by Tee Morris
*****
It was a clank of metal upon metal in the morning that woke Bettina and she shot up upon the straw-filled palette, nearly hitting her head upon a pipe above her.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, child,” Mrs Marsh chuckled. “I forgot you were there, you were as quiet as the dead. Usually I’m the one that gets startled. Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
“Did you have luck yesterday?”
“Oh, yes ma’am. New York City is very haunted.”
“Ah, so you’ve something to show. The last person we sent out didn’t come up with much of anything. Mr Books was apparently sceptical at the notion of confirmed hauntings, so he may be intrigued by your findings.”
Bettina took the small china teacup and saucer Mrs Marsh handed her. It jostled a little in her hands. Funny, she didn’t think she shook as much as she’d been lately. Out and about in Manhattan she hadn’t noticed, so maybe it was just nerves as her life had been so unexpectedly swept up into this odd new adventure.
Mrs Marsh took her own teacup and moved to the door. “Come show me your findings once you’ve drunk your tea, and then, perhaps, we’ll even get you an egg to eat.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The idea of an egg made her stomach growl. She heard the sound, though she didn’t feel the ache. (She did however feel the tingle of an embarrassed blush rise in her cheeks.) Bettina didn’t think herself terribly hungry, anyway. Last night’s bread and milk must have done her a world of good, far better tasting than orphanage gruel.
She sipped her tea quickly, scalding her tongue a bit, nearly dropping the saucer, but she got to her feet when finished, wincing as she slipped back on her boots again—so as not to appear rude being seen in torn stockings with toes hanging out in her workplace—and carefully set the teacup in a basin with others that needed washing.
She imagined Books, being British, went through more tea than the average New Yorker. Perhaps she’d meet him and he’d warm to her if she brought him tea.
Bringing in the wooden box to Mrs Marsh’s hefty desk and handing over the ghostly tally, Mrs Marsh took up the dragonfly device in her hands, narrowed her eyes on its thorax, and then turned its antennae towards Bettina for a moment. Something passed over her expression, but she quickly masked it, turning away to rise up to the ledge of fantastical equipment, strange devices Bettina had never seen, all stretched out on a long shelf above a series of encyclopaedias.
Placing the dragonfly atop what looked like a metal scale, an instant symphony of whirs and whistles and clicks resulted. The dragonfly sprang to life, stirring all the items around it. There was a device to the side of the scale that bore long wire needles, little graphite tips on their ends, which made marks upon a thin paper that spooled out on a brass spindle. The ticker continued to run down to Mrs Marsh’s hands as would thread winding off its spool to a seamstress’ latest work.
Mrs Marsh stared at what was before her, looked back at Bettina with her mouth agape. Something was…wrong?
Bettina felt a cry lock in her throat as Marsh scrambled up to her feet and then darted up the stairs. Something had to be wrong, surely...
Her instincts, however, kept her rooted. Bettina knew she had done nothing more than what she was told. The young girl sunk into the seat by Mrs Marsh’s reception desk and tried to stay calm.
She heard Mrs Marsh’s voice, then a gruff British one, a bit of arguing, a cry of “Well why didn’t you tell me she was special?” and then a pair of strong tromping tread down the stairs.
A fastidiously dapper, brown-haired man in a fine dark suit paused at the foot of the landing, Mrs Marsh trailing behind him with an expression of nervous excitement that suddenly made Bettina feel self-conscious. She rose to her feet once more.
“Good morning,” he said with an awkward nod.
The man, Bettina assumed, was Wellington Books. His accented tone was surprisingly warmer with her than Mrs Marsh’s. For someone so abysmal, his bark was louder than his bite, clearly. A handsome fellow, a sparkle of tireless curiosity lit his eyes and gave him a charming air. Everything about him made Bettina wish to seem the consummate lady. She dipped into a pronounced curtsey.
“You must be Miss Bettina Spinnett,” Books said with a small smile.
“Yes, sir. Mister Books from the Ministry?” Bettina blurted, straightening back to standing with the sort of perfect posture Sister Anne had always encouraged out of her.
“Wellington Thornhill Books, Esquire, and Chief Archivist of Her Majesty’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences,” he stated. He glanced over his shoulder at Mrs Marsh. “And I am currently on holiday, but that little detail isn’t your fault.”
“I am very glad to meet you, sir,” Bettina breathed, needing so dearly to impress him, “and very glad for your Ministry that has taken to keeping this office alive, for I owe it my life, sir. Orphan girls don’t always last long on city streets, sir.”
Books opened his mouth as if to say something, but Mrs Marsh pulled him by the arm, facing him towards the dragonfly on the scale and the results it had produced, results Bettina couldn’t begin to understand or tabulate.
“Sir,” Mrs Marsh murmured. “Look at her data. She’s taken down more numbers and details on ghostly occurrences in one day than we have in three years.”
Books examined the printouts that had been made when the clicking, whirring device had attached to the spider-like needles and spool of paper. He made several noises that Bettina deemed to be sounds of being impressed.
“But that’s not all, Mister Books,” Marsh murmured. She picked up the dragonfly and turned it towards Bettina. The reader clicked and whirred and something lit. “That.” Books’ expression was suddenly similarly amazed. There was something terribly unsettling about it. Mrs Marsh placed the dragonfly upon the desk between them.
