Elizabeth Webster and the Court of Uncommon Pleas

by William Lashner

  I sat up and looked at my hands—human hands, thank goodness. It was just a nightmare, it was only a dream. Still, somehow, it was the realest, truest thing I had ever dreamed. And sitting in the brightness of my room, my safe purple room, I began to think it might have been less of a dream and more of a message…sent by a ghost.

  But what the message was, or what I was supposed to do with it, I had not the slightest clue. Yet.

  When Henry Harrison decided to abandon his usual section of the lunchroom and eat with Natalie and me, it created a scene. The kids around us craned their necks to see what was going on, even as the eighth graders at his normal table tried and failed to look like they hadn’t noticed.

  “No one can understand why you’re sitting with the lowly likes of us,” I said.

  “Who cares?” said Henry. “At our tables everybody knows everybody’s business. It feels more private here. After last night, I could use a little privacy.”

  “We need to keep up the cover that we’re all just friends,” said Natalie. “Lizzie, laugh at something.”

  “Are you cracked?” I said.

  “Everyone’s looking. We should be having fun.” Natalie threw her head back and laughed loudly before dropping a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Good one.”

  “I still haven’t recovered,” said Henry. “I couldn’t keep up with my lane this morning. The coach was on me all practice. The truth is, I’m not even sure what happened.”

  “We told you, remember?” said Natalie. “Lizzie stuck the stick into the ghost like you were supposed to.”

  “But I haven’t been able to remember the other part.”

  “You mean the kiss.”

  “Yeah,” said Henry, his voice slow. “The kiss.”

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Maybe because you were making out with a ghost.”

  “From what I could tell,” said Natalie, “the ghost was making out with him.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Oh, Lizzie, you can be so naïve. That’s not the same thing at all, trust me.”

  “Her name was Beatrice,” said Henry. “Beatrice Long.”

  I was startled by Henry coming out with a name. It seemed so random and yet…“How do you know that?”

  “I just do,” he said. “I woke up and I knew.”

  “Like from a dream?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or through the kiss,” said Natalie. “She spoke to you through her kiss. That is so romantic.”

  “You know,” I said, “I had a creepy dream last night, too. I dreamed I was a—”

  “Can I join you guys?”

  I looked up and saw a tall eighth-grade girl standing behind Henry and holding a tray. Debbie Benner, captain of the tennis team, the best-dressed girl at Willing Middle School West, and—ta da!—Henry’s girlfriend. She was haughty in the way some people can act without even knowing it. And she had left the eighth-grade tables to eat with us. With us?

  Henry turned around, looked at her, and then turned back. “No,” he said.

  “Really? There’s room.”

  “This is private,” said Henry.

  “Sorry,” said Natalie with a little toss of her head.

  “What are you guys talking about?” said Debbie.

  “Math?” I said.

  “I love math,” said Debbie.

  “Not now, Debbie,” said Henry. There was a coldness in his voice. “Can’t you just leave us alone?”

  I watched as Debbie Benner’s expression sagged and then hardened, before she spun away. I felt uncomfortable—I never liked to say no to anyone, certainly not about something as risky as where to sit at lunch. But Natalie was beaming, and Henry was reacting slowly, his eyes unfocused.

  As I looked at Henry, then at my best friend, and then back at Henry, I grew worried. Natalie was gazing at Henry with stars in her eyes. And Henry, still dazed from the night before, was staring off toward the far corners of the lunchroom, as if seeking something that wasn’t part of this world.

  “What were you saying, Lizzie?” Natalie asked.

  “Last night I dreamed I was a squirrel.”

  “How cute,” said Natalie. “The crinkled nose, the big front teeth. Like the Fraydens.”

  “It wasn’t cute. I was a squirrel being chased by a dog. And when I climbed under a rock I got bitten by a snake.”

  “Ouch,” said Natalie.

