by Vered Ehsani
“Do you have the energy to take both of them?” I asked.
I restrained myself from enquiring if she was even alive, but some intimation of my inner conversation must’ve appeared on my face, for he blanched and left Mr. Timmons to check. My eyelids were too heavy to resist gravity so I closed them and leaned against the stick, the cool metal of the fist reassuringly steady against my cheek.
“They both live,” Kam announced.
“Both?” I repeated and glanced over to where Kam kneeled beside Drew. My legs wobbled as I shuffled to his side and peered down at my brother.
“Dr. Ribeiro will be busy,” Kam added. He patted Drew’s fur and stood. “I can carry him as well.”
“Of course. Thank you,” I said, grateful that I wouldn’t have to bury my brother again. I peered over at Mr. Elkhart but he shook his head. His wings would be of no help.
Kam gathered the lion and the werewolf into his mighty arms, nodded at me and said something just as a whirlwind formed around him.
“What?” I shouted but I was shouting at empty space, for Kam and his two passengers had been whisked away into a storm cloud.
Mr. Elkhart limped over to a tree and leaned against it, as if he too was having difficulty with gravity. I finally succumbed and sunk down by Mr. Timmons’ side and held his hand. That he hadn’t energy to provide a cutting comment worried me. His lips were moving soundlessly, his eyeballs rolling about under fluttering lids.
“Kam will send help,” Mr. Elkhart said, and I wasn’t sure who he was attempting to reassure, for Mr. Timmons clearly wasn’t listening and I was overwhelmed with the possibility that my brother might live, but my fiancé might not.
“I wonder how,” he continued, staring out across the moon-lit lake to another part of the shore where several large hippos grazed.
No sooner had those words been uttered than our answer arrived with a pounding of hooves, a belch and a flick of her tail: Nelly.
Chapter 28
It was utter chaos in the barn.
The two normal horses and the fat, little ox didn’t know what to make of it all, and communicated their displeasure by kicking at the walls of their stalls. Nelly set herself the task of eating their share of the hay.
The empty stalls and the main open area had been converted into a makeshift hospital, given that Dr. Ribeiro’s official facilities were far too limited and too public to accommodate a lion, a werewolf, a Popobawa and a thief.
But we were all alive; broken and drained, but alive. Improbably so, which just goes to show that miracles can happen.
Kam and I had escaped with little more than scratches and a loss of energy. Nyarvirazi and Drew both had cracked ribs, which was understandable given they’d been thrown against trees.
Mr. Elkhart’s arm was broken and, when he shifted into bat form, one of his wings was badly tattered but both would mend, as would the deep scratches around his neck.
It was Mr. Timmons who worried Dr. Ribeiro the most. Koki had gouged him fiercely, leaving a gaping wound over his stomach area.
“Very infectious, these wounds,” he told me. “Very easy to go gangrene. Very fatal.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I murmured wearily with little gratitude in my voice. “But I really didn’t need to know all that.”
He shrugged his shoulders at my mulish disinterest in medical details, and continued with his doctoring.
Cilla, Lilly and the lion twins, who swore they wouldn’t be able to sleep so they might as well help, ferried hot water and clean linen to the barn. Fortunately, what could be done was finished by the time the Steward family awoke. That was fortunate, as I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Steward remaining silent upon seeing stacks of her linen exiting the house.
Around sunrise, it was clear that the patients had been attended to as well as could be expected. Mr. Elkhart, his arm in a sling, and Lilly borrowed Nelly to return to their home, while Cilla insisted on staying in the barn with Dr. Ribeiro to watch over her uncle, who was doing very poorly. I went to prepare us breakfast, given that Jonas had at some point left us.
By the time I’d returned to the barn, Cilla was asleep, Kam and the were-lions had departed, Drew was in his loft and a particularly ugly baboon with green-tinged fur was poking a stubby finger into Mr. Timmons’ nose.
“Get away from him,” I shouted as I ran toward the beast, breakfast tray rattling in my hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two other figures hidden in the shadows and I spun to face them, nearly upsetting the teapot in the process.