“What is it?” Bettina asked, picking up the dragonfly in her hands once more, wondering what upon it could cause such a reaction. She didn’t know, she wasn’t an expert at what all the lit markings along the head and wings meant, but something was flashing, and her heart was in her throat for fear of what it might mean and she fumbled for words. “Whatever I may have done, I am so very sorry. I never meant to offend, I’ll learn, and quick, whatever I—Please don’t cast me out—”
“No-no-no, my dear Miss Spinnett, you have done nothing wrong at all,” Books murmured, as if he were afraid of scaring off something he was observing in the wild. “What a special case you are indeed. I’ve never encountered anyone or anything like you. So solid. So powerful.”
Bettina smiled broadly. No one at the orphanage had ever found her unique, certainly not particularly useful. “Powerful?” She blushed. “I don’t know about that, sir...”
“That’s why you’ve had such luck with the spirits, unlike anything we’ve encountered. You understand. Though I’m having a hard time understanding the physical properties of this case. These results are unprecedented.” Books whirled to Marsh, his eyes wide and excited.
“She is unprecedented,” Mrs Marsh said, her face flushed.
“What do you mean?” Bettina asked. “I understand what? Unprecedented why?”
Books whirled back to stare at her, approached, placed a firm hand upon her shoulder and stared at his own hand. Then he looked at Mrs Marsh. They shared some sort of look, a dawning of surprise. And then sadness. They turned that look upon Bettina and she suddenly felt very small.
“Oh, no,” Marsh murmured, her sturdy hand went to her mouth, tears springing into her wide eyes. “You don’t even know, child...”
“What...” Bettina murmured, dread filling her distantly growling stomach. “What don’t I...”
Bettina felt her heart sink in a sickening realisation.
She thought of being turned out of the orphanage. She hadn’t been well the day prior. A fever. She’d risen and gone about her morning, but no one had spoken to her, and that was all right. No one usually did. When she’d waved
at Sister Anne, the nun started on seeing her. Bettina now understood why the Sister had said:
“Go on now, Bettina. You can’t stay here anymore. You must move on.”
Bettina had looked at the floor, unable to face Anne, knowing she’d aged out of the orphanage long ago and that this day would eventually come. But in that moment, she’d thought Anne meant her age. No. She’d meant her spirit.
She was dead.
The fever had claimed her.
She’d been out counting her own kind.
A searing pain coursed through her body. Or whatever constituted a body.
Suddenly Mr Books’ hand that had been placed upon her shoulder dropped to the side, with no mass to support it. The beautiful dragonfly device slipped from her hand. Through her hand. She watched as her solid hand became less so, her own colours and those of the carpeting blending together.
Books bent to catch the dragonfly before it hit the floor, but it jostled in his hands and shattered, the pieces seeming to linger languidly in the air. One of the fine antennae snapped off and tapped quietly onto the floor next to two large teardrops that fell from Bettina’s paling face.
“You didn’t know you’d gone, dear girl, that’s what,” Books murmured gently, seeming not to care about the device, wholly more concerned with Bettina, his eyes wide as he looked back up at her. “That’s why. Not until now.”
“I’m so sorry, my child,” Mrs Marsh choked.
Bettina walked backwards. No, it was more like floating. A few more tears splashed upon the floor. All that could manifest anymore, evidently, was her sorrow.
“No. Stay, please stay Miss Bettina,” Mrs Marsh gasped. “Don’t go.”
“I...I can’t...I don’t...know what to do...what do I do?” Bettina felt all her faculties drain from her. Her floating form took to the chair again but didn’t feel the seat beneath her.
“Do you want to stay?” Mrs Marsh asked. “Do you want to help us?”
“Mrs Marsh,” Mr Books began with a soft tone, “This... girl... is not a replacement for Katie. Please. You can’t think of her like that...”
“I...I know, sir, I shouldn’t...” Mrs Marsh nodded, that stoic face suddenly red and ashamed, tears falling as she turned to stare agonisingly at Bettina. “See, you’re a lot like my girl, gone from this world about your age,” Mrs Marsh explained. “Trouble is my little Katie doesn’t haunt me. Wish she would.”
Bettina felt her sense of self spin. Maybe she could stay on. For an adventure. For as long as it might last. Why not?
“Well, I... I do like it here,” Bettina whispered. “And I like the... ghosts. My fellow kind... I suppose my perspective could be useful?”
Books lowered himself to one knee, looking up at her with a delighted smile on his face. “It would be most unprecedented in the intelligence community to have a ghost agent,” Books said, trying to keep a casual tone but it was clear he was utterly captivated by the concept. “But you’d have to want it, young lady. Truly want it. You were mistaken for human because you had no idea of your state. You have to will yourself into being.”
“But…you want me to stay?” Bettina asked. She’d never had a home. She’d never had a family. She’d never been taken in. Never wanted.
A yearning so pure welled up inside of her. She wanted this indeed. This hope. This belonging. A distinct new happiness filling an old empty void. Suddenly, she was conscientious of the floor. She understood what was solid and what was shade and the coexistence therein.
“Yes!” Mrs Marsh exclaimed, all stoicism cast aside, a mother longing for a child, no matter what kind of state that child was in...
Bettina smiled, rose and glided to the door. As she did she heard Mrs Marsh hiss a breath, as if she was about to beg her not to go again. Bettina turned, feeling movement in a new way. It was interesting, fascinating. And yes, it was quite fun.
Bettina would, most assuredly, tell them all about it.
“I don’t need the device,” Bettina replied. “I just need to be with them. My kind. And then I’ll come home and tell you everything.”
It was the first time Bettina had ever said “home”.
And she had never felt so alive as she floated through the door and out onto bustling, ever-so-haunted New York City.