400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  She set aside most of the violet solution as ink for the next special printing of Ghost Pennies, but a small flask she extended to the Terrors. Four hands reached for the purple vial, but she held it back a moment.

  “You are Protector Princesses,” she said emphatically, to impress them with the gravity of their errand. “Behave like such for once. Cook will admit you and identify the portion to receive Our sacrament.”

  Thus the affairs of the Kingdom kept her busy until well past nightfall.

  * * *

  No sooner had Toby returned from one circuit of the district than they arrived back at the office to discover the next mound of missives waiting. Merricott cheerily handed them over, and Toby accepted his new assignment with a buoyant optimism that Hewell found exhausting, as it appeared to indicate that the lad thought he would soon come to the end of the work—an impossibility, given that the mail would never cease to flow. As a senior of the postal system, it behooved him to show no sign of impatience or fatigue, but Toby’s unstinting enthusiasm proved difficult to match. After a time, Hewell fell into a daze, following along without much attention to the particulars. He had long since memorized their route on the postal map he carried and felt he could have taken over Toby’s duties with little trouble.

  It was not until sometime after nightfall that the day’s final delivery was made and they returned to the post office one last time. Merricott had long since removed himself homeward, to dinner and to bed. Toby shared a light repast of bread and cheese they had collected on the final approach. These sat poorly with the earlier meal of crab apples they had picked along the road and eaten as they walked.

  Hewell made no mention of the night mail and prayed that Toby would not mention it, either. He wished to be done with this day, if only it might be done with him.

  As they finished their meal, Toby said quietly, “I feel that I can trust you, sir. More, She has hinted that I can.”

  “She?”

  “In time, sir. In time. We have one last letter to deliver. Would you care to come along?”

  “Something tells me that I might,” said Hewell, and he looked on in fascination as Toby opened his courier pouch and drew out the blank envelope he had secreted there that morning. It had traveled with them all day, neither of them remarking on it, but a haunting presence nonetheless. The envelope was unsealed, and Toby bowed the sides that he might reach in and retrieve a piece of folded paper. Opening this revealed a blank sheet and one loose postage stamp. It was the same Hewell had seen on the letters delivered to Pellapon Hall the prior day: violet and blotched, both regal and malignant.

  “I have for you, sir, the penny stamp of our Kingdom. We call it the Ghost Penny.”

  “I assume it will cost me a penny, then?”

  “As you say, Mr. Hewell, and well worth it.”

  Hewell handed over his solitary copper, glad that he always kept one on hand in the event of just such an emergency—one never knew when a letter might need mailing, and not even an officer of the Royal Mail could post correspondence without a stamp.

  Toby accepted the coin and cupped it in his hands. He pursed his lips and puffed away the crumbs of bread and cheese from the tabletop where they had dined, then opened his hands and released not only the penny but a pair of dice. And not typical dice. One was cubic, but its pips were replaced with asymmetrical scratches, perhaps hieroglyphs. The other had more faces than Hewell could count without losing track and was marked with Greek letters. Toby examined them both closely, then took a small hand-bound volume from his breast pocket and opened it to a page on which grids were filled with marks corresponding to those on the dice.

  “Very well,” Toby said to himself. He then handed the blank paper and envelope to Hewell with odd, stiff formality. “Seal this up as if you’ve written a letter to be mailed, then stamp the envelope.”

  Puzzled but amused, Hewell folded the sheet several times and slipped it into the fibrous envelope. He then took up the Ghost Penny and regarded the pale visage upon it, with its single blurred red eye. The backside was sticky with a wash of gum arabic and the purple stain had bled into it.

  “I require something with which to dab the stamp,” Hewell said.

  “It is traditional to place the Ghost Penny on your tongue and rest it there a few moments,” Toby said. “That will be moisture enough. Like the Penny Black, it is self-adhesive.”

  Hewell licked the violet stamp, surprised to discover that it tasted of those very flowers, with a sugary sweetness that barely masked an underlying bitterness. His fingers, as they smoothed the stamp in place, were all atremble.

