Mortal Fire

by Elizabeth Knox

  “That miserable little town with the memorial to the miners? The one your father insisted we visit, and where we had to catch a train all the way to Westport to get there?”

  “That’s the place—the rail line goes to Westport because the coal goes there.”

  Sisema chuckled. “If Canny had been on that trip, she really would have dug her heels in about being made to go with you.”

  Sholto was pleased that Sisema wasn’t going to hold it against him that he’d temporarily misplaced his sister—though he was disappointed at how little she knew about what he was up to. Anyway, she was being understanding, so that was a relief. But then she seemed to think of something. “Canny wasn’t lost in the bush, was she?”

  Southland’s climate was a maritime one, never too hot in summer and, in winter, only snowing in the high country. But Southland’s rain forests were dense, damp, chilly, and famously unforgiving.

  “No. There’s no bush except on the hill at the head of the valley. Canny has been into it, but it’s not very big and you’d be safely out of it if you went downhill in any direction.”

  Sisema was silent for a moment, then she said, “Where is this?”

  “The Zarene Valley.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s along the Lazuli, which flows into the Taskmaster, the gray river that runs through Massenfer.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right, you took the car.”

  “Da’s car. For the recording equipment. How is Da?”

  “Sunburned. The silly man. Sholto, where does the road go? The road into this valley with the bushy hill? I suppose it must go over the mountains?”

  “The Palisades. Yes.”

  Silence again. Then Sisema asked, “There’s a town before the mountains?”

  “A little country town with strawberry fields, called Oatlands. Then the pass, then Massenfer.”

  “We went by rail,” Sisema said, in a pinched voice. “On that trip where your father took all the photographs for his book, we went by rail.”

  “Yes, you said. And I remember, I was there. What’s the problem, Ma?”

  “That valley. Is there a road into it from the top of the pass?”

  “No. There’s a road through the river gorge.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Sisema said.

  Sholto had never heard his stepmother sound watery. It was unnerving. Then he remembered. “Wait. There was once a road from the hilltop. It’s a walking track now. Canny would have gone up it before getting lost. She’s fine, Ma. You don’t need to worry. I just thought I’d better tell you now rather than have it come out later.”

  More silence on the other end.

  “Mother?”

  “Sholto, I want you to take your sister back to Castlereagh today. Forget about your father’s little job. I’ll deal with your father.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “Do what I ask.” Imperious.

  “No—this is my work too. If you want me to drop everything I’m going to need more explanation.”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to you. I trusted you to take care of Akanesi and that’s what you’re going to do.”

  Sholto recalled all the niggling concerns he’d had about Canny and her behavior, and the slippery sense he had that she was never quite where she was supposed to be. “This is silly,” he said. “The Zarene Valley is a lovely place full of perfectly hospitable people.”

  “Sholto!” Sisema said sharply. “You had better oblige me.” Then, “I’m coming home right away.”

  “It’s five days by sea from Calvary to Westport,” Sholto reminded her. “And, if I remember right, you don’t sail till Wednesday night.”

  “I will send a telegram when I arrive in Westport,” Sisema said. “Here is your father.” Then, aside, “Gordon, tell your son that he must do as I say.”

  The Professor came on the phone. “She really has a bee in her bonnet, doesn’t she?”

  “I don’t understand why she’s insisting we remove ourselves, Da.”

  “We can sort that out once we’re home,” the Professor said.

  “In seven days.”

  “Precisely. Sometime within the next six days you can do what your stepmother asks and remove yourselves immediately.” The Professor chuckled.

  Sholto thought that he could actually hear the nudges and winks. He wasn’t going to get an explanation, he was only going to get orders from Sisema and this conspiracy of naughty boys stuff from his father. “How about you do something for me, Da,” Sholto said. “How about you find out what she is actually upset about?”

  “She is just throwing her not inconsiderable weight around, son. Best to let it blow over.”

  The Professor had stopped whispering. Sisema wasn’t in the room anymore.

  “It might be important,” Sholto said. He felt feeble. His father wasn’t giving him any useful clues about what he should think and do. “It’s bizarre,” he said. Then, “Da?”

