Teeth in the Mist

by Dawn Kurtagich

  “Well,” Poulton says. “Enlightening. I suppose they had a lot of guests.” Poulton walks to the window. “Oh, look! This is the side built into the mountain. Why bother to have a window if the mountain blocks half the light.”

  He looks across the room at her. A pause. “Zoey?”

  He turns the camera on her, but she is frozen, staring into the twin bedroom, eyes darting all over the place. The tendons in her neck strain and her lip twitches.

  Poulton is beside her in a single stride, camera forgotten.

  His muffled voice. “What is it?”

  Silence.

  “Zoey, what is it?”

  “Nothing. Let’s go. I’m done. I’m—hungry. Switch the camera off. It’s enough for today.”

  [End of clip]

  October 25

  I know Poulton didn’t see what I saw or feel what I felt, but I had to get out of that room. We hurried downstairs and he got to work putting on some lunch. But that room… It was covered in little crosses and markings. Tiny. Scratched into the walls. Like for protection or something. And I felt it. As soon as I was in that room, it felt safer than out here. But that’s just in my head. It has to be. Maybe Dad slept in there. Maybe he made the marks.

  Or maybe she did.

  Roan.

  Because according to the floor plans, that was Roan Eddington’s bedroom.

  My notebook is missing. I’m writing in my school planner.

  I blamed Poulton and he’s not speaking to me.

  But who else?

  My stuff’s been riffled through.

  Chapter 21

  UNDER SIDE

  October 26

  Pole didn’t come back last night, but when I woke up he was making breakfast. I found my notebook over by the fireplace. He didn’t exactly rub it in, but I could tell he was thinking, I told you so. I shouldn’t have thought he took it. I don’t know what came over me. I tried to apologize, but he just told me to eat so we did, in silence.

  I’ve sprayed a bucket load of dry shampoo in my hair and put on some deodorant. Feeling more human.

  Eventually, I worked up the nerve. This is our usual thing. I mess up, and then I apologize, and he acts like he forgave me ages ago. It didn’t go like that this time.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “For thinking you took it.”

  “And for going through my stuff like a thief. Like someone who doesn’t believe a thing I say.”

  “Poulton—”

  “No. How long have you known me? You think I’d stoop that low?”

  “No, but I—”

  “And you know what’s worse? That you threw it in my face. The fact that you have private thoughts in that thing that I couldn’t understand.”

  We stared at each other, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “It just shows me what you really think of me. And how little you tell me.”

  He dumped his bowl down and stalked out of the room, and then I heard his footfalls on the stairs.

  Zoey Camera Footage

  Date: October 26

  Zoey holds the camera on herself. Behind her, a narrow door stands open, revealing a black space beyond. The camera shakes as she holds it.

  “This door was locked yesterday,” she says, glancing behind her twice. “And now it’s open. I found it like this when I walked past this morning. I don’t have a key and neither does Poulton. He swears he never touched it and I believe him.” She swallows. “I’m about to take you guys in there with me.

  “On the floor plans this is listed as the study.” She nods. “Right. Let’s go.”

  October 26

  We’ve found something—I don’t really know what. Papers. Drawings. Letters. Even daguerreotypes and old photographs. Weird stuff. And a book. I’m going to photograph as much as I can on my instant camera and put it in here for reference in the order I found it.

  It’s so weird. My biggest question at the moment is—did Dad see this stuff too? Did he get into that room as well? What did he make of it? Did he even get this far?

  I’ve left the papers pretty much how I found them. I’ll catalogue them in my notebook and see if there’s anything of interest. Obviously, I’ll photograph them all, but honestly, they look pretty confused. The writing is hard to make out, but the pages with drawings are easier. The book is something else entirely and asks way more questions than it solves. It’s a diary. And if it’s genuine, then it’s old. Like, fucking OLD; 1500s old, and written by a girl called Hermione Smith. There’s so much to read.

  Poulton is still upstairs in the Hunting Room. I think it’s become his favorite. All the weapons, all those skulls and pelts and horns. I think he’s trying to catalogue them the way I’m cataloguing the papers.

