Autumn (6 page)

             
The figure swirled in a cloud of grey-black, mist-like substance. The chill intensified. The grey eyes locked onto Arabel, hypnotic, deadly, cold.

             
“Do not resist me,” it said, and the scraping tenor of its voice was the worst sound Arabel had ever heard. It sounded like it had come up from the darkest part of the spirit world and it echoed with a menacing timbre, deep as death and low and raspy.

             
It looked like an evil phantom and unlike any of the spectres Arabel had ever seen before. It smiled at her and the broken teeth were rotten and foul. The very flesh on the face of the man seemed to curl and morph into a slimy green mass.

             
Arabel screamed as it moved toward her, fingers outstretched, to curl against her pale throat.

             
Arabel’s bedroom door burst open and there stood Amelia Bodean. She graced the doorway, looking fierce in her long white nightgown, her hair wrapped tightly in rag curlers, a rolling pin in her hand and a glazed look of semi-drunkenness upon her countenance.

             
“What is going on in here?” Amelia Bodean demanded haughtily, wildly brandishing the rolling pin as a weapon.

             
The man shimmered and faded quickly, almost instantly. Arabel ran to her grandmother’s side.

             
“A nightmare,” Arabel lied quickly, removing the rolling pin from her grandmother’s unsteady hand.

             
“Loud enough to wake the dead!” Amelia Bodean complained, turning away. “Go back to sleep then and try not to keep the rest of us awake.”

             
Arabel closed the door quietly behind her grandmother’s retreating form. Never one to coddle her granddaughter, Arabel was used to her grandmother’s testy ways. Arabel knew the drinking didn’t help. It turned Amelia Bodean’s energy sour somehow and Arabel herself vowed she would stay away from rum for the rest of her life. Wine, a glass here and there Arabel quite enjoyed but she had never been intoxicated and she didn’t intend on starting now. Who knew what evil that might conjure? Arabel had enough trouble when she was sober; it seemed likely alcohol would only make things worse.

             
Sleep wouldn’t come, no matter how much Arabel tried to blank everything out. Shapes seemed to form in the dark, levitating up from the folded blankets on the chair, and Arabel’s draperies were billowing out wildly, like a gruesome scarecrow. Smoke rose in slick spirals to float amongst the cacophony of shoes that began to skate along the very air of the ceiling, dancing to their own inaudible beat.

             
Arabel shot up in bed.

             
I fell asleep after all, Arabel noted with relief, willing her heart to cease its frantic pounding. She lay back against the pillows, catching her breath. Maybe this time she’d sleep without any sort of nightmare.

             
Arabel was going to ask Eli to take her to see the Gypsies after dinner tomorrow so she needed her rest. It promised to be a long evening, and if she were honest with herself, Arabel had to admit she wanted to look her personal best.

             
Arabel started her nightly relaxation routine all over again. She relaxed her toes, wiggled her feet, and worked her way up, breathing…

             
Somehow the night finally passed and the darkness reluctantly gave way to the healing light of the sun. In the pale, early morning rays of dawn, Arabel peered at herself in the looking glass which sat upon her dresser. Her wide blue eyes scrutinized back with alarming intensity. Arabel’s thick, raven-black hair hung straight past her shoulders in a soft curtain. Her pale skin highlighted the rouge of her lips and the arches of her black eyebrows framed the beautiful oval of her face with precision. Arabel gazed at herself solemnly and wondered how she appeared to others.

             
There was so much illusion, rampant illusion, she knew, when it came to objectivity, subjectivity and physical appearance. Mostly Arabel never cared what she looked like as there was no one she cared to impress. But this morning, Arabel wondered. She stared at herself for a long moment then she turned away from the looking glass, feeling both foolish and vain.

             
Arabel had chores to do and right now, she was only shirking them because she disliked them. Sadly, this was not going to make them go away; Arabel had tried that route before and had been largely unsuccessful. Today was ‘charitable donations day’ and it was Arabel’s duty to take the cleaned household donations and foodstuffs and fold and pack them into boxes to be delivered to the less fortunate.

             
Once the boxes were filled and the cart loaded up with them, Mr. Larsen, their all-round handyman, would hitch up the old ponies and drive Arabel to all of the homes where the deliveries were expected.

             
Quite often Arabel would end up inside the cottages, having a tea with the family or elderly person who was receiving the goods. It was an all day event and Arabel disliked it as a rule. Too often the folks just wanted to poke at her. See if she could resurrect their recently departed old uncle and where exactly had he left all that money? Or when would so and so meet a new lover? Everyone wanted free advice and Arabel was uncomfortable with their pressing questions. She was glad to deliver goods to those who needed them but the psychic requests she could do without.

             
Today, however, Arabel was aware that she had an opportunity, one she was definitely going to make the most of. She was going to prod everyone else for a change. She was going to be the one asking the questions. Someone out there knew something that could help them end the evil; they just didn’t know it yet. Arabel was going to do her best to make them remember.

             
The first stop of the day was old Mrs. Eleanor Cranston’s cottage. The cottage itself had seen better days and so had Mrs Cranston but the tiny, stooped woman with the ice-white, impossibly maintained chignon remained cheerful of spirit and generous of nature. She was Arabel’s favourite to visit and the only one who had never asked Arabel to read her tea leaves by candlelight or play necromancer before supper.

             
“Sit down, dearie, and let me pour out some of my chamomile tea for you. And have a wee biscuit; you’re much too thin! I suppose that is the fashion nowadays,” Mrs. Cranston smiled apologetically, as if she herself were responsible for the straight-lined dresses of the day and their accompanying constricting laces. “One biscuit won’t hurt you!” She offered a wide china plate gaily painted with blue sailboats to Arabel who could not resist taking one of the lemon concoctions. It was, of course, completely delicious.

