Society for Paranormals

by Vered Ehsani

  “Bee, you’re truly dreadful,” Lilly snapped but her small, cherubic mouth twitched with a suppressed smile.

  “Yes, I am,” I said, wondering how many goats I’d be worth.

  After lunch, Jonas took it upon himself to give me a grand tour of the estate. In addition to the main house, there was a round, mud-walled hut where Jonas stayed, and a small, run-down barn. Inside the barn was the wagon we had arrived on, the ox, and a horse.

  “This horse, she is Nelly,” Jonas said as though announcing the Queen of England. He limped farther into the barn, his left foot dragging slightly. “The bwana, he is very, very lucky to be having both an ox and a horse, especially a horse that doesn’t die easily.”

  I assumed that by “bwana” he meant Mr. Steward and I wasn’t sure how lucky the bwana was at all. That morning, he’d stomped back into the house after attempting to ride the nag. Flustered, he’d announced that he was purchasing two new horses forthwith, and that I could have the existing one. At the time, I’d been thrilled to receive a mount of my own. Now, I wasn’t as impressed by what had seemed a generous gesture.

  The horse in question, clearly a source of pride for Jonas, was a small, reddish-brown animal that was chewing a clump of hay slowly and methodically, eyeing me through half-lowered lids, unimpressed by her visitors. She swallowed the masticated dry grass and belched heartily.

  Aghast, I stepped back. The horse seemed unabashed by her lack of social etiquette and continued chewing. I could see why Mr. Steward had declined to ride such a creature, even if it did refuse to die.

  Jonas chuckled and slapped the nag on her dusty neck. “Good one, Nelly.” He leaned toward me and whispered, “She makes a lot of noise on both ends, you know?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said, pulling my sunhat farther over my right ear while straightening up. I couldn’t afford to slouch with my height. “It’s really not polite to be referring to such bodily functions in public, and certainly not to be encouraging them.”

  Jonas eyed me with an expression remarkably like that of Nelly’s and I feared he might follow her uncouth example. Instead, he shrugged his slouched shoulders and shuffled out of the small barn. “Yes, Miss Knight.”

  As we approached the house, Cilla came galloping up, or rather her horse did; she sat there bouncing about in the saddle, all flustered with news. “Oh, what a to-do, isn’t it, Bee?” she said when we met on the veranda.

  The leather of my boots squeaked and I could smell whatever oil Jonas had used that morning on them. Behind me, I could hear Mrs. Steward’s shrill voice commanding, “Have you oiled my boots yet, Jonas?” She’d finally managed to remember his name.

  “Yes, mama,” Jonas’ soft voice floated out of the house.

  “And don’t call me mama. It’s Mrs. Steward, do you understand?”

  “Yes, mama.”

  I smiled, for I was certain Jonas understood very well how easy it was to antagonize that lady’s nerves. Still, I wish he hadn’t oiled my boots quite so vigorously. They were so shiny I could actually view a blurry reflection on their surface, and sunlight sparkled off them in a most distracting manner.

  At least, I consoled myself, he didn’t have a chance to oil my riding gloves. I held them in one hand as if I were about to charge off across the landscape on a fine stallion. Never mind that the closest we had to a steed was Nelly, and she certainly wasn’t about to charge off anywhere, except to the feeding trough.

  “Isn’t this ghost lion business so thrilling?” Cilla gushed, distracting my attention from boots, gloves, and racing stallions.

  “I’m not sure the men the lions eat find it so thrilling,” I said. Down the hill, I could see the camp was as busy as a disturbed anthill.

  Cilla glanced about and leaned close. “For a start, they haven’t eaten any men here, only the goats. And for that, the locals complain bitterly about it to the camp superintendent, Mr. Adams.” She sucked in a deep breath and lowered her voice. “And isn’t this just the very sort of mystery that Professor Runal would want you to investigate?”

  As if I needed a reminder. “Yes, I’m planning to go with Kam later on.”

  My fatigue-induced lack of enthusiasm penetrated even my friend’s over-exuberance, for she said, “Well, I should hope so, for I’m sure the Society will be delighted to receive a full report of your findings.”

