Teeth in the Mist

by Dawn Kurtagich

  “Oh, Doctor,” she whispers. “Why did you not seek help from us?”

  Even as she says it, she knows it is impossible. Seek help from an adopted son who detests him, his hired servants, or his wards? Excellent options.

  She leans her head on her hands.

  By God. He had brought them here to give them a new life. Instead he vanished into an impossible, but likely, death. Now they are alone. Stores running low, an unrelenting storm, and something… inhuman… wandering the halls.

  For all Roan is uncertain of, she most certainly is certain that there is an evil presence within these walls.

  Chapter 25

  IN SICKNESS AND IN HELL

  Roan kneels over Seamus, clutching his face.

  “Please… please, Seamus. Please, wake up.”

  “What’s happening?” Emma mumbles, still feverish. She is rocking on her knees beside Roan and her brother. They are in the entrance hall, where they found him, unconscious, his wheelchair a few feet away.

  “He’s cold,” Roan says, getting to her feet and running to the Red Room for a blanket. She wraps him in it, pulling his head onto her lap and rubbing one of his hands. “Come on,” she mutters. “Come on, please.”

  Emma covers her mouth. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “What’s going on?” Andrew says, coming from the kitchen. His arms bear the weight of a dozen logs.

  “I can’t get him to wake,” Roan says desperately. “He’s cold, Andrew…”

  The logs clatter to the floor.

  He is kneeling on the floor next to Roan in less than a moment. “Move over.”

  She slips out from underneath Seamus, allowing Andrew to take over.

  “I learned a few tricks from Dr. Maudley,” he murmurs, lifting Seamus’s eyelids, one after the other. “He’s not seizing. It’s like he’s asleep.”

  “But he won’t wake,” Emma cries. “He’s not waking up!”

  Andrew lifts the boy with ease and they follow him into the Green Room where Andrew lays him down on a leather sofa. The red blanket is an ugly contrast.

  blood on the mountain

  dripping

  on

  the

  moss

  this is your fault

  murderess

  Roan clenches her jaw and steps away from Seamus. Andrew wets one of the napkins from breakfast in a vase and wipes Seamus’s head. Roan can smell the brackish water even from her distance.

  Emma sits, with a heavy sigh, on the sofa beside her brother.

  “They’re everywhere,” she murmurs, and closes her eyes.

  Andrew feels her face. “She’s burning up. One hot, one cold.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

  Roan backs away, the voice still ringing in her head.

  This is your fault.

  Murderess.

  “Close off the entrance hall!” Cage yells through the tumult. One of the large paintings smashes as it falls from the wall, splinters flying in all directions.

  The storm has blown in most of the windows and the house is now a small hurricane in monsoon season.

  “We must search for Rapley,” Roan cries. “He’s out there!”

  “Help me with the door or back away,” Cage growls.

  Andrew obliges and the two men finally get the doors shut and barred.

  “The rain is cold as knives,” Andrew murmurs. “I hope Rapley has some shelter.” He glances at Roan and smiles. “He will be well. He knows the mountain. I am certain—”

  “That ought to keep us safe and warm,” Cage interrupts briskly, rubbing his hands. “And we have access to the kitchen here. Good. Good.” He turns to Jenny. “Have we supplies enough for some warm tea?”

  Jenny nods and hurries away.

  “Let us sing a ballad,” Emma says, though Roan does not much like the glassy sheen of her eyes. “‘Miss Bailey’s Ghost.’ Come, now. It will rouse Seamus. It was… it is his favorite.” She leans over her brother, still unconscious, and whispers, “Ye’ll help me sing it, won’t ye, brother mine?”

  Seamus, huddled beneath one of the thickest blankets in the Red Room, does not respond.

  “Do you know it, Roan?” Emma asks, and Roan almost chokes on the sadness in her voice.

  “I do,” she concedes. “Though it has been a long time since I had occasion to sing.”

