The Time of the Ghost

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Howard was interested in the crowd of mounds. “What happened there? Giant moles?”

  “Those are barrows,” said Cart. “Old graves from before history began. Every single person buried there was a mighty king once, but that was so long ago that they’ve all been forgotten.”

  The ghost wondered how Cart knew. She knew. Because she was a ghost herself, she saw the invisible shadow over the mounds. In the shadow flickered thin wreaths of thicker shadow, and from them came whispers and sad snatches of things that had once been important. Occasionally she caught a murky glimmer that could have been a crown. The heat and the stillness centered on that shadow and horrified her so that she clung close to the crowd of living people. Something of the same fear fell on them, too. Audrey and Julian Addiman were the only ones who looked happy.

  A lark went up. It rose out of the center of the mounds, fluttering and twittering. The song had no joy in it. It was like an alarm clock going off. The ghost jumped and stared. That looked like a warning to Monigan that she was coming. Sure enough, as the lark worked its way into the sky, fluttering as if every wing-beat was an effort, a second lark went up, from beyond the barrows, and a third beyond that. The alarm notes of their songs pattered down like drops of lead.

  Monigan knows I’m coming, she said.

  Imogen tipped her head back to look at the larks. “They did that when we came before,” she said to Cart. “You’d almost thing they were warning someone.”

  “You’d almost think,” Julian Addiman said, in jeering imitation, “they were up in the sky twittering!”

  At this, Imogen’s dislike of him came to a head. “I’ve had enough of you, you stupid, rude boy!” she said. “I refuse to stay near you one moment longer! I’m leaving this minute and going home!” And she set off running, back toward the wood.

  Come back! shouted the ghost. This was a disaster. Imogen had to be there when they came to Monigan’s Place. But here she was, running away at top speed. Her sturdy legs were flashing as fast as they had flashed on the bicycle, and her yellow figure was getting smaller and smaller against the dark leaves of the Back of Beyond. Get her back! she shouted to the others. She’s me! I have to be here, too.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Sally and Fenella shouted after Imogen. But Imogen just kept running as if she had not heard.

  “Leave her,” said Cart. “She didn’t want to see Monigan, anyway.”

  “You mean she was scared, so she made an excuse to leave,” Julian Addiman said, laughing.

  He was probably right. Though nobody else laughed, they all seemed to think so. They stood uncomfortably beside the green mounds, while the larks twittered remorselessly overhead.

  “These barrows make me depressed,” said Howard. “Let’s go.”

  To the ghost’s relief, Cart led the way on again. She had been dreading Cart would lead them among the barrows. It seemed such a likely place for Cart to imagine Monigan living. But Monigan’s Place proved to be a short way ahead, where the path tipped over the edge of the hillside and, like the road, stopped. Below them lay a big, bowl-like hollow. Round the bowl’s rim there ran a green track of turf, carefully chained and fenced. A notice hanging on the chain said “PRIVATE GALLOPS KEEP OUT.”

  “This is where they train those racehorses,” Audrey explained.

  Inside the gallops the valley was an oval of rough grass. Monigan was there. Cart must have an instinct, the ghost thought. This had been truly Monigan’s Place from time immemorial. She felt Monigan, first of all, filling the hollow like a pond of dense gas. Then, as the seven living ones slipped under the chains and crossed the bouncy turf of the gallops, she began to see things sliding and changing and dissolving in the gas. These were things which had been done in honor of Monigan. Dim blood flowed. An ax, and now a knife, glinted as it struck. Phantom mouths opened to scream. All these, and hundreds of others like them, melted and moved and reappeared as they went down the slope. Always there, melting and changing with the rest, were great wooden posts. Sometimes the posts stood in a line. More often they stood in a ring. But however they stood, the posts were where the victims of Monigan were put to be killed.

  Cart’s instinct did not lead her quite right. She stopped in the center of the bowl, where the ghost knew they were neither in one of the shifting rings of posts nor quite in front of any of the melting lines. But Monigan was there, anyway, all round them.

  “Nothing to be scared of here,” said Julian Addiman, with his hands in his pockets. “Not a goddess in sight.”

  “What do we do?” Fenella asked Cart.