  I stifled a groan. I had rather hoped to forget about the good professor’s request for regular reports. Report writing was terribly tedious.

  Even so, Cilla’s energy prodded me and I said with a little more vigor, “I wonder why ghost lions need to eat at all?”

  “That’s the spirit!” Cilla patted my hand that was resting on the railing. “We need to find out.”

  “We?” I queried.

  “Yes,” she said firmly.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the horseman approaching our section of the hill, hoping to distract her. The last thing I needed was to babysit an inexperienced investigator. It was bad enough looking after Lilly, Bobby, and Mrs. Steward in the house.

  “Oh, he came,” Cilla trilled.

  “He?” The morning was rapidly deteriorating.

  “My uncle, who’s also my godfather,” she said, her smile widening. “Didn’t I tell you I stay with him? My parents are posted in West Africa, but I much prefer to be here.”

  I shuddered. West Africa. That name covered a large region, but in my mind, it meant only terror and death. Cilla didn’t notice, and we watched her godfather / uncle approach.

  Even from a distance, I could see he was a strongly built man. While not particularly tall, he still managed to give the impression of having an imposing stature. His hair was unfashionably shaggy — there’s no other word I can use to describe it — with wavy, dark locks bouncing on his broad shoulders. And the sideburns… I never could tolerate an abundance of facial hair on a man.

  To top it all off, the man was barely dressed for visiting civilized folk. Surely, it wasn’t so hot that an Englishman would forgo a cravat? Tsk, tsk, I thought to myself but avoided voicing my first and rather negative impression of my friend’s godfather in her presence.

  When he was as close as he could come with a horse, I studied his eyes. They were grey and fierce, almost angry, although I couldn’t imagine what he had any cause to be angry about. After all, a lion hadn’t mauled him the night before as far as I could tell.

  As he dismounted, Cilla ran to the man and hugged him. His face softened until he saw me, at which point his eyes hardened and shut me out.

  “Uncle, this is Beatrice Knight,” Cilla gushed. “Bee, this is Mr. Simon Timmons, my godfather and my uncle.”

  Mr. Timmons. Perhaps if I had the gift of clairvoyance, I might have, upon glimpsing the future this man brought, spun on my newly oiled boots and left that instant, refusing to be introduced to that strangest of men. Perhaps.

  Or perhaps not.

  For so much of what transpired in my life from that moment on was entangled with the man and his machinations. I can’t imagine how events would have transpired without his involvement, nor am I decided if it would’ve been best without him.

  At any rate, my level of clairvoyance being limited to whatever was immediately in front of me, all I felt was a rather mysterious tingle as Mr. Timmons clasped my hand in his calloused fingers, raised it to his lips and said, “My pleasure.”

  “Oh, and guess what, Uncle?” Cilla gushed. “Bee is going to chase after those ghost lions. Thrilling, isn’t it?”

  At that moment, I firmly believed there was something mentally wrong with the girl, as dear as she was to me. How tramping across the wild lands in the dark could be anything but a nightmare to avoid was beyond me. But everything was “thrilling” to her.

  And hadn’t I told her not to raise such subjects in public?

  Mr. Timmons cleared his throat. “I believe Mr. Adams is organizing a hunting party over the weekend. Perhaps it would be best if you wait for that.”

&nb
sp; I bristled at the implied reasoning. “I assure you, Mr. Timmons, I’m quite capable of handling myself, and a rifle if need be.”

  The man smiled, but it was more a smirk. I didn’t like the look of it at all, and it strengthened my initial and unfavorable assessment of him. “I meant no slight against your abilities,” he said in a tone that indicated he had. “Although I’m not sure what use a rifle is against ghosts.”

  “Ghosts don’t eat men or goats,” I said, raising my eyebrows in what I hoped was a haughty manner, “so whatever is attacking the camp will be very much affected by a bullet or two. As for ghosts, I don’t fear them at all.”

  “Indeed not.” Now Mr. Timmons really was grinning.

