The Phantom of the Marshes

by Elizabeth O'Connell

  “What are you doing?” he said. “We’ve a meeting to get to.”

  I sighed, picking up my case. Hal had been brooding all the way on the train, and now that we were in Birmingham, the tension hung about him as thick as the smoke from his pipe. I did not dare to tell him that I had been seeking Father’s spell—Hal hated to talk of industrial magic, of the work he had done with Father, and I could not blame him. I understood now how entwined it was with Father’s illness in his mind—and our research into Father’s notes had only exacerbated that feeling. But for me, who had never worked with my father—it was the last connection I had to him.

  Hal strode on ahead of me without another word, and I scurried after him, darting between the crowds of workers making their way to various factories and following the plume of smoke that rose from his pipe. It was a wet and muddy walk to the inn—my shoes were coated in muck by the time we reached its stoop, and I tried in vain to clean them by scraping them on the edge of the step.

  We stepped into the pleasant warmth of the inn, and found ourselves in a close, ill-lit pub, half-empty, with only a few scattered patrons seated at its rough tables. Hal signaled to the innkeeper, and he greeted us with a smile and led us up the stairs to a room with two small beds and an even smaller table. Dim light straggled in through the dusty air from a square window set high in the dingy wall. Hal set his case down upon one of the beds and glanced about the room with a grim air.

  “Well—it’s hardly Foxfire Manor,” he said drily, after a moment. “But I suppose it will do.”

  I set my own case upon the floor and sat down on the edge of my bed, which creaked in protest. Hal remained standing, smoke billowing furiously from his pipe, his arms folded over his chest. After a moment, he began to pace—striding to and fro across the floor of the small room. He pulled out his watch periodically, checking the time. I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and passed the time by closing my eyes and trying once more to find the aether-spell.

  I had not been at it very long when the sound of Hal’s footsteps came to an abrupt stop, and I sat up to see him tucking the watch into his pocket. He glanced over at me.

  “It’s time,” he said. “Mr. Marsh should be waiting for us.”

  We went down the stairs into the pub. The innkeeper looked up from the glass he was washing and nodded to a table in one shadowed corner of the room. I followed Hal, wending my way between the tables, until at last we reached Mr. Marsh.

  He sat hunched over a pint of beer, a cigarette half-burned to ash hanging from his lips, and his arms folded, fingers curled over his elbows. He looked up as we approached, his face pale and haggard in the dim light, with dark shadows under the eyes.

  “Please tell me you’re Mr. Bishop,” he said. “Mr. Bonham said you’d meet me here.”

  “I am,” Hal said. “You must be Andrew Marsh.”

  “Oh, yes—more’s the pity,” he said morosely. He waved for us to sit down. “I hope you are as good as Bonham seems to think you are—I’ve the devil of a problem. I suppose he’s told you.”

  “He has shown us the letter you wrote to him,” Hal said, taking his seat. “Nothing more than that.”

  “The letter ought to have been enough—it told the whole trouble!” Andrew gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “I’m being followed—nothing more and nothing less.”

  “So I understand,” Hal said. “But that tells me nothing at all—what sort of creature haunts you? Why should it do so? Who should wish to harm you?”

  Andrew blinked, sitting up straight. “By God—you’re serious. Then you really think you can do something about it?”

  Hal frowned, tamping down tobacco in his pipe. “I can’t say. I know nothing of the case—you must first answer my questions.”

  Andrew took the cigarette from his mouth and crushed it against the table, putting it out. He wiped a hand over his face. “It sounds like—like madness, when I say it out loud.”

  “Perhaps it is madness,” Hal said. “And perhaps it is not. You did not think so—or you would not have written to Mr. Bonham. But I cannot judge without knowing all the facts.”

  Andrew looked down at his pint, staring into it as though it held all the secrets of the world. “All right,” he said, after a long moment. “I suppose I can at least describe the thing to you.”

  Hal lit his pipe, tucking it in between his teeth, and leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. I watched Andrew, who had not looked up from his pint. His eyes had taken on a haunted expression, making him look even more haggard and weary than when we’d first arrived.

  “It began about a month ago—when I’d just come back from Canada,” he said. “It wasn’t a particularly happy homecoming—but more on that in a moment. It happened, in fact, on the first night I spent in my father’s house. I woke from a fitful sleep to see a shadow in the corner of the room—just a shadow, sitting there. I lit my candle and it vanished—I lay back down and gave the matter no more thought.”

  He ran a hand over his mouth and took out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He shook one out and tucked it into his mouth, before taking out a match and lighting it with a shaking hand.

  “But then I kept seeing the shadow,” he said. “Everywhere—around every corner, at the edges of my sight, waking or sleeping—everywhere. And—and it stopped being merely a shadow. It began to take on a form—something so hideous, even now I can’t—I don’t want to—believe that it is real.”

  His fear was so palpable in his tone, in every tremor that passed through his pale face, that I felt a shiver go down my spine. I glanced over at Hal, who was watching Andrew with a thoughtful expression. He let out a puff of smoke, and made a gesture indicating that Andrew should continue.

