by D. R. Martin
Marko blinked at Iris sheepishly. “Suppose so.”
Johnny shot her an appreciative look. “I think we’re all exhausted. Maybe both the fog and our heads will clear up by tomorrow morning.”
They all found places to sit down. By the illumination of the two ghosts and one flashlight, they ate the canned pork and green beans that Angus had given them. Then they rolled out their sleeping bags and lay down to rest. But the ground was damp, and Johnny had a hard time staying warm. He would have given a hundred bucks for a wool blanket. Shivering away, he figured sleep was impossible. It sounded as if Nina’s teeth were chattering from the cold.
Eyes shut but wide awake, Johnny had plenty of time to lie there and second-guess himself. They were here, lost in a bog, because of him. If he hadn’t used that flashbulb back at the train, they would be traveling right now with the colonel and his men. And if he hadn’t pushed to leave St. Egbert’s so quickly, they might have avoided the zombies and been able to travel on the road.
What had happened to the Zenith troopers? Johnny shuddered to think that they might have been badly hurt during that battle after the train derailed. And why hadn’t Rex sent out some of his scouts to find them?
Johnny’s mind was working to unravel this mess when he noticed, through his closed eyelids, a light growing stronger and stronger. He opened his eyes just a crack and saw a green glow. It had to be a ghost approaching him.
Thinking that the colonel might have finally arrived, Johnny opened his eyes expectantly.
But instead of cavalry boots, he found himself blinking at a green, semi-transparent pair of primitive leather boots, with many crisscrossed laces. His eyes moved a little farther upward to see hairy bare legs beneath a leather kilt with large metal medallions hanging down on it.
It was a strange, new ghost.
Staring down at him.
With a sword pointing right at Johnny’s heart.
Chapter 20
Tuesday, February 4, 1936
Wickenham
“You saw who doing what in the library?” Grandmother gasped, her sausage-laden fork frozen in mid-air.
Everyone had gathered around the end of the long dining room table, starting on their breakfasts bright and early that morning. Grandmother was at the head of the table, of course. To her right sat Mel and to her left the professor. The serving maid had just set down a rack of cold toast and a pot of marmalade, and was scurrying out of the room.
“It was a man, a ghost,” Bao said, floating next to Grandmother. The little girl was suddenly and distressingly aware that she might not be conveying good news. “He was looking at some papers. And then he used them to start a fire in the fireplace. He said he was warming up the library for you.”
“Did he now?” Grandmother said darkly. “What did he look like? What was he burning?”
Mel and the professor looked every bit as shocked as Grandmother, and leaned in to listen to Bao’s answer. She was acutely conscious of being the center of attention, and not in a pleasant way.
Bao began by describing the specter’s heavy white parka and high boots, which were dripping water. He had a long, gloomy face and didn’t look as though he liked to smile.
“I never saw him before. I asked if he lived here, and he said he used to, but he’s been away for a while. Then he went out through a window.”
Grandmother frowned for a moment. She slowly rose to her feet and marched out to the hallway. “Bao,” she said over her shoulder, “please stay right where you are.”
Grandmother returned a moment later with a small picture frame that she thrust at the girl ghost. “Did he look like this?”
Bao examined the picture in the frame and nodded at Grandmother. “Oh yes, it’s the same man. He was very polite to me.”
The old lady groaned and collapsed into her chair. “Oh dear. I’m afraid that Percy has paid us a little visit. And if he was burning papers, he may have destroyed some vital evidence.”
“So he must think we’re hot on his trail,” Mel said. “And there must be some incriminating information in all this stuff. We’ll have to search through the ashes in the fireplace grate to see if we can find any remnants of what he burned. But how did he find what he was looking for? There are dozens and dozens of boxes piled in the library. It’s taken us days just to plow through one-tenth of them.”
“Percy had nearly a photographic memory,” Grandmother said. “When I had his archives brought down here, I made sure the servants kept the boxes in exactly the order Percy had left them. He would have known just where to look for things. I’m afraid all we can do is hunt for any signs of disruption amongst the material.”
