by Vered Ehsani
He studied my reaction, and I diligently avoided reacting, simply by not dwelling on the implications of this statement. Instead, I sniffed while pulling on my gloves. “Be that as it may, gentlemen, but I have quite overstayed this visit. Cilla?”
“Oh yes, Bee. Let me escort you out,” she said, hastily tugging on her own gloves. “According to Mrs. Beeton, a social visit should never extend beyond twenty minutes or so, else risk being viewed as impolite.”
“Exactly,” I said. I stood, ignoring the puzzled countenances of the two man-like creatures. “And as we’re in danger of exceeding that socially prescribed limit, we must be off.”
“We’ll see about that,” Gideon whispered and vanished into the floorboard, and that was the last I saw of him for quite some time.
Yes, we will, Gideon, I thought. And we shall be discussing your plans at the next possible opportunity.
I led the way, relieved to have extracted myself from an awkward conversation, but I was now left wondering what it had all meant.
“Dear Bee,” Cilla whispered as she grabbed my elbow, “whatever do you make of all that?”
I patted her hand but, in fact, I didn’t have a single answer to give her.
Chapter 21
An entire week passed following Cilla’s tea: no ghost lions raided the pantry, no Shongololo hung over my bed, Mr. Timmons didn’t stop by to instigate more inappropriate conversations, and the possessed zebra was content to glare and hiss at me from a distance.
All in all, it was a most acceptable situation, and therefore one I knew wouldn’t last.
I wasn’t surprised then when Mr. Steward burst into the house at midday, flustered and his jacket on awry. I glanced behind him, assuming that there was a man-eating lion on his trail, but saw only Jonas where I’d left him on the veranda.
Jonas and I had just been discussing the merits of planting English Rose bushes in East Africa. Neither of us were convinced they’d survive. Thus far, the only stems that had managed to fully bloom were those made of silk that were tucked into a small vase placed on the middle of the coffee table. Mrs. Steward however insisted we persevere.
The moment Mr. Steward arrived in such a noisy fashion, the Steward women were in the sitting area of the room, busily sewing delicate patterns on white handkerchiefs, a pastime I had little sympathy for, as one hardly needed pretty material to clear one’s nose. I was behind them in the portion of the room that had been reserved for the dining area, writing in my diary. Bobby was out back, chasing the chickens. We were therefore as assembled for the midday meal as we could be.
“Mrs. Steward, you won’t guess what has occurred,” Mr. Steward said, barely able to converse from lack of breath. I wondered what condition his horse was in.
“You know how poorly I abide guessing games, Mr. Steward,” his wife said, not so much as glancing up from her needlework.
“I have the most marvelous news,” he said as he pulled a telegram from his pocket and waved it about like a flag. There was a glimmer of his old spark and confidence in his eyes.
“A dress shop is to be set up here?” Lilly asked, placing her needle and fabric down as she gazed wistfully at the yellow piece of paper in her father’s grasp.
“You’ve chased away that awful zebra who keeps eating my roses?” Mrs. Steward asked.
“Well, uh, no, not…” Mr. Steward stuttered.
“You’ll let me go on the next lion hunt?” Bobby shouted as he ran through the room, preceded by an agitated chicken.
“Bobby, stop chasing the wildlife and go wash up for dinner,” Mrs. Steward said as her needle dipped and ducked assuredly.
The chicken flew up onto the dish cabinet and squawked with great vigor and volume, while Bobby jumped up and down, shouting at it to come face its fate.
Mr. Steward raised his voice and triumphantly declared, “Aunt Phyllis is dead.”
We all turned to him, needle work, chickens, and roses forgotten. Indeed, we were utterly stupefied. For my part, I wondered if I would have another phantom to contend with or would the old lady move along politely or at least quickly.
Mrs. Steward was the first to recover. “Bee, fetch Mr. Steward a stiff drink at once. According to Mrs. Beeton, it’s the best remedy for such strange and uncivil fits. For how could any sane creature celebrate the death of a beloved relative?”
