After a few seconds the sensation eased a bit. Unfinished, came the ghostly flesh-whisper. A bit clearer this time. Help me.
“Do you mean, you left something unfinished? From your mortal life? Is that it?”
The spirit’s affirmation was a wordless sensation that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. But what sense did that make? The dead couldn’t remember their former lives in any meaningful way. Details from that time were just disjointed shards, devoid of the neural connections that were needed to stir living passion. A physical brain was required to make any kind of emotional connection. Wasn’t that what they taught in his Introduction to Necromancy class? Wasn’t the whole point of the Shadows’ wretched training program to teach their children how to live without passion, so they could be closer to the dead in their mindset?
Mae. The name was a whisper of ice, of fire. Terrible frostbite yearning.
“You left her behind?” Isaac asked. “Is that it?” He hesitated. “You can’t be with her again. I’m sorry, it doesn’t work that way.”
As the next words were spoken the sensation of pressure returned, twice as suffocating as before. Three steps from our mark. A vision of a rising sun flashed in Isaac’s mind. Or perhaps a setting sun? The image came and went so quickly he couldn’t be sure. Please, the ghost begged. Tell her.
Then the pressure eased. The spirit fell silent.
Isaac didn’t know what to say. This situation was so bizarre that he didn’t know how to respond to it. The spirit in his room wasn’t just an ordinary ghost, it was a bound spirit, theoretically incapable of independent thought or action. It shouldn’t be in his room at all, much less be reminiscing about lost loves and asking him for favors. That was so out of line with everything he’d been taught about spirits that if he told his teachers about Jacob’s visitation they would tell him he was imagining things.
But what if his intense concentration on the boy during ritual had screwed things up? Maybe this spirit was not only bound to the Shadowlady in red, but had some kind of connection to Isaac as well. If so, his father would be pretty damn angry when he heard about it.
But his father didn’t know about this yet. And neither did anyone else.
Best to keep it that way.
“Where would I find her?” he asked.
The spirit’s gratitude rushed over him like hot burning ashes; for a moment he found it hard to breathe. Where I died, the ghost said. Soul death. Not flesh death.
The death of the boy’s flesh had taken place at the ritual, but what did soul death mean? Maybe he was referring to the moment when they’d fed him drugs to render him helpless, and he’d lost his last hope of freedom. No, it couldn’t be that, because no outsider would have been present. Maybe this Mae was someone he’d known at the orphanage—someone he’d loved—and when he was sold to the Shadows, and separated from her forever, that was a kind of death. The moment at which his former life ended, and he lost control of his fate.
Clearly the trail began at the orphanage. But did Isaac want to follow it? The fact that this spirit retained enough living memory to yearn for closure was all very well and good, but a Shadow was under no obligation to indulge the dead in their last whims. In time—probably very little time—Jacob’s final memory of Mae would fade on its own.
But.
Whatever ritual bond had been established between Isaac and the ghost, it seemed to make his Gift stronger. And that had value to him. So did having a spirit indebted to him. As an umbra mina Isaac couldn’t bind a spirit to him with one of the normal rituals, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t control one by other means. If the ghost of Jacob Dockhart was coherent enough to beg for closure, it was coherent enough to owe Isaac a favor. A damned big one.
“Do you think she’s still there?” he asked.
But the boy’s ghost was no longer in the room. Maybe its mistress had summoned it, to do whatever slave spirits did when they weren’t visiting other Shadows. Maybe it had just communicated all that it could and felt no more need to manifest.
Jacob’s ghost doesn’t belong to me, he reminded himself. There are rules about this kind of thing. My father would never approve.
For the first time in his life, he wondered how much that really mattered.
The orphanage was a few miles outside of Luray, two train stops south of the place where Jesse and her friends had dropped Isaac off on their way into town. That day he’d had trouble finding a ride, and had wound up tucked between baskets of smelly produce on a cart heading to Luray’s central market. Now he was wearing the robes of an apprentice Shadow, and that changed everything. People fought for the honor of transporting him, taxi-drivers jostling each other as they tried to get his attention. Whether that was out of respect for his Guild or fear of a Shadow’s displeasure, or simply because they assumed that a member of such a rich and prestigious Guild would tip them well, was anyone’s guess.
No one questioned his presence at the orphanage. The minimum-wage security guard standing duty at the gate looked pointedly at the sigil of the Shadows embroidered on his robe and waved him through, then went back to reading his dog-eared novel. Isaac caught sight of the title as he passed: Seven Guildmasters in Hell.
He probably could have gone to the main office and asked for help finding Mae, but that would increase the odds of this visit being reported to the Shadows, who would ask why the girl mattered to him. He wouldn’t take such a step unless he had to.
He skirted the office complex and headed to where two large, featureless dorms were located. Most of the orphans worked during the day, in factories and workshops elsewhere on the property, so if he found someone to talk to there shouldn’t be dozens of other people listening in. After walking around a bit he spotted a couple of skinny boys mowing the grass, and he approached them.
“Your Lordship!” The nearer of the two boys made an awkward gesture that was probably intended as a bow, but he stumbled doing it, and there was no mistaking the edge of fear in his voice. “How can we help you?”