  I reddened. He didn’t seem to be taking me seriously at all, but instead of removing myself from his infuriating presence, I carried on. “All a hunting party will achieve is to trample all the evidence into oblivion and shoot a few gazelles. If they’re really lucky, they may just avoid shooting each other in the confusion.”

  Mr. Timmons flung back his head, dark locks flying around him, and laughed. I had to admit it was a rather engaging laugh, the sort that invited one and all to join in the party. I declined.

  “All the same, Miss Knight,” he said once he had recovered from his irrational laughing fit.

  “It’s Mrs. Knight,” I interrupted, too irate to maintain civility.

  “Well done. I don’t very much like this unfashionable fellow,” Gideon hissed as he materialized beside me.

  I clenched at the railing of the veranda to avoid jumping, for that would only add to Mr. Timmons’ dim view of my abilities.

  The “unfashionable fellow” dipped his head slightly. “Very well, Mrs. Knight. I just thought it might amuse you to have a few days out in the countryside. Although…” He paused, and his black eyebrows rose slightly as he observed my overly polished boots and my gloves. “I would understand if you didn’t join. The insects out there can be overwhelming for an Englishwoman.”

  The man was too much. He had no business talking down to me as if I were a typical female with delicate sensibilities. He clearly was uninformed, and I was determined to educate him.

  “I’m sure I can handle a few insects,” I said, my hands twitching at the absence of my stout walking stick, which I would’ve been happy to introduce him to.

  He winked at me—yes, winked, how outrageous!—and said, “Oh, I’m sure you can around here. But out there.” He gestured to the savannah stretching away from us to the horizon.“Out there are all manners of strange beasties. The giant Shongololo, for example. Nasty thing.”

  “He’s the only nasty thing around here,” Gideon whispered into my ear.

  I rubbed at my uncovered left ear. “Shonga-what?” I asked before I could decipher if he was being serious or not. His eyes didn’t reveal much more than a sharp sense of humor and a biting intelligence, and they had darkened to a blue-grey. I was so intrigued by this color change that I almost didn’t hear his explanation.

  “Shongololo,” he repeated. “Imagine a giant millipede at least as long as your arm, with poisonous fangs.”

  “I’d rather not,” I murmured.

  “Do stop teasing her, Uncle,” Cilla said. My head jerked in her direction, for I had entirely forgotten she was there, watching her godfather and I verbally tussle about. “I think we should go with Mr. Adams, Bee. Shall we? It would be thrilling to join the hunt.”

  That word again: thrilling.

  And while I couldn’t imagine a less thrilling sight than a mob of pompous men waving their rifles around in precarious fashion, I couldn’t resist Cilla’s pleading or Mr. Timmons’ unspoken challenge. And I had my own agenda: to make sure those idiots didn’t shoot the lions before I’d had a chance to investigate and discover if they were indeed ghosts or some new breed of creature.

  “Yes, why not,” I declared.

  Cilla hugged me as if I’d just announced I’d been knighted by the Queen instead of agreeing to a possibly dangerous and definitely uncomfortable hunt. For his part, Mr. Timmons smiled and I thought I could detect a secret somewhere in there. He was, I decided then and there, far more dangerous than a pair of mangy lions.

  Chapter 12

  That evening, I excused myself from the dining table on some pretense of checking on Jonas’ tea preparations (“A jolly good idea,” said Mrs. Steward) and continued out the back door. I collected my sturdy walking stick, bow and quiver of arrows.

  The area back of the house was a cluttered place with clothes and bedding flung over rope strung between the main house and the smaller building where Jonas stayed. A tree grew in the middle of the space, its broad boughs shading the ground where a few tattered-looking chickens scratched at the dry dirt. Evening sounds filled in the spaces: leaves rustling dryly in the light breeze, birds singing, insects shrilling, and larger creatures farther afield calling out.

  A shadow detached itself from the tree and the somber Kam solidified before me. That certainly was what seemed to have happened, although I very much doubted even Kam had the ability to turn into shadow. Then again, I still hadn’t worked out what his strange skin markings were for. There was a rumble of thunder nearby and a spark of lightning over the forest. I glanced to the sky but could see no clouds.

