The Flame in the Mist (2 page)

Marsh paled. “Shush now, pet,” she said, gathering Jemma
into her short arms. “Shush. It’s all right. There’s reasons this is happenin’ now.… I’ll explain tonight.”

“What reasons? Tell me now—please!”

“T’ain’t safe now, Jem.” Marsh pulled back. “Walls have ears, remember? So later, when they’s all in bed. An’ more’n ever, don’t let none of ’em know. I’ve noticed your words comin’ looser an’ more heated recently. You must mind your tongue, I mean it. Think before you speak, an’ before you act.”

Jemma nodded, her head swimming with Mist, the man, and screams.

Clang!
The first toll of eight.

“I must be off.” Marsh squeezed Jemma’s hands. “Now, remember the Light Game. It can’t help if you don’t think of usin’ it. I’ll see you tonight. Without fail, mind—”

Clang!

“I’ll be there, Marsh.”

“Good girl.” Marsh patted Jemma on the cheek and slipped from the room, closing the door behind her as the West Tower bell continued its doleful countdown to breakfast time.

As usual, Jemma was first to arrive in the Repast Room. On every other morning of the week she had the onerous task of helping Drudge in the kitchen. He was more ancient than anyone could remember, and Jemma found him revolting. But today, as on every Mord-day, she was spared from her duties, and so the long oak table was already laid, the candelabra lit, and a steaming tureen of porridge set by Jemma’s place, next to a pot of mauve tea.

She walked to the table and sat with her back to the fire.
Across the room, beyond leaded window-panes, gray tree silhouettes hugged the crag outside. What would they look like, she wondered, if the Mist wasn’t there, and the forest surrounding Agromond Castle was like the places that Marsh described in her stories? Places flooded with sunshine, where rivers sparkled with sky-blue reflections, and green fields shone in clear, golden light. Hundreds of years ago, Marsh said, even Anglavia had been like that. Before the Mist came and shrouded everything—

“Dreaming again, Jem
-mah
?” Jemma’s older sister, Shade, strutted into the room. Her hair hung like curtains on either side of her face.

“Yes, dreaming again?” Feo loped in behind his twin. “Do share, Jemma.”

“Thinking about her fantastic
Offering
, I expect,” Shade sneered. She took her place opposite Jemma and flicked back her hair, revealing the red, diamond-shaped birthmark on her left cheek.

Jemma gritted her teeth. Shade and Feo, no doubt, had been practicing their Offerings as usual—unlike her. She’d have to face her mother’s fury. Again. “I’ll be fine,” she muttered.

“Of course you will.” Feo grinned, the birthmark on his face—like Shade’s, but smaller—elongating. He slumped his long limbs into the chair next to his twin and shoved his cup toward Jemma. “Tea, sister, if you don’t mind.”

Jemma poured them each a cup of Drudge’s special brew, and swigged hers in a single gulp. Usually, its citrus scent calmed her, but today it had no effect, and the caustic look Shade was giving her only made her anxiety worse. Then
another scent invaded her nostrils: their mother’s Eau de Magot perfume, gusting in through the door.

“Good morrow, children.” Nocturna Agromond swept into the room, trailing her crimson Mord-day robes. Four black weasels slithered close behind. Her ever-present Rook was perched on her right shoulder, feathers fluttering. “And how are we all today?”

“Wonderful, Mama,” said Shade and Feo.

“Yes. Wonderful,” Jemma mumbled.

“Go-o-o-od.” Nocturna settled into her carved chair at the end of the table, her black eyes flashing at Jemma. Jemma’s stomach shrank. Over the past year or two she had felt increasingly as though her mother was watching her, waiting for some misstep. She forced a smile, and tried not to think of the Ceremony ahead.

The castle bell tolled once: eight-thirty.

“Good morrow, all.” Nox Agromond strode in, sweeping his dark hair back with one hand, his Mord-day cloak breezing behind him. “I trust you slept well, Nocturna my dear?”

“Like the dead, Nox.” Nocturna’s familiar joke raised a titter from Shade and Feo.

“Splendid.” Nox sat at his end of the table, and winked at Jemma. She winked back.

“So, let us begin.” Nocturna said. “Jemma dear, do serve, if you would?”

Always me
, Jemma thought as she ladled out the porridge.
Never the twins. It’s not fair
.

