The Hungry Ghosts

by Miguel Flores

  Milly realized now, in the midst of the furniture moving and shifting, that everything was color-coded. And yet . . .

  “It still doesn’t make sense.”

  “Of course it doesn’t! Makes it all the more fun.” The floor shifted beneath them, and both the woman and Milly fell backward into seats. “Oh, I guess it’s dinnertime!” A wall fell crashing down between Milly and the woman and the giant. An entire meal awaited them upon the newly set table. There was some sort of fried fish and sliced carrots the size of discs and broccoli heads the size of actual heads and grains of brown rice the length of noodles.

  “You can tell me all about yourself while we eat. Dig in!”

  The woman picked up one of the rice grains with her hand, popped a piece of fish on it, and shoved the whole thing in her mouth. She ate with one knee up on her chair and stared at Milly expectantly.

  “It’s guhd,” she mumbled through the food, and gestured with her chin.

  Milly glanced over at Horace, who was carefully picking up one of the carrot discs with his large fingers. The giant’s hands and head looked too big for the rest of his gangly, relatively normal-sized frame. Normal if he were about twice his age, anyway.

  He smiled shyly and picked up the plate so he could offer it to Milly. “Orange?”

  Milly hesitated. What if the food was poisoned or something?

  But the smell of it was too enticing. She tugged one of the oversized carrot pieces onto her plate. It took up the whole space. She scratched her head, then picked it up from both sides and took a big bite. It was much softer than the ones in the basket. It practically melted in her cheeks.

  She sighed loudly, swallowed, then followed the woman’s lead and tried some of the fish and rice.

  Who cared if it was poisoned? It tasted delicious.

  Maybe it was the hunger clouding her judgment, but she thought this was the best meal she’d ever eaten. Although the salt and pepper flakes were as big as her teeth, the flavor didn’t seem the least bit overwhelming. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the taste and the warmth and the glorious smell that reminded her of ocean and wind and grass.

  “So,” the woman said, “who are you and why are you here and what did you do that would make Horace here call you a you-know-what?”

  Milly swallowed, and all the warmth flooded out of her. She opened her eyes again and stared at her hands. They were quivering. “I—he tried to sell me wishes, so I freed them.”

  The woman scratched absentmindedly at a mark half hidden by her sleeve. “You mean Ned? He tried to get you to buy flutterwishes?”

  “Horace saw.” The giant made extravagant motions with his hands. “Girl use fire. Save them.”

  “Is that so?” The woman giggled. “Very interesting.”

  Milly stared at Horace, trying to figure out what he was doing with his hands.

  “Tell me, little one, what’s your name? Mine is Emm. It’s short for something, but I don’t remember what. I’m Nignip’s registered puzzle-maker and resident mystery lady. I am not a witch.” She winked.

  “My name is Milly. It’s not short for anything,” she replied. Then, after a moment to think: “Is your house made of . . . magicks?”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Milly. And yes, it is! It’s very happy that you noticed.” The house’s gears churned out faster for a moment. “It was already magicks before the High Council set up their ridiculous zoning regulations, so there’s nothing they can do about it!” She cackled. “Horace said you needed a place to hide. You’re more than welcome to stay here as long as you like, though I don’t recommend staying very long.” She paused. “People aren’t very keen about you-know-whats here. Say they’re to blame for the shadow infestation.”

  “Shadow infestation?” Milly shook her head, thinking back to the hands and feet she kept seeing. “What is that, exactly?”

  “No one knows.” Emm picked at her teeth with a long branch. “Shadows started showing up after the war ended. Lots of people think it means the witches are coming back”—she winked again—“but that couldn’t possibly be it. Have you seen a witch lately?”

  Milly scratched her arm. “I’m not really sure if . . .”

  Emm put the branch away and leaned forward. “Maybe I should ask that again. My dear Milly, have you seen a witch lately?”

  Milly glanced at Horace, then back to Emm. Her hair was now a deep, dark red. The color of secrets.

