The Ghosting of Gods

by Cricket Baker

  A library.

  Wind softly blows within this space. Chandeliers loaded with burning candles swing like pendulums from the ceiling, though they’re not attached there. Wax drips like falling rain.

  Spacious and bordered by life-size portraits on one side, heavy bookshelves on the other, my attention is drawn to a corner of the library where flames leap in a stone fireplace. Slipping in puddles of candle wax, I get to the fire, hold out my hands, and let the warmth of the flames thaw my frozen body. The spooks leeched all the warmth from me.

  Clattering footsteps race along the ceiling above us. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  Someone sings a childish melody. “Willy’s missing his treasure…he can’t find it!”

  We’re not alone.

  59

  the tin man is here

  Fog blurs my vision. Ava yanks me backward, out of a transparent ghost who stands facing the clock over the fireplace mantel. He uses his finger to carefully wind the minute hand backwards. At each backward turning of the hour, he pauses his singing and groans.

  He turns to stare at us.

  The features of his face sharpen until his head is three-dimensional enough to pass for the living. There’s color in his lips, but his eyes are heavily matted with threads, thick and stiff, as if they’ve been ironed on with starch. Below the neck his body stays wispy. “Beware. Do you know how long I’ve been here, by chance?” he asks. His voice is odd. It sounds farther away than he actually is and…it gurgles. “I’ve lost track of time, always turning it backwards,” he continues. “I need to go back to when I was alive.” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “My dear Martha must be devastated with grief. I fear she’ll never recover. They drowned me, you know. A horrible death. I cannot recommend it.”

  Like a wounded bird, he flaps his arms up and down frantically. I hear splashing. He keeps talking, but it’s all gurgles.

  A low rumbling sounds below the floor. The walls shake all around us. Dusty tomes fall from their shelves. Slowly, I peer upward.

  The ceiling sinks down toward us, like it’s weighted in the middle. Glass teardrops on chandeliers collide, sounding like breaking glass. Bookshelves bulge. Ava yelps when I shove her to the floor. The ceiling strains as we scramble on hands and knees for the doorway. I feel my hair stand on end when the air crackles with static.

  I hear a whoosh.

  Everything is fine. The ceiling is high, the bookshelves straight, the chandeliers gently swaying.

  Cold.

  The fire dies. Instantly. The candle flames in the chandeliers flicker. Become bigger. Brighter. Wax rains down faster than ever.

  “Too late for escape,” the clock ghost sings sorrowfully. “The tin man is here.”

  The wood flooring beneath our feet begins to vibrate. It cracks. Splinters. Faintly, I hear pummeling hooves. They’re racing closer. I meet Ava’s eyes. “Iron ghost,” she says.

  Tin man.

  The clock ghost meticulously turns his clock backward.

  Complete with missing head, the medieval iron ghost enters the library, his form muted yet glinting. Hhhsssshhhrrree hhhmmmmssssaahhhhassss. I can’t make out the words. His voice sounds like one long lisping breath.

  The clock ghost cups his ear as if to hear better. His eyebrows rise, and a few loose threads fall like tears. “Oh, I am terribly sorry for your loss. I, too, have a broken heart. Very well. I’ll look, but I’m certain no channelers are hidden in the Mansion. Willy lost interest in the book trade once he discovered his Promised Land.”

  Dispersing as he turns his horse, the iron ghost gallops away.

  The clock ghost turns all wispy like smoke, even his head, and starts to follow his tin man.

  “Could you help us too?” I plead. “We need to find Willy. We need to get to the Promised Land.”

  “Oh. Those stairs lead up to his secret office.” He points to a newly appeared staircase leading down. “Be careful on the steps. Down is up.”

  “Down is up?” I ask, confused.

  “Down is up, up is down. It makes everyone nauseated. Except Willy. He has no stomach to heave. Bless you both. May you experience gentle deaths.” He floats away.

  We rush down the stairs, bumping into walls as we go. In the darkness I do have the weird feeling I’m going up, though I know I’m stepping down. The effect grows worse as we go. It’s like navigating stairs in a fun house. Shallow at first, the steps soon become so deep that each one is like a platform.

  “Wait,” Ava calls to me. “You’re getting away from me. These damn stairs are impossible.”

