The Flame in the Mist (12 page)

“How about it, Rattusses?” she said, settling next to them again. “One more night in here, nice and snug? Then I can read more of this.” She picked up the book and opened it at the front. “Written by Majem Solvay … Was that a man or a woman, do you think?”

A woman
. Noodle and Pie hopped onto her knees and peered at the pages.

“I think so too, for some reason. ‘Solvay …’ Why does that sound so familiar?” She squinted at the name again. “Wait a minute—‘Majem’ is an anagram … of Jemma!”

The rats looked at her, cocking their heads to one side as if to say
We knew that
.

“Sprites, Rattusses! In all the years I’ve heard Marsh saying ‘Mother of Majem,’ it never occurred to me!” Jemma thought of the way Majem’s book had dried her. The cloak had, as well. Had it, too, been Majem’s? If so, how did Drudge come to have it? Mystery thickened. There was some connection between her and Majem that went deeper than names; she could feel it, like a secret path winding from some ancient, dark place. And somehow Drudge was tied into it too—

Pie nipped her knuckles. “Ouch, Rattus! What is it?”

The rats flattened their ears against their heads. Jemma held her breath and listened. Outside, a branch cracked in the distance. Then another. Then the sound of sticks beating the undergrowth, and voices—a lot of them—heading toward the hollow.

Panic ripping through her, Jemma wriggled under the cloak. Soon the voices became distinguishable, and she could make out their words between the blood pounding in her ears.

“Anything over there?”

“Naaa. You wannus to keep looking, m’lady?”

Then a voice that struck horror in Jemma’s heart—

“
Yes
, keep looking!”

—Shade!

“But it’s almos’ dark—”

“You’ll cease when I say so, and not a moment sooner, else we’ll not pay you a single groat! D’you hear me, you pack of lily-livers?”

Muttering, and cursing. The search party was getting closer. Footsteps, firm on the ground nearby. Jemma bit into her forearm, hard, to stop herself from trembling, so that the rustle of leaves underneath wouldn’t give away her whereabouts.

“I don’t know why we’re still looking.” Feo’s voice. “The time for the Ceremony is long gone.” They were practically at the rim of the hollow. Either he or Shade was sure to see the web, so pale against the dark ground! The footsteps stopped.

“Why?” Shade said. “Because I say so, idiot! And because Mama says so.”

“Sh … ugh … gnnn …” Jemma heard choking from above, then gasping. “You didn’t have to strangle me like that, Shade!” Feo croaked. “Whose side do you think I’m on, for Mord’s sake?”

“The side of the addle-headed, evidently! If you’d been listening when Mama explained, instead of gazing out of the window, you’d know. We still have until nine next Mord-day morning to carry out the Ceremony and take Jemma’s Powers. But she also has until then to get Initiated by her blood parents, and Mord help us if
that
was to happen! You know the consequences.”

Feo snorted. “And how could she possibly find her parents? She doesn’t even know who
she
is, let alone them!”

“Oh, do stop wittering, Feo!” A foot stamped on the earth, its impact juddering through Jemma’s bones. “Obviously, that Marsh woman told her! Why else would Jemma have taken the two crystals as well as her Stone? With the crystals in her possession, Mord forbid her parents start to guide her!”

The two crystals? What did her parents have to do with them? Jemma peeked from under her cloak, and saw them glinting at her.

“So like it or not, brother dear, we’re going to search every day, and we
shall
find her. Alive, if we can, but dead, if needs be. Anything to stop her. She must not leave the forest!”

The footsteps resumed. At any second now, Feo and Shade would fall through and find her! Jemma bit harder into her arm. Leaves shushed; the ground shuddered. The twins walked within inches of the web, then passed by. Her nerves unwound with relief. She was safe!

“Wait!” said Shade. “What’s that smell?”

Two sets of ankles, clad in heavy-looking leather boots, stopped just outside the opening. Jemma held her breath.

“What smell?” Sounds of sniffing. “Mmm, yes—sort of … sharp, like old socks.”

Oh, no—the cheese packet was still lying open! Jemma’s teeth were about to break skin.

“Really, Feo,” said Shade, “you might wash your feet once in a while. You know that cleanliness is next to Mordliness.”

