The Foxfire Lights

by Elizabeth O'Connell

  He tied off the bandage, and looked up at me, the expression gone from his face. “Never mind. Just—think before you do things, in the future.”

  There was a knock at the door and the maid came in, carrying a tray upon which rested a steaming mug. Hal took it and thanked her, and handed the mug to me. It had the same licorice smell that the tea had—but much, much stronger—and I could smell sage and something else in it as well. I took a tentative sip and choked—it was far more bitter than I had expected, and the herbs did not mingle well. I might as well have taken a handful of herbs from the garden and simply stuffed them into my mouth.

  “Finish that and get some rest,” Hal said, looking mildly amused. “We’ll have work to do in the morning.”

  I grimaced and poured the tonic down my throat; it left an unpleasant aftertaste on my tongue. But between it and the ointment, the pain in my arm was all but gone, and I was beginning to feel drowsy. I lay back against my pillows, and Hal made for his own room. Just before he reached the door, I remembered something, and sat up.

  “Hal?” I said, and he turned, eyebrows raised. “I forgot to ask—did you find anything?”

  He frowned, pulling his pipe from his pocket. He lit it and tamped down the tobacco, without looking at me. “Perhaps. It was difficult to tell in the dark—but I believe I found something of significance. We shall have to return in the morning.”

  He left, shutting the door behind him, and I lay back down. I was exhausted, and the tonic was muddling my thoughts, but I could not fall asleep—my mind was racing around everything that had happened. I had made a dreadful mess of things, I knew that—I had chosen quite possibly the worst way to convince Hal to share anything with me. To have taken such a risk, and learned only what he already knew—I pressed my face into the pillow.

  And behind that, worrying at the back of my mind, were the hollow eyes of the spirit—its spectral hand reaching out for me. My stomach twisted, remembering the terrible pain when it had touched me, and I tucked my arm against my chest. I closed my eyes, but all I could see was that hand, wrapping itself around my wrist—and the look on Hal’s face when I had said we would break the curse.

  But the tonic eventually muddled all these thoughts out of consciousness, and I drifted into a fitful sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I was awakened by being called down to luncheon; evidently I had slept through breakfast. I hastily dressed and splashed a bit of cold water on my face. My arm felt a great deal better—the welt had died down to a faint red mark, and it didn’t hurt at all. I went down to the dining room, and found my brother already at table, along with Lord Ransom—and, rather to my surprise, Lady Ransom.

  Hal looked rather grim—his face was pale and he was surrounded by a hazy cloud of smoke. It looked as though he hadn’t slept well, if at all. Lord Ransom looked even worse—disheveled and grey-faced, his eyes rimmed by dark circles. He had a mug of Mrs. Forsythe’s tonic at his elbow. Beside him, Lady Ransom was pale and remote, her large eyes dark and sad. I joined the melancholy little party, taking a seat beside my brother.

  “My husband was telling me that his son sent you all on a—a goose chase, is it?” Lady Ransom said, plucking at her napkin. “It does not surprise me. That is the sort of thing which amuses him.”

  “Isabella,” Lord Ransom said, his voice hoarse and thin. “I am sure Matthew meant no harm.”

  “Are you?” Her dark eyes rested on her husband. “I am certain of the opposite.”

  “He is very—he is excitable,” Lord Ransom said, running a hand over his forehead. “It is—it is not something that he can help.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lady Ransom said, her voice mocking. “Poor child—he is ill. And yet he does a very good job getting you all to dance attendance upon him. He has stolen your attention away once more—even with Alberto still missing!”

  “We were searching for Albert,” Lord Ransom said. He rubbed his forehead once more and took a drink from the mug of tonic, making a face as he swallowed. “It is not Matthew’s fault we did not find him.”

  Hal frowned around his pipe. “Just as I supposed we would not. There is something of interest in that mire, however.”

  Both Lord and Lady turned to him with expressions that suggested they had forgotten our presence entirely, and Lady Ransom’s brows drew together.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “What is there? Can it—can it help you find my child?”