  “No?” Milly said.

  “Didn’t think so!” Emm’s hair flashed to a bright white. She leaned back in her chair and put both her feet on the table. The wooden surface split apart and the floor spun a circle. When everything stopped moving, Milly saw that they were sitting side by side, facing a fireplace.

  “Tell me, Milly,” Emm said, pausing to pull out a block of wood and a small chisel. “Why are you in Nignip? Sightseeing? We are home to the world’s most lopsided egg museum, if you’re into that sort of thing. Whole thing sits on top of an empty tortoise shell.”

  “No. I . . . I’m looking for someone.”

  “Just any old someone?”

  Milly didn’t know how much information she should share. “My, um, sister.”

  “Ah.” Emm nodded her head. “Always wanted to have one of those.”

  “She’s not my real sister. We’re orphans.”

  “Is there a difference?” Emm cut into the wood with a flat-edged knife. “Anyway, bad idea to nose around here. Dangerous place for witches, not that that would matter to you. Dangerous everywhere really, but especially here. High Council’s really fussy.”

  Milly let out a long breath and finally asked the question she’d been wanting to ask this whole time. “Why do people hate witches so much, but not wizards?”

  “One of life’s great mysteries.” Emm tossed the back of her hand against her forehead in exaggerated protest and sang: “Witches like danger and strange happenstance / Wizards like borders and order in chance”—she jumped up in her chair and grew louder—“Witches like ends, friends, and bending bad rules! / Wizards like projects, profit, and tools / OH, PEOPLE OF NIGNIP, YOU SAD SILLY FOOLS / THE WIZARDS WILL ONE DAY TURN MAGICKS ON YOU!” She fell back in her chair with a frown. “I shouldn’t have improv’d that last line. The rhythm’s all wrong.”

  Milly shook her head. That didn’t answer her question at all. “Do you think they’ll find out I’m a . . . you know?”

  “Witches in Nignip?!” Emm gasped. “I’ve never heard anything so absurd. Have you, Horace?”

  Horace stepped through a wall with a washcloth in his hand. “No, ma’am.” He then returned to the other room, which looked like it was filling quickly with bubbles.

  “Anyway, I doubt they notice much of anything nowadays. Seem they’ve been more focused on stopping the shadows than hunting—ahem, I mean relocating—any witches lately.”

  “But . . .” Milly sighed. This was so frustrating. “I thought you said the shadows came because of the witches?”

  Emm rotated her wood block, and Milly saw that she was making some sort of small token. “Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. Or maybe they came because there aren’t any witches left to stop them.”

  Milly stared at her.

  Emm went back to her chiseling.

  “Are the shadows good or bad?”

  “Now that”—Emm paused to study the token in the firelight—“is an interesting question.”

  Milly waited for an answer, but Emm never continued. Instead she kept working on her project while Milly stared into the fire.

  Milly stared for a very long time until she started to nod off. She felt her chin drop a couple times and would jerk up before nodding off again. All she could think about was shadows now. Slipping in and out of the garden back home, sometimes hanging outside the windows, but never coming in. The seat beneath her grew soft. She leaned back
into it with a savage yawn. The arms of the chairs twisted into bed frames, and the back collapsed into a mattress. Her eyes started to flutter closed as the house grew dark. Before she knew it, she felt a large blanket cover her body.

  Milly dreamed she was in St. George’s garden, sifting through ears of corn during the harvest. She glanced down over the countryside and saw the little heads of farmers with their ankles in the waters, tending to their rice farms. She turned her head toward the moss-bull and smiled.

  Two pink bamboo blossoms had sprouted between its closed eyes.

  She walked up to the moss-bull and pressed her forehead against his. He was so very soft and so very warm. She wondered if he’d ever open his eyes again.

  “Wake up.” A soft breeze brushed against her exposed feet and she dug them deeper into the grass.

