Unseen: Chronicles of the Royal Society for Investigation of the Paranormal

by Kate Gray

reading material in there that you might recommend?” His words were again met by a sharp look.

  “You needn’t assume that I have any interest in your intellectual growth. There is an immediate purpose to my asking.” She had a superior talent for reducing his tongue to tatters so far.

  His only recourse at this moment, he felt, was to either return her hostility, or to meet it with equanimity. She might eventually see that he was completely unlike his fellow officers. Why he wished this outcome, he could not yet confess to himself. For now, it would have to be a secret locked away.

  “Perchance you might give me a sense of that purpose, then.” He spoke evenly, afraid to lend any sense of emotion to his words. Her eyes narrowed, but she relented, if only a tiny bit.

  “Hinduism is rife with the sorts of supernaturalism that make our vicars and our ladies wish to basptise and convert the whole of India. What those collared and hatted fools do not recognize is that these are…not necessarily simple legends.” She paused, surveying him for a reaction. He physically bit his tongue before replying.

  “Forgive me if I do not follow your meaning, Miss Alderton.”

  She sighed at him. She was accustomed to days filled with sighs, and he was not any exception so far. Men could be so linear in their thoughts. For them, it seemed all was black and white, or a decline into foggy corruption.

  Women could sense the truths that existed just out of sight. She wondered if this talent had been honed by generations of mothers keeping their offspring from harm.

  “Engage your imagination, Major. You’ve surely heard some of the tales from the Mysore battles. Surely you accept that there are things beyond our understanding.”

  If only he could tell her just how much he accepted, he thought.

  “You’re not referring to that old story of the fort that was supposedly attacked by demonic forces?” He had, in fact, heard this story, and it was one of the few things that had made him uneasy about accepting the posting in this country.

  The dark stories that had circulated in the theater of the Austrian and Russian fronts could simply be attributed to the pathological depression of the region. Here, in India, however, something was different.

  He’d sensed it from the moment of his arrival. To be honest, the feeling had reminded him of nothing less than a certain long-ago night that he had spent chasing his father’s runaway sheep through a boggy heath.

  He pushed that aside, though, as he had every night since. She was speaking, and he’d lost the thread of her story.

  “I hope you’ll excuse me, Miss Alderton, if I interrupt. Your interest in all of this is a bit confusing. What is it that you are doing out here, in a place where wild animals roam freely at night? Alone, no less?”

  She looked as though she’d gladly pull out her knife again, only to slip it into his heart.

  “I can look after myself. Better than you can, I daresay.”

  “Than I am able to look after you, or me?”

  “Humph.” She ignored the question, in favour of answering the previous one. “The villagers have a wedding celebration in a matter of a week’s time. Something has been sending signs to their holy man that not all is well. He feels that there is an evil somewhere nearby.”

  Macconnach was even further from making sense of this errand than he had been before asking her.

  “An ‘evil’? What is to be meant by that?” His stomach reminded him that he had missed his dinner. More worrisome was the gleam in her eye, as she turned back to watch the goings-on in the village.

  “You might well ask, Major. The holy man does not know. He can only feel its presence. They are praying to Durga to receive her aid.”

  “Ah, yes.” He thought quickly, trying to stumble over any sense of who Durga was.

  “She is a warrior goddess, known well for having defeated other demons. They hope to summon an aspect, or an avatar of her.” She looked at him carefully. “Do you understand that? I’m sure it sounds frightfully pagan to your ears.” Her tone was muted sarcasm.

  “You misjudge me. I may be a member of a congregation in the Christian faith, but I am, by birth, of a people who are deeply wedded to nature and to its unseen forces.”

  For once, Isabel Alderton had no reply. She merely raised her eyebrows in acceptance, and led on to the edge of the village. There, they could see smoke rising from what appeared to be offering pyres.

  He surmised goat, from the smell wafting over to them. It was no great deal different than some of the rituals he’d witnessed as a child, and been sworn to secrecy about. He wondered how much longer the Company or the Crown would allow these sorts of things in India, before they fell prey to the same strictures as his own had.

