The Curse of Deadman's Forest

  Ian inhaled deeply while he considered that. “Given the magical properties of the portal, Theo, I believe anything is possible. And to answer your earlier question, I believe your mother would only have left you in that field on that stormy night if she was truly desperate, and perhaps she thought she was leading danger away from you.”

  Theo buried her face into his chest and sobbed anew. Ian wondered if it had been a good idea after all to ask the mist for Theo’s history instead of his, and that was when he felt a wetness around his ankles and realized that while they’d been standing there, they’d also been sinking.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling away and grabbing Theo by the hand. “We’ve got to go. The third bell, remember?”

  Theo sniffled and attempted to take a step. As she struggled to lift her foot, there was a great sucking sound. “Ian!” she said. “I’m stuck!”

  Ian pitched himself forward, groaning while he leaned into the effort to free his own feet. After straining nearly all his leg muscles, he finally got one foot free, and then the other. He reached back, grabbed Theo’s hand, and heaved, but their combined weight only pushed them both deeper into the bog. “We’re sinking!” Theo cried.

  Ian thrashed about, trying to keep them on top of the slippery, cold mud, but his efforts just made things worse. Before long he was panting heavily, and as he looked wildly around, he realized that the last threads of the mist were quickly disappearing, replaced by the bright glow of the sun.

  “It’s no use!” he said after straining forward a few more times. “Theo, I can’t work us free!”

  Theo held up one of her hands and begged him to stop moving. “I’m lighter,” she told him. “If I can make it over there to that tree, I might be able to extend you a stick or a branch.”

  Ian turned to see where she was pointing. With a bit of relief, he noticed that just six feet away was an old gnarled tree. If Theo could somehow manage to make it there, they might have a chance.

  He watched with amazement as she leveled out her body and made swimming motions. After a few strokes, she was to the tree, and after searching some of the lower branches, she pulled free a long stick and leaned out over the bog with it. “Reach for it!” she ordered.

  Ian took a deep breath and leaned forward like he’d seen Theo do. He took two strokes and felt himself move forward. He took a few more and moved closer still. Finally, after eight more strokes, he managed to reach the stick, and with a groan, Theo pulled him to the tree.

  He sat on its exposed roots for a bit, catching his breath. “Good work, Theo,” he said when his chest finally stopped heaving.

  “There are some downed logs behind the tree,” Theo told him. “I believe there’s enough of them to see us to firmer ground.”

  Ian leaned around the trunk and saw that the logs stuck out of the mud like stepping stones. After resting a bit longer, the pair made their way carefully, log by log, to the edge of the swamp and onto firm ground.

  “There they are!” they heard Carl shout from nearby. A moment later the earl, Carl, and the schoolmasters were beside them, shrugging out of their coats to wrap round the shivering pair.

  The professor puffed his way over a short time later. “Oh, my!” he said when he took in their muddied appearance. “You stayed past the third bell, didn’t you?”

  At the mention of the bells, Theo dissolved again into a puddle of tears. Ian wanted to tell them the story that had unfolded in the mist, but couldn’t seem to form the words. Instead, he shrugged and shook his head. “It’s Theo’s story to tell,” he said.

  Everyone looked curiously first at him, then at Theo, until the earl wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up, and said, “Come, lass. Let’s get you back to the inn for a warm bath and some clean clothes. And when you’re ready, you can tell us what Avalon revealed.”

  THE TOMB

  Magus the Black woke with a start. Surrounding him was complete darkness, which worried him for several reasons. First, when his sister Lachestia had killed the injured soldier instead of the young Guardian, Magus had lost his temper and had pelted her with bolts of fire.

  He had not anticipated that his sister would defend herself so ferociously. They had fought for two terrible days, and at the end of it, Deadman’s Forest was left a singed, smoking ruin, and whatever had remained of the Eighth Armored Panzer Division had also been annihilated—but no bodies would ever be recovered, as every man to the last had been buried.