Mel shook her head in disgust. “That’ll take forever. But I suppose there’s nothing else we can do.”
Bao followed everyone into the library, where they each took a different section of the room and began to dig through boxes. She felt badly that she hadn’t known this man was Grandmother’s son, that awful Percy Rathbone. But she had only seen Percy when he had been in a zombie body. She couldn’t have known what he looked like as a ghost.
Now all she could do was patiently watch as her friends leafed through all those papers. She tried hard not to distract them. But standing beside Mel, Bao couldn’t help asking a question.
“What did Grandmother mean when she said Percy had a photographic memory?”
Mel smiled down at her. “Well, you know what the photographs that Johnny takes look like. When Dame Honoria said Percy had a photographic memory, she meant that he could look at something, and never forget a detail of it. Just like he had a photograph of it in front of him whenever he wanted it.”
Bao felt a little bit confused about that. “You mean he could remember real good?”
“That’s another way of saying it.”
“I can remember real good, too. We played a game when I was little, and you had to remember every place that someone touched, and then go around and touch the same places in the exact same order. Here, I’ll show you. I’ll touch the exact spots in the room that Percy touched when I was watching him.”
With that, the little girl ghost flew from the fireplace to a folder on one of the tables and back to the fireplace again and then to a window. Mel watched her in surprise.
“Dame Honoria, Professor DeNimes. I think I know one of the folders Percy was looking at,” she said, staring at Bao.
It was a folder that Mel had examined the day before. She said it contained newspaper clippings from twenty years ago, back when Percy was a teenager. The stories were almost all about sports.
“But there was another article in here, way in the back,” Mel said. “I remember it because it was the only one that wasn’t about sports. It was a travel story from the Royalton Times. In fact, I remember it for another reason. The story was about Okkatek Island.”
“That would have been long before Percy and your parents visited the place,” Grandmother said. “I had no idea he was interested in Okkatek back then.”
“Well, the article is gone now so we’ll never know what clues it held. Darn it!”
Grandmother thought a moment. “Not necessarily. We simply need to find another copy of it. You’ve said it was in with clippings from about twenty years ago?” She picked up the telephone on her desk and dialed a few numbers, waited a little, then said, “Tilda? This is Dame Honoria.” There was another brief pause. “Very well, thank you. I need you to get me the Gorton’s Little Pills headquarters in Royalton. You know the number.”
Bao floated closer to Mel. “Who is Tilda?”
“Local operator,” Mel replied.
A moment later, Grandmother was instructing some person to go to the Royalton Times newspaper office and request a copy of the old article. She gave the details of the newspaper clipping, and said that it was probably published about twenty years ago, when Percy was a teenager.
“You’re to give this the highest priority,” Grandmother said into the telephone. “And I expect to hear
back from you later today. I want you to make notes on the contents of the article and, most particularly, anything having to do with ghosts and etheristics. Is that clear, Ned?”
Bao heard a tiny little voice come out of the phone. “Yes, ma’am, it certainly is.”
Three hours later Ned called back. Bao watched with excitement as Grandmother picked up the hand piece.
“Hello? Dame Honoria here.” There was a brief pause. “Yes, Ned, I’ll make notes.” Grandmother leaned over her desk and prepared to write. “Go ahead.”
Mel and the professor came over and stood by the desk, probably hoping to catch anything Ned might say. Bao wanted to hear, too, and floated up above Dame Honoria.
“The author of the article was one Eustace Phipps, a prolific travel writer of the day,” the tiny little voice said. “He toured all over Okkatek Island and sampled the native culture in all its variety. He ate the food, witnessed the music and the dance, commented upon the many gorgeous vistas, observed the wildlife, recounted the history, and so on. But I think the part that you may be most interested in, Dame Honoria, pertains to a mule train that he rode on in the northern mountains in the summertime.
