Brigitte follows Janey and Maggie into the room and takes a seat if one is available. "It would seem that whatever effected us did not effect Janey.... she was here while we were, indisposed... seems we were having a fit or sleeping or doing other things and she could not rouse us."

Finding a cup of water Brigitte takes a drink. "She may also be able to lead us to the.... well I am not really sure. To were it all started ?"

She took another sip from her water.



-

Janey hums about the duties she's familiar with, dressed and almost neat for supper. Cleary looks at Brigitte, then to the 'natural' and back again. "You're saying it was witchcraft, then? Something done at this spot in the bush that..." he trails off, having idly turned a page back in Daniels' more recent notebook.

He stops, swallows, and puts that double spread down open on the table. Those closest - including the sergeant - can see that the entries that would presumably cover the rest of the twelfth and the thirteenth are only pseudomorphs of writing, a jumble of ill-spaced gibberish and wordlike scribbling like something read in a dream. It's as though something subconscious, or a kind of consciousness incomprehensable to the waking mind had taken up the pencil and attempted the idea of recording.

"...that rendered us all insensible," he clears his throat "-for a day and took our memories of the week preceedin'? Janey-

Janey tenses, though Cleary's tone doesn't bode trouble.

"-Janey, do you know who did this?"

Janey drops to a crouch and puts her arms over her head. "I'nn wanna talk 'bou tha' nnymore!" she says with emphasis. "HnnNNNnnnnNNnnnnnnnn..."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:26, Thu 09 Apr 2020.

Maggie crouches down to Janey and rubs her back. "It's all right, I'll tell them. Are you all right?"

"HnnnNNNnnnnNNNNnnnnnnNNNNNNNNnnn," Janey responds, though she stills a bit.

"Janey said 'twas someone that was here before, though he wasn't bad then, and as far as I can tell she says he came down to that place you all found and she saw him arranging sheep's heads and cooking a brew of blood, marrow and other ill things with a..." Maggie frowns. "A rock like shale? Or a shell?"

"NNNnnnnNNNNnnnnNNNNNnnnnnn," Janey says.

"It sounded poisonous. I think Janey hid from the man then, then found us all bewitched back home and went out to try and fix it, I think that's right. Only she couldn't, though the effect wore off once she hid the rock and this morning she was scared, when I dropped that pitcher, that we might be falling down 'witched again, so she ran to check. Is that right, Janey?"

Janey does nod, though hasn't uncurled. "Ayea."

"There were teeth, sir," Henry says, finally finding his voice. "-and this." He swallows and fishes in his pocket, bringing out a strange scrap of stick and a bright ring.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:06, Wed 15 Apr 2020.

"That there's Ryan's ring," Jack blurts, wishing immediately that he'd kept still, "I'll take me oath to it."

Henry turned the ring in his fingers carefully, passing it to Duggan. "Are you sure? Ryan?".
The scrap of wood he twisted to show where it had been cut, letters carved in the name Cleary.

"I think Mr Gill or Mr Daniels could find the spot again where the drawings and teeth were easy enough. We passed it this morning on the way to find Janey. Someone had been cooking something unnatural too. We found a pot up there with this carving in it.".

His voice trailed off. Janey had mentioned the Shael (or whatever it was) before and hinted where it was hidden. But if the thing was important, Cotton wasn't ready to tell the room where to find it. The Sergeant especially seemed unpredictable.

Jack looks carefully at the ring, a bit uneasy holding such an intimate possession of a murdered man.

"Aye, 'tis Ryan's. God rest 'im."


[[GM edit: typo bugged me.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:07, Wed 15 Apr 2020.

Thomas listens to the conversation especially the part about him knowing what happened to the missing party.  Once the ring is brought out of Henry's pocket, Thomas really starts to pay attention.  "I know that I'll be able to get us back to the spot.  Its not like we really took a lot of twist and turns to get there.  As for the ring, who is this Ryan?  His name doesn't ring any bells for me."

