Ghost in the Canteen (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 1)

by Rasmussen, Jen

  “When you flew us away from Helen. You got tired.”

  “Because I thought I was tired,” Tom said. “I haven’t been here long enough to overcome all of my physical-world ideas yet. Flying drains me, when I can manage it at all, because part of me still believes it’s impossible. But trust me.” He pointed up at the sun. “You didn’t start sweating until you looked at that and your mind told you it was making you hot.”

  He can tell I’m sweating? It’s not soaking through my t-shirt is it? Because that would be embarrassing and gross.

  Yes it would, but is this really what you want to be thinking about right now?

  I refocused on the matter at hand. “Maybe so, but I’m not entirely like you. That knife part of me is there. It has to come into play somehow.”

  “Maybe. Probably.” Tom shrugged. “I told you, I have no idea how it works for a live person.”

  But I was a bit too invested in this topic to dismiss it so easily. “You just said my spirit is stronger than my body, but what if it’s not always? Let’s say I had a moment of weakness when I sat down just now, and convinced myself I was tired. What if in that moment my mind yielded to my body, so the physical side was actually stronger? So I don’t just think I’m tired, I actually am tired?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Well that would put kind of a damper on that whole they-can’t-kill-you-because-you’re-already-dead thing we were talking about at Cyrus’s, don’t you think? I’m not already dead. What if Megan McGibbons stabbed me with something from her Tree Of Stabby Goodness and I believed it was real? If my spirit side can give in to, or join my physical side, then I can actually be killed.”

  “How about we don’t test this theory?” He held out his hand again, but again I ignored it.

  “I really am tired and thirsty.”

  He gave me a look I had already come to know as his you-are-a-pain-in-my-ass look.

  “Well, now that I’ve thought it, I can’t unthink it,” I said. “That’s my whole point. The moment of weakness has already done its damage.”

  Tom sighed and closed his eyes, arm held out straight. He stayed like that until I was about to kick him to get him to explain himself, but then there was a shimmer over his outstretched hand, like hot air above a road on a summer day. It got thicker, came into focus, and took the form of a strap slung over his palm, attached to an old-fashioned, vaguely military looking canteen. He handed it to me.

  “So that’s how you got the bourbon.”

  “Rye,” he corrected. “But yes. Force of will. It’s as simple as that, and as complicated.”

  I took a long drink. The water was cool and slightly sweet. “Can you teach me to do that?”

  “Concentration can’t really be taught, can it?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But we can give it a try, I suppose.” This time when he held out his hand, I took it and stood up.

  “Now be still, close your eyes,” Tom said. “Just take a few breaths and try to clear your mind.”

  “Like yoga?”

  “I have no idea what yoga is.”

  “Good, because I suck at it.”

  “Less talking, more breathing.”

  I did as he asked. After a minute he started talking like a hypnotist, soft and slow. Combined with his baritone voice, it made him sound like a lounge singer. I tried not to laugh and kept breathing. “Hold out your arm,” he said. “Now imagine a canteen, or whatever you’d drink water out of. Don’t use my image, you need your own. Something familiar and easy.”

  I nodded and imagined my hand closed around my neon orange water bottle.

  “You can’t just picture it,” Tom said. “You have to feel it. Its weight. Its temperature.”

  On a hot day, it would be cool. Maybe a little condensation on the outside.

  “Don’t just imagine holding it. Hold it. Insist it be in your hand.”

  I opened my eyes. “I was with you right up to that last part.”

  “It takes some getting used to.” He turned and started walking again, which I guessed meant my lesson was over and we were getting back to business.

  Whether because he was thawing toward me or just bored, Tom made a little—very little, but still—chit-chat as we went on. He asked me how I came to be trapped in the canteen, and when I told him a poltergeist had banished me instead of the other way around, he laughed. Not a polite laugh or a moderately amused laugh, either, but an all-out, mouth-open, deep rumbling laugh.

