by M K Hutchins
I tasted Lady Sulat’s lunch and started the afternoon cleaning with Poppy. The more I tried to think of a solution, the madder I got at myself. Hard work, my mother said, made thoughts flow. But my hard work resulted in Poppy taking away the scrubbing brush and saying I needed to be nicer to the stairs. Thoughts wouldn’t come.
I propped my foot up while Poppy fetched another bucket of water.
“Giving up?” Moss asked.
I wanted to slap him. I closed my eyes instead, sinking into the darkness of my own eyelids. “If you have any brilliant ideas, I would have liked to hear them hours ago.”
“Nope. Not my job to be brilliant.”
“Thanks,” I snapped. He’d spent the afternoon playing with his bolas on the lawn. “I don’t have the skills to solve this myself. For all I know, the answers are locked up behind a gate I can’t pass. As for allies, well, I’ve got Osem and Bane.”
“Ah, glad to see you’re clever enough to know I don’t work for you. But if it’s any consolation, I hope you don’t die.”
It wasn’t consoling at all.
“Anyone owe you a debt? Anyone you can offer something to for their help?” Moss asked, echoing Osem’s earlier words.
“I don’t hold any debts. And no one needs my help.” The palace had respectable chefs not accused of poisoning.
I paused. That wasn’t right. There was one person—just one—who might do anything for my help. And no respectable chef, no chef with a future, would do anything to help them.
I tasted Lady Sulat’s supper. Azalea and the infant must be with the nurse, because I didn’t see either of them. Just guards. Someone had brought a small desk in and Lady Sulat sat behind it, a manuscript box in front of her. She must be recovering from the labor well.
I set the bowl brimming with hotpot back on the tray. “It’s fine.”
She turned another page without looking at me. The handwriting and format on this one was different, report-like. Had she heard me? Would she listen if I asked permission to walk the palace grounds? Moss wasn’t about to let me leave these apartments without permission.
“You can go,” Lady Sulat said, turning another page.
The question tightened in my throat. “I... that is...”
Lady Sulat sighed. Then I noticed the fine circles rimming her eyes, the weariness weighing her hands. She’d just been poisoned. Just given birth. And still she oversaw the military. “Go wherever you need to. But return if your ankle swells. It makes you an easier target for the Palace Guard.”
“Yes, Lady. Thank you, Lady.” I bowed deeply, thankfully, and left her to her reports.
Moss followed me out into the cool, overcast evening. “Where are we headed?”
“To the kitchens.” Shadows stretched long over the gardens. The sun would set within the hour. “I have a meeting with a ghost.”
“You probably shouldn’t say that aloud,” Moss said. “Believing in ghosts is a dangerous business around here.”
But he didn’t try to dissuade me. He didn’t laugh like the ghost didn’t exist.
We sat in the spruce tree garden near the kitchens, where Moss had acquired the boughs for my expedition into Lord Torut’s. The trees didn’t look bad—more storm-weathered than mangled. With the ferns tumbling everywhere, the garden felt like a wild patch of deep, dark forest.
I caught a glimpse of Osem closing the back door and bit my lip. She’d hate this plan.
“You look serious,” said Moss.
“Capital offense trials do that to a person.”
Night engulfed the sun’s last beet-red smear on the horizon. I stared at the kitchen’s roof, at a lazy thread of smoke from the half-dead hearths, but nothing moved.
My backside and hands turned numb and stiff against the stone seat. The Hungry Ghost always came to the kitchens by now to whimper and beg. Why not tonight?
I shuffled toward the kitchen door, Moss trailing.
Long before I reached it, the stench struck. Like maggots bloated on sun-rotted meat. I pulled the neck of my dress over my nose and mouth, peering around for the ghost with watering eyes.
“Was that you?” Moss wrinkled his nose.
“Honestly,” I muttered. “The ghost’s here.”
“You see it?”
“I smell it.” I called softly toward the roof. “Come down. Come down and I’ll talk with you.”
Nothing but normal patches of darkness and pale moonlight.
