The Flame in the Mist (13 page)

“Why d’you s’pose she’d want to run away from the castle, eh, Caleb?” Rue tucked a lock of brown frizz beneath her filthy scarf.

Caleb grunted, and kicked at the fire.

Jemma shifted on her rock. “What makes you think I came from there?”

“Been watchin’ yer fer years, haven’t I, while you was doin’ yer fetchin’ an’ carryin’ in the kitchen an’ stables. You never saw me, ’cause I kep’ hid to make sure you wouldn’t. But I know who you is, oh, yes. I can sense yer from a hundred paces. Knew it was you as soon you ran by me this mornin’. Fast as a fox bein’ hunted by hounds, you was. An’ don’t think I din’t see yer behind that bush, neither, when I caught Mr. Rabbit ’ere. Caleb, why don’t you slice off a little piece for our
guest, eh? A nice leg for a nice lass.” Rue smiled, revealing a row of tombstone-like teeth alternating with dark gaps.

Caleb handed Jemma a charred rabbit leg and she munched into it, as much to quell the eeriness of Rue having spied on her and claiming she could sense her as from hunger. The meat was overcooked and dry, killing her appetite, but Rue’s eyes narrowed, and Jemma had the feeling that to stop eating would be taken as an insult.

“So … is it you two that live in the hut next to the castle?” she ventured, desperately trying to swallow.

Rue moved her face closer, the ripples between her eyebrows knitting into a frown. “What do
you
think, eh? Pretendin’ like you don’t know!”

“Oh.” Jemma pulled back, feeling herself blush. “Yes. Um … sorry about your roof—”

“Find wot you was snoopin’ for, did yer?”

“Snooping? No—I didn’t even know the huts were there. I mean, I’d forgotten—”

“She’d fergotten!” Rue spat into the flames. “D’you hear that, Caleb?”

“Easy, Ma.” Caleb stood across the fire from his mother and huddled into his blanket. “Maybe she don’t remember. She was jus’ little—”

“Remember
what
?” Jemma said, not sure that she wanted to know.

“Me … 
me!
Your Rue! Nursed you, I did, from the night you arrived, an’ looked after yer fer a whole year—I’d even take yer to me own hut now an’ then! That is, till that Marsh woman come along.” She ground her teeth. “Then you din’t need me no more.”

So that was why Jemma had recognized the toy rabbit! She must have seen it there, when she was a baby.… “So, you knew Marsh,” she said, her heart squeezing as she spoke Marsh’s name. “You … haven’t seen her, I suppose?”

Rue sneered. “She couldn’t take them ghosts neither, eh? Hrmph. An’ wot about that vile old loon Drudge, is he still there? Kep’ me distance from him, I did.”

So did I
, Jemma thought, ashamed of her old judgments. “He’s still there.”

“Hrmph. Last
man
, if you can call him that, wot stuck around. Unlike me rotten husband. Caleb’s pa.” Rue’s mouth twitched between a smile and a grimace. “Worked at the quarry, he did, then ran off after it was shut down. An’ you know why?”

“No,” Jemma murmured, puzzled about the quarry. She knew it had existed long ago—the castle was built out of rock from the crag—but had no idea it had still been mined so recently.

“He left ’cause of
this
!” Rue pointed at Caleb. “His bent-up boy! Shamed by him, is wot he said. An’ shall I tell yer how Caleb got to be that way, eh?”

Caleb bowed his head. “Ma, don’t—”

“He got that way ’cause when he were a toddler—afore you was here, mind; them twins wasn’t even born yet—he ran into the stable yard one evenin’, just as that Nox Agromond was ridin’ out, an’ startled his horse. Horse reared up, throwin’ the Lord an’ Master to the ground. When I come runnin’, he said his leg was broke, an’ we’d have to pay. We can’t pay, sir, I told him, we ain’t got two beans to rub together, so he snarls at me like a raddled bear, says that’s not what he meant, an’
he’d take payment in kind. Next thing I know, my Caleb’s writhin’ about in agony, screamin’ blue murder all night long. Weren’t nothin’ I could do to comfort him. By mornin’ he was like this—a human corkscrew!”

“Ma, please!” Caleb shrugged into his blanket, making his hump look bigger.

Jemma felt the blood drain to her feet. “Nox did that?”

Rue nodded, bitterness galloping back across her features. “To punish him, he says. Evil man, puttin’ such a twistin’ spell on my Caleb, an’ him not yet two years old!”

“Why did you stay? Why not leave?”

