---

At the Cleary place, they took the books from that baking wooden room down to the kitchen, where they laid on the thick wood of the table like things washed up from a shipwreck of Time. Stained, strange, out of place, from a recent history as utterly opaque as the future, they nonetheless sat there in defiant solidity. Flies slowly zigzagged the ceiling above on their own journeys.

One thing seemed certain: Thomas Daniels had been up into the Blue Mountains and found - or taken - this evidence of the Calder expedition. When Brigitte finally broke the hesitation that lay thick in the kitchen air and took up Daniels' notes to skim the later pages, it seemed she (Mme. d'A.) and Jack (J.Dgn) had been up there, too. Even Cleary's man Gill had attempted to stop someone completing some dread thing. The only strangeness was that none of those present remembered anything about it.

Cleary suggested that as the afternoon was drawing on without any immediate sign of the searchers, the visitors should probably stay the night to avoid a return in the dark. Maggie offered Brigitte the opportunity to sponge off the worst of the day's heat and grime her own room before preparing it for the lady's use.

Murphy said he'd sound out the hills to see if he could raise news of some friends he thought might be this far northwest, and spent a little time with Cleary discussing the topography. Jack realised Murphy meant this literally when he saw the thing he'd brought back from his horse was a rough-looking but carefully made bullroarer. The man vanished into the scouring brightness of the day outside, but Jack caught the look he threw back to Cleary, one that urged caution around the sergeant.

As host, Cleary had to play a cautious game of hospitality, offering enough distraction and alcohol to keep Wilkins friendly and occupied yet not enough for the redcoat to become unpredictable and possibly violent. Sgt. Wilkins annexed the field journal and wedged himself in the corner chair dragged up alongside the table so that he might park his feet up on the bench. He was not a fast reader, frowned whilst he did so, and dominated the room with his combination of inconvienient location and dubious temper like a barrel of gunpowder propped up on a stool. Cleary eventually suggested Duggan should help Maggie in preparing supper, given the late start.

It was approaching sunset when Murphy stuck his head in to say the searchers were coming in across the far field, and it looked like there was Janey with them. Maggie finished what she was about to dart out and the sergeant slid his boots off the bench, jerking his head to indicate Jack should go out with them when Cleary followed. The flies settled on the ceiling in the gathering gloom.

---

The worst of the heat was lifting from the land when the riders returned from the bush, the gradually westering sun gaining a shade of rusty gold that made outcroppings glow like embers. Every patch of bare rock they passed gave off heat like oven bricks.

Gill had insisted they rest the horses over the worst of it, then navigated them to a gully where massive bats hung like weird fruit from river gums and a smattering of shade saved their gently cooking backs and horses' feet. The feeling of being watched faded as they came back through more open forest and up onto prickled heath splashed with scattered flannelflowers and and Christmas bells, though a strange sound cut the air a couple of times through the cicadas' racket with a clear intelligence to its variations, like question and answer.

At last the Cleary homestead was in sight, and as they drew closer they noticed a little group had come out to meet them - Tom Cleary himself, Maggie clutching at her cooking apron in joy to see Janey back, Madame d'Anjou seemingly over visiting from the tavern at Danger Bend...and a redcoat soldier standing square and stark in his colours in the yard, Jack Duggan out resentfully near him.

The sight of the latter on being fully woken by Maggie calling out to them causes Janey to give a wordless yelp and start struggling to be put down, nearly throwing herself off the horse. Henry is suddenly glad he hadn't had that small, soft body against his, since it seems to be only her familiarity and affection for James that keeps her from outright attacking him in her urge to get away. "Nnn-!"

James, fortunately, is strong enough to gather her up and hold her still a moment as Kaiser pauses in uncertainty, bidding her to look again. "Janey! Janey girl, it's Jack, you know him...you like Jack, don't you? And see, there's Charlie come to see you now." Janey quiets, looking from Jack to Murphy, who's walking up beside them as they come in and tips his hat to her. James jostles her a little, like a child or a confused dog. "What's that fuss for?"

Janey lets him draw up to Maggie before insisting on getting down. She only lets Maggie hug her briefly before wiggling away and going over to see if Jack is really frightening or not. She gives him a good half-minute of stare all about, though not meeting his eyes.