  “It’s not funny.” I pulled up my t-shirt, not enough to make things awkward, but enough for him to see the burns that were healing but still clearly nasty. “He gave me these. They cover pretty much my entire torso. Hurting women and girls is his favorite. And he lives with a twelve-year-old girl.” Tom sobered up at that. For a second I thought he might even apologize, but the moment passed.

  Just before we got to the tar lake Cyrus warned us about, a little girl in a treehouse made of candy shouted a few nasty words and threw caramel apples at us. But it wasn’t until we came to the first plot past the lake that we ran into any real problems.

  It was the thick of the night. The light of a full moon reflected off tree branches that were encased in ice. There was no snow, but our breath floated out in clouds in front of us. I sniffed the air. “This place is like Brothers Grimm Go To The Zoo. I thought you couldn’t conjure animals?”

  “You can’t,” Tom said. The cry of an owl came from somewhere off to our left, as if to contradict him. “But you can conjure animal sounds,” he added.

  “And animal poop, by the smell o—” I stopped short. I’d seen something from the corner of my eye, and it was definitely not an owl. Tom grabbed my hand. We both took one slow step back, then another, then a third.

  Through the trees ahead and to our left was an odd stone structure, half house, half cave. And sitting in front of it was an odd creature, although not an unfamiliar one: half man, half wolf. He (it?) was built like a person, but covered in hair, with paws at the ends of his arms and legs, and pointy ears on top of his head. His jaws crunched against the bone he was gnawing at. When he turned his head to spit out a mouthful of splinters and gristle, the moonlight shone against several fangs protruding from his elongated mouth.

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I whispered.

  Tom took a few more gentle steps back and to the right, keeping his eyes on the werewolf, who didn’t seem to have noticed us. But I was alive—if he hadn’t sensed me already, it was only a matter of seconds. Fuck, what do I do when he-it charges us? Silver kills werewolves. If he believes he is one maybe that would hurt him.

  Tom squeezed my hand and I felt him brush up against my mind, trying to strengthen our ward. I closed my eyes and willed a shield around us. Don’t mind us, Lon Chaney. We are small, we are insignificant, we are beneath your notice. We will pass silently. I could feel Tom’s will, stronger than mine, and it gave me confidence as we moved slowly, still hand in hand, forward this time. We were nearly past him...

  But the thing with canines of all types is: they’re really good at smelling stuff. This one put his snout in the air and sniffed loudly, then snarled. We stopped moving, stopped even breathing, as his head went slowly from side to side. Then he fixed his pale silver stare directly on me.

  “Run.” Tom dragged me along behind him for a few seconds, but I snatched my hand out of his grip and turned.

  “We can’t outrun a wolf.”

  The werewolf was stalking toward me, snarling and growling. He walked on two legs, like a man, although he was hunched over. I guessed if he stood up straight he would be at least ten feet tall.

  “Silver!” I called to Tom. “I need a silver weapon!” I saw him close his eyes. The werewolf kept advancing. “Now would be good!”

  Just like that, a dagger was in my hand. I’d have preferred silver bullets, but it was my own fault for not being specific. I threw it.

  It hit the werewolf in the shoulder and fell to the frozen ground, b
ut not before leaving a long gash. He let out a yelp that made my teeth rattle, then twisted, trying to reach the wound with his tongue. I drew my hand back, as if preparing to throw another, although I didn’t have one.

  But Tom did. The werewolf, still whining and slobbering, looked from me to Tom to me again, then turned and ran away.

  We didn’t hang around to congratulate each other.

  From there we moved into a sunny field, and I breathed some of the tension out of my chest. I was about to ask who that was and how the hell he’d turned into that thing, but I decided I didn’t want to know. I thought about what had happened to Roderick in five years here, how inhuman he seemed now. What might fifty years do, for someone nursing nothing but hatred and rage? What about hundreds?

  After that we walked in silence, hand in hand (and I had never felt less romantic holding a handsome man’s hand), focused on keeping our guard up. Eventually the landscapes became less varied and more unpleasant, until they all melded together into a single plain of darkness and ash. The air was hot and had a metallic, almost industrial smell.