  Andrew closed his eyes and lifted his pint, taking a long swallow of it. He set it down, shaking his head. “And now—now you will truly think I am mad. This—this thing—which has been following me—it is a rider. Or—at least—it is shaped like one. I have only seen it out of the corner of my eye—but it rides a black horse, with eyes as red as fire. I have felt that horse’s breath on my neck—and let me tell you, that is a thing I would as soon forget.”

  “And the rider,” Hal said, leaning forward. “What is it like?”

  Here Andrew paused, tapping out the ash of his cigarette and looking down at the table. His hand trembled violently, and he crushed out the cigarette, clenching his hand into a fist. “It—it doesn’t have a head. Or it does—but it isn’t—it isn’t on his neck. I thought it was headless at first—but I saw its eyes once. Staring at me—from the head it carried in the crook of its elbow!”

  He began to laugh then, a strangled, choking sound. “You can’t possibly believe me—it sounds . . . my God, it sounds insane. I can’t . . .”

  “On the contrary,” Hal said. “I find it tremendously suggestive.”

  Andrew blinked at him. “Suggestive? Suggestive of what?”

  Hal waved a hand. “I will not trouble you with speculation. But suffice it to say—I have some idea now of the sort of creature we are dealing with.”

  Andrew was openly staring at him now. “Perhaps you are the madman—but, I confess, I am relieved to hear you say so. I had begun to think—especially with Father . . .”

  “Your father?” I said, frowning. “In the letter, you mentioned him—you said he had declined.”

  Andrew turned to me with an expression that suggested he had only just remembered I was there. “Yes—yes, I suppose I did say something of the sort. It’s—that’s why I came home, you see. Because Simon had written to me—saying that Father was ill, and I needed to come back quickly.”

  “Simon?” Hal said. “Would that be the brother you mentioned?”

  “Yes.” Andrew made a sour face, and took a long drink of his pint, as though washing away an unpleasant taste. “Yes, my elder brother—I suppose I’ll have to tell you about him, too. But Father—I was shocked when I saw him. He has gone down terribly—just wastin
g away. And he doesn’t sleep—I’ve caught him out in the corridors, muttering to himself. He has an old charm that he got back in his mining days—a little gold coin. He’s taken to carrying it around everywhere with him—fiddling with it in his pocket. He pays no mind to the company—leaves everything to Simon. And that new secretary of his—Alec Wright.”

  “Hm,” Hal said, tapping his fingers on the table. “Is it your opinion that your father is mad?”

  “Mad—or senile,” Andrew said. “He certainly isn’t himself. He scarcely noticed that I had returned—when I was in fear and trembling of what he would do when he saw me. He’d made it quite clear that I was no longer welcome in his house, you see.”

  “And yet your brother wrote to you in his illness,” Hal said. “How interesting.”

  Andrew snorted. “Because propriety dictated that I should be told—and Simon worships propriety. He held his nose and wrote to me because he would not have it said that he had not done everything that was expected of him—though it was a shock to him at least when I returned.”

  “He did not expect it?” I said. “But if your father was ill . . .”

  “My father and I have never got on,” Andrew said shortly. “Frankly, I returned to see what the disposition of his estate would be—and to ensure that Simon had not cut me out of it. Father would not leave me penniless—no matter how we last parted—but Simon would. Indeed, if anyone has set this curse upon me, Simon would be my first suspect.”

  “Hm.” Hal tapped his fingers more vigorously against the table. “Well, that is something to start with. Who else is in the household? You mentioned a secretary.”

  “Alec?” Andrew waved a hand dismissively. “He’s scarcely more than a boy. Came to work for Father long after I left. He’s harmless—spends most of his time mooning over Rose.”

  “Rose?” Hal said. “Who is she?”

  “My sister,” Andrew said, and his tone softened into fondness. “The baby of the family—and the only one who can do anything with Father. He adores her.”

  “No one else?” Hal said.

  Andrew shook his head. “Mother died when we were children. That’s the entire household—apart from the staff.”

  Hal leaned back in his chair, blowing puffs of smoke into the air. “And your brother—is he altered as your father is?”

  “No,” Andrew said, his lips curling into a sardonic smile. “Simon is just as he has always been—a priggish, self-righteous ass. Though he doesn’t seem to have been sleeping well, either. I’ve caught him wandering the corridors on a few nights when I was doing my own prowling. But he’s not the sort to say anything. He’ll just carry on like the martyr he is, silently contemptuous of the rest of us for not doing the same.”

  “Well, I can see that there is no love lost between you and your brother,” Hal said. “Tell me—is there a reason for it? Some quarrel?”

  “The oldest story in the world,” Andrew said, taking another draft of his pint. “Cain and Abel—the prodigal son and his brother. We just don’t get on. We never have. Simon’s spent his whole life trying and failing to please Father—that’s the difference between us. I gave up long ago.”

  “Your father is difficult to please?” I said.

  “Difficult?” Andrew gave another short bark of laughter. “Impossible would be a better word. I believe he enjoys being disappointed—it gives him something to hold over us.”

