The Flame in the Mist

by Kit Grindstaff

“And the way he looked at Jemma!” Feo’s birthmark darkened.

  “What way?” Jemma said. “I didn’t notice.”

  “I saw it too,” said Shade, “as well as you, trying not to smile at him. Really, Jem-mah, you should know better. He’s as common as muck.”

  “Come, come!” said Nox, slapping his palms on the table. “Today, our words should honor our Ancestors, not be wasted on petty quibbles. Now, the Ceremony. Let us adjourn.”

  “Quite.” Nocturna rose from her chair. Rook flapped onto her right shoulder as she glided toward the door, Shade and Feo marching out behind her.

  Jemma bit her bottom lip. Her father put his arm around her, his cloak draping her shoulders as they trooped behind the others across the hall toward their room of worship. It was some relief that, unlike them, he had always understood her dread of the weekly ritual. He stopped outside the Ceremony Chamber, then turned to face Jemma and took her hands in his.

  “How the years have sped by!” he said, his eyes crinkling. “I can scarcely believe it. You, our little one, just one day from being thirteen. My sweet thirteen!”

  Sweet thirteen! The words from her dream crashed into Jemma’s mind. She gasped, and pulled her hands from her father’s. He frowned slightly, a puzzled expression playing on his face, then ushered her through the great oak doors into the cavernous room.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Scagavay

  The Ceremony Chamber was already stifling, lit by a blazing fire and thirteen black candles ranged across the mantelpiece, which served as the altar. Shadows and light danced on the windowless walls and on the four enormous stone pillars that soared up to the ceiling. Sprigs of hemlock and deadly nightshade were strewn across the hearth and over the huge statues on either side of the fireplace: on the left, brandishing his scythe, was Mordrake, the great Agromond ancestor who had created the Mist some seven hundred years before; and on the right, draped with lizards and wielding a carved bolt of lightning, his wife, the beautiful ferocious-looking Mordana, for whom he’d had the castle built. Jemma had always found them alarming, partly because of their towering height—already small for her age, she felt dwarfed by them. But as much as that, it was because of their names. Only recently had she understood why: Mord, Marsh had explained, was the Frankish word for Death.

  Nine tolls rang out from the Bell Tower as the family settled themselves in the pews. There were four rows in all, a reminder of the days when the Agromond family had been larger. Jemma sat in the second row next to Feo, with Shade on the other side of him. Her father sat in front of her, next to Nocturna, then looked over his shoulder.

  “All right?” he whispered, eyebrows raised. “Don’t you worry, Flamehead. You’ll do splendidly, I know it.”

  Flamehead! He hadn’t called her that in years. His pet name for her used to reassure her, and she wanted reassurance now, desperately. She smiled, but fear gnawed at her like a pack of wolves.

  “That’s my girl.” Nox smiled back and turned away.

  The last toll died down. Nocturna rose to her feet and walked to the fireplace, weasels circling her hemline. “All rise,” she said, raising her hands above her head.

  Jemma, Nox, and the twins stood. Rook fluttered to the altar and landed on a black globe set on one end of it. Nocturna began to turn counter-clockwise, the two pendants around her neck glinting in the firelight, one jet black, one aquamarine, as she chanted the Opening Invocation.

  “South corner, East corner, North corner, West,

  Gathered here at Your behest

  We call upon thee, Lords of Night,

  To keep us ever safe from Light!”

  As always, Nocturna looked as energized by the Invocation as Jemma felt weakened by it. It was a relief to sit again as Nocturna launched into the Fealty: “We honor thee, O Mordrake and Mordana, whose blood flows through us to this great Time of Darkness …”

  Her head bowed, Jemma counted the worm holes on the seat of the pew in front of her: last week, sixteen; this week, twenty-one. Rotting, like everything else here, she thought. Her mind wandered to Tuesday, and Digby’s next visit. Only two days to go—

  “O Mordrake, Mordana!” The family’s rousing bleat snatched Jemma from her daydream. “Beloved founders of our dynasty! In everlasting thanks for the Mist and our continuing supremacy over this our land of Anglavia, accept our Offerings!”

  “Come, Shade,” said Nocturna. “You first.”