“An’ where would a girl find work, saddled with a deformed son, an’ nought but her milk to offer? You don’t
think
much, do yer?” Rue shoved her face up to Jemma’s, her eyes as hard as flints. “The very next day, them twins was born. Shade and Feo. I was needed to feed ’em, ’cause that black-hearted mama of theirs couldn’t. Her milk dried up, jus’ like a witch’s does.” She pulled back from Jemma, her top lip twitching into a snarl. “My blood curdled, havin’ to suckle ’em, Marked as they was, when my own boy was so fair-skinned. An’ bonny too, afore Nox Agromond crippled him!”

“Marked …” Jemma gulped. The Mark, again. She thought of the livid red diamond on each of Shade’s and Feo’s faces. The one on her back itched.

“Yes, Marked! The Mark of Mord!” Rue seemed to melt into the darkness behind her. “Won’t find any ordinary folks wot have it. It’s a sign that a child will follow their evil ways, see. It’s said that any Agromond babe born without it is done away with sooner or later, so it’s lucky for them two that they both had it. An’ lucky for me they needed my milk. At least it bought me shelter.”

The Mark of Mord? Jemma remembered Nox’s words:
The Mark … your birthmark … It shows you are one of us.…
She gulped.

“Ah, but then …” Rue’s features suddenly relaxed, and she looked almost pretty again. “Then they brought the new babe.…”

Jemma tensed, expecting to hear her own story being woven into the tragedy.

“Such a sweet boy … Fair-skinned as me own Caleb he was, only he weren’t all gnarled up. Me little bunny.
Rue, rue, rue the day they took me bonny babe away.…
”

“Boy?” said Jemma, surprised. “What boy?” She glanced at Caleb, who quickly averted his eyes. Noodle and Pie scratched at the back of Jemma’s head.
Go, we must go.…

“They took me babe, so fair and red, I loved me laddie but now he’s dead.…”

Rue’s gaze darkened, and Jemma inched away.

“His sea-green eyes will see no more, like so many babes before.…”

Jemma turned, ready to run, but a jerk at her neck slammed her onto her back.

“Not so fast, my pretty!” Rue yanked her spear from the hem of Jemma’s cloak, then crouched over her and pulled back the hood. “What boy, she asks!” She grabbed Jemma’s hair, and laughed. “Why, the boy they took before you—the one whose stuffed rabbit you was lookin’ to steal! And him dead, dead, because of you, yer flame-headed wretch!”

“Because of
me
? Why?”

“Because it wasn’t him they wanted!” Rue banged Jemma’s head on the ground. “It was you, you! ’Cause you had the Mark, an’ he didn’t! Once they’d took yer, t’weren’t
long before they got rid of him. Gone, me bonny bunny!” She began to wail. “An’ it’s
your
doin’! You’re evil, you are—evil!”

“Ma, that’s enough.” Caleb shuffled toward them.

Noodle and Pie squirmed from inside the folds of Jemma’s hood and dug their teeth into Rue’s fingers. But she was swift, and yanked them away with her free hand.

“Here, Caleb—a snack for the pot!” The rats flew through the air, and Caleb caught them.

“Nooooo!” Jemma tried to wriggle free, but Rue held fast.

“Ma,” said Caleb. “Enough!” The rats writhed in his fists, squealing.

“Shut up, yer Mordforsaken gimpy-leg! Put them nice morsels in the pot and do something useful for a change! As for you, Miss Red, I daresay they’d like to see yer back at the castle, wouldn’t they? Thinkin’ you could run off an’ keep yer Powers all to yerself. They’ll reward me finely, oh, yes! Haaahahahahaaaa!”

Jemma grabbed her Stone and shoved Rue away with her feet. Rue careened backward, looking as though she’d been struck by lightning, then began dancing in wild circles.

“Hahahahaha! Get away, she thinks, get away! Oh, me bonny boy, get away, it’s time to die, me bunny laddie-O! Yer fire’s gone, for she’s the One!”

“Here.” Caleb shoved Noodle and Pie into Jemma’s hands. “Run, while she’s possessed.”

“Thank you! But what about you? I mean—” Jemma glanced at his wild-eyed mother.

“Her? I’m used to it. Happens all the time. An’ don’t mind her callin’ you evil. Says that to me almost every day. Yer all
right, Jemma, I can tell. Jus’ go. But hurry! Her fits don’t last long.”

“Which way, though? I was walking in circles all night.”

Caleb shrugged. “If I knew that, I’d have gone long ago. ’Cept I couldn’t, ’cause of my legs. An’ the rest of me. ’Sides, she is my ma.”

Jemma looked into his dark, lost eyes and her heart went out to him. “Thank you,” she said again, then fled from the clearing and back into the forest, clutching the rats, whose hearts beat like tiny hammers against her palms.