             
The kitchen where they were sitting was small and cramped and indicative of the entire cottage which was old and worn but maintained decently and furnished sparsely with two wooden chairs and a sidebar table of pale maple. Arabel praised the biscuit and Mrs. Cranston waved it off airily.

             
“Heard that the search has spread everywhere now for that missing girl, Klara, from Magpie Moor. You wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you dearie?” Mrs. Cranston asked, peering intently at Arabel. Arabel stiffened.

             
“No, I only know she’s missing,” Arabel replied.

             
The old woman was staring at her, almost through her and Arabel noticed a gleam in her rheumy eyes she’d not seen before, as if she was enjoying the tragedy, milking it for all its dark energy.

             
“Such a pity, isn’t it?” Mrs. Cranston remarked, dunking her biscuit in her tea somewhat absently. “I guess we never know when our time will come, do we?” she chuckled and the sound grated upon Arabel’s taut nerves.

             
Arabel felt uneasy, as if perhaps old Mrs. Cranston couldn’t be trusted, as if the grey swirling energy had taken over all that was decent and kind and therefore vulnerable to its attack. Feeling an overwhelming desire to leave the cottage, Arabel struggled to keep panic at bay.

             
She glanced at the tea in her hands, was it poison? Arabel felt completely without borders, without walls, as if any negative force seeking her would locate her and take her over immediately. It was a horrible, helpless feeling and Arabel put her teacup down with a rattle and made to her feet. She gestured to the box.

             
“We’ll be back next week,” Arabel said, and hastily opened the cottage door and ran through to the waiting wagon and the safety of the ponies and Mr. Larsen, leaving a bewildered old woman inside a falling down cottage, drinking her tea alone.

             
Next were Aarle and Joely Mantuive, siblings recently relocated to Crow’s Nest Pass from Magpie Moor. Arabel was keen to see what they might have to say. Perhaps they knew Klara and could shed some light upon her disappearance. Arabel had never exchanged more than a few words with them, but maybe today they would open up to her.

             
The visit with Mrs. Cranston had shaken Arabel more than she cared to admit. Arabel had never felt an ominous presence in the cottage before and all her prior interactions with the old woman had been lovely afternoon visits, with no foreboding of danger. Arabel was sure she’d over-reacted, but she followed her intuition completely, regardless of whether or not it might appear nonsensical. It was blind faith, Arabel supposed, and most often, thankfully, it seemed to work in her favour. She reasoned that if you had to trust someone, it was best to start with yourself.

             
The Mantuive cottage was darker than Mrs. Cranston’s and the upkeep seemed of less a concern to the brother and sister from Magpie Moor. They were middle aged and both pleasant enough to Arabel but they did not ask her inside. They stood at the front doorway, both with their hands on their hips, the box of goods placed squarely at their feet, and distant smiles upon their plain faces.

             
“Thanks again, Miss Spade, it’s awfully nice of you to come by,” the sister, Joely, was saying. Her brother Aarle bobbed his head up and down in agreement. Joely moved back from the door, and Aarle picked up the box of foodstuffs and notions.

             
“Yes, mighty generous,” he seconded, “and a good-day to you, Miss Spade.”

             
With this last remark, Aarle moved neatly in front of Arabel and shut the door firmly in her face.

             
Arabel stood on the sloop for a moment, more than a bit surprised at the quickness of her dismissal and thought she heard laughter. Arabel strained to listen and distinctly heard a low, masculine laugh within her ear. It wasn’t Aarle Mantuive, however; this voice was deeper and the laughter wasn’t coming from inside of the dark cottage.

             
Arabel shrank back against the house – she recognized this laugh. It was the laughter of the man in her dream; the man who would attack her, given the opportunity. Arabel swallowed her shock at the Mantuive’s chilly reception and forced herself to listen again for the laughter, but it was gone. Arabel moved slowly back to the waiting wagon and Mr. Larsen, settling her face into pleasant, unconcerned lines.

             
“They’re uptight, those two,” Mr. Larsen was saying. “Reckon they figure they’re too good to accept charity.” He sniffed into his blue hanky. “Some folks don’t know what they’re about,” he said sagely and Arabel knew that in Mr. Larsen’s world order was order and all pegs must fit into the round holes allotted them. She was an anomaly to him, Arabel knew, but he was fond of her and she of him.

             
“On to the next one,” Arabel said briskly and resigned herself to the visiting.

             
The front bell rang at exactly half past six and Arabel rushed down from her room to the front hallway immediately. When Arabel arrived downstairs, however, Morna was already taking Eli’s jacket from him to hang neatly in the front hall closet. Arabel could see Morna’s lips twitching with barely checked and sure-to-be-scandalous comments. Arabel felt her ears burn hotly and her cheeks redden instantly. She felt ridiculously happy to see him, which made her feel just plain ridiculous.

             
“I’ll finish up with the table, miss,” Morna said, her eyes gleaming, as she took an appraising stock of Eli. “You two go on into the front parlour, I’ll be fetching you for supper in just a minute.”

             
Eli smiled at Arabel and she returned it easily. He’d forgotten how charming her smile was, he noted, and thought she looked tonight like a dark angel, dressed as she was in a soft and simply draped white gown with pale green beaded slippers and her long black hair hanging freely in a straight, thick line. Arabel turned her bright blue eyes upon him, full power, and Eli shook his head against the impact of her gaze.

             
“Thanks for coming by,” she said softly, suddenly shy.

             
“I’m glad to be here,” Eli returned, somewhat formally. Then he laughed. “Your grandmother isn’t here now, is she?” Eli surveyed the front hall warily, as if expecting Amelia Bodean to jump out suddenly from a hidden doorway, all suspicious-like, and quite possibly unruly.