  I’m glad he’s here with me. Even if he’s not talking to me.

  My John is fervent and excited with the work continuing. The wheel is a magnificent thing! Much larger than I had thought, and the supporting spokes have been installed. It is mostly underneath the ground, which I had not expected, with less than half the height peeking above the hole into which it has been built. Now the men quarry and gather rocks for the surrounding walls, and soon the wheel will not be seen at all. I cannot help thinking that once it is covered, the men will feel better, and that my John is not the fool they continue to jest he is.

  I dreamed ill last night. My belly was full with child, so high that I could not see my feet. It moved with life, yet I did not feel a motherly joy. Instead, a red sky rose and I was filled with terror as a black ram looked down upon me. And as the birth pain began, I could hear myself shout and cry with fear—“Baptize the babe! Baptize him!”—and thought my heart would break with fear that my child, my son, would be born damned. The ram watched with hungry eyes and I felt myself damned.

  I have not been able to settle since my dream, nor can I speak aloud of it. I continue to pray to the Lord, our God, but I would feel better could we only attend church, or could I speak with a priest.

  FROM THE DIARY OF

  HERMIONE SMITH,

  13 JANUARY 1584

  October 26

  Something drew me to that bedroom at the end of the second floor corridor in the West Wing again. The twin room with the two narrow beds. I just found myself wandering in there without knowing why. When I blinked, I was standing in front of the Narnia wardrobe. I opened the doors and discovered dresses inside.

  Two different sizes, so I guess two people did sleep in this room. Maybe servants? I couldn’t really tell. The larger dresses are all black, and the other ones are faded grays and browns. I was tempted to put one on, because it looked like they might fit, but then I remembered that these people are dead now and the moment passed.

  But the real find was the box under the lower shelf; a pretty little thing inlaid with mother-of-pearl and closed by a delicate brass clasp. I opened it, expecting jewelry, but instead I found letters. Letters upon letters.

  FROM ROAN EDDINGTON HERSELF.

  I nearly peed myself. They’re all still perfectly intact. This room is like a vacuum, and locked away in the cupboard, the paper hasn’t even yellowed that much at all. It’s surreal. I could have written them, they look so new.

  They look foreign, the script spidery and slanted, written in some other language I couldn’t recognize. Not Welsh, not Latin.

  And then I realized. They are written in reverse script. Like Da Vinci! She wrote them to be kept secret, I think. But, why?

  I used the silvered mirror on the wall to read some of them, looking for an insight into this girl from a hundred or more years ago. Looking for a clue as to how she might be related to my father, or me.

  My God. Touching them is like touching her. I’m going to photograph every single one and put the images in here, but for now, I’m going to transcribe one (right way around, of course!).

  FATHER,

  RAPLEY AND I TALK NOW, OUT IN THE COURTYARD MOSTLY, WHERE THE LOW WALL MARKS THE BARRIER BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN’S WILDNESS. HE DO
ES NOT SAY MUCH, BUT I HAVE LEARNED THAT HE HAS BEEN HERE A LONG TIME. HOW LONG, HE HAS NOT SAID, BUT THE RARE PIECES OF INFORMATION HE PROVIDES ME LEAD ME TO THINK HE KNOWS THIS MOUNTAIN BACKWARD AND FORWARD, UP AND DOWN.

  TO THINK OF REMAINING HERE FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME THAT SHOULD ALLOW ME TO KNOW THE PLACE SO WELL WEIGHS ON ME LIKE A PRISON SENTENCE. THE WEATHER HAS NOT ALLOWED THE POST TO COME THROUGH, AND THOUGH RAPLEY DOES INDEED SOMETIMES GO INTO TOWN, AND ANDREW ALSO, I HAVE NO ONE TO WRITE TO.

  EMMA, SEAMUS, RAPLEY, AND ANDREW ARE ALL THE FRIENDS I HAVE IN THE WORLD NOW. EMMA BEGINS TO FEEL ALMOST AS I WOULD EXPECT A SISTER TO FEEL. HER INJURED LEG CAN NOW BEAR HER WEIGHT, THOUGH I SEE HER WINCE NOW AND AGAIN WHEN SHE THINKS NO ONE IS LOOKING.