  “I don’t want to,” she mumbled. “I’m so tired.”

  “This is no place to sleep, little one. Wake up.”

  “Let me sleep.”

  “Milly? Milly, wake up!”

  Milly snapped her eyes open and saw a long shadow-beast hovering over her. Now she saw not just hands and feet, but a face set in the middle of the creature. The thing had coals for eyes and what looked like dry, withered grass covering its body like many threads of hair.

  Standing at the other side of the room, Emm held a crooked branch in one hand and the token in the other. Her sleeves had been pulled back to reveal bright, white stars on both her wrists. “Stay away!” she cried. Her hair burst into strands of aquamarine as a similar blue light erupted from her wand and knocked the beast into the walls.

  Milly looked down. There was no blanket around her feet, but a large transparent shadow covering her legs.

  “Umalis makisuyo.”

  A little blue strand of light broke through the shadows, and they dissipated into the floor.

  Milly scrambled up and climbed onto a nearby table. “What are they?!”

  “No idea!” Emm picked Milly up off the table. “Horace! Come, you need to get Milly out of here.”

  Horace fell through a hole in the ceiling with his lunch basket in hand. “Horace sorry.”

  “Not your fault.” Emm lifted Milly into the basket. “You let Horace know where it is you were headed.”

  “I—I need to see Hightop.”

  Horace gulped. “But he—”

  “No buts,” Emm said. “If that’s where she needs to go, you take her there. And if you have to, be ready to do a lot of running.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Milly grabbed the edge of the basket. She pulled herself halfway up. “Hold on. What about you?!”

  Emm looked back. The shadow rematerialized, liquid-like limbs re-forming out of the wall. “You, my dear, are going to find your sister.” She pressed the token into Milly’s hand. It was carved in the likeness of three wind currents braided together. As soon as it touched her skin, the moon on her hand faded away. “And then the two of you are going right back home.”

  Milly picked it up with her other hand and put it in her pocket. As soon as it left her fingers, a faint outline of the moon started to re-manifest itself. She raised her head. “Will you be okay?”

  Emm smiled, then pushed Milly’s head gently back into the basket. Her hair had faded into a dull gray. “I’ll be just fine.”

  The basket’s lid shut, and Milly felt herself get pulled off the ground.

  “Get out of here, Horace!”

  Milly felt the basket swing high and over the half-giant’s shoulder, then heard Horace’s large footsteps stomp through the house. She peeked through a hole in the bottom of the basket. The shadow had grown larger and towered over Emm’s now black-haired head. The fireplace held no light. The gears of the house groaned.

  Emm raised her wand once more. A large flash of light exploded.

  The house stopped moving.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN, PART ONE

  we’re off to see the wizard!

  Milly poked her head out of Horace’s basket as he trundled down the streets.

  From this high up, the city’s glass lanterns floated past at eye level. Their transparent orbs were filled with dozens of dancing, cool-colored lights bouncing to and fro. One glowed like burnt amethysts, the next like kernels of sapphire.

  Over Horace’s shoulder and past the lanterns ahead, Hightop’s strangely leaning tower stared down with empty windows. A single cloud sat in the sky just above it. Licks of lightning crawled through the white puffs every so often, but there was never so much as a peep of thunder.

  The closer Milly and Horace got, the more the tower seemed to lean, the bigger the cloud appeared, and the darker the streets grew.

  Shadows. All along the ground.

  These didn’t move, not even when the nearby lights flickered. They appeared to stretch out from the center of the city, as if they had gotten frozen while crawling out of the tower itself. Milly couldn’t tell whether it was her imagination, but they looked like hands and feet.

  She shuddered and sunk deeper into the basket.

  “You think Emm’s okay?” she asked.

  “Emm fine,” Horace said, and though she didn’t believe it, Milly was grateful for the lie.