"Hair," she decides, and touches that before bolting off to hug Murphy and, before he can really react, skid a wide berth around the soldier to hug Cleary, grinning up at him like she hasn't disrupted an entire day by running near-naked into the wilderness. "Ho-ome," she says, and clings to him, swaying a bit.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:03, Tue 31 Mar 2020.

The soldier steps to the forefront of the group, entirely untouched by any gentle sentiments from the reunion. He gives a glance to the other riders, but addresses Thomas: "Thomas Daniels? Would you be so good as to tell me what date it is?"

Jack had spent the afternoon in the kitchen, watching the soda bread Maggie had put up. "Ma'am," he had said, "Since th' sergeant ain't gonna let me leave th' house, could I be o' use watchin' th' bread? Many's th' time I've done it fer my Mam. Back home." He stops, a mist seeming to form in his eyes before he blinked it quickly away.

Now he watches Janey come up to examine him, not daring to speak or even move, lest he spook her and Wilkins take it as further evidence against him. When she says "hair" he realizes he's come out without his hat and touches his hair, nodding in response. When she runs off to hug Murphy and Cleary, he lets out the breath he wasn't aware of holding.

Thomas sees Sgt. Wilkins walk out of the Cleary's house.  Thomas does not recognize the man but is aware of his rank based on his uniform.  Rather than introduce himself the man asked Thomas what time it is.  Thomas is taken aback from the direct question and takes a moment to answer the question.  "Today is December third, 1813, why do you ask Sgt?"

The sergeant comes closer and gives Daniels a hard stare, a little more flushed than the heat would readily account for, having been but recently inside. Eventually he twitches away a fly that had been crawling up his cheek and declares to the others:

"Far as I can tell, 'e's not lying." There was probably a curse muttered somewhere under his breath despite the ladies present. "All right, get down from there." He beckons brusquely to Thomas and points at James.

"You, you must be Gill, if you'd kindly get these beasts put away an' come join us in the kitchen, and you're Cotton," the brief stabbing pointing gesture feels like an accusation, "-because someone could just about mistake yer for Duggan 'ere. Get yerself to the ground, my lad." Mulberry shifts uncertainly under her rider, canting her head to keep the sergeant in easy sight.

Wilkins leaves Henry just enough room to get down. "You ain't seen 'ide nor 'air of the Calder Expedition out there, 'ave you?"

Jack breathes easily for a moment, glad to have the sergeant's attention focussed elsewhere.

Having introduced herself those those that she did not know Brigitte was happy to accept Maggie's offer and departs to another room with her. She took her time sitting for many minutes as her mind raced over what had happened at the "hole", the initial shock had thankfully worn off and no she was left with uncertainty and confusion.

When she did take part in the washing she took her time as the coolness of the water had a somewhat soothing effect on her and at this point she was not really in the mood for making small talk with the men.


-

"It's the fourteenth," Murphy tells Thomas. He looks from the convict to Cleary and Janey. "Sometin strange and terrible has happened - you'd better come in and sit down wit' us."

James looks over, dismounting. "Found something strange out in the bush," he mentions. "Sheep heads 'n such. Others went up and poked at it; I was mostly concerned for our girl and the horses."

Murphy throws Daniels a questioning look, but before he can talk Cleary and the sergeant herd everyone inside. Maggie takes Janey off to wash her a bit and make her wear clothes, if just for the evening. She's a bit reluctant and the others can hear her awkward attempts at speech heading into the depths of the house, seeking reassurance that nobody's going to 'do strange'.

Sitting on the kitchen table is Thomas' original notebook, and a larger one he doesn't recognise.

"Sit," the sergeant instructs the newcomers. He taps the unknown volume. "Would you like to tell me about this first, or whatever it is you found outside?" His tone manages to be gentle but not nice, not at all.

Thomas dismounts and heads into the house following the others.  Thomas looks around the area and notices his original notebook sitting on the table along with a second one.  It takes a moment or two before he recognizes the second notebook.  Thomas moves toward the table and takes his original notebook and thumbs through it to make sure that it really is his.  After ensuring the book is his, Thomas moves to take the second notebook and begins to thumb through  that one also.

After thumbing through the notebook Thomas asks the Sgt.  "If I may know where did you find these two?"


OOC
17:07, Today: Thomas Daniels rolled 47 using 1d100.  INT 75.

[[Keeper edit: message moved to own thread at silly in the morning to avoid confusion]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:24, Sat 04 Apr 2020.