“I washed them yesterday, if you must know. As I do every Mord-day—”

“Hrmph. So you say. Well, darkness is almost upon us. Call off the search. Your voice is more of a foghorn than mine.”

“Better that than a banshee scream,” Feo retorted. Then he yelled, “All in for the night!”

The two pairs of ankles turned and walked away.

“Of course, you can keep looking if you want, Shade,” said Feo, his voice fading with the snapping underfoot, “since you’re evidently so unfraid of being out here in the dark.”

“Ha! I need my beauty sleep,” came the reply. “Besides, Jemma won’t get far. She doesn’t know her destination, so she’ll just keep going in circles. The Mist will see to that.”

Jemma counted each rapid thump of her heart as the sounds of voices, breaking twigs, and stick-beaters passed by again. By the time she’d reached three hundred and fifty, the thumps had slowed and the last voice had gone.

She sat up and wrapped the remains of bread and cheese in the shawl with the book and crystals. It had never occurred to her that it was not just the Agromonds she had to fear, but others they would recruit to look for her. But whoever those
others were—Mord allies, or merely Agromond underlings—they were evidently afraid to be in the forest at night. Which meant night was the safest time for her to travel. And whatever Shade had said about the Mist making her go in circles if she didn’t know her destination, she
did
know it: Hazebury. As long as she kept heading downhill, she reasoned, she’d get there sooner or later. No Mist would stop her. For something was pulling at her even more strongly than the village. Something Shade had said:
We have until nine next Mord-day morning … but she also has until then to get Initiated into her Powers by her blood parents.…

She could still be Initiated. She had six more days. Why, she didn’t know. She didn’t care. But her Initiation was something the Agromonds feared. And that suddenly made it important to her. No, vital. Although Feo was right, she didn’t know who or where her real parents were, she was determined to find them. Once she got to Hazebury, she would look. Perhaps Digby would help her. The crystals might, too; from what Shade had said, there was some connection between them and her mother and father.

“I’ll look at them more closely tomorrow, when we find our next hiding place, Rattusses,” she said, plopping Noodle and Pie into her pockets and tying her shawl pouch around her waist. “And the book. I want to know more about this Majem Solvay too. Right. Let’s go.”

Whatever the night was to hold, Jemma felt a new sense of purpose. It lit in her mind like the tiniest lantern, giving her a flicker of hope as she bid goodbye to her brief haven and braced herself to face the drizzling darkness of Agromond Forest.

Jemma picked herself up from the wet ground. From the outside, the hole through which she’d just crawled looked like nothing more than the entrance to some small creature’s home—a rabbit, perhaps, or a fox. The web was covered in leaves and debris, with no sign of the bright hollow beneath it. Smiling at the spiders’ ingenuity—and grateful to them for saving her life—she pulled up her hood and set off down the slope.

“Hazebury,” she muttered, holding the name in her mind like a signpost. “Here we come.”

As before, roots rose up from the ground to trip her, but by walking at an even pace, Jemma was able to anticipate and avoid most of them. Eight o’clock came and went. Now that she was rested, any dangers the forest might throw at her didn’t feel nearly as daunting as before. Even the prospect of the ghost children finding her again didn’t seem so scary: she could simply walk through them. With no search parties out at night, the only thing she really had to be wary of was the Mist, and her Stone would help with that. A wave of optimism spread through her. This was going to be easier than she’d expected.

Eight-thirty clanged from on top of the crag. Just ahead, Jemma saw movement through the trees. She ducked behind a bramble bush and peered over it. The madwoman she had seen that morning was creeping up the hill, her stick raised over one shoulder, its front end whittled like a spear. Suddenly, the woman thrust her arm forward. The stick shot from her hand, impaling a rabbit not three paces from Jemma and pinning it to the ground. Horrified, Jemma looked on as the poor creature thrashed about, squealing, then, with a final thump of its hind legs, lay still.

The woman stepped up to the rabbit and yanked it off her stick.

“Come, me bonny bunny. Come to Rue.” Her voice grated like a knife on a whetstone. Then she began to sing, rocking the slain rabbit in her arms.

Despite her worn features, the woman was not nearly as old as Jemma had at first thought—around Nocturna’s age, possibly younger—and her face was really quite pretty when she wasn’t grimacing. She lilted on, her voice becoming soft with sorrow.