  “And now, by the ruling of the Concordance, I am to show you this.”

  Toby spread out a district map. At first it appeared identical to the one Hewell carried, all its features familiar from the day’s wanderings. However, the place-names and designations were markedly different. The main street was labeled as The Row of Silent Ones. There were a Ghastly Bypass and Staring Knolls; also Tiny Gnashers—a bridge above the Ghoulfast Cataract—which he had seen himself that day and crossed repeatedly on that selfsame bridge, although he could easily have waded the so-called cataract (in truth a very small weir) without wetting his knees. Toby ran a finger along a dotted, circuitous path marked as the Ghost Road, which touched each location on the map. “This is the route I take when performing my secret post, sir. We will follow it tonight, to reach the Specter’s Seat.”

  At the bottom of the map, Hewell finally spied a legend, neatly calligraphed: Spectralia.

  Deakins was right, he realized. This was a game. And although he had never been fond of time-trivializing amusements, he found himself caring very much about the outcome—thrilled to be engaged in it.

  Seeing the district annotated with unfamiliar designations, he wondered what world he had been led through all that day. This one had slumbered unseen within it—unseen by him, that is, for it occurred to him that Toby saw them both.

  And the others—Binderwood’s bewildering populace—how many of them took part in this game? Last night, stalking Toby through the fields and finally to the Cotter’s hut, he had seen men, women, children—the aged and the spry—all attending to the strange cowled figure in the wheeled chair. A soft yet rough voice—feminine and ageless—few of her words had reached him. But for her audience they appeared to hold great power.

  Tonight he supposed he would hear them for himself.

  “You must address your letter, sir.”

  “Oh, yes. To whom?”

  “To yourself.”

  Hewell blinked, dipped a pen, and did as he was told while Toby watched closely. He tried to pass the letter to the boy but was refused. “This one is yours to deliver.”

  They set off without further delay. The Ghost Road ran parallel to the public road in many places, even crossing it on occasion. They went in silence. Hewell soon found that they did not walk it alone. From certain houses as they passed, costumed figures emerged and fell in behind them. Horns and scales, masks of textiles, claws purloined from taxidermied creatures. None spoke. The cortege added to a growing sense of immanence; the night was gravid with revelation. Obscure emotions bloomed. Inner silences, thoughts forever unvoiced, threatened to make a thunderous clap that would deafen them all. It occurred to him he ought to have felt terror. Instead he felt wild joy.

  As the woods closed in, scenes of greater weirdness greeted them. Half-lit tableaux, scattered scenes of figures caught in ritual or combat or some confluence of the twain. Two haphazardly armored knights faced each other, swords and shields held high, one shouting, “I cast Bolt of Oblivion upon thee!” To which the other countered, “My Looking-Glass Greatshield repels the attack, which returns to thee in triple force!” Then a supervisory figure in a starry cloak, after shaking dice in a leather cup, intoned, “Thou’rt both struck down in the same instant!” But as the third figure spoke and the first two staggered, they noticed the passing procession. They arrested their falls, gathered their weapo
ns, and joined the silent marchers. The wizardly one gave Hewell a nod and a wink. He recognized the innkeeper Floss beneath the overshadowing hood, although Mrs. Floss was evidently not a participant in these matters.

  Pellapon Hall loomed ahead of them, and within the great house loomed a greater one, spectral and mysterious like the grinning face that hides within the moon. Turning aside, they crossed the dewy fields and descended into a crevice in the cliffs above the sea. The waves cast luminous foam, futile yet persistent, onto rocks far below. The populace of Spectralia filed in behind Hewell and Toby. A bonfire burned in the lee of the cleft, barely troubled by wind. On the far side of the fire, back in a natural hollow upon a shelf of stone, he saw the cowled figure of the previous night. Her wheeled chair was off to one side, empty, for she had been set upon the ancient seat. Within the hood, her visage was dim; yet it took no effort for Hewell’s mind to fill that void with the likeness engraved on the Ghost Penny stamp.