Stepping up near the sergeant and handling the books feels like stepping into danger; Thomas feels like perhaps the soldier hasn't had a good day.

Cleary's voice breaks into the tension: "I let them look through your room, Tom. I'm sorry, but it's important. There's been a murder."

"Three murders," the sergeant says, still too soft. His eyes are a smudged shade of blue which Thomas notices because he's being looked at very hard, studied for any twitch or reaction. "Four if the mother dies. Maybe five if Duggan's story - what he's now forgotten - about a Miss Towler being taken off into the mountains by the murderer is true."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:26, Sat 04 Apr 2020.

Jack has found himself a corner to lean in, out of the sergeant's direct gaze and away from the books in question. He's just beginning to relax a bit when his name is linked with another woman. He can't recall ever telling anyone that someone took Sally Jane off.

He takes a hesitant step forward, saying, with extreme reluctance, "I said what now? 'bout Sally Jane? When and t'who?"

He feels like he's going mad.

It's Murphy who literally steps in to answer, having helped James get the horses inside to attend to them. "That would be the convict lass you told Gill the fellow had taken, so stumbling your pursuit o' him some - I remembered her name and told the sergeant when we were setting our horses away earlier."

Time and action seem to be sliding away from those involved like earth during the first stages of a landslide. Jack remembers something, like a dream. Thomas has a smooth blank of nothingness where any idea of what had happened might have been. He thinks.

"What we heard was that you went up after 'er," the sergeant says to Thomas, not looking aside. "Did you bring her back, Mister Daniels? Where is she?" Daniels gets the impression the redcoat knows about the charges brought against him in Bakewell. Murder under temporary insanity.

[[@Jack - see message msg#56 in the Dawn Chorus Thread.]]

Thomas takes a deep breath before answering the Sgt. question.  "I have no idea what you are talking about.  Where was I supposed to have gone up and who did I go after?  I have never left the farm except to go into town on the occasional errand for Mr. Cleary."  After answering Thomas decides to flip through his new note book to look at the first entries in it to see if it brings back any memories.

"I'd imagine you ascended into the Blue Mountains about the place the Calder Expedition did, and as for our killer the most logical suspect from what I've learned presently would be Llewellyn Bowen, a convict Calder took up on account of his knowledge of geology. Only according to Calder 'ere, he's dead."

The sergeant taps Calder's expedition notes, then pushes Daniels' notebook towards him. "-and there ain't no "supposed" about it - unless you deny this is your handwriting in the book we found in your room, what Cleary says is yours and I imagine matches your second volume." The softness is wearing out of the sergeant's tone: Thomas has felt that frustration himself, though the killings that obsessed him had seemed more tantalisingly solveable.

The first entry in Thomas' new book seems to have been written in a time of desperation. It is his handwriting, however. The other entries before today's notes are even less comforting.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 23:24, Sun 05 Apr 2020.

As they'd ridden back toward the farmstead Henry had been feeling cheerful. Sure it was hot, but it was always hot. Better, they'd found Janey and that afternoon he'd almost enjoyed playing childish games with her to keep her occupied on the ride home. I Spy had a wonderful riddling air to it when the partner you played with spoke her own cryptic language.

He'd blinked in confusion though as the Sergeant confronted them on their return, before frowning unconvinced at talk of skipping dates. Then talk of murder...

Now Henry stood by the door to the wide Kitchen confused and concerned as Wilkins glowered at Tom. Without wanting to draw the ire of the red coat he sidled toward Jack and muttered under his breath.
"What happened here? We've only been gone for a day.".

Jack replies quietly to Henry, hardly moving his mouth.

"Sure, that's just what I been sayin' an' th' Countess, an' th' Clearys an' now you lot. But Murphy an' Sergeant say it's two weeks later. 'Tis like time means nothin' an' never will again."

Henry raised a confused eyebrow.
”So you think it’s the third too? Has the sarge been drinking all day?”. He kept his voice quiet, worried he was missing something as the red faced official directed his ire toward Tom.
”What are you guys doing here anyway?”.

"Well," Jack says conversationally, "I'm arrested f'r murderin' a family. I think maybe Daniels's about t'be arrested f'r th' same. Which could be t'my benefit. Not sure that, but maybe."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:40, Mon 06 Apr 2020.

