Deception

by Lee Nichols

  For some reason, his pleasure in Martha, his clear affection for her, made me crabby. Maybe I was jealous, or maybe … well, okay—I was jealous. Not of the affection, so much, but of their smiles and shared history. I felt like the outsider I was, like I’d never know him as well as she did.

  “He’s too grumpy to eat,” I said.

  “Grumpy? My sweetest little boy?”

  Bennett looked at me, a laughing appeal in his eyes. “If she breaks out the baby pictures, I’m begging you—run.”

  I refused to be charmed. “We still need to talk.”

  “I haven’t seen Martha in two months, Emma, I—”

  “Bennett,” she interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He sighed as he looked at me. “The day’s warming up. Let’s go in the garden.”

  Bennett and I strolled through the now-barren rose garden, toward the red sumac and the Japanese maple.

  “So,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  This was it, the moment I spilled all my dark secrets. After which Bennett would call the men in white coats. But I didn’t care; I couldn’t keep this bottled up any longer. I took a breath.

  “Emma?”

  “I know,” I said, and kept walking. “I’m going to tell you.”

  “Good.”

  “Here goes.” I paused in the middle of a row of dying roses. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I see ghosts!” I blurted.

  He nodded. “Yeah, you told me.”

  Not the reaction I’d expected. “No I didn’t. When?”

  “ ‘You see things,’ ” he said, in a bored tone. “ ‘Imaginary things, visions.’ ”

  Okay, yeah I’d said that, but I hadn’t expected him to believe me. “No, I really see ghosts. I mean, the spirits of the dead. Walking around in period costume.” I took a shuddering breath. “I thought I was going insane, I was so afraid, and I … I can’t believe this, but knowing they’re ghosts is a relief. Because I’m not crazy. I really see them.”

  He eyed me speculatively. “Uh-huh, you really see them. Anything else?”

  “You want more?”

  “I want everything,” he said.

  We turned at the end of the row, toward the brilliant stand of red sumac. “Fine,” I said, “strap on your straitjacket.” And I told him about the ashes and the death mask. “And since I came to Echo Point, I’m seeing them more and more. And I’m … I don’t know, reliving the memories of a previous life.”

  He frowned at the last part. “Hmm.”

  “Hmm? That’s all I get?” Could he act normal for once? Why wasn’t he trying to calm me down or offering to get help? One of us needed to be rational here and it certainly wasn’t going to be me.

  “Well, I don’t understand the shadows and the ashes. That’s not possible, but I suppose you’re still learning how to—”

  I couldn’t take any more. I screamed, “Stop it! I see ghosts, Bennett! Stop humoring me.”

  “You really don’t know, do you?” There was an incredulous expression on his face. “I can’t believe they didn’t tell you. I thought you were playing games, pretending you didn’t know, keeping secrets from me and—”

  “What? What is it that you think I’m supposed to know?”

  “Emma, I’m sorry.” He put his hand on my arm. “Let’s start at the beginning. Why do you think you’re seeing ghosts?”

  “Because the house is haunted?”

  “Mm. And are you afraid of them?”

  “Uh, yeah. They’re ghosts.”

  “How afraid?”

  “Well, terrified that I’m losing my mind. But the actual ghosts? The man in the brown suit, the servants … no. Not scary, actually.” I turned that over in my mind. “How can I not be afraid of ghosts? They’re all haunty and ghoulish, right? And Bennett, why are you taking this seriously?”

  “You’re a ghostkeeper, Emma.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re a jackass.”

  He surprised me with a laugh. “No, I’m serious. You’re a ghostkeeper.”

  “Not funny. I need your help. I can’t concentrate at school, I’m having flashbacks. I don’t want to go back to the poof.”

  “The poof?”

  We walked to a bench beside an arbor and sat silently for a time. Then I told him about being committed to a mental institution. I told him about the stuffed elephant and the lime Popsicles. And the heavy sluggishness in my mind, seeing the world through a dirty film, all the color and brightness faded.