  The stairs dead-end into a door. “I’m down,” I tell her. Yanking the door open, I step out on a balcony. It’s high, real high. Breathing in fresh air, I fight off a wave of dizziness. “This isn’t Willy’s secret office. Ava, was there another doorway we missed?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Ava?” I hold the door open for moonlight and peer back up the stairwell that smells of mold and smoky wax.

  She’s gone.

  Hurtling back up the stairs, I scream Ava’s name. The stairs seem to multiply, like in a dream, until at last I come out of the stairwell…and find myself on another, larger balcony. The library is gone. Below me I see Leesel by the bush where Danny resides.

  “Leesel,” I call over and over, but the wind must carry my voice away before it can ever reach the ground, because she doesn’t look up. The Mansion has grown; it towers into the sky. An orange glow catches my eye. Looking down at the town, I see fire.

  What did the vampire say? Something about a bonfire.

  Stepping back inside, I’m suddenly standing in a long, sloped corridor. In a nightmare. I open all the doors along the way as I run, yelling for Ava. At the end of the hallway there’s more stairs, going down.

  I hear Willy shouting. Someone is pounding on walls. What the hell is going on?

  Debris cascades around me as I start down the staircase. I trip, fall the rest of the way, and land in the reception room where we first entered the haunted Mansion. Now I’m able to see hundreds of ghosts stationed at clocks up and down the walls, all turning back time. Their moaning escalates as cracks fissure the walls. Ghosts shriek, yank at the clocks, but they’re securely nailed in place. With sobs, they abandon their timepieces in order to escape the crumbling Mansion.

  I’ve got to find Willy. I can’t let him escape with Emmy’s crystal. “Where is Willy?” I shout at the ghosts. “He’s stolen my sister’s crystal. Please, help me. Where is he?”

  “Loossing his threadssss,” a shapeless specter answers as it passes me.

  “Summoning vortices,” a more solid ghost clarifies, his speech clear as a bell, dragging a grandfather clock alongside him. “He’s leaving for good this time. What a deceived ninny he is, believing the future will bring him happiness. What he needs is the past. But not mine.” He wraps his arms protectively around his clock. “See here, embodied young man, get out of the Mansion. The vortex is tearing it apart. I sense your hourglass may be running out.” His eyes widen. “Look out!”

  Bones encircle my neck. Squeeze. “You were asking for me?” Willy asks in my ear. I feel the slime of his larynx against my skin.

  I try to pull his hand loose, but his grip is too strong for me. He squeezes tighter.

  He’s reaching into my coat pocket with his free hand. “Ah, here it is,” he says, and holds my hourglass before my eyes. The sand sparkles within.

  “William.”

  He startles, lifts his chin, seeming to look beyond me.

  “Release him.”

  I fall to the floor, gasping for air, watching as Willy tucks a black box beneath his vest. There’s a flash of bones, and I see crystal balls fill his ribcage.

  Oh, God. Earlier…he patted his chest and told me he keeps Emmy close to his heart.

  He clicks away in his wing tip shoes.

  Struggling to my feet, I stagger forward.

  Chastity.

  “Stop him,” I tr
y to say, but my voice is so hoarse as to be unintelligible.

  Instead, she stops me. “Your time has not yet come,” she says. “But it is close. Fulfill your purpose.” She reaches out, touches my cheek softly and stares hard, as if she’s memorizing my face. “And then, Jesse, you will need Saint Frankenstein. Do not anger her. She is watching you.”

  “The tunnelers have Elspeth,” Ava snaps. She’s appeared out of nowhere.

  Chastity shakes her head. “They had her body…but never her skin. Jesse. Let go of Emmy’s ghost. You must. Choose knowledge. End your conflict.”

  I push past her. “Never. I’ll never give up Emmy.” Dragging Ava, I make my way to the front door. “Willy,” I shout, my voice cracking. “Give her back…”

  He’s gone.

  “Chastity, come with me,” I say. But she’s gone too.

  Ava squeezes my hand. “The exodus.”

  “Yes. It’s going to happen in the City.” And Willy’s going to take Emmy.