  Four times within those two days, his sister had sucked him under the earth—the only place Magus the Black truly feared—and he’d managed to claw and burn his way out. But when there was no more forest to offer him cover, Lachestia had cornered him within a semicircle of fallen stones.

  Even cracked and broken, the megaliths held power, and it was enough to sap his strength so that when she struck at him for the fifth time, Magus had been knocked unconscious.

  Thus, his darkened surroundings were a mystery, except that at the moment, he was not being smothered by dirt. With a snap of his fingers, he created a flame to see by, and his brow pulled down into a grim frown as he stood and turned around in a circle.

  It was worse than he’d imagined. Magus was entombed.

  The flame at his fingertips flickered and dimmed, and he could have cried out in anger and frustration. On all four sides, overhead, and under his feet was rock, and not just any rock. He was encased in the magical stones of his mortal ancestors—and the lettering facing inward was slowly but efficiently extinguishing his power.

  “Lachestia!” he screamed.

  A slight rumble—a small tremor, really—reached his ears. His sister was somewhere nearby—keeping watch and exacting her revenge.

  Magus sighed heavily and sat down on the hard ground to think. He was determined to get out of this makeshift tomb, and he vowed that when he did, he would make all his sisters pay.

  ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

  Several days after returning from the Isle of Anglesey, Ian sat with Theo and the earl in the earl’s library, waiting on a visitor. Theo fidgeted nervously and several times she looked intensely up at the earl, as if seeking his reassurance.

  He smiled back at her every time and even nodded once or twice, letting her know that he had complete confidence in the way the meeting would proceed. As the clock on the wall struck half past noon, there was a knock on the door, and when the earl called, “Come in,” Binsford entered with a bow.

  “Major Fitzgerald is here to see you, my lord.”

  “Please show him in, Binsford,” instructed the earl.

  Theo squirmed again, and Ian reached out to squeeze her hand. The earl had told them both to let him do all the talking, but still, Ian thought he might be just as nervous as Theo.

  Major Fitzgerald swept into the room, his face confident and perhaps even triumphant. “Good afternoon, my lord,” he said with a small bow of his own.

  “Ah, Major,” said the earl, getting to his feet and walking over to greet the man. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us here at my home.”

  “I trust you have received the latest correspondence from my barrister?” the major inquired, taking the seat the earl directed him to.

  “Yes, yes,” said the earl, returning to his own chair. “Everything appears to be in order.”

  The major smiled broadly and stole a glance at Theo. “You’re looking lovely today, miss,” he said. “Are you ready to come home with me and my sister? We’ve prepared you a room that I think you’ll find most accommodating while your daddy is off to fight the Germans.”

  Theo stared at him for a long moment without saying a word. Ian knew her well enough to read the mixture of emotions on her face, and wondered if the major would be quite so exuberant if he knew what Theo was thinking.

  Before Theo could reply, however, the earl said, “About those arrangements, Major …”

  “Yes? What about them?” Ian could clearly see the defensive posture the major adopted the moment the earl inquired int
o the man’s plans.

  The earl looked calmly at the major, holding his hands up in surrender. “I agree that the best place for Theo during these troubling times would be with the family of her father.”

  The major visibly relaxed. “I’m very glad to hear you’re seeing things my way, my lord.”

  “Yes, my good man,” the earl agreed, “but I might not be seeing them as much your way as I am the right way.”

  Major Fitzgerald blinked rapidly. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

  The earl looked at Theo, who was still glaring hard at the major. “As I said, I believe you are right and that Theo belongs with the family of her father, as her mother’s family is either unknown or deceased, am I correct?”

  The major nodded hesitantly. “Jacinda’s adoptive parents were killed in a motorcar accident and her father’s sister never acknowledged the adoption. So, yes, my lord, you are quite right. There is no one left on Theo’s mother’s side to claim her.”

