by Vered Ehsani
A cheery smile brightened the man’s brown face. “Normally not, or not without very much difficulty. But we are having an exception to every rule, isn’t it?” He waggled his head from side to side, the way I’d seen other Indians in the camp do it, and widened his smile.
“But why use a zebra at all, if they’re so difficult to train?” I asked, still unsure if I wanted another zebra on the lawn.
“Very good,” he said. “It’s because of the hot tropical climate, madam. Horses are having a very, very difficult time, madam, so much so from the equine fever. They are not living as long, poor beasts.” He shook his head and clucked in sympathy with all the horses in tropical Africa.
I wondered if Nelly was prone to this fever. Thus far, she seemed only susceptible to possession and flatulence.
The doctor glanced me over. “So what is the ailment that is plaguing you, madam?”
“Oh, it’s not me,” I assured him. “I don’t sicken very easily. My cousin, on the other hand, has convinced my aunt that she’s on the point of death.”
Dr. Ribeiro tilted his hat up a bit and wiped a hand across his brow. “Very good. If she’s only at the point of death, there’s a very good chance we might save her yet. No guarantee but a possibility. Unlike the poor creature I was seeing on my way over.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
He shook his head and readjusted his hat. “My apologies, madam, for this isn’t appropriate for very polite society.”
“Then you should feel unconstrained in continuing, for you are not in very polite society,” I reassured him.
His eyes widened at that and he chuckled, a friendly, happy sound. “Yes, you must be the same-same Miss Knight that Mr. Kam mentioned to me.”
“Really?” I queried. “In what context?”
He scratched his head through his hat. “In actual fact, Miss Knight, the case I am just coming from. A village woman, mutilated very, very savagely down by the river. There wasn’t much I could do for her except proclaim her deceased, so I came straight here, hoping to find a live patient. I am preferring them alive.”
Before I could recover sufficient wit to respond, Mrs. Steward appeared at the doorway, pushed me aside, laid eyes on the zebra and shrieked, “Keep that monster away from my roses.”
Dr. Ribeiro’s eyes widened and he glanced between the two of us, perhaps wondering what could’ve caused this zebra paranoia that had laid hold of us.
“I am assuring you, madam,” Dr. Ribeiro said, hand over heart, “that zebras are not having a natural interest in roses. They eat only grass, very much.”
Mrs. Steward shook her finger at the man. “Just ensure your zebra knows that fact ‘very much’, for experience has suggested otherwise to me. My coffee table bears the proof of that. Bee, ask Jonas to take the doctor’s…” She paused. “His mount around back. Doctor, do hurry. I fear for my daughter’s life.”
The doctor’s eyes widened further at the fierceness his zebra’s presence had elicited. I was certain he was accustomed to more pleasant reactions and polite conversations. As to the pronouncement of near death, he seemed little fazed by it and with a pat on his zebra’s neck, he followed a near frantic Mrs. Steward into the house.
“Well, isn’t this a peculiar thing,” I said, but the zebra paid no heed and contentedly set to munching dry, crunchy grass. I left the beast, for I wasn’t about to cause it to be dragged to another location when the current one was adequate enough.
Instead, I headed at once toward the river with my walking stick in hand. I assumed, since the victim was a woman, that the scene of the crime would be at or near the place where the local women gathered to wash their clothes. I headed for the cluster of large rocks, where the women beat the sodden fabric while enjoying the chance to gossip.
Near the river, there were several women milling about, huddled in a small pack and gesturing to something just inside the treeline. As I approached the area, they eyed me nervously, as if I might on impulse attack them. I smiled and nodded at them but they stared back fixedly, whispering conversation while watching my every move.
Slightly unnerved by their obvious suspicion, I was almost relieved to see Kam nearby. Almost. I fervently hoped he wasn’t plotting on feeding me to some shape-shifting relative. With Kam, that was a real possibility.
He nodded his shaved head at me and I had to peer up to meet his fierce gaze. Pale brown eyes stared down at me, alert and sharply intelligent. Delightfully toned muscles shifted with every graceful movement.
