The Flame in the Mist (3 page)

Nox rose to his feet. “Splendid, my boy!” he boomed, clapping his hands. “Splendid!”

Nocturna’s eyes shone with delight. Rook cawed, swaying
from foot to foot. Shade picked at her fingernails, her face puckered with envy, as Feo swaggered back to his seat.

Nocturna turned to Jemma, her crimson robes haloed by the firelight behind her, and pulled herself to her full height. “Your turn, Jemma,” she said.

Heat pressed into Jemma. Sweat dripped from her brow; her dress prickled, her shoes pinched. If only she’d practiced! But it felt so wrong, the things they wanted. It felt—

“Go on, my dearest,” her father whispered as he sat down again. “I have faith in you.”

Jemma’s heart lifted slightly. She could do better than Shade, she knew she could! Surely it wouldn’t hurt to call upon the Mord ancestors just this once, to help her summon some small, cloud-like Entity? Something mildly unpleasant, that she would command to tangle in Shade’s hair? Feo would laugh … her parents would be proud of her.… No more of her mother’s anger, her father’s disappointment! And no real damage would be done, no creature injured; nothing but Shade’s pride. What sweet revenge that would be! She could do it—she would!

Determined, Jemma walked to her mother’s side, bowed to the statues, then turned her back to the fire and took a deep breath.

“All Hail, Mord—Mord—” The words stuck like knives in her throat.

“Yes, dear?” Nox leaned forward in his pew, his eyes ablaze with hope.

“I um, bring the Offering of … a …” It was no use. Fear had her in its grip.

“Speak up, Jemma,” Nocturna said.

“I don’t feel very well, Mama. Please, can’t I …?”

A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and shattered at her feet.

“You must do your part in honoring our Ancestors, my dear.” Nocturna cracked a smile, but Jemma saw the danger lurking behind it. Her mother had lashed out at her before, and wouldn’t hesitate to again if Jemma didn’t deliver. Panic rising, she looked at her father.

“Just do your best, Jemma,” he said softly.

Jemma’s mind felt trapped in a vise. Shade and Feo’s gazes bore into her, darkness surrounding their pale faces. The room began to fade. Materializing anything, even the merest ant, would be impossible with such anxiety rattling through her. She looked at her knees, willing them not to buckle. There at her feet, long tails twitching, were Noodle and Pie, come to her rescue, as they did every time she was at a loss during the Ceremonies. Raising her head to the ceiling, she waved her arms and squeaked twice. The rats hopped onto the hem of her dress and clambered up to sit on her shoulders, one on each side.

“Behold,” Jemma croaked. “Rats, from thin air …”

Silence filled the room. The disapproval on Nocturna’s face made her look as though she had just smelled something vile. The weasels edged out from under the front pew and hissed, baring needle-sharp teeth.

Shade was the first to speak. “Those disgusting rats again, Jem
-mah
!” she sneered. “Mama, Papa, make her do something different. She does the same thing every other week!”

“Yes, come on, Jemma,” Feo urged. “You can do better than that!”

“I … I could make them fly.…” Jemma mumbled, desperate, and then immediately regretted it. She had tried to make things fly, often, but had only succeeded once, last Wednesday at dinner, when she’d spirited Shade’s bread roll across the table and onto her own plate.

Nox stood, and strode toward her mother. “I think Jemma has done quite enough,” he said. “We mustn’t exhaust our daughter, Nocturna”—he lowered his voice—“
must
we?”

Nocturna inhaled. “Of course not.” she said. “Jemma, sit.”

Jemma staggered to the end of her pew, grateful for her father’s intervention, and slumped down. Noodle and Pie nuzzled into her neck.

“Don’t bring those revolting creatures
near
me,” said Shade, her voice trembling as she shifted away.

“They’re just
rats
, Shade,” said Feo. “What are you so afraid of?”

Jemma stroked Noodle and Pie. She had never understood her sister’s terror of them—there seemed to be nothing else Shade feared—but she was thankful for it. With the rats nearby, Shade kept her distance.

Clang!

Nine-thirty.

“And now, children,” Nox said. “The time has come for your mother’s and my Offering. Today, we have a surprise for you: the summoning of a new Entity. One that promises to be more inspiring than ever!”

