Teeth in the Mist

by Dawn Kurtagich

She rolls over to look at him. “Don’t pout. You look like a girl.”

  “Budidwassomushfun.”

  “Poulton, the room is literally spinning. And you’re slurring. Big-time.”

  “Can I comin fer cuddles atleas?”

  Zoey unzips her sleeping bag and holds a flap open. He stumbles over, stepping on her foot, and clumsily wiggles himself in.

  “Cheers. Ooh, niceanwarm.”

  “Night, night, sleep tight.”

  And then he leans forward and kisses Zoey. His tongue slips into her mouth, his hand slips around her waist and she stiffens. Then the kiss is over and he’s snoring into her face.

  Zoey stares at him wide-eyed for a moment, and then wipes her mouth and turns over. She stares into the dark for a long time as he snores behind her, then she wiggles herself out of the sleeping bag and walks to the other end of the room. She sits down, hugging herself, still wiping her mouth.

  She reaches for her notebook, but then stops. Instead, she crawls into his sleeping bag and faces away from him. It is many long minutes before she seems to sleep.

  October 28

  “No loud words,” Poulton whispered, crawling out of my sleeping bag.

  I was too stunned about what happened last night to speak at all, let alone speak loudly.

  “I think… that was… a mistake.”

  “Yeah, it definitely was,” I said, glad he was getting to the point right away. “I mean… what the hell was that?”

  He turned and grinned sheepishly at me. “I take no responsibility for Go-tee. It was the wine.”

  I laughed uncomfortably. “Go-tee. Right. Yeah. And after?”

  “I have no idea why I was in your sleeping bag, but I take no responsibility for that either. You were more sober than I was.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Did you bring aspirin? I forgot to pack medicine. And I could really use some.”

  I shook my head. “Wasn’t planning on getting drunk, to be honest.”

  Poulton rooted around in his bag, pulling out clothes, cans, and more in a Zoey-like manner. “Maybe I have some in here.”

  He stood up with his bag, pulling items free as he walked, discarding them behind him in a quasi–Hansel and Gretel trail. He stopped beside the fireplace and knelt on his haunches.

  “I don’t think I brought any.”

  Hungover Poulton is completely useless.

  “Come on, I’ll boil us some porridge—” I broke off. “Poulton?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you see what I’m seeing?”

  “Yyyyyep.”

  A note. Written in the ashy hearth of the fireplace. It read:

  GET OUT.

  WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

  Chapter 23

  RAGE

  Rapley walks over to the long window in the entrance hall, staring out into the fog.

  “There is no choice now. I’ll go out onto the mountain today.”

  “That’s suicide,” Cage says.

  “Not for me.”

  Cage folds his arms and paces the hall. “What if they’re empty? Your snares.”

  “As I said, I’ll hunt. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.”

  “In these conditions?” Cage snorts. “Impossible.”

  Rapley heads for the stairs, commenting over his shoulder, “Even if I catch rats and scorpions, we’ll eat.” He pauses. “Unless you’d like to die when the stores run out?”

  Cage watches him warily.

  “Well, then,” Rapley says, and climbs the stairs two at a time.

  “Remember what I said,” Cage calls, but Rapley does not reply.

  In the safety of her room, Roan slips into the window seat and draws the curtains closed around her. She glances out the window, hoping in vain to see something of Rapley—a light, a fire—any sign that he is alive and well. That he is close by. But there is nothing but the blackness and the rain. Endless, despondent, rain.

  Tentatively, she allows her body to settle into that low place required for any kind of Conjure. The deep, still Nothing where even breath is too low to hear or heed.

  And her fingers begin to dance.

  A sigil drawn between forefinger and thumb. Reveal.

  Another looped into it with the ring finger. Enemy.

  A whisper from her lips. Her fingers tingle with warmth.

  And then—

  stop.

  Something

  big

  presses

  back.

  Feelers in the dark.

  where

  are

  you,

  little

  girl

  ?

