The Dark Shadow of Spring (18 page)

“So, Daddy,” Victoria said, wiping her hands on a rag that conveniently hung from the seat of the tractor, “I need to borrow something.”

“Not money I hope,” her father said. “I was rather hoping to borrow some from you.”

“No, Daddy,” Victoria said, rushing past the mention of how poor they were. “The spectrotromatron.”

“Oh, right,” her father said. “Looking for ghosts, are we?”

“There were some sighted in the cemetery,” Victoria said. “We thought we’d look for them.” Alex felt like someone had kicked him in the head. How could Victoria just tell her father the plan like that? Apparently, though, she knew what she was doing.

“Oh, certainly,” her father said. “It’s in that box on the bottom shelf on the left, I think. Or the one behind it. Somewhere on that shelf, at any rate.” Victoria walked over to the shelf and began to open several boxes. “My, my, ghosts. It’s been ages since I went ghost hunting. What I wouldn’t do to go with you.” Alex held his breath as he looked at the faces of the others. “But, too much work to do. No rest for the wicked. Or the wickedly ingenious, as the case may be.” Her father laughed as his own joke and Alex found himself laughing along.

“Found it,” Victoria said, holding up an odd-looking contraption that resembled a large old-fashioned camera with no back plate and several metal tubes protruding from its sides, twisting about in all directions.

“Wonderful,” her father said. “Well, don’t stay out too late. Will you be home for dinner?”

“Actually, we were wondering if Victoria could have dinner at our house,” Nina said. Alex’s head spun around in surprise. He noticed the astonished look on Victoria’s face and suspected it matched his own. What was Nina up to? Not that Alex didn’t like the idea of having dinner with Victoria, but the notion of introducing her to his parents over a meal made him feel oddly uncomfortable in ways he wasn’t able to identify.

“Ah, yes, certainly,” her father said. “I’ll just make myself a few cold sandwiches and keep working. Make sure you fetch me when you come home.”

“I will, Daddy,” Victoria said. “Don’t drop anything on yourself while I’m gone.”

“I will try not to,” her father said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “And don’t stay out too late. I know all too well how easy it is to get to chasing ghosts and lose track of time.”

“I won’t, Daddy,” Victoria said and led the others through the big shop door and out around the back of the house.

“Are you crazy?” Alex asked when they were out of earshot of her father. “You told him about looking for the ghosts.”

“I try never to lie to Daddy if it’s at all avoidable,” Victoria said. “Besides, he’s not the sort to ever think that looking for ghosts could be dangerous. Now had I told him that we thought the ghosts were popping up because the Shadow Wraith was trying to escape and destroy the world, he probably would have grounded me. Or he would have insisted on coming. It’s so hard to tell with him sometimes.”

“Your dad’s a nut,” Daphne said to Victoria with a laugh. “A great, big, wonderful nut. My dad’s so boring.”

“Nice,” Ben said with a sigh. “He’s so nice. All my dad ever does is complain.” Ben’s father was harshly critical of Ben. He didn’t like Ben’s grades, didn’t like Ben’s friends, didn’t think that Ben was living up to the family name. Ben’s parents had been divorced for a year now, and while he still saw his father nearly every day, their relationship had become strained.

“And he encourages you to go on adventures,” Nina said. “Our dad frowns on adventures.” Alex thought that was a monumental understatement.

 “Thank you,” Victoria said. “He’s a bit odd when he gets absorbed in a project, but he tries very hard to be a good father. And speaking of your father, I’m very excited to meet him. And your mother. Thank you ever so much for inviting me to dinner. Daddy’s idea of cooking leaves a great deal to be desired. Like the application of heat to food, for one. I’m afraid I end up making nearly all the meals.”

“Tonight’s spaghetti night,” Nina said. “Mom always makes more than we can eat.”

“Mmmm, spaghetti,” Clark said, his stomach rumbling loud enough for the others to hear. “I should head home for dinner, too.”

“Let’s all meet back at the Guild House right after we eat,” Alex said. “We can tell our parents we’re working on our homework.”

“Yes, I’m sure my aunt will believe that,” Rafael said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he waved and set off down a side street toward his aunt’s place.

