by Lucia Ashta
“Oui.” Grand-mère’s attention was only partially on my questions, and I realized that if these three seasoned magicians weren’t worried about Mirvela, then I needn’t be either.
I returned my attention to what had the rest of them so rapt, and in an instant I’d forgotten all about Mirvela.
Albacus’ head popped out of Washur’s chest. Instantly, his eyes went to his brother’s. Before the smile, Albacus’ lips trembled with emotion. “Hello brother,” he said.
Mordecai dissolved into tears, and Marcelo brought an arm around his shoulders in comfort. “Albacus.” Mordecai’s voice was barely more than a whisper at first. “How I’ve missed you, brother. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I never thought I’d see you again either.”
“Well you won’t see him at all if I let go of your hand,” the woman spirit pulling him out grumbled, “and if you don’t focus here and get out already, I’m going to release my hold and let you go. It’ll serve you right for ignoring your big opportunity to be rid of the Count.”
Albacus rolled his eyes to Mordecai and the rest of us, then arranged his features in pained patience, and turned to face his rescuer. “My apologies, Madame Risco. If you’ll indulge me with some understanding, this is my brother, and I haven’t seen him since I died and the dark sorcerer stole my soul.”
“Of course I know that,” Madame Risco said, undeterred. “If I hadn’t just heard you say as much, I’d have known it from the many times you mentioned your brother when we were trapped in there. Mordecai, I know. Now, will you get out of there already? My hands are starting to cramp.”
I didn’t think a spirit’s hands could cramp, but I wasn’t about to argue the point. It seemed that Madame Risco had enough practice arguing to turn any point her way.
Albacus focused on his rescue, and though the process was still slow and labored, eventually the ends of Albacus’ cloak and robes broke free of Count Washur’s chest. With the same grace he possessed when alive, he stepped to the side, free at last of the dark sorcerer and his hold on his soul.
“Thank you, my dear Madame Risco,” he said. “I’m in your debt.”
I imagined it to be an empty expression since I couldn’t fathom what a spirit could do to help another, but Madame Risco didn’t. “I’ll hold you to it, Albacus.”
Albacus nodded, the clinking sound the beads at the end of the braids in his beard usually made, absent. Then he turned to Mordecai. Again, he said, “My brother.”
Mordecai puffed his chest out against what I imagined was a sob. If my brother had died and then I got to see his spirit again, I’d be bawling, I was sure of it. Especially since I’d had so much opportunity as of late to imagine what it might feel like to lose my beloved sister Gertrude. Now she too was officially free of him. She was also still in the body of a cat, and the only man who could easily transform her back into a human girl was dead on the ocean floor.
Marcelo squeezed Mordecai’s shoulder again, but didn’t follow as Mordecai took a step toward Albacus. The brothers stood a foot apart from each other but didn’t touch.
“I wish I could embrace you, big brother,” Mordecai said.
“I’d say the same, little brother, except for the fact that you are stark naked and a bit frightening looking with all your braids floating around your head like that. I think I’m scarred enough already from being locked up inside that man without adding to it such an embrace as you could give right now.” But Albacus didn’t mean it. His longing to hug his brother was written all over his translucent face. At least their usual banter might offer some comfort.
But Mordecai didn’t have one of his usual quick-witted retorts to give back. He was staring at Albacus like he was a miracle.
When Mordecai did nothing but stare at him, Albacus finally addressed Marcelo. “Hello son. It’s good to see you.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but you’re a beautiful sight, Albacus.”
Albacus smiled, his worn face heavy with joy at being reunited and with regret at his limitations. “Yes, well, a sight is all I’ll ever be now.”
“You can’t be put back in your body... somehow?” I blurted, before stopping to think of what state his body must be in since we’d buried it in the family cemetery at Irele Castle. Now that grumpy Albacus was here, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again.
“Hello Clara,” he said, paused, then, “No, I can’t go back into my body. It never works, but when it does, it’s never good.”
