A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(50)
“Well, where would her spirit be, then?” Sarah wanted to know. “It’s not anywhere near her.”
“I do not know that, either,” Agansing replied. “If the tales I have heard are true, it should have been hovering about the body, trying to find a way back. No matter where the body was moved, the spirit would have followed. The very first thing that should have happened when you entered that room, Missy Sarah, is that it should have made itself known to you so you could help it back into the body. This is a very great puzzlement.”
“Which is further compounded by the question of what Grey meant when she told you there was ‘danger,’ Sarah,” Memsa’b continued. “Has she been able to make herself clearer?”
“Only that she could sense that something had actively done this to Elizabeth, and that it was dangerous.” Sarah chewed on her lower lip. “Honestly, I didn’t sense anything. I don’t doubt that Grey did, but I can’t verify what she felt.” She was quiet for a very long moment. “We really should consider if . . . if her spirit has actually been destroyed.”
“Is that even possible?” Mary Watson asked, going a little pale.
Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know, though I have heard of such things. It is difficult to determine what is pure myth and what reflects a level of reality, when you do what we do. There are things that eat souls in African beliefs, but if Elizabeth’s soul had been taken by one of those, her body would have turned to dust.”
“There are other things that eat souls . . . Ammit, in Egyptian lore . . . but Ammit only eats the souls of the wicked dead, to prevent them from ascending.” Memsa’b frowned. “Elizabeth’s body is not dead, so Ammit seems unlikely.”
“Wanyūdō,” Sahib suggested.
“I should think that if a flaming cartwheel with the head of a man in the center of it had been rolling down the streets of West Ham, someone would have noticed,” Memsa’b pointed out. “And I rather doubt Elizabeth would have gone running toward such a thing. She’d have been more likely to run back home in terror. And that does not address the marks of her abduction. We must somehow arrive at possibilities that address both that abduction, which surely took place before she was rendered into what she is now, and that current condition.”
“Nalusa Chito, then.” Sahib looked at Watson. “Find out if the girl showed signs of depression—”
“None, according to her parents” Watson interrupted. “She was, if anything, rather too childish and playful. And what is that creature, anyway? Where is it from?”
“Choctaw, dear,” Mary Watson murmured, and raised an eyebrow at Sahib. “If you have any explanation for how a Choctaw forest spirit should have come to be transplanted to West Ham, I should truly like to hear it. That makes no more sense than a Japanese demon.”
“It does seem unlikely,” Sahib admitted. His brows creased as he pummeled his prodigious memory for supernatural lore. “I can think of nothing,” he said, finally.
“And none of these supernatural beings would account for the signs of abduction,” Watson pointed out. Then blinked, as something occurred to him. “Unless, of course, the girl was abducted specifically to feed this creature, and turned loose the moment it was sated.”
“In Battersea?” Mary Watson said, sounding incredulous. “I would be hard put to think of an area less inclined to the supernatural. The banal, the mundane, certainly, but not the supernatural.”
“Evil can be anywhere,” Memsa’b pointed out. “There are many sailors and former sailors living in Battersea. That would account for something not native to this soil being here, if a sailor had acquired some sort of object such a thing was associated with.” She turned to Sahib. “We need access to the White Lodge library.”
“I’ll see to that,” Sahib replied. “Since there are specific creatures we are researching, it should take me no more than a day to find out if they can become associated with objects. Or if they are inclined to grant favors for being fed, or can coerce someone into feeding them.”
“Holmes seemed to be inspired to look into something,” Watson mused. “It would be ironic if it turned out Elizabeth’s state had something to do with a purely physical cause.”
“I don’t believe that, not for a moment,” Nan said flatly. “You weren’t in her head. I was. There cannot possibly be a natural explanation for what was—or rather, wasn’t—in there.”
“Has Amelia had any more visions?” Sarah asked, before Nan could wax any more vehement. “I find it . . . unlikely that her visions began not that long before Elizabeth was found in her pitiable state. It’s my experience that there are very few coincidences when it comes to the supernatural.”
Memsa’b hesitated. “I . . . have had her taking a concoction designed to suppress visions,” she said at last. “I wanted her to have a rest from them, and get back to being a normal girl. Her nerves were nearly wrecked by being plagued by such disturbing things, and it seemed only right to quell them and allow her health to return.”
“Very kind of you, I am sure, Mrs. Harton, but what if she were to see something pertinent to this case?” asked Watson. “At least give her the information and let her make the choice whether to refuse the medication and resume seeing the visions. She’s certainly old enough to be able to make a judgment for herself, and I think she has the right—either to agree or refuse.”