Ghost Talkers

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  The shopkeeper bustled around the corner with a leather copy of the poems. Ginger couldn’t help but notice that she had brought them the more expensive version to peruse. “Here you are, monsieur! The finest calfskin. Very durable in the trenches.”

  Ginger took the volume from her. “Thank you. I wonder that you are able to keep your shop going.”

  “Oh, yes. England has a special interest in making sure my books get through, which is very kind of them. Literature is so important to the health of the mind. And in these times … I should thank you, sir, for your service. Indeed, I should and I do. My own son went into the trenches.” She gave a little shrug and a sad smile that told her son’s fate. Likely her husband as well.

  Merrow looked at the shopkeeper blankly, brow creased in frustration. He wet his lips and took the book from Ginger.

  She rested her hand on Merrow’s shoulder. “I’m afraid his hearing was damaged, but I hope this volume can give him some comfort.”

  Bending his head, Merrow opened the book to the title page, and held it so Ben could see. Clouds of blue-green relief fizzed off of Ben. “It’s a later printing, but the same edition as mine. Good lord. Thirty-eight thousandth impression. Still, this should do.”

  The shopkeeper made a tsk of sadness over Merrow’s condition. “I hope your people are sending him home.”

  Ginger nodded. “But I thought something for the trip would help.”

  “Of course. Of course. Literature is the best remedy for the heart and head.” She took off her pince-nez and polished them on her apron. “The best remedy.”

  And now, Ginger needed to get the shopkeeper away from Merrow so he could decode the letter. “Perhaps you could show me the novels you mentioned?”

  “Myrtle Reed! Yes, of course. Am I right that you are American? She writes the most lovely books.… And American too. I thought it would give you a taste of home.”

  Chattering happily, the shopkeeper led Ginger back to the stack of lavender and gilt volumes. The stack gave her a good view of the street through the front windows of the shop. Outside, myriad uniformed men gave a grim reminder that the shop was only an oasis—a mirage, really—in which one could pretend the war was not happening.

  * * *

  It took Merrow only half an hour to translate the message. Ben had drifted in and out of the shop. Ginger was not entirely certain if he was returning to check in or because he had forgotten why he was outside. More distressing, she suspected that Ben did not know either.

  He was inside the shop when Merrow emerged from the end of the aisle with the closed book of poems in his hand. His aura was filled with jags of ruddy gold apprehension as he beckoned to her. Ginger set down the copy of Flower of the Dusk—which really was very good—and hurried to Merrow’s side. Ben flitted around them, vibrating with anticipation. The tremors blurred the outlines of his form, making him appear even more tenuous.

  Merrow led them back to his chair and pulled out the paper he’d been working on. “I—I checked twice. It’s not—not good.”

  Ginger took the paper from him and offered him her hand so he could hear Ben. He slipped his hand into hers and the rough tracery of scabs from digging tickled her skin. Ben leaned over her shoulder, raising gooseflesh at the base of her neck.

  MAKING SEA TEARS SHELL TO ENTRAP YOUR GHOSTS ON BATTLE FIELD.

  RIGHT ABOUT LONDON TRAITOR.

  TRYING TO RECREATES YOUR SOUL BIND FOR GERMAN SOLDIER.

  SEEK GHOST TALKERS.

  WILL SHELL CAMP HOSPITAL MEN ON LEAVE TO OVERCOMES WITH GHOSTS BEFORE BATTLE.

  Ben snorted. “Well … that last bit comes a little late.”

  “At least we know it was not an isolated effort.” She tapped the first line. “Sea tears … That must mean salt—a salt bomb?”

  “Likely.”

  A barrier had to be an unbroken line, but if they salted the earth thoroughly enough it might work to constrain a ghost’s movements. But to cover the earth that thoroughly would require multiple bombings, with salt spraying like buckshot everywhere. The mediums wouldn’t survive. She ran a finger over the second line. “What does he mean about the London traitor?”

  “I don’t know.” Ben smiled at her, standing at ease, and also crouched at the base of the shelves, grey and rocking with fear.