Even in spirit form, that sounded just like Albacus, with his usual inscrutability.
Grand-mère put a hand on my arm. “He’s right, chérie, it never goes well when you try to bring the dead back to life. It’s unnatural, and so are the results of any magic that attempts it.”
I looked to Mordecai, thinking if anyone would think my idea a good one, it’d be him.
“They’re right,” he said, and he suddenly seemed so terribly sad that I regretted having suggested the possibility at all.
I fidgeted and looked at my hands until he asked Albacus, “And Oliana? Have you seen her?”
Oliana? Hadn’t Marcelo said their sister’s name was Oliana?
“No, I haven’t seen her. I was confined to Washur’s energetic body, which means I couldn’t go far.”
“Did you hear anything of her? What became of her?”
“I didn’t, though I asked. Some of the spirits who’ve been inside Washur have been there for centuries, since the beginning, but even they didn’t know, they were as limited as I was, unable to leave his body.”
“That’s too bad,” Mordecai said, but I believed he was lamenting the lack of information about his sister more than the confinement of the spirits.
I didn’t know what happened to Oliana, only that she’d died, but now wasn’t the time to ask. Mordecai and Albacus looked sad enough without me dredging up painful memories.
“I might find her where I’m going next though,” Albacus said, and Mordecai jerked his head up to look at him.
“Going? Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure where I’m going, but I do hope it’s better than where I’ve been.”
“Do you have to go?” Mordecai didn’t say anything more in words, but it was obvious that he was thinking he couldn’t bear to lose his brother another time.
“I don’t know. At some point, I imagine I’ll have to go, but maybe I could stay a while, see you butcher your readings of the runes for a bit before I move on. I imagine that without me to keep you on track you’ve become quite outrageous in your statements and actions.”
“We can’t have that,” Mordecai said, grinning through his thick beard.
“We definitely can’t have that. I’ll have to stick around a bit to make sure you’re behaving before I go anywhere.” Albacus was grinning too.
“Well now that you’ve had your happy reunion, do you mind helping me get the rest of the spirits out?” Madame Risco said, hands akimbo. “Or do you plan on standing around chatting all day long?”
Albacus and Mordecai looked as if they’d greatly enjoy standing around catching up for as long as life, death, and its rules—whatever they might be—would allow them, but Albacus obediently moved next to her. “Let’s get them out. We have lots of work to do.”
“That we do, especially since you’ve wasted so much time bantering away like we haven’t a care in the world.”
I thought the dead had nothing but time on their translucent hands, but apparently Madame Risco hadn’t lost her sense of self-importance in death.
“We have fifty-three more spirits to pull out,” Albacus said, giving Mordecai and Marcelo a meaningful look.
My jaw dropped for a quick second before I pulled it shut again. I’d already realized that Count Washur had stolen around that many souls—he’d told us so himself. Still, confirming that he’d killed and imprisoned fifty-five souls hit me hard in the chest, where the glow finished receding back into the five-petal knot
at my heart center.
Albacus and Madame Risco got busy, kneeling next to Washur’s corpse, reaching both arms in and grunting and groaning as they heaved. Apparently, pulling the incorporeal out of a dead man and back into the world was hard work.
As there was nothing the living could do to assist, we watched. Even concerned as I was for Anna’s well-being and to see how the local merqueen was handling Mirvela, I didn’t divert my eyes for a second.
Neither did anyone else.
It wasn’t every day that one saw fifty-five spirits emerge from a body.
Chapter 22
Even though Madame Risco and Albacus got faster at the process with each spirit they heaved out of the Count’s dead body, it still took a long while to remove fifty-three spirits from their prison. Regardless, I didn’t grow bored, and I didn’t think any of the others did either, if for no other reason than watching Madame Risco. She was like a locomotive crash, you wanted to look away, but didn’t quite manage it, indulging your curiosity in whatever outrageous thing she might do or say next.
