Autumn

by Lisa Ann Brown

  Arabel’s decision was taken from her as the man spied her upon the horse and he shouted out to her and began to wave one of his bright, yellow clad arms in a frantic greeting.

  “Hello!” he yelled at her. “Miss, please stop!”

  Arabel slowed Whipsie to a canter and moved toward the man, keeping sure to maintain a proper amount of distance so she could flee easily, should flight be warranted. Arabel could see the man was limping now; he must have injured his foot as he markedly favoured his right one over his left. The man’s dirt streaked face gave him a look of a sad and lonely tramp and his eyes were clouded with an uneasiness that took Arabel’s breath away.

  “Thank you for stoppin’, young miss! I’ve injured me foot and need to get to Magpie Moor; any chance you’d be so kind as to help out a stranger?”

  The tramp’s voice was more melodious than Arabel would have figured and his manner was subdued, almost reverential. Arabel could see the pain pulsing overtop his head and she watched the pulsing for a moment, transfixed by the odd, orange cloud hovering over him. Arabel felt no dangerous energy emanating from the stranger and she did not think he meant her harm.

  “Who are you and where are you coming from?” Arabel queried.

  “My name’s Jonty Governs and I’ve just left the Gypsies down at Ravenswood Glen,” the small man said and Arabel realized she was not the least bit surprised that it would be she to come across the wanted thief.

  “You’re been missing for the last few months and are wanted for questioning,” Arabel pronounced and Jonty nodded solemnly, casting his eyes downward, shutting them briefly.

  “I never hurt that young woman,” he said softly. “I never met her in me life!”

  Arabel stared into his eyes, hard. “Why do they think you murdered her?”

  “I dunno,” he replied miserably. “I’ve never been one for violence, y’know?”

  “You’re a ‘shuckster’ I believe, is the term,” Arabel said, recalling the words Eli’s parents had used to describe Jonty and his misdeeds.

  Jonty hung his head. “Miss, I haven’t always been the most honest man about town but I never killed no one! I’m a salesman, I am, just trying to make a livin’ in hard times.”

  “Why are you running then? Why don’t you stay to answer their questions? Get this all settled,” Arabel asked.

  “Well, miss, I ain’t never killed no one, like I said, but y’know, there might be a score or two some folks want to settle with me and I reckon I’d best just leave town rather than stay and get lynched.”

  Strangely, Arabel believed him. This man seemed to have no small amount of fear running through his veins and she sensed that an unabashed cowardice filled his body. Jonty did not seem to have the evil core necessary to commit murder or rape. It was clear that Jonty was a small time shuckster, a snake oil salesman, a petty thief and criminal. He did not share the dark energy force of the grey eyed man.

  “Come on, then,” Arabel said and offered him a hand up onto Whipsie’s back.

  Ira, the crow, cawed excitedly, and turned around on Arabel’s shoulder so that it could keep its beady eyes fixed squarely upon Jonty.

  “Thank you, miss, thank you! And where might you be headed?” The relief poured off of the thief in tangible waves.

  “We’re off to Magpie Moor,” Arabel replied,” and don’t even think of pulling any tomfoolery,” she continued glibly, “or my crow will poke out your eyes!”

  Jonty shuddered and Ira let out another good natured caw to second the threat. Arabel smiled to herself as she urged Whipsie back onto the path toward Magpie Moor. Arabel had the definite feeling that events were quickly lining up to reach some grand conclusion. Although too many details were still obscured by unknown factors, at least the path to clarity somehow seemed less shrouded within the mists of secrecy.

  Arabel could sense the energy of Lady X, or Alice-May Marpole, as they called her, hovering around her. Arabel swore the ghost spoke to her; she seemed to call out softly, “Hurry, hurry,” and Arabel urged Whipsie forward into the forest, heeding the dead girls call.

  An Echo Within

  Jonty Governs was a weasely coward, Arabel decided.

  After spending the last two hours on horseback with the man, she’d come to a fairly solid conclusion as to what defined his character. Arabel found that despite the bright, sunny yellow of his jacket, the man himself was definitely beige of personality and black of honour. There might have been a core of honest decency deep inside of him somewhere, but if there was, it was buried so firmly under years of self-deceptive behaviour and layers of self aggrandizement that Arabel could not sense it there at all.

