by Vered Ehsani
She calmed herself enough to add with a sniff, “Not that I have any doubt our brave soldiers will root them out. But will you really condemn us to live on a battlefield?”
Mr. Steward cleared his throat. “That’s in South Africa, dear. We’re going to East Africa. That’s a good distance away. We should be safe.”
“Should be?” Mrs. Steward raised her voice further.
Meanwhile, Bloody Mary pointed a thoroughly unclean finger at me—really, how rude could she be?—and grimaced.
“Oh dear,” I murmured.
“Exactly,” Mrs. Steward said. “Even Bee agrees with me.”
I stared at the finger, Bloody Mary’s way of telling the world (or those who could see her) that trouble was in my near future, and it was of the deadly kind.
Being in the company of living humans, none of whom could see what I could, I couldn’t tell her to float off. So I turned away from her as there was really nothing I could do to avoid whatever fate awaited me.
Mr. Steward was still valiantly trying to explain the intricacies of the situation. Only later did I conclude that on that fateful day he not only lost his business, but his confidence too, not to mention his position of authority in the family.
Speaking of the family, no one was particularly interested in the poor man’s business.
For her part, Mrs. Steward resorted to a near faint and couldn’t be fully revived for the remainder of the day, which isn’t as terrible as it sounds.
Lilly bemoaned her plight with the statement, “I’m almost eighteen. My grand debut is in a few months. If we go to that God-forsaken place, I shall die a spinster if a lion doesn’t eat me first.” She made it abundantly and loudly clear that death by lion was the preferred option before dashing away to her room.
Twelve-year-old Robert Junior was the only one genuinely thrilled with the prospect. “Shall we hunt lions?” he demanded to know of Mr. Steward.
“Well, Nairobi is expected to become a transit point for big game hunters,” Mr. Steward said, avoiding a direct answer and thus a possible confrontation. “It’s viewed as a perfect base from which to go on safaris and game hunts.”
“Hip hip!” Bobby shouted. “I’m going to hunt elephants and lions and tigers.”
I was fairly certain there were no tigers in Africa, but I didn’t bother to point that out. He was too excited about the prospect of butchering unarmed animals. The little monster.
Not literally, of course. I wasn’t sure I could tolerate a member of my family being a monster. With respect to Bobby, I mean the term more as a description of character, rather than of biology.
On the bright side, I thought as I contentedly sipped at my third cup of tea, I shall be free of smelly werewolves.
For surely werewolves were only to be found in northern climes where wolves naturally roam. As far as anyone knew, British East Africa was inhabited mainly by lions and elephants, which are bad enough but at least have the manners to stay in the wild and not move into the house down the street.
I wasn’t normally a prejudiced person, but dog-type creatures were at the top of my list of Least Favourite Beasties. When I was a child, one large and nasty dog bit me quite viciously. In fact, the brute almost tore my right ear off.
It was one of my most vivid childhood memories and had confirmed in me a distinct distrust and dislike for all things canine, except Prof. Runal, my director, who is a most notable exception.
At the thought of the bite, I checked that a thick lock of hair was still placed strategically over my right ear. Only my parents and Gideon had seen the bite, but they’re all dead, so they don’t really count.
Back to the point: no more smelly werewolves, which just goes to prove that there’s always some good even in the grimmest of news.
Or so I firmly believed.
Chapter 4
My own personal and rather tragic history has proven time and again that good luck and I aren’t on close terms at all. Therefore, I really shouldn’t have been overly surprised when a werewolf showed up at the house.
Within a day of learning of our impending move, there was a knock at the front door. At first I thought it was just me who heard it. After all, I often see, hear and smell things no one else can.
In addition, at that very moment, a headless spectre floated through the breakfast parlour. Why do they like the kitchen and parlour so much? I wondered as I watched the colourless creature sink into the table. And always at breakfast time.
A guillotine victim, to be sure, judging by the clean cut. Poor thing, but really there was no excuse for forgetting one’s own head. If I’d been alone, I’d have told the phantom as much, but as I was in public, the best I could do was clear my throat loudly and scratch the top of my scalp.
But I digress.
Back to the knocking at the door: the person was most persistent. Surely if no one answered, he should know better and leave? It was unacceptable to be so persistent, especially at that time of day.
“Oh, who can it be, disturbing our period of mourning?” Mrs. Steward wailed.
So it’s not another poltergeist playing tricks on me, I thought, unsure if I should be relieved or not.
“It’s probably just…” Mr. Steward said in what I was sure he meant to be a calming tone.
Mrs. Steward talked right over him. “None of our acquaintances know our tragic news yet, for why else would anyone come knocking at this uncivilised hour except to gloat.”
She glared at Mr. Steward, who at that moment took an unusual interest in the amount of butter smeared on his toast.
“A railroad,” Mrs. Steward hissed. “We’re abandoning all civilisation to build a railroad.”
“Now, Mrs. Steward, I won’t actually be building the rails myself,” Mr. Steward ventured to clarify, but Mrs Steward kept on.
“And where will we be living? Where, I ask you?” Before any of us could think of answering, she all but shouted, “In. A. Swamp.”