  “Perhaps,” Hal said. He turned to Lord Ransom. “Jack Forsythe told me of what happened to your ancestor—and I wanted to see the place for myself.”

  “My ancestor?” Lord Ransom said, his voice dry. He took a long drink of tonic before continuing. “What on earth could my ancestor have to do with this?”

  “That remains to be seen,” Hal said, tamping down tobacco in his pipe. “Nevertheless, there are two things of interest—one I must observe again before I may draw any sort of conclusion. As for the other—we have encountered the spirit once more.”

  He recounted for them what had happened to me, and what the spirit had told me—though he omitted any mention of my having been marked by the spirit. When he had finished, Lord Ransom was staring at him, quite pale—but Lady Ransom frowned.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “What does this mean—‘bound by flesh and blood and bone’?”

  “It means—it means our family, Isabella,” Lord Ransom said, his voice shaking. “Three relatives—am I correct?”

  “That is my understanding of it,” Hal said, blowing out a puff of smoke. “And it suggests to me that perhaps Matthew was neither lying nor hallucinating—he may very well have seen the spirit in truth.”

  Lord Ransom made a choking noise. “Is he—does this mean that he is in danger also?”

  “He may well be,” Hal said. “I should like to speak to him again, that I may satisfy myself whether he saw the spirit or not.”

  “That is fair,” Lady Ransom said. “But he is a dreadful liar—I do not know whether you should be able to tell . . .”

  “No,” Lord Ransom said, slapping a hand on the table. Lady Ransom jumped, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “You mustn’t—do you know what a state he was in last night? If he is in danger—surely you may resolve it without his help. Just—my God, just leave the boy alone.”

  Hal regarded him coolly for a moment, smoke curling up from his pipe. “Very well. For the time being, at least, we need not trouble him. But I shall have to speak to him eventually—if nothing else, to determine whether he truly is in danger.”

  Lord Ransom ran both hands over his face. “Just—let him rest, first. That is all I ask.”

  Hal nodded, and the rest of the meal passed in silence. When we had finished, I followed Hal out of the dining room.

  “What is this thing of significance?” I said, as we walked out into the passage.

  “I am not certain what it is,” he said. “But it surely bears some relationship to our case. We shall go and have another look at it.”

  We took our coats in the entryway, and then stepped out into the crisp air outside. It was a clear afternoon, with a slight chill breeze, and I pulled up the collar of my coat. The coat pulled at the bandage on my injured arm, and I winced slightly.

  Hal frowned at me. “Is your arm still troubling you? The ointment ought to have helped.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It—it feels much better this morning.”

  The frown did not leave his face, but he nodded. We trudged down into the valley, toward the mire, Hal striding along ahead of me with his hands in his pockets and the pipe sending smoke curling about his head. I had a curious sense of déjà vu as I followed behind, and it knotted up my stomach with dread. I rubbed at my forehead, pushing the thought aside.

  “All right?” Hal said, and I looked up to see that he had stopped, and was watching me.

  I nodded. “Just a bit of a headache, that’s all.”

  He turned and continue his purposeful stride over t
he mire, picking his way over the rocks as though he had walked it a hundred times, while I stumbled behind, mindful of my footing on the slick stones. After we had walked for what seemed hours, a smell began to rise up—the sickly smell of decay, of plants left to rot—a stench of still, foul water. It sent the bile up into my throat, choking me, and I coughed.

  Hal stopped short. “This is it—this is the place.”

  I looked up. Just past my feet, there was a jagged circle of black—like an oil slick laid atop the mire, save that it did not reflect the sun at all—so black that when I blinked again it looked not so much like a pool as a hole. I stepped toward it, despite the sickening smell—I was seized by the strong compulsion to touch it—to see how far down it went.

  Hal grabbed the back of my coat. “That’s far enough.”

  I blinked, looking down at my feet, and saw that I stood at the very edge of the pool. I stepped back, shivering, and my arm gave a sudden twinge.

  “What—what is it?” I said, my mouth dry. “How did it come to be here?”

