Ghost Talkers

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  Ginger ground her teeth together, focusing on the deliberate tension in her jaw. She had work to do, and she knew full well that the spirit plane was not all beauty and light. Around them, the souls of soldiers who had died meaningless deaths swirled in unrest. Even with her soul pulled tightly into her body, she could feel their unease prickling her skin.

  They wanted to do something useful.

  “Stop here a moment, would you?” Ginger squeezed Edna’s arm. “I need a circle. Aunt Edie, would you anchor me?”

  Lifting her head with a sniff, Lady Penfold pivoted on her heel. “You are not seriously contemplating leaving your body, are you?”

  “I am just going to push out a little.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then I will do it anyway, and I am too tired to stay anchored.” Ginger tightened her grip on Edna and reached for Mr. Haden. He stepped forward and placed his hand in her left with a nod.

  His warm, familiar calluses and the slight scratch of his fingerless gloves were the first things that had felt comfortable since Ginger had awoken. She squeezed his hand, and the wool seemed to carry a whiff of Mrs. Richardson. Edna stayed in Mrs. Richardson’s spot on Ginger’s right, and Joanne stepped up to take her hand. Lt. Plumber balanced on his crutches, joining hands with Mr. Haden.

  There was a gap where Helen should be. With a glare, Lady Penfold stepped into place. “You are as stubborn as your mother was.”

  “I take that as a compliment.”

  “I meant it as one.” Deftly, her aunt stitched the circle together, and all of them put their weight on Ginger, even before she reached out.

  True to her word, Ginger tried to stay just past the surface of her skin, even though the currents tugged at her. It would be so much easier to let go and drift in the lemon gold warmth. Ginger looked about them.

  Lost men. The yard was full of lost men, wanting an opportunity to fulfill their duty. Ginger drew strength from the circle and projected her words into the yard, filling the space between the salt barriers. “Gentlemen!”

  The swirling slowed, and they turned, the silvery blue-green of curiosity leaping like a spark from soul to soul.

  “I need some volunteers to help me stop a traitor. I want to be clear and honest that, even as ghosts, this has the potential to cause you harm.”

  “Getting shot at is what we signed up for, innit.” A private solidified in front of her, hat cocked on the back of his head, well out of regulation alignment. “Don’t see as how it matters if we’re living or dead. Got a duty to do.”

  “Right you are.” A captain—the one she had spoken to before, she thought—appeared out of the mass of ghosts. “All right, men. Any who want to come, form up.”

  The swirling mass changed, becoming regular squares of souls as orders sparked bright orange across the yard. They had died in their sleep, en masse, and entire battalions haunted the courtyard. The majority of them moved into formation.

  “Thank you.” In the distant mortal plane, Ginger had an awareness of someone weeping.

  “What are our orders?”

  “Do you know what a poltergeist is?”

  * * *

  Ginger is leaning back against Ben’s chest, the remnants of a picnic spread at their feet. An ant is crawling at the edge of a puddle of honey that had spilled on one of the porcelain plates. Ben is playing with a strand of hair at the base of her neck.

  Ginger wrinkles her nose and stretches against him. “If the servants weren’t pretending not to watch, I might just fall asleep here.”

  “Would you prefer for them to watch boldly?”

  “I’d prefer for them not to be here at all.” She reaches up and lays a hand on his cheek. It is coarse with stubble, which is odd, since she has never seen him less than perfectly groomed. “But that would be wicked indeed.”

  “I should not object to a little wickedness.” He nuzzles her neck. “But I am afraid that you need to wake up.”

  Ginger sat up. “Oh! Am I lucid dreaming? Are you really here?”

  “Dear—I am so very sorry, but I need you to wake up now.”

  Her aunt was shaking her. Ginger blinked at her and shook her head. The field spun, tipping with the motion. Ginger closed her eyes and rested her head back against Ben’s chest with a thunk. “Ow.”

  She sat up again, her hair catching on the bark of the tree she had been leaning against. Her aunt knelt at her side, with Brigadier-General Davies standing behind her. Ginger squinted up at them. “Sorry. Are we ready?”