  Merrow’s brows drew together. “It sounds like—like you made a guess. About who the…” He paused and looked around, though no one shared their aisle. “You know.”

  Ben’s smile grew more fixed, his lips drawing back impossibly far, so his teeth were like a skull’s. “I know what it sounds like. But I don’t know what my guess was.”

  “But, London,” Ginger said. “That narrows it down, or at least tells us that it isn’t someone in Le Havre.”

  “He wasn’t working alone.” Ben clutched his head, laughing. “Wonderful. I can remember that, but not who.”

  “Well, and you know it’s a man.”

  “Oh. Well. That makes it all clearer. I suspected a man in London.” The standing Ben turned in place; the crouching version of himself rocked faster. A sudden breeze rustled the paper in Ginger’s hands. “Because lord knows, there are few enough of those in the military. Why the hell didn’t I write it down?”

  “You—you did, sir.” Merrow shifted uneasily. “In your notebook. It’s not your fault that—”

  “Yes it is!” Ben flung a book across the aisle. It slapped against the shelves and dropped to the floor with a thud. “Mrs. Richardson is dead because of me.” Another book flew off the shelves. “You are deaf because of me.” Another book. “Ginger is in danger because of me.” He yanked another book off the shelf.

  The bookseller ran into the aisle and slid to a stop, staring at the book, which to her eyes appeared to float in midair. “Mon dieu!” Her gaze darted around and then landed upon the books splayed on the floor. “What have you done?”

  Ben dropped the book, and the bookseller jumped at the noise. The little woman’s aura went crimson with anger. “Out! Out of my shop.”

  “Madame, I am so terribly sorry.” Ginger bent to retrieve the books. Even if the shopkeeper was a sensitive and aware of ghosts, it would not do to draw the connection in her mind between Ginger and mediums. “I do not know what hap—”

  “No! Do not touch anything. Only leave. At once.”

  At the end of the aisle, one of the French officers appeared. “Is there a problem, Madame Pouliot?”

  “They have been throwing books.” She crouched to pick up one of the volumes, smoothing the pages.

  Now the British officer also appeared. His uniform was crisply pressed, and he wore a monocle. He narrowed his eyes at Merrow. “One of ours, what? I can have him brought up on charges of disturbing the peace.”

  “Thank you, Maj. Westrup. That is not necessary, so long as they leave.” The shopkeeper’s earlier affability had entirely vanished as she gathered the other books.

  Ginger rose and put her hand on Merrow’s arm again. “He was recently wounded, and I was hoping that the poems might help. I misjudged. I am terribly sorry, and I will take him back to the hospital straightaway.”

  “That’s for his CO to decide, now isn’t it?” Maj. Westrup stepped past the French officer and came down the aisle, tapping his officer’s cane against the floor with each step. “Come along.”

  Ben slid past Ginger and put his hands against Westrup’s chest as if he could stop him. The man walked through, shuddering at the spot of cold. Ginger kept her grip on Merrow. “Please. Surely you have seen men in his condition before.”

  “If you are referring to the shirkers, who pretend to ‘shell shock’ so they can get sent away from the front, then yes. I have.” He looked down his aristocratic nose at her, and Ginger doubted he had seen even a day of serious combat. “Now then. Am I going to have to have you both arrested?”

  “Very likely.” Ginger drew herself up straighter and mustered all the disdain she had ever used in setting down a presumptuous cad. “I am t
aking my charge and returning to the hospital. If you so much as lay a hand on us, I will write it up and report it to my MO. While you may not believe in shell shock, Sir Alfred Keogh, the Director General of Army Medical Services, very much does.”

  For the first time, a fracture of uncertainty flickered in Westrup’s aura. “Well. So long as you leave Madame Pouliot’s shop, it does not really matter. But do it promptly.”

  Which was clever of Westrup, because it made Ginger’s haste to leave look like fear of him. She kept her back straight and a grip on Merrow’s arm as she marched him out of the shop. The other patrons all turned to watch them leave.