Mr. Steward straightened up sharply. “My dear wife, she was not a beloved relative, only a mere relative, and I most certainly am not celebrating her death, per se. But hers was a thoughtful death, for she has left to me and mine a tidy inheritance.”
With his news delivered, he took the proffered drink and swallowed it in one gulp.
Mrs. Steward’s eyes enlarged with the implications of this revelation and her husband’s newly discovered skill of consuming hard liquor in a single swallow. Lilly lost interest, since in her mind, all the inheritance would be useless, given the lack of shops in which to spend it. Bobby returned his attention to the chicken.
“Oh, my dear man,” Mrs. Steward said, her voice all breathy with excitement. “How truly marvelous indeed.”
I eyed the telegraph suspiciously, half expecting the old lady’s apparition to float out of it.
Puffed up with the result of his announcement, Mr. Steward strode across the room, sat on the sofa by his wife’s side, and took up her hand. “Yes, it is, indeed. And now I feel I must give you the opportunity to return home, if you so wish, while I continue my labors here, for we can well afford it. Indeed, she has left us a house and a decent sum to keep it all. I shall join you after my contract here is complete.”
The children both looked over, for their fates were held within this interaction. In Lilly’s face, there was a great expectation of returning to the land where she had abandoned a sizable portion of her wardrobe and furniture. Bobby appeared less certain of the benefits, for here he was quite at liberty to run amuck like a wild thing and there was still the matter of a lion hunt to attend to.
“Is it true?” Mrs. Steward asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Is this truly happening to us? There is inheritance enough?”
Mr. Steward nodded but remained silent, so caught up in his moment of glory that he was rendered speechless.
Mrs. Steward sighed with the relief of a condemned man set free. “It is grand news indeed.” She sighed again. “But I cannot in good conscience leave my husband’s side.”
“Yes, you can,” Lilly said with a look of outrage.
But her parents weren’t paying her the least bit attention, so absorbed were they in each other. It was such a tender transaction that I was mesmerized and stood with my diary and pen clutched to my chest.
The trance was only broken when the possessed zebra galloped into the room and attacked the coffee table.
Chapter 22
Lilly shrieked, Mr. Steward shouted for Jonas to fetch the garden rake, although I wasn’t clear on what he thought Jonas should do with said rake, and Mrs. Steward, with great presence of mind, began tossing pillows from the sofa at the zebra. I almost threw the dinner plates at the possessed beast but settled for the saltshaker, while Bobby ran toward it in great excitement. The chicken, seeing its opportunity, made a quick escape.
“It’s eating my roses,” Mrs. Steward said in such a wail, as if the beast were eating a child of hers, that it pierced the heart. That is, until the hearer realized that the zebra was devouring not a child but a small collection of silk roses.
Despite the shouts and pillows flying through the air, the zebra refused to move until the coffee table was littered with bits of silk, shards of pottery and hoof marks. With a final snort and a glare at me, it spun about and trotted out the room, through the kitchen and outside.
Having expended all her reserves on throwing pillows, Mrs. Steward collapsed back onto the bare sofa and sniffled a bit. Mr. Steward, still clutching his telegraph, patted her shoulder and said, “Be at ease, Mrs. Steward. With my dear aunt’s endowment, we can see about ordering some m
ore.”
Remarkably, Mr. Steward had floundered upon the exact words to console his wife, for upon being reminded of their good fortune, she perked up considerable. “Yes, exactly. God bless dear Aunt Phyllis. Jonas,” she shouted, her energy returned with the prospects of a healthy inheritance, “is dinner set?”
Dinner was a happy affair. Mrs. Steward gushed on about how thoughtful Aunt Phyllis had been to remember us so exclusively, and what we would do with our newfound wealth. Once the contract was done, she detailed how we would return in triumph to England and live in the style to which we should be accustomed.
After the meal was finished, I wandered outside, leaned on the handrail of the veranda and noticed the offending zebra some ways away. The serpentine spirit was twisting and hissing, while the zebra spirit was all but gone; only a pale outline of it remained. I was still studying the strange creature when Cilla galloped up to the rail on a rather scrawny pony.