But it was his skin markings that always intrigued me most about him. Highly unusual for this part of the continent, the swirls and symbols pierced the dark skin across his face, arms and chest. More startling than that was what I saw when I squinted my eyes: the markings glowed brightly, shifting and moving with powers I had yet to ascertain. Meanwhile, his energy field was curiously non-existent, which was only possible for a corpse, for no living creature could hide its energy field from me. Yet Kam was very much alive.
I sniffed at the air, my overly developed olfactory nerves tingling, and breathed in his distinctive scent: spice, warm earth, wood smoke and something a little wild. Behind that, I detected the copper of fresh blood.
“Dr. Ribeiro mentioned there was…” I started to say but Kam wordlessly shifted to one side and I said no more.
A young woman, more a girl than a woman, lay on her back, her arms by her side. In one hand she held a short, crude knife; in the other was a wilted red hibiscus flower. Her eyes were wide open, staring at whatever one stares at while dying. A film of blood covered her arms and upper chest.
As I leaned over to inspect the source of the blood, I realised I knew her, or rather I recognised her. She used to sell vegetables along the roadside near the camp. I’d bought from her on several occasions but had never bothered to ask her name.
Swallowing a strange and unnatural guilt, I noticed that runes had been carved into her skin.
“You are familiar with these symbols?” Kam asked, his deep voice rumbling through the air, echoed by a rumble of thunder from above.
“No,” I admitted, wondering why I’d never asked for her name. In London, I’d known the name of all the shopkeepers I’d bought from, and sometimes the names of their snotty-nosed offspring as well.
Setting aside that line of thought, I considered the victim, wondering what, apart from the carved-up skin, was odd about the scene. I frowned, an action which inevitably caused me to call to mind Mrs. Steward’s repeated admonitions that excessive facial expressions wrinkled the skin. It was truly an inopportune moment to recall such a trivial piece of advice.
Except…
“She’s smiling,” I said, and my frown deepened; Mrs. Steward’s beauty advice be damned.
I leaned closer to the body, confirming that the mouth was relaxed and smiling, in ghastly contrast to the state of her body.
“Strange and stranger still,” I mused. “ And why would the murderer leave the weapon?” I asked as I touched the gory blade tentatively.
The girl’s grip on it was impressive, which made as much sense as her lingering smile. If she’d been killed by the knife, as the evidence suggested, how could her hand have clenched it so fiercely after death? And how could she possibly have died like this and maintained a smile?
Kam remained silent, as was typical of him.
“Did anyone see or hear what happened?” I asked while straightening up. Flies were already starting to gather, attracted by the sweetness of drying blood.
“No, nothing,” Kam said, his tone unreadable.
“Most peculiar,” I murmured, reluctant to admit my confusion as I studied the scene for more clues. There weren’t any. “Has there been other cases like this?”
He shook his head, his gaze fixed out over the river and across the savannah. If he did know more, he clearly was uninterested in informing me.
“If you need any assistance, do let me know,” I said, as there was nothing more for me to
do.
Kam glanced at me, his eyebrows twitched up and he smiled slightly, an expression that didn’t relieve the fierceness of his countenance but did add to the handsomeness of his features.
“We’ll see you, Miss Knight,” he said and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that prospect.
As I walked away, I had to fight the urge to glance back but I could feel Kam watching me. Only when I had passed over the hill did the tension leave my shoulders.
Chapter 6
As I’d suspected, Lilly was no closer to death than any of us, which is to say that she could expect to live to some reasonably wrinkled age, barring disease and a horde of stampeding elephants.
“It’s a stroke of luck she survived at all, Bee,” Mrs. Steward said as she fussed over Lilly. “And no thanks to that doctor. I’m not convinced about him. When I asked him where his practise was, he said it was at home. When I asked where that was, he said in a tent in the camp. Shocking, truly shocking, what poor standards we must suffer with. How we endure is beyond me.”
Despite the poor standards, Lilly recovered.