  Ben eddied around the room, ruffling pages. “Bad. Bad. Bad…”

  It was. And stepping back out onto the war-torn street only confirmed that. Ginger steered them towards the train station. With the spy in London, it seemed as though the most sensible thing to do would be to go to Lady Penfold and have her arrange a meeting with Brigadier-General Davies. Even if the spy had compatriots, Davies could not be one of them, or the Germans would already have the answer to where the mediums were located. And if their path took them to London itself, they would have to pass through Le Havre to get there. Either way, the next step would be to catch the train.

  Merrow glanced over his shoulder. “Damn—sorry, ma’am. Only, Westrup is following us.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ginger only just managed to restrain the urge to look behind her. Ben, however, had no such need for restraint and zoomed back. She grimaced, hoping he would not do anything foolish to Westrup.

  Ginger bent her head to Merrow, though he was hearing her through the spirit plane. “Let us hope that he is only following to ensure that we return to the hospital. Once we reach the train station, we will simply take the train toward Le Havre instead of toward the hospital.”

  “I can—I can knock him down, if it comes to it. But—but I’d rather not.”

  “And I would rather you didn’t have to.” What was Ben doing? That made her want to look around more than any desire to see Maj. Westrup. The station was at the end of the street. They just had to get on the train. Once they were back in Le Havre, she could get advice from Lady Penfold on what to do next, and … and it would give her a chance to tell the circle about Mrs. Richardson.

  She dealt with death every day and knew, better than most, that there was life beyond this event, and yet the hole that Mrs. Richardson left behind was immense. Ginger blinked to clear the stinging in her eyes.

  And then blinked again. “Oh, bloody hell.”

  Merrow jumped a little at her very unladylike curse and then echoed it when he saw the same problem ahead. Lyme, the blond from Reginald’s crew, was standing outside the station holding a piece of paper and scanning the crowd. He had two military police with him.

  “Ben, if you can hear me, please come back.” She was less concerned with her own safety, because they would be looking for a red-haired woman in a Spirit Corps uniform. In her nursing uniform, her hair was thoroughly covered. But Merrow was a problem.

  If Westrup was still behind them, then a deviation from course to avoid the train station would likely cause him to raise a complaint, and that would draw the MPs’ attention. Either course would lead to them being apprehended. Ginger scanned the street, looking for some distraction. Fruit vendors, a butcher, a clothier, a small café, automobiles, nurses, soldiers, and more soldiers. Scattered among them were more red-capped MPs.

  “We could split up and try to board separately.” Merrow tugged his hat a little lower on his head.

  Being in hospital blues might help, but Lyme would certainly remember his face. The trick, then, was to make sure that they didn’t look at his face. Ginger eyed the butcher, and one of Ben’s memories flashed through her head. “Have you any money at all? Enough to buy a bit of steak?”

  “Um … yeah.” He fumbled in his pocket with the hand she didn’t hold. “I should’ve just bought the poems, but I didn’t figure we’d need them that long. And, well, travelling light. And—why steak?”

  “Or liver. That’s probably got more blood in it, actually.” She steered Merrow toward the butcher shop, hoping Westrup would think she was picking up something for the trip. “I want to adjust your bandages and add some blood to obscure your face. Ben did it once when he was behind German lines.” Only he had used the blood from a corpse.

  A spike of alarm punctured Merrow’s composure for a moment, and then he wet his lips and nodded. “All right. A fellow ought to—ought to be used to blood by now.”

  As they reached the door, Ben appeared in front of Ginger and nearly made her stumble. “Sorry.” He put out his hands to catch her, as if that would do any good. “What’s going on?”

  “Reginald has men at the station,” she murmured.

  His head whipped around to stare at the station, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. Great wings of fire and jet spread out, fanning the air with his protective rage. “I’ll kill him.”

  “I’d rather you just find out what’s on the paper, dear.” Ginger risked a glance back up the street. There was the damned major from the bookstore. “Come along, Merrow. Oh, and could you cover your eye as if you’ve been punched?”

  Ginger could not quite bring herself to walk through Ben, so she stepped a little to the side to go around him. With a hiss, Ben soared off down the street, trailing anger after him like the wake of a ship.

