and down her neck.
Monty didn’t hesitate; Iselle would never trust them if he couldn’t show her the same courtesy. He let go of her. She didn’t run, but she didn’t move back, either.
When she did make a sudden jerking motion, Monty reached for her—but she wasn’t running. Someone was coming from the direction of the inn, and she was hailing them. It wasn’t one of the men, fortunately. It was a boy who looked young and a little shaken, perhaps thirteen. Still—
“Iselle! Don’t!” Monty whispered.
“You there! Boy!” she called, not too loudly. “Please, quickly—tell us what happened at the inn. There’s a heavy coin for you if you’re fast.”
The boy ran across the street at Iselle’s beckoning. He was short and skinny, with brown hair. There was soot on his face, smeared around his shining eyes.
“How heavy a coin?” he asked.
“Out with it,” Iselle prodded.
“Awright, I was in just to get a nip,” he said. “I know one of the girls who works the kitchen. I was gonna eat at a table in there when these three big men come in. They look awful scary, I seen them around. They head right for the gypsies by the fire.”
“Caravaners,” Iselle corrected flatly.
“Whatever,” the boy said, and hurried along. “One of the big guys yells out that the man’s coat is on fire, the gyp sitting real close to the fireplace. And then—I saw it —another of the big guys threw a little bottle in the fire, and the whole thing went up, it exploded like magic! The whole table and all the people at it caught on.”
Iselle raised a hand to her mouth.
The boy, excited, went on. “The three of ‘em grabbed the gypsies like they was gonna put ‘em out, like they’re patting the fire down. They put their coats over their faces, and they dragged ‘em outside so the whole place didn’t catch. I run outside, and I heard one of ‘em say it’s too late, and they’re all dead. Just like that. That’s all I saw, I just got out of there before I got in trouble. You ain’t gonna tell on me, are ya?”
Unbelievable, Monty thought. The...the brazenness of it. To not be challenged, because everyone is scared. What is happening to our town?
Mutely, Iselle plucked a coin from her pocket and dropped it in the boy’s palm. The boy sniffed.
“Not very heavy...”
“Get out of here!” Monty snarled at the kid, and the look on his face was enough to jolt the boy. He scurried away, tucking the coin in his shirt.
“They’re going to come,” Monty said to Iselle and Terra. “We have to be gone.”
Iselle stared in the direction of the inn, unmoving. He didn’t know what she was thinking, what she was feeling, and yet...perhaps he did, a little. At the very least, he knew that she was stunned, and she wasn’t going to make a decision on her own.
He took her hand, pulling her. “Let’s go. We have to go.”
She moved, letting him take her at first, then turning, sliding her hand out of his and running, running like he and Terra were, going faster with each stride until they had to stop.
“Wait,” Monty panted, grinding his feet to a halt. They were seconds from his door. “Wait.”
“What is it?” Terra asked.
“We can’t...here. People at the inn saw us. Know you’re...with us.” Monty shook his head. “If they tell the Judge’s men, they might come here looking for you.”
“Do you have somewhere else?” Iselle said, the first words she’d spoken since the boy’s story.
“Yes. The farm.” Monty caught Terra’s eye, and she gave a little shrug. “It’s quiet out there. If they come for us, we’d hear them. We could run to the Dromm and hide, if we needed to.” He gave a weak smile that barely lifted his mouth. “It’s not like Nal’Gee is in there anymore.”
“Okay,” Iselle said, her voice flat. “Let’s go.”
They hadn’t been to the farm in some time, but years could pass and the path would still feel familiar, where the roads gave way to loose dirt and then grass, where the stars filled the whole sky (when the clouds weren’t in the way), and where the black forest began to creep up the horizon, taking over the distance.
They slowed down once they got out of town and no one seemed to be on their trail. The walk was silent, all three of them muted by what they had seen.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I have good reason. Would the men be fixated enough on this goal to try to track Iselle down through the night? That would depend on the Judge’s orders. The way Mullen had throbbed with anger about the rumors, Monty thought it was possible. Better to be safe than dead.