To celebrate, Mrs. Steward announced we would all go out to the new – and only – soda bar that had been added to the general store. Going into town wasn’t quite as dramatic here as it was in London, for town was little more than a large and rapidly developing construction camp. Still, it was a pleasant enough distraction.
The general store had a floor littered with large sacs and barrels of non-perishables, and several shelves laden down with an assortment of tins, smaller sacs of rice and a selection of random items that varied from week to week. The real charm of the place was the soda bar, where precious glass bottles of fizzy drinks resided.
As Mr. Steward had declined to join us on account of his work, we were just the ladies and Bobby who could barely restrain himself upon seeing the colourful glass in front him.
“Mama,” Lilly immediately said as she studied the store with a quick eye, “they have face powder this week. May I please?”
“Absolutely not,” Mrs. Steward said without even looking up. “I would only consider it if there was a cause for such a thing, but here in this backwater outpost, there’s hardly need to pretty ourselves further.”
Lilly pouted, Bobby blew through his straw with enough force to create bubbles and I slurped at the soda.
“Bee, you look quite tired,” Mrs. Steward commented.
I often marvel at the comments people allow past their lips, for what woman truly wants or needs to hear such a statement?
“It’s nothing,” I said, not wishing to divulge the details of my nightmares. Nor could I freely discuss my concern over a certain ghost husband or the brutal murder of a nameless girl.
I faded out of the conversation, adding only the occasional nod or polite sound to pretend involvement without being so committed as to be forced into saying anything. So sunk was I in my morose reflections that I barely noticed when Mrs. Steward slid along the bar to chat with the shopkeeper’s wife.
The wife, named Mrs. Patel, was a plump Indian woman covered in enough colourful fabric to set up a shop of her own. She was also the centre of whatever little gossip there might be had, given that her husband was on very close terms with the stationmaster, who also doubled as the postmaster. All this to say that she knew the comings and goings of every person and parcel.
I abhor gossip.
But I couldn’t feign disinterest when Mrs. Steward rushed back to our end of the bar, grabbed both Lilly and I by an arm and shook us ferociously. “Girls, girls, what splendid news!” she gasped.
“There’s a shipment of dresses arriving?” Lilly asked, eyes all sparkling at the prospect.
“There’s a circus coming and they’re recruiting boys as lion trainers?” I suggested, eyeing Bobby’s bubbly mess.
“No, no, you foolish, vain creatures,” Mrs. Steward said with a great exhale of breath. “A Governor has been appointed by Her Majesty to oversee the colony. And he’s arriving tomorrow with his family.” She leaned toward Lilly with a glint in her eyes that could mean only one thing. “And he has two sons.”
“So maybe the circus can take both of them and Bobby,” I muttered.
Mrs. Steward did a fair job of ignoring me, for she was determined to make her intentions quite clear, as if they weren’t already. “Tomorrow, we shall go meet the Governor and his family,” she said with the intensity of a General issuing battle orders. “Of course we’ll be there for some other purpose, to deliver a letter to the postmaster. Lilly, you must write immediately to Aunt Phyllis…”
“She’d dead,” I pointed out.
“Oh yes, of course,” Mrs. Steward said, flustered. “God bless her and the inheritance she left us. Well, for heaven’s sake, think of someone to write to.”
“Preferably someone who isn’t dead,” I suggested. “That could be awkward.”
“For by tomorrow afternoon,” Mrs. Steward pronounced with a hand raised up, “we must have a letter in hand. By such means, we’ll be the first to introduce ourselves. We’ll then contrive some excuse to have them over to our abode before anyone else does so, and thus secure your future, Lilly dear.”
“What’s the rush? How many eligible ladies are there to concern ourselves over?” I asked.
Really, apart from the Indian labourers, the few business people who were starting to set up shops, and a smattering of others, there really wasn’t much competition socially to distract the Governor or his sons.
Lilly, thrilled to hear there was some possibility of entertainment soon to be had, batted her eyelashes and said, “In that case Mama, perhaps we might need that face powder after all?”