The ring's pattern of olive branches and a cross is almost worn flat on one side, speaking to a history beyond Adam Ryan himself. Ryan had never told it, though he'd once mentioned why the fealty ring dwelt on his hand, despite there being no obligation for a man: to prove he was spoken for. Mary'd laughed at that, clearly an in-joke between them about the scores of women seeking to seduce her scruffy man. Adam'd been so proud of having married her, and proud - if always a little astonished - of the children he'd helped to make.

The ring smells vile. Boiled with carrion, tree saps and worse: Jack can believe it. The same is true of the stick. Murphy wrinkles his nose as he reaches across. "Agk...may I see that there?"

"The squatter fellow over beyond Danger Bend," Cleary clarifies to Daniels.

Maggie's shoulders have tensed as though she's very much not looking at the ring, and very much not crying. "Janey motioned that there was a hand went into the pot," she says, steady but not at all all right. Janey hugs her.

If the moment might have been touching, the sergeant interrupts it with a growl. "All right, so we've found one body - or bits of 'im. You can see to going out and burying that at your leisurely. Providin' this is not some elaborate ruse or an insanity from fever, we 'ave a man at large. Now, Janey-"

Janey only looks up long enough to growl at him with flat hostility, recognising a source of the local tension that makes things too much. "GRRrrRRRrrr."

The sergeant sits back, frowning, and looks from Miss Cleary (indisposed, at this second, a treacherous tear making its way down her cheek) around and to Brigitte, since they came in together. "Can we get someone to ask the idiot what this 'bad man' looked like?" he asks.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:12, Wed 15 Apr 2020.

Brigitte stood up and rifled through he satchel until she found some pencils and paper. "Janey can you draw me some pictures of what you have seen ?" She places the items on the table and the takes a seat close to the girl.


-

"The one was murdered with his kids," Jack adds in a murmur. He tries to slick down his hair with his hands.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:36, Thu 16 Apr 2020.

"Y'nt ought play 'at b'fore ss, supper," Janey says, a little interested in Brigitte's fancy silver pencil but busy helping her foster-sister as best she can.

Turning back to the others Brigitte added, "Janey did give a bit of a description in the other room. She said he was he had wild hair and was as tall as her and when he came to the house a second time he had blood down his face and on his hands. Also she said he had hair over his face ?"

Brigitte looked back to Janey not sure if that was what she meant about the mans face.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 21:40, Thu 16 Apr 2020.

"Hair," Janey agrees, and lets go of Maggie to wipe her hand hard over the lower third of her face. "Haair."

"Any man who went up with the Calder expedition would have two weeks of beard on him," Cleary points out, approaching the girls on the floor.

Jack looks around at the people in the room. Some are friends, perhaps, some strangers, one at least will hang him if he can. He takes a deep breath and addresses himself to the room in general.

"Sure, 'tis not just us here that's --I dunno-- lost two weeks of ourselves. 'Twas ever'one at th' tavern, too, aye? How wide does that circle cast, I wonder?

"So... from what Murphy an' the sergeant's said, two weeks ago I--" he puts his hand to his chest "--found Mrs. Ryan in that bloody house an' tried t'help her. But then I went t'chase down someone--maybe th' killer for I remember a man with bloody face an' hands grabbin' at me--but he took Mary Jane an' went inta th' bush. An' I think I maybe got cut." He rolls up his trouser leg to show the cut on his calf.

"An' ah, an' I remember them stick poppets, but bigger, an' somethin' 'bout men hung up like butchered sheep in a stand o' trees, their faces painted red-like. Oh, but none o' that comes clear an' ...an' I'm not sure I want it too.

"Ye mind, Countess, th' ghosts we seen. Them kids wrapped in their bloody shrouds an' floatin' above our heads, but movin' off when we prayed? An' how th' locusts stopped their shrillin' when you approached th' ghosts? Fer a moment. I wisht we had a priest."

He looks about at the other faces, abashed at his own words. His head hangs down and he closes his eyes.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:22, Fri 17 Apr 2020.