“It’s very okay,” Dr. Ribeiro said, stepping toward me. The other figure, which I now recognized as Jonas, remained seated on a bale of hay.
Thoroughly frazzled, I stared at the baboon that was prying Mr. Timmons’ mouth open. “Burr?” I asked.
The Tokolosh turned her long, flat face toward me on her nearly non-existent neck. Solid black eyes stared back at me. “Br-r-r-r-r-r,” she trilled, the small river stone in her mouth bouncing on her tongue.
“What…?” I gestured to the scene of a Tokolosh attending to a critically ill victim of a Mantis.
Jonas gave me one of his looks, the kind that communicated his disgust at my ignorance. “Natural Tokolosh have healing powers. So I asked her to come.”
Dr. Ribeiro’s head bobbed about in agreement. “Yes, very many water creatures are having the same.”
Given Mr. Timmons’ condition, I couldn’t object to anything that might provide him some relief from the infection that had spread. While I sipped at my tea and nibbled on my toast, Burr smeared his stomach with a green gunk that looked decidedly unhygienic. Trilling softly to herself, she hopped about him, spitting more of the gunk onto his fevered chest and forehead.
With a final, self-satisfied noise and smacking of her lips, she slurped up the bowl of milk Jonas offered her and departed.
Despite my best intentions to stay awake, I must’ve dozed off, for the next thing I remember was Mr. Timmons complaining about the gloop covering his face.
“It’s Tokolosh saliva,” I mumbled and fell back asleep.
At one point, I woke long enough to notice Dr. Ribeiro leaving. “An outbreak of head lice is calling me,” he explained as he departed. “Very nasty, Miss Knight, but not so very nasty as giant Mantis.”
When next I woke, it was mid-afternoon, and Mr. Timmons was sitting up, looking decidedly more alive, albeit in desperate need of a bath. Cilla was sitting beside him and Mr. Elkhart and Lilly were perched on a rickety wooden bench.
“What in heavens did Dr. Ribeiro put on me, Mrs. Knight?” Mr. Timmons demanded.
I focused on extracting bits of hay from my hair. “He didn’t. That’s courtesy of a Tokolosh.”
Before he could press me any further for details, Jonas arrived with a tray carrying sweetened lemon juice and biscuits. We decided to move the impromptu gathering outside under the shade of a jacaranda tree, where we delighted in our mutual survival and tall glasses of juice.
Jonas was looking particularly smug, as everyone congratulated him on his clever thinking that saved Mr. Timmons. I didn’t point out that it was in fact the Tokolosh who had done the saving, because to be fair, Jonas had brought her to the barn.
Conversation swayed this way and that, avoiding anything that might require emotion or commitment or could call up memories. It was merely an intimate circle of friends enjoying a few precious, golden moments together while admiring the weather and the flora.
“I wonder who that could be?” Cilla asked with the lethargy that only a hot afternoon can produce, and pointed down the hill.
We all followed her finger and could make out a figure hiking toward the house, the face cast in a hat’s shadow. As none of us could answer the question, we all provided our confident guesses, each more ridiculous than the last. Only when it became clear that it was James, Mr. Evans’ assistant, did we cease our idle chatter.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” James said upon arrival, each word carefully articulated. “A tel
egraph.”
He held out the yellow slip of paper, holding it with both hands as one would a treasured artifact.
“Mr. Steward is at the camp office, James,” I told him. “If it’s urgent, perhaps…”
James shook his head, dark eyes slightly downcast apart from the occasional glance at me. “The telegraph is not for the bwana Steward, ma’am. It is for you.”
I stood to receive the proffered paper, wondering who would possibly be interested in sending me a message. One glance at the name of the sender gave me pause.
It was from Prof. Runal.
While I won’t say this revelation inspired the same fear that Koki could, I certainly wasn’t at ease either. The others noted my rigid silence as I held the folded paper.
“What is it?” Cilla asked.