“Bee, you’ll never guess.” Cilla panted as she slid off the pony, which looked as if it too was having trouble catching its breath.
“Unless a wealthy relative just died, I won’t even try,” I retorted, still pondering the likelihood of a rosebush outliving the combined onslaught of a demented zebra, Shongololos and the heat.
Jonas jogged up to my side, holding the garden rake that Mr. Steward had requested. I didn’t ask where he had gone to find the rake and why it had taken so long.
“Mr. Adams has disappeared!” Cilla announced, her eyes shining with the drama of it all.
“Those pale people, always comin’ and goin’ too fast,” Jonas mumbled to himself, looking more disgusted than concerned with the man’s disappearance.
I glanced at him sharply to let him know I’d heard the comment. He shrugged and studied the rake.
“Bee, you simply must come,” Cilla insisted, completely ignoring Jonas’ snarky remark. “Of anyone here, you’re the most likely to find him. After all, you are an investigator of sorts.”
Jonas’ face crinkled up in its dehydrated apple way and he peered at me a bit too intently.
“Thank you, Jonas, that will be all,” I interrupted Cilla before she could reveal more. “Please wake Nelly and saddle her.”
Jonas snorted, unimpressed with my use of a higher social status to get rid of him, but he slouched away, slowly.
“Why does he have a garden rake?” Cilla asked, most astutely given that there was really nothing to rake as the zebras had eaten anything on the ground that could be raked or eaten.
“It’s for the zebra,” I said as if this was the obvious solution to the problem of a renegade quadruped.
Cilla frowned and must have decided not to pursue that odd line of logic, for she gushed, “So you’re coming? I knew you would.”
“That makes one of us,” I muttered, following Jonas to the barn and hoping I’d be back for afternoon tea.
When we reached Mr. Adams’ cabin, there was already several people there, including the Chief (and only) Constable. He was chest to chest with Dr. Cricket.
“I insist on being allowed to search that cabin,” the doctor was shouting just as we rode up. “Mr. Adams unlawfully confiscated my invention and…”
“Suspect number one,” I murmured, eyeing Dr. Cricket’s disheveled lab coat.
“Surely not,” Cilla said.
The Constable interrupted the doctor in his heavy Scottish accent. I strained to hear him over the multiple conversations around us. He was hard to decipher but I think he said something along the lines of: No bloody way.
Just as I kicked Nelly awake and turned her to go, I saw a familiar face in the crowd: Kam’s niece. I smiled at her but she didn’t seem to recognize me. Perhaps we Europeans all looked the same to her, but given that there were very, very few European women in or near the camp, an observation Mrs. Steward had made on numerous occasions in the hearing of her husband, I still thought it odd she didn’t at least acknowledge my smile.
I guided Nelly to the unguarded back of the cabin. Sliding off and silently handing the reins to Cilla, I approached a window. I pressed two of the fingernails on the walking stick’s fist and a slot opened, revealing a set of tools I refer to as my little door openers.
“You wouldn’t,” Cilla whispered loudly.
“I would and will,” I said as I jimmied the lock, pulled the wooden shutters out fully, placed my stick on the sill and, with a practiced jump, swung up onto the ledge, my long skirt flapping about my ankles. “Go to the trading store. I’ll meet you there.”
“Oh dear,” Cilla said as she pulled the horses along with her.
Mr. Adams’ cabin was a one-room, wood structure that I was sure used to be tidy. At least, Mr. Adams had impressed me as such a person. Sadly, the current state of his cabin didn’t reflect this orderliness at all. Books were strewn about, pages torn out in furious chunks. Ripped bed sheets carpeted the wooden floor and the mattress was shredded with clumps of straw strewn about. Shards of a porcelain washing basin crunched under my boots. The small looking glass on the wall had received a hefty blow; several slivers of my reflection gazed back at me, wide-eyed.
The only item unscathed was a wood and leather chest in one corner. I opened it and found clothes folded and stacked in a precise, color-coded fashion. His boots, so well oiled I could almost see my face in them, were placed neatly by the door, below where his jacket hung on a peg.