  “Well,” Emma says, attempting a grin. “We shall butcher it together. Come. One, two, three—”

  The words come easily to Roan, as does the memory of her mother singing the same song to her and her father on cold nights. She would play the pianoforte in accompaniment.

  A Captain bold in Halifax,

  Who dwelt in country quarters,

  Seduced a maid who hanged herself

  One morning in her garters,

  His wicked conscience smited him,

  He lost his stomach daily,

  He took to drinking turpentine

  And thought upon Miss Bailey.

  Oh, Miss Bailey, unfortunate Miss Bailey,

  Oh, Miss Bailey, unfortunate Miss Bailey—

  Cage does not sing, but Andrew joins in at the chorus, lending a deep baritone to their tune. Roan hopes that Rapley can hear them all the way outside, wherever he is.

  When it is done, they clap merrily, and almost forget their woes.

  “What a voice you have, Miss Roan,” Jenny says, bringing in the tea. “I heard it all the way from the kitchen. And you, Miss Emma! You sing like a lark.”

  “Well, we shall have to coax a song from you next, Jenny,” Emma says, taking her tea with both hands and walking to stand by the window, even though it is shuttered. “Soon we won’t even have candles to see by,” she says, staring at nothing.

  Something drops inside Roan’s stomach, and she looks up just as it happens. The teacup shakes as Emma lifts it to her lips, and then falls.

  It seems to happen unnaturally slowly. The cup slipping from her fingers, the tea spilling down her dress, the china shattering on the floor as Emma falls.

  It is Andrew who catches her.

  Roan is by her side within a moment. “She’s even more feverish. I don’t understand.”

  “Look at this,” Andrew says, turning her head so that her neck is visible. “A rash.”

  Cage grips his Bible as he speaks. “This is the work of the Devil.”

  Roan would scold him, but a chill runs through her and she cannot argue.

  Andrew peers closer. “It looks like a burn.”

  Emma moans and thrashes out feebly. “Don’t…”

  She blinks, but her eyes roll and she does not focus on any of them.

  “I can help her,” Roan says, getting up.

  “I used the last of the mugwort,” Jenny says as Roan approaches.

  “I have something else. Bring water. Hot.”

  “But miss, the wood…”

  “Would you see Emma die?” Roan snaps. “Bring it!”

  She rushes to the door, ready to unbar it, but Cage steps into her path. “Where are you going?”

  “I can help her—move aside!”

  He does so, but upon her return, there he is again, staring down at her with hawk eyes.

  Roan hurries to Emma and opens the little box she has brought with her. From within, she pulls free a vial of milky liquid.

  “She must drink this. It is a kind of herbal tea, it—”

  The vial smashes as it hits the floor, the sound almost drowned out by Cage’s loud roar.

  “No witchcraft here!”

  Roan has hit him before she can think. “You stupid fool! You might have just killed her!”

  He grabs her wrist. “I think I just prevented you from doing so.”

  Chapter 26

  A ROTTEN GHOST

  Roan leaves her body that night without meaning to. The taste of the mountain settles in her mouth like the bitter after-bite of strong liquor. All about her are tangible shadows that arch and dance, alluring. She avoids them, res
isting the pull of the Universe at her back as well. She can hear something rhythmic in the background—a continual whoosh.

  The mountain is breathing.

  Below her, Seamus lies still as death, small as a babe, and Roan chokes out a little sob. Beside him, Emma lies in her fever, tossing like the storm beyond the windows, kicking the blanket free of both of them.

  And then…

  …something else.

  They are not alone.

  The walls shiver, wriggling on their foundations as though to squirm away from something repellent. The windows too—the glass moves and bends, contracting outward, even as Roan herself feels a huge presence enter the room.

  It is tall. A dark, near-shapeless form. Human-like, yet…

  Two large curled horns stand upon the head, like the ram.

  That is all Roan can say about it.

  The shape moves toward her friends where they slumber, and a clawed hand reaches out…

  No. No!