“A telegraph,” I said, although I knew that’s not what she had really been asking.
I skirted the obvious answer, and instead imagined other explanations to distract me from the truth, such as: the professor was sending congratulations to Lilly, which was ludicrous; he wouldn’t have heard the news and if he had, he’d not have cared enough.
Or perhaps he was asking about the ponytailed dwarf. He’d mentioned the dwarf in several of his recent correspondences with me, requesting me to inform him urgently if I should spy the creature.
Again, the logical and disciplined part of my mind squashed that notion, for Prof. Runal wouldn’t be wasting his coin on a telegraph so soon after his recent weekly letter.
There was only one reason he’d cable a message at this juncture: he was providing me his reaction to my own telegraph.
As James departed, I lingered in the bubble of joy and peace we had only briefly owned, savoring the sweetness of a circle of friends indulging in a well-earned respite from danger.
But these things never last. That is precisely why they are so precious when they occur, a gift that one should never squander.
On that thought, I opened up the telegraph and read the message. And read it again.
It wasn’t about a dwarf, ponytailed or otherwise.
I could feel the indent of each letter poking out on the other side of the thin paper, and I could envision Mr. Evans receiving each letter, forming them into words and treating them as sacred, his sworn duty to protect and deliver.
I wish he’d burned them instead.
It seemed I was to have no lasting peace, for no sooner had I been relieved of one burden than another was placed on me. The bitterness of it soured the sweet juice in my mouth. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? And what good could this development possibly produce?
None. Of that I was certain. Given all I had learned in recent weeks about the Society and my benefactor, I could only but wait in nervous anticipation for the next blow, another battle. I wondered if I should tell Drew? He was in the loft resting. I could only imagine his reaction to this news, given all he’d suffered. I didn’t dare look to Mr. Elkhart, for hadn’t he expressed his deep distrust of my former employer as well?
My wolf energy growled at my side, a strangely reassuring presence against the approaching menace.
“Mrs. Knight?” Mr. Timmons said as he touched my elbow, startling me out of my dark musings.
“It’s from Prof. Runal,” I said, barely hearing my own voice.
Silence, the sort that stands frozen like a startled deer in the woods when it realizes something is watching it.
“What does he say?” Mr. Elkhart spoke first, his every syllable tense with restrained emotion.
I sat down beside Mr. Timmons and smoothed the paper out on my lap, cleared my throat but found I couldn’t deliver the words that would shatter our fragile peace.
Mr. Timmons gently picked the paper, held it up and read aloud Prof. Runal’s words:
MESSAGE RECEIVED. MAKE NO DECISIONS. AM ON MY WAY.
Facts or Fiction
For those with little appetite remaining for historical matters, skip this section and go directly to the next.
While I’m certainly no historian, I did make some efforts in regard to research. Below are the facts as I understand them, and the fictional aspects pointed out. Sometimes, I mixed them up.
Fact: Anansi and Koki are part of West African mythology. Anansi the Spider, also known as the Trickster God, is particularly famous (or infamous) and is a key character in many of the old stories. Koki is known as the Spider’s Wife, although it’s possible she’s married to another spider and not Anansi. Such minor details have been lost in the mists of history.
Fact: Mantis are ambush predators and ruthless killers. They prefer to eat their prey while it’s still alive, but if it should have the audacity to struggle and protest, the Mantis is happy to oblige the victim with decapitation.
Fiction: Koki wasn’t necessarily a malevolent figure, as I portrayed her in this story. However, when you’re dealing with a giant Praying Mantis, don’t expect to walk away from the encounter with your head attached to your shoulders.
Fact: Dr. Rosendo Ribeiro was a real person and a medical doctor. Originally from Goa (which was part of the Portuguese Empire at the time), he is (to my knowledge) the only doctor who has ever done house calls on a zebra.
Fact: Dr. Ribeiro and his assistant Mr. Pinto lived and worked out of a tent for six months until they could build a surgery made from packing cases. He invented a number of prescriptions, including a malarial cure that he eventually patented and sold to an international company.
