The Ghosting of Gods

by Cricket Baker

  “Treason!” warbles Saint Thomas, inciting the flagellants to howling.

  Once they quiet, I ask Elspeth another question. “These vortices…they’re caused by the missionaries, right?”

  “Yes. I traveled to the City and sought out William, whom I knew lived there. He knows more about what goes on in Memento Mori than does Thomas. I needed someone to tell me the truth about the Holy Ghost. What I heard pleased me.”

  “And what was that?” Poe eagerly asks.

  “The missionaries plan to take the Holy Ghost with them on the exodus. But they can’t find the Ghost. The Ghost eludes them.” She brushes my face with the back of her hand. “That’s why I needed you, Jesse.”

  “Because Chastity told you that I would see the Holy Ghost face to face.”

  “Yes.”

  “But what is your fascination with William? You told Chastity he stole your crystal. Is that why you used Bethany to direct us to William? So we could get it back? Or is something else?”

  Her smile evaporates. Her face flushes. “I see that you share secrets with Chastity.”

  “She’s jealous,” Ava says aloud, to no one in particular. Until her eyes move to me.

  Elspeth ignores Ava. “Yes, my former ghost is lost to me. I no longer care. Truly. I’ve become quite fond of the one which possesses me now.” Hugging herself, she turns in a circle, a dreamy look on her face. She begins to spin. Faster and faster she goes, until suddenly her arms fling out and she laughs with glee.

  “You see why I love her,” Saint Thomas says.

  Stumbling with dizziness, Elspeth grins like a child.

  “Hell,” Ava says. She tugs on the sleeve of my robe. “Can we go now? She gives me the creeps. Why are you so fascinated with her?”

  “I want to go too, Mommy,” Leesel says.

  Elspeth sobers. I expect her to fawn over Leesel, to coax affection from her, but she doesn’t. Leesel’s eyes have defocused. There’s no mistaking this demeanor of Leesel’s. She’s gone to a place where Elspeth doesn’t exist.

  Keys rattle. Saint Thomas shuffles to the back of his cell, taking his stool with him. He sits on it, and it creaks with his weight. Puffing out his lower lip, he begins to cry. Tears falling from his cheeks soak into his robe sleeves. As if the tears were real. “Holy Ghost have mercy on me,” he cries out to the stone ceiling of his cell.

  Ava bangs on the bars of his cage to get his attention. “Can the Holy Ghost get us home?” she demands to know. “Where is he? Is he in the City?”

  “You like the Holy Ghost better than me,” he whines. He shifts mournful eyes to Elspeth. “Your prejudice against my chains is unkind. All you can think about is breaking my chains.”

  “Because I love you. Aren’t they heavy?”

  He thinks a minute. “Very. But I don’t believe you love me. I’ve no flesh for you to sew on, Saint Frankenstein.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Anger flashes across her face, and her eyes flit to mine.

  Saint Thomas lurches to his feet, pointing at me. “The doppel-ganger has no chains!”

  Everyone stares at me.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I snap, defending myself. “What’s a doppelganger to do with me?”

  “A doppelganger’s a double,” Poe explains, as if I’d asked for a definition. “Like when you see a ghost of yourself right before you die.” The implication of his explanation occurs to him. He shakes his head, looks upset. “But, Jesse, I don’t think…”

  Saint Thomas jabs his finger at me again. “I’m not the only one He’s jealous of. The Holy Ghost is waiting. Waiting for you to die.”

  Elspeth sighs. “He knows that already, sweet Thomas.”

  “Then why doesn’t he get on with it?”

  “Excuse me?” Ava says. “What’s this about Jesse dying?”

  Elspeth speaks in an apologetic tone. “I told Jesse. He’s come to Memento Mori to die. This is the prophecy of Chastity. It is real. I saw it in the crystal myself.”

  Ava barks harsh laughter. “I can’t believe this. Everyone’s insane. Poe, what are you praying about now? You infuriate me with those beads.” She grabs Leesel’s hand. She sounds angry, but her chin trembles. She’s afraid. “Let’s go. Now.”