If I’d counted correctly, which wasn’t a guarantee with all the spirits milling about, distracting me, this spirit was the final one. “Come on, Albacus, this is no time to take a break,” Madame Risco was saying.
Poor Albacus wasn’t so much taking a break as straightening his back for a few moments, looking as if his posture, stooped over the Count’s body, was causing him pain. I didn’t think spirits experienced discomfort, but I also wasn’t sure. Like most things of the magical world, or simply of the underworld, I knew little about spirits.
Madame Risco removed her hands from inside Washur’s body to shove them to the side of her waist around her skirts and glare at Albacus. “Are you quite finished then? Because you know I could’ve been rid of this nasty sorcerer ages ago if I hadn’t stuck around to help the rest of you lot.”
“Yes, Madame Risco,” Albacus said, “I realize that. You’ve been most kind.”
If this was her being kind, I wondered at what sort of torture Albacus might’ve endured inside the Count, even though he’d been one of the lucky ones. He hadn’t been in there as long as the others. It’d been months, not years, and definitely not the centuries some of the others had to suffer.
Madame Risco said, “You’re right, I’ve been kind all right, but that’s just the kind of person I am, always looking out for others.”
Albacus rolled his eyes so hard that Mordecai laughed. It was the first time I’d heard him so joyful since Albacus died.
Madame Risco fixed sharp, beady eyes on Mordecai, then Albacus. “What’d you do?”
Albacus said, “Come now, Madame, as you’ve said, we’ve abused your kindness long enough. Let’s finish this already.”
Albacus’ flattery didn’t work as well as I thought it would, but eventually Madame Risco relented. She hiked up her skirts a little higher than modesty dictated—but then, all of us living folk that surrounded her were naked and she was dead—and knelt down in front of Count Washur. She pulled her sleeves up and shoved both arms in.
This time, Albacus didn’t wait to be scolded. He moved right next to her and pushed his arms in too.
“Come on, little John. Just grab our hands,” Madame Risco said, shocking me with her gentleness.
In moments, I discovered the reason for her tone. A small hand, one that could only belong to a young child, emerged, dwarfed by Madame Risco’s meaty one.
“You can do it, John, just hold on and don’t let go,” she said.
Madame Risco pulled and Albacus reached his arms into Washur’s chest all the way to his shoulders to push what I assumed was a boy all the way out.
When John’s head popped out of Washur, I had to fight to keep tears from sprouting. The boy couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, yet the Count had killed him and stolen his soul, robbing him of an entire future.
“There you go little John,” Madame Risco said as she eased him out the rest of the way. “You’ve got this. You’re almost out.”
Albacus managed to grab the boy’s torso and pull him out past his waist.
I leaned over to Marcelo and whispered, “Why does it take them so long? It looks like they’re pulling the spirits out of quicksand, why? Is this normal?”
Marcelo didn’t answer me for so long that I finally turned to look at him. He was smiling at me, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“What?” I said. “What’d I say?”
“That you’d think anything about this is normal is just... precious.”
I was debating whether his comments were irritating or not when the last of the spirits broke free of Count Washur’s body.
“There you go, little John,” Madame Risco said, fussing over the boy, smoothing a cowlick down that refused to be smoothed, and kept popping right back up despite her efforts. “Everything will be much better now.”
I hoped she was right. I had no idea what’d happen to these spirits now that they were free, and it hadn’t sounded as if Albacus did either. I wanted desperately to ask, but I held my tongue. I didn’t want to be the one to dampen their enthusiasm for their newfound freedom.
I startled as Madame Risco pulled little John into her skirts and then spit on Count Washur’s body, multiple times. “Damn you, damn you to hell,” she said. Of course, neither her words nor her movements could hurt the dead count, but the rage she imbued into her actions made the hair stand up across my bare flesh.