  “This is costing,” said the Professor. “It’s a collect call, I presume.”

  “Yes. I was sure you wouldn’t mind paying.”

  “It was you who made the call. So that means it was you who put her in this state.”

  “No. I mean—yes, I called, but—”

  “Sholto, can’t you manage for yourself for a month? Isn’t that girlfriend of yours any help?”

  “Oh forget it,” Sholto said in disgust. “I’ll deal with it all at my end.”

  “It’s too late to make that decision now, isn’t it? You had to call. You just had to say something.”

  He had inconvenienced his father.

  Sholto said goodbye and put the receiver back in its cradle. He left the post office, fuming. Why was he always being made to feel incompetent? The Professor and Sisema had no idea what he was dealing with. Canny had never been placid, but she’d always been predictable. Now Sholto had the impression she was up to something she shouldn’t be every time he closed his eyes or turned his back. Even yesterday evening, when Sue and he had been drinking the mead and having a good time, Canny had sat watching them and smiling in a distant, kindly way that was very civilized, and very unlike her.

  Sholto got back in the Austin and hurried back to the Zarene Valley. When he reached the meadow that sloped down to the Lazuli he was met with a very surprising sight.

  Two tents were draped on the lilac bushes. They were wet and molded to the branches, as if they’d been hanging there for days. And when Sholto hauled them off he saw that the foliage underneath them was yellow.

  Sholto bundled the tents up. He left one in the Austin for the time being. The other he carried, with difficulty, because it was soaked and heavy, along the track back to the guesthouse. He spread it over the clothesline behind the house, where it could dry and he could keep his eye on it.

  * * *

  CYRUS HAD BEEN AT THE GUESTHOUSE, touching up some paintwork in a place the twelve-year-olds were too short to reach. He’d taken note of the arrival of Canny Mochrie. She’d come in, glanced at him, then rushed upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. A short while later Susan arrived, paused, greeted him, and said she’d left the recording equipment in his parlor. She’d thought Sholto would be back to help her move it, but he was running late.

  “I could lend a hand,” said Cyrus.

  “Thank you for the offer. But Sholto will be back soon.”

  A few minutes later, Sholto came in, nodded hello to Cyrus, and hurried upstairs. Cyrus finished his touch-ups and got down from the ladder. He was rinsing his paintbrushes when Iris appeared and offered him tea. Cyrus wanted tea, but he didn’t want to sit and have a visit with his sister, who was probably missing her latest protégé, Lonnie. Lonnie would be the last talent for some time, and Iris knew it. But it wasn’t Lonnie himself Iris was grieving for, though the boy had been in her care for most of the seven-year period he’d lived in the valley. What Iris was missing was the faint hope she’d been nursing that, one d
ay, things would be the way they’d been when she was a young woman and the Zarenes had lived at one with the magic. Cyrus didn’t want to talk about this, and he didn’t want to sit feeling as if his thoughts about Canny Mochrie were fish in a pool, lurking in the waterweed, hiding from the prick-eared shadow of a watchful cat.

  As it turned out Iris eyeing his hidden thoughts wasn’t something he had to worry about. As he followed her into the kitchen she stopped suddenly, and he nearly stepped on her heels. She was staring out the window, transfixed by the sight of a tent draped on the clothesline.

  “Oh, the tents were finally found,” Cyrus said, then saw what had his sister so riveted.

  The marks on the dirty white canvas had streaked, so were no longer fully decipherable. They’d been painted in some black pigment, probably ink. All the lines were bleeding, and Cyrus couldn’t tell what the spell had been—but he recognized its remnants as Ideogrammatic sign.

  He stepped up beside Iris and looked at her, curious. She only glanced at him, her eyes blazing. Then she swung on her heel and marched to the foot of the stairs. She called, “Mr. Mochrie! Might I have a word with you?”

  * * *

  SHOLTO HEARD HIMSELF CALLED. He said, “Hold that thought,” to Susan.

  They’d been talking about what might be going on with Sisema.

  Sholto went downstairs and said politely, “Yes?”

  Iris’s face was pale, with two hectic spots on her cheekbones. Her eyes were hooded, but hot with life. “I would like you to fetch your sister. I have some serious things to say to her.”

