by Lucia Ashta
She’d only had to picture herself free, and she would have been, I was almost certain. It hadn’t been that difficult for me, and I had no idea what I was doing.
All that had bound her to the estate had been her own fear, her inability to trust and let go.
Which was exactly what she needed to do now. It was sad that she could have done so more than a century ago.
But there was nothing either of us could do about her previous choices. She could, however, affect her present.
“Well,” I said. “You don’t have to be stuck a second more.”
Again, she nodded, and my heart went out to how much the girl had to work to build the courage to take those final steps.
“I’ll wait here until you’ve made your way.”
Her head snapped in my direction. “You will?” The glow of the light colored her face and made her look almost alive once more. It was easy to imagine how pretty she must have been with rosy cheeks and a happy smile. I hoped she’d been happy in life.
“I absolutely will wait until I’m certain that you’ve completed your next step.”
She looked back toward the light, wariness evident.
“I won’t leave you until you don’t need me anymore.” I’d taken on a maternal role, which was odd given that I suspected I was only three or four years older than her. But she was frightened, and I was forcing myself to believe that I wasn’t. I was stronger than her in this moment, and that was all that mattered.
“Now... go,” I urged. “Trust. Believe. And take the step.”
I didn’t think my words would work, but she’d accepted that further delay would only make it harder.
Thank you, she mouthed, then moved forward.
Her body was rigid, but she forced herself to keep going.
And then she was so close to the light that her figure was hard to see.
I could barely make out her face when she turned to look at me one last time. But I was glad she did.
All fear was erased. Her smile was beautiful, serene, and filled with all the peace I wished for her.
She took two more steps toward the glow, and she lit up like she truly was alive again.
Then, with her next steps, she faded entirely.
The light was too bright, and she was barely there.
And then, she was gone.
I could feel it in my heart—or whatever intuition governed my being then—that she’d moved on. Her spirit had released its turmoil and embraced complete serenity.
Even so, I watched the glow for a long time.
Finally, it, too, faded.
“Goodbye, Sibylle,” I said, and smiled.
One mission accomplished. One to go. Then back to my body before the light tried to claim me.
Chapter 5
Once the light fully faded, and I was by myself in the... well, I wasn’t exactly sure where I was. I didn’t know, and I hoped I didn’t need to.
When I was alone wherever I was, I figured I’d float along for a while, eventually—somehow—find Albacus, and then return to my body.
I should have known there was no way it’d be that simple. Little had been simple since I’d arrived at the academy, and absolutely nothing had gone to plan.
Once the light vanished, my surroundings remained blank only for a minute before it began to teem with movement.
I took a few hurried floating steps backward, but they were to no avail.
The blank space that had surrounded me dissolved like a mirage to reveal dozens of spirits, who looked like regular people, except that they were translucent, just as I was. What shook me was that they were all flying straight toward me, as if they were in a race to converge on the location I occupied.
I wanted desperately to move out of their way, but a few glances behind me revealed that they were about to completely surround me.
“What do you want?” I called out with all the bluster I could gather, making sure to hold onto my lifeline with all my might. If these spirits were about to rough me up—assuming they could do that in the spirit world—I wasn’t going to let go of my way back into my body.
At my call, the spirits did nothing to slow their approach. If anything, they flew at me faster.
I looked up and down; there were no spirits in either direction. If I had to flee, I’d choose to go downward, I decided. Hopefully that would lead me back to my body.
At this point, if I didn’t find Albacus, I was all right with that, as long as I could go back to myself.
The spirits weren’t slowing down, and they were nearly upon me. “What are you doing?” I tried again. Though I didn’t want my voice to sound panicked, it had.
They were closing in on me. I could make out their faces now that they were almost on top of me. Their expressions confused me. They didn’t look unkind or menacing. On the contrary, they looked entirely like ordinary people of all walks of life.
There were old and young. And they were all going far too fast. Surely they’d knock me off my feet!
I clung to my mental image of my lifeline with everything I had, and braced for impact.
I only realized I’d shut my eyes when I squinted them open to discover that every single spirit had come to an abrupt halt an arm’s length away from me.
There were so many of them that they formed a circle multiple spirits deep. Every face pointed in my direction and waited... waited for what?
I feared I was about to suffer another episode of claustrophobia. An almost physical desperation for space.
“Please.” I gulped for the air I felt I needed no matter what my brain tried to argue. My mind wasn’t in control now. I was operating on instinct. “Give me space.”
No one moved.
“I need you to back up.”
They continued to stare, tilting their heads to the side as though they were all a very odd pack of dogs.
My pulse was going wild. My lungs weren’t pulling in enough air. I was sweating, and I didn’t care one bit that it was all impossible given I was dead.
My stomach churned and knotted itself, and I’d had enough.
“You will move away from me right this second!” I yelled. In this strange spirit world, I heard my voice echo back at me.
Many of the ghosts looked affronted that I’d shouted. I didn’t care how they felt, I just wanted them to move. And now.