The others each headed for their homes and Alex soon found himself in his own house, seated at the end of the kitchen table with Victoria kneeling beside him on a pile of blankets and slurping a long spaghetti noodle between her lips. Alex laughed as a tiny drop of sauce landed on her delicate nose. He reached out with a napkin and wiped it off as she giggled. Looking toward his plate, he noticed his mother and father eyeing him in a way that made his face warm and his stomach flutter.

It had become clear to him after only a few minutes at the table what Nina’s motivation had been in inviting Victoria to dinner. At first he had suspected that she simply wanted to embarrass him, but he soon realized that Nina genuinely liked Victoria and looked up to her like some sort of older sister. Alex wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. Nina was odd in that she didn’t really have friends her own age. She was always hanging out with Alex and the Guild and rarely mixed with the kids from her own class. While she was certainly friendly with Daphne, they weren’t exactly girlfriends. Alex couldn’t really imagine Daphne having girlfriends like other girls. But Nina clearly liked the idea of Victoria being her friend as much as Alex did, although, he suspected, for significantly different reasons.

“So, Victoria,” Alex’s mother said, bringing Alex’s attention back to the table, “what was the town you came from like? It was Warwick, in Southampton, wasn’t it? Alex’s father and I have been to most of the twelve magical colonies, but we’ve never had a chance to visit there.”

“Yes,” Victoria said. “It was very nice. A lovely little town. Very much like here. Different magical people and magical creatures from around the world. And it wasn’t too far from London. Daddy took me there a few times to see the sights. I absolutely love the theatre.”

“But, you’re a centaur,” Alex said around a mouth full of garlic bread.

“Manners, Alex,” his mother said. “We don’t speak with our mouths full.”

“Sorry,” Alex said, feeling a heat rise in his face again.

“It’s not all that hard if you’re good at Mind Magic spells,” Victoria said. “And Daddy is ever so clever with Mind Magic. Normal humans would see me as whatever they thought I should be. A girl riding a horse, or leading a horse, or just a girl walking down the sidewalk.”

“It sounds like you had a wonderful time there,” Alex’s father said. “In Warwick, I mean.”

“Yes,” Victoria said. “We only really moved because Daddy thought it would be good for me to see more of the world.”

“See, Dad,” Alex said as he raised his glass to take a sip of water. “Seeing more of the world is a good thing.”

“Hmff,” was all his father said in reply.

“Did you have a boyfriend back in Warwick?” Nina asked, a hint of mischief in her eyes.

“Oh, well, hmm, yes, I guess you could say I did,” Victoria said, her cheeks rapidly turning pink.

Alex coughed as he took a drink from his glass and water bubbled out of his nose. He covered his face with his napkin as his father patted his back. “Water’s for drinking, not for breathing,” his father said with a gentle laugh. The heat rising to Alex’s face began to burn as he glanced at Victoria, who smiled at him as she always did.

“So what was he like, this boyfriend?” Nina pressed. “Was he a centaur as well, or a human, or some other sort of boy, and how long were you dating, and what sort of things did you do, like did you ever ki…?”

“Nina!” Alex’s mother interjected. “It’s not polite to interrogate our dinner guests.”

“Sorry,” Nina said. “I’m just curious. I’m sure Alex is curious, too.”

“What?” Alex said, coughing again and nearly spitting a meatball out of his mouth.

“Well,” Victoria said, her cheeks red as autumn apples, “we weren’t really dating as such. We were just very good friends, I suppose you would say. With an understanding that, when we came of age, we would make a formal arrangement. That is the custom among centaurs. And his family was very particular about such things. And, of course, he was two years older than I, so it was very important.”

Alex tried not to think about Victoria and her centaur boyfriend. It made the heat in his face feel like he was going to burst into flame.

“You must miss him very much,” Nina said, her voice filled with innocent curiosity, even as she glanced at Alex with a smirk.

“Oh, well, we write to one another,” Victoria said. “But there’s so much to do here in Runewood and so many new friends that I haven’t really thought of him as much as I thought I would.” Victoria’s gaze shifted briefly to Alex and he thought for certain he would combust into a ball of fire where he sat.

“A first romance is always something we remember fondly,” Alex’s mother said.

“Especially if it’s your only romance,” Alex’s father said, reaching over and taking his mother’s hand and kissing her.

“Gross, Dad,” Nina said.

“To you, maybe,” Alex’s mother said.

