Mortal Fire

by Elizabeth Knox

  The clearing was silent.

  “Are you sure the girl said a lamb and a ewe?”

  “She was descriptive and filled with compassion. Can you think why the spell would show itself differently to her?”

  Cyrus shook his head. “It’s not designed to take anything from the imagination of its witnesses. It’s something I saw—one of Uncle Colvin’s cows. We did fix her, and she lived.”

  “This girl, Agnes Mochrie, she saw the spell differently.” Lealand was tired and troubled. “That means something.”

  Cyrus put a hand on his arm. “You’ve told me yourself that none of our spells are running down, that they’re getting stronger. Maybe it changed to be more effective. I’d be in even more of a hurry to help a trapped lamb than a gutted cow.”

  “You know as well as I do that a spell can’t change itself. Only we can change it.”

  “Hmmm,” said Cyrus.

  Lealand gestured at the corpse of the cow. “It didn’t change.”

  “Apparently not,” said Cyrus, thoughtful.

  Lealand frowned at him. “Even if this girl was a descendant of Lazarus she couldn’t have altered your strongest spell without decades of training. And she’s a Shackle Islander from Castlereagh. She might have some Zarene ancestor, or the blood of one of the other five families. She might have magic in her. But she is completely ignorant, innocent, and unformed. She couldn’t do it. So, it’s not her, it’s the spell.”

  “Lea, let’s just go back and explain to her very gently that we had to destroy the lamb because its back was broken. Let me explain. I’ll hold her hands and take a good long look at her.”

  They were only ten paces down in the darkness of the forest when they heard the cow start up again, its low moans of pain.

  * * *

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO ORCHARD HOUSE they found the girl sitting on the steps. Her grazes and scratches were clean but angry on her smooth limbs. She got up, eager for news—but her face didn’t move. It was like the face of a delicate doll, wide-eyed, smooth, blankly beautiful. Her hair seemed alive, a rippling black smoke around her head and upper body. Cyrus looked her in the eye and shook his head sadly.

  “I heard the shot,” she said.

  He took her hands. “Its back was broken, I’m afraid. There wasn’t anything we could do. Lea buried it.”

  “What about its mother?”

  “She has some grazing there. We’ll go back for her when she’s calmer.”

  “The poor thing,” the girl said, about the lamb or ewe, Cyrus wasn’t sure. “Isn’t the world hard,” she said, pulled her hands from his grasp and stretched hands and forearms, like a cat luxuriously extending its claws. The gesture was out of keeping with her tone of pity and reminded Cyrus forcibly of Ghislain. The world might be hard, but something in her was stepping away from that hardness, stepping out of the blood and shaking its feet. He said, “There are no tracks up that hill because it’s geologically unstable. There are hidden sinkholes. We welcome walkers, but where there aren’t tracks there’s a good reason for it.”

  “There was a pig path.”

  “Did you mistake it for a track?”

  “I just went up it,” she said, then cocked her head slightly as if listening for something.

  The wind chimes! She was listening for the wind chimes and picking her way carefully around the edge of a lie. Cyrus wanted to shout at her, “Who the hell are you?” But instead he asked politely, “Will you be staying long in the valley?”

  “My brother thought we might camp here while he does business in Massenfer. It’s not very nice in the town. The police told us to pitch our tent by the river, but the ground is all gravel and won’t hold our tent pegs.”

  “Massenfer isn’t a place people visit. It doesn’t know how to be visited.”

  “My brother’s here to record the stories of the survivors of the 1929 mining disaster.”

  “Why?” Cyrus couldn’t help sounding incredulous and outraged.

  She blinked at him, surprised. “Because they’re getting older,” she said. “It’s for a book. The book isn’t about the disaster; it’s about the Industrial Safety Act of 1932. Very boring. Sholto’s doing the background, which is the interesting bit.”

  Cyrus considered for a moment, then said, “I survived the 1929 explosion. And Lealand was a draegerman and went in afterward to search for survivors.”

  The girl stared at him. Her mouth stayed a little open. Then she blushed. “I don’t know whether Sholto has you on his list.”

  “Cyrus Zarene.”

  “I’ll ask him. He wrote to all the people he planned to interview. Did you not get a letter?”

  Cyrus shook his head, smiling.

  “What?” she said. “Don’t you ever get letters?”

  Cyrus laughed. He decided he liked this girl, even if she did present problems.

  “Would you mind being interviewed?” she asked. “If I bring Sholto an interviewee then he might not be too mad at me for being late. We were supposed to go back to Massenfer today to look at the library.”

  “You’re at the guesthouse?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll walk you back, give your brother your excuses, and then offer myself. Do you think that would do?”

  She jumped up. “Yes! Thank you.” She turned to Bonnie, who was at the other end of the veranda, scouring out the butter churn. “Tell the others thank you very much for the bath.”

  “Sure,” said Bonnie.

  “See you,” said Canny, and followed Cyrus through the orchard to the path by the Lazuli.

  * * *

  CANNY ARRIVED BACK AT THE GUESTHOUSE in time to witness Sholto’s confrontation with Iris Zarene. She could hear raised voices as she climbed the porch steps. Cyrus, coming up behind her, said, “Perhaps we should wait outside.”