Chills fingered Jemma’s spine.

“Ah, me pretty, me fluffy one.” The woman cradled her bob-tailed victim. “Rue is sorry fer killin’ yer, truly she is, but
she and her son has to eat.” She slung the rabbit over one shoulder and continued her way up the hill, crooning as she went.

“She really is barking mad,” Jemma whispered as Noodle and Pie crawled from her pockets up to her neck and nestled into the folds of her hood. She turned down the hill. In what seemed like no time, nine o’clock pealed out from the castle. But the bell sounded no farther away than it had half an hour earlier.
A trick of the Mist
, Jemma thought, looking up the crag.
It must be. We left the hollow an hour ago
.

She padded on. The drizzle had almost stopped, but the night was getting colder. To her right, she saw a faint orange glow between the trees. Firelight. Someone was limping toward it—a small boy, slightly stooped, a blanket wrapped around him. Was he the son the madwoman had referred to? Perhaps they were the ones who lived in the hut, and it was his stuffed toy that had unsettled her so much.

On she walked, roots and rocks barely bothering her now. Her footsteps were hypnotic, and she fell into a rhythm, chanting “Hazebury” in time with it. Minutes melted into hours. Through the trees to her left, she saw fireglow again. Eleven o’clock struck. The bell sounded as close as ever.
Must be the Mist
, Jemma thought,
trying to fool me
. Eleven-thirty. More fireglow, with the smell of something roasting.

“How many people are out here, Rattusses?” She glanced at the tempting orange light. A fireside would be warm, and her stomach was growling again. She stopped for some sour milk. The wineskin had given it a more pungeant flavor than usual, and she drank thirstily.

“That’s almost the last of it,” she said, holding the spout for Noodle and Pie. “We’ll need to find water soon.”

She trudged on. Six times more the bell tolled; three times more she saw fireglow. Over the hours, cold sank deeper into her bones, and by three in the morning, when the seventh fire crackled through the Mist, its promise of warmth was hard to resist. Maybe whoever was tending it would let her rest for a while, even give her a bite to eat—

A twig snapped behind her. Jemma wheeled around, and came face to face with the stooped boy she’d seen earlier. Except that he wasn’t a boy at all. He looked about Digby’s age, or even a little older, but was at least a head smaller than Jemma, his body twisted, his back hunched. Without a word, he grabbed Jemma’s arm and dragged her toward the fire.

“Hey—let me go!” Jemma tried to wrench away. “Who are you, anyway, and how did you get here? I saw you hours ago, up the hill.”

“Caleb’s the name,” the boy said in a hoarse whisper. “Me, I ain’t gone nowhere all night. You, though, you been walkin’ in circles, that’s how
you
got to be here.”

“Walking in circles? Oh, no!” Jemma remembered Shade’s words from earlier: the Mist had done just as she said it would. “Please, I have to go.…”

The boy stopped, his dark eyes piercing hers. “You want some roast bunny or not? Me ma’s offerin’.” He tightened his grip and listed toward the fire, pulling Jemma with him. Inside her hood, Noodle and Pie dug their claws into her shoulders, and she felt their soundless warning—
No! No!
—but between hunger, curiosity, and confusion, found herself stumbling along beside Caleb and ignoring the rats’ agitation.

They approached a small clearing and Jemma saw the madwoman through the Mist, turning a small carcass on a
spit. On a rock beside her, the rabbit’s skin was spread fur-side up, its glassy eyes reflecting the fire’s orange glow. Jemma gulped. Noodle and Pie ducked behind her head and clung to her hair, quivering.

“Sit,” the woman rasped, patting the rock next to her. “Rue’s been waitin’.” She stroked the rabbit’s head. “You shouldn’t mind dead things, girlie, bein’ as where
you’re
from.”

Caleb shoved Jemma toward Rue. Jemma’s stomach knotted and she backed up a step, but Rue snatched her hand and yanked her down beside her. Her eyes sharp in the firelight, Rue lifted a grimy finger to Jemma’s face and scraped its long nail down her jawline.

“Pretty little thing, in’t yer. An’ look at yer hands, it’s all clear around ’em.”

Jemma stuffed her hands beneath her cloak, keeping her gaze fixed on Rue.