“Why?” Armand wondered.
Annabella could feel the horror he’d experienced having been separated from her, knowing she wasn’t even in his reality anymore, fearing that he’d never be rescued.
Taking his hand, she looked at him. I’d never have left you there, my love.
Smiling, she knew he understood but also that it was going to take a while to work past the traumas of the day.
“Hard to explain,” Nemesis answered. “Mostly, I needed time to be sure that all of their accomplices and victims were in the same place before we went to work. Most of the ghosts had already been drawn here, but a few only exist in far corners of the ship. Also, I’m afraid it took longer than I’d like to rouse Miriam. She’s rather elderly, and it took a while to chivvy her up and into her clothes. Then, we had to go to the bar and gather together the historical society, which was fairly far into the bottle by that point.”
She shrugged.
“Herding cats. No offense meant, Kitty dear.”
Kitty just smiled. “Why offense?” she wondered before clearly trying to get her sentences together. “No cat wants to be herded.”
Nemesis smiled at her and, because they were among friends, scratched her under the chin. Kitty sighed, replete.
This had answered a good deal, but Annabella had to wonder. “What about the wraith? I’m amazed you got him under control as quickly as you did.”
But Nemesis just shrugged. “In the end, he was only a bunch of bad emotions out to take a walk.”
Somehow, to her, it didn’t seem to be a big deal. Even if Annabella couldn’t imagine it, she supposed Nemesis was a goddess, and there were just things she took for granted which a mere witch could never understand.
“If I can ask one more thing,” Annabella went on, taking this last opportunity to ask. “. . . why the little old woman act?”
Tilting back her head and laughing, Nemesis took a moment to answer. “Can you think of any better way to have everyone underestimate you? The things I’ve been told by people who thought I was too deaf to even hear them . . .”
She shook her head.
“Besides, it’s traditional.”
Thinking into it, Annabella supposed all those little old lady detective stereotypes had to come from somewhere, but Armand distracted her from pondering any further by asking her, “How did you know that Kitty could communicate with the ship?”
Smiling lovingly to undercut what she was saying, she answered, “How could you not notice it?”
Staring at her, Armand shrugged, and Annabella went on.
“Cats have psychic senses no human can even understand. If anyone was going to be able to figure out what the ship was thinking and actually verbalize it . . .”
For a second, she glanced at Brutus, who looked to be in heaven as Hubert scratched his head.
“. . . it’s her.”
Armand smiled then kissed her, and she knew he understood.
Leaving behind this topic and looking over the room after the kiss sadly ended, Annabella noticed that the map now showed what it always had—the coasts of England and America. Thankfully, the more celestial image was gone.
Gazing further, she saw that all the ghosts did seem to be here, even if some apparently wished otherwise. Others were having reunions or conversations with new friends or old.
It occurred to her that this was the other part of Armand’s old job. “This is going to take forever to clear up, isn’t it?”
Armand’s arm was now around her, and he pulled her into a kiss with a new mouth but one which definitely still worked well.
Eventually, he pulled back with a smile. “I’ll be here to help you, though.”
Looking at him curiously, she reminded him. “You’re the akukar and the duke, not me. Aren’t you the one in charge?”
His smile widened. “I’m not the sorcerer, my love.”
And Annabella realized that her conversion was finally complete.
Chapter 26
Kitty
Apparently, ghosts didn’t like to be herded any more than cats did.
Sitting in one of the chairs Annabella had magicked up to replace the creepy thrones, Kitty watched one of her two humans going about trying to sort out the many loose ends the demon had left behind. Standing on the stage and trying to get all the spirits’ and humans’ attentions, Annabella was clearly becoming frustrated.
Strangely, Kitty was in heaven, as Armand sat in a chair beside her and held her hand. Although he put on a brave face, she knew he was going to need a while to stop shaking from tonight’s attack, but he only let Annabella and her know about his weakness.
Sighing, Kitty would have liked to put her head on his lap and have him stroke her head, although she understood that this was not what humans generally did with their non-romantic companions in public.
In front of them, Annabella was obviously getting ready to hiss.
Finally taking a deep breath, she let out a loud, “QUIIIIIIIEEEET!” which got every last ghost’s attention.
No surprise. It had echoed.
From the corner of his eye, Armand looked at Kitty, smiling as though she alone shared his secret, and she could feel just how deeply he adored Annabella.
She didn’t blame him. Annabella was hers, too.
Once everyone was watching, Annabella adjusted her volume a bit. “Good. Now, everyone is going to get a chance at their say and their judgment, so you might as well get ready to take turns.”
Her nod went to the goddess in the corner.
“And if any of you think you’re going to get past Nemesis and escape, you’re crazy.”
“Miss Janeway’s fine.”
The goddess waved her hand at her, now back to her old lady self, although those she’d already collected for justice still hung from her shawl. She had helped magic up several chairs, so the older and more incarnate of the group could sit to watch the proceedings.