The family munched in customary silence. Jemma ate her bowlful slowly, gradually uncovering the Agromond crest: a black Mordsprite, wings folded, ringed by hemlock and the
family motto:
Agromondus Supremus
. Agromonds rule. She stared at the letters and reordered them in her head to see how many words she could make:
grand, groan, mouse, demons …

“A groat for your thoughts, Jemma.” Nocturna’s deep velvet voice wafted down the table.

“I expect she’s planning her Offering, Mama.” Shade turned to Jemma.
Got you again
, her smirk seemed to say. “It had better not be like last week’s, Jem
-mah
. I’m rather bored of you turning dust into butterflies and silly little things like that.”

“And I’m rather bored of you needling me, Shade!”

“Well, never mind,” Shade scoffed. “It won’t matter after tomorrow.”

“Shade!” Nox and Nocturna spoke together, their eyes snapping to Shade of one accord.

Jemma’s nerves jangled. “After tomorrow?” she said. “Why won’t it matter?”

“I … um …” Shade’s birthmark darkened. “Nothing. Forget I said it.”

“Apologize to your sister, Shade,” Nox said, scowling at her. “Such tiresome jealousy!”

“Sorry, Jem
-mah
.” Shade looked daggers at her.

“Well,” Nocturna said, rapping her fingernails on the table. “We still await our special delivery, do we not? Where is that, what’s his name, Goodbellows?”

“Goodfellow, my dear. He’s sending his boy. He should be here at any moment.” Nox turned to the door. “Ah, here he is now. Enter, boy.”

Digby? Here, on a Mord-day? Jemma’s heart skipped a beat.

“Beggin’ your pardons, sir, ma’am.” Digby ambled in. “Mr. Drudge asked me to bring this up to you. Wolfsbane, cut fresh today, as requested.” He placed a small packet next to Nox’s elbow, and caught Jemma’s eye. She looked down, trying not to smile. None of her family knew about her friendship with him. Like her nighttime visits to Marsh’s room, it was her secret, and she looked forward to Tuesdays, when Digby and his father delivered groceries to the castle.

“Thank you, boy.” Nox tucked the packet inside his waistcoat.

“Good day to you all.” Digby glanced at Jemma again, his blue eyes making her heart skip, then tipped his cap, and left.

Nocturna blotted her mouth with her napkin. “Scruffy young ruffian! Imagine, dressing like a scarecrow to come here. He should have worn his Mord-day best.”

“And the way he looked at Jemma!” Feo’s birthmark darkened.

“What way?” Jemma said. “I didn’t notice.”

“I saw it too,” said Shade, “as well as you, trying not to smile at him. Really, Jem-
mah
, you should know better. He’s as common as muck.”

“Come, come!” said Nox, slapping his palms on the table. “Today, our words should honor our Ancestors, not be wasted on petty quibbles. Now, the Ceremony. Let us adjourn.”

“Quite.” Nocturna rose from her chair. Rook flapped onto her right shoulder as she glided toward the door, Shade and Feo marching out behind her.

Jemma bit her bottom lip. Her father put his arm around her, his cloak draping her shoulders as they trooped behind the others across the hall toward their room of worship. It
was some relief that, unlike them, he had always understood her dread of the weekly ritual. He stopped outside the Ceremony Chamber, then turned to face Jemma and took her hands in his.

“How the years have sped by!” he said, his eyes crinkling. “I can scarcely believe it. You, our little one, just one day from being thirteen. My sweet thirteen!”

Sweet thirteen!
The words from her dream crashed into Jemma’s mind. She gasped, and pulled her hands from her father’s. He frowned slightly, a puzzled expression playing on his face, then ushered her through the great oak doors into the cavernous room.

The Ceremony Chamber was already stifling, lit by a blazing fire and thirteen black candles ranged across the mantelpiece, which served as the altar. Shadows and light danced on the windowless walls and on the four enormous stone pillars that soared up to the ceiling. Sprigs of hemlock and deadly nightshade were strewn across the hearth and over the huge statues on either side of the fireplace: on the left, brandishing his scythe, was Mordrake, the great Agromond ancestor who had created the Mist some seven hundred years before; and on the right, draped with lizards and wielding a carved bolt of lightning, his wife, the beautiful ferocious-looking Mordana, for whom he’d had the castle built. Jemma had always found them alarming, partly because of their towering height—already small for her age, she felt dwarfed by them. But as much as that, it was because of their names. Only recently had she understood why: Mord, Marsh had explained, was the Frankish word for Death.

