Ghost Talkers

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  Ginger took a step back, reaching for the door. Merrow surged to his feet, scattering papers around him.

  She broke into a sprint and raced for the stairs to the upper floor.

  Footsteps pounded after her. With a roar, Ben spread out to fill the cellar in a wall of red rage and wind. Loose boards and debris kicked up in a maelstrom, blinding Ginger for a moment. She stumbled.

  Ginger landed hard on her knees, scraping her hands on the rough floor. Glancing over her shoulder, Ginger staggered back to her feet. Merrow was not five feet behind her, one arm raised against the onslaught of wood and paper that Ben hurled at him. The other hand held a loose coil of wire. A garrote.

  He kept coming, pressing through as boards flew at him.

  Ben would shred his remaining memories. His spirit was already dim and hazy amidst his tangible anger. Ginger had to stop Merrow while there was still something of Ben left. If she could lock him in the cellar again …

  She snatched a board from the air and ran at Merrow, screaming at the top of her lungs. Sheer surprise carried her past his guard and into range to land a blow solidly on the side of his chest. He fell back a step.

  Ginger swung again, but this time Merrow stepped to the side and dodged the board with ease. He reached past it to catch her wrist, twisting it hard. The board tumbled from her limp fingers.

  With an inarticulate cry, Ben grabbed for Merrow, and his hands passed through him. The papers and wood dropped to the ground as he tried again and again to catch hold of the man. Disregarding him, Merrow pulled Ginger toward him, twisting her arm until it cracked.

  Ginger dropped to her knees, half-blind with pain.

  Leaning over her, the hard set of Merrow’s jaw made his apparent youth a lie. He cuffed her with the back of his hand, knocking her head to the side. Ginger raised her free hand and tried to slap him, but came nowhere near his face.

  Merrow hit her again, and the room went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ginger is in the ocean, within the shelter of a canvas bathing machine. She hasn’t seen one of those since she was a little girl. The waves are muted by the structure so there is only the barest tug at the pantaloons of her bathing costume. The ocean is cool, but a welcome relief from the summer heat. Thank heavens Ben suggested a trip to Brighton.

  The stony shore is so refreshingly novel compared to the beach at home.

  A shadow passes across the ceiling of the little box as a bird wheels overhead. Ginger closes her eyes and relaxes into the embrace of the ocean. It supports her, while the bathing costume pulls her down, encouraging her to sink into the waves.

  “Oh.” Ginger raised her head and turned to look around the canvas. “I’m dreaming. Ben?”

  “Here.” His shadow appeared on the outside of the canvas.

  She sighed. It had been too much to hope that Ben would be restored to lucidity just because it was a lucid dream. Still, she reached for the door to step out of the canvas.

  “I wouldn’t.” His silhouette bent its head, a bead of water dripping from his curls. “If I were you, I would stay put.”

  She pressed her hand against the canvas. “Are you feeling better?”

  He shrugged, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “Well … that’s an interesting question, coming from a woman who has been knocked unconscious.”

  “We are discussing you.” She stirred the water with one hand, anxious to be out of the canvas box. “Now. Your state is…?”

  “Fine.”

  “Truly?”

  “Another interesting question. Is my answer true, or simply what you want me to say?” The shadow-Ben laid a finger over his lips. “Sh. Don’t answer, dearest. I couldn’t bear to hear that you are happy to have a fiancé who parrots your thoughts.”

  “Oh! You are such a tease.” She left aside the question of if he was still truly her fiancé since there was no possibility of marriage. “I am going to take that as proof that you are speaking your own mind.”

  “As you wish.”

  Ginger narrowed her eyes at his shadow. “To your original question … Merrow was pretending to be deaf. Why? It doesn’t make any sense.” Certainly, his other injuries had been real enough, like the contusion on his forehead from the explosion.

  Or from being hit by someone’s head while, say, strangling them.

  “I dunno. It made eavesdropping very easy, and it forced you to stay close to him.”