Jemma ran until she felt her lungs would explode, then staggered to the nearest tree and slumped at its base, gasping for breath. Noodle and Pie squirmed from her fists and lay in her lap, trembling.

“Rattusses! Are … you all … right? Almost thrown … into the fire! I should have listened to you … kept away. I’m so sorry.…” Rue’s stories clawed at her stomach, and she un-stoppered the wineskin to try and drown the feeling with sour milk. Only a few drops remained, and she gave a sip to the rats, then swigged the rest.

Clang!

Three-thirty. It was over seven hours since they’d left the hollow. The rats curled up, clearly exhausted. Soon, their tiny snores joined the sound of the breeze rustling through the pines, ruffling the edge of Jemma’s hood. She closed her eyes.…

Wispy figures lurched through twilight Mist, reaching, grasping. Smoky black tendrils wound around them with a stench just like the stench from yesterday’s Ceremony. “No,” she screamed, “no!” Then a flare of aqua, and a soft voice, soothing: “They
are only phantoms, Jemma, but to get past them, you must face them.…” Jemma heard herself yelling back, “But who are they? Who was the boy?
Did
he die because I was Marked and he wasn’t? Am I evil, then? Please, I don’t want to be!” A tiny shadow floated toward her between moaning pines, a shadow shot through with flame. Chubby, gray baby fingers stretched out and touched her face—

Jemma screamed, waking herself, then jumped to her feet, spilling Noodle and Pie to the ground. “Who’s there?”

Nothing. Nobody.

To her left, the bushes trembled. Every nerve on edge, she crept over to them. A gust of wind rippled through fallen brush. Was that something to her right—a phantom, slipping behind the trees? And another to her left, rustling the undergrowth? Jemma held her breath, then, convincing herself that the shadows had gone—if they had been there at all—she hastened back to the rats, her brief dream still rattling in her head.

Squeak.
Not your fault the boy died. You were just a baby too
.

Jemma nodded, trying to swallow the doubt gnawing at her.

Clang!

A single toll. She had slept for almost an hour, and was thirsty. But the wineskin was empty. All around, trees dripped from yesterday morning’s torrents. Jemma walked beneath them, letting pearls of water fall into her mouth, but they only whet her thirst.

“We need to find a stream, Rattusses—hey, where are you going?”

Noodle and Pie were scurrying up a ridge. They disappeared over the top of it.

“Wait! We should be going downhill, not up! Stop!” Jemma took off after them, following their squeaks down a small dip, then up between huge tree roots. At the top of the next incline, she saw what they had been leading her to: water, gushing from a gully. They were already crouched at the brink, drinking to their hearts’ content. Jemma fell to her knees next to them and shoved her face into the cool liquid.

“Thank you, Rattusses!” She wiped her sleeve across her mouth. “Thank you!”

Don’t mention it
.

As Jemma filled the wineskin, a thought struck her. “Water only flows downhill … so this will lead us away from the castle! Come on, you two.” She slung the wineskin around her neck, and scrambled alongside the stream, energized by new hope. Finally, they were getting somewhere.

Clang!

Five in the morning. At last, the bell sounded more distant.

Clang!

A breeze shushed through the pines.

Clang!

The stream dropped away between two rocks, and disappeared into the earth.

Clang!

The rats sat stock-still, ears alert. Something moved in Jemma’s peripheral vision: a silhouette, darting through the Mist. Then another, and another.

Clang!

The ghosts. This time, there was no doubt about it. They had found her again. And they were gathering fast, ranging down the slope in ever-paler shades of gray, eyes blank, mouths open.
Remember, they’re not solid
, Jemma muttered under her breath,
not real
. But then the hissing began, growing into a thin, wordless keening. Her earlier bravado about simply walking through them seemed to slide off her like mud from a greased pig. She picked up the rats and dropped them into her pockets, then turned and clambered back up the rocks.

Her legs quickly grew weak. She felt dizzy from hunger. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the phantoms gaining on her, their moans and wails growing louder every second, along with Noodle’s and Pie’s squeals. The ground leveled out again, and she picked up speed. But so did the phantoms. She veered to the left; they followed. To the right; still, they kept closing in. A gust of wind blew through the canopy of trees above, their leaves rustling a familiar refrain:
Sweet thirteen …
And still the gray figures were gaining on her, their cries filling the misty air.

Stop!
The rats scrabbled in her pockets. Stop? Surely they weren’t serious! Her limbs felt liquid. She tried pushing forward, but it was all she could do to stop her knees from buckling her to the ground at the mercy of the clamoring mass.