The historical society still wasn’t going anywhere, utterly fascinated. Kitty had heard one of them earlier saying, “Best. Convention. EVER.”
Annabella started going through the spirits and people, then, although Kitty’s attention sometimes wandered.
It refocused when Eveline came forward with the spirit of a very strongly-built man in a worksuit of some kind. Although he appeared to be much younger than Eveline, had black hair and a beard, their relationship was obvious. They both had the same strong nose and blue eyes.
Kitty liked Eveline. She awoke some sort of race memory of fierce little old ladies who everyone thought were witches and who cherished their cats.
Sometimes, they were right about the witch thing.
In this case, Kitty doubted it, suspecting that the woman’s toughness came from having lived a life where there wasn’t any other way to survive. She was kind of like an alley cat. While gruff, though, she hadn’t lost her kindness.
Her smile shone like a light, as she held her brother’s hand. “I can’t really see him, but I know my brother’s here,” she told Annabella. “I also know he’s been wanting to escape this ship for fifty years or more.”
Smelling sympathetic, Annabella nodded.
Sighing, Eveline pleaded, “Let him come home with me. He and the poltergeist can work out who goes where.”
Annabella nodded again, as did Nemesis far in the back of the room.
It made sense to Kitty, too. The mechanic hadn’t wanted to do anything but get free. While he hadn’t been a protector, he’d also never taken part in the demon’s plots to hurt people.
Next, William and Teena came forward. “Um, if no one has any objections . . .” Teena said, looking a little embarrassed. “. . . I’d like William to come home with me, too.”
Annabella smiled. “The ship will probably miss its protector, but that’s fine. I suspect it’s even why he was supposed to hang around all these years.”
“There’s just one other problem,” William put in. “I’m not really spirit, and I’d like t
o be able to be out with Teena in the wider world.”
Clearly not seeing the problem yet, Annabella waited.
“This time period seems to require that everybody have a dozen papers to prove who they are.” He looked sheepish. “I don’t have any of that, I’m afraid.”
“Ah,” Annabella smiled at them. “Stick around. I have some friends I suspect will be able to help you there.”
Nodding to Hubert, she started to make a group of those who would need the Magical Council’s attentions.
As Kitty didn’t know about the next ten ghosts, her attention wandered. She noticed Miss Janeway in the back talking softly to Detective Chamberlin, who looked much calmer now. Their body language looked a little bit like they were considering purring.
Her attention came back when Miriam and her children came forward. Kitty was still kind of creeped out by them, but then she had never much taken to kids. Their hands were always sticky and they pulled her tail. While she supposed that wasn’t really their fault—she wouldn’t want to be judged by everything she had done as a kitten—it didn’t mean she really wanted them around.
Miriam had her hands on the back of each of her ghostly children. “I’ve promised them that, if they cross over, it won’t be too long before I’m with them again.” She looked worried. “But I don’t really know how to tell them to find their way over to the other side.”
Worriedly, Annabella looked back to Armand, who shrugged. Kitty didn’t know what to tell her, either.
Thankfully, one of the women from the historical society spoke up. “Um, I may be able to help.”
She was a solid woman in her thirties or so with a pleasant, round face, short brown hair, and extremely sensible and unfashionable shoes.
Kitty wondered about them. She had come to really like shoes. The red ones Annabella had let her have made such a satisfying clacking noise when she walked.
But this lady was used to being quiet and unseen. “Hi, I’m Doris,” she introduced herself to Miriam, who shook her hand. “I’m a hospice nurse. I don’t talk about it much since it makes people think I’m crazy, but I’ve kind of got a . . .”
She seemed to be struggling with a way to phrase it.
“. . . talent with the dead. I think I can help them find the light, if you’d like.”
As everyone did, she went on, and a moment later, there were a few extra spirits in the room, two men and a woman.
The two ghost children perked up immediately, running to one of them. “Daddy!” they screamed in unison.
A man in an old military uniform knelt down and hugged them both. Miriam looked at him, the man, and the woman with tears in her eyes.
“Ohh, I didn’t know whether I’d ever see you again.”
Watching, Kitty tilted her head. Apparently, these were the various people Miriam had been purring with in her life.
Kitty decided human relationships were very complicated. While cats had multiple partners, they didn’t usually stay with them.
Apparently, all of the woman’s various partners had met up after they were gone and seemed perfectly happy together. Miriam’s first husband was telling her, “Of course, I understand, Miri. I only ever wanted you to be happy.”
Miriam was in tears. Still, when she made promises to meet with them soon, the man who wasn’t in the uniform motioned Doris over to them.
“Can you be sure she’s okay, please? She does some great work with trans and bisexual kids who really need to know that someone older understands.”
Still speaking to the nurse, he smiled back at Miriam.
“She’s got so much life left in her. While I want to be with her again, I don’t want her to leave before she’s done.”
When Doris promised, they started to say their temporary goodbyes.
At least no one would get attacked near the pool again, although there would probably be some disappointed ghost tour visitors.