  “What has she done now?”

  “I mean to speak directly to her about what she’s done. I don’t require a go-between.”

  “Oh Lord, it’s my day for this,” Sholto said, impatient, and stomped upstairs. He hammered on Canny’s door and then flung it open.

  Canny was lying on her stomach, head bent over the now thin pad of her fancy writing set, furiously filling page after page of another letter to Marli. This reminded Sholto that he’d picked up a letter for her at the post office before he put in his call. The letter could wait, he decided. If Canny was about to be told off by their hostess, Marli’s letter could be her consolation.

  “Miss Zarene wants a word with you,” Sholto said. He turned at a touch on his shoulder. It was Susan, looking concerned.

  Sholto said, “You may as well stay out of this, Sue. I’m going to too, as much as I can.” Then, “Get up, Canny, and come hear what Miss Zarene has to say.”

  Canny slipped her feet into her muddy sneakers and followed Sholto downstairs. Or rather, they reached the head of the stairs and he let her walk ahead of him. He saw Canny falter when she saw Cyrus—falter and then square her shoulders as if shaping up for a fight. She turned to Sholto and whispered, “Susan has seen my bee stings. But I didn’t tell her what really happened.” She sounded a little breathless. She grabbed his arm and held him so he’d stop to hear her.

  “Whatever it is, Canny, let’s first listen to what our hostess has to say.” Then, “We’ve got her where we want her, you know. I found the tents, returned to the place we put them. I suppose she now means to tell us we didn’t look hard enough.”

  Canny dropped his arm. She looked at Cyrus and Iris, waiting in the dining room doorway. Her gaze flicked to the front door.

  Sholto was very surprised when his sister launched herself down the stairs, hitting only one step, then the carpet of the hallway. It slid under her foot and bunched up against the stairs. She came down on her knees and then staggered up. She didn’t look at Cyrus, only made a fist and fended in his direction as he tried to grab her. Her fist connected with his shoulder and he reeled back.

  Iris Zarene had both arms up, her wrists swiveling and hands making fiddly movements as if she were finger-knitting thin air. Sholto watched, his mouth hanging open, as Iris stopped gesturing and thrust her hands forward as if shaking off something sticky. Canny ducked and leaped out the front door. The vase of flowers on the reception desk flew into the wall and shattered. A painting dropped off its hook. Sholto would have sworn that his sister hadn’t touched them, was nowhere near them. Had Iris Zarene flung something at his sister? “Hey!” he protested.

  Iris shot him a poisonous look and hurried out onto the porch.

  Sholto ran down the remaining stairs and rushed after her. He jostled roughly with Cyrus, and for a moment they were ridiculously jammed together in the doorway. Then Sholto was free.

  Canny was pelting across the children’s garden—the shortest way to the river track. Sholto shouted her name. Iris set her cupped hands to her mouth and hollered, “Boys! Come here right now.”

  Some boys arrived from the door behind Sholto, one saying, “Excuse me,” to Susan as he knocked her aside.

  “Hey!” said Sholto again—this time in a thunderous roar.

  The boys looked searchingly at Iris, followed her pointing finger, then just took off, without asking anything or having exchanged a word. They gathered into a pack and ran flat-out after Canny.

  Sholto saw his sister look back, hesitate, and then cut away across the fields, running parallel to the river. She put her hand on a fence post and vaulted over it, pushed through the birches planted along the fence line, and disappeared from view.

  The kids paused too, looked back at Iris, who, with hand signals, directed some to follow Canny and others to take the river path—though Sholto couldn’t see how, by going that way, they’d have any hope of heading her off.

  Sholto couldn’t see anything—why his sister was being chased, or why she’d fled.

  She had reappeared, over the horizon of the windbreak, running through a field of kale toward the next fence.

  Sholto suddenly realized that her change of direction and Iris’s instructions to the children to make a flanking movement both pointed to one thing: Canny wasn’t aimlessly fleeing, she was headed toward some particular place of sanctuary, and Iris and the children knew exactly where that place was.