“Wow, look at the time,” Alex said, putting his napkin on the table. “We should get to the Guild House. We wouldn’t want the others to have to wait on us for the study session.”

“Put your dishes in the sink,” Alex’s mother said.

“And don’t stay out in that shack too long,” Alex’s father said. “With all that’s happened lately, I don’t want your friends walking home late.”

Alex stood up and took Victoria’s plate to the sink as she clambered to her legs. His mother and father came up behind him at the sink. “She’s a very pretty girl,” his mother said softly.

“She’s a centaur,” Alex said, trying to keep his tone indifferent.

“Very pretty nonetheless,” his father said as he ruffled Alex’s hair.

“I hardly noticed,” Alex said, straightening his hair and walking away from his parents.

“Thank you ever so much for dinner,” Victoria said with a wave at the door.

“Our pleasure,” Alex’s mother said. “We’ll do it again soon.”

“Great,” Nina said.

“That would be lovely,” Victoria added.

“Wonderful,” Alex muttered as he closed the door behind them, wondering if their plans for ghost hunting would go better than dinner had.

Chapter 16: Ghastly Gathering

Moments after stepping out the back door, Alex, Nina, and Victoria were in the Guild House collecting the spectral detector and waiting for the others to arrive. Minutes after that, the entire Guild snuck out to the backyard and down the street toward the town cemetery.

Like the rest of Runewood, the cemetery was exceptionally well-maintained. The grass between the rows of headstones was trimmed short and cleared of autumn leaves from the randomly placed oak trees that dotted the grounds. The bare branches of the trees covered the waxing gibbous moon above like bony fingers, creating long, slender shadows across the graves.

The few large mausoleums were at the edge of the grounds. Alex was thankful they were far away. He reflected that, no matter how well kept a cemetery might be, it was still a creepy place to be after dark. And mausoleums had doors, and doors could open, and who knew what might come out them when the Shadow Wraith could be involved. They picked a place near the center of the graveyard, far from the entrance and the church or the street, so they would be less likely to be seen if someone happened to be out walking late.

“This seems as good a place as any,” Alex said, looking around at the others, particularly Victoria, who carried her father’s spectral detector. “How does it work?”

“It’s actually very simple,” Victoria said, holding the device where the others could see. Her father had created the spectral detector from a large, accordion-like camera that must have been almost a century old. The back of the camera now held a smooth glass plate. Metal tubes jutted out from the camera body, twisting at all angles. “All you do is turn the detector around the area you think there might be ghosts, and if any are present, then this glass plate on the back will start to glow. And it will glow different colors depending on what kinds of specters are present.”

“Green,” Ben said. “What’s a green glow mean?”

“Green indicates the presence of friendly ghosts,” Victoria said. “Oh goodness, look at that.” The glass plate of the spectral detector had begun to glow a pale green.

“I’ll be a ghastly ghost goober,” Daphne said. “That thing actually works.”

“Well, of course it does,” Victoria said, her tone slightly defensive. “Daddy’s inventions always work. Sometimes not as he plans, but they always do something.”

“Hmm, so how do we know where the ghosts are?” Clark said, looking around and sniffing the air. “Something smells sweet.”

“The brighter the glow, the closer the spirits,” Victoria said.

“Will we be able to see them?” Nina asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of them,” Victoria said, “but normally they can’t be seen by mortals directly.”

“The better question is, what do we do if we see them?” Rafael asked. “I’ve never been clear on how finding ghosts will help us defeat the Shadow Wraith. I can’t see anything and I have excellent eyesight.”

“I see them,” Alex said, finding his mouth suddenly very dry as he swallowed back a small fit of panic that blended spontaneously with a thrill of excitement. “Rising from those graves,” he said, pointing to a row of nearby headstones.

“I don’t see anything,” Victoria said, squinting in the dim moonlight.

“Neither do I,” Rafael added.

“They’re right there,” Alex said, pointing again. The ghosts were now hovering above the tombstones, their visages like thin wafts of pale luminescent smoke suspended in a gently shimmering breeze. There were dozens of them and they had the form of bodies melted and dried and reconstituted with the barest elements of air and light. They beckoned to him with outstretched arms. Men and women, old and young, the faintest remnant impressions of the clothes they wore in life suggesting that some had lived centuries ago, while others had died just decades past. He thought he heard something, as well. Like insects humming, but softer and more melodic.