The Flame in the Mist (21 page)

“Look, Jem,” said Digby, “here’s the moors. Now we can put some distance between us and them Agromonds. Hold on!” He kicked Pepper into a gallop.

Jemma fell back against him with a gasp of surprise. The momentum whisked all apprehension from her, and she let out a whoop, loving the feel of wind buffeting her face, the sound of Pepper’s hooves pounding the ground, and the way the trees appeared out of the Mist, then receded as they sped past. Her heart soared as she leaned into Digby, losing herself in thoughts of daring rescues in vividly colored landscapes until he pulled back in the saddle and slowed Pepper to a brisk walk.

The Mist was slightly thinner now, revealing more of the countryside: rising hillocks, broken fences, barren trees. The Stoat’s babble was gone. Noodle and Pie, having climbed from Jemma’s pockets, were twined in Pepper’s mane on either side of the pommel, noses twitching. Digby eased Pepper off the track and onto a path winding between heather and gorse. He pulled up near a cluster of derelict stone cottages, then slid to the ground.

“Time for a quick leg stretch an’ some lunch,” he said, helping Jemma down and untangling the rats. She was surprised how wobbly she felt after no more than an hour of riding—and how hungry. Soon they were sitting under a tree, tucking into Digby’s mother’s ox-dripping sandwiches, and swigging milk—which Digby’s family evidently preferred fresh—while Noodle and Pie snoozed, their bellies still round as pomegranates from breakfast. Jemma untied her burlap scarf and pulled it off, shaking her hair loose.

“Just while we’re here,” she said, before Digby could protest.

“An’ you think you in’t the Fire One!” He chuckled. “Look jus’ like a fox, you do.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that people hunt foxes, though? I don’t want to be hunted, thank you very much. Unless it’s by you …” She glanced at him, and smiled. “How
did
you find me, anyway?”

“Oh. Right.” Digby chomped into an apple, talking as he ate. “Well, Pa an’ me went up to the castle as usual las’ Tuesday, an’ you, of course, wasn’t there. Mr. Drudge, he kep’ sayin’ you’d gone, an’ how I had to find you. On no account was I to go far into the forest, he said, but I was to wait for you near the road. I’d find you there sometime after Friday evenin’—by Saturday mornin’ at the latest.”

“Dear old Drudge.” Jemma’s heart warmed, thinking about the old man.

“Dear ol’ Drudge? But you always hated him!”

“I was blind, Dig.” Jemma felt herself blush. “He … he’s amazing. He helped me, gave me food and drink, and this cloak.… But how on earth did you understand him?”

“I always was a tad more patient than you, Jem.” Digby took another bite of apple. “Anyways, at first I thought he was jus’ bein’ his usual weird self, spoutin’ off like that, but I soon realized he was serious, an’ as the hours went by, it ate into me more an’ more. By the end of the day I was that worked up with worry, the thought of waitin’ three whole days till Friday … I jus’ couldn’t. So I decided to start lookin’ for you that night, Tuesday, no matter what Drudge had said. Ma an’ Pa tried to talk me out of it—fretted as cats about to lose a kitten, they was—but I told ’em, I couldn’t let you down, an’ I’d go with or without their blessin’. I was all set to leave—jus’ before midnight, it was—when someone starts bashin’ on our door—”

“Tuesday night! The lady Flora mentioned … was it—”

“Marsh? Yes, Jem, it was.”

“She’s alive!” Jemma threw her arms around him. “Thank goodness!”

“Whoa, Jem!” Digby laughed, and Jemma sat back, listening intently as he continued. “So there she was at our door. Pa an’ me, we barely recognized her, she was so tore up. An’ Jem, I should tell you … she had a bad fight with somethin’, an’ … an’ she lost.…”

“Her hand; I know—but she’s alive!
Alive!
Is she all right? Where is she?”

“Yes, she’s all right. We bandaged her up, an’ next day she left for Oakstead to find your folks an’ tell ’em what had happened. She’s got a lot of Power, that one, recoverin’ as fast as she did.” He shook his head in admiration. “Told Ma, Pa, an’ me all about it, how she trained for years under your pa’s parents—your grandparents—long before you was born. Could’ve knocked me over with a feather, Jem.… We’d heard of the Prophecy—most folks has—but we had no idea that it was
you
! She said you had no clue neither, an’ I should break it to you gentle-like, if it came up.”