  “Which brings me back wondering why. I mean, why go around with me?”

  “Well…” Ben tilted his head, considering the question. “According to the message from my German contact, they were trying to figure out how the Spirit Corps worked. You’d be a logical person to go to for that.”

  “Are we certain that’s what they are after? Merrow translated that message and the list of suspects, which means he could have lied about either or both.”

  Ben turned so his fine patrician nose showed in profile and stroked his mustache. “My guess is that he only altered parts of it. He wouldn’t want to risk screwing up a confirmation passphrase.”

  “A what?”

  “Like the salutation we used in our letters. My dear … meant I was safe. Or, at least, thought I was.”

  “So, we are once again in a position of needing to get our hands on your notebook.”

  He laid a hand against the canvas and drew a circle. The moisture from his finger glowed in a translucent trail upon the fabric. “First step: you’ll need to wake up.”

  * * *

  The transition between sleep and waking was difficult to define. Ginger still had the sensation of swaying in the ocean, but without the warmth. Turning her head, she looked for Ben’s shadow, but her entire vision was filled with shadow.

  The pain in her head was the only thing that gave her any certainty that she was awake. She stared up and slowly gathered her senses about her. At the moment, she was not in the ocean, but lying in the dark on a hard floor.

  Ginger shifted and winced as a rope dug into her wrists. “Lovely.”

  Ben crouched next to her. Oddly, she could see him via the spirit plane while her own form was invisible. His brows were drawn together in concern. “Awake?”

  “Barely.” Ginger flexed her legs, and a hard coil of rope at her ankles told her she was bound there as well. “I wonder why he didn’t just kill me. Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Fabergé.” Ben made a low growl and tapped her forehead, his finger leaving a chill. “Fabergé—egg.”

  “Are you saying I’m expensive and gaudy? Hm. I shall choose instead to think you mean that I’m smart and contain a wealth within.”

  “Yes.” The relief in his voice concealed a sob.

  “I’ll make a note that you think so.” She pressed an elbow into the floor and struggled to sit up with her hands bound. The sense of being in the ocean returned, and she had to stop, buffeted by a tide of her own pulse in her head. “I don’t suppose there’s a blade of any sort in here, is there?”

  “He is too great a niggard that will werne a man to light a candle at his lantern; He shall have never the less light, pardie.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. “Is that a random use of Middle English, or are you suggesting that there is a candle that I might light?”

  “There is a candle that you might light.”

  As much of a relief as it was to hear Ben reply in a full sentence, Ginger was painfully aware that he had only parroted words. It didn’t matter. His soul was still Ben’s, even if he had to borrow language to communicate. “I presume there are matches too, or you would not be so cruel as to mention the hope of light.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then. Lead on. I can see you, even if I can see nothing else in this dismal room.” She inched after Ben’s glowing figure, again grateful that she wore trousers. Ginger had to assume that she was still in the cellar where they had found Merrow. In hindsight, it seemed clear that Merrow had broken into the building rather than bein
g held here against his will. It would explain why the exterior door was unlocked. Had he locked the cellar door when he heard Ginger upstairs?

  Ben stood and rested his hands on … something. For all the glow he emitted in her second sight, he illuminated nothing in the physical world.

  Gritting her teeth, Ginger sat up on her haunches and reached out. A rough wood beam met her hands. A table leg, she thought. Ginger followed it up and fumbled over the surface with her bound hands until she found a smooth, waxy cylinder embedded in the middle of Ben’s icy hands. “Candle achieved. Now … matches?”

  With a wink, Ben moved his hands only a little farther away. She put her own hands into his and felt the box between his fingers. With a sigh of relief, Ginger sank back to sit on the ground. It took a few tries before she found the best way to hold her collection.

  She bit the candle, gripped the matchbox between her knees, and struck the match with her bound hands. When the match flared to life, Ginger nearly dropped the candle with relief at the light. Hands shaking and eyes crossed, she managed to bring the match to the wick.

