by Kaje Harper
“Oh, you do have an idea, how very helpful. I’m eager to hear anything you might recall.”
“Well, as I said, the event supposedly took place before I was born. I remember some story of a small child who got lost in the plantation woods one December evening. Wasn’t found until morning, and by then she was frozen stiff. I know my father had a strict rule about families, keeping track of who went into the woods and making sure everyone came back out accounted for.”
“That’s extremely useful. Do you have any idea when that would have been?”
“I was born in 1913 and my father bought the property in 1902 so sometime between those dates.”
“That narrows the timing down a lot. Excellent. Do you happen to remember any other details?”
“No.” Stevenson’s tone grew sharper. “I believe as a child I asked my mother why Father was so particular about who came and went, and she mentioned the tragedy. This all took place long ago.”
“Is your mother still with us? I’d love to get a woman’s perspective on this. The older generation have so much to contribute to historical research.”
“She passed years ago. My father too. You’ll have to find another source.”
“My condolences on your losses.”
“Right. Is that all?”
Darien wrinkled his nose at Silas but said warmly, “That’s wonderful. So helpful. Thank you.”
“Three minutes. I suppose there’s no need to bill for that. If you have a future need for legal advice in the realm of financial contracts, I assume you will look me up again.”
“Yes, of course. Yours will be the first name that springs to mind.”
“Hmph. Yes.” Stevenson hung up.
Silas stepped away and passed Darien his coffee cup. “You might need to wash the oleaginous residue from your mouth after that.”
Darien took a sip and grinned. “I was pretty good at the sucking up, wasn’t I?”
“I was both impressed and appalled.”
“But hey, a lead. A child who wandered off and died.”
“Yes.” Silas rubbed his chin. “It’s not likely the dead child was named Mary, since the ghost wouldn’t search for itself. Perhaps a sister or cousin, who failed to rescue them?”
“Sure.” Darien drained his mug. “What’s next? Newspaper archives again?”
“Maybe. But records from that far back are likely to be spotty.”
Grim said from where he lay on the tiles basking in the sun, “Might ask Mrs. Vaughn. She’d have been in her twenties or thirties then.”
“Good idea,” Silas agreed.
“Who’s Mrs. Vaughn?”
“A friend.”
“Really?” He’d only been with Silas a few weeks, but he’d begun to wonder if the man had any social life, outside the council and his familiar. He couldn’t help being curious.
Luckily, Silas only smiled at his surprise. “I do have friends. She’s a sorcerer. Mostly retired now, but she loves gossip and knows what’s going on all around the county.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Darien set his mug in the sink. “Do we drive or walk? Or will you call her?”
“I’ll have to go in person. She hates the telephone. But…”
“But?”
“If you come along, she’s going to give you the third degree. Be warned.”
“I think I can handle an old lady. Will the familiars come?”
“I will.” Grim got up and stretched. “Her familiar is an old friend.”
“Me too?” Pip came out from under the table, abandoning the marrow bone Silas had given him, and danced his paws on the tiles. “I was good. I was ever so quiet.”
“So you were,” Darien said. “You come too.” He glared at Silas. As if we’d take Grim and leave Pip.
Silas held up his hands. “On your head be it.”
Grim huffed a breath that sounded like a laugh. “Then we’d better drive, or we’ll look like a parade.”
The drive to Mrs. Vaughn’s took a mere seven minutes. She lived in a neat little cottage, set back from the road. Her long front walk had been meticulously shoveled, and colored holiday lights and tinsel garlands brightened the porch railing and eaves. Silas rang the doorbell, producing a distant four-note chime.
The door swung open to reveal a tiny woman, her face deeply wrinkled, her hair a cloud of white curls. “Why, Silas Thornwood, as I live and breathe. You remembered where I live.” Her dark eyes twinkled above a wry smile.
Grim said, “You haven’t moved in fifty years, Mistress. That feat of memory wasn’t a challenge, even for him.”
“Grim, I have missed you. Troy has too. Do come on in, all of you.” She swung the door wide.
They stepped into a neat front hallway. Darien copied Silas in taking off his boots and leaving them in the tray. When Silas hung his coat on a wooden rack, Darien took off his own.