  He lapsed into a moody silence then, staring down into his pint. Weariness settled back over his features, his eyes taking on the haunted expression they’d had when he first began his story. Hal gave him an appraising glance, smoke curling up from his pipe.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” he said, after a long moment. “But I think we shall waste no more of your time today. I should like to meet your family—and make my own assessments of their characters. Shall I call tomorrow?”

  Andrew sat up, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Yes, certainly—but not at the house. The factory—that is where you will find Father and Simon.”

  He shook another cigarette from his packet, lighting it with shaking fingers, and glanced out furtively into the shadowed room. He turned back to face us, giving a shaky laugh.

  “I’ll admit—I’m afraid to leave,” he said. “It’s easier when—when I’m with people. It doesn’t seem to trouble me then.”

  Sympathy tugged at my stomach; I felt for him, being pursued at all hours of the day and night by such a creature. I looked to Hal; his gaze followed Andrew’s out across the dimly lit room. After a moment, he turned back to the table, digging into his pockets and pulling out an herb packet. This he tossed down in front of Andrew’s pint. Andrew blinked, his attention drawn from the shadows. He picked up the packet, turning it over in his hands.

  “What is it?” he said. He sniffed at it. “Smells pleasant enough. But what does it do?”

  “It is a mixture of herbs to ward off evil spirits,” Hal said. “Its effect is limited—but if you burn it in your fireplace this evening, perhaps you will be able to sleep.”

  “Ah, that would be a relief indeed,” Andrew said, tucking the packet into a coat pocket. “Even one good night of sleep would be worth the time to meet with you.”

  With that, he drained the last of his pint in a single draft, and stood, taking his leave of us. I watched him make his way through the room, the door letting in an unexpected shaft of bright light as he opened it, and then he was gone. I turned to Hal; he was drumming his fingers absently on the table, a brooding expression on his face.

  “Well, what do you make of it?” I said, folding my arms on the table. “It certainly sounds like a curse—a spirit like that could hardly be anything but one of the Fair Folk.”

  “Hm.” He drummed his fingers more vigorously, closing his eye. “Indeed—and I’ve an idea what sort of creature it may be. But time will tell us more, I think.”

  “I suppose,” I said, looking down at the table. “What sort of creature do you have in mind?”

  He opened his eye, glancing over at me with his lips curled in a half-smile. “You know, one of these days you really must make a serious study of these creatures. If you’d read half the books I’ve given you, you would have recognized it at once. It sounds exactly like a dullahan—a death fairy. But behaving rather oddly, for all that. It is fascinating.”

  I opened my mouth to protest—I’d read nothing of such a creature in any of the books I’d been given—but stopped when I felt a sudden shiver across the back of my neck, making the hair stand on end. I swung around, staring out into the dark of the pub, certain that I’d felt someone brush past me, but there was nothing.

  “What is it?” Hal said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, turning back to him. I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I thought—I felt someone behind me. But . . .”

  He frowned, glancing behind him. “Hm. Well, perhaps it is better to take our conversation elsewhere.”

  And with that, he stood, making his way through the pub back up to our room, while I followed behind, all the while with the uneasy sensation that we were being watched.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The morning found us walking to the factory, just as Hal had told Andrew we would. It was as grey and sooty as it had been the day before, the air filled with the smell of smoke. I had slept poorly, both on account of the lumpy mattress and the uncomfortable sensation—which I had been wholly unable to shake—that someone had been listening in on our conversation in the pub. But as I followed Hal along the muddy streets, the feel of industrial thrummed through my veins, filling my nostrils with the smell of iron and setting my blood to racing. It was an invigorating sort of magic—though the weary, soot-black faces of the workers we passed on the way to the factory suggested that they, lacking the sense of magic, felt only the burden of their labors.

  It was not a long walk to the Marsh factory. When we reached it, I was surprised to see that a small crowd had gathered—men with their dusty faces and a few sca
ttered women with children clinging to their skirts.

  “No, not the old man,” I heard someone say. “Like as not he’ll never go—like old Scratch, him. It was the son—and no one knows how it happened, neither.”

  I glanced over at Hal; he furrowed his brow and began pushing through the crowd. I followed, listening to the murmurs of the people as we went—someone had died during the night, if the murmurs were anything to go by, and I felt a sick sense of dread, thinking of Andrew’s haunted eyes. I quickened my pace, catching up to Hal just as he broke through the crowd.

  A uniformed policeman stood before the gate to the factory. He put up a hand as Hal approached, frowning officiously under his helmet.

  “We’re not to let anyone in, sir,” he said. “Inspector’s orders.”

  “It’s all right, Constable,” said a crisp, London-accented voice. “I know who he is. Let him through.”

  I turned and saw a man in a well-tailored suit and freshly-brushed hat; he had somehow escaped the dustiness of his surroundings—even his collar was crisply white. He was watching Hal with an amused glint in his pale blue eyes, and his mouth curled into a smile under his neatly trimmed moustache as the constable opened the gate and let us through.

  “We are in the presence of an expert on curse-breaking, Constable,” he said. “How kind of you to join us, Mr. Bishop.”