  With the light, Ben was dimmer, but still present. The room itself was in disarray, as if a windstorm had blown through it. Ginger pulled the candle from her mouth and said, “I shall have to call you Tempest from now on, I think.”

  “I’ll show thee every fertile inch o’ th’ island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god.”

  “Flattery. Although … if you are able to quote Shakespeare at me, could you try for something more useful?” The room still spun alarmingly, and the candle seemed to have two flames. Concussion, clearly, which was not even remotely surprising considering how hard Merrow had hit her. Tears pricked unexpectedly at her eyes. God. Merrow. She had liked him. Ginger shook her head to try to clear it. “No sharp implements? Mirrors or vases to break?”

  “Alas.”

  Tipping the candle on its side, she let wax dribble onto the floor, then secured the candle in the pool of wax. With gritted teeth, Ginger held her wrists over the flame and began to burn her way through her bonds.

  * * *

  Ginger slowed to a stop in the street, leaning against an unlit streetlamp. Ben kept reaching out, as if he could touch her. Each phantom brush of his hand sent chills along her arms and back.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “Not anything life threatening.” She smiled at him. “I would lie to you, but you’re reading my aura, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” He ran his hands through his hair and paced around her, the folds of his uniform wafting out from his body like shreds of silk.

  “Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.” Keeping her voice jaunty took almost as much effort as simply standing. She rested her forehead against the lamppost. Thank heavens the lamps were not lit at night, to make targeting the city more difficult, or she would certainly have called attention to herself by now. A woman alone at night under a streetlamp, dressed in trousers … she did not want to have that conversation with anyone.

  She needed to get to Le Havre, and walking would take too long. Who could she trust here? “Ben? Is there anyone in Amiens who you trust?”

  “Not sure.” He tugged at his hair as he circled her.

  “The chauffeuse at the hospital near Amiens would give us a ride, but it will take nearly as long to walk there then drive to Le Havre as just to walk.” She pushed away from the lamppost and headed for the train station for want of a better direction. “Maybe there will be a night train.” But that would more likely run from Le Havre to the front than the other way around.

  “Truck.” Ben lit up and beckoned her forward. “Truck driver.”

  Truck driver? She didn’t know a truck driv—yes. Yes, she did. Mrs. Richardson’s friend Cpl. Patel drove a truck and was stationed here. “You are brilliant, my dear.”

  “Stupid.” He tapped his head.

  “Well … you have been a wittier conversationalist, but the content of your ideas is not suffering. And it’s easier to get a word in edgewise now.”

  He snorted but smiled. God. His smile, all lopsided and dimpled, would break her when it was gone. He led the way down the lane, and Ginger followed.

  * * *

  The Indian Army brigades did not rank proper billets, but were housed in tents not far outside of town. Ginger paused outside the one that Ben had guided her to, acutely aware that calling on a man in the middle of the night was beyond improper. Of course, the whole bloody war was beyond improper, and she was wearing trousers, so it probably couldn’t get much worse.

  Unless he slept in the nude. Ginger closed her eyes. Please, God, do not let him sleep in the nude.

  Ginger parted the tent flap and crept inside. “Cpl. Patel?”

  He woke with a jolt, sitting up in bed. “Who is there?”

  “It is Mrs. Richardson’s friend. Miss Stuyvesant.”

  “Oh my goodness! Go outside! Go outside at once. It is not proper for you to be in here. I am a married man.” He scrambled at his bedside and grabbed a bundle of cloth. “I will be out in only a moment. Please.”

  “Of course.” Ginger ducked back out into the night and rubbed the ache in her temples.

  Ben paced around her, sometimes jumping several strides ahead. He straightened, looking back at the tent, and Cpl. Patel emerged. He wore his uniform and was tucking the end of his turban into place.

  “I am so sorry to bother you.”

  He waved a hand to stop her. “No bother. No bother at all. I was only alarmed—and, good heavens, what my wife would say if she knew.” He shuddered. “An excellent woman. Excellent. But I do not want to give her any cause to doubt me while I am away.”