  Eventually, they neared the tower and the mysterious cloud. Now she could see that the tower wasn’t just leaning. It was crooked, like a pencil broken in three pieces and then stacked back together very poorly. From beyond the tree line, an orange bead of light split the sky and painted the city in its soft glow. The people of Nignip awoke, unaware of the shadows that dissipated into the earth.

  Horace shuddered. “Spooky house.”

  Milly patted the half-giant’s shoulder. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”

  Horace straightened his shoulders and shook his head. “Horace come. Horace brave.”

  Milly paused. “Thanks.”

  He nodded at her.

  Horace put the basket down, and Milly climbed out. Holding his hand, she marched toward the tower. The half-giant lumbered just behind her until they arrived at the entrance. It was a large, oak door etched with drawings of what looked to be the wizard’s exploits. There was one of him lassoing a wind. Another of him meeting with a coven of witches. There was even one of him sitting on top of a giant, lopsided egg.*

  Milly tilted her head. “He seems to think very highly of himself.”

  “Hightop proud. Hightop”—he pointed at a picture of Hightop fighting a giant—“ ‘hero.’ ”*

  Milly shivered. This was the person she needed to help her find Cilla? What would he do if he found out Milly was a . . . ? No, she couldn’t think about that right now. Right now, her priority was getting her sister back.

  “Here goes nothing,” she whispered, and raised her fist to knock on the door.

  “Psst,” a familiar voice said.

  Milly looked up and saw Jasper’s furry head poking out from a nearby window.

  “Jasper!” she said, surprised by how happy her own voice was. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? Why are you so late?! Do you know how long I’ve been sleeping on this windowsill waiting for you to show up? Where have you been all night?”

  “I . . . got hungry.” Milly felt her cheeks burn.

  “Oh.” Jasper wasn’t as scathing as she expected him to be. “I forgot food was a thing you humans needed. Sorry.” Then he coughed and straightened up a bit. “All right, not about to get used to that. Who’s your new friend?”

  “This is Horace!”

  Horace put his hand up, like he was waiting in school for the teacher to call on him.

  “. . . Yes?” Milly said.

  “Who talk to?”

  Milly scratched her head. “Oh, sorry. This is Jasper!”

  Horace blinked. “Jasper is cat?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  “And cat talk?”

  “Yes?” Milly glanced at Jasper, then back at the giant. “I’m sorry, can you not understand him?”

  Horace shook his head. “Girl talk. Horace talk. Cat meow.”

  Jasper laughed. “Well, isn’t this delightful! Our inability to communicate must be a byproduct of someone turning me into a permanent cat! Hello, Horace. You’re a half-giant, aren’t you? You speak grass tongue really well.”

  Milly tried to ignore the first half of that spiel. “Jasper said you’re really good at speaking grass tongue.”

  Horace smiled wide. “Horace grow stone. Horace go school. Horace learn grass.”*

  “Good for you, buddy.” Jasper turned toward Milly. “Ready?”

  Milly nodded.

  “Good. Ask the big guy to lift you up to this window.”

  “What? Why?”

  “So we don’t have to bring him along, obviously. No offense to him, but we’re trying to stay quiet. We can’t have an entire half-giant wandering around with us.”

  Milly crossed her arms. “He’s coming with us.”

  “Little person—”

  “Milly. My name is Milly. And this is Horace and he is my friend and he’s coming with us.”

  Horace was looking more and more uncomfortable as the conversation went on. “Horace want talk.”

  Milly and Jasper both turned to him.

  “Jasper thinks you should stay here. I want you to come.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I guess I should have asked what you want to do.”

  Horace was quiet for a long time. He looked down at his hands and something in his eyes hardened. “Horace promise keep you safe. Horace stay. Keep watch. Wait till done.” The half-giant stood beneath the window and turned around. “Climb up,” he said. “Horace wait.”

  Milly hugged him tightly, then climbed up the half-giant’s back and into the window. “Thank you,” she said. “I promise we’ll be back soon.”

  “Okay.” The half-giant sounded nervous. “Quick please.”