  He studied the letter he carried, comparing the face on the stamp with the one before him. The etched engraving, with its fine crosshatches and delicate dark borders, appeared to reach beyond the boundary of the stamp, creeping over his fingers, his sleeves, flickering out through the night. He looked up and saw the entire world becoming an engraving, redrawn continually by some fluid invisible hand that gave it animation, keeping it in constant, shimmering flux. The colors of objects barely stayed within the lines that sought to contain them, as if the inks with which the world was painted were trembling, blurring, running free. Hewell’s flesh swarmed with tiny etched lozenges and diamond-shaped pores, his skin but a net of finest mesh that barely held his soul. He was surrounded by figures out of a Goya aquatint, the night a subtle intaglio printed by some mysterious process. If the fire were but artifice, then how did it emit both heat and light? An inner flame drove everything, even the dark-edged rocks, even the painted night. The sky itself was out of register, with stars no more than offset dots of purple, pink, and blazing red, just like her eyes. Her eyes . . .

  His gaze returned to the Ghost Queen of Spectralia, to her regard.

  “Come forward, supplicant, and state your business,” said the husky, hidden voice he had heard the night before. He gladdened at the sound of it. Toby and some others produced a heavy mantle which they laid upon his shoulders. Tufted with fur and feathers, it suited the wildness he felt in his heart, the wildness of the creatured wood. Further, they rested on his crown a headpiece set with horns, and secured a griffin’s beak of papier-mâché that covered up his nose.

  “I bear a letter,” he said from within the mask.

  His voice appeared to echo from somewhere far out in the night. The rocky chamber had become a stage, but he could not tell if it were an opera house or a puppet theater. Hewell had lost all sense of scale.

  “To whom is it addressed?” said the Queen.

  He looked down to reaffirm what he had written. But what it said was not what he remembered having writ:

  “To . . . to the Ghostmaster,” he said.

  “Open it, then,” she said. “Open it and read what your heart has written there.”

  His finely etched hands tore open the envelope. He started to hold out the letter, to show her that it was blank—but instead he discovered words crawling over it, characters engraved in violet ink. It was his own script, but somehow more beautiful than he had ever before accomplished. He stroked the words with his fingers and tasted violets; even his eyes filled with the flavor. The night reeked of wormwood and forest mold and the blood-tang of the sea. He was gazing too deeply into the letters. Retreating slightly, he began to read aloud to the assemblage, clinging to the words as if they would bring him back to some familiar footing.

  “At the behest and pleasure of Her Majesty, Queen of Spectralia, I am honored to accept the post of Ghostmaster General. I swear to execute my duties with all honesty and to the utmost of my ability as Her Majesty’s agent in the realms beyond these borders. This post is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. In defense of Spectralia, I rest my soul in the hands of the Silent Ones. May they end my life horribly should ever I betray the Spectral Lands. Your obedient servant, Lord Hewellian, Ghostmaster General.”

  “Your heart’s wish has been revealed and granted, all in the same instant,” said the Queen. “Now come forward and prove your fealty.”

  Two waifs in black garb with porcelain faces appeared from the darkness. Between them, hunched over so he looked no taller than they, was a prisoner. Their captive was blindfolded, muffled with a kerchief, his hands bound behind him. They forced him to his knees before the stone seat.

  As if from a great distance, across a gulf of years, Hewellian recognized the private detective, Deakins.

  “Let the prisoner account for himself,” said the Queen. The guardian twins undid first his gag, at which he gasped and began to plead incoherently, and then his blindfold. His eyes rolled but he did not appear to see them. When at last his gaze settled on the bonfire, he gave a little jerk and suddenly stilled. A moment later, he looked straight up at the moon and said accusingly, “You!”

  And a moment after that: “We!”

  And then: “It is . . . but we . . . I saw a hill of faces!”

  “So have we all,” said the Queen. “But where does your path lead you?”

  The detective’s confusion was so extreme that Hewellian stepped forward with a surge of pity and put himself between the captive and the Queen. “It takes him far from Spectralia, Your Majesty. I will lead him there safely. You may release him into my care. Come, my poor dear man.”