  “But she—”

  “Wouldn’t know? But of course she would, because I will have to tell her what happens tonight. I would not lie to her. Not for all the world. And there is an emergency, yes? That is why you have come?”

  “I—yes.” Ginger wet her lips and faced the first person she would have to tell about Mrs. Richardson. “I am afraid that Mrs. Richardson is dead.”

  “Oh … oh, I am very sorry to hear that.” He touched the muffler that was wrapped around his neck. “You have my sincere condolences.”

  “Thank you. But that is not the emergency. I believe that someone is going to try to bomb a facility in Le Havre, and I need to get there quickly. Can you drive me?”

  Cpl. Patel grew very still and studied her for a moment. He tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “That man. The one on the road? Johnson. That is why you cannot go to an official?”

  She nodded, grateful for his perception. “Exactly.”

  Dusting his hands together, Patel nodded. “Then. We drive.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It is no trouble.” He beckoned her to follow him along the path between the neat lines of tents toward a row of vehicles that stood silhouetted against the predawn light. “It is no trouble at all.”

  “I am afraid that it is.” Ginger pressed her fingers against the headache behind her right eye. “Dragging you out of bed to drive to Le Havre … you have my sincerest thanks.”

  He smiled, his lips compressed under his heavy black mustache. Tapping his forefinger alongside his nose, Cpl. Patel glanced briefly toward his truck. His finger tapped again, and he squinted. His aura spoke of an internal struggle between the yellow-green of caution and the bright yellow of need. With a nod, as if to himself, Cpl. Patel inhaled and spoke. “About the trip to Le Havre … I would like to set you down outside the city. With apologies—deepest apologies—for not taking you all the way in.”

  “Oh. Of course.” She had no right to ask him for anything, and was grateful for what he could offer.

  Ben murmured, “Safer…”

  Cpl. Patel nodded. “Exactly so. It is safer.”

  Ginger jumped in her tracks, coming to a stop on the wooden duckboards. “Pardon me?”

  “The ghost you are travelling with…” He gave a little shrug. “I did not see him—I assume he w
as with you the other day on the road—but I did not see him. Tonight? Still half in sleep? I was between worlds, and he is … he is very present. Very present indeed.”

  “You are … you are a medium?”

  “I would use a different word, but as the English describe it—yes.” He gave another shrug, still not meeting her gaze. “My wife and I, we … I miss her very much. It is why my mind was in a position to notice your ghost.”

  Lucid dreaming. He could mean nothing else. Ginger tried to meet Ben’s gaze, but he was staring at Cpl. Patel with a hungry green mantle of envy cloaking him. As so often happened with auras, Ginger could see the emotion, but not understand the reason behind it. Knowing that Cpl. Patel could see and hear Ben kept her from asking him what was troubling him.

  “Well … to return to the original topic, setting me down outside town is perfectly fine.”

  “Thank you.” He inhaled, straightening his shoulders and tucking his chin down, as if preparing for a fight. “And now, I need to ask you for a favour—understanding that it may not be within your power.”

  “If I can grant it—”

  “Wait—” Patel held up a single finger. “Make no promises until you know the request.”

  “All right.”

  He fumbled at the collar of his uniform and pulled out the identity tags that every soldier wore. “I want the third tag for the Indian Army.”

  Ginger froze, utterly unprepared for this request. “I beg your pardon?”

  He rattled the discs, looking directly at her, and she had no doubt that he was looking at her aura. “We have only two. British men have three. We are not trained to ‘report in.’ British men—white British men are. It is not so difficult to imagine the connection.”

  She prayed to God that it was far more difficult than that to imagine the connection. The number of people who understood what the third disc on British ID tags did was numbered no more than twelve. Every soldier had the black disc, which stayed with their body after death. The red disc—that was pulled from the bodies of corpses on the battlefield for the death records.