Shade and Feo exchanged excited glances. Jemma began to tremble. The Entities: it was they that made her feel so drained, stirring a deep terror in her that she dreaded more than anything.
It’s just fear getting the better of you
, her father
always said.
You must learn to overcome it
. But his words never helped.

“This,” Nox continued, “is a special event that, as decreed in our ancient Mord tradition, must take place shortly before the coming-of-age of the youngest Agromond. And as we all know, tomorrow our beloved Jemma will turn thirteen—”

“Yes, yes, Nox,” Nocturna said. “The herbs, if you please.”

Nox held Jemma’s gaze as he tossed back his cloak and pulled the packet Digby had brought from inside his waistcoat. He untied it and gathered a fistful of foliage.

“Wolfum malificarum!”
he said, throwing it onto the fire with a flourish. It fizzed and crackled, puffing out bile-green smoke. He and Nocturna closed their eyes, their faces in rapt concentration. They shook; their bodies stiffened. Then their eyes shot open and rolled back into their heads until only the whites were visible. The two pendants around Nocturna’s neck pulsed in the firelight, blood-red, aquamarine, blood-red.…

Entranced, she and Nox began to chant, their voices low and ominous:

Nocturna’s pendants gleamed brighter. Waves of weariness washed through Jemma.

The black globe on the mantel seemed to throb in time with the words, like a giant heart. Nocturna’s pendants looked illuminated from within. Jemma’s head spun.

The fire shimmered and flared, shimmered and flared again, then faded as if being inhaled by the grate. The room plunged into chill. Then the fire leapt up again, throwing her parents’ shadows across the vaulted ceiling like enormous birds of prey. Smoke curled from the flames, stinking of rotten flesh. Suddenly, with an ear-splitting roar, a black mass spewed from the fireplace. Rook was propelled into the air, flapping frantically. Noodle and Pie scrambled inside the front of Jemma’s dress. Feo, his face chalk-white, sat wide-eyed, biting his lips. The weasel on his lap fled under the pew next to its three companions; a yellow puddle appeared beneath them. Shade sat transfixed. Jemma felt the rest of her strength being sucked out of her.

This was worse than any Entity they’d summoned before. Far worse.

The black mass curled across the mantel and around each statue, then coalesced above Nox and Nocturna’s heads. They fell to their knees, hands raised.

“Scagavay!” they said in unison. “Mord be praised! We have called, and you have come!”

Scagavay pulsed as if breathing, then suddenly sprang into the shape of a huge open-mouthed face. A sound like a thousand screams spilled from it into the room. Jemma felt as though her bones were ice, freezing her from inside. She knew that sound—had heard those screams before, in her
dreams. Then they had been distant, echoey, as if from some long-ago time. But this was loud, and utterly soul-chilling, just like the Mist had been in this morning’s dream, threatening to engulf her.…

“No,” she whispered. “No …” She willed her words to the rats.
Noodle, Pie … Forgive me … if I could just borrow your strength … Just a spark, to get me moving …

The two lumps in her bodice stirred, and Jemma felt the faintest glimmer of energy pulsing from the rats into her veins. She hauled herself to her feet and backed away from the black tendrils snaking toward her.
One step …
Now she knew what those flies struggling to peel themselves off the fly paper in the kitchen must feel like. She turned to the door.
Two steps, three …
The screams subsided.
Four, five, six …
Her bones felt warmer, lighter.
Seven, eight, nine …
Then she was running, and slammed into the huge carved door. Glancing over her shoulder, she was surprised to see that Scagavay had vanished. Her parents and the twins looked bewildered. Her mother’s pendants had lost their luminosity and now lay against her chest, dull and ordinary.

“Jemma …” Nocturna’s voice sounded almost pleading. “Wait …”

With one final burst of effort, Jemma pulled open the door and fled from the room.

Jemma ran across the hall and into the stairway leading to the kitchen below. Halfway down, she paused for breath, heart beating like the wings of a caged bird. Claws needled her chest—the rats, scrabbling beneath her bodice. She pulled them out and they hung from her hands, their golden fur sleek with her sweat, ruby eyes wild and unblinking.

“Noodle, Pie, thank you, thank you! You saved me again.” Jemma pulsed what energy she could back into them, then placed them onto the stone step. They teetered into a nearby crevice and she hurtled down the remaining stairs, one thought blazing in her mind: to reach Marsh. She set off along the corridor toward the Vat Room, where she knew her trusted confidante would be, washing the laundry as she did on every Mord-day. Marsh would help her. She always did.