  Roan opens her eyes.

  Something is out there.

  i

  feel

  you

  Pressing in.

  where

  are

  you

  ?

  Like someone standing too close. She clenches her fist and holds her breath, breaking the Conjure, like cutting a rope. The presence keeps searching, but is now looking elsewhere.

  When all is still again, she leans back.

  Who are you? she thinks.

  Cage’s face leers from her imagination, all stark lines and contempt. She allows herself to focus on the air around her, the particulates and dust motes of the watery scent of the house, and the strange persistent hum. It is barely there, the sound, like the buzz of something insectile. Like bees. Or wasps. But pulsing too.

  Wump… wump… wump…

  And then something else pricks at her awareness, like a sewing needle in her finger. It is not quite a smell, nor a touch, nor a sound… but it is there. A heaviness. A magnet. Drawing her senses toward it like gravity.

  Someone is Conjuring.

  Got you, she thinks, pulling off her blankets without opening her eyes. She does not need to see to follow the pull.

  She feels the change in the air when she opens her door and steps into the corridor. Colder. But more vibrant. The pull is stronger. Whatever fool is Conjuring, she can find them as easily as they found her.

  Down the corridor.

  Across the first-floor landing.

  Down another corridor—

  Crash!

  —Her eyes snap open. She is standing before Seamus’s room. There is a strangulated sound and then a familiar roar. She flings the door open, knowing what she will see before she does.

  Fire.

  A broken lantern on the floor, the oil alight—flames licking the floor, spreading fast across to the bed, where Seamus lies convulsing. Roan doesn’t think. She raises her hands, fingers dancing, drawing the symbols for Quenching, Control, Banishing—a multitude of signs she herself cannot fully grasp before her fingers have drawn them and cast them outward.

  “Egk ti,” she growls. The words are out before she can stop them, slipping from her tongue as easily as silk on smooth skin.

  The fire blinks away, the smoke curling in upon itself like it never was, only the broken lantern showing any sign of what might have been. Only Roan’s nightdress is smoking. At the hem.

  Her hands still tingle when Emma rushes in.

  “Seamus! By God, what’s happened?”

  “I heard a crash—” Roan mutters, hurrying to Seamus’s side. He is still twitching, but the convulsions are over.

  Emma wipes away the froth at his mouth. “No,” she whispers. “Not again.”

  Roan grips her wrist. “What do you mean? This has happened before?”

  “What is that smell?” Cage strides into the room looking about.

  “Seamus is unwell,” Roan says, her heart squeezing tightly in her chest. Be gone, she wills him. Leave us be!

  But he steps purposefully into the room, sniffing the air. “Burning. Something was burning.”

  “He used to have these… spells,” Emma murmurs to Roan. “But he has not had one since our mother passed. I thought we were done with it.”

  Roan says nothing, but watches Seamus carefully. />
  “What have you been doing?” Cage says, turning his eyes upon Roan only.

  “I heard a crash. The lantern there, it fell. When I entered, Seamus was convulsing. He is ill.”

  Cage narrows his eyes, but does not reply.

  “I had a bad feeling tonight,” Emma murmurs, eyes swimming.

  Roan reaches for Seamus’s room bell, ringing it urgently, and holds Seamus down when he begins to twitch once more. He is sweating, but cold to the touch. Or perhaps he only feels cold to Roan because her hands are still smarting with the Conjure. Her mouth, too, tastes of ashes.

  A hurried clatter of steps on the corridor.

  “Jenny, come. Seamus is unwell. Could you bring some water and some mugwort, meadowsweet—anything you have for fever.”

  “Oh, Master Seamus,” Jenny moans, but she does as Roan commands.

  Emma stares on, her eyes strange and glassy, and then she stands suddenly, stumbling toward the door.

  “Emma, where—”

  But Emma faints clear away, a little red-haired pile on the floor before Roan can finish her sentence.