She wagged a finger at Mr. Steward, who was slouched in his chair. “Did you know that, Lilly? Nairobi is in an African swamp. That’s where your father is taking us.”
Lilly glanced up from her breakfast, realised it was only her mother ranting, and resumed eating.
Mrs. Steward didn’t notice the lack of response. “We’re going to be living in a railroad construction camp in the middle of a swamp in the middle of some God-forsaken colony in Africa. A part of history, he says. A pox on history.”
“Perhaps it’s just a neighbour coming to call,” Mr. Steward said without any hope.
“In our current condition, we must see as little of them as possible,” Mrs. Steward said.
The sound of the bronze door rapper echoed through the house again.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Mrs. Steward said, turning her irritated gaze on me. “Go answer. But if it’s a neighbour, tell them we’re out. Or better yet, dead.”
I hurried away and could hear “swamp” and “cursed railroad” and “making history” reverberating behind me. As relieved as I was to exit the breakfast parlour, the moment I opened the door, I knew I was in even more trouble.
“Good morning, dear Beatrice, a fine morning,” Prof. Runal bellowed. “I heard the news and came as quick as I could, quick I say.”
It was, I reflected, quite amazing he’d heard anything at all, given that few outside of the immediate family knew of our circumstances. Then again, Prof. Runal had a rather unusual network of informants to assist him with intelligence gathering.
Without waiting for me to welcome him in, he squeezed through the door and made his way to the sitting room, his heavy feet thumping against the wooden floor.
Everything about Prof. Runal was big. His voice, his build, his beard that covered his large jowls. Even his nose was big, quite out of proportion even for his sizeable face.
“All the better to smell you with, my dear,” he would joke about his substantial nose, which, coming from one of his kind, is not really a joke.<
br />
And on the subject of smell, I avoided breathing deeply, but even still his wet, doggy odour permeated my senses.
The Director of the Society for Paranormals & Curious Animals lowered himself carefully onto the sofa, which groaned under his weight. With his thick, dark overcoat, clunky boots, and shaggy mane, he looked out of place against Mrs. Steward’s delicate, pink sofa set and the rose-patterned wallpaper.
As was his habit whenever we met, he pulled out a pendulum, placed it on the side table, and tapped it with a large, stubby finger. The five bronze spheres began clicking against each other in a smooth back-and-forth motion, a movement some find soothing but I find distracting.
A similar set rested upstairs in my room, a gift from him to me. I had noticed his fascination with pendulums on one of my first visits to his office. He insisted on playing with one whenever we met, for it emitted a frequency that distorted the sound of our voices to anyone outside of a private meeting.
It was a useful contraption, if you were concerned about spies and eavesdroppers, as Prof. Runal seemed to be. He had several such devices around his office and they were always in motion when I visited, which unfortunately, was more often than I’d wish.
I don’t mean that to sound as if I don’t approve of him. And the work is certainly more interesting than being confined to the house and tea parties, the fate of most women I know.
However, a visit with him normally precedes a particularly dangerous mission involving some treacherous creature that would like nothing better than to bite off the remaining portion of my right ear along with my entire head.
And let’s not forget the matter of his body odour—no fault of his own—which compels me to breathe in a shallow manner, inevitably leaving me feeling rather dizzy.
“To think, you almost left without a formal send-off by the Society, unthinkable,” he said as if this were a calamity of heart-rending magnitude.
“I had rather hoped so,” I murmured, but he didn’t hear, or chose to ignore the comment.
“Well,” he continued as if I’d said nothing, “it’s most fortunate, my dear Beatrice, most fortunate indeed that I heard the news.”
“Indeed,” I said, my gaze fixed on the distracting pendulum and its gentle clicking as I wondered what new misadventure he had devised for me, and how many scars I would receive because of it. “Bad news spreads faster than mould on old bread.”
“Bad news?” His expression reminded me of a confused dog.
“Well, yes,” I said. “This means an end to my services for the Society, of course.”
He snorted. “Nonsense.”
The five bronze balls shivered at the force of his voice. In the brief silence that followed, I could hear the ting-ting of metal against metal.
Prof. Runal leaned toward me and lowered his voice to a normal, human level. “This is a marvellous opportunity, actually, marvellous beyond measure.” He rubbed his hands together with such energy I felt sure they were in danger of instantaneous combustion. “For now, we shall have an agent of the Society located so conveniently on that magnificently mysterious continent, right there.” He beamed a toothy smile.
“We will?” I asked, wondering when the balls would stop their motion. They seemed quite content to keep swinging as long as we kept talking.
“Of course we shall, of course, of course,” he said, his heavy jowls quivering, his thick eyebrows crawling up his wide forehead.
As a child, I’d thought they looked more like a pair of plump, hairy caterpillars than a pair of eyebrows.
“And none too soon,” he said as the caterpillars continued their crawl. “For I’ve learned of a rather odd mystery that would be just up your alley. It’s caused quite a stir over there, you know, quite a stir. Do you recall the incident with the two lions that insisted on eating the railway workers?”