  But as Hewellian stepped forward to untie the ropes, the prisoner started screaming.

  “There can be no Initiation for him!” said the Queen in disappointment. “Fall back, Ghostmaster. He cannot see the truth of Our land and therefore cannot serve it. ’Tis unfortunate, for We are in need of a Spymaster, or even a plain Detective. Instead We find ourselves with a Prisoner. It is the one category of subject for which We have no use. There are no prisons here.”

  “There are the Serpent Dungeons!” said one of the doll-faced girls.

  Deakins swayed and subsided into a heap on the stones. His sprightly guardians tittered. “He has fallen into a swoon!”

  “Not the mark of a Spymaster, surely.”

  “We should dress him as a beast and turn him loose in the woods!”

  “He would startle the ponies,” said the Queen. “That will never do.”

  Hewellian bent to the fallen prisoner and loosened his bonds. It was impossible to care for the man while balancing the heavy griffin mask, so he set it on the ground and was shocked by the fierce face it presented. It was no wonder Deakins had collapsed when Hewellian approached.“Your Majesty, with my deepest respect, I request permission to restore Mr. Deakins to his bed, and thereafter ensure his safe return to London.”

  The Ghost Queen inclined her hooded head. Some trace of violet magic still worked its way across her pale features. “You have your charge. We will communicate from time to time, but the Concordance must serve you in outlying regions. In the main, you must determine your own way. Tobianus will instruct you further.”

  She offered her hand, and he kissed it, finding it cold and thin and ivory-white, the fingers stained with violet ink. Her crimson eyes flared at him. The night’s etched aspect was fading, releasing its grip, the world falling back into tones again, more mezzotint than engraving. He was losing hold of something ineffable, even as he secured his grip on Deakins. Prevailing upon Tobianus to take the detective’s legs, they lifted the man between them and headed out of the crevasse.

  It was not far to Pellapon Hall across the ragged sward. They reached the house to find several stewards having hurried ahead to admit them. Slightly revived yet profoundly incoherent, Deakins was taken off to bed. Hewellian made hushed arrangements to retrieve him in the morning. Somewhere in the house, Lord Pellapon snored on, oblivious.

  “And now, Master Tobianus, I believe I will require some
instruction in my duties?”

  “To the post office then, if it please you, sir.”

  “Conduct me there, post haste!”

  * * *

  Hewell and Toby were still at work poring over tables, notebooks, and gazetteers when the strutting cocks of Binderwood began to crow in the courtyards and from atop the homely stone walls. There were several such false alarms before the sky truly began to brighten. It felt unwise to let Merricott find them buried in work at such an hour, so they arranged to part and join up again soon. While Toby went to borrow a cart from the livery yard, Hewell returned to the inn for his belongings. Only Mrs. Floss was awake to see him enter, and it was clear from her demeanor that she was none too pleased with having all the morning’s travails left in her hands. More comments were made about the shirking of responsibilities, but he felt quite sure this time that they were not intended for him. As he sipped scalding tea, with his luggage at his feet, he pondered the logistics of the day ahead. He would have to ride with Deakins in the mail car, no matter that it irked the sorting clerks.

  Opening his valise, he gazed inside at the sheets of violet Ghost Pennies. These, Toby had assured him, were safe for common distribution, lacking the curious properties of those prepared by the Queen expressly for state ceremonies. Along with the stamps were several volumes full of tables to explicate various courses of action. Once Hewell left the region, there would be innumerable decisions that must be made in less time than it would take to send and receive Concatenated Motivations via mail from Binderwood. The telegraph might one day be a more efficient means of determining outcomes and charting choices, but in the meantime, there was a ghost-route to be inaugurated and administered. In return for service to Spectralia, he would keep a penny for every five Ghosts he sold. And Hewell expected to sell quite a few once he had expanded her reach to London—or, as it would henceforth be known, to Greater Spectralia. The Ghostmaster General had a great deal of work ahead of him.