  UNTIL MY NEXT LETTER, FATHER.

  YOUR LOVING DAUGHTER,

  ROAN EVELYN EDDINGTON

  Isn’t that weird? She wrote the letters, but never sent them. None of the letters are dated, so I can’t make out any real order, but at least I now know that this room, this exact room, was hers! Dad was right. And a girl called Emma. I supposed they were having a country visit, or taking the country air. Except Roan speaks of her time like a prison sentence. Maybe she had to come here. Maybe she had no choice.

  So, Roan was real. And a girl called Hermione was real.

  How are they connected to my dad?

  And how is this place connected to it all?

  Chapter 22

  THE NOTE

  October 27

  Poulton made breakfast again. It smelled amazing. After days of beans and canned soup, it was just what the doctor ordered.

  “I kept the bacon outside,” he said. “It was cold enough. And they’re powdered eggs.”

  I eventually told him that I lost something yesterday.

  “I didn’t take it,” he said, jerking upright. “I didn’t, Zoey, I swear.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. In that one gesture he looked a bit more like my Pole again. “I know you didn’t. It’s just gone.”

  “What was it?”

  “My heirloom ring. The one that’s been in my family for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

  “What? But you never take that thing off.”

  “Yeah, I know. I noticed last night that it was… gone.”

  I was trying not to cry, but it got harder the more we talked about it. Dad gave it to me before he… well. Before. It was too small for him to wear, but it fit me perfectly. I’ve never taken it off since that day. But it’s just… gone.

  “Zoey, I’m not sure we’re alone.”

  A shiver of ice ran through me.

  “When I woke up this morning, the lights were off again. They had been switched off. The bulbs were cool and the generator was fine—it was switched off too.”

  I looked around the room. Could the shape at the foot of my bed be doing this? Taking my stuff too? Had it followed me here?

  I told him I’d sensed something in the house. Some kind of presence. Fucking idiot I am. He laughed.

  Hard.

  For ages.

  “Zoey! I’m not talking about ghosts here! I think someone might be in the house with us—a real, corporeal human being.”

  I pretended to joke along with him, but honestly I’m hurt. He never believes these things about me. I know he’s a scientist and super-rational, but it makes me feel crazy, and given that my genes might lead me there someday, I’d rather not be treated like I’m crazy now.

  He tried to swallow his smile. “You weren’t joking. I’m sorry. But look, I’ve done this thing. It’s what I was working on yesterday.”

  “With the wires.”

  He grinned and moved closer to me, then talked low into my ear as though he didn’t want to be overheard. “I’ve set up three cameras in the room. Tonight, I’m going to leave them recording and catch our little meddler in the act.”

  “That’s… actually really clever. How’d you do it?”

  He pulled a face. “Do you really want to know?”

  I did not.

  I should have known it was a stupid idea when Pole pulled out a bottle of vodka. And on top of that, he got out a bottle of red wine too.

  “I suppose the trashy vodka is for me?” I said.

  He laughed and pulled out a six-pack of Pepsi.

  “And these?”

  I grabbed the Pepsi cans and took one out, popping it open and taking several long gulps.

  “Oh yeah,” I said through a burp. “S’good.”

  He offered me the vodka. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  “It’s like, what, nine a.m. here?”

  “Noon,” he corrected. Apparently I slept big-time.

  So I took the stupid bottle and poured a little vodka into my Pepsi can. I don’t need to justify myself. I don’t.

  I was on edge. Someone took my notebook, someone took my heirloom ring, my dad doesn’t know who I am, and my mom thinks I’m just as crazy as him. Oh, yeah, and my best friend keeps telling me I’m nutso.

  I drank my vodka and Pepsi and ate the now-cold food he’d prepared and I let the alcohol slowly warm away my worries.

  Dangerous.

  My conscience told me that over and over. I drank more to ignore it.

  Night-Camera Footage

  “Okay, okay,” Poulton slurs. “My turn. Did you hear the one about the red-eyed goat?”

