Autumn (17 page)

             
Arabel resumed eating the soup and Morna fluffed up the pillows and straightened the bed clothes, replacing some covers with freshly laundered ones that were fragrantly scented of lilacs.
             

             
“There’s more, miss,” Morna trailed off, looking downward, her eyes not quite able to meet Arabel’s inquisitive gaze.

             
“Well, what is it?” Arabel questioned, a tentacle of fear dropping out of the sky and into her already weakened body.

             
“The Chief was here, miss, asking questions. He was says you was seen with that missing lad, the one who fooled all those Gypsies and such.” Morna paused briefly, her eyes widening as she continued to relay the unfortunate news concerning both Arabel and the strange developments of the on-going murder investigation.

             
“I reckon you know the man the Chief is hunting down -”, Morna went on, a grim, fascinated sort of satisfaction coloring her otherwise deferential tone, “the thief that be the target of the Corvids-wide man-hunt!”

             
“The Chief was here?” Arabel stammered, suddenly ill to her stomach again. “Chief Constable Bartlin was here, in my room? I didn’t imagine it in a feverish haze?” Arabel closed her eyes in fresh dismay. What did they know? How had she been identified? How horrid to have been leered at by the Chief!

             
Arabel’s mind ran through a thousand varied scenarios before she turned her bright blue eyes back to Morna’s defeated looking face.

             
“It’s worrisome trouble, miss,” Morna said quietly, looking around as if to make sure no one had heard her warning, and Arabel briefly wished for the incapacitating fever to return full force.

             
“Has Eli been by?” Arabel couldn’t resist asking, the answer weighing too heavily in importance upon her. Morna shook her head, her eyes sad and concerned.

             
Morna left the room hastily and Arabel stared down at the tray of soup and tea, her appetite lost and her solar plexus rapidly rolling in spinning knots of anxiety. Arabel moved the tray off of her lap, placing the tea on the table beside her and tray on the ledge farther away. She needed the tea, she would make sure she choked it down if she had to, but the soup was now too much for her to eat.

             
Arabel felt alone. Dreadfully alone. The way she’d not felt alone in quite some time. But she knew it had been her decision to let the thief go. It had been her solution to follow her intuition. She’d been certain that Jonty’s freedom would set in motion a trail of clues to lead to the real killer.

             
But it looked like she’d been mistaken.

             
And so Arabel stood now on this unfriendly ground, alone, depleted and uncertain. Her ability to sustain her concerted effort to aid the two dead girls whilst unable to tell hardly anyone the battle she was engaged in, and unable to ask for help, weighed upon her. Arabel reached within her mind for the energy link of Eli, but she could not find him.

             
Her cheeks were hot with unshed tears and her chest burned with inflamed thought. Arabel drank her tea quickly, almost scalding herself in her haste to consume the liquid. The cup fell back on the table as she dropped it and she leaned back against the bed frame, dejected, wondering what she could do. Arabel shut her eyes wearily and dark black and blue colors enveloped her. Arabel thought she saw glimmering stars and she gave herself up to dark canvas of the indigo sky.

             
When next she awoke, Arabel was surprised to see slanted beams of sunlight forking their way defiantly into her sickroom. The sunlight bespoke of fairer times and Arabel hoped her situation would follow the course of nature and lighten up as well. First, she needed her health. Quite often, she took her health for granted, Arabel realized, stretching, and yawning widely. Arabel rarely encountered any sort of lingering sickness due to her strong constitution, her love of outdoor exploration, exercise, and her general adherence to healthy nutrition.

             
One thing Arabel would credit Amelia Bodean for as far as running a household was concerned was her attention to the menus she favoured and the healthful ideals she aspired and ascribed to. The exception, of course, was the ever-present rum beverage, which was not ideal, and definitely on the questionable side of any redemptive value. Other than the liquor over-indulgence, however, Amelia Bodean provided Cook with efficient direction for delicious sustenance for their meals and Arabel knew herself to be lucky in that department.

             
Health. Arabel searched throughout her body, checking mentally on the physical symptoms of the previous past few days. Fever? Gone; her forehead felt cool to the touch and she was neither chilled nor warm. Headache? Lingering, but not insistently threatening explosion. Pressure? Oh, yes, there was pressure, in her head, and her sinuses and her chest, and her heart. A sudden pain pierced Arabel’s heart as she questioned herself: Where was Eli? Why could she no longer feel her psychic link to him?

             
Arabel’s mind flickered to the Gypsy medium, young Francesca de Lorimar. Would Francesca know where Eli was? Was Eli with Francesca? A fresh spurt of worry and jealousy erupted within Arabel’s heart and mind and she struggled to subdue the negative intentions which wanted to sprout out of the unsettling emotions.

             
Why should love bring up emotions so unlike itself? Arabel wondered. 

             
It was a puzzle Arabel did not have the answer to. She’d not been in remotely familiar terrain since she’d met Eli, and Arabel found that she was discovering new sensations, desires and feelings daily. This new, rotten, feeling of worry and uncertainty, however, she would most happily do without. 

             
Arabel closed her eyes, willing sleep to rescue her from the demons threatening to overthrow her tranquility. A knock sounded upon her door. Puzzled, Arabel leaned on her elbow and called out for the person to enter. To Arabel’s great surprise, Mireille Frankel, Eli’s beautifully exotic, bird-like mother, entered the room.

             
Mireille had both hands full. She magically balanced a large bouquet of bright wildflowers, safely  ensconced in water within a clear glass vase, as well as an interesting looking, medium sized beaker, currently filled to the brim with some sort of plum coloured fluid.