  60

  noose

  Flames from the bonfire glow brilliantly against the dark of the night as we turn one corner after another, trying to make our way back to the center square of the City. Embers carry on the wind, landing in crevices of cobblestones and extinguishing. I slow, panting, and put Leesel down. “Stay back here,” I tell Ava.

  “What? No. We have to find Willy. We have to go on the exodus with him!”

  I pause, listen to the yells for mercy. “Something bad is happening.”

  “The flagellants,” Ava begins, but her voice trails off. She nods, eyes wide, and pulls Leesel back into shadows.

  “I’ll be back,” I promise.

  Townspeople scurry past me, away from the bonfire.

  Wind blows my robe cowl off my head. Looking up into the black of the sky, I see debris—bits of newspaper?—flying. A larger piece catches fire when an ember comes into contact with it.

  What’s going on?

  I whirl to find a tunneler approaching—clattering—my way. It wears a sheepskin of curly wool tied to its ribcage with rope. The clattering is its crystal ball bouncing along the street. It’s moving on all fours, loping like an animal.

  I shrink against the wall. It passes me by.

  I follow it.

  Trying to memorize the convoluted path down twisting alleys so as to get back to Ava and Leesel, I struggle to keep pace with the rabid tunneler. It clacks its Morse code. With a final turn, it chatters in a frenzy as it unties its wool blanket and disappears into the crowd.

  Skeletons riot around the wooden platform outside the courthouse. They shed their sheepskins, exposing themselves, seeming to revel in it. Wool is wrapped around sticks, dipped into the bonfire, held high as torches, jabbed like fiery pitchforks.

  The heat is unbearable. Sweat pours through my skin and I pull off my robe. Wind gusts and embers fly. Whatever is wood and not stone will burn throughout the City. What the hell are they doing? It must be revenge. They want to destroy the City of Sacristies and the people in it.

  The vision of the bonfire holds me captive. Tunnelers throw sticks and even large branches on it, making it burn higher. A limb snaps, and burned leaves explode around the square.

  It’s a burning bush.

  Flames churn and flare into the night sky, a divine signal for me.

  Tunneler elbows jab me as I push my way forward, toward the platform where I see three nooses blowing wildly in the growing winds.

  Hell.

  Looking up, I see flagellants gripping the prison bars of their sacristies, but they are silent.

  Tunnelers open burlap bags, pull out virgin crystals, and clack. Others prod dozens of City denizens, ushering them forward, toward the platform. With every touch from a bone, the people yelp, begging for rescue as the flagellants gaze on.

  Poe’s voice rises over the rest.

  Poe.

  He’s here. Somewhere.

  I yell his name, but the crowd surges, clacking and chittering, and I’m thrown to the ground. Bony feet trample across my back. A grip like a vice lifts me by the shoulder. A skull with missing teeth greets me. Danny. He points to the platform.

  Dragged by a tunneler on each side, Poe is led to the center noose.

  No.

  Fear drowns my heart.

  Poe doesn’t see me, but he calls my name. He’s so afraid, so helpless. I hear it in his voice. One of the tunnelers cracks him in the head.

  Rage detonates within me.

  Tunnelers snatch at me, but I knock them down, kick them out of my way, fight my way toward my best friend. “Poe, Poe,” I scream. He opens his eyes, sees me.

  Behind me, I hear Ava’s and Leesel’s cries. They’re screaming for Poe too. Briefly, he turns his head to see them, but his eyes come back to me.

  A tunneler loops the noose around Poe’s neck.

  “Jesse, do something!” Leesel screeches. “Save Poe!”

  Flames from the bonfire rise, briefly blocking my view of Poe. For a moment, he is lost to me. And I know I can’t lose him. Not for real. I won’t.

  Danny’s grip on my arm turns my head. His empty eye sockets gaze at me. I hear him.

  Surrender, Jesse.

  I jerk to get him to let go of me. But he’s too strong. I glance down at his hand and see my own. There’s a stone clutched in my fingers. I was going to throw it.

  Jamison. I’m like Jamison.

  Shaking, my fingers loosen and the stone falls.

  Yes. Surrender.

  “No! I won’t. I can’t let him die. Of everything, I can’t lose Poe.” I fight to move forward, but the tunnelers hold me back. I can’t get to Poe. He’s looking up at the sky, and I know what he’s waiting for. He’s waiting for God to act, to do the right thing, to save him.