  The brigadier-general’s aura was green-brown with doubt. He leaned over to Lady Penfold and murmured something. Ginger could not hear him, but the question was clear enough.

  “I am perfectly fit—” She stopped at her aunt’s glower. “At any rate, I am fit enough for this.”

  She drew her feet up so they would not knock over the picnic things, then stopped. That had been a dream. Ben was little more than her own memory of him, embodied in a spot of cold at her shoulder.

  She swallowed and looked to her left, where a hand in fingerless gloves rested on her arm. Mr. Haden gave her a little smile. “We’ve got you. Don’t you worry about that.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced over to Edna, who sat on her right, also maintaining contact with her. At least two people had kept contact with Ginger since she had returned to her body, keeping her anchored. “Thank you both.”

  The young woman merely ducked her head, but her aura was ruddy amber with pride.

  The brigadier-general tugged on his mustache. “Well … the men you requested are here. I must say, I did not know when I agreed to this that you were requesting an Indian company. This is highly irregular.”

  “Oh for pity’s sake, George. I can overlook this in London, but not at the front. We need men who we are certain aren’t compromised.” Lady Penfold sniffed at him. “I suspect that the Germans will have overlooked them for the same reasons that you find their deployment ‘irregular.’”

  “It’s not that they are Indians—it’s just that it’s a group of drivers. We need combat veterans for this.”

  “And I am that, sir. I am very much a veteran.” Beyond the brigadier-general, Corporal Patel ground his rifle on the earth. “I fought at Gallipoli. I am only driving a truck because no one will send me to the front here.”

  “Well, it’s not the front, but I need a medium among the men we are sending forward.” Ginger shifted, but her legs were still strange and unfamiliar. “Forgive me for not rising. Aunt Edie, did you get the discs I asked for?”

  “Yes … but I don’t see why it matters; don’t they have ID tags already?” She fished a bundle of blue tags from her handbag. “And none of these have the names on them.”

  “We’ll take care of that.” Ginger waited until Patel had them in hand. “Have each of your men write their full names on a tag, spit on it, and then put the disc on the chain with their others.”

  “Spit?”

  “Technically, any bodily fluid will work, but there has been enough blood shed in the world already.” Ginger let her spirit drift a little out of her body. “Now, allow me to introduce you to Capt. Wentworth. He’s in charge of our ghost army. They will serve as your scouts.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ginger sat with the full circle anchoring her. They had changed their usual positions so that Edna sat next to Lt. Plumber now, and Aunt Edie sat in Helen’s spot. The ghosts had found Helen just outside of Le Havre, in a home in the middle of a field pockmarked by artillery fire. The German mediums held her in the middle of a full circle.

  Ginger waited as Patel’s men crept through the field surrounding a simple farmhouse. Germans dressed in French and British uniforms mustered in a wobbly circle around the perimeter. Four machine guns punctuated the line, each covering a quadrant of the surrounding field. They had not had time to dig proper trenches, or bring up significant supplies. But the Germans did not need to hold their ground forever: just long enough for Schmitt to get answers out
of Helen.

  A streak of burnt-orange haste zipped across the field and stopped in the centre of the circle. A young private, with a spatter of freckles across his nose, formed from the haste. He saluted Ginger. “Pvt. Tucker reporting, ma’am. Everyone is in position.”

  “Thank you, Private.” Ginger briefly turned her attention to the corporeal world. The Indian company had spread thin all around the farmhouse, just out of range of the German guns. The ghosts were distributed likewise, but more heavily on the far side. “Brigadier-General? They are ready, at your command.”

  His aura was a seething ball of tension that roiled around the outside of the circle. “Tell them to proceed.”

  Private Tucker saluted. “I heard, ma’am. I’m learning to push into the mortal world.”

  “Save your energy. And remember—only one act of poltergeisting per ghost. It’s too dangerous for your souls to do more.”