  Jonty was a showman, a joker, a ne’er do well, however, a murderer he was not.

  “I only took the gold and the horses so’s I could care for me ailing mother,” he was saying now and Arabel imagined that if she turned around he would be wringing a hanky in supposed distress, while his eyes told a sharper story.

  “She passed only last month,” he continued, his voice trailing off sadly for effect.

  “Who’s been hiding you?”

  “Hiding me? Oh, d’you mean, where’ve I been stayin’? Well, I was at mum’s mostly-“

  “No, you weren’t,” Arabel interrupted bluntly. “You were missing, vanished, and your mother was questioned. In fact, you might be pleased to note, she was very much alive last week.”

  Jonty let out a huge cry of turmoil as Ira, the crow, pecked at him sharply.

  “Call off your crow!” Jonty cried, shielding his face from the angry bird. “Call off the damn bird!”

  “Ira!” Arabel spoke firmly. “Lay off, now,” and the bird settled back complacently upon her shoulder. She gave a quick stroke to its ruffled feathers.

  “I’ll tell the truth, I swear,” Jonty said now, wiping his brow with his sleeve, “Just keep that thing away from me,” he motioned to Ira and Arabel smiled to herself.

  “I had me a caravan hidden down by Potter’s Creek, just to the north side there, away from the Priory. No one comes down there much and I’d been fillin’ up on supplies all through spring. I got buyers lined up for the horses I took from the Gypsies and once I’d unloaded ‘em, it was time for Jonty Governs to retire. Yup, that’s right, I thought t’ wait it out, just wait ‘til the Gypsies forgot what I looked like and I could pass meself off as someone else in town. ‘Course, that was before old Nick Chauncer saw me.”

  “Who’s Nick Chauncer?” Arabel questioned.

  “Oh, Nicky and me, we go a-ways back. He worked with me on the magic show, mostly crowd control, settin’ up, calmin’ ‘em down if they got too hepped up, that sort of thing. He was good with people, a fellow Gypsy. They trusted him, so he’d go into the crowd and talk me up, y’ know, make ‘em think I was better than I actually was.”

  “I can see where you might require some help with that,” Arabel said darkly but her barb was lost on Jonty.

  “Nicky spotted me when I was washin’ up in the creek,” Jonty continued, his voice turning slightly bitter. “He knew what I’d done a course, and he wanted money to keep quiet. I told him there wasn’t any t’ be had. He threatened to go to the Gypsy council or over to Chief Constable Bartlin. I asked him why he’d throw over a friend and he said he reckoned I weren’t no friend of his.”

  “What did you do to alienate him?”

  “Well, then, here’s the rub, I just dunno. When I asked him, he took a good swing at me; so I ran.” Jonty chuckled, without any humour, remembering. “He never did have very good lungs so I outran him, easy, and he hadn’t seen the caravan. But the jig was up and I knew I’d have t’ find a new spot for meself.”

  Arabel saw the lights of the Rosewood Inn in the distance and she wondered what to do with Jonty.

  “What were you doing in the forest where I found you? And where’ve you been staying since Nick saw you?”

  “I’ve been in Magpie Moor with me caravan but yesterday I went to see me mum,” Jonty touched Ara
bel’s shoulder briefly, entreating her. “I swear! And then I heard a second girl’d been found dead and me name was comin’ up. I took leave, straight-a-ways, but the horse went lame and I stumbled over some damn root and hurt me foot. I was sure they’d find the damn horse and know it was one of the stolen ones, so I left her.”

  Jonty paused in his story, and glanced around at the Rosewood Inn. “And here we are, missy, back where I needs to go. You can let me go now, I’ve told you all I know and I never killed that girl, I’ll swear to it.”

  “Not so fast, Jonty Governs,” Arabel retorted as she urged Whipsie over the cackling bridge. “I’m not done with you quite yet.”

  “I been honest with you, miss, even told you me real name! Now if I’d a been trying to pull one over on you, don’t you think I would’ve lied?”