“I just made a big batch of cookies,” Mrs. Vaughn said. “How fortunate, almost clairvoyant.” She laughed merrily. “Come have some.”
Darien raised his eyebrows at Silas behind her back. Is she?
Silas’s head tilt was either I don’t know or I can’t talk here. Darien trailed behind him into a cozy parlor.
On a perch by the window, a big blue-and-gold parrot spread long-feathered wings as it turned to face them. “Well, well, visitors. To what do we owe this… honor?” The pause came with a sarcastic twist.
Grim said, “Troy. You’ve not yet succumbed to boredom, I see?”
“Some of us belong to the leisure class.” The parrot took off, swooping to land on the back of the nearest chair. “Oh look, you brought me a stuffed toy.” It opened its dark, curved beak and wiggled a black tongue at Pip.
Pip’s tailwag became tentative. “Hi. I’m Pip. I’m new.”
“So you are.” The parrot looked him up and down. “All shiny and wet behind the ears.”
“I haven’t met many familiars yet,” Pip said. “Do you like being a bird?”
“A blue-and-gold macaw, I’ll have you know.” The parrot preened a feather. “This is an excellent form. Flying is glorious, compared to you four-foots. And humans aren’t shocked if I speak. That can be useful.”
Pip nodded briskly. “Not talking is hard.”
Grim said, “It’s about time you got to know another of your fellows, puppy. Come along. We can talk in Troy’s room.”
“You have a room?” Pip followed the other two familiars out. His voice echoed down the hallway. “I don’t have a room. But I have a castle full of mice and magic rats. The beds are soft…”
Mrs. Vaughn laughed. “I bet that pup is shaking up your household, Silas. And this must be Darien Green.” She turned to Darien, peering up into his face. “Oh yes, I can see where the interest comes from. All that power shining in him.”
“Interest from whom?” Silas moved a step closer, frowning.
“Everyone, dear boy. Silas the loner took in a young sorcerer with power to burn and together they defeated two demons in a weekend. You can’t imagine that story doesn’t arouse some interest?”
Silas rubbed his chin. “I’m not a loner.”
She chuckled. “Pull the other one. Although Darien doesn’t look as young as they say?”
“He came to it late and had… changes,” Silas said. “Through no fault of his own.”
Darien stepped in before Silas could start blaming himself. Mrs. Vaughn might be Silas’s friend, but he didn’t want to share their secrets. “We’re here to see if you can help us with a ghost problem.”
“Ah. Well, I’m not surprised this isn’t a social call. When was your last social visit, Silas-the-not-loner? 1953, was it?”
A little color rose on Silas’s neck. “I visited on the summer solstice.”
“By invitation, yes.” She smiled and patted his arm. “Don’t sprain something making excuses. Come, sit, have some cookies, and tell me what you need.”
They settled on each end of a sofa covered in a plush fabric. Mrs. V
aughn stepped out to the kitchen, returning in a moment with a plate of iced sugar-cookie snowmen. “There. Now we can bite heads off and plan the insurrection.”
Darien blinked. “Excuse me?”
She sat in the chair across from them, bit a cookie in half with a snap of surprisingly white teeth, and said, “Just a joke, my boy. What’s the problem at hand?”
Silas said, “We’re trying to lay a poltergeist on Stevenson’s Christmas tree farm, and the ghost might tie in to a death fifty years back. A missing child?”
“The tree farm… Oh! The Gleason boy. Surely that’s too long ago to be creating a ’geist now, though?”
“You’d think so. But the ghost seems very old, almost amorphous. I don’t know why it’s manifesting now and not in the last fifty years.” Silas leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “A boy went missing? Someone else told us a girl.”
“Both of them.” Mrs. Vaughn sighed and set the remnant of her cookie back on her saucer. “Joshua Gleason was just a young teenager, when his mother sent him to bring home a tree from the Stevenson farm. His little sister Mary begged to go with him, and her mother agreed.”
“Mary! The ghost called that name.”