  Surrender. Surrender.

  Danny’s words are soft in my mind. Calm.

  I quit fighting.

  Tunnelers clack in victory, lift me, carry me toward the nooses. Toward Poe. They dump me on the platform, and one of the tunnelers there clutches my cowl to haul me to my feet. Smoke makes me dizzy, but I hear Poe crying my name.

  “I doubt, I doubt,” he repeats, frantic. “Why isn’t God saving me, Jesse? I do as Priest says. I confess my sins…why has God abandoned me?” He holds up his arms, bows his head, and sobs.

  He resembles the crucifix, which hangs on his sunken chest.

  I can’t bear his doubt. I can save him, but I’ll have to face my sins…I won’t get home, I won’t be able to save Emmy…I don’t know how to save Emmy…

  I can’t bear Poe’s doubt.

  I lunge forward, taking the tunneler restraining me by surprise so that he loses his hold on me. I hug Poe. “I’m here. God sent me to save you, Poe. It’s okay.”

  “I don’t want to die, Jesse.”

  I wrap my hand around his that holds the crucifix. Hold my friend’s eyes. Lift the noose from his neck.

  “Jesse? No…no!”

  I shove him backwards and drop the noose over my head. “Follow in the wake of my ghost, Poe,” I yell over the uproar of clacking. Denizens—the living—call for my death, eager to delay their own. Danny holds back Ava and Leesel at the edge of the platform. “Follow in the wake of my ghost,” I yell again. I remember my sister. Willy is taking her home. “Poe, save Emmy! I can’t do it, Poe. But you can. You’ll have to be her savior…free her ghost from the crystal…” My girls are crying. I don’t want to see them like this, so I lift my eyes.

  Perched on the apex of a nearby roof, Willy shakes his little black box, reaching inside and pulling something out.

  I lift my eyes further, look at the sky where heaven is supposed to be.

  My angel materializes, his giant wings beating furiously against a sudden onslaught of wind. He’s barely distinguishable from the blackness until wind peels back his robe to reveal peeks of glowing white bone. Rotating his cowled head to look down, he crooks a finger at me.

  My time has come.

  61

  face
to face

  “Witch!” someone screams.

  Elspeth strides through the crowd. She appears battered. Scraped, bruised, bloodied. She survived our sacrifice of her.

  Chills trickle down my spine. Despite her appearance, she moves with power.

  Saint Thomas, spine straight and indignant, cries out in his elderly voice. “Treason! Treason!” He trails after Elspeth, ignoring the pleas of the denizens for the saint to save them. “I doubt your sanity,” he shouts at them instead. As he draws near, I see that he carries a barbed whip in his left hand. He swishes it side to side, crying out in ghostly pain when the barbs stab his backside.

  Of course. He’s a flagellant.

  “Cowardly beast,” a woman cries when he pushes her away.

  Elspeth skirts the bonfire so closely I think she’ll catch fire. She pays the flames no mind, however. Her eyes meld with mine. Tunnelers, most of them, jump off the back of the platform when she climbs the steps.

  She needs me to see the Holy Ghost, to learn the secret of no chains. She needs me to break the chains of Thomas.

  She’s here for me.

  The tunneler who has me wags a finger at Elspeth. As if making a point, the tunneler yanks upward on my noose, choking me. It lets me down almost immediately, and I grab my throat, coughing.

  “Let Jesse go,” Poe pleads. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his skeletal captor hit him again.

  I can’t get free of the noose. “Help Poe,” I croak at Elspeth. Her face is impassive. At first. She lowers her chin and smirks.

  “Please,” I beg.

  Her body crumples to the platform.

  The tunneler holding my noose lets go, clacks in surprise, bends over her body. Grabbing Elspeth’s hair, he drags her across the platform, clacking loudly and gesticulating. His comrades clack, raising their fists, and he takes a bow.

  I realize I’m holding my breath.

  The skeleton’s spine twists. Into a spiral. It breaks.

  Lying in two halves on the platform, the tunneler chitters. His body parts seize. He drags his upper body along the edge of the platform. Tremors rack his body, and he rolls, falling into the bonfire.