  She pushed the door to the shop open. The trill of the little bell called the butcher to the counter, or rather the butcher’s wife. The shop was spotlessly clean, and here, Ginger could see more of the effects of the war. They had very little meat for sale, and the prices were outrageous. Le Havre had better stores, but then they were the port where the convoys brought supplies into France. Here, so close to the front, most of the local provisions must have gone to the soldiers. What little was available had prices jacked up to take advantage of the officers fresh out of the trenches.

  Still, she put on an efficient smile. “Good afternoon, madame. Do you have a scrap of beef? Something only fit for the dogs.” Ginger glanced at Merrow, who dutifully had his hand clapped over his left eye. “He got hit by a cart, and I want to keep the swelling down.”

  The butcher’s wife was a tiny woman with her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. Lines of strain were etched under her eyes. She pursed her lips. “No scraps.”

  “I’m sure your cuts are of the highest quality.” Though, in fact, Ginger had had kitchen staff to handle the butcher before the war, and she still wouldn’t know a good cut from a bad one in the raw. “But this is only to—”

  “I mean that there is no waste. The army.” The butcher woman jerked her chin toward the door, as if that explained everything. And perhaps it did.

  “Then your least expensive, please.”

  With a snort, the woman slapped a piece of waxed paper on the counter and reached into the cooler. She drew forth a fatty, gristly mess and dropped it into the middle of the paper. “Voila.”

  It was disgusting, and perfect. “Thank you. And might I buy your cloth as well?”

  The butcher looked down at the bloody rag she was wiping her hands on. “This? Eh. I will get you a clean one.”

  “No, no—that one is perfect. No point in soiling a fresh one, since it will just get more blood on it.”

  She paid the outrageous price for the gristle and the rag, then sat Merrow down on the window ledge. With the efficiency she had acquired in her time nursing, Ginger wrapped the bloody cloth around his head with the gristle packed near his eye. A bit of it peeked out, which was gross and effective.

  Ben pushed through the wall of the butcher shop just as she was finishing. He made a sound of revulsion that was, in the moment, deeply satisfying. “What the devil are you—oh … clever.”

  She glanced at him and raised her brows. With her head turned away from the butcher, Ginger mouthed, “What did you find out?”

  He shook himself, settling the folds of
his attention around his form. “Lyme has Merrow’s picture, and yours.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Specifically, he has my photo of you.”

  “Are you certain? I did have more than one copy made.”

  “And how many did you inscribe To my dearest love? I carried it in my breast pocket. Always.” Ben glanced over her shoulder. “The butcher is starting to wonder why you’re still here.”

  “Can you read her mind?”

  “No, but I can read a scowl.”

  Ben slid toward the door. “I’ll scout ahead. You two come slow behind me.”

  Ginger nodded and took Merrow by the arm. He was rigid under her grip, and his aura had gone dark with fear. With a nod to the butcher’s wife, Ginger let Merrow hold the door for her, and then they both stepped out onto the street. The major from the bookstore was standing a little down the street, pretending, not very well, to be window shopping. Though what use he had for lady’s handkerchiefs, Ginger could not imagine. Still, it meant he was not looking directly at them when they started down the street, so, hopefully he would not notice the alteration in Merrow’s appearance.

  Ben zipped through the crowd, causing a horse to shy as he brushed past it. He circled Ginger and Merrow, all spikes and plates of red armour. “There’s a group of walking wounded, coming down the cross street. If you can bear over that way, I don’t think the idiot behind you will be able to object when you join them.”

  “Thank you.” And, of course, being in a group would make disappearing that much easier.

  Ginger worked her way to the left side of the street, where another cut diagonally into the one they were on. Everything funnelled into the train station at this point. The stream of men in their hospital blues stood in marked contrast to the seam of khaki surrounding the station.

  Her heart raced in her chest and sweat beaded the back of her neck, despite Ben’s cool presence. This was oddly more nerve-racking than crawling through the listening trench. There, at least, she had the benefit of others’ memories to know the exact range of things that might go wrong. Here, she had only her own resources—and, with luck, Ben’s observations—to give her a bit of warning.