  “Great,” I muttered. “First the werewolf, now the wasteland of the Dark Lord. Do you people get all your ideas from movies?”

  “Shh,” hissed Tom.

  I immediately felt that he was right. Nothing moved around us. There was nothing around us even to move. The air was windless. All was quiet in that watchful way, and I started to feel, as I always did in wide open spaces, like I was completely, helplessly exposed to unfriendly eyes. If anything came for us, there would be nowhere to hide.

  Finally we came to the burned out shell of an old mill, a landmark Cyrus had told us to watch for. Drayne’s plot was just beyond it, he said, across the dark river.

  As we approached the river I saw that Cyrus’s description had been apt. Thick gray water flowed slowly, as if choked with ashes and dust. Or burned-up bones. Not a good time for imagination, Lydia. Especially not in a place where the things you imagine can come true.

  We both stopped, staring into the water. Tom had to be as reluctant to get in it as I was. But there was no bridge that I could see.

  “Listen. This demon—”

  “Fiend,” I corrected, matching Tom’s whisper. “The word demon has religious connotations I’m not really qualified to speak to.”

  He looked down at me. I always seemed to notice his height when he was looking at me like I was an idiot. “Is that important right now?”

  “Go on.”

  “We just learned how risky relying on a ward can be. He’ll almost certainly sense you when we get close enough.”

  “Is this going somewhere?”

  “Yes. Instead of letting that be a weakness, we should use it to our advantage.”

  I saw what he was getting at, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Since he’s going to see me anyway, you want me to be the bait.”

  “The distraction.”

  “You’re right. That’s a nicer word for bait.”

  “You keep him occupied, I’ll find the knife.”

  That sounded like a pretty fucking stupid plan to me. But I didn’t have a better one. When glaring at him didn’t force him to produce a better one either, I just turned back to the river.

  “This better not be too deep,” I hissed, and stepped off the muddy bank into the water. Maybe because it had looked so much like ashes and liquid metal, I expected it to be warm. It wasn’t. I jumped back, recoiling from what felt like a (barely) melting glacier, but by then Tom was behind me, and I couldn’t get away.

  At least the current wasn’t strong. But after only a few steps, I stopped. There was something quiet and gentle tugging at the edge of my hearing. A song. The voice was soft, but it was clear and clean and flowing, everything the water we were in should have been.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked around my chattering teeth.

  “Yes.” He put his hand on the small of my back and applied just a little pressure, like we were in a restaurant and he was escorting me to our table. “Ignore it. Keep walking.”

  “Why? What is it?”

  “I have no idea, but in stories, listening to disembodied voices charming you with song never seems to lead to anything good.”

  “Well, now I’m nervous.”

  “Sooner we get to the other side, sooner you can relax.”

  “Sure. Because the fiend in possession of a lethal weapon will be much less concerning.” I kept walking, arms crossed, curled inward against the cold. The water got steadily deeper until it came up to my mid-thighs. Although the song didn’t change, it had taken on a sinister quality for me. I pictured little mermaids with twisted faces and muddy hair and the fat spotted tails of trout, using the only beautiful thing they had to lure us under. With every step, I waited to feel fingers closing around my ankle.

  But as we came to the other side the song receded. The bank was steep enough that I had to use my hands as well as my feet to scramble up, sinking them up to the wrists in mud. A fetid smell came up from it. Maybe it was time to practice conjuring again; I thought I could do a pretty good job of accurately imagining hand sanitizer.

  Tom grabbed my elbow as I started to stand, and gestured for me to stay down. We crouched on the bank, just below the top, where we could be at least partially hidden. I looked ahead.

  “This is a fiend’s lair?” I whispered. “I kind of thought it would be dark and scary or something.” In front of us was a long, low building of grayed wood, surrounded by rocky terrain with a light covering of snow. “It looks like a Viking mead hall. Or is it a longhouse if you’re a Viking?”

