Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

by Pip Ballantine

  “Wellington Thornhill Books, Esquire, and Chief Archivist of Her Majesty’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences,” he stated. He glanced over his shoulder at Mrs Marsh. “And I am currently on holiday, but that little detail isn’t your fault.”

  “I am very glad to meet you, sir,” Bettina breathed, needing so dearly to impress him, “and very glad for your Ministry that has taken to keeping this office alive, for I owe it my life, sir. Orphan girls don’t always last long on city streets, sir.”

  Books opened his mouth as if to say something, but Mrs Marsh pulled him by the arm, facing him towards the dragonfly on the scale and the results it had produced, results Bettina couldn’t begin to understand or tabulate.

  “Sir,” Mrs Marsh murmured. “Look at her data. She’s taken down more numbers and details on ghostly occurrences in one day than we have in three years.”

  Books examined the printouts that had been made when the clicking, whirring device had attached to the spider-like needles and spool of paper. He made several noises that Bettina deemed to be sounds of being impressed.

  “But that’s not all, Mister Books,” Marsh murmured. She picked up the dragonfly and turned it towards Bettina. The reader clicked and whirred and something lit. “That.” Books’ expression was suddenly similarly amazed. There was something terribly unsettling about it. Mrs Marsh placed the dragonfly upon the desk between them.

  “What is it?” Bettina asked, picking up the dragonfly in her hands once more, wondering what upon it could cause such a reaction. She didn’t know, she wasn’t an expert at what all the lit markings along the head and wings meant, but something was flashing, and her heart was in her throat for fear of what it might mean and she fumbled for words. “Whatever I may have done, I am so very sorry. I never meant to offend, I’ll learn, and quick, whatever I—Please don’t cast me out—”

  “No-no-no, my dear Miss Spinnett, you have done nothing wrong at all,” Books murmured, as if he were afraid of scaring off something he was observing in the wild. “What a special case you are indeed. I’ve never encountered anyone or anything like you. So solid. So powerful.”

  Bettina smiled broadly. No one at the orphanage had ever found her unique, certainly not particularly useful. “Powerful?” She blushed. “I don’t know about that, sir...”

  “That’s why you’ve had such luck with the spirits, unlike anything we’ve encountered. You understand. Though I’m having a hard time understanding the physical properties of this case. These results are unprecedented.” Books whirled to Marsh, his eyes wide and excited.

  “She is unprecedented,” Mrs Marsh said, her face flushed.

  “What do you mean?” Bettina asked. “I understand what? Unprecedented why?”

  Books whirled back to stare at her, approached, placed a firm hand upon her shoulder and stared at his own hand. Then he looked at Mrs Marsh. They shared some sort of look, a dawning of surprise. And then sadness. They turned that look upon Bettina and she suddenly felt very small.

  “Oh, no,” Marsh murmured, her sturdy hand went to her mouth, tears springing into her wide eyes. “You don’t even know, child...”

  “What...” Bettina murmured, dread filling her distantly growling stomach. “What don’t I...”

  Bettina felt her heart sink in a sickening realisation.

  She thought of being turned out of the orphanage. She hadn’t been well the day prior. A fever. She’d risen and gone about her morning, but no one had spoken to her, and that was all right. No one usually did. When she’d waved at Sister Anne, the nun started on seeing her. Bettina now understood why the Sister had said:

  “Go on now, Bettina. You can’t stay here anymore. You must move on.”

  Bettina had looked at the floor, unable to face Anne, knowing she’d aged out of the orphanage long ago and that this day would eventually come. But in that moment, she’d thought Anne meant her age. No. She’d meant her spirit.

  She was dead.

  The fever had claimed her.

  She’d been out counting her own kind.

  A searing pain coursed through her body. Or whatever constituted a body.

  Suddenly Mr Books’ hand that had been placed upon her shoulder dropped to the side, with no mass to support it. The beautiful dragonfly device slipped from her hand. Through her hand. She watched as her solid hand became less so, her own colours and those of the carpeting blending together.