  “Why do you resist this prophey?” Elspeth asks her. “It’s good for Jesse to die. Release your anguish. He won’t die until it is safe to do so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He won’t die until he discovers the secret of saving ghosts. The salvation will be his own as well. We are ghosts, Ava, in our essence. You know this. The ghost is our identity. But it is not meant to be chained to bones. The revolution of tunnelers is tragic. But Jesse will be their savior too. Chastity foresaw this as well; she spoke of it in her sleep.”

  “You’re insane,” Ava hisses at her.

  Poe watches me, his arms folded tightly over his chest. I shake my head, let him know I don’t believe Elspeth’s words.

  “Nowwwwww…” Saint Thomas intones. My flesh crawls at the change in his voice. Though he physically appears unchanged, his voice is no longer just aged, or warbling, but otherworldly. Creeping forward, he squints at me, looking hard, like he’s trying to see something on my face. Suddenly he stops. Slowly, he looks up. “I sensssse a Pressssenccce…”

  His lips are out of sync with the words he speaks. Like the iron ghost from the tunnels.

  Elspeth grabs the bars of his cage. Her face lights up. “Where is this Presence? Can you make contact?”

  “Afraaaaid…I knoooww trrruuuththth…about…Holy

  Ghossssstttt…afrraaaid…”

  Elspeth reaches for him. “Thomas. It’s okay. Don’t be afraid. Make contact.”

  Confusion is plain on the faces of the flagellants, who now stand clinging to the doors of their cells, eyes riveted on their fellow prisoner.

  “The Holy Ghossstttt is jealousssss…”

  “Shush,” Elspeth says, trying again to soothe him. “I am here. I am not jealous.”

  Saint Thomas goes catatonic.

  “Do you see a Presence?” Elspeth fervently asks me, dropping Saint Thomas’s hand. “You will see the Holy Ghost face to face. That is the prophecy!”

  The flagellants close their eyes and raise their hands. “Prophecy,” one of them says, his face rapturous and his voice surprisingly resonant. He waves his scarred palms at the ceiling. “We are blind…suffering without your Presence…caged without Presence!”

  His fellow flagellants screech with heads thrown back. I cover my ears.

  “Presssenccce…” Saint Thomas curdles, silencing the howls. Threads grow, scabbing over his eyes. With a cry, he throws himself face down on the hard stone floor of his prison cell. “My destruction!” he shrieks. His voice is back to normal. He turns his face up at me. “Get away from me! I do not want your presence. No presence. No presence.” He grabs a pale rock and begins scratching on the cave of the wall. The words appear as white chalk on the black stone.

  presence

  Presence

  Unclenching his fingers, he lets the rock fall from his hand. He goes to sit in his chair. I hear rattling, but it’s not his keys. I realize a chain has dropped to the floor at his feet, slipped out from under his robe. He doesn’t notice. Taking a deep breath, he booms. “Wilfred. Leonard. Percy. Brayword. Maria…”

  “What’s he doing?” Leesel asks. She strains against Ava’s arms, trying to get closer to the action.

  Elspeth sighs. Disappointment clouds her eyes. “Nothing, my pretty,” she answers. “He recites the names of his disciples from when he was alive. He will be lost to this present world for awhile.” She approaches him. Reaching into her robe, she pulls out a silver spoon.

  He doesn’t take it.

  “I’ve had enough of her.” I startle at Ava’s low and menacing voice behind me. “The tunnelers will help us. In exchange for Saint Frankenstein.”

  51

  who’s afraid of who?

  Elspeth, Saint
Frankenstein. Is Saint Thomas telling the truth, or is he too crazy? It’s true that Elspeth has unusual abilities. She knows things. She does things.

  The coven accused her of healing what should not be healed.

  Following Elspeth’s slim, small form through a slit in a cave wall, I don’t want to accept that she’s quite that level of insane. She’s sympathetic to the tunnelers of Memento Mori. I get that. But does she, as Frankenstein, offer flesh services to them? It’s hard to believe.

  And now we’re following her into deeper and darker crevices.

  Poe yelps. “Something’s got me!”

  Elspeth swings the lantern’s light over him. He’s entangled in the limbs of a skeleton folded within a pocket of the cave wall. “Fear not,” Elspeth tells him. “The skeleton cannot harm you. It has no head. There will be more such as this. These catacombs were long ago used as storage for such comatose bones. Come now. In moments we will arrive in the cemetery, which overlooks the City.”