”Oh...”.
Henry blinked, bewildered as the man beside him spoke of murdering a family as if it was an every day thing. He opened his mouth to say something, to call the stranger out on his ‘joke’ but found his tongue stumble and instead hiccuped a fumbled excuse end the conversation.
“Oh, I, uh, didn’t realise.”. Henry lowered his eyes so as not to get murdered himself. ”Tom didn’t do nothing. He was out with Gill and I all day...”.

Suddenly he looked up and back to the red faced sergeant. Unable to stop himself he blurted out as he made the connection.
”Hold on, who is dead? What happened to the Calder expedition?”.
Henry felt a growing dread.

The sergeant's awkwardly-placed chair makes a ghastly scraping sound against the floorboards as he scoots back enough to address the interruption.

"Murphy, fill the lad in on the particulars, would you? As for the expedition-" he does take a moment to glance around the room for ladies, at least "-Hell knows, but I am trying-" he indicates Daniels with a tilt of his head, as though near-certain the man knows more than has been said, "-to find out."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:43, Mon 06 Apr 2020.

In reply to Henry Cotton (msg # 21):

PM

The man addressed as Murphy - a wiry, unpretty man with as many freckles as Henry had ever seen on a human being - gave Henry half a tired smile and stepped a bit closer to explain, offering a hand and proper introduction as he did so. "Charles Murphy, I help them catch th' bushrangers. Away back on the fifth, word got to me where I was workin' that there'd been a massacre up here: father, two little kids, the killer'd tried for the mother but left her, struck down wit' some heavy thing, stabbed light across th' guts and worse in the leg there. Heard Duggan here had driven this feller off, taken to th' mountains after him, and that the feller had stolen a lass away with him."

He takes a deep breath. "This word was sent by Madame d'Anjou, to ensure meself and the authorities would step in if there was no word from her party in a week of this man bein captured. 'Twere a white man - Duggan said he was from th' Calder expedition when he spoke to Gill of the situation whilst in pursuit."

"So I finish me job out at Coal River, there's a week wit' no word whatsoever, an' the Sa- the soldiers an' I  come out here - Wilkins talked to th' mother a little, she's alive yet, God save 'er - and everyone's goin' about like there's none o' it happened. I...don't know what t'make of it. What I can, I don't want to." He shakes his head.

Thomas looks between the man who names himself Charles and the Sgt.  "Henry speaks truly, I have been with Henry and James since this morning.  As far as the Calder expedition and what happened to them, I am willing to help out in what ever capacity I can offer. I was a police detective in a past life and well that is a story for another time."


[[GM edit: name confusion.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:26, Tue 07 Apr 2020.

Daniels has the full focus of Wilkins' attention again. "Until you became obsessed with some local rituals and murdered your friend, yes, I 'eard that. It's what you were doin' before this morning would be more pertinent. Maybe Miss Towler was your friend, too. Where is she, Daniels?"

Cleary leans against the wall and nods to Brigitte as she comes in, breaking into the conversation rather more gently: "What's in that notebook y'have there, Thomas? Did you write down what you found out on the land?"

Thomas looks from the Sgt to Cleary.  "I don't know where Miss Towler is.  And yes Mr. Cleary, I took diligent notes about what I saw once out on the land as you call it.  I will share them with you but I must warn you they are very graphic and difficult to look at.  Henry went up the hill with me and also noticed the...and I use this term loosely...artwork and can validate what we saw."

Holding out the notebook, "Here you go, take a look yourself if you really want to."

The Sergeant's scowl says he doesn't fully believe that, but Cleary comes up to take the notes from Daniels' hand and reads them over, wincing a couple of times in the quiet. "Teeth?" he queries, looking to Henry.

"D'I do playss now?" Janey asks, wandering in. Maggie takes her over to the stove and assures her that yes, she can set out plates in just a moment.

Cleary tilts the copy of the drawing on the rock towards Thomas. "You had a copy of a thing like this in your old notes, too...and one of these twig things was in your room. Do you think you took it from there, or somewhere else?"

The sergeant bristles, clearly sure Thomas has made them himself, but just barely holds his peace at a sign from Cleary. Tom's namesake waits to hear him out.

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: "Mo whme ec ichhousom ecte urpo?"] 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: "Ceio? Nose ter oerantate red. Resos ni se everus o eauestnde ntionskor ekbest. Atiainwhi toeclo sonut me seeese in rineit tehacait, elta Di ieeear el but i thiicated a."]

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: "Catrtend asli distro pounic taples,"] 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.]]
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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."