  Hal crouched down next to the pool, smoke curling up from his pipe. “What it is, I can’t be certain. As for how it came to be here—that I have some idea of.”

  I frowned at him. “What do you mean? If you don’t know what it is, how can you know why it’s here?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You do have a mind, Jem. Try to use it.”

  I felt my cheeks flush, a hot rush of anger coursing through me. “Look, I know that I was stupid last night—but don’t you think you’ve lectured me enough? I’m not . . .”

  He waved a hand morosely. “That isn’t—you can see the facts as well as I do. Why don’t you try puzzling them out for yourself?”

  “But you don’t tell me anything,” I said, not mollified in the least. “You have all these ideas and theories and—and you never let me in on them. How am I supposed to—how could I have known that you knew already?”

  “What are you talking about?” he said, frowning around his pipe. “What did I know already?”

  “What the spirit said.” I looked away from him. “If you’d told me what you knew—I wouldn’t . . .”

  “But I didn’t know,” he said. “I merely suspected. In any case—you ought to have known better. You can’t hold me responsible for . . .”

  He cut himself off, staring into the pool, and there was a long moment of silence. I shifted my feet uncomfortably, and drew my coat tighter against the cold.

  “I don’t,” I said, finally. “I mean—I know that I was stupid. But I wanted to show you that—that I could do something.”

  He sighed, running a hand over his forehead. “Then you have missed the point. It is not about doing anything—it is about thinking.”

  “And what am I meant to think on?” I said. “These theories you won’t tell me?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “I want you to come up with theories of your own. That’s—I’m meant to be teaching you, after all.”

  I blinked at him. “My own theories? But—I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  He gestured toward the pool. “Begin here. What do you make of it?”

  I sighed, crouching down next to the pool. The smell hung heavy close to the ground, like a miasma, and I put my sleeve against my nose. “It smells like rot.”

  He cast his gaze up to the heavens, as though beseeching them for help. “Yes. So much for the obvious. What else?”

  “I haven’t begun yet,” I said, scowling. I closed my eyes, dropping the sleeve from my face, and the sickly, rotten odor of the pool crept through my nose, filling my lungs—the dark, slippery magic twisting around my insides. “It’s certainly magic—and very like the magic in Albert’s room. But there’s—there’s something odd about it.”

  “Odd?” Hal said. “How so?”

  I pursed my lips together, without opening my eyes, and focused. It was that same smell—like rotting plants, left to stand—but there was a deeper smell, must and dirt—the smell of the bog, but magnified a hundred times.

  “It’s older,” I said at last, opening my eyes. “It feels older. But otherwise—it’s the same.”

  “Hm,” he said, rubbing his chin. “The same spell, but older. What else?”

  “I don’t—is it connected to Albert?” I said. “How?”

  He waved a hand. “I should be very surprised if it was not connected—that would be far too much of a coincidence. As for how it is connected—you are getting ahead of yourself.”

  I frowned, staring down into the pool. I didn’t know what else Hal expected me to say—I could tell that the spell was the same, but I couldn’t possibly have read the name of the spirit or of the caster in the spell. I shook my head.

  “That’s it,” I said. “There’s nothing else to tell.”

  He sighed. “About this particular piece, perhaps not. But what else do we know?”

  I chewed at my lip a moment, not understanding what he meant—then I remembered why he had wanted to come out here in the first place. “This—this is where Lord Ransom’s ancestor died.”

  “Yes,” he said, blowing out a puff of smoke. “And what do you think of that?”

  I sat back on my heels, rubbing at my forehead. My head was beginning to throb, and it was getting harder to think. “I don’t—perhaps some sort of family curse?”

  “Perhaps.” He stared broodingly into the pool, pipe smoke curling about his head. “Yes, that is one possibility.”

  I looked back down at the pool, pressing my sleeve against my nose once more. The smell was making my head throb and my stomach churn, and I felt rather light-headed. I pushed myself to my feet, blinking back a wave of dizziness.