  “Right, are we off?” I asked, my voice cutting into the silence between us.

  He nodded his head so slightly that it was barely noticeable, and turned away. The man was not a particularly sociable fellow, but that suited me well.

  In minutes, the house was nothing but a memory as we scampered down the hill. Or rather I scampered, somewhat noisily, while Kam flowed much like the shadow he resembled and just as quietly. While I have unusually keen night vision, I still struggled to keep up.

  “Kam, I thought we were going out to find the lions,” I said as I realized we were veering toward the camp. Then again, I thought to myself, this really was a futile task: two people on foot searching the vast grasslands for a pair of killer lions. Ghosts or not, those lions would be harder to find than the proverbial needle in the haystack. Not that I’d ever bother trying to find a lost needle, especially if it fell in a haystack.

  “First, you must see something,” he replied and quickened his pace, as if he wasn’t going fast enough already. That effectively finished off the conversation such as it was, for by this point, I found myself quite out of breath.

  Pathetic, I thought. Too many carriage rides and not enough walking.

  I could see that was about to change in my new home. I hadn’t seen a proper carriage since we’d arrived.

  Night and day swapped places abruptly enough to knock the sun out of the sky between one blink and the next. All that remained was a lingering and rapidly fading glow. Darkness pressed in close, filled with sounds that, while possibly benign, seemed fiercer in the absence of light. The dry heat mingled with a breeze and was swept away; a cool, grassy scent tinted with an unknown flower took its place.

  I readily admitted to myself that I knew very little, if anything, about tracking lions. Add in the unfamiliar terrain and a moonless night, and I was out of my depth.

  Still, I had the distinct feeling Kam was leading me astray in some way or another. I couldn’t verify this, as his energy field was frustratingly absent, but the nagging suspicion clung on.

  So, I told myself, the only thing to do is keep a sharp watch and my walking stick ready.

  When we reached the edge of the camp, we circled around to a darker, quieter section where a small river gurgled along pleasantly. Some light from the canvas tents leaked onto the scene with a dim glow. Kam pointed to a large, flat stone that jutted out into the water.

  “Here they collect water,” he said.

  I assumed he meant the camp workers as I couldn’t imagine lions doing that, regardless of how extraordinary they were.

  “The lions came here,” he continued.

  I glanced up, my neck twanging with the speed. “The lions were here, last night?�
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  Kam nodded his head.

  “And they attacked a man, here?” I asked.

  Another nod.

  “And we’re here, lightly armed and alone,” I said accusingly as I swung my bow in front of me, removed an arrow from the sheath hanging on my back, and notched it in place.

  Kam shrugged, eyeing my bow with interest. “It’s too dark for arrows.”

  Of course he was right, but I kept my bow in hand as I still couldn’t shake the sense that something was amiss. There are those who would call me paranoid but only when nothing happens; they’d call me prepared when something does.

  I studied the bushes as if expecting to see glowing eyes amongst the foliage. Did lions’ eyes even glow in the dark?

  “Well, let’s hope these twins really are ghosts then,” I said under my breath.

  Then I remembered what Kam had said: I had to see something. Surely he wouldn’t have brought me here to see a rock. This was the scene of a crime. I stood on the stone and spun slowly around. There were a lot of muddled footprints in the soft earth bordering the water’s edge. That was all, so I squinted my eyes and the world changed.

  For a start, Kam’s markings were shimmering softly as if they were phosphorescent. It was no wonder the man could walk so confidently in the dark. I wondered what else he could do and if he would ever tell me.

  Little energy fields popped up all around in the shape of insects, including the one about to feast on me. “Sorry,” I whispered as I flicked it away.

  The plants and grass glowed with their own fields in subtle shades of blue, green, and purple, and where fields intersected, they sizzled with increased energy. Everywhere I gazed, living energy glowed and undulated, so unlike London with its dead landscape of buildings and paving stones.

  Such was my awe in observing the spectacle of life that I nearly overlooked the strange blotches on the damp ground. Slipping off the rock, I bent closer while removing a small glass tube from my jacket pocket. I touched one of the blotches and sniffed the result.