“They were heading up to one of the high plateaus. Along the way, they passed a landmark called Morbrec’s Cave. Legend has it that an ancient shaman of that region, one Morbrec, had died in the cave, of cold and starvation, after being driven from society. He was banished because people believed he had devised a way to bring the dead back to life.
“To this day, islanders won’t go into Morbrec’s Cave because they still fear his terrible power.”
This Morbrec must have been very wicked if his own people cast him out, Bao thought. Could his evil power still exist after all these years? Had he survived as a ghost? And what if he was helping Percy?
She shuddered to think of it.
It meant things could get a whole lot worse than they were now.
Chapter 21
“That’s pure superstitious rubbish,” Grandmother said, as soon as she hung up the phone. “Percy would never believe in something like an evil magical shaman, any more than he would believe in wizards and witches. And neither would I.”
“I agree, Honoria,” the professor said. “The Percy I knew and taught was every bit the scientist. Of course, he studied writings from ancient cultures as they pertained to etheric beliefs. But I always found him to be well-grounded in principles of scientific etherism.”
Mel crossed her arms and shook her head. “He certainly wouldn’t have persuaded Mom and Dad to accompany him to Okkatek, if it had anything to do with magic and superstition.”
“Maybe Percy is trying to misdirect our efforts,” the professor mused. “Perhaps his late-night visit was a ruse.”
As the others talked, Bao debated something in her own mind. Should she admit that she had made a mistake? If she didn’t say anything, no one would even know. But the little girl felt she had to set the record straight.
“Mel,” she said, tugging at her friend’s arm. “I think my photograph remembering isn’t so good. I forgot one place Percy touched.” Then she flew over to a bookshelf on the wall, and pointed to the left side of the third shelf from the bottom.
All looking very curious, Mel, Grandmother, and the professor went over to join the little ghost.
“This is where I keep books that contain reproductions of old manuscripts,” Grandmother said.
Mel examined the books, which seemed to be arranged in order of height. “Look here, Dame Honoria. There’s a small gap between these two books. Could there have been a skinny volume of something right here?”
The professor laughed out loud, looking a bit sheepish. “Yes, there was. And I’m afraid I’m the one who borrowed it. You see, the table that I’ve been working at over in the corner was a bit wobbly and it was driving me to distraction. I found a tiny little book to put under one of the legs. It didn’t look like anything valuable, so I thought you wouldn’t mind, Honoria.”
The professor went to the table, stooped over very slowly—making a little groan under his breath—and pulled a well-worn but slender book from under one of the legs.
“What is it?” Grandmother said, when the professor stood back up.
The professor opened the book. “It’s called Als Abhandlung über die Geister der fernen Meeren. That means Being a Dissertation upon the Spirits of the Distant Seas. Written by a 16th century monk named Brother Konrad. I’ve heard of it. The original is in a museum library in Barovia.” The professor leafed through it some more and stopped halfway.
“Wait a second,” he said. “This page has been dog-eared. And there’s a particular passage underlined.” He cleared his throat and read. “Morbrec der Nekromant entdeckt die dunkle Kunst …”
Dame Honoria snorted. “Athelstan, please. Neither Mel nor I speak Barovian.”
“I’ll do my best, Honoria, but my translating may be a bit rusty. Here goes. ‘Morbrec the Necromancer discovered the dark art of putting ghosts into the bodies of the dead and brought them to unholy life.’”
Grandmother grabbed the book out of his hand and examined it. “Look at this.” She showed the book to Mel. “Percy made some notes in the margin: ‘Remarkable. Must learn more.’”
Mel looked at Grandmother and raised her eyebrows. “Everything keeps pointing us in one direction.”
Dame Honoria crossed her arms resolutely. “I believe we know what we need to do next. We have to go to Okkatek Island.”
* * *
When Corporal Marchiano appeared out of nowhere on the front staircase of Wickenham early that evening, Bao was surprised. She thought that he had gone north with the colonel and five other ghost soldiers, to look after Johnny and Nina. From the look on his face, it seemed that something was wrong. But Bao didn’t think it her place to ask what. With a sense of dread, she led him through several walls and rooms, straight to Grandmother and Mel—who, as usual, were working away in the library after supper.