  “I jumped out of the rock and then the dog got me. He shook me in his teeth, and none of my muscles worked, and my heart was racing. Then someone saved me from the dog and petted me. I thought I was saved, until a boy appeared and stuck me in a cage.”

  “And then what?” said Henry.

  “I don’t know. I woke up.”

  “With an acorn in your teeth?” said Natalie.

  “It sounds silly, I know, but it didn’t seem silly when I was dreaming it.”

  Henry twisted his face. “Do you think we made a mistake?”

  “What kind of mistake?” said Natalie. “Wrong ghost?”

  “I mean, is this what happens in a normal legal case?” said Henry. “Life-sucking kisses and messed-up dreams?”

  “If so,” said Natalie, “I’m definitely going to law school.”

  “Maybe we’re dealing with stuff we shouldn’t be,” said Henry.

  “Do you want to stop?” I said, looking at him carefully. “You sound like you have doubts.”

  “We have to get rid of the ghost, but I don’t want to hurt Beatrice.”

  “Why not?” said Natalie.

  “I don’t know, I just don’t.”

  “It’s wrong for her to haunt you,” I said.

  “Are we sure? Maybe Beatrice has a good reason. Maybe she needs our help.”

  “She’s a ghost,” said Natalie. “What kind of help could we give her? Clean sheets?”

  Henry didn’t respond, but there was something in his eyes. I glanced at Natalie to see if she noticed the danger in his expression, but Natalie was just seeing what she wanted to see, the handsome swimming star sitting at her table. I saw it clearly, though: Something had gone wrong, all wrong, and it was more than I could fix by myself.

  “Natalie, can you cover for me after school?” I said. “Just say that we’re studying together.”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I don’t want my mom to know, but I’m going back to talk with my grandfather.”

  I sent my mom a text that I was studying with Natalie before I turned off my phone. Then I caught a train into the city. Was my message to my mom a lie?

  Maybe. Technically. If you want to be a stickler about it, but does anybody really want to be a stickler? What are you going to be when you grow up, little Jenny? A stickler! No, see, which just proves my point.

  And it wasn’t as if my mom had been dealing honestly with me during my entire life. I mean, she never told me about my grandfather. What was that about? And what else had she been hiding? Sometime soon I’d get to the bottom of everything between us, maybe treat my life as a word problem, turn everything she had never told me into an equation and slap a line on a graph to see where all the lies led.

  But until then, I figured a little technical lie of my own was justified.

  Still, when I walked past City Hall and felt the black-hatted Pilgrim on the tower staring down at me, I lowered my head and hurried on to the offices of Webster & Son.

  “Barnabas told me everything that happened,” my grandfather said.

  The door to his office was closed for privacy, and I was sitting behind the little desk, which I guess had become my desk after all. My grandfather’s shrunken figure was mostly hidden by stacks of books and papers on his desktop. The piles appeared to have grown since I’d been there last and they trembled, as if somehow alive.

  “Shocking,” he said, “and quite dangerous.”

  “Barnabas said something about a sucking bus?”

  “A succubus. You must learn yo
ur terms. I’ll get you a copy of White’s Legal Hornbook of Demons and Ghosts. It’s quite standard in the field. A succubus is a demon that draws power from a victim through a kiss or, ahem, other means. It can be quite dangerous. I dealt with a succubus in Delhi and I barely made it out alive, though as I remember it, she was quite the charmer. Have you ever been to Delhi?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, the sights, the smells—”

  “What about the succubus?”

  “Oh, yes. From the description, I doubt our little ghost was a full-bore succubus.”

  “We think her name is Beatrice. Beatrice Long.”

  “Good. We have a title for our case at last. Harrison v. Long.”

  “And I have the sneaking suspicion, Grandpop, that Harrison sort of has a crush on Long.”

  “That can happen, yes. I’ve seen it before, and it complicates things terribly. There was a time in Moline that…that…What was I saying?”

  “We were talking about my friend. He’s thinking of stopping the action.”