His use of the wrong title wasn’t worth the trouble of correcting. “I’m looking for a girl named Mae,” he said. “Do you know her?”
The boy looked back at his companion. Whatever silent communication passed between them, it was clear they were both suspicious of the request.
“I just want to talk to her,” Isaac said. He shouldn’t have to give them any kind of explanation, but their fear was rational, and he respected it.
The younger boy hesitated, then pointed east. In the distance, Isaac saw a low building with smokestacks. “She’s working at the mill.”
He nodded curtly, thanked them for the information—which seemed to surprise them both—and headed that way. It was a bit of a hike, but long before he got to the building he could smell it. Even diluted by the open air, Its faint chemical odor was enough to make his eyes sting. As he got closer, he could hear the rumbling of machinery inside the building, probably steam driven.
There was no security, only a heavy door with a lock as big as his fist. He raised a hand to knock, then reconsidered and let himself in. There was no antechamber, just a vast workroom with a row of steam-driven looms running down each side. Some of the girls and boys running the machines were so young they had to stretch to reach the controls, while the smallest children of all darted underneath the machines, dodging shifting combs and flying shuttles to retrieve fallen objects and pull gobs of lint out of the machinery. It looked hellishly dangerous.
The overseer spotted Isaac immediately and climbed down from his elevated platform at the far end of the workspace to talk to him. Though his manner was polite, it was hardly welcoming; Isaac guessed he was suspicious about why a young Shadow would show up in his mill. Or maybe the man was just territorial by nature, and the arrival of any stranger in his workspace made his fur bristle. “Your visit honors us, Sir. May I ask what interest the illustrious Shad
ows have in our facility?”
“I’ve come to talk to one of the orphans here. Her name is Mae.”
The overseer’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “On what business, may I ask?”
“Guild business,” Isaac said shortly. He could tell that the overseer wasn’t satisfied by that answer, and for a moment the man just stared at Isaac, waiting for him to offer more information. After a moment of silence the man glared resentfully and gestured toward the machines. “This way.” He led Isaac to where a young girl was working, and she was so fixated on her work that when the overseer prodded her she jumped.
“This Shadow wants to talk to you.” He nodded toward Isaac. “Ten minutes.”
The girl was younger than he was, maybe fourteen, maybe less. The fear in her eyes was unmistakable.
“He just wants to talk,” the overseer assured her. He looked at Isaac; his expression was a warning. “That right?”
“That’s right.”
Isaac turned toward the exit and gestured for her to follow. Another child scurried over to take her place, so that her loom never skipped a beat. Both children were like cogs in a vast machine, perfectly synchronized. Had Jacob worked here too? If so, then he had not been free even when he was alive.
Isaac led the girl out of the mill and a short distance away from the building, until the noise of the machinery was no longer distracting. Then he turned to her. “I bear a message from Jacob Dockhart.”
The brown eyes widened in surprise. “Oh my God! Is he okay?” A tentative smile lit her face. “Where is he?”
He’d braced himself for a display of sorrow, but the spark of joy in her eyes was unexpected and surprisingly painful. “I’m a Shadow,” he said gently. “Remember what our Gift is.”
The smile vanished. The moment of joy faded from her eyes, and fear took its place. “You . . . you speak to the dead,” she whispered.
He nodded. What pain there was in her expression now, what raw emotion! No one in Isaac’s Guild would ever display their feelings like this, no matter how much they hurt inside. He stared at her in fascination, as if she were some kind of exotic animal.
“So he . . . he’s gone?” Her small hands twisted in her skirt, her voice was trembling. “Dead?”
He nodded. “I am sorry.”
“Why?” she begged. She started to reach out to him but pulled her hand back quickly. “Why?” she pleaded, as tears began to run down her face.
There was no good answer to that, so he didn’t try to offer one. Better honest silence than a poorly constructed lie. “I came to bring you a message from his spirit. Do you want to hear it?”
Eyes wide, she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
“He said to tell you, three steps from your mark.” When she looked confused he pressed, “Does that make sense to you? I believe he was referring to something that belonged to both of you.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh,” she breathed. “Maybe. . . .” The words trailed off into silence.
“You know what he was referring to?” he pressed.
Biting her lip nervously, she nodded. Then, with one last glance at the mill, she started walking. Away from the factory, toward an area dense with trees and underbrush. She gestured for him to follow her. As the trees closed in around him, his long robe caught on a thorned branch, and he had to yank it free. Soon it was no longer possible to see the mill through the trees, or any other part of the orphanage grounds. Then the girl stopped, and she reached out to touch the forked trunk of an aged oak, her fingers gently caressing its bark. At the juncture of its two main limbs a design had been carved. At first glance it looked like some kind of abstract symbol, but then Isaac realized it was in fact two initials intertwined: M and J.
Unfamiliar emotions stirred deep within him. Sympathy? Compassion? The feelings were exotic, intense, uncomfortable.
“Three paces from this,” he said. The meaning of the rest of his vision was now falling into place. “Either due east or due west, directly from this point.”