  She ignored him and hurried in.

  Iris was three steps up the staircase, and Sholto was having to tilt his head to look at her. His fists were balled at his sides and he was quivering with indignation. Susan was standing behind him. She looked angry too, but also embarrassed.

  “I demand an explanation!” Sholto was saying.

  Iris Zarene gave a very provoking shrug. Then she looked over Sholto’s head at Cyrus. She said, “Mr. Mochrie is missing two tents.”

  Susan leaned toward Canny and whispered, “We went to pack up the car. We figured you’d turn up eventually. Anyway, we discovered the tents weren’t there anymore.”

  “How about everything else?” Canny asked. She thought she sounded very plausible—anxious, and a bit inhibited by the scene Sholto was making.

  “That pack of kids roam up and down the river all the time—” Sholto said, and was cut off.

  “True,” said Iris. “They might have noticed something. We should ask them.” She gave Sholto a smug look.

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant a bunch of unsupervised kids can get up to all sorts of mischief.”

  “I suppose you want me to line them up so that you can interrogate them?”

  Sholto’s flush deepened. “If you would, please.”

  Iris Zarene’s nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed. “I will not subject my children to the humiliation of being treated as dishonest.”

  “I won’t be treating them as dishonest if they fess up and tell me where they’ve stashed our tents!” Sholto said. “I’m not calling them thieves, I’m calling them pranksters, and you can’t want them doing things like this.”

  “How kind of you to say that. How good to know that you don’t think I’m like Fagin in Oliver Twist—some villain with an organized gang of child thieves!”

  “I didn’t suggest anything of the sort. You’re purposely misunderstanding me in order to get on your high horse and gallop off out of trouble!” Sholto shouted.

  Iris burst out laughing.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’re amused!” Sholto said.

  Cyrus took Sholto’s arm. “Where were your tents? If you don’t mind me a
sking.”

  “At the end of the road. In the field, hung on some bushes to dry. They’re heavy canvas. The wind couldn’t carry them off. And, anyway, there hasn’t been any wind.”

  “I’m sure we can get this settled amicably,” Cyrus said.

  “My brother is a peacemaker,” said Iris, in her dry, contemptuous way. Then, in an insinuating tone, “Mr. Mochrie, have you asked your sister about your tents?”

  Sholto looked at Canny. “Where have you been?”

  Canny said she’d been for a walk. “I found a lamb stuck in a slip. I went to Orchard House to get help, and I waited for news.” She looked at Susan, who seemed properly sympathetic and concerned. “Mr. Lealand had to put it down.”

  Susan patted her shoulder. “That’s rough.”

  Sholto said, “You’re all right?”

  Canny nodded. Then added, “I haven’t seen the tents.” The chimes of Orchard House would not have sounded—though it wasn’t strictly true, since she had seen them before she made herself, and everyone else, unable to see them.

  Susan said, “Sholto, maybe someone came along the road to the valley, saw our tents, and decided they were just what they needed. Other travelers. Or somebody from Massenfer.”

  Cyrus said, “I hear you’re researching the history of the 1929 explosion.”

  “So?” said Sholto, still riled up. “How is that relevant?”

  “It was merely a question.”

  “Mr. Zarene is a survivor,” Canny said.

  Sholto fell silent. Canny could see him mentally reviewing something—either the list of survivors, or of casualties. He would, of course, know the names. “There were two Zarenes who were survivors,” he said.

  “Myself and a cousin.”

  “We all counted ourselves survivors,” said Iris. “We women too. So many died. Twenty-two men from Massenfer, and nine from the valley.”

  A silence came into the room and, like a cat, turned in a circle a few times, trampling down all arguments to make itself comfortable before settling. Sholto was staring at Iris Zarene in dumb embarrassment.

  She took a deep breath then said, “How about if I extend you several days of my hospitality free of charge. And please leave it to me to investigate the whereabouts of your tents.”

  “And how about I speak to my cousin Lealand about your interviewing the two of us?” Cyrus offered.

  Sholto blushed and shuffled.

  “That’s very good of you,” Susan said quickly. “Thank you.” She elbowed Sholto.

  “Thank you,” Sholto muttered. He glanced at Canny. “Sue and I will get ourselves to Massenfer and make some phone calls to set up more appointments this afternoon. You can stay here. Just keep out of trouble, okay?”

  “I’m going to write a letter to Marli,” Canny said. She’d try. She was very, very tired—from missed sleep, and walking, and from taking in too much information, and from using what she’d learned. However natural that was to her, it seemed it was also natural that she was exhausted.

  “Come on, Sue,” Sholto said.

  Iris, very grand, asked Sholto’s retreating back, “Will you want dinner, Mr. Mochrie?”

  Susan smiled very winningly and said, “Yes, thank you. That would be lovely.” Then she winked at Canny and whispered, “It’s your turn to be the shining Mochrie. I know you can do it.”

  Then they were out the door.

  8

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING CANNY woke early, and with an innovative thought. She knew how she could get up the hill. She could follow the wild pigs’ path without fear of meeting one. She could go unnoticed.