  “Oh no, he can’t do that. Once it starts it must be completed. The consequences of stopping in the middle can be disastrous. Our ghost would have free rein, not just over the house but its inhabitants, too. Your friend Henry has no choice now but to continue the Action in Ejectment.” Once again, he emphasized the final word with a point of his finger.

  “So what do we do?”

  “There is little we can do other than move boldly forward. That is always the ticket. It’s up to your father now. He’ll handle the entire proceeding.”

  “Not Barnabas?”

  “Heavens, no. Barnabas has no standing before the bar. He is merely a clerk, not a barrister.”

  “What’s a barrister?” said Elizabeth.

  “A lawyer who handles cases in court. It is an old-fashioned British thing, but then, regretfully, so is our judge. It’s all about robes and wigs and whatnot.”

  Ebenezer Webster pointed his cane at the shelf above the fireplace where the skull sat covered with what looked like a mop head.

  “My wig. It’s a bit moth-eaten, I must say. I haven’t been in court since I had a run-in with Judge Jeffries years ago that almost left me…Well, enough about that prideful scoundrel. Your father’s the one to handle the case. But it is not a complicated matter. He’ll ask your Mr. Harrison some questions and he’ll interrogate the ghost. Simple as that and it will be over. Just make sure your friend brings the deed to his house into court.”

  “How does he get that?”

  “There must be one lying around. It’s often stuffed in a kitchen drawer. And he must bring some grass from his property, a good-sized piece of sod.”

  “Sod?”

  “Oh yes, sod. Quite necessary. An old custom to prove ownership. But other than that, it is all up to the barrister in charge, and that will be your father.”

  I hesitated for a moment, lowered my voice. “Does my father know I’ve been here?”

  “I haven’t yet been able to tell him, but I’m sure he’ll be delighted.” For some reason I felt my heart skip and then soar at the word delighted. “And why wouldn’t he be?” continued my grandfather. “For decades and decades firstborn Webster males have all been part of the family business.”

  “But I’m not that.”

  “True, but you’re the best we’ve got. I’m surprised your father never told you about how we came into this peculiar practice.”

  “He hasn’t told me much about anything. As far as I knew, he was just a lawyer like any other lawyer.”

  “And your mother has kept quiet, too, of course. She’s a good one for keeping secrets, I’ll give her that. Well, this must be rectified, and immediately. You have a right to know. An absolute right. It is your heritage, your birthright.”

  My grandfather rose and banged his cane on the floor as he made his way around the desk until he was standing, bent and bowlegged, before the fireplace. His chin was so low he was staring at me through his wild eyebrows.

  “You’ve heard, of course,” he said, “of Daniel Webster. Attorney, congressman, and the greatest orator of his day.”

  My grandfather slapped his cane on the wall next to the painting of the old lawyer, a big-chested man with fierce eyes and a sour mouth.

  “‘Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.’ Daniel Webster proclaimed that thirty years before the Civil War. It was taught to schoolchildren all over the North, and was on the lips of all those who fought and died under Lincoln to end slavery and preserve our nation. That was Daniel Webster—and you, young lady, carry his blood.”

  “On me?”

  “In your veins.”

  “I’m a descendant of Daniel Webster?”

  “As close as exists after the death of his children. We are, you and I and your father, descendants of his father, Ebenezer, after whom I’m named, through Daniel’s brother Ezekiel, also a lawyer. We are all of us Websters, and that puts us in a unique position.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Listen to the story of your legacy. Many years ago, well before the Civil War, a farmer named Jabez Stone made a deal with the devil.”

  “Does that really happen? I mean, really?”

  “Oh yes. Just look at the US Senate. Now, when the time came for Jabez Stone to deliver on his promise, he had second thoughts. Understandable, yes? Eternal hellfire is just so…eternal. So Jabez Stone contested the contract in the Court of Uncommon Pleas in a trial that was held in his own barn. Scratch v. Stone, it was called, Mr. Scratch being the devil’s name in the case. And though Mr. Scratch had the contract and the law on his side, as well as the judge in his pocket and a jury rigged with the worst scoundrels in American history, Jabez Stone had brought something ever more powerful to the court: your ancestor, Daniel Webster.