  Hal glanced up at me. “Where are you going?”

  I swallowed back nausea. “Back—back to the manor. That thing—it’s making me sick.”

  He frowned at me, then pushed himself to his feet. “All right.”

  It was a long walk back up to the manor, but as we came up out of the valley, the air cleared, the sickly odor of the mire dissipating. The pain in my head dulled down to a faint ache, and my stomach settled, leaving behind only a deep weariness. As my head began to clear, a question occurred to me.

  “But no one could cast a spell on ground like that,” I said. “How would you draw the circle?”

  Hal glanced back at me, his lips quirking upward into a familiar half-smile. “And now you know why I went up to the tor on the night that Albert disappeared.”

  I mulled over that as we walked up to the manor. We were met at the door by a very harried-looking Mrs. Forsythe. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze landed on Hal, and she pinched her face together in a troubled frown.

  “I don’t know what you’ve done,” she said, as she took our coats. “But his Lordship wants to see you at once—and Master Matthew is in a terrible state.”

  “That seems to be his general condition,” Hal said evenly, tamping down the tobacco in his pipe.

  Mrs. Forsythe made an impatient noise. “Only since you’ve come here—he hadn’t had a fit in weeks before that! Well, don’t keep his Lordship waiting—he’s in his study.”

  She bustled away, and we went up the stairs to the study, where Lord Ransom sat behind his desk. A mug of tonic sat before him, filling the study with its curious mix of herbal scents—licorice and sage, and other things I couldn’t name. He stared broodingly down at the carved figure he was turning over in his hands, his face looking almost gaunt in the faint sunlight that came in through the windows.

  He looked up as we entered, setting the stone figure down—his hands shook, and he folded them over the desk. He bade us to sit down, and we took our seats before the desk.

  “Did you learn anything from your excursion?” he said. From Mrs. Forsythe’s greeting, I had expected him to be angry—but his tone was mild, with a heavy feeling of resignation behind it.

  Hal blew out a puff of smoke. “Yes—though it is difficult to say where it leaves us. The puzz
le is yet incomplete.”

  Lord Ransom sighed, his face melancholy. “I thought you would say that. Well . . .”

  He broke off, coughing, and took a long drink from the tonic. Hal watched him drink it, frowning.

  “How long have you been ill?” he said.

  Lord Ransom blinked at him, then looked at the mug in his hand. “Ah—this. No—it’s nothing, really. I get a bit chesty in the spring—have since I was a boy.”

  “Hm.” Hal’s gaze was skeptical, but he let the matter drop. “Surely you did not summon us here merely to ask us about the mire. What is the trouble?”

  “Matthew,” Lord Ransom said, setting the mug down heavily. “Always Matthew. He’s worked himself up dreadfully now. He’s declared he has something to say—and he wants us all there to hear it.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow. “Has he? What is it he wants to say?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Lord Ransom said, running a hand over his face. “He won’t tell anyone—says he wants us—myself, my wife, and you—to hear it at once. Nurse says he’s quite adamant about it.”

  “And Lady Ransom?” Hal said. “How does she take this?”

  Lord Ransom scrubbed both of his hands over his face. “She wants nothing to do with him, per usual. I feel—God, at times I feel like a bit of string, stretched between the two of them.”

  He fell silent, staring at his desk, as though embarrassed by this sudden outburst. I shifted my weight in my chair, uncomfortable in the silence, but Hal watched him impassively, smoke drifting up from his pipe.

  “If Matthew has something to say, I should like to hear it,” he said. “And he will not speak without Lady Ransom present?”

  Lord Ransom shook his head, taking the stone figure up again. “It concerns her most deeply, he says.”

  “Hm.” The corners of Hal’s mouth turned down, and he drummed his fingers upon the arm of his chair. “Perhaps I might convince her to listen.”

  Lord Ransom set the stone figure down, blowing out a breath. “You are welcome to try—but if you succeed, it will be more than I expect.”

  Hal nodded, and we stood to go, but Lord Ransom spoke again.