by Kate Gray
wanted.
Isabel had long assumed that the only things women like that wanted were jewels, furs, and dresses from Paris. Perhaps they knew something she was not privy to, having barred herself from their company. It seemed to be a growing likelihood.
Under most circumstances, she was not concerned about these women. They were faddish, fickle, and seemed to be primarily interested in verbally disemboweling one another.
There was something to be said for understanding one’s enemy, she supposed. And for learning the things of which women were truly capable. Indeed, at this juncture, Isabel felt at an extreme disadvantage.
She might otherwise have the knowledge to read and manipulate men, but this was her own fault. She had run and hidden away every time the subject of the “female arts” arose. After a while, her mother had given up, assuming that Isabel would grow out of her reticence.
But Mother had died, off into the “arms of the savior”, as said the vicar and all his happily wagging sheep. Isabel did not. She scowled at churches and bibles, as any doubter would.
What merciful God would rob her father of his happiness? Let alone countenance the stark reality of crowded poor houses, diseased and overcrowded slums…no, the ideas that the Hindus and Buddhists had was a bit closer to reality. Life was suffering.
She just hadn’t decided yet whether it was eternal, or whether there might be that nirvana somewhere within reach.
They rode on for several more hours, while the moon rose. It was a sunburnt and swollen orange belly of a moon, casting weak light over their path. The air felt muffled and close, and Isabel found herself longing more and more to be sprawled out in her own soft bed.
She felt as though they were in the land of the Lotos Eaters; in her tired daze, she began to look for Morpheus up in the trees. She couldn’t have been drugged, could she? No, everyone else was drooping as well, except for Macconnach.
Still determined to aggravate her, he was bolt upright, alert as a panther. But no, she was supposed to be more charitably disposed toward him. Why was he so alert, though? It just wasn’t right. She nudged Lizzy to trot up closer to him.
“Anything?” She spoke as quietly as she could, though she wasn’t quite sure why.
“Just the faint thread I found earlier. It seems to be growing a little stronger in the past few minutes, though.”
“Very well.”
“If you cease thinking about anything, you may be able to catch a bit of it.” Stop thinking? Rather a large task for her. Might as well give it a go.
She tried, and then she stopped trying, and then she simply let her mind be as black as the night, with only a dull orange glow in the centre. After a few minutes, there was something.
She could feel a small lurch of anxiety, out from nowhere, digging into her chest. She felt a big ragged, as though she had been underwater for too long.
“Miss Aldteron? Isabel?” Macconnach could see things had suddenly altered, felt the closeness of some entity abruptly swing around to them. In a moment, Isabel was gasping for air as though she was being strangled.
Macconnach yanked Lizzy to a halt; Bran stopped on his own. Closing his eyes, Macconnach could hear Arpan bringing up the other men short, their hoofbeats then clattered closer and closer.
He had to ignore it, focusing instead on Isabel, and reached out more aggressively. The creature reacted strongly, and made itself suddenly visible. The men with Arpan shouted in terror.
Macconnach’s eyes flew open. A grayish, withered creature had itself wound around Isabel. Its flesh hung off in disarray, like a corpse, which must surely have explained the wretched smell of decay Macconnach had caught earlier.
He had heard of the nzambi from the Congo, and of the golems of the Jewish faith, perhaps this thing was similar. That would mean that it was being controlled from afar. This was a more disturbing thought than a simple rogue demon. Where was its master?
For now, he focused on ridding them of this creature, only vaguely aware that it had gone from being unseen to seen. His logic was telling him that this was not the case. He had simply failed to take note of it.
The present dilemma was that it was trying to kill Isabel, and so he was able to summon his full strength, and he called up to his sisters for aid. Lizzy began to prance, trying to break away from his grasp, but there was no doing so.
There was only the howling of an unnatural wind, which tore the creature off of Isabel, and flung it some fifty yards away, where it careened into a solid tree trunk.
With a sodden thud, it landed, and moved no more. Isabel coughed and retched a bit, while Arpan offered her water, eyeing Macconnach carefully.