  Then these villagers would be performing them in secret, as his family had. He tried a different question.

  “What are your intentions here, at this village?”

  Before she answered, there was an appraising silence. She seemed to be at war with herself as to whether he could be trusted.

  “I hope to persuade them that I am the avatar which they seek.”

  “I once again apologize. I do not believe I heard you correctly.”

  “I intend to determine what, or who, is causing their woes. For though I acknowledge that there may be that which is unseen, I believe their troubles to have a human root.”

  Macconnach took a step back and sat heavily on a dirt mound. Isabel scowled at him. “You think me some foolhardy girl.”

  “I think you a prime candidate for some hungry tiger’s supper. And mad, perhaps blinking mad, as well.”

  “No more mad than an entire army whose usual tactic is to proceed on line, shooting at an enemy who is doing the same thing in reply. There haven’t been any tigers round here in ages, anyhow. The last one that came near now lies in state on my father’s floor. You followed me, I might remind you. You’re free to go back whenever you like.” She bowed mockingly at him, and swirled off into the village before he could reach out to prevent it.

  He watched her walk boldly into the centre, where the offering fires were still blazing. Everyone there seemed to know her, but he could sense the vague unease which pervaded the atmosphere.

  He hoped she was not in over her head, as he had even less sense of propriety in this setting than she seemed to. Worse, he had no weapon, nor even his jacket to lend an air of authority. He waited in a shadow to get a feel for how things might progress.

  He certainly did not wish to disrupt a holy activity, nor alarm anyone further than they clearly were. Miss Alderton had sat down with the women, and was following along with their prayers. He intuited that they must be offering an appeal to this Durga Miss Alderton had mentioned.

  The question of what she was about to do circulated through his mind as he kept watch. She had given him no indication that she wished him to follow, but he was beginning to feel like a peeping coward.

  Finally, he decided to stay put unless she gave him some signal to join her. He had a suspicion that would not happen, but he resolved to watch carefully, just in case. What happened next merely caught him by surprise, instead of complete bewilderment, because he was watching so closely.

  She had bowed forward during a moment when all the women were doing the same, invoking, presumably, their goddess. When she had returned to her sitting position, he saw, with mild shock, that there was something squarely in the middle of her forehead.

  She seemed not to notice, rather, seeming to be in a trancelike moment. The women around her noticed nothing, as they all faced the same direction, but the men had an excellent view, as they all sat facing the opposite way.

  One of the older men cried out and pointed at Miss Alderton. Macconnach squinted, trying to make out what it was, and why it would attract such excited attention. He finally determined that it was an eye of some sort, but only just as she was swarmed by everyone in the surrounding area.

  She rose, and walked a few paces, speaking in a voice unlike her own. H
e could not make out much of what she said, given it was Hindi. Her words had an immediate effect; the villagers began to sing and clap in rhythmic pace, and everyone seemed most joyful, relieved, even.

  Miss Alderton paced in a circle, smiling at everyone, still speaking, until she sank down into a heap. Everyone paused, breathlessly, peering down, but not moving. After a moment, Miss Alderton lifted her head.

  The eye had vanished. She seemed a little out of sorts. He could hear her questioning tones, and an elderly man came forward to confer with her. She nodded, and smiled, and the villagers concluded with a cheerful cry. She remained with them for a matter of another half-hour, before retreating amidst happy farewells.

  Macconnach had moved himself from where she had left him behind, so that when she walked past, he was able to take hold of her. She kicked at his knee, which he dodged. She then tried to cuff him, but he’d had enough.

  “Do you suppose that I didn’t grow up trading fists? Crivvens, girl. I was young once, too.”

  Isabel glared at him, summoning an image in her mind of taking a rifle butt to his skull, although her father would hardly approve of that. It was a little odd that he was inspiring such fury in her thoughts. She’d only just met him.

  Usually it took a few months for her to come to despise a new officer under her father’s command. And even then, it was a calculating, cold hatred. What she felt right at that moment was seething, heated, and discomfiting. She drew in a deep