  Cyrus put his fingers in his mouth and let out an earsplitting whistle. In another minute Sholto spotted some more big kids converging on the field Canny was aiming for. They spotted her and sped up.

  “What the hell is going on?” Sholto said, then, very self-conscious and embarrassed—because he was a well-behaved young man—he grabbed Cyrus Zarene’s arm and tugged on it. “Talk to me!” he demanded.

  But the two adult Zarenes only watched the progress of the hunt. They didn’t spare Sholto a glance.

  Susan came up beside him and took his hand.

  Canny was floundering a little now. Not all in, but out of breath. Her shadow was long—it was late in the day—and rippled, because the field had just been mown but the hay hadn’t been raked up yet and was still lying heaped in long rows. Sholto had thought his sister was limping, but she was only slithering on the two different surfaces of stubble and piled hay.

  Susan gasped. Three boys had emerged from the trees Canny was heading toward. They weren’t the same ones Iris had sent to flank Canny, they were bigger boys, twelve-year-olds from Orchard House. Sholto saw that Canny was trapped, with three kids before her and five behind. Iris gave a sigh of satisfaction and said, “Mr. Mochrie. You and I are going to have a serious talk.”

  Susan burst out, “I’m not going to stand by and watch a pack of kids hauling that girl back by her hair! I’m going to get my walking stick and go beat the shit out of them if they lay one finger on her!”

  “They won’t catch her,” said Cyrus softly.

  Iris looked at her brother as if he was being preposterous.

  Canny had come to a halt. She dropped her chin and regarded the boys. Then she jogged toward them, once glancing back to check on the progress of the younger kids. As she came up to them Canny put out her hands and began to do something—something like Balinese finger-dancing. Sholto had a strange recollection of a statue he’d seen, a brass altar statue of the Hindu goddess Kali, with her four arms, dancing in a circle of
fire. He shook his head.

  The boys in front of Canny all tottered to a standstill. They stood rigid and seemed to quiver, as if buffeted by wind. Then one by one they turned, stiff and reluctant, and began to march away from her. They didn’t go together in one direction, but dispersed, and plodded away in three different directions.

  Sholto had no idea what he was seeing.

  Susan, trying her best to make it make sense, said, “What could she have said to them?”

  “That’s the ‘Go,’” Cyrus said, in a hushed way.

  “What’s the go?” Sholto demanded. “What the hell is happening?”

  And Cyrus Zarene told him, “Your sister is using magic like an accomplished magic user with decades of experience, that’s what is happening.”

  “It’s impossible,” Iris said. Then, accusing, “You knew.”

  “As of yesterday I knew,” Cyrus said. “I know she’s been watching our every move. I know she’s evaded the Liars’ Trap at Orchard house. I know she has adapted Lealand’s spell against codling moths and your great misdirection spell from Fort Rock to hide her brother’s tents so she could stay in the valley and continue her efforts to reach the house on Terminal Hill. I’m pretty sure she’s been up there. She has the black light of love in her eyes.”

  Sholto stared at Cyrus, and then at Iris, who was also staring at Cyrus. Iris flushed, and her gaunt face seemed to swell. “Stop her!” she screamed. “Send your bees. Call some to tell the others. I can see dozens in the children’s garden.” She pointed.

  Cyrus’s eyes widened. “Surely you’re joking.”

  “Do I look like I’m joking? We have to put a stop to this now. Once she sees the bees she’ll go hide in the river. She’s not stupid.”

  Cyrus wavered.

  Sholto staggered back from the Zarene siblings. “You’re mad!”

  They ignored him.

  “Make her go to the river. Call your bees.” Iris’s gaze was terrifying, compelling.

  Cyrus went and stood between the rows of lettuces in the children’s garden. He produced a cigarette case from the inside pocket of his vest, took out a cigarette, and tamped its end on the lid of the case. To Sholto, Cyrus looked like a man pausing to weigh what had been asked of him—taking a moment and having a smoke. Then Cyrus lit the cigarette and began puffing quickly and blowing clouds of smoke among the children’s bean vines. Once the still air was full of smoke, Cyrus closed his eyes and raised his hands. He seemed to be conducting an invisible orchestra.