  “And there we will find help in getting home?” Ava asks.

  “There you will find William. You remember? I relayed only the truth to you, while inhabiting Bethany, that William would know the way to get you home. But Jesse will bring the Holy Ghost out of hiding first. It is his destiny to see the Ghost face to face. All I ask is that he fulfill this destiny. Treat me fairly. Suspend your judgment.”

  “Whatever,” Ava says. “We’ll get home, one way or the other. By Holy Ghost or William. Right?”

  Slowing, I squeeze Elspeth’s elbow, help her to drop back with me. “The truth, Elspeth,” I say. “If I’m going to die, why shouldn’t I know the truth? What is it you want from me? And what does William have to do with it?”

  “Why not ask Chastity? Has she not told you?”

  I ask again. Her silence prompts me to squeeze her arm harder.

  “Bring the Holy Ghost out of hiding,” she demands.

  “Why?”

  She shakes off my hand at her elbow. Stops. Faces me.

  The others don’t notice. They’re too concentrated on picking their way through the dark crevices with a lantern that’s running out of oil.

  Darkness falls around me and Elspeth.

  “I want it gone,” she states flatly.

  “What is it?”

  “The Holy Ghost. William will take it to his beloved Promised Land. If not, I trust you will dispose of it for me, now that I know you’re an exorcist. I refuse to be burdened by it ever again. When I had it,” her voice catches. She wipes away a tear. “When I had it, my pain was neverending. I can’t bear it, not ever again. For now it is in hiding, but if it should roam, it may find me again. I can’t bear it, Jesse.”

  Her confession leaves me speechless.

  “You’re special,” she tells me.

  I shake my head. “No, Elspeth. If you knew me, if you knew how I didn’t protect my sister, if you knew how I endangered my friends, you would know your faith in me is groundless.”

  “You will see the Holy Ghost face to face. You will learn the secret of breaking chains. And you will die.”

  My breathing comes hard in the dark cave. “I’m afraid to die.”

  “Do not think of it. Think only how we will all be safe. Think of how Thomas and I will be saved.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Thomas fears the Holy Ghost.”

  Something is wrong here. She’s not making sense. It’s like she’s deliberately avoiding telling me something. “You’re hiding something from me. What is your fascination with Saint Thomas? What’s in this for you?”

  She takes my hand and walks. It’s so dark, I try to slow down, but she pulls me brusquely. “The exodus is imminent, Jesse. The missionaries will rise in the sky, the Holy Ghost will go with them if you don’t first destroy it, and Thomas and I will be safe. No more will he shriek in fear that the Holy Ghost is coming for him.”

  I’m incredulous. “You believe the Holy Ghost is really jealous of Saint Thomas?” We’ve almost caught up the others. And Elspeth hasn’t answered me. I try again, but with a different question. “Why would your original ghost be jealous of Saint Thomas? Does he believe your ghost is the Holy Ghost?”

  She stumbles. Doesn’t answer.

  And then it occurs to me. Is it possible she’s the one caging Saint Thomas, and he’s afraid of her?

  52

  before she dies

  We descend along a rocky path, steep enough that we’re forced to grab the bones sticking out from the walls to brace ourselves. Despite sharp rock and bare feet, Elspeth takes the lead and increases our pace.

  “Elspeth,” Poe says, “we want to thank you for saving our lives. We would have died out in that blizzard. It was clever of you to lay that trail of silver spoons.”

  Elspeth looks back, and I see naked surprise on her face.

  “You didn’t lay the spoons, Elspeth?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Your sister again?”

  No response. She looks thoughtful.

  We duck through a hole at an apparent dead-end.

  “The cemetery of the City of Sacristies,” Elspeth says, waiting for us outside the mountain, where a tempestuous sky immediately commands my attention.

  My jaw falls slack at the sight of massive thunder clouds rolling in the heavens. Sucking in my breath, I jab with my finger, pointing at the vortex swirling into existence…but in the blink of an eye it’s gone again.

  “Vortex,” Poe shouts, reaching up and grasping at the sky. “Did you see it? Did you see it, Jesse?”