  “Now mark this: Though Daniel Webster had the devil himself as an adversary it wasn’t a fair contest, for when Daniel Webster spoke, even the dead perked up and listened. Through his wits, his wiles, and his grandiloquence, he convinced the jury to find for Jabez Stone. Hurrah!”

  “Wow.”

  “Yes. Wow, indeed. And after he won the case, Daniel Webster took hold of Mr. Scratch and with all his mortal strength wrestled out of him two concessions. First, he preserved for Jabez Stone his soul for all eternity. But, more crucially for us, he also gained for himself and his descendants a place before the bar of the Court of Uncommon Pleas until the end of time. It is before the Court of Uncommon Pleas that your father will try the case against the ghost of Beatrice Long.”

  “So, it’s a family thing.”

  “Yes, of course. Webster and Son. What about that name don’t you understand? It’s not Webster and Someone We Hired off the Street. I am the current Webster. Your father is the current son. And you, my dear, are next in line, though it might require the firm to find itself a new name.”

  And there it was: the truth that had somehow been hovering before me since I first saw the ghost of Beatrice Long. To be next in line for something, anything, would be more than I had now. But to be next in line for this was…was…well, way cool. It was like I was becoming a manga character. All I needed were bigger eyes and a magical little animal friend. I felt a sudden wave of affection for my father, my wonderful father, who had been waiting all this time to give me this fabulous gift.

  “Where is my father?” I said. “I need to talk to him.”

  “Of course you do. And besides, we can’t do anything more about our ghost until he arrives. But I’ve already received word that old Judge Jeffries and his Court of Uncommon Pleas is on its way back to Philadelphia, and so your father is due at any time.”

  My grandfather took a pocket watch from his vest, flipped it open. A moth flew out before he flipped it shut again.

  “He’s due back any minute, actually. I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

  And right then, as if the moth had signaled my father’s presence, there was a knock on the door.

  “
Well now,” said my grandfather. “That must be him. Come in, boy,” he called. “Come right in.”

  I stood and my heart seized twice as the door opened. First because I was expecting to see my father, my missing, wonderful father. And then because of who actually came walking through that doorway.

  From the set of my mother’s jaw, I knew she was not in the mood for milkshakes.

  The woman standing in that office was no longer the concerned and kindly schoolteacher who had raised me. Her jaw jutted out. Her hands were balled at her hips. She was a comic-book superhero readying for battle. If she meant to scare the bejeezus out of me, it worked.

  “I thought we had an agreement,” said my mother.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, more than a little breathless at the sight of this astonishing creature, “but you don’t understand. I needed to—”

  “Not you,” said my mother. “I’ll deal with you and your impudence later. Right now I’m talking to your grandfather.”

  “A pleasure to see you, too, Melinda, after all these years,” said my grandfather, a sly smile bending his lips. “And I’ve kept it, our agreement, as unfair as it might have been, kept it to its very bones.”

  “Yet here she is.”

  “She came on her own, my dear, without my bidding. The song of the blood is more powerful than we can know. The European eel swims three thousand miles to mate in the Sargasso Sea.”

  “Elizabeth might be slippery, but she is not an eel and I will not allow this,” said my mother. “I know all too well the price.”

  “Indeed you do. But you’ve ignored the benefits, the way it fills the soul with purpose.”

  “She’ll find some other way to fill her soul. Is Eli better off now that he’s back at it? Wandering the country alone, without a family of his own, other than the spirits of his dead ancestors driving him forward like a mule.”

  “Whatever other family he had, you took from him, Melinda. And after all he did for you.”

  “All I ever wanted for him was what I wanted for myself—to be normal. And that is what I will insist on for her. But you know I’ve never kept him from his daughter—that’s been his choice.”