Fiction: He came to Nairobi in February 1900, and so he wouldn’t have met the Steward family at the end of 1899, when he began his acquaintance with Mrs. Knight. And while he may very well have been a zebra whisperer, I don’t think he had supernatural powers that allowed him to communicate with whole herds of the beasts.
Fact: Lake Naivasha (where the final battle scene occurs) is a freshwater lake that nomadic pastoralists use to water their cattle herds. Sadly the lake is under threat from untreated sewage and over-development; herdsmen also have difficulty accessing the lake as various agricultural and tourism projects block pathways to the water. The lake is around 100km from Nairobi.
Fact: A big round of applause is owed to: Monica La Porta, a good friend, a great Beta reader and an awesome author (http://monicalaporta.com); Starla Huchton, cover designer extraordinaire (http://www.designedbystarla.com); and of course Mrs. Knight who has somehow managed to survive this long. I’d give these ladies a dozen roses each, but I think Nelly ate all the flowers.
Fact: Mrs. Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management did indeed provide exacting details on social niceties, including how long a social visit should last.
Fact: Mrs. Knight relies on cinnamon quite a bit in these stories. In fact, cinnamon is a great deterrent against ants. Sprinkle some on the ground where they are and they will find another route.
Fiction: The same cannot be said for giant Mantis and other supernatural bugs, so please don’t try the cinnamon trick at home.
Fact: Nairobi started life as a British railway camp and supply depot for the Uganda Railway in 1899 and it was, as Mrs. Steward pointed out in Case 1, built on a brackish swamp.
Fact: In the year this story takes place (1900), Nairobi was just beginning to expand from a tented construction camp for workers into a more established place with a market and permanent structures.
Fiction: I’m not sure if anything like Mrs. Patel’s general store had been built by then.
Fiction: Vered doesn’t live in a tree house and her kids are not allowed to keep monkeys as pets; the lion ate the last monkey we had and good riddance, I say.
The Fourth Mandate
Society for Paranormals: Case 4
By Vered Ehsani
from Africa… with a Bite
Chapter 1
After battling a giant, vengeful Praying Mantis and nearly dying in the process, there really is nothing like a wedding to lift one’s spirits.
Fortunately for all those who’d suffered through Koki the Man
tis’ attempt to decapitate them, there were in fact two people prepared to supply just such a joyous distraction. This union would have the additional benefit of relieving a certain Steward family of their obligation in caring for their orphaned niece.
Dear reader, it was indeed the happiest of coincidences, for I was to be married off, providing a brilliant and most satisfactory conclusion to recent events.
There was however one issue that troubled me somewhat, that startled me during those brief moments in between an ever-growing list of tasks to be completed before the wedding day. My concern disturbed the early hours of sleep and summoned my wolf energy at inconvenient moments.
It had nothing to do with my fiancé who, aside from being an identity thief with an abominably outdated sense of fashion and a wickedly sharp sense of humor, was truly an appropriate match for one such as myself.
Given that I’m half-witch, part-werewolf and in possession of highly developed olfactory senses and the ability to read energy fields, I was in no position to critique his oddities.
No, my apprehensions regarding my impending nuptials revolved around another concern entirely: I was certain my current husband would not approve.
Chapter 2
We were doing our utmost to ignore the approaching tornado as we strolled about the garden. We would’ve been quite successful too, if the thing hadn’t nearly landed on our heads.
“Just talk with him,” Cilla said. Despite being a normal human, my dearest friend was quite conversant in the ways of the paranormal world. Still, her optimism seemed misplaced.
Lilly widened her eyes and pursed her lips, but remained silent on the topic.
I tugged my skirt away from the thorns of a purple bougainvillea. “I would, but he’s floated off to wherever ghosts float off to when they’re not haunting. And I’m sure he won’t be in a chatty mood when he returns, if he ever does.”
“Why’s that?” Cilla persisted, her attention focused on the column of spinning dust hurtling across the African savannah, her plump cheeks rosy with innocent youth.