  Roan struggles to regain her body, to wake from this terrible nightwalk, or nightmare—anything to get to Seamus before…

  But the thing has the boy in its arms. Dark masses curl and snake about his small, helpless form, and his glasses fall to the floor.

  With a magnificent burst of will, Roan wrenches herself out of the ether and blinks awake. For a moment she is confused—What is happening? Where is she? And then she remembers. She fell asleep in the armchair watching over Emma and Seamus last night—

  Seamus.

  She stands, staggers sideways when her vision wavers, and then stares around.

  Seamus is not there.

  But something is. Something large… she can feel it, if not see it. The room bends and wobbles around her, taunting her.

  What is the thing pressing in?

  Man?

  Witch?

  Creature?

  Satan himself?

  Or, simply… me?

  She closes her eyes.

  Do not think of the ram out there, his proud, gnarled, ancient horns, his bloodred eyes.

  “Come on,” she growls, raging at her body for taking so long to adjust to her soul returning.

  She reaches for the Conjure with both hands, drawing the symbols for Protection, Revelation, and Pain all at once. She throws them out, draws more, muttering the foul words in her mouth, which tastes of ashes as soon as she speaks them.

  “Egk ti,” she growls, the sounds guttural and beastly. “Arok shi!”

  Come out. Reveal yourself.

  And with the Cursèd language of Conjures, each word contains more than the meaning, for the room bursts with the smell of burning.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Devil woman!”

  Emma’s voice.

  Cage’s voice.

  Both raised in alarm and at the precise moment when the presence vanishes. Roan stumbles, the Conjures burning out of her mind and out of the air. She wants to spit them from her mouth—the fetid taste of the mountain was a better alternative by a margin.

  She looks through her hair to see Emma sitting up rigidly on the sofa, staring at her with wide, terrified eyes, and Cage looming in the doorway.

  “Where is he?” Emma cries, her hands searching the blanket she kicked aside during the night. “Where is my brother?”

  She turns her jade eyes on Roan, and screams.

  “Where is he? Witch!”

  PART 4

  Upon the Mountain

  Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

  In one self-place; for where we are is hell,

  And where hell is, there must we ever be.

  —CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,

  DR. FAUSTUS

  The little girl crawled out of bed before the sun had risen over the garden. It was frosty, but she was too excited to stay in bed. She even forgot to put on her slippers. She ran across the hall to Adam’s room, and poked her head around the side.

  He was still asleep, curled into a tight ball under his covers, his particular way of sleeping.

  You can relax, you know, she had told him. But he never ever listened to her. He just nodded, but then in the morning she would find him in a ball, curled up like a snail or a hedgehog.

  She suppressed a laugh, worried that she might wake Mother, Father, Cook, or Betty. With care, she tiptoed across the floor.

  Adam was a light sleeper. Once, she had just breathed too loudly and he woke up with his hands out, ready to fight. She had learned her lesson since then.

  Besides. She was good at being quiet. She always snuck around the house without Father ever knowing. She was like a shadow, a whisper—even less. She was nothing.

  She paused when Adam flinched in his sleep, and then continued on her perilous journey when his ball tightened up some more. She lifted herself up in her special way, her little feet dangling above the floor, and lifted the covers without touching them. Then she let her weight fall gently, and ever so slowly, onto the bed beside him.

  By the time the sun was peeking over the windowsill, she had curled around him in her own warm little ball, his body stowed in front of hers.

  Don’t worry, she thought. I’ll keep you safe.

  His reply was hard to catch, as it always was. Evie…

  She smiled and closed her eyes.

  She had broken one of her rules, and now everything was wrong. Father was upset, and Mother stood behind him wringing her hands.

  “You cannot sleep in the same bed as a boy. What have I told you? It is indecent! You are getting older and you must learn. What am I to do with you?”

  His face grew red. “And you,” he said, turning on Adam.