Digby went on to relate the story Marsh had told that night, adding to the one Jemma herself had so recently learned about her abduction and the Agromonds’ plot to steal her Powers. At first, her parents and Marsh had been afraid that the Agromonds had killed her. But then word came that she was still alive. (“The fella wot used to deliver to the castle before Pa,” Digby said, “he was told by one o’ the servants, an’ told his missus. Word gets about, y’know.”) Still, her parents had been powerless to do anything: not only did the Mist prevent them from rescuing her, but the Agromonds had put
a spell on them, weakening them further. They’d no longer had the strength even to leave Oakstead. They’d been desperate. So Marsh insisted she’d go instead.

“She loved you more’n anythin’, see, next to her husband,” Digby said. “So since the Agromonds had killed him, she had nothin’ to stay in Oakstead for—”

“Wait—her
husband
? They killed him? But … she never said she was married!”

“Course not, Jem. She couldn’t tell you anythin’ that might give away who she really was. Her husband, he was drivin’ your parents’ carriage the night you was taken.”

Jemma’s mind flicked back to the newspaper articles:
Felled coachman, grieving widow
 … “Julius, that was the coachman’s name. Julius Sharm. But that’s awful! Poor Marsh … Oh!”

“What?”

“Sharm … Marsh … They’re anagrams. But go on.” Jemma picked up her fifth sandwich.

“Ana—what? Well, once they’d agreed that she’d go …”

Already expertly trained in Mind Control, Marsh had trained for months more to make sure she could outwit the Mist, then went to watch over Jemma and eventually help her escape. For this, though, the timing had to be exact: just when Jemma’s Powers were stirring strongly enough for her to overcome Nocturna’s hold on her Stone, as well as to survive the forest. But there was another thing: Jemma had to want freedom for herself—
really
want it, not just dream of it, as she had for so long. Only then would her Stone recognize its true owner.

“But then,” Digby said, “Marsh was found out, as you know. An’ here we are.”

“So my parents knew it would be years before they saw
me again … and Marsh waited all that time, just for that one night.…” Jemma felt humbled by the depth of Marsh’s love, and appalled by the danger of her mission and how tiny the window for their escape had been. “I’ve been half-asleep, just grumbling about how I didn’t belong there, but doing nothing about it—and not seeing the truth about the Agromonds until it almost killed me, and Marsh as well!” She tugged at a tuft of grass, ripping it up from the roots. “What an addle-head I’ve been!”

“Jem, you can’t blame yourself! There was nothin’ you or Marsh could’ve done sooner. You had to wait till you was strong enough, remember? Besides, you thought that lot was your
family
, for goodness’ sake! How was you to know different?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Family. What would her real parents be like? Did seeing her mother in the crystal mean that they had recovered and were now strong again? The thought of them began to feel more real, and she felt a frisson of excitement. Her
family
! Then she remembered her missing brother. Had her parents ever found him? Perhaps he’d been in Oakstead all these years … perhaps …

“Dig, did Marsh … did she say anything else? About my real family, I mean …”

Digby shook his head. “No, Jem, I told you everythin’ she told us.”

“Oh. Right.” A shadow moved across Jemma’s heart, and somehow she knew that her brother was still lost. She picked up a pebble and tossed it against one of the cottages. It ricocheted off the stone, landing with a
shush
in a drift of fallen
leaves. Then she heard another sound, a slight rustle, coming from within the cottage.

“What was that?”

Digby stopped chewing, and listened. A small brown creature scuttled out of the door, and away into a pile of rotten logs.

“Just a weasel, Jem. Nowt to worry about.”

Jemma shuddered, thinking of Nocturna’s four pets. “So Marsh has gone to Oakstead, to find my parents.”

Digby nodded. “She was dreadful cut up about leavin’ you at the castle, Jem, but she couldn’t go back. She’d hid her intentions from the Mist all them years ago, but this time it’d be expectin’ her, an’ would attack her, jus’ like it attacked your folks—’specially since she was still weak from bein’ in the forest. But she refused to give up hope that you’d get out. I told her what Mr. Drudge had told me, an’ that I’d find you, an’ we’d follow her up north.

“So she borrowed a horse—quite the horsewoman she is, even with one hand—an’ off she went. An’ though Drudge had said I wouldn’t find you till Friday, me an’ Pepper started lookin’ for you from then on, whenever Pa could spare us. Like Drudge, Marsh had said to stick near the road, so that’s what I did. Then, come Friday evenin’, me an’ this old nag was pacin’ that road non-stop from dusk till dawn, wasn’t we, Pepper? I was beginnin’ to despair of findin’ you, thinkin’ maybe you hadn’t made it—but finally, there you was. What a relief, I got to say.”