There was the farm house. Even right in front of them, it felt very far away.
“We can make up a bed for you,” Monty said as they approached, turning from the main path to the worn grass that led to the door. Even in the dark, his footsteps fell into the same spots they always did. “Or you can use...”
Monty trailed off, following Iselle’s gaze. She wasn’t looking at the house or at him, but at the Dromm where it rose in the night. It was too dark to see the leaves. It looked as black and foreboding as it ever had.
“I’d like to see the forest,” she said, her voice light with awe. “This will be my only chance. I’m either going to die here or never come back.”
“Um, sure,” Monty said, a touch uneasy. But with Nal’Gee gone, the Dromm had probably never been safer. “Terra, do you want to come?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m not scared of it anymore.”
It didn’t sound terribly convincing, but it made Monty smile all the same.
“Follow me,” he said. “There’s a path.”
Another familiar path. Subconsciously, Monty was quite fine not having to go into the house yet. He didn’t want to lose it to Judge Mullen, but there was still a mountain to climb there, and one he would have to climb later...but not right now.
They passed by the compost pile, which had whittled down to nothing but a space carved into the tall, wilting grass. Images of brisk and sunny days flooded him, and he closed his mind to the memories. He breathed in the cold air and focused on the trees, so black that they were visible only as they blocked the starlight poking through the clouds.
“They’re huge,” Isabelle breathed, stopping a few dozen feet before them and craning her neck upward. “The stories don’t lie about that. I could see them from the town, but...”
“You can’t tell until you’re up close,” Monty finished for her, standing at her side, and Terra at his. “It’s too dark, but there’s leaves there now. Ever since Nal’Gee let the trees start to live again.”
“I wish I could see them,” Iselle said.
As they stood quiet for a while, Iselle’s wish came slowly true. The cloud cover that concealed the half-moon had been gradually moving west, and at last it was gone. Pale moonlight dripped down into the forest, and it shone brightest against the green leaves.
Monty saw her eyes widen as she watched the color appear. It wouldn’t ease what had happened to her for long, but it was something. The passion in her eyes, gleaming even in the h
eaviness of the death around her. The incomparable thrill of living within a legend, even one that would suck the flesh from her bones if it had a chance. Monty could see how she could get wrapped up in tales, tall or otherwise. It was something she lived for; something she craved.
Would you really have left Irisa? he thought. I think you might have stayed. I think you would have come to this forest without me tomorrow, looking for the hole Nal’Gee was living in.
“Monty!” Terra screamed his name and grabbed at his wrist. She was pointing into the forest. He followed her hand, where the moonlight had fallen on something else. A shape in the trees.
Someone was in the woods.
44
Monty stepped forward, putting his arm in front of Terra and pushing her back. “Iselle, you may have to run.”
“Is it them?” Iselle asked, sounding as though she hardly cared.
“I don’t know,” Monty said, but who else would it be? Someone at the inn must have told the men that Iselle had left with Monty—almost everyone in town knew his face. And then they’d sent someone to the house to ambush them.
I wasn’t smart enough, he lamented, and what were they going to do now? Where would they go?
The person in the woods was unmoving, a dark silhouette. Perhaps he was facing the other way. If not, he must have seen them; they could see him, easily, even among the trees.
“Unlikely they would beat us here,” Iselle said, making no move to flee. She either didn’t believe it was one of the Judge’s men, or she just didn’t care.
That made Monty think—why not have someone in the house? Why would someone be waiting in the woods for them?
Someone could be in the house, too.
True, and they’d have to investigate that carefully, but out here, in the woods?
“They wouldn’t,” he said. “They wouldn’t.”
Then...who was it?
He was tired of running, and there wasn’t even anywhere left to run to. He wouldn’t abandon his home because of some figure in the woods.
Monty bent down and picked up a thick fallen branch. It was heavy.