Nine tolls rang out from the Bell Tower as the family settled themselves in the pews. There were four rows in all, a reminder of the days when the Agromond family had been larger. Jemma sat in the second row next to Feo, with Shade on the other side of him. Her father sat in front of her, next to Nocturna, then looked over his shoulder.

“All right?” he whispered, eyebrows raised. “Don’t you worry, Flamehead. You’ll do splendidly, I know it.”

Flamehead! He hadn’t called her that in years. His pet name for her used to reassure her, and she wanted reassurance now, desperately. She smiled, but fear gnawed at her like a pack of wolves.

“That’s my girl.” Nox smiled back and turned away.

The last toll died down. Nocturna rose to her feet and walked to the fireplace, weasels circling her hemline. “All rise,” she said, raising her hands above her head.

Jemma, Nox, and the twins stood. Rook fluttered to the altar and landed on a black globe set on one end of it. Nocturna began to turn counter-clockwise, the two pendants around her neck glinting in the firelight, one jet black, one aquamarine, as she chanted the Opening Invocation.

As always, Nocturna looked as energized by the Invocation as Jemma felt weakened by it. It was a relief to sit again as Nocturna launched into the Fealty: “We honor thee, O Mordrake and Mordana, whose blood flows through us to this great Time of Darkness …”

Her head bowed, Jemma counted the worm holes on the seat of the pew in front of her: last week, sixteen; this week, twenty-one.
Rotting, like everything else here
, she thought. Her mind wandered to Tuesday, and Digby’s next visit. Only two days to go—

“O Mordrake, Mordana!” The family’s rousing bleat snatched Jemma from her daydream. “Beloved founders of our dynasty! In everlasting thanks for the Mist and our continuing supremacy over this our land of Anglavia, accept our Offerings!”

“Come, Shade,” said Nocturna. “You first.”

Jemma’s throat tightened as Shade rose from her pew and strutted to Mordana’s statue, bowed and kissed its hand, then walked to her mother’s side and turned to face the pews.

“All hail, Mordrake, Mordana!” she said. “Behold, the Extinguishing of the Light!”

Shade drew in her breath, billowing out her chest, and blew. A blast of ice-cold air streaked past the pews, leaving a trail of frost in its wake. It ricocheted off the back wall and returned to the fireplace. Rook, still perched on the black globe, shivered. Ten of the thirteen candles ranged beside him sputtered and died, their flames turned to beads of ice. The middle three remained lit. Shade’s face fell.

“Suitably chilling, my dear.” Nocturna said, stroking Shade’s hair. “An impressive show.”

“I wanted to put them
all
out!” Shade stomped back to her seat. “Just wait. Someday I shall freeze everything.”

“Of course, dear,” said Nocturna. “Your turn, Feo. Don’t keep us waiting.”

Feo leapt to his feet and shot Jemma a crooked grin as he loped to the front of the room. Jemma’s dread thickened. Only last year, Feo could barely materialize a worm without it disappearing within seconds, but since his and Shade’s thirteenth birthday Initiations eleven months ago—a secret Ceremony she had been too young to attend, her parents had said—something had changed. Feo’s Offerings had gradually
become more sinister. Like in last week’s Ceremony, when at his command every fly in the room had simultaneously stopped buzzing, then dropped dead, pattering to the floor with the sound of a thousand raindrops.

Feo walked to Mordrake’s statue and reached behind it for something, then stood beside Nocturna.

“All hail, Mordrake, Mordana!” he said, holding up the object for all to see: a glass jar, full of what appeared to be a tangle of wriggling black string. He unscrewed its lid, grabbed a strand, and extracted a large spider. Dangling it by one hairy leg, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and popped it in. Jemma heard the crunch of its body being ground between Feo’s teeth, and the gulp as he swallowed. He took out another, its legs flailing, and repeated his performance. Then twice more, several spiders at once, until the jar was empty. Each time the pride in Nocturna’s eyes intensified. Each time Jemma’s heart shrank, imagining the spiders’ struggle in Feo’s throat, their pain as his teeth gnashed down on them.

“Suitably gruesome, Feo,” Nocturna said, patting him on the back.

“Wait, Mama. There’s more.” Feo closed his eyes and screwed up his face. His diaphragm lurched three times, then he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. One by one, six spiders scurried out and fell to the floor. Relief flooded Jemma. They were alive! But just as the seventh was making its bid for freedom from between Feo’s lips, he clamped his jaws around it, crunched again, gulped, and it was gone. He stamped his feet and squished the other six.