             
Arabel was certain that even if she were in full possession of her faculties she’d not be able to balance both the glass vase and the beaker simultaneously, and definitely not with the grace and ease with which the Gypsy woman employed. It was mind boggling. Arabel wondered what other amazing tricks and logic-defying feats of gravity and magic the woman could perform.

             
Or maybe, Arabel thought somewhat wickedly, she had become once again overly fanciful, and even now, she was probably cabin-fevered from isolation and looking for any sort of drama to relieve the boredom of her seemingly endless illness and time-consuming, currently-ensuing, recovery.

             
“Mireille! How lovely!” Arabel stammered hastily as she immediately sat straight up in bed and proceeded to wonder just how horrid she must look, slouching around as she was, in the sickroom, after numerous days of fever and illness.

             
It seemed that Eli’s mother did not mind how Arabel looked however, for she put the items she carried down on the desk immediately then embraced the recovering girl straight away in a warm and honest clasp. Mireille smelt of honey and jasmine, Arabel noted, a pleasant combination.

             
Mireille retrieved from the desk the bouquet of luscious autumn flowers she had brought with her. Mireille placed the glass vase on the side table close to Arabel’s bed. Arabel breathed in deeply of the various floral scents and thought for a moment she could actually hear the colours of the flowers singing. Arabel smiled at Mireille, and beckoned her to sit down immediately, so Mireille seated herself in the chair next to the bed.

             
Arabel took a moment to reflect upon the flowers. The assortment was both seasonal and whimsical; carnations of hot pink with crinkly cut white tips, black and white winter pomfrey stalks and tall, bright, red knoll-bells with white sprigs, and lastly, dainty purple Ocha berries. The richly coloured berries were exquisitely tiny and perfectly formed and they were Arabel’s favourites. The colour, fragrance and vitality the bouquet released brightened Arabel’s senses further.

             
Arabel’s eyes alighted on the strange beaker with the plum liquid.

             
“For you, sweet Arabel,” Mireille said, passing the beaker onto the side table where Arabel could easily examine it. “You’ve been very ill; your body needs strength. This will provide it, quickly, and it will work both physically and energetically. You have been weakened on the astral plane and in the light body.” Mireille frowned slightly. “This will return you to the path to well-being.”

             
Mireille ran her hand lightly down Arabel’s arm. “This is ‘mentolona’” she added, naming what Arabel took to be the primary herbal ingredient the strange looking purple tonic was comprised of.

             
“Eli-”, Arabel found she could not finish the sentence. She did not want to meet Mireille’s expressive brown eyes, the almond eyes that absorbed and saw so much, so like the eyes of Eli.

             
“Is recovering from the fever, much the same as you. He is probably a day ahead in his recovery, however, because I got to him when the fever was as its most powerful.”

             
“I couldn’t feel him,” Arabel found herself confessing, without meaning to. “I was worried.”

             
“I know,” Mireille replied with a touch of asperity. “Who do you think sent me?” she smiled again, and clasped Arabel’s hand lightly. “You share a bond with my son, I can see that. It might not be an easy path for the two of you, but love is always the best course to pursue, despite any difficulties.”

             
Arabel relaxed into the wise comfort of Mireille’s wisdom and her healing energy.

             
“Thank you,” Arabel said earnestly, all her doubt and insecurity melting away to some place that she hoped never to encounter again.

             
“There is another matter I must speak with you about; it is of grave importance.”

             
At this ominous sounding sentence, Mireille leaned in toward Arabel and lowered her voice. “I was also asked to bring to you a missive from the Council of Gypsy Elders. The Council requests your appearance six nights from this one. You are to appear for an interview and hearing in which you will be questioned, and your actions weighed, and then, deliberations rendered.”

             
Arabel gasped. “Because I failed to turn in Jonty Governs?”

             
Mireille nodded. “The Gypsy Elders feel it was not your decision to make,” she said simply.

             
Arabel leaned back in bed. A thought suddenly occurred to her, horrifying her. “Is Eli in trouble because he knew of this?” she asked.

             
“The Elders will address Eli’s actions separately from yours,” Mireille replied, somewhat evasively, “as you are not of the tribe, and he was born to the blood.” Mireille patted Arabel’s hand lightly. “I will return for you in six days time. Concentrate on recovering your strength; you can help no one until you are better.”

             
“Chief Constable Bartlin was here to see me,” Arabel blurted out. “But he didn’t really seem to be himself. He was staring at me, in a lascivious manner. He’s not one of the old, desperate, lecherous goats usually,” she continued, “so it seemed decidedly out of character. It was very odd.”

             
“He was not himself? Who was he then?”

             
“Well, I don’t know. He just didn’t seem to be acting as he normally does.”

             
“I will ponder this.” Mireille rose to leave. She leaned over and kissed Arabel’s cheek. She pressed a rose quartz crystal into Arabel’s palm. “From my son,” she said, smiling.

             
Arabel was pleased to sit up. Then she was pleased to stand. And then, finally, she was pleased to make it to the azure blue, extra deep, claw-footed bathtub to bathe. The luxury of the bathtub was something Arabel vowed never to underestimate again. She revelled in the softly fragranced bubbles and gratefully scrubbed her long hair with floral cleanser and emery oil conditioners.

             
Arabel lay back contentedly in the hot, bone-liquefying water, inhaling the fresh scents and immersing herself in the relief she felt within her muscles, tissue, bones and upon her skin. Morna told her she’d been ill far longer than she’d had any idea of, and already it was tonight that she was due at the Copse to stand before the Elders of the Gypsy Council and answer for her actions.