  “Oh, Emma,” he said, his voice so appalled that I felt myself suddenly blinking back tears. “How could they do that to you?”

  I shrugged. “They didn’t know. They were afraid I’d hurt myself.” I absently rubbed the scar the man with the knife had given me.

  “No, something isn’t right—we’re missing a piece.”

  Martha stepped from the rose garden, carrying a tray of sandwiches and iced tea. I felt suddenly shy, falling silent as she arranged the food beside us. Bennett seemed to understand, and he just smiled and thanked her.

  “Sometimes,” she murmured to Bennett, “we just need to know that we’re not alone.”

  I glanced at Bennett after she left. “What did that mean?”

  “She wants me to tell you about me.”

  “What about you?”

  “I see ghosts, too, Emma,” he said. “I’m a ghostkeeper.”

  “Why do you keep saying that? Ghostkeeper. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Remember when you caught me in your dad’s office? You thought I was doing tai chi?”

  “You were gh-ghostkeeping?” I could barely say it with a straight face.

  He nodded. “I sensed something—something not good.”

  “It was probably those funeral urns.”

  “I swear to you, Emma. This is real.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Prove it.”

  He smiled. “Love to.”

  14

  I crossed my arms and waited expectantly—any minute, he’d start laughing and phone the insane asylum.

  “C’mere.” Bennett took my hand and dragged me into the middle of the garden. “Good. Now close your eyes.”

  “This is silly,” I said, but did as he asked.

  Fallen leaves crinkled under my feet, and I smelled the damp earth and felt the breeze on my face. Holding his hand, I didn’t want the moment to end.

  So he immediately dropped my hand. “Can you feel that?”

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. What am I feeling for?”

  “You’ve felt this before,” he whispered, his breath tickling my skin. “You were born with the gift—you don’t only see ghosts, you call them.”

  “How? I don’t know what I’m supposed to—” Then a pins-and-needles tingling started in my spine, spread to my arms, and extended in tenuous threads into the garden. “They’re here,” I said. It was hard to explain, but I could feel ghosts present in the garden with us, like when you know someone has walked into a room behind you. All I had to do was see them in my mind and turn their shadows into fully formed beings.

  “You’re good,” he said. There was respect in his voice. “Open your eyes.”

  I did, and he was smiling at me. When I managed to look away, I saw the ghosts. They were just as they’d appeared in my thoughts: a woman and child near the wall, dressed in nineteenth-century finery.

  “Describe them to me,” I said. Then I’d know he really saw them, too.

  “She’s a plain woman with brown hair and freckles, in a green dress with a … what’s that called? The thing in back?”

  “A bustle.”

  “And that’s probably her son, in a blue jacket with knickers. Missing a few of his baby teeth. They look like something out of a Victorian movie from the fifties. Ghosts always look like they’re wearing bad costumes, nobody knows why.”

  I stared in awe. “What do they want?”

  “Nothing,” Be
nnett said. “You called them, so they came. Ghostkeepers each have one gift. You can summon them. I can sense that they’re there, but unless they come forth on their own, or another ghostkeeper summons them, I can’t see them. Echo Point is a nexus, and your powers are coming back.”

  “What’s your power?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “I can’t summon them. That’s why I needed you to do it. I can only dispel them.”

  “Like in my father’s office. The tai chi.”

  “Yeah. I thought you were playing dumb. I didn’t know—”

  “That I really was dumb?”

  “Well …” He didn’t bother denying it.

  “Dispel—what does that mean?”

  “I send them back to their mortal forms.”

  The breeze turned cooler and swept leaves across the garden as the Victorian ghosts started to twitch and fidget.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “They’re afraid of me,” Bennett said. “They know what I can do.”

  Instead of watching the ghosts, I watched Bennett. What was that expression on his face? Shame? Or pleasure? What did he mean that he could “send them back to their mortal forms?” He could kill ghosts?