  There was some logic to the thief’s assertion and Arabel was slightly amused, despite the fact she was absolutely certain that Jonty was not to be trusted, not even one measly iota.

  “Perhaps,” Arabel remarked, “but as long as you’re in hiding, the Chief is going to organize a manhunt to find you, and when you’re found, well, let’s just say, I wouldn’t want to be you.”

  They had reached the stables now and a stable boy came out immediately to relieve Arabel of Whipsie. Jonty dismounted after Arabel and stood there, clutching his big black hobo bag to his chest. The small thief turned his most pleading expression upon Arabel, all sorrowful eyes and practiced remorse.

  “I can’t stay around and get caught, neither, miss; the Gypsies’ll have me hide if they find me.”

  Arabel sighed. She really did not know what to do with the man – turn him in? Set him loose? The thing was, she believed in his innocence. He wasn’t a killer. But as long as everyone believed that he was, the real killer was literally getting away with murder.

  “Let’s talk it out over a meal,” Arabel decided and firmly took Jonty’s arm to lead him inside of the inn. The crow, Ira, called out a hoarse goodbye and flew upward toward the roof of the inn.

  Once inside the cosy lobby Arabel found that the Rosewood Inn was the same as it had been a few days ago with one large exception – it now dealt firmly in the currency of fear. The proprietor looked somewhat haggard, as if he’d been up all night, or for a few nights running, and he greeted them with a slightly less enthusiastic welcome than she remembered from the last time.

  Arabel booked a room for herself and then she and Jonty went straight through to the dining room. It was not very busy and they were led to a nice table close to the fire, for which Arabel was incessantly grateful.

  “Now,” she said, as she removed her voluminous black cape and settled in, “let’s finish this tale.”

  Jonty sighed, as if he were some long-suffering friend inconvenienced momentarily out of misplaced duty, and Arabel sensed a growing sneakiness about him. She knew he would disappear from her sight at the first available opportunity. She didn’t intend on giving him that option, at least not yet.

  A polite male server brought them water and a pot of fresh steaming tea as they perused the menu and then placed their orders. Jonty glanced around the room, as if expecting someone. Or planning a getaway. He glanced at Arabel almost apologetically.

  “Isn’t this where the girl went missin’ from?” Jonty asked, a quiver of either fear or excitement colouring his voice.

  “Yes, Klara disappeared from here,” Arabel replied.

  “Hmm,” Jonty said, shrugging, “now who’d wanna place the blame on these poor shoulders? Maybe someone knew I was hiding out hereabouts. Maybe someone like Nicky. Someone wantin’ to frame me.”

  “It’s possible,” Arabel agreed, “but why would anyone want to involve you unless you were already a known party to the crimes being committed?”

  Jonty snorted. “I told you, miss, about the misdeeds of mine, and those are all I can be held accountable for!”

  Arabel didn’t believe him. She hoped clarity would visit her and that her thoughts would become focused, but questions abounded, and she wasn’t certain she was asking him the right ones.

  “Who do you know in Magpie Moor?”

  “No one, miss. I just been hidin’ out, like I said, keeping to meself.”

  “Where were you getting food from then?”

  “I stocked up last spring, when I knew I was gonna pull this job, and if I need somethin’ I don’t have, well, I just go out and find it.”

  “You steal it, you mean.”

  Jonty smirked. “I take what I need,” he replied, and Arabel could’ve sworn he was actually proud of himself.

  Their meals were placed in front of them and Arabel eagerly consumed her carrot and ginger stew and helped herself to a piece of the fragrant rosemary and thyme bread that the server placed on the table in front of them in a steaming basket. Jonty had ordered a pasty and Arabel was dismayed to find that he was not a gracious eater. Arabel had to look away so she didn’t get repulsed as the thief piled the food into his mouth and gulped down his tea noisily and appreciatively.

  They didn’t speak while they ate and Arabel was glad. To see Jonty with food practically falling out of his mouth while speaking would have turned her stomach and she needed the warm fuel of the vegetable stew. She looked around the room as they ate and noticed again that the air seemed charged with tension and fear. It was a palpable sensation. Arabel recalled how dark the mood had become when they were searching for Klara, and she knew that the hostile energy would latch onto any available current of fear.