  “No, probably because it’s so bad no one ever tells it except dorks like you!” Zoey and Poulton roll over laughing, Pole’s face turning blue. Eventually he gasps in a breath like a drowning victim and laughs raucously again.

  “Bitch!”

  “The goat with red eyes,” Zoey says, mimicking his tone and affecting the Queen’s English. “I am terrified, darling, terrified. For my mortal soul.”

  “Shutupshrutup! Listen.” He takes a theatrical breath, closing his eyes, and then quickly adds, “Pregnant mouse,” while peeping one eye open at me. “The tale of the red-eyed goat goes like this. Once upon a time, this dude decided it would be a great idea to buy a goat to put in his apartment. He figures, hey, free milk, man, and goat milk is extra creamy, so I get more bang for my buck. I’ll bring in buckets of grass and shit from the park, take the thing for walks in the park, pick up its poop—or not—in the park, and essentially be self-sufficient in the milk department.”

  “Too bad he didn’t think of getting a chicken and a pig. Then he’d have breakfast sorted.”

  “Shh! Anyway, so he goes and buys this cute-ass little baby goat from some dodgy farmer somewhere and brings it home. Needless to say, the goat was a little traumatized at first, but then quickly got used to the cushy environment and made himself quite at home, especially loving the plush carpet and electric fireplace.

  “Every day the bloke would get home from work, hang out with his goat friend, and every morning he’d try to milk the thing before breakfast. Well, no milk, because the goat was a baby. Clearly, duh, so the guy decides to wait. If, he thinks, no milk comes, I can always kill little goat friend and eat the meat. Save the money he spent in that way.”

  “Not cool, Poulton!” Zoey snaps, slapping his arm. “Killing a baby fucking goat? To eat?”

  “It’s not me, it’s this guy! Anyway. So every day he hangs out with his goat, whom he names Go-tee, and they get closer and closer. The guy is sleeping better than he ever has, and he’s less lonely, less grumpy, less of a git, basically. Clearly, right? I mean, he has a goat-friend. Who wouldn’t be delighted by that?

  “Anyway, the goat grows up. And the guy still can’t get any milk out of Go-tee. So, with a heavy heart, he decides that tomorrow, he’s just going to do it. It’s the hunter versus the hunted, blah, blah, blah, circle of life, all that jazz. He’s going to do it.

  “Only, he decides he needs to do it earlier than he would normally get up, because he doesn’t want to frighten Go-tee, and thinks he can just, you know”—Poulton makes a sound as he mimes cutting his throat—“before the little guy even wakes up.”

  “Ew.”

&n
bsp; “So he wakes up at three in the morning and gets out of bed, only to discover that he seems to have killed Go-tee in his sleep. He is covered in blood. He’s so shocked that he actually did it, that he has to find the proof, so he stumbles into the living room, only to see Go-tee sitting in the middle of the floor with the guy’s severed dick in his mouth.”

  “What the fuck, Pole!”

  Poulton can barely contain his laughter, which erupts after every second word. “The goat—looks up—drops—the guy’s dick—and says—‘Sorry, mate, but you stopped producing milk!’”

  “That’s fucking gross!!! Ew!”

  Poulton rolls on the floor, clutching his stomach, roaring with laughter while Zoey gags.

  “You’re so fucking gross. Only a guy would make that shit up.”

  “Thank you,” he says, “thank you very much.”

  “We were supposed to be telling ghost stories.”

  “Well, I figured this one was scary. I mean, imagine a goat biting your dick off and you don’t even know it. Or—or—worse! Imagine a goat sucking your—”

  “THANK YOU.”

  “—with those goat teeth—”

  “Pole! And you totally spaced on the red-eye thing.”

  “Oh. Well, he was evil, wasn’t he?”

  “It had no place in the story. Fail.”

  “You loved it,” he says.

  “Really not,” Zoey argues, though her smile is barely contained. “Dickhead.”

  “See if you can do better, then.”

  “I would, but I’m too drunk to think. I’m going to sleep.”

  She climbs into her sleeping bag and faces away from him.

  “A challenge refused?”

  “Good night, Poulton.”

  “By Zoey Root?”

  “Good. Night.”

  He tuts.