  Jemma’s throat tightened as Shade rose from her pew and strutted to Mordana’s statue, bowed and kissed its hand, then walked to her mother’s side and turned to face the pews.

  “All hail, Mordrake, Mordana!” she said. “Behold, the Extinguishing of the Light!”

  Shade drew in her breath, billowing out her chest, and blew. A blast of ice-cold air streaked past the pews, leaving a trail of frost in its wake. It ricocheted off the back wall and returned to the fireplace. Rook, still perched on the black globe, shivered. Ten of the thirteen candles ranged beside him sputtered and died, their flames turned to beads of ice. The middle three remained lit. Shade’s face fell.

  “Suitably chilling, my dear.” Nocturna said, stroking Shade’s hair. “An impressive show.”

  “I wanted to put them all out!” Shade stomped back to her seat. “Just wait. Someday I shall freeze everything.”

  “Of course, dear,” said Nocturna. “Your turn, Feo. Don’t keep us waiting.”

  Feo leapt to his feet and shot Jemma a crooked grin as he loped to the front of the room. Jemma’s dread thickened. Only last year, Feo could barely materialize a worm without it disappearing within seconds, but since his and Shade’s thirteenth birthday Initiations eleven months ago—a secret Ceremony she had been too young to attend, her parents had said—something had changed. Feo’s Offerings had gradually become more sinister. Like in last week’s Ceremony, when at his command every fly in the room had simultaneously stopped buzzing, then dropped dead, pattering to the floor with the sound of a thousand raindrops.

  Feo walked to Mordrake’s statue and reached behind it for something, then stood beside Nocturna.

  “All hail, Mordrake, Mordana!” he said, holding up the object for all to see: a glass jar, full of what appeared to be a tangle of wriggling black string. He unscrewed its lid, grabbed a strand, and extracted a large spider. Dangling it by one hairy leg, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and popped it in. Jemma heard the crunch of its body being ground between Feo’s teeth, and the gulp as he swallowed. He took out another, its legs flailing, and repeated his performance. Then twice more, several spiders at once, until the jar was empty. Each time the pride in Nocturna’s eyes intensified. Each time Jemma’s heart shrank, imagining the spiders’ struggle in Feo’s throat, their pain as his teeth gnashed down on them.

  “Suitably gruesome, Feo,” Nocturna said, patting him on the back.

  “Wait, Mama. There’s more.” Feo closed his eyes and screwed up his face. His diaphragm lurched three times, then he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. One by one, six spiders scurried out and fell to the floor. Relief flooded Jemma. They were alive! But just as the seventh was making its bid for freedom from between Feo’s lips, he clamped his jaws around it, crunched again, gulped, and it was gone. He stamped his feet and squished the other six.

  Nox rose to his feet. “Splendid, my boy!” he boomed, clapping his hands. “Splendid!”

  Nocturna’s eyes shone with delight. Rook cawed, swaying from foot to foot. Shade picked at her fingernails, her face puckered with envy, as Feo swaggered back to his seat.

  Nocturna turned to Jemma, her crimson robes haloed by the firelight behind her, and pulled herself to her full height. “Your turn, Jemma,” she said.

  Heat pressed into Jemma. Sweat dripped from her brow; her dress prickled, her shoes pinched. If only she’d practiced! But it felt so wrong, the things they wanted. It felt—

  “Go on, my dearest,” her father whispered as he sat down again. “I have faith in you.”

 
Jemma’s heart lifted slightly. She could do better than Shade, she knew she could! Surely it wouldn’t hurt to call upon the Mord ancestors just this once, to help her summon some small, cloud-like Entity? Something mildly unpleasant, that she would command to tangle in Shade’s hair? Feo would laugh … her parents would be proud of her.… No more of her mother’s anger, her father’s disappointment! And no real damage would be done, no creature injured; nothing but Shade’s pride. What sweet revenge that would be! She could do it—she would!

  Determined, Jemma walked to her mother’s side, bowed to the statues, then turned her back to the fire and took a deep breath.

  “All Hail, Mord—Mord—” The words stuck like knives in her throat.

  “Yes, dear?” Nox leaned forward in his pew, his eyes ablaze with hope.

  “I um, bring the Offering of … a …” It was no use. Fear had her in its grip.

  “Speak up, Jemma,” Nocturna said.