  “You realize that while everyone is looking for you, the real killer could be sussing out another victim?” Arabel tried to engender a sense of responsibility in Jonty.

  “That may be so, miss, but they’d likely lynch me as soon as talk t’ me,” Jonty replied, and Arabel had to concede he could be correct.

  “Where will you go?” she asked, resigned now to the fact that she had no authority to keep him, and unless she wanted to turn him in immediately – which she was still undecided over – there was not much left to discuss.

  A sly look perched upon the thief’s face. “Don’t know, miss, but I’ll need to move the caravan straight-a-ways, further back into the wilds, I reckon.”

  Arabel had a strong, sudden inkling that she needed to let Jonty go – he would be bait for the killer. Arabel wasn’t certain how she knew this, but it was one of her intuitive flashes of insight. It felt urgent.

  “Alright,” she said to the slight man sitting at the table with her, “you can go, and I won’t turn you in, but I want something in return.”

  The thief eyed her suspiciously.

  “What d’you want?” he asked.

  “I need to know how to find you; both for your safety and my piece of mind,” Arabel replied, watching the man closely.

  Jonty looked as if he were about to laugh in sheer, dumb relief, obviously thinking he was rid of her forever once the meal was finished.

  He thinks I’m such a fool, Arabel mused to herself.

  “Well now, that’s mighty fine o’ you missy,” Jonty said and Arabel realized she hadn’t yet told him her name, nor had he asked her for it. She decided he didn’t need to know.

  Their meal finished, Arabel and Jonty got to their feet. Jonty put his bright yellow slicker back on, fastening the ties around his throat to keep the hood in place. He fished within his pockets, coming up empty handed.

  “Would y’ look at that,” he remarked, feigning both sheepish surprise and dismay, “looks like I left all the sovereigns at me mum’s!” Jonty flashed a quick, sly smile at Arabel. “Would you be so kind as to take care of my chit?”

  Arabel shook her head in disbelief. Jonty Governs was beyond anything she’d ever dealt with before.

  “My crow will follow you,” Arabel announced, “so I will know where you go. And when I need you, you will make yourself re-appear.”

  The thief nodded enthusiastically; Arabel could see him calculating in his head just how much longer she’d keep him captive
in the warm confines of the dining room.

  “Thank you miss, you’re most obligin’,” Jonty said, fake sincerity dripping from his tone. He gave Arabel a small bow before backing away hastily toward the door. Arabel watched him go and hoped Ira would follow. She sent the bird a brief telepathic message she hoped it would interpret correctly and made her way to the server to settle their bill.

  Arabel was shown to her room and was pleased to find that it was a non-haunted room painted in soft blue and green with a rosewood desk, dresser and matching bed frame. A deep-set window seat delighted her and Arabel went to it immediately to peer out the double windows. In the distance, just crossing over the small bridge, she spied Jonty hot-footing it to the bushes, with Ira squawking loudly over his head. Arabel laughed; she could not have been happier with Ira, her pet crow, her black and blue feathered familiar.

  Arabel wasn’t sure what to do next so she decided to go down to the lobby and question the proprietor to see what developments had taken place in the last couple of days. Likely there would be other guests milling about the lobby and she could get an impression of them as well. There was something here that she was missing. She could feel that whatever it was she was seeking was just out of sight, just past her peripheral vision; it was slightly slipping away from her, close enough to sense, but not close enough to understand.

  Arabel shook off her pensive thoughts and quickly washed and changed from her brown riding habit into one of the two gowns she’d brought along with her for the trip. The frock was a fitted, emerald green satin with a scooped neck, a narrow cinched and belted waist, and a long elegant train. It was quite possibly Arabel’s prettiest dress, and it suited her like no other she possessed.

  Arabel fastened simple jade earrings in her ears, one of her only physical reminders of her mother, and added a matching jade necklace with gold knots. Every time Arabel wore her mother’s jewellery, she felt her spirit close, as if the stones held a reflection of their previous owner’s energy, one that could be transferred through the wearing to another person.