  “Speak the invocation,” Cart said. “It’s very dangerous, but we have to do it.”

  Cart raised the Monigan doll up in both hands and led the others in a ragged chorus. “O Monigan, mighty goddess, come forth and show thyself….” The ghost watched them all, trying not to see the phantasmagoric slaughter going on all round. Howard had forgotten most of the invocation. Ned remembered only about half, and Fenella kept going off into her own private version of it. “Spotted tongues,” she said several times. Much the same happened to Sally. Several times she said things like “Let thy bloodlust inflame—” and then caught herself up, looking guilty. Audrey, of course, did not know the invocation, but she stumbled on after Cart, trying to be polite, although she was beginning to giggle by the end. Luckily Cart had a good memory. It must have been a year since she had spoken the invocation, but she led them in a loud voice, word for word, and cut ruthlessly through their stumblings. The result was like being in church when nobody knows the hymn tune and everyone waits to hear what note the organ will play next.

  Julian Addiman said nothing and gave no sign that he had heard the invocation before. When it was finished, he said sarcastically, “Is that all?”

  “We sit down and wait for Monigan to manifest herself,” said Cart.

  Julian Addiman threw himself down in the hot grass. Everyone else sat or knelt, too. The grass was full of flowers, more kinds and colors of flowers than the ghost had seen in a field before. Ned Jenkins began nervously picking one of each kind, and after a while Audrey helped him. They crawled about, muttering, “You haven’t got this blue kind” and “This one’s a wild pansy.” Julian Addiman, meanwhile, shifted over near Cart. He did not seem to realize that whatever had happened by the telephone had been final. After a minute he tried to hold Cart’s hand. Sally saw him, but she did not seem bothered. Cart, however, pulled her hand crossly away. “This isn’t a picnic.”

  “You could have fooled me!” said Julian Addiman, and lay flat on his back with his eyes shut.

  The ghost wished they would all be more serious. Monigan was gathering herself. Slowly she was moving in from filling the whole valley to the center of the nearest ring of phantom posts, where she hardened, swelled, and grew. The ghost could not see her, but she could tell what was happening from the way the ghostly killings and the other posts melted away from the sides of the hollow and grew sharper in the center. Shortly she could feel Monigan like a heavy shimmer, growing thicker and thicker. Because Cart had slightly misjudged the place, it was happening to one side of them, almost behind their backs.

  But they must have felt something. One by one they glanced over their shoulders. After a while all of them except Sally and Julian Addiman were sitting uneasily bowed over toward their right. Sally was picking flowers now, humming a tune. She seemed to have no sense of Monigan at all. Julian Addiman was pretending to snore. The ghost marveled at them. She wondered if they even remembered the midnight dedication. She had a feeling it had gone hazy in their minds as a silly, fantastic joke.

  At last Monigan was like a thick pillar of nothing, breathing out heat and quivering depression. She stood almost behind them, as high as the heavy sky.

  Cart stood up and half turned round. She was still not quite facing the right way. “She’s here now,” she said.

  “How do, Monigan!” Julian Addiman called from where he lay.

  The ot
hers ignored him. Everyone except Sally left him lying there and scrambled up to face not quite the right way with Cart.

  Cart said, “Monigan, mighty goddess, we have a ghost, and the ghost is in your power and has asked us for help. What do we have to do to redeem this ghost from you?”

  Monigan answered. It was like heavy pressure, or heavy heat. It had no sound, and it was remote and scornful. Please yourselves. I have the right to claim a life seven years from today.

  Have you heard? asked the ghost. Sally had not even looked up, but the others looked as if they were straining to hear something.

  “Sort of vibration,” Howard muttered.

  “She says she has the right to claim a life in seven years,” said Fenella.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Cart.

  “Anything can happen in seven years!” Julian Addiman called out from the grass.

  “Whose life?” Ned asked, not quite in Monigan’s direction.

  But Monigan was dealing only with Cart, as priestess. It amused her to keep up her old ceremony. Nothing but a thick hush pressed on them.

  “She won’t say who,” said Fenella.

  “But what are we going to do about it?” said Howard. “I think one of you is in horrible danger. Can we give her something instead? Suppose we all offer her something.”

  “Good idea,” said Cart. “You go first.”