  Under the shower she figured out how to write the “disregard” symbol on herself. She decided that she should probably write it somewhere central and visible, like her forehead.

  Canny dashed back to her room, got dressed, then, standing in front of the dresser in the grayish morning light, she tried for some time to transcribe the line she remembered so that it scrolled neatly above her eyebrows. She was using the only pen she had, a fountain pen, and it was hard to hold the nib at the right angle so that the ink flowed freely.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t get it right. Eventually, she wrote the line out on a piece of paper, closing her eyes before she finished so that she wouldn’t lose sight of it. She then used a lead pencil to coat the reverse side of the strip of paper with a thick layer of graphite. Next, she held the smudged side of the paper tightly to her forehead, and, looking into the mirror, she traced over the inked signs with the point of her pencil. That was easy to do because, of course, the signs in the mirror were reversed and, reversed, they didn’t work on her. Canny removed the paper and used her fountain pen to ink over the faint graphite marks.

  But, once the signs were sharp and clear, Canny haplessly found herself doing what she was always able to do with mirror-writing—she flipped the letters right-way-round in her mind and read them. Her eyes watered, then she saw double. The room began to spin.

  Canny squeezed her eyes shut, gripped the edge of the dresser, and concentrated on staying upright. After a time, the vertigo went away.

  Canny opened her eyes again. She didn’t look into the mirror, where she could still see herself out of the corner of her eye. Instead she looked down at her own hands. Or she tried to. But she found that she couldn’t make herself look. Nor could she watch her right hand reach for the bedroom door handle. She had to take deliberate note of the handle’s position, look away, then grasp it. Canny made her way downstairs holding the banister. She couldn’t even check where she was putting her feet. Her progress was that of a very shortsighted person making their way around without the aid of glasses.

  She took an apple from the fruit bowl in the dining room, then went carefully out into the day.

  * * *

  THE PIG TRACK WAS NOT MUCH MORE THAN A GREASY slot that Canny could only climb by walking heel to toe. She had to find handholds with her eyes, take note of their position, and look away as she reached for them. She’d always had very good coordination—her physical education wasn’t one of the things her teachers had worried about. So she could do that—look, take note, look away, take hold—but she was quickly exhausted by the relentless need to concentrate.

  When she finally came on the pigs, she was glad of the spell. They had their heads down, snuffling and plowing up the earth at the base of a rotten log. Preoccupied, and in the dappled sunlight, they seemed happy and handsome animals, but they were huge.

  She left the path and circled out a short way through the trees. The pigs heard her and raised their heads. Their wet black snouts flexed, nostrils flaring. One bristled and trotted forward, but then he stopped and swung his head, his eyes flicking and seeking but not finding her. He gave a low, anxious-sounding squeal, turned, blundered past his mate and away into the bush. The sow gave a shriek and followed him. Canny thought, “I’ve made myself invisible. Even to animals!”

  And then all of it finally hit her, crashed into her, and knocked her down. She sat on the turf with her head on her knees. The world swooped and spun like a witch’s hat roundabout, pushed so hard it was nearly tipping off its pole. Canny yanked her knees apart and threw up between her feet. She felt hot bile hit her ankle but couldn’t see her foot. She could see the small pile of partly digested apple, though. It steamed. By the time she’d recovered enough to go on, the vomit had stopped steaming.

  The next trial she faced was more frightening than the pigs, which she’d planned for. She was moving away from the sun. The path wound around toward the northwest face of the hill. A gap in the tree showed her a view down the valley, of Orchard House, and another house with fewer outbuildings, but surrounded by meadows of wildflowers full of box beehives. Farther away she saw the gables of the guesthouse and the roof of the dormitories. The guesthouse’s kitchen chimney was smoking. Breakfast was on. Canny’s stomach rumbled. Then, overlapping that low internal sound, there came a moan, a grunt of distress. It was answered by bleating—a distressed lamb,
exhausted, but renewing its cries for help.

  Canny went cold all over. It was several minutes before she was able to force herself to go on.

  The ewe was at the edge of the clearing, trembling, ready to flee. She looked at Canny, timid, but mutely appealing. The lamb looked at her too. It struggled, and its four hooves made lines in the clay slip before it. Its wool was draggled, its chin wet with mud. But it was no worse, and no better, than it had been the day before.

  For a short time Canny tried to fathom how treacherous and heartless and bone lazy Lealand and Cyrus Zarene must have been to have not bothered to climb the hill and see to their own livestock. To fail at that, then to come back and lie about what they’d had to do. She imagined them standing on the river trail only a short distance from Orchard House. She imagined their look of smiling complicity—then Lealand raising the gun and firing into the air. There, that will appease the softhearted city girl.

  Then Canny took a harder look at the lamb and she saw that there was no sign in the slip above its back of the four clear grooves where her fingers had scooped at the clay. There was no sign anyone had been here in the clearing at all. And then it struck her—the ewe and lamb were looking at her. The pigs hadn’t been able to see her. They’d run from her as if she were a phantom. The lamb and ewe seemed to be able to see her, only because she could see them and that was the point of them, that she should see them, regard their horrible plight, feel pity, and act on it by turning around and going back down the hill in search of help.