I frowned, wondering if lions were as smelly as werewolves. “Yes, it was a sensation in the news and in Parliament. But I thought they were shot by a British officer almost a year ago.”
Prof. Runal rubbed his hands together. “Indeed they were, Beatrice, shot dead indeed.” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “It seems though that those two lions have returned.” He paused before adding in a loud whisper, “As ghosts.”
He settled back into the sofa and nodded his head with great satisfaction. “Thus far, they’ve eaten only goats, but soon enough they’ll start on people…”
“How delightfully morbid of you,” I interrupted.
“Thank you, my dear, thank you,” he said. “Imagine, Beatrice: people disappearing, body parts scattered all over the place. Brilliant stuff, brilliant.”
I sighed deeply. Body parts. Trust a werewolf to be thrilled by blood and gore and scattered body parts. Brilliant, indeed.
Personally, I’d never been too fond of some of the paranormal and supernatural creatures we deal with, specifically those that cause people to disappear and body parts to appear in their place. On the other hand, I was curious about what I would find in East Africa.
“Very well, sir,” I said, finally looking up at him and his hairy caterpillar eyebrows.
“Marvellous,” he said with great gusto, almost knocking a porcelain ornament off the side table with his elbow. “On the trip down, you’ll have plenty of time to prepare for your next, and possibly most exciting, mission yet, plenty of time indeed. Oh, and I’m sure you’ll meet some interesting passengers to entertain you.”
He chuckled as if this was a highly amusing statement. I clearly didn’t catch the humour.
As I stood to escort him from the room, I glanced at the pendulum. It had finally and abruptly stopped swinging. The bronze balls hung there, ominously still, their absolute lack of motion disconcerting, considering they’d been clicking away energetically a few seconds ago. I shivered even as a gust of unseasonably warm air puffed in through a window.
Prof. Runal scooped up the set and placed it carefully in a small wooden box he then slipped into a jacket pocket before following me out. “It’ll be a great opportunity,” he called back to me as he lumbered down the stairs to the sidewalk. “You’ll see, my dear Beatrice, you shall see. I anticipate great things from you, great things indeed. Good luck.”
But my thoughts were still caught up with the motionless spheres.
Chapter 5
It is, I believe, a sensible place for an intermission, during which I shall explain how I became acquainted with Prof. Runal and the Society for Paranormals & Curious Animals. And, in so doing, you will also understand how I came to be with the Steward family. A most convenient arrangement: two stories for the space of one.
From a tender age, I had exhibited a rather robust and socially unacceptable imagination that startled my parents and their numerous visitors. “Harmless delusions,” some would say to cover up the awkward moments.
Initially, my parents tolerated my creative outbursts while I was a child. After all, it isn’t so unusual for young children to have imaginary friends (albeit mine were considerably more successful in causing mayhem). But when there was no indication that these flights of fantasy would cease, action was taken.
Shortly after my tenth birthday, my father took me to see a learned man renowned for his ability to diagnose and cure difficult cases of mental disturbance. It was, in my father’s opinion, my last opportunity to be rid of my fantasies.
“If this fails,” he informed me as he pulled me along behind him, “I’m not sure what we shall do. Your mother is far too lenient on you, that’s for certain, but action will need to be taken.”
Even at my youthful age, I had some ideas what that action might be. I’d overheard my father and his aunt arguing with my mother one evening.
“We have no choice but to send her off to a convent after a good dosing of holy water,” my father huffed, paused, and added, “And maybe an exorcism or two.”
Before my mother could respond, his aunt—a large and bossy lady who smelled of moth balls and liquor—added,
“That isn’t nearly sufficient, dear boy. She must be permanently institutionalised. You can then tell all who know you that she died of influenza.”
Before either of these alternatives were seriously explored, I was taken to see Prof. Runal.
The good professor, upon reassuring my father that there was really nothing too wrong with his child, requested a private interview with me. While he escorted my father out the room, I glanced about and noticed a framed piece of fancy writing on the wall nearest me. I peered closer and read something that made no sense at the time:
~~~
Mandates of the
Society for Paranormals & Curious Animals
To which all its members pledge:
To investigate, document and, when appropriate, enrol into the Society new individuals and species;
To maintain the secrecy of the Paranormal Realm in general, and the Society and its activities specifically;
To ensure all members commit themselves to this mandate and to the directives of the Society’s Council.
~~~
With a finger, I traced the S-shaped dragon stamped into the thick, yellow paper.
“There is a fourth mandate,” Prof. Runal said behind me as he re-entered his office. “A fourth one indeed, but we don’t need to bother about that one, now, do we?”
I had no idea since I wasn’t sure what a mandate was, or what the first three meant.
Once he was seated, Prof. Runal turned to stare straight at me in a most unnerving fashion. That’s when I observed his rather sharp and long canine teeth.
“Dear Beatrice,” Prof. Runal said gently, “do you see what I am?”
Clearly I did, for I was staring at the teeth. The wet dog smell was also quite overpowering, but I thought it would be rather rude to point out his body odour. After all, it wasn’t from lack of proper hygiene on his part. So I wisely remained silent and contented myself with a quick nod of the head.