The corporal stiffened as straight as an arrow when he saw Melanie, and he made a sharp salute. “Commander Graphic,” he barked. “Corporal Marchiano reporting.”
Mel’s eyes widened and she suddenly looked afraid. “Corporal, what are you doing here? What’s happened?”
“The colonel sent me here from up north,” the corporal said, looking very uncomfortable himself. “Sorry to bear you bad news. But the fact is, ma’am, Master Johnny and Miss Nina have gone missing.”
“No!” Melanie moaned, shutting her eyes and slumping in her chair.
Grandmother came up behind Mel and put her wrinkly hands on the younger woman’s shoulders. “Tell us what happened, Corporal. Every detail you have.”
The corporal recounted how the train carrying Johnny and Nina had been knocked off the rails while traveling through a dense fog. Then there was a fierce battle. To be safe, the colonel had hidden Johnny and the others in the woods. But when he returned, after the fight had been won, the kids had vanished. The colonel and the men had been searching for them for two days now, but the fog still hampered their progress.
“But I thought the SGS was going to provide escorts for them.” Mel’s voice was vibrating with frustration.
“That they did,” Corporal Marchiano explained. “But the escorts, who were not very old themselves, have gone missing as well.”
Mel stood up. “That settles it. We have to go and find them. Right now! I can’t possibly sit here and arrange an expedition to Okkatek, when Johnny could be hurt…could be prisoner…could be dying!”
Grandmother enfolded Mel in a hug and patted her back. “It would be pointless, my dear. You could end up getting lost yourself. Or worse yet, captured. If Percy’s indeed behind all this, you know how happy he would be to put you out of commission. Permanently.”
“But we have to something!” Mel protested.
“Better that I call in some of my ghost associates,” Grandmother said, as she went back to her desk. “Within twenty-four hours we sh
all have dozens of wraiths searching the wilds of MacFreithshire. We will find Johnny and Nina, I promise you that. And if anyone has hurt them, there will be hell to pay!”
Bao wanted to cry. It was so awful that Johnny and Nina had vanished. But, of course, being a ghost, Bao could not summon a single tear. So she sniffled and frowned and thought furiously about what she could do to help. Wherever they were, Bao just hoped that her friends were safe.
Chapter 22
Tuesday, February 4, 1936
MacFreithshire
Blinking at the ghost warrior’s sword with shock, Johnny slowly rose to his feet. He backed away on the spongy bog, keeping his eyes on the green-glowing apparition and the blade pointing at his heart.
“Hey, everyone, I think you’d better get up.” His voice was shaking.
Soon, Nina and Marko and Iris were standing behind him. Johnny continued to stare at the ghost. This was one very old wraith. Maybe one of the oldest he had ever seen.
It looked like the guy had been a soldier of the Imperium, the empire that had conquered most of the Old Continent two millennia before. He wore a brass chest plate, brass wristlets, a dark red cape, and a fancy helmet with bird plumes coming out the top. He had a primitive-looking arrow sticking out of his neck. No secret about how this guy died.
And then there was the short sword—still pointed at Johnny. It looked sharp and dangerous. But maybe this ghost was just a ghost, without the ability to interact with the real world. In which case, his sword would be about as dangerous as a boiled noodle. Johnny could only hope so.
“Wha, wha, what do you want?” Johnny stammered to the warrior wraith.
The man had a narrow face, intense black eyes, and a dark stubble of beard.
“I am Centurion Quintus,” he said. “And I guard these lands. Who gave you leave to pass?”
Johnny could understand him perfectly, even though the wraith spoke an ancient language. It still amazed Johnny that people who died and became caught in the ether acquired a sort of universal tongue. An ancient specter from the Imperium had no problem interrogating a twelve-year-old boy from the Plains Republic. And this guy sounded as if he were seriously annoyed with Johnny and the other trespassers.