  Tom ignored this. “Time to split up. You keep him busy up front while I sneak around the back. Let’s hope there’s a window or something I can use to get in.”

  I pointed at the foundation, where the boards were darker, some of them crooked. “Looks like you might be able to make your own crawlspace if there’s not one already.”

  Tom started to move, then stopped and turned toward me again. He squeezed my shoulder. “Be careful okay? I need you.”

  I knew he meant he needed me to help him get out of the netherworld. But my rogue heartbeat sped up a little just the same. I nodded, but it wasn’t until after he crept away, still half crouched, that it occurred to me that I should’ve said the same to him.

  I straightened myself up and walked openly toward the mead-house-long-hall, whatever it was. Nothing stirred. My feet, numb from the water, crunched in the snow. It sounded too loud.

  The door was polished and elaborately carved with images of monsters: gorgons, imps, giant wolves with dripping jaws. I rapped three times, quickly and sharply, hoping that was what a confident knock sounded like.

  An enormous man, a giant really, wearing some sort of furry caveman outfit opened the door. You’d expect a guy like that to be all shaggy and bearded, but as far as I could tell, he was completely hairless. His eyes were bright yellow beneath heavy lids.

  I hadn’t come through years of toddler tantrums without a few things to show for it: I was pretty good at arranging my face into a picture of calm, even when I felt anything but.

  “Drayne?” I asked.

  “No. What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to Drayne.” Okay, I really didn’t want to talk to Drayne. Like, at all. Especially not if he was anything like this guy. But it was my job to distract him, and doing it by pissing him off seemed like an even worse idea.

  “What for?”

  “We have a common enemy. I’ll tell the rest to him.” I gave him the look I learned to use at Warren’s preschool when the snotty teachers tried to tell me what was what with my own (okay, Nat and Charlie’s own) kid, the one where I raised one eyebrow and swallowed back a tiny cough and then just stood there, waiting for them to realize they were wasting my time.

  It worked. He led me inside and closed the door behind us. My eyes labored to adjust to the dim light, but that was nothing compared to the behemoth struggle my nose had adjusting to the smell. I
t was like I’d just walked into the rotten insides of a long-dead animal. Left out in the sun. On a bed of sulfur. My stomach rolled over and begged for mercy.

  The fireplace at the end of the long, narrow room was big enough for me to live in. But the fire in it was only small, and didn’t cast enough light for me to see any of the detail in the tapestries that lined the walls. There were no windows, but there were doors on either side of the fireplace. I hoped they meant a back way in that Tom would be able to find.

  The big man waved me forward, where a man was sitting at a table in front of the fire. I strode ahead as confidently as I could manage, but inside, my nerves were arguing with the smell over which got to make me vomit first.

  And then, abruptly as I reached the table and got a better look at my host, the smell was gone. The room smelled fresh, in fact, crisp, like a winter’s day right after a new snowfall.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, a dragon maybe, or a devil, or at least a really intimidating guy. Someone big, like his flunkie. But if this was Drayne, he was kind of a pipsqueak. His arms were like twigs. He had thinning gray hair and watery eyes set in a compact, plain face. I’d never seen anyone who looked so harmless. Except maybe Jeffrey Litauer. If I’d been about to relax at all, that thought talked me out of it.

  He looked at me over the top of a wooden goblet. A bottle was on the table, and nothing else. There was no sound but the soft crackling of the fire.

  “Drayne?” I asked.

  “Yes.” his voice was deeper than I would have expected for someone so slight, almost as deep as Tom’s, and smooth, musical. I instinctively relaxed at the sound of it, then warned myself not to. If this was really a fiend, it didn’t matter if he looked like a florist and sounded like a TV host. He was dangerous. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Cyrus.” I saw immediately that there was no need to tell him Cyrus who. His eyes narrowed and he gestured a dismissal at the lackey, who left through one of the doors beside the fireplace. Whoops. I hope you didn’t just get him sent to the same room Tom’s breaking into. I cut that thought off quickly, just in case fiends could read minds, and turned back to Drayne.