“Maybe it’s shy,” I said.
“Shy?” Moss laughed.
“Has anyone not from the kitchens ever claimed to see it? Even before the apprentices were accused?”
Moss paused. “No.”
Was it embarrassed about its state? “I think it wants to be exorcised quietly, privately. Could you go sit back at the garden?”
“And leave you all alone?”
“You can watch.”
Moss’ frown deepened. “I can barely see you from back there.”
“I’ll scream nice and loud if Captain Gano or his guards appear. I promise.”
Reluctantly, Moss retreated, his footsteps almost silent in the grass.
I tightened my fist on my dress front, wishing I was chewing mint or spicy cress to off-set the stench. “Come. Please. Talk to me.”
Darkness slunk off the roof, like overly-loose noodle dough stretching from counter to floor in a slow fall. On the ground, it heaped together into rolls of fat covered in black slime. Four puny limbs. A pin-prick mouth. And a pair of begging, pleading eyes.
I gagged and stepped back as the reek hit me. It felt like someone shoving gray-molded peas up my throat and down my nose.
The ghost whimpered.
“You need my help.”
Its eyes widened.
“And I need yours.”
It tilted its head to the side.
“I’m going to trial in nine days for lying to the King. Lady Sulat was poisoned, inducing early labor. I saved her and her child with cooking skills I said I didn’t have. My only chance is to find the poisoner and hope that deed gains me the King’s mercy.”
It coiled back on the word mercy, like it didn’t belong in the same sentence as king.
“I’m no great spy, but you are. You can hide on any roof—even on the Royal Bear House—and listen to what people say in secret.”
It whined at me like a beaten dog.
“You help me and I’ll try to exorcise you. Do we have an agreement?”
Sulkily, it nodded.
I took another step back, trying to control the nausea boiling in my gut. “I’ll need to cook for you. Are you a ghost because your descendants aren’t feeding you?”
It gave a slobbery, slime-dripping head shake.
“So you’re a ghost because you lusted too much after this world?”
Nodding. At least we could communicate this much. I didn’t need to discover its favorite food, then; I needed to discover what its faults were and craft an appropriate counter-dish.
Osem had mentioned that ghosts appeared at sunrise and sunset at the place of their death. “You died in the palace, didn’t you?”
More nodding.
“Are you on the palace records?”
It whimpered, head still going up and down.
Perfect. I could look him or her up in the Hall of Records. “And you died this winter, right?”
The ghost rubbed its eyes, as if already frustrated with this talk, but again nodded.
“Good. I’ll come back here in a day or two with a list of names. You can tell me yes or no to all of those. It shouldn’t be too hard to ask around for your vices once I have a name. Nothing in this palace seems to stay secret for long.”
The ghost whined and lowered its head disapprovingly.
“Do you have a better plan?” I asked. The back of my throat tasted like vomit from breathing in its smell. “Can you write in the dirt?”
It tried, but its stubby arms weren’t dexterous enough to draw any characters.
“The kitchen’s locked up and you can’t actually eat.”
The ghost frowned, all its rolls of fat and the tilt of its tiny eyes shifting downward. It picked up a branch and pretended to eat it.
“Oh! Buckwheat branches. But... I already know those don’t exorcise you.”
Again, the ghost pantomimed the basket and eating branches out of it, then wiggled its fingers like everything turning to mush.
“I know food goes bad when you try to eat.” Why was it so insistent about buckwheat branches? “I’m sorry I don’t understand.”
The ghost pantomimed a number of other things, but I couldn’t figure out what they were. It slumped to the ground, looking for all the world like a puddle of dough.
I paused. If it couldn’t tell me about itself, it couldn’t tell me what it learned, either. I’d have to exorcise it before the trial to get its help.
“Part of exorcism is confession. When we get to that part... you’ll be able to talk? To tell me about your spying, too?”
The ghost shrugged. It didn’t know. And why should it? It had never been exorcised before.
The ghost slunk back onto the roof and disappeared into shadow.
“You didn’t see it?” I asked Moss as we walked back to Lady Sulat’s.