  “We’ll do our duty, ma’am.” And then he whizzed away, staying low to the ground as he sped off to find Patel, who would relay the order to attack to the living and the dead.

  She had no doubt that they would do their duty. It was the concern that they might do too much that worried her.

  Machine gun fire chattered from the far side of the farmhouse as the attack began. If the men of the Indian company returned fire, Ginger could not hear it from her position. She felt much of the stress of command in that moment just after the orders had been given. They could not be called back or halted now without endangering not only the rescue effort, but the men already committed to the attack. And yet the attack crawled along, drawing fire from the Germans but otherwise seeming to have little effect.

  “My God.” The brigadier-general paused in his tense pacing, facing the farmhouse and looking off toward the attack on the far side. Whole companies had sprung out of the crater-pocked field, visible from this distance only as a seething mass of troops. They advanced on the farmhouse, closing ranks, moving no faster than a steady marching pace.

  German fire intensified from the direction of the farmhouse, and shouts of alarm punctuated the rapid-fire shooting. Despite the intensifying firing, the line did not waver. Hardly a surprise, given that it was composed entirely of uniforms stuffed with straw, propelled by ghost soldiers.

  “They can’t have much ammunition, can they?” Lt. Plumber’s aura trembled with a growing doubt. “They weren’t really planning to hole up there, after all.”

  “We don’t know what they were planning, or what uses they might have had for this place.” The brigadier-general resumed stomping around the circle, the spectacle of the poltergeisting battalion palling. “If they shoot through this ruse of ours, we might have to wait them out.”

  “But, Helen. They have a full circle working on her.” Ginger paused, seeing the brown of his incomprehension. “They can pry into her mind and get the information without her willing participation.”

  He tugged his mustache and stared toward the trees, over which the plumes of dust and smoke still rose. “In that case, we’ll drop a bomb on them if we have to.”

  The circle flared with rage around him. Joanne rose to her knees. “Over my dead body! You don’t just bomb someone because it’s easier—”

  “It’s in the interests of national security. The knowledge that she has is too valuable to fall into enemy hands. If we have to sacrifice her to prevent it from getting out, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Lady Penfold sniffed. “My dear brigadier-general, I have a great deal of affection for you, but you are an idiot. They are mediums. Killing them won’t keep them from reporting what they’ve learned.”

  More shouts went up around the farmhouse, alarm growing. The Germans might be wearing uniforms impregnated with salt, but that seemed to be the extent of their preparation for dealing with the dead. The machine-gun fire ramped up, then suddenly stopped. More frantic shouts, and guards began running from the far side of the farmhouse to the near side, then back again.

  The machine-gun fire picked up again, yet steadily the straw soldiers advanced. The Germans shot wildly, discipline gone from their defense. A blanket of dark terror covered them.

  The orange streak of Pvt. Tucker zipped toward her. He was shouting as he came, “They’re breaking, they’re breaking!” When he fetched up in the circle, the light of exhilaration was in his aura. The ghosts had joined the battle. “Captain says now’s the time to make your move.”

  Ginger fell into her old role with ease. “Casualty report?”

  “Two men injured, but none killed. Five spirits were shredded when they poltergeisted to lift the the living fellows clear.”

  Unease rippled through the cold spot at her shoulder. A whisper of Ben hissed “Shit!” in her ear.

  “Did they go beyond the veil?” They had told the ghost soldiers that their business was completed if they had to poltergeist in the line of duty. Some men, like Ben, had a different sense of duty.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She sighed with relief. “Is there a clear path to the house?”

  “It’s getting that way. There’s only two guards left watching this side, and they’ve pulled all the machine-gun ammunition to the far side.”

  Ginger relayed the information to the brigadier-general.

  “Very well. Launch the real attack.” He grunted and bounced on his toes, still surveying the scene.

  “Run to tell Cpl. Pa—” But Pvt. Tucker had already gone, the orange streak not heading to the far side now, but much closer.