Jemma’s footsteps echoed off the dank, torch-lit walls. The low ceiling, black with mold, glistened and blinked like spying eyes. Shelves lined with large jars of grotesque-looking pickles and preserves—huge limb-like gherkins, yellow peppers like twisted mandrakes—seemed to advance and recede. The horrific howl of moments ago still filled her head, and she imagined Scagavay pursuing her, seeping out of every crack in the walls, suffocating her.… She increased her stride.

How many times had she made an adventure of exploring
these corridors, imagining herself to be a rebel fleeing for her life, or a warrioress rescuing prisoners from years of captivity? Now, the peril felt all too real. She sped past herb hutches and hanging entrails, and into the kitchen, praying that the revolting Drudge wouldn’t be there—that would be too much. But halfway across, his stooped shadow shuffled from the Corridor of Dungeons. He thrust out a spindly hand, his fingernails snagging the sleeve of her dress as she passed.

“Leave me
alone
,” she muttered under her breath, her heartbeat galloping.

“Jmmaaagh!” His wheeze spat into the gloom behind her. “No afff … Help!”

Jemma picked up her pace and hurtled into the long West Passage, pulled as if by a magnet toward the Vat Room at the end.

“Marsh!” Jemma burst in. Steam belched from the sunken tub that practically filled the floor. Marsh was wrestling with a long pole, doing her best to stir a soggy mass of off-white sheets. “Marsh, help me!”

“Sprites, child!” Marsh dropped the pole and swept Jemma into her arms. “Whatever’s the matter?”

“Everything! This place … the Ceremony …” Jemma sobbed onto Marsh’s shoulder. “It was worse than ever! Why do they love it so much, when I hate it, hate it! I’m just not like them—I never have been! I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t do what they want.”

“Hush now.” Marsh cradled Jemma, stroking her head. “Hush. There now.”

“And that howling thing—I felt like it was sucking the life out of me!”

“Howlin’ thing? Oh, no …” Marsh pulled away, the ruddiness draining from her cheeks. “Did you remember the Light Game?”

“No … I … But they would have seen it, wouldn’t they? They would’ve known—”

“I’ve told you a thousand times, they can’t
see
it, not if you use it the way I’ve taught you! You forgot, din’t you? You
must
remember it, Jemma! T’aint a game no more—”

“Why, what’s going on? Tell me!”

“Later, Jem. What’ve I told you about walls havin’ ears? You mus’ trust me, an’ wait till tonight. Now go, back upstairs—”

“No, Marsh, no! I have to get away from here—I can’t wait! I don’t care if they say I’m too weak to go outside—I have to leave, now! Even if it kills me. I’d rather die than stay!”

“Pull yourself together, child! Breathe.… breathe.… That’s it.… Good. Now listen to me, careful-like. There’s things I’ve had to keep from you. Things too dangerous for you to know. Secrets. Lies. I know you’re scared, Jem, but tonight, I promise you, everything will change. Till then, you got to be brave, and face ’em. So off you go. They’ll come lookin’ for you, an’ they mustn’t find you with me, ’specially not now. An’ this time, remember the Light Game. It’ll protect you. Above all, don’t let none of ’em see how upset you are. Pretend, like we does sometimes—”

“But … secrets? Lies? What—?”

“Ssssh!” Marsh’s eyes locked onto Jemma’s and she whispered,
“Someone’s comin’,”
then snatched up her washing pole and poked at the sheets, admonishing Jemma in a loud monotone:

“Keep away from me, you stuck-up piece of vermin!”

Feigning coldness toward one another was a game Marsh and Jemma had played for as long as Jemma could remember to disguise their mutual fondness. Normally, at Marsh’s cue, Jemma would shoot back some absurd insult. But now, words jammed in her mind.

“Burstin’ in like you owned the place!” Marsh’s voice was stern, but her eyes were full of softness. “Be off with you. Or did a harpy eat your legs?”

This grisly image always amused Jemma, and it snapped her to her senses. “What makes you think I’d want to stay around you, anyway?” she said. “You’re fat, and barely bigger than a troll!” She turned to leave just as a bony form appeared in the doorway. Drudge stood there, swaying like a gnarled tree in a storm.