  Then the tension in my chest started to loosen. “They’re leaving,” I told him. “Can they do that?”

  “Unless you compel them to stay—which you can’t. That’s another power entirely.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So instead of being a crazy person who thinks she can see ghosts …”

  “You’re a crazy person who can see ghosts,” he said with a grin. Then, more softly, “And you’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “This can’t be happening,” I said. “I can’t wrap my mind around it.”

  “Tell me more about those shadowy things. And feeling like you’re reliving a previous life.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I can’t do this anymore. Not now.”

  He stepped in front of me, and I expected him to argue. To scold me, to tell me to grow up. Instead, he threaded an overblown peach-colored rose—the last of the season—through a buttonhole on my school jacket. Then his gaze flickered away, watching Martha cut across the garden toward us.

  “She looks done in,” Martha said. “The poor child.”

  “She didn’t know, Martha,” he said. “How could she not know?”

  “Hello, I’m right here.” They were talking about me as though I’d wandered off.

  “Well, of course you are, dear.” Martha wrapped a motherly arm around me and ushered me into the house. She smelled of fresh lemons as she led me upstairs, murmuring comforting nothings. When we passed the redheaded maid in the hallway, she curtsied to both of us.

  “You see them, too,” I said.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Inside the bathroom, a steamy bubble bath waited.

  “You’ve had a long day,” Martha told me. “A long few weeks. But you’re not alone anymore.”

  I sank into the bubbles and let my problems float away.

  Back in my bedroom I found the bed turned down and a Wedgwood plate on the bedside table. The Oriental bird pattern was covered by grapes and little tea sandwiches of cucumber and watercress.

  I demolished them. Delicious.

  Then I fell into a refreshing and dreamless sleep. When I woke up, the sky outside my window had turned to gray and there were flames in the fireplace. I wondered if the little ghost urchin had started it.

  My favorite skinny jeans and a pale blue cashmere sweater of my mother’s lay across the dresser. Comfortable and comforting—exactly the right things. Though odd that I wasn’t sure if I should thank Martha or the ghost maid for suggesting the outfit.

  There was a knock on the door as I finished getting dressed. Martha beckoned me downstairs to meet Coby, who was waiting in the foyer. We went down the grand staircase together and I asked, “Did you lay out my clothes?”

  “No, that’s one of Celeste’s duties,” she replied.

  “The ghost maid? They can do things?” Well, of course they could. Like light fires and cook meals. I shook my head.

  “The precise physics is a bit … complicated. Much depends on how they passed away, and when. Why they’re lingering. And of course a nexus such as Echo Point—and this house—adds a few factors.”

  “Well, that’s clear.”

  She laughed. “I’m afraid you’ve entered a world with more questions than answers.”

  “What about the bad stuff?”

  “There’s time to worry about that later,” she said, clearly shutting down that subject. And as Coby waited for us at the bottom of the stairs, I couldn’t exactly press her for more.

  “Hey,” I said, smiling at the sight of him.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked. He’d changed out of his uniform into a T-shirt and jeans and had slung a black messenger bag over one shoulder.

  “Um …” How to explain?

  “There’s tea in the kitchen,” Martha said, “I’ll be in the study.”

  I watched her disappear, then turned to Coby. “Do guys actually drink tea?”

  He grinned. “I’ve been known to imbibe.”

  “Well, then let’s go crazy.”

  In the kitchen, there was an urn full of steaming water and a tray with cups, assorted bags of tea, and some pale cookies that were buttery and amazing. I briefly wondered if everything had been laid out by Martha or one of the ghosts. I hoped Martha, because I wasn’t sure I could deal with a ghost popping in at any moment.

  I glanced shiftily around and Coby asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “No!”

  “Do I make you nervous?”

  I smiled. “No, just the opposite. You are normal and real and that’s exactly what I need right now.”

  “Normal and real.” He sipped his tea. “A girl with low expectations.”