  “I don’t feel very well, Mama. Please, can’t I …?”

  A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and shattered at her feet.

  “You must do your part in honoring our Ancestors, my dear.” Nocturna cracked a smile, but Jemma saw the danger lurking behind it. Her mother had lashed out at her before, and wouldn’t hesitate to again if Jemma didn’t deliver. Panic rising, she looked at her father.

  “Just do your best, Jemma,” he said softly.

  Jemma’s mind felt trapped in a vise. Shade and Feo’s gazes bore into her, darkness surrounding their pale faces. The room began to fade. Materializing anything, even the merest ant, would be impossible with such anxiety rattling through her. She looked at her knees, willing them not to buckle. There at her feet, long tails twitching, were Noodle and Pie, come to her rescue, as they did every time she was at a loss during the Ceremonies. Raising her head to the ceiling, she waved her arms and squeaked twice. The rats hopped onto the hem of her dress and clambered up to sit on her shoulders, one on each side.

  “Behold,” Jemma croaked. “Rats, from thin air …”

  Silence filled the room. The disapproval on Nocturna’s face made her look as though she had just smelled something vile. The weasels edged out from under the front pew and hissed, baring needle-sharp teeth.

  Shade was the first to speak. “Those disgusting rats again, Jem-mah!” she sneered. “Mama, Papa, make her do something different. She does the same thing every other week!”

  “Yes, come on, Jemma,” Feo urged. “You can do better than that!”

  “I … I could make them fly.…” Jemma mumbled, desperate, and then immediately regretted it. She had tried to make things fly, often, but had only succeeded once, last Wednesday at dinner, when she’d spirited Shade’s bread roll across the table and onto her own plate.

  Nox stood, and strode toward her mother. “I think Jemma has done quite enough,” he said. “We mustn’t exhaust our daughter, Nocturna”—he lowered his voice—“must we?”

  Nocturna inhaled. “Of course not.” she said. “Jemma, sit.”

  Jemma staggered to the end of her pew, grateful for her father’s intervention, and slumped down. Noodle and Pie nuzzled into her neck.

  “Don’t bring those revolting creatures near me,” said Shade, her voice trembling as she shifted away.

  “They’re just rats, Shade,” said Feo. “What are you so afraid of?”

  Jemma stroked Noodle and Pie. She had never understood her sister’s terror of them—there seemed to be nothing else Shade feared—but she was thankful for it. With the rats nearby, Shade kept her distance.

  Clang!

  Nine-thirty.

  “And now, children,” Nox said. “The time has come for your mother’s and my Offering. Today, we have a surprise for you: the summoning of a new Entity. One that promises to be more inspiring than ever!”

  Shade and Feo exchanged excited glances. Jemma began to tremble. The Entities: it was they that made her feel so drained, stirring a deep terror in her that she dreaded more than anything. It’s just fear getting the better of you, her father always said. You must learn to overcome it. But his words never helped.

  “This,” Nox continued, “is a special event that, as decreed in our ancient Mord tradition, must take place shortly before the coming-of-age of the youngest Agromond. And as we all know, tomorrow our beloved Jemma will turn thirteen—”

  “Yes, yes, Nox,” Nocturna said. “The herbs, if you please.”

  Nox held Jemma’s gaze as he tossed back his cloak and pulled the packet Digby had brought from inside his waistcoat. He untied it and gathered a fistful of foliage.

  “Wolfum malificarum!” he said, throwing it onto the fire with a flourish. It fizzed and crackled, puffing out bile-green smoke. He and Nocturna closed their eyes, their faces in rapt concentration. They shook; their bodies stiffened. Then their eyes shot open and rolled back into their heads until only the whites were visible. The two pendants around Nocturna’s neck pulsed in the firelight, blood-red, aquamarine, blood-red.…

  Entranced, she and Nox began to chant, their voices low and ominous:

  “Morda-Morda-Morda-lay,

  You who keep’st the sun at bay,

  Send to us on this Your day

  Your favored phantom, Scagavay!”

  Nocturna’s pendants gleamed brighter. Waves of weariness washed through Jemma.

  “Morda-Morda-Morda-lay,

  You who keep’st the sun at bay,

  Send to us on this Your day

  Your favored phantom, Scagavay!”