  “But it wasn’t Adam, Father! I crawled into bed with him because he was having nightmares. I was protecting him!”

  “Enough of this tosh! I swear, you are not my daughter!”

  Mother flinched, and began to cry, and Father looked like he wanted to hurt himself. He turned to her, his shoulders slumped.

  “Oh, darling, I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t.” He gestured helplessly. “But the two of them in a bed, it’s unsightly. It’s dangerous.”

  Mother wiped her eyes with her kerchief and nodded. “Go easy on them, Arthur. They are children. God’s innocent children.”

  Eve remembered seeing her father’s face then. The way he flinched and grew pale. They were God’s children, were they not? God was the keeper of all children, wasn’t that true?

  Eve had looked at Adam, felt his terror at those words and the reaction he too had seen, and smiled.

  We are special, she reminded him. We have the magic.

  When the man in black came to take Adam away, Eve clung to him with all her strength. When her father ripped her away, she wept bitterly.

  She never forgot.

  And she never forgave.

  Chapter 27

  AIR, WATER, FIRE

  “WITCH!”

  The word rings in the air.

  Emma covers her mouth as though to take it back, but it spreads like a plague to everyone within earshot and echoes on and on. Roan stumbles back, both from the look on Emma’s face and from the shock of the word itself.

  WitchwitchwitchyouareawitchevilwickedWICKED!

  “How could you?” Emma whispers through her fingers. “You were my friend!” She begins to sob. “You did it. Seamus is gone because of your witchery!”

  Defending the house has left Roan exhausted, but through the horror of discovery, she cannot help trembling from a deep, unshakable satiation.

  You did it.

  You did it.

  You did it.

  —What have I done?

  Cage steps forward, hands clasped before him. Emma, tearful, shakes her head, looking from Roan to Cage and back. No one moves.

  Until Andrew comes running in. “He’s gone. Seamus—he’s gone.”

  Roan points weakly to the wall. “Someone… took him. I was…”

  “Restrain her,” Cage says suddenly. “Now. Do it now.”<
br />
  Andrew hesitates, glancing from Cage to Emma and Jenny and then Roan. It would almost be funny if Roan weren’t so exhausted, nor so terrified.

  Finally, Cage strides forward himself and takes Roan by the wrist, pulling her closer to him. She allows herself to be manhandled, her head and heart full of turmoil and confusion.

  Has she brought this on them? Is it her fault?

  Seamus is gone. Has all she witnessed really happened, or is it in her mind? Maybe she is confused. Maybe she has been Conjuring longer than she realizes and can no longer trust her own mind…

  Roiling inside, she allows Cage to lead her upstairs and into the Blue Room. His grip is firm. So firm that her hand begins to ache. The others follow, confused.

  In the Blue Room, Cage turns to Jenny, ignoring Emma and Andrew. “Get rope. Now, girl.”

  Jenny curtsies without a glance at Roan and hurries away.

  “Restraining her?” Emma says, her voice wholly unlike her own. “Must you?”

  “Yes.” Cage gives her a sharp look. “Lest she bewitch us all.”

  Emma, openly weeping, looks at Roan. “Witch…” She whispers it so softly that the word almost doesn’t exist at all. It sounds like a question. An almost-question. Roan turns away, unable and unwilling to see her.

  Emma is thin, pale, blotched in the cheeks. But her fever seems to have passed, for which Roan is thankful. Emma’s once-wild hair hangs limp around her, and she still jumps at the sight of nothing. Bewitched, Cage had said. Maybe it is true. Maybe Roan is simply cursed to bring suffering wherever she goes.

  “Perhaps another room,” Andrew says. “This one still bears the brunt of the first storm.”

  Cage ignores him, instead pondering his captive. “How long have you been practicing dark magicks?”

  Roan sinks to the floor, heedless of Cage’s grip, so that she is sitting with her arm bent up at an awkward angle. She draws up her knees and hugs them with her free arm.