“Oh, Dig …” Jemma felt her cheeks flush. “You spent all that time out there! You … you could’ve been caught.…”

“Rotten bloody Agromonds.” Digby chomped off a piece
of crust. “The thought of you bein’ stuck there, after everythin’ Marsh told us … well, I didn’t care about the risk. I was doin’ it for you, Jem. Not for Good against Evil. For you.”

“Thank you. Really. You saved me.” Without thinking, Jemma took his hand.

Digby stopped chewing and grinned. “Maybe it was worth it,” he said. Their eyes locked for a moment, his grin widening. Then he jumped to his feet. “Time to get movin’. Marsh told me ’bout somewhere we can stay the night, but it’s still a good few hours from here.”

Digby shoved the remains of their picnic into his leather bag. Jemma plopped Noodle and Pie into her pockets, where they lay like two leaden balls. Digby was about to help her onto Pepper’s back when something caught her eye: a large bird, landing in the tree under which they’d just been sitting.

“A falcon,” said Digby. “Good hunters. Used for sendin’ messages too, by them that can tame ’em. I hope that don’t mean …” He frowned, looking around. Then he froze.

A shadow pulled back from one of the windows.

“There, Jem … Did you see?”

Jemma nodded, her heart racing. She hastily tied on her scarf, then realized it was too late. Obviously, they’d already been spotted, Jemma’s blaze of hair and all.

“What if it’s an Agromond spy?” she whispered. “Should we confront them?”

“No point, Jem. Whoever it is, no sense in givin’ ’em a better look at you. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

As they galloped away, Jemma looked behind at the cottages. An old woman, small and stooped, hobbled out of one of them. Jemma felt the woman’s gaze pierce her, and for a
moment, thought she saw a black shadow outlining the wizened form. Then it disappeared, leaving the woman shrouded in Mist.

Just a harmless passer-by
, Jemma told herself.
A vagrant. Perhaps she’s deaf, and didn’t hear anything
. In any case, an old hag like that probably couldn’t read, much less write messages for falcons to carry. Besides, where would she get paper and ink? Jemma turned away, her mind working at calming her, while her stomach felt like a nest of writhing vipers.

Jemma’s heart was in her throat as they galloped through the gray countryside. Would they have to be suspicious of everyone who crossed their path? Her fantasies of the Outside dwindled into dust as a horrible realization sank into her: The miles between her and her lifelong prison didn’t make her safe. People out here could be just as treacherous as they were at Agromond Castle.

The moorlands ended, and they slowed past hills and fields. Rows of people—men, women, and children—were stooped in some kind of hard-looking toil. Land workers, Jemma guessed, remembering Marsh’s descriptions of how potatoes and turnips were grown and harvested. Soon the farmlands turned into more rugged, wooded terrain, and Digby pulled Pepper to an abrupt halt at a bushy copse, then jumped to the ground.

“Hop on down,” he said. “We’re goin’ blackberryin’.”

Food?
Noodle and Pie nosed out of Jemma’s pockets.

“But why? We only ate a short while ago.” Jemma took Digby’s hand and slid from the saddle, then followed him into the copse. She plucked a few berries and fed them to the rats, popping one into her mouth. It was sweet, but she was surprised to find she quite liked the taste.

“It in’t for food, Jem.” He tramped through the undergrowth, grabbing clumps of the fruit as if his life depended on it. “It’s for your hair. We’re goin’ to dye it, an’ cut it short. Come on, use your scarf to collect ’em in.”

“What? No! You can’t just decide that without asking me—it’s
my
hair!”

“An’ it’s like a flag, in’t it, tellin’ everyone who you is.”

“But … but … all right, so we’ll dye it.” Jemma whisked off her scarf and snatched a few berries. “But you are
not
going to cut it off— Ow!” A thorn pricked her. “Mord take it!”

“Jem.” Digby stopped, and turned to her. “You saw what happened back there. First the villagers, then that woman. Your hair is what folks notice about you, soon as they see you. You got to understand how dangerous it is out here. We don’t know who we might meet.”

Jemma looked into the turbulent blue of his eyes. He was worried—and with good reason. “Sorry, Dig. You’re right.”

Before long, she was shorn, and Digby had made a paste of the berries crushed with mud from a brackish puddle—a mixture his mother had used recently, he said, to dye an old shirt of his. He packed the paste onto her head.