“I dare not hope that this was the creature which is responsible for all our troubles?” Arpan knew it was too much to wish for.
“No, I should think not. It was likely a mere servant.” He did not have to say any more, Arpan and his men were already on their guard. Isabel seemed finally to catch her breath back, and wasted no time before offering her observation.
“I think it a vetala.” She was surprised at how hoarse her voice sounded. The panic of not being able to get air into her lungs still lingered as well.
She had never felt more powerless; the sensation angered, rather than frightened her. Arpan frowned. One of the other men from the village spoke up rapidly.
“Chintan says that he has heard of this creature. His uncle was a lascar with the Navy, and would tell him stories.”
“They’re mostly stories of the western coast. I heard them when I traveled through Mumbai and Goa. I always thought it was why cremation was so popular, to be honest, because nobody enjoys the thought of their mortal remains being commandeered for nefarious purposes.”
It was almost a comical thought, if not for having just seen evidence in the flesh, as it were.
“If they are constructs of that nature, then they are vulnerable, yes?” Macconnach was deep in thought.
They all automatically looked over to where Macconnach had flung the thing. The horses would go no closer, however, and so they were compelled to dismount and investigate on foot.
It turned out to be a banyan that had arrested the flight of the vetala. Isabel rubbed the bark of the tree, with an odd hope that it had not been affected by the unpleasantness that had just taken place.
This was the tree of good fortune, after all, a living organism that had likely seen hundreds of years itself. She had heard that one might count a tree’s years by its rings, but it was a shame that the only way to do so was for the tree to die.
“It is gone.” Arpan’s observation brought her out of her botanical reverie. Immediately, they were all on guard again.
“Gone, perhaps, but not entirely.” Macconnach was staring down at the ground, toeing a pile of dirt with his boot. No, not dirt, Isabel realized as she drew closer. It was a pile of decay.
Centipedes and beetles swarmed over it, reducing the pile further in front of their very eyes. “Whatever else these vetala are, they are disposable. We may expect more, I suppose.”
“Nothing less than a usurpation of the dead, that’s what it is. Bodies being stolen from their families and….” Isabel stopped herself. She was thinking of the boy who had been with Arpan’s brother. Had he been stolen for this purpose? Was he the creature Macconnach had just destroyed? She could see that Arpan was thinking along similar lines.
“I should have had the animals burned.”
“Oh, Arpan, all the stories I ever heard, they only involved humans.”
“A comforting thought,” he replied drily. An uneasy silence fell over the group. Macconnach looked around at the other men that Arpan had selected. They were all, from what he’d been told, members of the families of means in the village.
Arpan said he had chosen one from each family in order to maintain some sense of balance amongst those who stayed behind. Macconnach had not pointed out that the flaw in the plan was what would happen if not all these men returned to their homes safel
y.
ॐ
None of them took note of a slight winking light about a half mile to their rear. If they had, they might have taken it for the lantern of a herder, or perhaps they might have read something more sinister into its presence.
But they did not see it, and therefore had no cause to interpret it. And so Arras was able to follow their movements with his spyglass, undetected. At first, he had thought to blackmail Macconnach in typical fashion.
After monitoring events within the palace, he had altered his expectations. It seemed that Major Macconnach and the general’s daughter were on the trail of some kind of prize.
General Abington was always loathe to encourage talk of lost treasures, but even he was not fool enough to ignore the fact that they were in a palace of a former Raja who had vanished around the time of Mysore.
The Raja’s family had supposedly fled to the foothills that Macconnach and his group were presently approaching. It made sense, neat and attractive sense, to him. He had not quite worked out what he would do once anything was discovered, although if the cache were large enough, they might not be able to take it all at once.
Then, all he would do was wait until they left, dispatch any guard left behind, and retire himself into thin air. With that possibility in mind, he had left his current accumulated savings buried, away from the encampment, so that he would need not return for any reason.
This all worked itself soundly in his mind, and he had no compunction