  “Gold tiepin,” Howard said promptly. He took his tiepin off and threw it in the grass. It glittered there in a clump of clover, almost as well known to everyone as Howard himself. Howard always wore it, despite the fact that Himself threatened to confiscate it a dozen times a term. It had a small Union Jack enameled on the gold.

  Monigan meditated on it. It was very distant, the time when she had been given gold. She did not exactly refuse it. But it was not worth much to her.

  Howard! said the ghost. Now she knew why Howard had gone away to Canada. Be careful, all of you! she called out.

  “Me now,” said Fenella. She carefully put her hands to the sides of her head and then carefully pretended to lower something invisible to the grass beside the tiepin. “A piece of brain,” she said. “Not all of it—I can’t spare it—just the bit old girls do A levels with. I shall be too old to care then.”

  “What a daft idea!” exclaimed Julian Addiman, looking expressively up at the sky. He blinked. “I felt a drop of rain.”

  The piece of brain did not seem to the ghost to be there, but the heavy shimmer of Monigan considered that, too. It was not worth much to her either.

  It seemed to be the turn of Ned Jenkins then. He felt quickly in his top pocket and produced a folded piece of paper, which he seemed rather embarrassed about. “No need to unfold it,” he said, as he tossed it on top of the tiepin. “She’ll know.”

  Monigan must have known what was in the paper. She considered that, too. It appeared to be worth more than the rest, but nothing like so much as a life.

  Cart looked at Audrey then. That seemed to the ghost a little unfair. Audrey had nothing to do with any of it. But Audrey, who clearly thought she was taking part in some creepy kind of game, gave a snort of laughter and threw the bunch of flowers she and Ned had picked down on top of the folded paper.

  The quiver of Monigan at this was so sarcastic and so amused that the ghost was afraid for Audrey. Audrey had certainly done a very silly thing.

  Cart looked at Sally and Julian Addiman then, and so did everyone else. But both of them pretended not to see. They were not going to play. So that made it Cart’s turn. She stepped forward anxiously, still not really facing Monigan’s presence, holding the Monigan doll under her chin. Wet grime from the doll was oozing through her fingers as she said, “Please, Monigan, if you need a life, would you consider having Oliver instead?”

  Cart! exclaimed the ghost. Ned Jenkins gave a grunt, which was obviously a bitten-off protest, and Fenella glared at Cart.

  “I know,” said Cart, and a tear slid down one of her cheeks. She did not think this was a game, whatever Audrey thought. “I know he’s only an animal,” she said to Monigan, “but there’s an awful lot of him.”

  Monigan’s thick silence was total contempt.

  “It’s all I can think of,” Cart said.

  Monigan’s silence shimmered with anger. An offering had to be perfect. Oliver had only three toes on one foot. She rejected Oliver utterly.

  The ghost was not sure how much of this Cart understood. Cart was turning away. “That doesn’t seem to be any good,” she said. A sad, wobbly relief showed through her despondent tone. “I think we’ve done all we can now.” She turned back and laid the gray Monigan doll beside the other gifts.

  While she was doing it, everyone seemed to jerk in a double blink of white light. As Cart straightened up, thunder crashed into the valley and rolled tremendously round it. Julian Addiman was at once on his feet, fishing in his back pocket. As the first drops of rain spit, he unrolled a plastic cycle cape and rather smugly clothed himself in it. He took a matching water-proof hat out of its pocket and put that on, too.

  “I wish I’d thought to bring mine,” said Howard.

  Then the rain came down. The bowl was canceled into a gray-green space by lashing white lines of rain and hail. The ghostly slaughters were hidden in it, and the phantom posts dissolved. Monigan was dispersed. All the ghost could see was a turmoil of soaking people confusedly trying to keep some part of themselves dry as they put their heads down and ran, with a further turmoil round their legs, where the rain and hail were bouncing up off the grass. They vanished behind the rain. One reappeared. A shiny plastic shape darted back, picked up the Monigan doll, and ran back into the rain again.

  She opened her eyes to see Fenella’s beautifully made-up face looking sick and troubled. “Thank goodness!” Fenella said. “I thought you’d gone and died on me. I was going to shout for a nurse.”