The gravel crunched under his boots. “Some shadows shifted, but that could have been the branches overhead.”
Stealthy. Nearly invisible. The Hungry Ghost was the perfect spy. I’d have to be the perfect chef to match and cook up an exorcism—quickly.
Moss hooked his elbow through mine as we walked toward the Hall of Records the next morning. I limped, despite his help.
“If Bane were here, he could carry you,” Moss said. “You’d have to hold him tight, seeing as he’s got just one arm to support you.”
“Can you stop that? It’s silly of you to pretend Bane’s interested in a condemned woman. He’s not stupid.”
Even if I weren’t facing a trial, my whole life had revolved around cooking, and Bane wasn’t a chef. He couldn’t appreciate the best part of me—he couldn’t possibly want me.
Despite the gray streaks in his hair, Moss grinned like a five-year-old. “You’re not running away. I have to enjoy myself somehow. You’re looking into your friend from last night?”
“Of course.” I lowered my voice as we passed a butterfly garden, a half-dozen spring azures flitting between its blooms. “Archivist Kochan... you said he’s loyal to Lady Sulat. Can I ask him about said friend?”
“Yes. He’s got a pair of tight lips. But don’t trust anyone else.”
Moss helped me up the stairs and into the Hall. Inside, Kochan and Linaan sat next to each other at one of the round tables, their heads touching over a manuscript box. They muttered rapidly to each other, debating some point of text.
Nearby, a pair of clerks—from the Department of the Treasury by the sound of it—bickered over another manuscript. I’d have to wait until they left to ask about exorcisms.
Thankfully, I had other things to research.
Moss coughed loudly. Both of the archivists looked up, their wrinkled faces spreading into matching grins. “Ah, Dami,” Linaan said. “A budding scholar. What would you like today?”
“Do you have records of deaths within the palace for the past year?”
“Feeling morbid? Or are you still curious about the palace staff?” Linaan asked as she stood.
I shrugged. “Curious... I guess.”
“She’s a right to be morbid.” Archivist Kochan’s old eyes filled with sympathy, like he could already see the noose around my neck.
Linaan handed me a manuscript box. In the year before the apprentices’ executions, I found two names. Green-ranked Malin of Askan-Wod and Yellow-ranked Tol of Sandhead.
Since Moss was doing nothing more than polishing his bolas, I asked him over. “Do you know who either of these people are?”
“Green-ranked Malin perished from a bad winter fever. I believe she served as a gardener.”
“And she died here, in the palace?”
Moss shook his head. “No. Her family’s local. When she became ill, they saw to her private care in their own home.”
“So it’s Yellow-ranked Tol.”
“That one was a palace guard assigned to watch Lord Torut on a visit into the city. Accepted Lord Torut’s drinking challenge. Heart stopped when he drank too much. Or when a brawl left a knife in him. I can’t remember which.”
I bit the inside of my lip. The ghost claimed it died in the palace and that it was in the records. Had I misread its intentions? Or did my simple questions sound like gibberish to it?
The pair of clerks shuffled past me, out of the archives.
I couldn’t believe that the ghost didn’t understand me. Its eyes seemed so sincere, so pained. Had it lied to me? I traced the names on the page with a finger. It had to know I’d discover its deception.
And maybe that was the whole point. Liars could become Hungry Ghosts. Maybe that was his vice.
Endurance-of-tongue. Didn’t honesty require long, consistent control over that tiny muscle? Sweet-grilled morels or molasses-braised duck tongues might exorcise the ghost. Or should it be strong-of-tongue? Or did it depend on the kind of lies? I hoped the library contained recommendations.
I put the manuscript box back and returned to the archivists. “Do you have anything describing the three steps for exorcising a Hungry Ghost? Or recommended dishes for the process?”
Linaan’s smile vanished, replaced with a cold stare. Kochan’s eyes widened in alarm. I blinked at the two of them, then turned to Moss. He’d said Archivist Kochan could be trusted.