  The earl tugged thoughtfully on his beard. “Yes, which leaves her father’s family.”

  “You mean me,” said the major with feeling.

  The earl’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the major. “Oh, but I’m afraid we both know that’s not true, Major, now don’t we?”

  Major Fitzgerald’s face flushed and he squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “While I admit that Jacinda and I were not married at the time, I can assure you, my lord, that I am the girl’s father.”

  “No,” said the earl.

  Major Fitzgerald began blinking again. “No, what, my lord?”

  “No, my good man, you are not Theo’s father. I have it on very good authority that Theo’s father was a man named Phillip Zinsli, who was in fact a devoted school chum of yours, was he not?”

  The flush to the major’s cheeks deepened to an even rosier hue. And when he did not immediately answer, the earl continued. “My investigators have learned that Phillip drowned nearly twelve years ago in a rather tragic sailing accident. His father is a vice chancellor in Switzerland, if I am not mistaken.”

  “I—I—I …,” the major stammered.

  “Yes,” said the earl, as if he had not even noticed the major’s reaction. The earl reached next to him and held up a piece of paper. “This, Major, is something that you might find interesting. You see, I’ve had my inspector conduct a thorough search of the public records, and he came across the most interesting bit of documentation. It seems that Jacinda Barthorpe and Phillip Zinsli were married almost exactly nine months before Theo’s birth and the only witness to that private ceremony was a Sergeant Fitzgerald.”

  The earl paused for effect, and Ian nearly laughed at the incredulous look on the major’s face when the earl handed him the marriage certificate.

  “When I presented this news to Phillip’s family, along with the birth certificate my inspector also discovered for Theo, noting her father’s name to be Phillip Zinsli, well, their shock was to be expected.” The earl also handed over a second piece of paper to the major. Ian presumed it was Theo’s birth certificate.

  “And while they were reluctant to claim a new heir to the family fortune—they are quite wealthy, you know—they did agree to allow Theo the use of the surname Zinsli as long as she made no future claims to her father’s estate, which of course she readily agreed to.”

  The earl then picked up a third piece of paper and gave it to the major, who was clearly struggling to take it all in. “What is this?” he asked, skimming over the print.

  “That is an award of guardianship for one Theo Zinsli to me, the Earl of Kent, signed by the girl’s grandfather, Major. Theo is now my legal ward.” The earl then sat back in his chair with a rather satisfied smirk.

  The major reacted quite unexpectedly; he set all the papers aside and burried his face in his hands.

  Theo took pity on him and moved off her chair to walk over to the major, where she took his hand and looked at him with the same sad compassion that her mother had so many years before. “I know that you loved her,” she said to him when he looked up. “And I know that in her own way, my mother loved you too.”

  The major swallowed hard. “I did,” he told her earnestly.

  Theo nodded, as if she understood perfectly. “But my mother also considered it an unfair burden to force you to claim a daughter that wasn’t yours,” she told him in a voice that was wise beyond its years. “I know that she was grateful for your offer, but in the end, she could hardly accept. It would have ruined you, and she understood that.”

  The major continued to stare at her with wide eyes. “We would have been all right,” he whispered. “I had my post in the military, after all.”

  Theo looked away and let the major’s hand fall. “She would have wanted you to be happy,” Theo said. “And that, Major, is what I wish for you as well. I should also like to say that if I had actually been your daughter, I would have been most proud to bear your name.”

  A mixture of emotions washed across the major’s face. Regret. Hurt. Sadness. And finally, acceptance. He stood then and offered them all a small bow. “I shall contact my barrister and withdraw my claim from the courts, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Major,” said the earl.

  The major then turned back to Theo with a look of chagrin. “And if there is anything you ever need, Theo, you consider asking your uncle Fitzy, all right?”

  Theo smiled. “Actually,” she told him, “there is one small favor only you could allow me, Major.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you remember the silver box my mother gave to you for safekeeping?”