  The smell of rain on grass vanished behind the scent of roses which overlaid the smells of the hospital. She was back, with nothing done. No one had been able to give Monigan anything which was worth a life. And Monigan had taken everything she could and given nothing in return. She could have cried at the waste: Will Howard forced to go to Canada, Fenella about to fail A levels, and Ned and Audrey losing whatever it was they had given. And Cart’s generous offer of Oliver thrown back in her face. That was the only good thing she could see. Maybe it was because she had run away—Imogen had run away. She knew that had been a disaster.

  Cart came striding into the glass room, as shabby and natural as Fenella was smooth and groomed. It was hard to tell they were sisters. “They’re beginning to turn visitors out, along there,” Cart said. “I thought I’d sneak back for a few minutes.”

  “I’m so glad!” said Fenella. “Cart, I thought she was dead!”

  She was telling Cart how it had seemed, which was most unusual for Fenella. Fenella must have been very frightened. But the patient did not want to listen; she was frightened enough about herself as it was. She looked out beyond her hoist-up leg into the ward, where there was a slight bustle as some of the visitors there collected themselves to go. Quite a few of them looked relieved. They had done their duty and run out of things to say. But there were others, like Cart, coming back at the last minute to say good-bye. Most of these looked anxious and urgent. One of them, a tall, pale young man carrying a bunch of flowers, looked lost as well. He seemed to have mislaid the bed he was meant to visit and was wandering up and down among the patients, looking increasingly upset.

  “What did Julian Addiman do with the Monigan doll?” she asked.

  Cart and Fenella broke off their talk. “What do you mean?” said Cart. “He never had it, as far as I know.”

  “Yes, he did,” she said. “I saw him pick it up just now, beyond the Back of Beyond. He came dodging back after the rest of you had run away in the rain.”

  Fenella stared at Cart. Her eyes had gone all large. “I’d no idea he did that,” Cart said. “I haven’t seen it since we lef
t it in Monigan’s Place.”

  Out in the ward the young man had turned back toward the door. He had obviously come to the wrong ward. She hoped he would find the right one soon. He looked so upset.

  “Is Will Howard hating it in Canada, do you think?” she said.

  “No,” said Fenella. “He wrote to me last month. He wants me to go and visit him there. He made it all sound like heaven, so I may go. He says he wouldn’t come back to Britain if they paid him.”

  “That’s something—” she was starting to say when the lost young man appeared beside her bed. He was with a nice-looking nurse, who seemed to be mothering him.

  “Here you are,” said the nurse. “You haven’t left yourself much time, but I’ll turn a blind eye here for as long as I can. Make the best of it.” She winked at Cart and Fenella. “And neither of you are here,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said the young man humbly as the nurse left.

  “Ned!” exclaimed Cart and Fenella.

  Ned Jenkins smiled at them and held his bunch of flowers out toward her. They were geraniums and pansies, and those little white flowers she could never remember the name of, and small blue ones, and stiff yellow ones—all the kinds of flowers you would expect to see growing in a window box. In fact, that was just what they were! She remembered now that Ned Jenkins rented a room in a rather smart house just down the road from her own flat, and the people who owned the house took enormous pride in their window boxes. She began to laugh. It was not easy to laugh, but she could not help it. “Ned! That looks like most of one window box!”

  “I picked a handful from all of them actually,” Ned said. “I thought I’d better leave them a few flowers or they’d throw me out. But I didn’t have any money to buy any, you see.”

  Fenella gave vent to her huge chuckle. Cart said, “Same old Ned!”

  She stared up at Ned, wondering how she had managed not to recognize him. It was, she supposed, that she was thinking of him as a sandy-haired schoolboy. Ned’s hair was more light brown than sandy these days, and the freckles had largely gone. But she knew him so well! Ned had been at the art school almost as long as she had. He could not talk about art either. Because of this, he was always ready to sit drinking coffee with her—coffee she nearly always had to pay for, because Ned never, ever seemed to have any money—and wondering what made all the other students so clever. Despite this, she was a little awed by Ned. He was a success. What she had thought were his good-bad drawings were much admired. And only last week he had sold a set of cartoons called Oliver! to a magazine. She wondered what was making him look so worried now.