“Poor boy. They figured the child wandered off while he was sawing down the tree. He must have gone in search of her, and they both got lost. The mother had nine children in that house and the youngest down with the croup. She didn’t notice the pair hadn’t come home until supper, and by the time she found someone to stay with her brood and roused the neighbors to come help, darkness had fallen.”
“The children died?” Silas asked softly.
“The boy, Joshua. They brought out searchers and lanterns, to no avail, and that night was bitterly cold. They found the boy in the morning, curled around his sister, and he’d given her his hat and mittens over her own. He was barely alive, and passed that day. The girl lost a few toes to frostbite, or maybe fingers, I don’t recall. But she lived. I remember the mother was distraught; the ground was too frozen to bury the boy and he had to rest above ground until spring.”
Darien said, “That shouldn’t matter to the ghost, should it? That the body wasn’t buried?”
“They’re not vampires,” Mrs. Vaughn said. “It’s about the death, not the body.”
“Are there vampires?” His curiosity rose up in a jumble of questions. “Where? If they’re not buried—?”
“No vampires,” Silas said firmly.
“That we know of.” Mrs. Vaughn folded her hands in her lap and smiled.
“In any case,” Silas added, “that sounds very promising. The ghost is almost certainly the boy, Joshua. Although I suppose there’s a slim possibility the mother suffered the guilt of finding her children too late, and at the end of her life, felt haunted enough to manifest there.”
“Wouldn’t the ghost be calling for Joshua then, not Mary?” Darien asked.
Mrs. Vaughn nodded. “He’s a sharp one, Silas. I’d bet you’re looking at Joshua’s spirit.”
“Why would he appear now?” Darien turned to Silas. “Can ghosts hibernate? Do they travel? If he actually died somewhere much more remote in those woods, could the ghost have spent fifty years drifting toward the well-travelled part of the farm?”
“Maybe.”
Mrs. Vaughn said, “This is ringing another bell.” She pushed up from her chair and went to a magazine rack stuffed with newspapers. “I believe I recall…” She pulled out one after another, flipping through them. “Yes, here. Four weeks ago.” She read, “‘We mourn the passing of our dear mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend, Mrs. Mary Browning, nee Gleason.’ Cause of death is given as a long illness.”
“Perhaps the ghost is her after all?” Darien suggested.
Silas said, “Or something about her death triggered the poltergeist. I’ve never seen that happen, but we shouldn’t discount the possibility.”
“What do we do?” Darien asked. “Go back and tell the ghost she’s dead? Will it listen?”
“Maybe. If we’re correct about its true name, I can do a better job of constructing my runes to catch it.”
Darien said, “Does that list where she’s buried? If she was.”
Mrs. Vaughn read down the obituary. “Graveyard of St. Timothy’s. It mentions an interment, so she beat the hard frost.”
“If we had a Polaroid camera, we could take a picture of the grave.” One of his classmates had bought one, and the opportunity to take pictures no developer would ever see had been… interesting.
“I’m not sure a ghost would recognize the content of a photo,” Silas said. “May I have that obituary, though?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Vaughn took a pair of scissors out of a knitting basket and carefully cut out the article. She held laid the paper in her lap. “You’ve always said darkness is better for ghost work?”
“Yes.” Silas sounded cautious.
“Good. Then you’ll have time for a cup of tea and a nice chat first.”
“Um.”
“You can catch me up on all the exciting things I hear you’ve done. A demon in the council chambers. That must have been quite a party. I’m hurt that you didn’t come and tell me all the details in person.”
“I was busy afterward—” Silas pressed his lips together.
Darien wondered if Mrs. Vaughn spotted the telltale color on the tips of his ears, remembering what they’d been busy with. But she just said, “I’ll fetch the tea, and then you can tell me everything, dear.”
Not everything. Darien sat back in the cushions, picked up a cookie for each hand, and resolved to zip his lips and watch Silas navigate through the minefield of this personal conversation.
Chapter 5
Silas parked in the same spot as last time in the tree farm lot. Mr. Stevenson poked his head up over the roof of a car where he was tying down a burlapped tree and nodded to them. Silas gave him a little wave— good, don’t pay any attention to us— and led the way back to section 17. The path they’d trodden through the gap in the fence didn’t seem any further disturbed.
