The Ghosting of Gods (26 page)

58
grave to cradle

Blood pounds in my ears. “You’re responsible. You were there on the chapel, clattering on the roof.”

William, a.k.a. Willy, doesn’t respond. Pulling a chair back from the table, he sits before the spook occupying it has time to get up. The two of them together form a ghost with its skeleton showing.

“Get out of me,” the spook demands in a tinny voice, pawing at Willy. It looks up at me through Willy’s eye sockets. “Make him get out of me!”

Willy holds a hand to the side of his head, where an ear used to be. “Hark! What’s that? Do I hear a rumble of thunder?”

Spooks clutch one another and scream in terror; many of them dive under the table.

Cords along Willy’s larynx quiver, creating a semblance of laughter. The effect is more like a screeching violin. My teeth grind. Repressing an impulse to kick loose his vibrating jaw, I remember why we’re here. Willy can provide our passage home. Angering him isn’t going to help. I need to get Ava and Poe and Leesel home. I need to find Emmy’s crystal ball and hide it, where it can never be chained to a skeleton like the one before me.

Yet rage rises within me.

Ava grabs my wrist. Slowly, I relax my fist.

Willy doesn’t notice. He’s started in on a new bottle. “Yes, yes, I recognize you. The exorcist and his unlucky companions. Of course, it was necessary to remove you from the Promised Land. If only you could have minded your business, obeyed the prohibition against visiting cemeteries…it was for your own good…” He splashes liquor.

“Then why are you offering to take us back?” Ava asks.

“You, my dear. Not him.” He turns to me. “You resemble your sister.”

My knees buckle.

“I understand your obsession with her, of course,” he says. His voice lowers. “Do you think I can’t sympathize with your pain? I have lost. I have grieved. If only you weren’t an exorcist. Then you could have been a part of the new world. Heaven, as you call it on your world. Resurrection. Unfortunately, your aptitude is a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. You will not be allowed in the Promised Land. You will not go home.”

“How do you know my sister?”

“Why, I adore her as much as you do. I keep her.” He pats the robe over his ribcage. “Here, close to my heart. As you once did.”

Ava looks back and forth between us. “What the hell is he talking about? Jesse? What does he mean?”

Willy stands, knocking back his chair. “I mean that Jesse was careless. It wasn’t the first time. Be honest now, young man. You can’t lie to me—I have spent many hours viewing the life of Emmy. I know why she died. Very irresponsible of you, not caring more closely for one so feeble-minded.” He clicks his teeth in Morse code, involuntarily, I think, because he shuts his jaw with a snap and allows his voice box to speak. “And then you lost her crystal ball. It was like losing her again, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s exactly what it was. As an exorcist, you had no natural appreciation for the blessing of her presence as a ghost.”

I throw off Ava. Raise my fist. “Where is it?” I demand. “What have you done with her crystal?”

“With
her
. Once again, you fail to recognize the preciousness of the crystal ball. It contains her. All of her—her complete identity. But don’t fear. I know the location of her grave. I spied you digging there on several occasions, not only the day you lost her crystal. What a storm that was! Your world is haunting over quite nicely. But I digress. Undoing the evil you committed, I
shall take her crystal with me on the exodus and plant it once more. I fear, however, she will not be judged worthy to retain the crystal upon resurrection.”

Throwing myself at him, I’m suddenly washed over with cold. I fall to the floor, my body paralyzed. Spooks cling to me. Their blueness seeps into my skin. I can’t breathe. Smoke fills my lungs.

Ava yells, attempting to remove the spooks from me, but of course she can’t grasp them.

Carinna presses her face into mine. It’s like eating ice cream too fast—pain stabs my forehead between my eyes. “Leave Willy alone,” she screams, directly into my mind.

“Grave-to-cradle blasphemer!” another spook cries, reaching into my heart.

Willy wags a finger at me, swiftly turns, strides away.

Spooks cry his name, letting me go. Coughing from the smoke in my lungs, I point, wanting Ava to go after him. By the time I stagger to my feet, it’s too late.

The doorway has sealed itself into a wall. There’s no way out. Willy is gone.

Spooks clutch one another and wail. “He’s left us!” One after another, they fling themselves at the wall, but they’re too dense. They can’t pass through.

On the other side, Willy is calling George’s name over and over, sobbing. “My own flesh and blood,” he wails. “I tried to protect him from what I’ve become. And now his head is gone! The holy artifact is lost. Oh! The twit.”

Ava strokes my hair, my cheeks. She kisses me. “You were completely blue,” she cries, hugging me so hard I’m having trouble breathing again.

Grandmother Spook grunts as she attempts to extricate herself from the wall. All the spooks press forward, and the wall appears to fade with their touch. Grandmother cackles and grins as the wall softens, but grimaces when it hardens back, now as a
door.

“Come on,” I tell Ava. Reaching through the spooks, I twist the doorknob. “It’s locked.” I kick, but the door is thick, solid. Real.

“Won’t do any good,” Willy calls from the other side. “Don’t worry. The Mansion changes. You’ll get out after awhile. When you do, show yourselves to the door. Find a town that will take you, if you can. One with a big gate, though what good does it do, as my dear brother used to say. Enjoy Memento Mori. Don’t worry. I’ll look after your world for you.”

Ava and I press our backs to the locked door and face the spooks. There’s no other way out of the room. We’re trapped.

“I wanna see him go grave to cradle,” says a boy spook in a robe much too big for him. “I never seen it done before.”

Carinna tugs on her father’s sleeve. “If he’s unable to reincarnate, may I have him, then, Poppa?”

Poppa thinks it over.

“Ava?” I squeak.

Two spooks approach us with rope. Real rope. “How does he do it?” one of them asks. “How does he re-in-carn-ate?”

“I don’t know,” the other answers. “Let’s watch and see.”

“It doesn’t make sense. Does he get a new ghost with the new body?”

Spooks cackle, miming my terror. They don’t notice the appearance of an archway with a door. A door that is cracked open.

“On the count of three,” Ava whispers.

We barrel through the spooks. Some are more dense than others and put up more resistance, but overall we catch them by surprise and get to the door before they realize what’s happening. I slam it shut behind us, turn the key in the lock.

Spooks thud against the door. “Your ghost is sick,” they scream on the other side. “Sickly wickly, sickly wickly, sickly wickly…”

The hallway we find ourselves in on the other side of the dining room door is long, dim, and ends in a closed door. I push it open; the pungent smell of old books overwhelms me.

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 try 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
.