  Andrew hurries in a moment later. “By God.” He sets his jaw. “What do you need?”

  “Fetch smelling salts,” Roan says. “Dr. Maudley would have kept a supply somewhere.”

  Andrew nods, bending down and lifting Emma into his arms as though she is a feather pillow. “She’s burning up,” he says, frowning.

  “Put her here beside her brother,” Roan says, gesturing. “They may have caught some illness. Jenny has gone to fetch some mugwort and water.”

  “I have some birthwort and peppermint,” Andrew says. “They may help.”

  “Fetch them, quickly.”

  Through it all, Cage stands in the corner, eyes dark and watchful. Roan dislikes being alone in a room with him, but what can she do? He insists on watching her, following her, frowning at her. Roan untwists Seamus’s blankets and covers him, tucking them around his arms lest he begin to thrash again.

  What is going on? Was Seamus Conjuring? Or was someone—or something—attacking him? Her eyes flutter over to Cage and away.

  “Must you stare at me?” she says.

  He says nothing, but continues to watch her.

  “You will not alarm me.”

  Roan’s thoughts race and whir. She had known someone was Conjuring in the house… had sensed it like another’s breath. But… Seamus? She glances at Emma.

  How much do you know?

  Roan and Cage remain in silence until Jenny returns, and soon after: Andrew.

  “We have to make a new attempt to find Dr. Maudley,” Roan tells him.

  Andrew nods. “I will find Rapley and we’ll search again tonight.”

  Roan strokes Emma’s hair. “There has to be a place we’ve overlooked.”

  This search is as fruitless as the previous.

  They are alone.

  Chapter 24

  SOLACE

  They are congealing together in the house. Emma and Seamus both woke the following evening, complaining of empty stomachs. Jenny, delighted to have a new purpose, had rushed to the kitchen, promising bread and jam, but returned to the Green Room, where they had all gathered, pale-faced and trembling.

  “The flour has mold. Almost all of it is turned and useless.”

  “Could that have been the cause of the convulsions and fever?” Roan asked. She herself had taken no bread in many days.

  “If so, I would be sick, as would Mr. Cage and Andrew.” Jenny covered her mouth. “We shall starve!”

  “Calm yourself,” Cage snaped.

  “Calm ourselves?” Roan asked. “We have a man missing, a woman dead, and two others sick—or have you forgotten?”

  “I have not forgotten. We will find a way to send for the constable.”

  But after less than half a day, Rapley dragged Andrew into the house, coughing up half of the mountain and rain with it, both of them slick with mud.

  “Mud slide,” Rapley yelled, hauling Andrew over the threshold. “Saw him trying to get down the mountain on my way back when I saw it happen.” The storm howled and screamed beyond the gatehouse like a demon, heather and bracken and stones all flying past like some hellish hailstorm.

  Roan hurried forward with Cage to shut the door. Only with Rapley’s help did they manage, and they bolted it into place where it rattled and complained. Roan stared at Rapley, her heart hammering as she leaned against the door.

  “You’re back,” she breathed, her eyes searching his body.

  He’s unharmed. He’s back. Alive. Safe. Well.

  She had no idea why she cared. But she was immensely glad to have him safely back in the house.

  “Fool,” Rapley muttered, looking at Andrew and wiping mud from his face.

  “How long will it last?” Roan asked Rapley, breathless.

  “I don’t know,” he said, wiping the mud from his own face. “This one is uncanny. Months without letting up.”

  Roan felt herself pale.

  Cage’s lips tightened and he turned away. “Come. Let us read a while from the Bible and rekindle the fire. The Lord, our God, shall save us from our tribulations.”

  Rapley gave Roan a look as Cage passed them, but what else was there to do? And so she followed.

  Roan can only stand the stifling air of the Green Room for so long. No, she thinks. Not the air. It is the people. So many of them in one place. Emma, Seamus, Cage, Andrew, Rapley, and Jenny. All of them together, gathered on the sofa, the rug, huddled by the fire—all of them listening with deepest hope to Cage’s drawling sermon. For that is what it has turned into.