As a spirit, Madame Risco was clearly not to be messed with. I wondered how formidable she might’ve been in life, and how the Count had managed to get her to surrender her soul to him. He’d told us the only way he could take a soul was if it was surrendered to him, by the person’s own free will. But it was difficult to imagine that fifty-five people had willingly given their eternal souls over to the sorcerer.
“What happens now?” Mordecai asked Madame Risco, who was clearly the leader of the group. I was glad to hear I wasn’t the only one perplexed by the situation. If Mordecai didn’t know what happened next, then the situation must’ve really been unusual. Mordecai had been studying magic for nearly as long as Count Washur.
Madame Risco said, “What makes you think I know? I’ve never been a spirit released from a sorcerer prison before, now have I?”
“So no one knows what happens next?” I asked, before I could think better of it.
Madame Risco squinted her eyes at me. “No, didn’t I just say that?” she said, as if she could be the only one who knew. “You can’t expect me to do and know everything, can you now? I’m the one who got all these spirits out in the first place, it’s not all on me to direct them now too.”
But even as she said it, I realized it was, and even though she was gruff and rude and appeared to want nothing to do with her self-appointed role, it was all a show. Just as soon as she figured out where to go, she’d lead the spirits. She’d complain about it, but she’d do what she’d accepted as her duty.
Her look was forbidding, but I dared to ask anyway. It was something I’d wanted to know for so long that I didn’t care if she got angry at me, if there was a chance she’d answer, I’d take it. “So there is a place where spirits go after they die?”
“Didn’t I just finish telling you I don’t know? I did, right?” She looked down at little John, who looked up at her adoringly, confirming my suspicions that she was all growl and no bite. “Didn’t I just tell her, little John?”
“That you did, Madame Risco,” he answered in the voice of a boy, who’d endured far more than he should have, but was finally free of the torment. He sounded almost happy as he reached up to take her hand.
“See?” she said to me, “I told you, I don’t know.”
“But if there’s a place where souls go to rest, you’ll find it.” I tried not to smile.
“Of course I will. I haven’t survived being in there for this long to give up now. No way. We’ll get this figured out, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right, Madame
Risco.” It was a barely coherent chorus of mumbles.
“Well, we’ve dilly dallied enough. No time to waste now. We’ve wasted far enough already, thanks to this...”
Little John looked up at her.
“This despicable, mean man,” she settled on. “It’s time to go.” Perhaps for the first time since she emerged from Washur, she looked around. “Wait, where are we?”
Mordecai answered, “We’re at the bottom of an ocean.”
“Hunh, well that makes no sense at all. The time when we’ve needed air to live is long past, but what about you all? How are you under the ocean and living?”
“We’re magicians.”
At the terrifying look on Madame Risco’s face, Mordecai hurried to amend, “Good magicians, who only wish to help, not harm.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced. “The sooner we get away from here, the better. Let’s go, little John, before one of these magicians decides to imprison our souls like this other one did.”
“You have nothing to fear, we’re not like that.”
“Maybe you won’t tell me the truth until it’s too late. That’s what he did. He pretended to be all nice and amiable, and then, before I knew it, he was pulling out my soul.”
I couldn’t blame her for her caution, but there was something else in her words that made my heart stutter.
Before I could ask, Marcelo did. “Do you mean to say that Count Washur took your soul without your free will?”
“Of course it was against my free will.” Madame Risco looked like she was speaking to someone who was mentally impaired. “You don’t think I would’ve given up my soul on purpose, now do you?”
“Actually, we did, we all did.”
“And why would I be so stupid as to do that?”
Marcelo didn’t answer her question. There was no easy way to do it without offending her. Instead he said, “Count Washur told us he only took the souls of those people that gave them up willingly.”
“And you believed such a ludicrous story? What kind of magicians are you? Why would anyone ever do that? Allow a man like this one,” she looked down at the Count’s unmoving body with as much spite as she could manage, and it was quite a lot, “to kill us and then steal our eternal souls? Really? That’s what you thought?”