  Rigid with tension, I wait for the vortex to reappear. It doesn’t, and the disappointment is a physical blow to the gut. “Yeah, I saw it, Poe.” Wind lashes against me in gusts, filling my lungs with cold, metallic air. Hacking into the crook of my arm, I clamp shut my mouth and taste ash. It’s acrid, and I paw at my tongue.

  Threads. Mixed in the ash are threads. I gag.

  Elspeth cocks her head, appears bemused. “Threads of haunting. The Holy Ghost is said to spew them into the atmosphere, creating disturbances.” She turns her back to us, sweeps her arm in a semi-circle, and suggests we take in the vista of tombstones. “This graveyard is ancient—”

  Ava lunges, screams, brings down a rock on the back of Elspeth’s head. The witch, though small, falls in a heavy thud.

  “Mother Mary,” Poe shouts. He stumbles backward.

  Leesel bursts into tears.

  I collapse at Elspeth’s side. Scooping her into my arms, I press her to my chest. “What have you done?” I cry out to Ava. I cradle Elspeth’s head in my hands. Feeling warmth, I pull my fingers from her hair. They come away bloody. “Ava, what have you done?”

  Leesel squats a few feet away, her little face crumpled, tears flowing.

  Ava looks at me with eyes that bulge from her strained face. “Tie her up,” she commands. Giving Elspeth’s unconscious body a quick kick, she nods. Bending down, she feels for a pulse. A quivering smile comes to her mouth. “Elspeth’s alive. That’s good. But we need to trade her quickly. To the tunnelers. Before she has a chance to die.”

  I don’t know this person.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Ava demands in a shrill voice. “You’re so concerned about Elspeth. Why? Why do you care about her? Do you think I don’t see how fascinated you are by her?”

  Speechless, I rock Elspeth in my arms. Her eyes are closed. Her breathing labored. “Poe? What do I do? I can’t let her die.”

  Poe approaches slowly, staring at the bloody fingers I hold out to him. “I don’t know…we need a doctor…”

  “Poe,” Ava shrills, “give me the rope from our supplies. Jesse will let us die in this world if I don’t do something. He won’t take care of us. I’m taking my daughter home. By any means necessary.”

  Poe shakes his head and backs away from Ava.

  I gently lay Elspeth on the ground. I’m careful to turn her head so that the wound isn’t in the dirt. Feeling for a pulse, I
sigh in relief when I find one. But it’s thready.

  Ava’s steps are close. I shield Elspeth’s body with my own, going on hands and knees over her body. “Don’t,” I warn.

  Ava goes around me to the bag she wanted Poe to open. She rips it open herself and finds the rope. I look at Leesel. She’s crying. Poe tries to comfort her, but she whines in a high pitch when he touches her. He leaves her alone.

  “Leesel, baby,” I say, and she crawls to me. I sit back and take her into my lap.

  “I have to do this, Leesel,” Ava says, her voice stern, and Leesel cries harder.

  “No, you don’t,” Poe interjects.

  “Shut up, Poe. This is about survival. Ours. The tunnelers know how to get to our world. That freakish digger at the chapel was one of them. The tunnelers want Saint Frankenstein, and here she is. So I did what I needed to do.” She returns to Elspeth, who lies motionless, defenseless, in the wet grass. I know I should do something. I know I should stop Ava.

  Why can’t I move?

  Ava ties up Elspeth, lashing her ankles, lashing her wrists. I gawk at her, stunned at her violence. “What do you think she’s going to do?” I ask. “She’s barely breathing, Ava. My God.” I check Elspeth’s pulse again. I look frantically around the gravestones, as if a medic might appear. “We need help.”

  Standing, Ava glares at me. “We’ll die, Jesse, if we don’t escape Memento Mori. Are you willing to risk Leesel’s life?”

  “We need help,” I repeat.

  “No doubt the tunnelers will see she gets it. Otherwise they don’t get their Frankenstein.”

  Leesel pushes a finger into my chin. I meet her eyes. “The tunnelers will help Elspeth. It’s true. They love her. She told me once.” She brushes her bushy hair from her eyes and gets out of my lap. A calculating expression comes over her face. “We can’t just take her to the City. They will recognize her as a covenist. She’s powerless now, unable to protect herself. The people down there will know it, and they’ll take advantage.”