Jack's glance about sees Cleary, who'd been crouching to address Janey, glancing back with puzzlement; James Gill nodding as he entered the room, quiet-like; Margaret staring with wide-eyed, pity-struck and tearful shock over Janey's shoulder; the sergeant straightening his spine like the uncoiling Wrath of God; plain surprise and then concern on Murphy's face and Janey seemingly paying no attention, save that she can be heard repeating "goast" quietly to herself in the red dark of his closed eyes.

Murphy can't help but place a hand on Jack's shoulder, not a gesture of reaffirmed arrest but one that feels like it could have come from ten thousand miles away: oldest cousin, older brother. [Language unknown: "Leoun heck ect ncekorvor ith ol?"] he asks, not quite a whisper but leaning so that his quiet word is not too obvious to the sergeant.

Jack does, however, have Wilkins' attention now. "Rememberin' things now, are we?" he asks, in a tone that could scour a copper pan quite shiny.

Jack raises his head and turns to look Murphy in the eye.
[Language unknown: "Chio? Re unshe manundcom olpr. Ilri il atat resndeome u oswhmo ourundeau blencelar. Wiltraoer whasha sti onon ermaro o niuner asossaie, ivtho T mantmi lar ion ac utivro nc."]

Thomas looks at Janey as she describes the bad man.  "Excuse me Miss. d'Anjou, May I see the drawing that Janey produced?"  Thomas looks over the picture hoping the it will jog some sort of memory about what might have happened.

Once Jack begins to speak up about his memories, Thomas pays particular attention also hoping this will improve his memory about events even more than the drawing from Janey might.  Once Jack begins to speak in an unknown language and Charles answers back Thomas waits for the conversation to end before speaking up.  "Excuse me, but can the two of you please speak in a language that the group can understand.  Also I think it would be a good idea to head over to the last known location of the Calder expedition.  That is unless someone has another idea of where to head next."

In reply to Thomas Daniels (msg # 46):

Jack gives the man a sour look.

"Sure, yer Lordship, 'tis just ignorant, superstitious bog-peasant jibber-jabber. Nothin' for th' likes o' yerself t'be concerned with."

Janey has thus far shown no further interest in Brigitte's sheet of paper. Willing himself to remember things makes Thomas' complete lack of memory more obvious - his mind reaches, but the past cannot be touched. He might as well try to pick up a live fish in glass mittens.

"'Twas no concern of any Saxon's," Murphy replies with a level lack of tone that's somehow worse than a snap of anger at being told to speak English.

"He was only asking Duggan about the ghosts," Cleary says, having heard a word or two despite the dropped voice. He's watching the sergeant as much as his farmhand, wary if not yet tensed.

"-mais pardon, Madame," Murphy manages in French to the relevant person. [Language unknown: "Petofiee os ompler koricaati thoanynot,"] he finishes to Jack.

Fortunately, the sergeant is distracted from the Irish Question by Daniels thinking to suggest things to him as though he's slacking: Thomas can almost feel the roil of violence in the man's soul and becomes quite aware, of a sudden, that if not for Cleary's presence and his own civilian, white and English nature he might have been boxed about the head with one of his own books. As it is, the sergeant just summons a smile that doesn't reach his eyes and reverts to that too-gentle tone again.

"An excellent idea, Mr. Daniels. You'll be going with us, of course, on account of I am 'ereby placing you under arrest on suspicion of murder until further notice. In the name of the King."

He leans forward, forestalling protest. "See, I am not given to believing without evidence, and thus far, we 'ave a site you can make your way to easy, as you say, and some bits of Adam Ryan there and them stick-things in your room. I don't know if it's you or Duggan that's more insane, but if we get up there and there's no bad man or ex-ten-yew-atin' cirumstances to be found you can take it up with the judge."

"Mister Cleary, I'd appreciate it if you would lend me one of your men to go up into the bush with tomorrow morning. Murphy, did you manage to raise that guide?"

"I did," Murphy replies shortly.

"Very well. You can 'ave charge of the other prisoner, seein' as you're pals an' all." The sergeant nods satisfaction to that plan.