“Dami,” Moss said firmly. How odd to hear him sound anything other than flippant. “Your joke is in poor taste.” He bowed to both of the archivists. “I’m sorry. She’s young and new to the palace. Lady Sulat told Dami to satiate her morbidity, then scour the archives for any records of All-of-Alls, hoping that an appropriate name for her infant would surface.”
Linaan’s face softened, but the suspicion never left. Kochan beamed at Moss like he was brilliant. “We don’t have a single such volume, but a perusal of genealogies, servant lists, and histories would prove quite fruitful. I can think of five manuscript boxes off the top of my head. Come, Linaan.”
He pulled her away from the table, away from their manuscript. She moved slowly, always glancing over her shoulder.
I turned to Moss, confused. “What—”
His stern glare silenced the question in my mouth.
And so I wasted the rest of the day going through every manuscript box that either Kochan or Linaan could find that might mention an All-of-All. By dusk, my head throbbed and my knees ached. The musty smell of paper gagged me.
All told, I’d found two records of All-of-Alls.
I managed to thank both the archivists profusely for their time, though I regretted ever sitting with Nana for reading lessons. The idea of manuscripts—recipe manuscripts—seemed so enticing back then.
Outside, the mercifully cool air washed over us, perfumed with columbines. “Moss, why did I waste a day wading through manuscript boxes?”
“Not for my enjoyment,” he said, voice low as we crunched gravel back to Lady Sulat’s. Clouds half-covered the emerging stars. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful?”
“I waited until the clerks left.”
“Was Kochan the only person in the room?” Moss demanded, incredulous.
He couldn’t mean himself. “Linaan? She and Kochan are such a pair, I didn’t consider... I assumed—”
“Ah, assumptions. I thought you were getting better at navigating the palace. I’d ridicule you all afternoon, but I’m guilty of assuming you understand simple sentences, like ‘just trust Kochan.’“ He shook his head. “Linaan’s loyal to the throne. King Alder’s grandfather encouraged her to marry the nation’s brightest budding archivist so she could watch him.
They may both love manuscript boxes, but that doesn’t make them political allies.”
I felt the blundering idiot. But I still couldn’t imagine that those two happy, wrinkled faces belonged to political opponents.
“Don’t you remember how King Former Fulsaan and his late wife always opposed each other?”
I remembered my parents saying something about the Queen fighting against Red Lord Ospren’s exile. But I’d been a child and the Redwood Palace seemed distant. Irrelevant, even, compared to the cutting board and carrots in front of me. “You were right. I am young. I’m new to this place.”
I’d gathered the anger and suspicion of Lady Egal, Fir, Captain Gano, and now Archivist Linaan. I wondered how many other servants could say the same after less than two months at the palace.
Moss shook his head. “If we’re lucky, Linaan won’t report what you said to His Majesty. If she does, well, it won’t matter what you say at your trial.”
I convinced Moss to send another guard to the Askan-Wod market with my wages to buy morels, duck tongues, and a crock. Lady Sulat generously allowed me to cook the food over her bedroom brazier after I test-tasted her supper. My soul thrilled to cook again. And it was reassuring to know I hadn’t lost my skills—I had all the guards drooling over the aroma.
I carried the dish like a bowl of precious garnets across the twilight gardens, Moss trailing like before. The meal itself couldn’t exorcise the ghost—not without the other two steps—but if I’d guessed correctly, maybe it would be able to speak after eating this food.
Moss waited among the pines. I headed toward the door. If this went well, if I didn’t have to do anything rash or dangerous after tonight to prove my innocence, I could knock on that door tomorrow and apologize to Osem. Talk and laugh with her again.
The ghost slunk down from the roof, foul as a urine-soaked tanner’s workshop. I mostly managed not to gag.
“You’re not on the list of palace deaths. I figured that made you a liar in life. These might help you.”
I placed the dish down and stepped far back.
The Hungry Ghost wailed like a child being forced to eat something it didn’t want. But it shuffled forward, like it couldn’t help itself, and fell upon the food. The beautiful, fatty tongues melted into mush. The morels rotted away.