“You have no right whatsoever to make me feel uncomfortable like this. If you want to talk to me”—which is what I hoped this was all about, a bunch of spirits in limbo for so long that they’d forgotten basic manners—“then you’ll take ten big steps back.”
Several responded right away and moved backward, but this only caused chaos when the ghosts behind them hadn’t moved first. Oh, it’s not like they were trampling and hurting each other; they were specters after all. But they were passing through each other, and that was something the rest of them did react to.
The intimidating group erupted into cries of don’t touch me and get out of me. They slapped, shoved, and pushed while I stared on, stunned and rooted to the spot.
What was going on?
“Stop!” I cried, and everyone did. The earth must have turned on its axis if I was the mature presence here. “Everyone, stop what you’re doing, get out of each other’s way, and back up to create space.”
It shouldn’t have been that complicated, yet it was. It was like watching a group of drunken partygoers. (Nando and I had laughed for hours—in secret, of course—one time when Uncle invited acquaintances over and they’d all imbued too much spirit.)
The ghosts hadn’t done exactly what I’d asked, but it was close enough that whatever sense of claustrophobia I’d had was receding.
“So,” I started, and they all paused in what they were doing to study me. “Why were you flying at me like that? What do you want with me?”
Dozens of voices began speaking at once.
I held up a hand. “I can’t understand you if you all talk at once.” It’s like dealing
with spoiled children. “Please, one at a time.”
When they started again, less of them spoke, but still too many.
“Look, whatever it is you want, I don’t have time for this. I’m in a hurry, you see. I have someone to find and then to return to my own body.” So I don’t end up here with all of you.
“Who are you looking for?” a spirit from the back of the more-or-less circular grouping around me called.
“A man named Albacus.” I realized with a bit of shock that I didn’t really know much more about him than that. “He’s a wizard.” Dead people must be aware of magic, right? They’d be past all that nonsense people like my uncle believed. For him magic wasn’t real, but the people who claimed to practice it were willing to do immoral things to accomplish their delusions, which meant they needed to be stopped—permanently.
Dead people had to know better than that, right?
“He has long gray hair with tons of braids and beads at the bottom of them, a really long, bushy beard, and he wears a robe.” While not his family name, his appearance was unique—well, beyond looking much like his brother Mordecai. Before meeting the brothers, I’d never seen anyone like them before.
“I know him!” a voice called.
“I do too.”
“I’ve seen him.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s fantastic.” And I meant it.
Maybe something good would come of this uncomfortable situation. I couldn’t shake the desire to be rid of them all, but if they helped me find Albacus, it’d be worth a bit of discomfort.
“Do you know where he is?” I asked.
A portly woman stepped forward. “Oh yes, I know everything that happens here.” She spoke with self-importance. She was coiffed and primped and dressed to impress. Undoubtedly, she’d believed herself important when she was alive. “You see, I am the great Lady Gosselin.”
“The late Lady Gosselin,” a stiff-looking man said from three ghosts away from her.
The great Lady Gosselin waved his comment away. “Why do you need to find the Lord of Irele?”
“Uh, to return him to his brother, who misses him.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the most important part. I wasn’t expecting to be questioned. But then, I hadn’t imagined a single part of this.
She tilted her face upward and looked down her nose at me while she decided. “I suppose that’s a noble cause.”
“Her cause doesn’t need to be noble. You just need to answer her.” The same man spoke, throwing her a well-honed irritated look. I hoped those two weren’t slotted to share eternity together. From the looks of things, they’d try to kill each other all over again.
“Nothing comes for free, not even in the spirit world, you should know that by now.”
“How could I not? You remind us of it at every chance?”
I wondered what went on here that would create this kind of dynamic, but I didn’t dare ask. I had the feeling it would be like pulling at the end of a big, messy, tangled ball of thread, and I had neither the time nor the patience for that.
Instead, I tried to bypass their drama. I ignored the dozens of faces peering curiously at me and addressed the imperious lady, figuring that was the fastest way to the information I needed. “Lady Gosselin, I’d be most grateful if you’d tell me where he is so I can be on my way.”
She gave me a haughty look and waited, for what, I had no idea. I bit down my impatience and tried again. “You see, his return is incredibly important.”
“Oh? How so?”
“His brother wants him returned.”
“So you’ve already said, young lady. That’s important, but not incredibly so.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to get into the real reasons. It would take too long, and as strange as it was, I didn’t trust any of them. They might be dead, but obviously they weren’t beyond passing information. The Sorcerers for Magical Supremacy had agents everywhere. Maybe even here.
“Don’t you evade me, young lady. I know that look.”
“Yeah, that’s because we all give it to you all the time.”
Lady Gosselin gave the tall, thin man a scathing look that promised repercussions later. He didn’t seem to care, and I took a moment to be thankful I wouldn’t be around for whatever would come to pass between them—later, once I was long gone.