Henry has listened, part in confusion, part as he struggled to suppress a gnawing fear. He felt anxious. Tom wasn’t a murderer...the teeth were real. Maybe if the sergeant saw that this would somehow get better.

He cleared his throat.
”Begging your pardon sir, but if you want to see the place we found, I can show you. Tom isn’t lying.”.

She puts the paper near Mr. Daniels before again finding her seat.

Brigitte looks at the men gathered around the table "I will be coming as well. I made a promise to Mary that I will be keeping and I have reason to suspect that an item stolen from my tavern is up there with he survey group and of course I have to keep an eye on my employee." She gives a nod in Duggan's direction.


[[GM edit: props that are there.]]
-
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:00, Sun 19 Apr 2020.

Henry gets a bemused look from the sergeant, much like a teacher hearing the slow pupil's answer to two plus two being twenty-two. "I don't doubt but it is, my son, but unless you or someone else 'as a memory of 'im not setting that all up, all we've got is the word of an idiot. Probably bribe you with apples or threaten you with a stick, eh girl?"

"Appl," Janey repeated, since it seemed that was what he soldier wanted.

"Yeah, if I 'ad a ribbon or held 'er down hard awhile I reckon I could get 'er to swear I was the King of Spain, the son of a Maharajah or the blasted Pope," the officer points out. Janey eyes him suspiciously. Sergeant Wilkins puts his hand on Daniels' old notes and turn/shoves them along the table. "Meanwhile, 'aving searched his room 'ere, we found what Cleary tells as a correspondin' drawing to that site with different ranting on in the back of yon book, Calder's field notes and some of them 'orrible little sticks."

He gives Thomas a hard look to make it plain he's keeping an eye on him before continuing to address Henry: "This man, I should add, who was convicted for ritual murderin' under the influence. An' maybe this forgetting spell, or madness or poison in the water, well, it'd be a new influence, wouldn't it. An' we have him going off with Duggan right after the murders...which Duggan is now suggestion' there's more of, but then he's also babbling about ghosts and lapsing to his native tongue, so I reserve judgment on that."

The sergeant leans back a bit to regard Henry. "You ain't without the influence yourself - what's all that about diggin' 'oles in Cleary's property?"

He looks over at Brigitte, a bit bemused. "If you think your 'orse can take it, ma'am," he says, clearly expecting the noble to change her mind before morning. "Not likely to be much of a jolly jaunt in the mountains, particularly if Calder's lot got themselves eaten by Aboriginies. We don't know what them over-mountain blacks are like, could be like south sea islanders."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 09:57, Sun 19 Apr 2020.

"I- I thought that was a dream..." Henry stammers, completely confused. "...what?"

Meanwhile, Cleary is gently going over the names of the Calder expedition with Janey, dark-haired men first: "Budyirikaranga?"

"Nnh."

"Jacob Cadlow?"

"Nnh."

"Llewelyn Bowen?"

"Ahuh. Uh." Janey nods, glad somebody is smart and can pronounce difficult Welsh names. Wilkins catches that.

"Really? Well, blast it, De- dad knows if the book's any good, then," the sergeant growls, eyeing Calder's journal like it had spoken some betrayal. "-or the girl's talking nonsense. Then again, he did say they all seemed to be going mad," he allows.

"Ah, sir?" Henry cuts in.

"What is it, Cotton?" the sergeant asks, making it hard for Henry not to feel like a schoolboy, probably with the wrong answer.

"Cadlow was my friend, sir, and he was up there in my place. I can mend things and make maps and find evidence, I know it! I mean...I already have gear and provisions ready so it won't be more credit on Mister Cleary; why don't I come? Instead of one of the men Cleary needs for the cows. I could shoot if you showed me how, sir."


The sergeant eyes him, weighing the lad's loyalty to Daniels and likely loyalty to the Crown. There's a pause in which the only swift movement is a trio of flies contesting over a spot of wall. At length, Sgt. Wilkins nods. "Just be ready in the morning."