  She’s had enough. The barren, hollow hallways of the empty house appeal more. She is burning with questions. Where is Dr. Maudley? Did he run away? Did he fall on the mountain? Is he dead? Or merely hiding? And if so, why? Who is Conjuring? Surely it was not Seamus. But someone was… something drew her to his room. Perhaps she was led there on purpose, to see him convulsing. To save him? Or perhaps as a warning…

  More questions—many more. But Roan cannot think. What is she seeking? Solace? Walking without much purpose, she finds herself at the threshold of Maudley’s study.

  She can feel the ghost of Mrs. Goode, watching them all with her sour face and disapproving eyes. Twice, she thought she had seen the woman, walking solemnly down the hallway, and watching from the shadows.

  The master won’t take kindly to nosy young ladies traipsing through his possessions!

  She can almost hear the old crone.

  Still. What does it matter now? She isn’t expecting to find him; she wants only to feel closer to him and, if she is lucky, to get some answers. This man who knew both of her parents before she was even a thought in their minds. This strange, eccentric doctor who had saved Emma’s life and taken them all in.

  But the niggling doubt remains. He hadn’t known Roan’s father very well if he thought him a loving father. And of Emma’s mother? That he was a school friend when they were young? How can it be proven?

  Stop it. What point is there, now, of questions?

  She sighs as her fingers brush the bookshelves that hold Maudley’s favorite, most-used books. Mostly scientific journals, anatomical studies, medical papers, and some novels. Her eyebrows arch.

  “Novels, Doctor?” she murmurs. Well. It seems he still has the ability to surprise her.

  “Did you just leave?” she whispers. “Did you sense the oncoming gloom? Did you go out looking for some aid, and get caught in one of the mountain’s tricks, as Rapley suggests?” She looks around at all his knickknacks, his candles and jars and crude little sculptures. “Did you die trying to save us? Or have you simply vanished, as Jenny claims? Like those poor workers in the tale of the miller?” She smiles, and then laughs at herself, walking around his desk and sitting in his chair. “You would grin at that, I think. A man of science vanishes without a trace, and it all comes down to a legend of a mountain—what—eating people?” She allows herself to play out the c
omical scenario in her mind before the joviality sinks into a low, still despondency.

  “Please,” she whispers. “Come back. Explain all this away.”

  Absentmindedly, she toys with the pages on his desk until something catches her eye.

  She lifts another sheet from the scattered mess.

  She lifts another sheet from the scattered mess.

  Three pages continue like that.

  And then some kind of journal. The book lies open and is covered with the same scrawl.

  The writing goes on and on like that, pages of nonsense notes and scribbles. Those of a man coming undone. Losing himself.

  Bile rises in Roan’s throat as she stares down at the mess in front of her. What is this? She riffles through the pages—so many of them! Who is Dr. Maudley? These notes read like… like memos. Like an actor trying to remember lines to a part he is playing.

  “Who are you?”

  She recalls their last, eerie conversation with a shudder.

  Could he have gone mad and… and…

  No. A man of science would not do such a thing. A man of science would never end his life. He would continue on and seek answers. If that is truly who he was. Now, in this moment, she does not know.

  Unless the presence she had felt when she Conjured a Revealing had been working on him as well. A man of science would, no doubt, try to find a logical explanation. He would have investigated. But what if science provided no satisfactory answer besides madness? Would he have turned to God? To faith?

  Somehow, she knows it is unlikely.

  Or… perhaps the Revealing Conjure had revealed the truth… about him.

  Fake, a little voice says inside. Fraud…

  Roan clenches her fists upon the table. “No. No, I refuse to believe it. I had nowhere else to go… He took me in. He knew Father was ill… Perhaps he did think he was going mad.” The pages before her certainly suggest it. A sudden and terrible guilt begins to rise within her.