  The black globe on the mantel seemed to throb in time with the words, like a giant heart. Nocturna’s pendants looked illuminated from within. Jemma’s head spun.

  “Morda-Morda-Morda-lay …”

  The fire shimmered and flared, shimmered and flared again, then faded as if being inhaled by the grate. The room plunged into chill. Then the fire leapt up again, throwing her parents’ shadows across the vaulted ceiling like enormous birds of prey. Smoke curled from the flames, stinking of rotten flesh. Suddenly, with an ear-splitting roar, a black mass spewed from the fireplace. Rook was propelled into the air, flapping frantically. Noodle and Pie scrambled inside the front of Jemma’s dress. Feo, his face chalk-white, sat wide-eyed, biting his lips. The weasel on his lap fled under the pew next to its three companions; a yellow puddle appeared beneath them. Shade sat transfixed. Jemma felt the rest of her strength being sucked out of her.

  This was worse than any Entity they’d summoned before. Far worse.

  The black mass curled across the mantel and around each statue, then coalesced above Nox and Nocturna’s heads. They fell to their knees, hands raised.

  “Scagavay!” they said in unison. “Mord be praised! We have called, and you have come!”

  Scagavay pulsed as if breathing, then suddenly sprang into the shape of a huge open-mouthed face. A sound like a thousand screams spilled from it into the room. Jemma felt as though her bones were ice, freezing her from inside. She knew that sound—had heard those screams before, in her dreams. Then they had been distant, echoey, as if from some long-ago time. But this was loud, and utterly soul-chilling, just like the Mist had been in this morning’s dream, threatening to engulf her.…

  “No,” she whispered. “No …” She willed her words to the rats. Noodle, Pie … Forgive me … if I could just borrow your strength … Just a spark, to get me moving …

  The two lumps in her bodice stirred, and Jemma felt the faintest glimmer of energy pulsing from the rats into her veins. She hauled herself to her feet and backed away from the black tendrils snaking toward her. One step … Now she knew what those flies struggling to peel themselves off the fly paper in the kitchen must feel like. She turned to the door. Two steps, three … The screams subsided. Four, five, six … Her bones felt warmer, lighter. Seven, eight, nine … Then she was running, and slammed into the huge carved door. Glancing over her shoulder, she was surprised to see that Scagavay had vanished. Her parents and the twins looked bewildered. Her mother�
��s pendants had lost their luminosity and now lay against her chest, dull and ordinary.

  “Jemma …” Nocturna’s voice sounded almost pleading. “Wait …”

  With one final burst of effort, Jemma pulled open the door and fled from the room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Port in a Storm

  Jemma ran across the hall and into the stairway leading to the kitchen below. Halfway down, she paused for breath, heart beating like the wings of a caged bird. Claws needled her chest—the rats, scrabbling beneath her bodice. She pulled them out and they hung from her hands, their golden fur sleek with her sweat, ruby eyes wild and unblinking.

  “Noodle, Pie, thank you, thank you! You saved me again.” Jemma pulsed what energy she could back into them, then placed them onto the stone step. They teetered into a nearby crevice and she hurtled down the remaining stairs, one thought blazing in her mind: to reach Marsh. She set off along the corridor toward the Vat Room, where she knew her trusted confidante would be, washing the laundry as she did on every Mord-day. Marsh would help her. She always did.

  Jemma’s footsteps echoed off the dank, torch-lit walls. The low ceiling, black with mold, glistened and blinked like spying eyes. Shelves lined with large jars of grotesque-looking pickles and preserves—huge limb-like gherkins, yellow peppers like twisted mandrakes—seemed to advance and recede. The horrific howl of moments ago still filled her head, and she imagined Scagavay pursuing her, seeping out of every crack in the walls, suffocating her.… She increased her stride.

  How many times had she made an adventure of exploring these corridors, imagining herself to be a rebel fleeing for her life, or a warrioress rescuing prisoners from years of captivity? Now, the peril felt all too real. She sped past herb hutches and hanging entrails, and into the kitchen, praying that the revolting Drudge wouldn’t be there—that would be too much. But halfway across, his stooped shadow shuffled from the Corridor of Dungeons. He thrust out a spindly hand, his fingernails snagging the sleeve of her dress as she passed.