The other ghosts regarded the thin man warily and took miniscule steps away from him, just enough to signal that he was on his own if he kept prodding the wild beast that was Lady Gosselin.
“Give me the true reason, and I’ll consider telling you where he is.”
I opened my mouth to tell her what she wanted and get it over with, but ended up saying, “Why? Why won’t you just tell me and help me out? It doesn’t seem as if you have anything better to do.” Why hadn’t these spirits moved on, anyway?
“My dear,” Lady Gosselin began, making it obvious she didn’t actually hold anyone but herself dear. “I deal in power. I always have. We’re all dead. Riches mean nothing in this world, but knowledge does. Knowledge is power, and I will wield all of it available to me.”
She was completely unapologetic about what I was beginning to regard as her greed.
“Why do you need to wield power, as you say?”
She brought two perfectly manicured hands to her hips, jeweled rings managing to shine even in the spirit world. I was certain she’d used this gesture many times while she was alive and working to get her way. She tsked me. “Girls like you will never understand.”
Oh? I didn’t like to be told what I will and won’t do, not even when dead, and especially not by someone like her. My nostrils flared and my jaw clenched as I struggled within myself. Engaging her would just delay things, and possibly even compromise my ability to find Albacus.
It would feel good to tell her exactly what I was beginning to think of her, but my ultimate goal was to get out of here. Once I left, I’d never see her again, and that one thought was the one that forced a measured reaction on me.
I offered the rail of a man, the only one who spoke up to her, a look that said, You have my sympathy. Keep up the good work of standing up to her. Then, aloud, I said, “What do I need to do to get you to tell me where he is?”
“Simple.” She flicked a bedazzled hand off to the side then reached up to pat her perfect hair. “Just tell me the whole story of why you want to find him. If I’m satisfied you’ve told me the truth, then I’ll help you. As long as I agree with your reason in wanting to find him, of course.”
“Of course.” I smiled at her tightly.
“I have all the time in the world, as do they. But do you?”
I opened my mouth to ask her why they had all the time in the world, why they hadn’t passed through the light that had whisked Sibylle away, then stopped. I debated deflecting her request and trying to either find another way to locate Albacus or trick her into giving him up.
In the end, it was a good look at the other ghosts who surrounded us that convinced me. Their broken expressions told me that the easiest way was just to give the Lady Gosselin exactly what she wanted.
I had no desire to, but I did want to find Albacus and return to life, so I took in a deep breath, and went for broke.
I intended to tell her just enough to buy her information, but in the end, I gave her more than that.
Somewhere along the way of my story, I realized that they were each lost in their own way, just as Sibylle had been. They wanted to pass through the light, but they were waiting for it to appear for them. Their jobs here weren’t yet complete.
Maybe in helping me turn the tides of the war of magic, which would perhaps spare the lives of uncountable innocents, they’d earn their transport.
Or maybe, like with Sibylle, it was nothing external to them, no need to deserve or be ready beyond what was already within them.
Either way, once I started recounting the twists that had deposited me here, in the spirit world, looking for a wizard to help us fight the SMS, their face
s softened and became entirely human. Even Lady Gosselin looked almost kind.
I told them everything I believed safe to tell them, clutched my lifeline, and waited for Lady Gosselin’s response, knowing all too well that time had ticked away while I spoke, and time wasn’t on my side.
I just hoped these spirits were. Because this was my only chance at finding Albacus.
There was no time for another attempt.
Chapter 6
I’d anticipated some kind of reaction from the ghosts. Even so, the way they reacted was wholly unexpected.
“Oh, those sniveling toads!” the great Lady Gosselin said, working herself into a fury. “Who do they think they are lording over the magical world? And the non-magical world too! They must have lost their bloody minds.”
I blinked at her, unsure what to say to the raging ghost, who clearly had been aware of the existence of magic—and not just the rumors, the real thing.
“Can you believe it, Steven?”
When the tall, thin man who’d been pinning her in his glare when I first met up with them revealed himself to be Steven, a ghost the Lady Gosselin deigned herself to speak to, I was shocked. “I can believe it,” he said. “I saw it coming. Didn’t I tell you I thought something like this would happen?”
“I suppose you did, but I still can barely believe it. It’s madness.”
Well, there was one point I could definitely agree with. It was totally madness, and worse, somehow I’d gotten roped in the middle of it—literally. I clung to my lifeline and studied the ghosts surrounding me. Even those quiet ones, clearly intimidated by Lady Gosselin, were upset at my explanation, and I’d kept lots of things to myself. There wasn’t enough time to recount how many occasions the Sorcerers had infiltrated the academy’s defenses. How many times we’d neared a place from which we couldn’t return.
Case in point, I was dead because I’d intervened in one of the Sorcerers’ dark spells. Curiously, no one had asked how I’d died.
“I know Lord Albacus of Irele,” the Lady Gosselin was saying, “and you definitely need him on your side in this war.”