  Major Fitzgerald’s mouth dropped open. “How could you know about that?”

  “My investigators were quite thorough,” the earl assured him.

  The major smirked. “Ah,” he said, then got back to Theo’s question. “Yes, young miss, what about it?”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “I do.”

  “Might you see your way to returning it to me, my mother’s rightful heir?”

  The major squatted down in front of her and took her hand. “Yes, lass,” he said earnestly. “Of course. I’ll send it through the post the moment I reach my home, all right?”

  Nearly a fortnight later Ian sat on the front steps of the keep, listening to the rest of the children playing out in the yard. Theo had told him that the box would arrive that day, and he’d taken up his vigil on the steps, waiting for the postman to come. He was rewarded a short time later by the sound of clopping horse hooves and the familiar carriage that brought the keep its daily mail.

  Theo joined him just as Mr. Taggert, the postman, reached them. “I’ve a package for you, Theo, although your last name’s misspelled,” he said, swiveling in his seat to retrieve a small parcel wrapped in brown paper, along with a few letters, then passing them all off to her.

  “Thank you, Mr. Taggert,” she said, taking the delivery and showing Ian that it was addressed to Miss Theo Zinsli. “I’ve been expecting this.”

  The postman tipped his hat, then gave a flick to his reins, and his horse plodded back down the drive.

  Theo and Ian sat in silence for a bit while they watched the carriage depart, and then Theo placed the parcel in Ian’s hands. “Here,” she said. “You open it.”

  Ian gave her a gentle nudge with his shoulder and tore off the wrapping and newspaper that the silver treasure box was packed in. Tossing aside the paper, Ian held up the box to inspect it. The relic was identical to all the others.

  Turning it over, he began twisting the balled feet, and the top left foot turned. Quickly, he unscrewed the ball and held the tiny key at the end in triumph. “Shall we have a look inside?”

  “Of course!” she said encouragingly.

  Ian inserted the key, twisted the lock, and smiled when he heard the faint but familiar pop. Carefully, he opened the lid, and there inside were a small corked glass vial and the familiar-looking bound scroll. Ian extracted the vial and held it up to the
sun. Although the glass was dark, he could clearly see a liquid inside. “I wonder what this is for,” he said aloud.

  “Maybe it’s poison!” someone said with a laugh, and Ian and Theo looked up to see Carl standing before them, holding a football, with a curious glint in his eye. “I saw the postman,” he told them before coming over to sit down next to Ian.

  Ian shook his head with a smile and placed the glass vial back into the box before closing the lid and locking it again. “We’ll let the professor take a look at the prophecy later and see if he can tell us what’s inside the vial.”

  Beside him Theo giggled. “You’ll have to tear him away from the attentions of Señora Castillo first.”

  Ian and Carl exchanged a curious look. “What do you mean?” Ian asked her.

  Theo laughed again. “I overheard Thatcher telling Madam Dimbleby that Señora Castillo has finally come back to England. Apparently, she discovered Carmina nicking her silver and dismissed her outright. She then felt terrible about believing that one of us had taken her brother’s diary, and has traveled here to apologize and reclaim it, but I understand that since her arrival, she and the professor have been on regular long walks together and sitting for tea every day.”

  Carl smiled. “You think the professor fancies Señora Castillo?”

  Theo’s eyes held a gleam. “Oh, I really do!” she exclaimed, and they all laughed.

  After a bit Carl asked, “Was there any other mail?”

  Ian eyed him quizzically. “Yes. As a matter of fact, there was.”

  Theo handed him the small stack that the postman had given her and Carl sorted through it quickly. He appeared to find what he was looking for and he held up the letter happily until he saw the quizzical look on Theo’s and Ian’s faces. He discreetly shoved the post into his pocket.

  “Who’s written to you, then?” Theo asked.

  “No one,” Carl said, his cheeks turning a brilliant shade of red.