Three paces to the west there was a mass of underbrush with poison ivy woven into it, so thick that it was clear no one had tried to walk through it recently. Three paces to the east was another tree. Its gnarled roots sketched out a V on the ground, its mouth pointed directly at the spot where they were standing. He pointed to it. “Maybe there?”
She went to the tree, hesitated, then knelt in the soil and began to dig at the vertex of the V. The dirt was loose, Isaac noted, as it if had recently been disturbed. Beneath the top layer of soil was a layer of old leaves, easy to move aside. As she brushed them away, a small hole containing a worn wooden box was revealed. She glanced back at Isaac, then pulled out the box and rested it in front of her. From the look on her face it was clear she had no clue what it was.
She opened it and gasped.
Inside the box was money. Not a lot of it by Isaac’s measure, but no doubt a fortune to one in her circumstances. There were small coins, large coins, and a thin wad of bills wrapped in string. There were a few pieces of jewelry as well, one of which Isaac thought he recognized from the Warrens stash. A pocket watch, a pendant, a silver brooch . . . the kinds of items one could pinch from a person in passing. Isaac had lived on the streets long enough to know how that worked.
“We were going to run away,” she whispered. “He told me . . . Last time I saw him . . . he was almost ready. He said that he had everything we needed, and I could go with him. He said he would take care of both of us. Then the Shadows came, and took him away from me. . . .”
With a sob she lowered her head to her chest. The sight of her struggling not to cry broke through all the barriers that he had erected to guard himself from human emotion, and made his soul bleed.
We caused this human misery, he thought. My Guild. For no better purpose than our convenience.
“You have the power to leave now.” Isaac spoke quietly. “I’m guessing that’s why it mattered so much for him to make sure you got this. But you shouldn’t do so now. The masters of this place know that I came here, and if you disappear right away they’ll make the obvious connection. It will help them track you down. You understand?”
“I understand,” she whispered hoarsely. The tear-streaked face looked up at him. “He’s still around? You can talk to him?”
Isaac shook his head. “An echo of his soul remains, nothing more. Think of it as a recording of his last thoughts, that I managed to hear. Now that their purpose has been satisfied, they, too, will fade. There’s no one for you to talk to.” At least part of that was the truth.
She lowered her head again and began to weep, this time without trying to stifle the sound. Isaac watched her for a moment, then turned and left. This was not the sort of scene a Shadow had any business being part of.
Love. Fear. Loss. Mourning. There were so many emotional energies swirling about him that it was overwhelming. Isaac wondered what it would be like to live with such emotions every day, like people outside his Guild did. To be at the mercy of those terrible tides each time one suffered a loss. No wonder the boy’s identity had survived death, with so much emotion behind it. Maybe when his spirit learned that its final wish had been granted those emotions would fade, until all that would be left was a mindless and purposeless ghost, identical to every other slave spirit.
Or maybe this one would prove to be more than that, and with its help, Isaac could learn more about his own potential.
He looked back at the crying girl one last time, a strange pang of jealousy in his heart, then started down the path toward home.
18
BLACKWATER MOUNTAINS
VIRGINIA PRIME
JESSE
DURING OUR RIDE BACK TO LURAY, I leaned my head against the train window and watched the scenery go by without really seeing it. The vibration of the glass against my forehead might have been soothing, had I been cap
able of being soothed. I wasn’t.
“No one died,” Seyer reminded me. “That’s a good thing.”
“No people died,” I corrected her.
I was bone-weary, soul-weary, almost too tired to remember my name. I did remember part of a dream I’d had the night before, and it played out again in my mind’s eye as I stared out the window. When had I dreamed it? Right after I collapsed, as I lay half-dead at the edge of the chasm? Just before dawn, when Rita found me? All I knew was that I’d escaped the horrors of the night in the only way I knew how, and in my dreams, sought out one of the few people I still trusted.
The field of battle is still. The fallen bodies are gone now, but their imprints remain in the grass, along with their blood. The tang of black powder hangs in the air, mercifully masking whatever human smells might cling to this place. It’s lonely here. No, more than that: it is the archetypal embodiment of loneliness.
I see a figure standing atop a hill, a soldier with bands of leather crisscrossing his chest. The fingertips on his right hand are black from gunpowder, his boots are coated in mud up to the calves, and his youthful face is splattered with blood. Not his. He looks young, so young. I never picture him that way.
I start toward him, but my body is so drained from my recent experiences I can barely walk. I stumble in the wet grass and go down on one knee.
“When you talk to Her Grace—” Seyer began.
“I’m not talking to Her Grace.” I raised up my head with monumental effort and looked at her. “What’s the point? We never found the mandala. We never found anything that even hinted at Dreamwalker activity. All we found were rumors about some boy who slept all the time, and maybe he had something to do with the mandala, or maybe not, but he’s dead now, so no one will ever know for sure. I’ll tell her all that and then she’ll say, I’m sorry, that’s not good enough to earn a Potter’s service, and I’ll say, but what about my mother? And she’ll say, it’s all very sad, but it’s not my problem.” I leaned my head back against the glass and stared out at the landscape. “Might as well save myself the trouble.”