In less than a minute, I had ascertained two facts: Mr. Adams was indeed gone but without his boots and jackets; and the automaton was also missing.
Just then, the babble outside the door increased in volume and someone knocked on the windowsill behind me. I spun around, ready to throw my walking stick at that someone’s head.
“Bee,” Cilla hissed. “Get out of there. It’s Mr. Adams. He’s returned.”
I frowned. “And why aren’t you waiting at the store?”
“Do stop being so particular and get out,” Cilla said, her delicate eyebrows scrunched together. On her, it looked endearing. On me, it would’ve looked angry and old.
Heavy boots thumped up onto the small patio. “If that’s Mr. Adams, he’s gained a bit of weight,” I commented as I scurried to the window and Cilla’s anxious face. I handed her my stick, clambered down, thinking that skirts were simply not suitable attire for performing an illegal entry into a premise, and hurried around to the front in as dignified a manner as a lady can manage after climbing out of a window.
As certain as the sky was blue over Nairobi and a possessed zebra had taken over the Steward’s front garden, there Mr. Adams stood, unharmed and sternly informing the crowd to mind their own bloody business.
Stern was never a word I’d have previously used to describe the camp superintendent.
“Thank the good Lord he’s all right,” Cilla said into my ear.
I rubbed my ear, for it would have to be the one with a dog bite in it, and pulled my hat lower. Satisfied the ear was covered, I said softly, “I’m not sure how much the Lord had to do with it, or if He’s involved at all. Look at the man’s boots and jacket.”
Cilla stared at me with the expression I would reserve for flying pigs (they don’t exist) or purple dragons (the jury’s still out). “What has his attire to do with his reappearance or God?”
I sighed and wondered if I’d ever been this gullible. “Cilla, my dear, those boots and jacket don’t belong to Mr. Adams. His are still in his room, for a start. And the ones that man has on are at least two sizes too big for Mr. Adams.”
Cilla played with the reins and asked, “So?”
Before I could respond, Mr. Adams stepped off the patio, ignored Dr. Cricket’s efforts to talk with him, turned to the Constable and said, “The hunt is permanently postponed until further notice.”
I missed the rest of the conversation as the crowd closed in around the two men, workers eagerly sifting through words for the day’s gossip while demanding recompense for missing and presumed eaten goats. But I didn’t need to hear more. M
y suspicion had been confirmed.
I marveled at the power required to carry out the deed. I knew what had happened. Why it had happened still wasn’t as clear.
“How odd,” Cilla commented. “I thought for sure Mr. Adams would organize another hunt after the last one was interrupted. And more big game hunters arrived on today’s train. They’ll be expecting one. Why would Mr. Adams of all people cancel the lion hunt?”
I turned to face her and in a firm voice, told her my theory: “Because he’s not really Mr. Adams.”
Chapter 23
I couldn’t sleep. Between a pesky mosquito trapped under the net and all the theories trapped in my brain, there was far too much buzzing going around.
I pushed off the blanket, swatted at the insect and missed, and tugged on my colorless housecoat. I lit a lantern, blinking into the small flame, and left my room. I could hear snores and crickets, not the most melodious of combinations, and I hurried down the hallway into the living room.
Moonlight filled the room with a cool, pearly light. When I peered out the window, I could see the demented zebra, its white stripes whiter, the rest of it blending into the night. For the first time, I noticed its fur was mangy and a few bald patches showed raw, pink skin. I narrowed my eyes and the glowing snake-like head hissed at me, eyes bright red. Of the zebra spirit, there was no sign.
“Really,” I muttered and gazed farther afield. The camp’s fires were tiny flickers against the vast expanse of shadowy savannah. I could just make out a clump of darker shadow out near the horizon; it was a herd of elephants.
I continued to the kitchen, which was devoid of the warmth of the stove’s fire. On a whim, and since tea was clearly unavailable, I exited out the back and to the barn, where our ox and three horses were housed. Idly, I wondered if the spirit that had invaded the zebra could do the same with our animals.