  “Believe me,” I said, sitting beside him in the breakfast nook, “that’s not as easy as it sounds.”

  Then we tried to outdo each other with stories about all the weird people we’d known. I mentioned the girl who drew spiderwebs on her face, but he won with a tale of a guy who wore surgical gloves to school. I figured seeing ghosts would top a guy who changed his latex gloves after every class, but before I could tell him, he unzipped his pack.

  “I brought your homework. Want to do Trig together?”

  See? Normal and real. “I’d love to,” I said.

  The sky darkened as we finished our assignment and Coby packed up his things. “I’d better get going. My mom is rigid about family meals.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said, wistfully, as we walked through the halls.

  “Oh, I forgot … about your family. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Don’t apologize,” I said, at the front door. “My family isn’t your fault.” I hadn’t explained about my parents and Max going missing, but he knew Bennett was my guardian, so it was obvious I didn’t have the happy home life he did. “Thanks, Coby. I needed a friend today.”

  I went upstairs to finish the homework he’d brought me. It was a relief to bury myself in assignments and not think about Bennett, Martha, or so-called ghostkeeping.

  An hour later Martha was at my door again, this time calling me to dinner. I followed her downstairs, my mind still filled with unanswered questions.

  “Um … I don’t mean to be rude, but who exactly are you?” I asked.

  She smiled kindly. “I was Bennett’s nanny and his sister’s, before him. Then of course Olivia moved to California and Bennett started college. But I’ve always stayed with the Sterns between jobs, acting as temporary housekeeper.”

  “His parents live in France?”

  “Mm, ever since … well, the Sterns always travel a great deal. Like your parents.”

  “You know my parents?”

  “In passing, yes. It’s a small community.”

  Did she mean the antiquities community? Bennett’s parents had done some business with mine—purchas
es for their museum.

  “And Martha is a big gossip,” Bennett said affectionately from the bottom of the stairs. He wore a white button-down, jeans, and brown suede shoes. With his tousled hair and self-confident ease, he reminded me of the Rake. A younger, happier version. “Dinner’s ready,” he said.

  Even in cashmere, I felt underdressed following Bennett and Martha into the dining room. Maybe because I was barefoot. And maybe because the table now boasted a new floral centerpiece and sterling candelabras filled with beeswax candles. Evidently, I’d been eating with the daily china and silver, because tonight’s settings were even more ornate.

  I almost took my accustomed place at the head of the table, but Bennett pulled out the chair across from Martha, and I sat there instead.

  “I’d forgotten what a beautiful table Celeste sets,” Martha said.

  “So you’re a ghostkeeper, too,” I said. It made sense, of course. “A summoner?”

  “Martha is a compeller,” Bennett told me.

  “A compeller? What’s that?”

  “Bennett, business at the dinner table?” Martha said repressively.

  “Sorry,” he said, flashing me a look.

  I grinned as I put my napkin in my lap, then watched Celeste and the ghost boy, Nicholas, arrive with chafing dishes. Celeste served us roasted birds, like miniature turkeys, with boiled potatoes and gravy.

  “The cook,” I said. “Is he French?”

  “Anatole, yes, he and Celeste both,” Martha said. “He’s not exactly, well … au courant with his recipes. I lost twenty pounds when I left this job.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, not wanting to hurt his feelings, because he could be hovering anywhere. “Everything’s so delicious.”

  As Nicholas set the peas on the table, I cut into my bird, and inadvertently nudged him with my elbow. I gasped at the contact.

  “What is it?” Bennett asked, his eyes bright with concern.

  “I—I felt him!” It seemed rude to jab him again, so I offered my hand to Nicholas. He grinned, took my hand, and made a little bow. His skin felt cold, and my hand looked bright pink next to his pallor. You wouldn’t notice in daylight, but in the candlelight he glowed very faintly. He and Celeste both. I wondered if they could dial it up a notch, like the man in the brown suit had when I’d needed light in the dark corridor.