And so that day, Lilly received both face powder and the possibility that her life wasn’t destined to end in spinsterhood.
Chapter 7
I trace the scar on his shoulder. It was inflicted by the same canine brute that nearly chomped off my right ear. “It’s alright, Drew.”
Even then, we both know it isn’t. But as the older sibling, more educated in human misperception of reality, I’m determined to uphold the comforting myth of a world that can be contained within the rules of normalcy.
“Twas just a dream,” I sooth him as I push back his soft hair and dark fears.
He scratches at the scar. “It’s not a dog, Beatrice,” he says, pulling away.
“Be still,” I admonish, not too unkindly. “The dog’s long gone.”
“No, it’s not,” he insists, his small, chubby face set in a stubborn frown that only he can make adorable. “The dog was a monster. I see it in my dream. It’s coming.”
I shake my head with the determination of a logical mind. “Stop talking nonsense. Father wouldn’t approve.” But I see the truth shimmering around him. Still, I ignore it, wave it away as a young child’s fantasy taken too far.
I blink and he’s gone. The bedroom walls dissolve into trees and shrubs, his bed sinks into a small pond with a murky secret.
“Drew?” I shout but my voice is muffled by the gloomy foliage.
A woman, tall and beautiful with blue-black skin and shortly cropped hair, steps out of the trees. She stares down at me, her eyes cold, her smile mocking.
“Mrs. Knight, paranormal investigator extraordinaire,” she say with an unbecoming sneer, “and you can’t even look after your little brother.”
“But I’m… I was just a child,” I protest.
“Such excuses as only the weak can make,” Koki persists as she drifts toward me. “You are pathetic and you owe me a leg.”
The woman’s form melts into a Praying Mantis that is the size of a horse. One of her back legs is missing, but her two hooked arms are fully functional, as are her sharp mandibles, each as long as my forearm. Koki lunges toward me, jaws clicking, arms searching.
I scream and…
I jerked upward and awake, kicking off my blanket. It took me a moment to grasp that I wasn’t in the forest, nor was Koki looming over me, preparing to rip off a li
mb.
But my hammering heart didn’t quite believe this rational observation, and my lungs weren’t functioning at full capacity. I reached for my walking stick and held it against me, prepared to bludgeon any shadow that approached too close.
The bright outline of a wolf formed by my side, its energy glowing with a dangerous heat. It only appeared in times of duress, and I basked in the lethal comfort it brought me.
Every nerve in my being was alert for a sign, yet the house was quiet and calm. But I knew well what that meant.
Absolutely nothing.
Silence and the dark could hide all manner of evil. Something was coming. That’s what the dream meant. I could feel it. And I’d be lucky if it was only Gideon the automaton come to reclaim his wife.
Chapter 8
While I wished nothing more than to sleep for a day or two, Mrs. Steward wouldn’t hear of it.
“We must be prepared for our spontaneous meeting with the Governor,” she reminded us all. “The train arrives just prior to mid-morning tea. And Lilly requires assistance in writing a letter to someone. Who now?” She tapped her puckered lips.
“What about Uncle Henry?” Bobby suggested as he covered a yawn by stuffing a piece of toast into his mouth.
“Oh yes, Mr. Steward’s brother,” Mrs. Steward said, ignoring her son’s appalling table manners. “He’s still alive, more or less. He’ll have to do. Well, get on with it, girl. And Bee, help your cousin.”
As if she couldn’t write without my intervention.
Wearily, I slurped down breakfast while dictating a passable letter to an uncle we barely knew.
Mrs. Steward snatched the letter ere the ink was dry. After a brief perusal, she sniffed, sighed and pronounced it satisfactory.
“Let’s be off then,” she said. “No, Bobby, you may not bring your pet lizard. Jonas, is the cart ready? Lilly, do put some more powder on your face, girl. The Governor is fresh from high society and not accustomed to the thinness of social graces found here. Bee, get rid of that ridiculous feather. A solitary feather in one’s hat is no longer a fashion statement. Bobby, get off the table at once.”