  Fewer than a hundred yards ahead of them, between the circle and the farmhouse, more straw soldiers rose up from the ground. The balance of the Indian company rose with them, trotting across the cratered field. Frantic shouts came from the guards on the near side of the farmhouse, but the wild firing on the far side all but drowned them out. Close by, the pop and crash of trusty Enfield rifles filled the air. One German stood as though to run, then flopped over as soon as he was upright. He did not stir, but his soul drifted free and vanished beyond the veil.

  Gunfire rippled up and down the advancing line, and Ginger recognised a catastrophic flaw in the plan. Pvt. Tucker would not return to relay new orders unless the situation changed. The men advancing were instructed to kill the guards—all of the guards—with orders to try to avoid hitting the house if at all possible. But if one of the German mediums had broken Helen, he could simply run out into the teeth of the fire and be cut down, his spirit free to return across the German lines and report to a medium there.

  “We need to follow the line of assault and get closer.” Ginger stood, still gripping the hands to either side of her. The others struggled to stand without toppling over, and Lt. Plumber—his aura spoke of eagerness, agreement, but he could not cross the field with his crutches and maintain contact with the circle at the same time. And then there was the brigadier-general.

  “Absolutely not. I will not hear of it!” He stomped up behind her, and she sensed that only a lifetime of training kept him from putting his hands on her shoulders and forcing her to sit once more. “It’s dangerous enough for you to be this close to the fighting.”

  “We must, if we are to capture Schmitt alive. We cannot let him be killed and escape back to Germany with what he knows.” Ginger broke away from the circle, and from the brigadier-general, who screamed his disapproval. She set out from the little hilltop they had occupied, hurrying down the gentle slope to the depression where the main force of the Indian company had lain hidden.

  A hand grabbed at Ginger’s. She pulled it away, but then Edna snatched Ginger’s hand back and held tight. Another hand, Mr. Haden’s, grabbed her from the other side. Rather than hauling her back—something she doubted she could physically resist at this point—they hurried along with her in the wake of the attack.

  “We cannot let you go alone, ma’am.” Edna twined her fingers in Ginger’s. “You must stay anchored.”

  “Thank you.” Ginger forced them into a trot across the broken field, her legs b
urning immediately with the exertion. The tang of cordite hung in the air, along with the scents of freshly churned earth and dry straw. An Indian soldier slipped down into a crater, and she feared he had been shot. But then she saw him taking aim and squeezing off a single shot. There was a cry from an upper window of the farmhouse, and a man and his rifle tumbled out the window.

  A sniper. Had he been aiming at her? Feeling very exposed, she swallowed against the dryness in her throat.

  They caught up to the advancing line just as they reached the farmhouse. Most of the ghosts had gone, rising through the veil, their energy expended by moving the straw dummies. But the Indian company, drawing together, was big enough to surround the farmhouse all on their own now. The Germans who had been on guard now all lay on the ground, dead or dying.

  “I must get through,” she shouted, but it came out as more of a croak. A simple trot of a few hundred yards had nearly done her in.

  “Here now! You lot.” Mr. Haden bellowed like a carnival barker. “The lady needs through.”

  The men in front of them parted, letting her and her anchors by.

  She almost felt as though she could just float away at this point, anchors or no, and leave this weary body behind. But she needed her body to be able to do anything for Helen, so she pressed on.

  A guard lay slumped on the ground near the rear door of the farmhouse, his back a scarlet ruin. He had been hit in the chest several times, and his back had been opened by the exiting bullets. As much as she had seen of the dead, the freshly empty bodies were new to her, and Edna and Mr. Haden besides. In their shock, she was able to pull away from them and reached down to grab the pistol the man had in a leather holster on his belt.

  Cpl. Patel stood at the door, looking dusty and sweaty, but otherwise unharmed. She indulged in a flash of relief, then nodded to him. He pulled the door open and she entered, the big Colt handgun held in front of her. It was at once strange, yet familiar from other people’s memories. Edna and Mr. Haden protested behind her, but she had to get to Helen, had to stop this before it was too late. Schmitt need not run into the battle to die and carry his secrets off; he could just as easily die by his own hand, here in the farmhouse.