The air had warmed slightly during the day, but now the rapidly-dropping temperature had created hidden icy spots. Grim, trotting ahead, slipped with one back leg and only caught himself with an awkward twist. The twitch of his tail-tip as he marched on showed his annoyance.
A moment later, Pip skidded on a similar patch and wound up on his butt, ears flapping. “Oops! It’s sli-ippery!” The pup cast a quick look at Grim, then struggled to his feet.
Was that Pip actually being tactful? Silas peered at the little dog trotting along behind the cat. Surely not. Though sometimes he forgot that Pip wasn’t just the bouncy little rat terrier, but a different being, one who— from Grim’s scant hints— had been halfway through a rigorous course of study before being pulled into the world prematurely to become Darien’s familiar. I shouldn’t underestimate him.
Silas paid for his distraction by finding a patch of ice with his own boot. Darien’s fast grab on his elbow kept him from copying Pip, doubtless with even less grace. “Thank you.”
When their old trail became rough, Grim jumped to the top of the snow where a freezing crust supported him. Pip followed, scrabbling for purchase, and yipped. “Fun!”
“Head in the game, pup,” Grim scolded.
“I’m listening.” Pip’s bat ears pricked up and he sniffed the air.
They made their way without mishap to the little clearing of his original circle. Darien turned on the flashlight, skimming the beam across the ground. “A bit icy.”
“We’ll have to be careful. Mind your step everyone.” Silas wlaked forward with care and set his satchel down. This time, the rune circle he created included Joshua Gleason’s name. That should hold him better. He set the bag of powdered chalk close at hand and called, “Joshua. Joshua Gleason. It’s time to go to your sister Mary.” He sent a questing thread of power out. There. The faint ping slowly came nearer.
“Time to go, Joshua.” He kept murmuring the b
oy’s name, backing his words with the flavor of his power, his shields thin and holding. He sensed the ghost gradually drifting closer.
Darien murmured, “There.” Off to their left, a curl of mist between the trees became denser and more purposeful than any trick of the weather.
“Come along,” Silas coaxed. “Your work is done, Joshua. You were her savior in life and death, but she’s moved on and you should too.” Poor kid.
They’d spoken with one of Mary’s grandchildren. She’d confirmed the story, adding that Joshua had been just fifteen at the time, and that Mary, her grandma, had called him her guardian angel throughout her life. Whether that had been sentiment, or his ghost lingering around her, Silas had no way of telling. There was no trace of a ghost around the old lady’s home now.
“Mary had a good long life, Joshua. You saved her.”
The mist drifted closer. She’s lost. I have to find her.
“You found her,” Silas told the ghost. “You saved her. Your work is done now.”
Mary! the ghost screamed, and Silas saw Darien flinch. Grim edged back toward the nearest tree and disappeared out of sight.
“She lived. She did well, thanks to you. Darien?” Silas gestured, and Darien walked a few feet toward the ghost, crunching through the ice-topped snow, and laid the newspaper clipping on the crust. “That’s her obituary, Joshua. She had children and grandchildren.”
Darien retreated toward Silas, taking small, careful backward steps, his eyes on the ghost. A light curl of breeze lifted the edge of the paper, then floated it into the air. The clipping dipped and swirled halfway to the ghost, then dropped to the snow. I have to find Mary!
Silas held back a sigh. Hoping that the ghost retained enough agency after fifty years to read a newspaper had been a long shot. He eyed the floating form, estimating the distance he’d need to throw a power loop. Good bet he’d only get one chance at a snare. He didn’t want to spook the boy.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key on an old tarnished ring. “Do you recognize this? Mary told her children and grandchildren this was your old house key. Do you remember?” He’d ended up having to steal the talisman from Mary’s granddaughter, but he planned to return it. The opportunity to have Pip Fetch the key out of the open desk drawer while Darien distracted the woman had been too good to pass up. Tokens of a past life could be a valuable tool for attracting poltergeists. He jiggled the ring in the dim moonlight. Darien turned the flashlight on the swaying key.