Doris helped a lot of the other ghosts, too, though Kitty started to lose interest.
Some ghosts went. Others stayed. She started to yawn.
Cover your mouth, Kitty, Armand instructed her.
Why? Cats yawned all the time and no one told them that.
Cats don’t have hands, he pointed out.
Kitty sighed. Sometimes, human rules could be very dull.
It took quite some time to sort out everyone, but finally, with a couple of new additions to Miss Janeway’s shawl and several ghosts going back to their routines on board the ship, promising to be good, they were just down to the humans and the ghosts of those who’d been killed more recently. Ivan even said goodbye to Miss Janeway before leaving to watch over them, but the imp seemed happy to have everything back to normal.
As she conferred with Miss Janeway, Annabella was joined by Armand, Detective Chamberlin standing nearby. Kitty stayed on the stage but listened through their mental link.
“So, is that everything?” Annabella wondered.
Miss Janeway looked at her. “Is it? Ask yourself this, my dear. Does it feel as though everything’s been done?”
Sighing, Annabella shook her head.
“Then what else do you think would need to be done to make this right?”
“Well,” Annabella pondered, looking over to the ghosts of the first victim and the red-haired woman who’d been killed by the wraith. “If it were possible, I’d want to take things back in time so that the murders hadn’t happened.”
Even from where Kitty stood, she smelled overwhelmed.
“But that would involve . . .”
Apparently at a loss to even detail all of it, she gave up.
“What would it involve, dear? What does the ship want?”
They looked over to Kitty, who stared at them wide-eyed. She hadn’t liked it when the ship had taken her over. If there was one thing cats hated, it was anyone or anything controlling them.
Still, the answer was right there on the surface, and she hoped they wouldn’t ask her to dig any deeper.
“It wants everything to be normal. It doesn’t want anyone to have died or to have a reputation for death and danger.”
Swallowing heavily, she felt more of the ship’s thoughts than she’d like.
“It thinks that’s the first step on the road to being scrapped.”
As everyone looked back to Annabella, Miss Janeway was smiling.
“It’s not so much undoing as putting things back the way they were, the way they should be. True, we can’t undo it all. That foolish girl who made a demonic deal will still be dead and her soul claimed as payment, but her body will be found in her dorm room, dead of unexpected but natural causes. The man who wanted to steal from the ship will still be chased off it, but this time he’ll just run down the gangplank. And these two . . .”
She nodded to the two ghosts near her.
“. . . would still be alive.”
“But doesn’t that change . . . everything?” Annabella wondered.
Miss Janeway shrugged in a way which reminded you that she was really a goddess.
“It doesn’t have to. The thief would never have stolen again if he were dead nor will he when he’s run off the ship screaming. The first victim would never have berated anyone for believing in the supernatural again.”
Looking over to him, her smile wasn’t entirely kind.
“. . . and I suspect he won’t now, either.”
Very firmly, the little man shook his head, and Miss Janeway’s gaze fell on the red-haired woman.
“As to you, your husband would have been free.”
The smile was nicer this time.
“I think that can still be the case.”
The red-haired ghost was that of an entirely altered woman. There was so much knowledge, and not a little sorrow, in her eyes.
“There are so many things I would change, yes.”
“See?” Miss Janeway smiled back at Annabella. “We’re just putting things back the way they should be. Perhaps a few people will remember wh
at happened, but they’ll be wise enough to keep it to themselves, or, at least, only discuss it with those who’ll understand.”
“But I don’t even know how to . . .” Annabella pleaded.
“Close your eyes,” Miss Janeway instructed, and somehow Kitty knew that every person in the room had heard it as though she were speaking to them alone. “Imagine the days rewinding, going back up a slightly different path. Give the ship permission to trace back to where things should have been all along.”
They did, Kitty joining them, and she wondered if everyone else could feel the swish and sway of time as it moved softly around them.
She wasn’t certain how long it took. It felt like it did when she was waiting for Armand to put down her food bowl, as though time had slowed to nothing and the space between the counter and floor were vast and endless. But, as her reason told her, it was probably really only the time it took for him to bend down.
Opening her eyes, she saw that the two previous victims were gone, as was the sign outside the Grand Salon’s door which explained where events had been relocated.
A moment after that, someone from the hotel—the man who smelled of pomp and a desire to be close to greatness—was wandering by for some reason and stuck his head in the open door.
“Um, what are you guys doing in here? It’s the middle of the night.”
Armand suddenly came to life, as though he had bathed in charm, and one of the older members of the historical society came with him.
“I’m so sorry. We were having the society’s opening get together in here, and we just lost track of time.”
His smile was nearly a spell in itself, and Kitty was very glad he’d gotten his mouth back.
“We should be gone in a half hour at most.”
Happy to be addressed by a duke, the man relented, returning on his way to wherever he was going.
Sighing, Kitty watched the group. She knew this was the life that Armand was giving up to be the duke, but it had been her very first time being included.
Sorcerers, Spirits, and Ships Page 16