  Books bent to catch the dragonfly before it hit the floor, but it jostled in his hands and shattered, the pieces seeming to linger languidly in the air. One of the fine antennae snapped off and tapped quietly onto the floor next to two large teardrops that fell from Bettina’s paling face.

  “You didn’t know you’d gone, dear girl, that’s what,” Books murmured gently, seeming not to care about the device, wholly more concerned with Bettina, his eyes wide as he looked back up at her. “That’s why. Not until now.”

  “I’m so sorry, my child,” Mrs Marsh choked.

  Bettina walked backwards. No, it was more like floating. A few more tears splashed upon the floor. All that could manifest anymore, evidently, was her sorrow.

  “No. Stay, please stay Miss Bettina,” Mrs Marsh gasped. “Don’t go.”

  “I...I can’t...I don’t...know what to do...what do I do?” Bettina felt all her faculties drain from her. Her floating form took to the chair again but didn’t feel the seat beneath her.

  “Do you want to stay?” Mrs Marsh asked. “Do you want to help us?”

  “Mrs Marsh,” Mr Books began with a soft tone, “This... girl... is not a replacement for Katie. Please. You can’t think of her like that...”

  “I...I know, sir, I shouldn’t...” Mrs Marsh nodded, that stoic face suddenly red and ashamed, tears falling as she turned to stare agonisingly at Bettina. “See, you’re a lot like my girl, gone from this world about your age,” Mrs Marsh explained. “Trouble is my little Katie doesn’t haunt me. Wish she would.”

  Bettina felt her sense of self spin. Maybe she could stay on. For an adventure. For as long as it might last. Why not?

  “Well, I... I do like it here,” Bettina whispered. “And I like the... ghosts. My fellow kind... I suppose my perspective could be useful?”

  Books lowered himself to one knee, looking up at her with a delighted smile on his face. “It would be most unprecedented in the intelligence community to have a ghost agent,” Books said, trying to keep a casual tone but it was clear he was utterly captivated by the concept. “But you’d have to want it, young lady. Truly want it. You were mistaken for human because you had no idea of your state. You have to will yourself into being.”

  “But…you want me to stay?” Bettina asked. She’d never had a home. She’d never had a family. She’d never been taken in. Never wanted.

  A yearning so pure welled up inside of her. She wanted this indeed. This hope. This belonging. A distinct new happiness filling an old empty void. Suddenly, she was conscientious of the floor. She understood what was solid and what was shade and the coexistence therein.

  “Yes!” Mrs Marsh exclaimed, all stoicism cast aside, a mother longing for a child, no matter what kind of state that child was in...

  Bettina smiled, rose and glided to the door. As she did she heard Mrs Marsh hiss a breath, as if she was about to beg her not to go again. Bettina turned, feeling movement in a new way. It was interesting, fascinating. And yes, it was quite fun.

  Bettina would, most assuredly, tell them all about it.

  “I don’t need the device,” Bettina replied. “I just need to be with them. My kind. And then I’ll come home and tell you everything.”

  It was the first time Bettina had ever said “home”.

  And she had never felt so alive as she floated through the door and out onto bustling, ever-so-haunted New York City.

  A Feast of Famine

  Karina Cooper

  Galway, Ireland

  Winter, 1879

  Miss Lobelia Snow was a natural. As providence wou
ld have it, she had been born with the best of all the world about her: the exquisite appearance inherently guaranteed by excellent breeding, the effortless carriage of one confident with her place in the world, the fortunes of a well-heeled family, an intellect considered to be both clever and engaging, and an uncanny grasp of social interaction.

  She was, in a word, gifted, and well did London’s society know it.

  So it was the great scandal of 1865 when at the accomplished age of fifteen, Miss Snow announced at her coming out that she would not be marrying at all, and would all the fuss about it please turn to her four sisters?

  What furore this caused became the toast of the gossiping town, yet there was no hoped-for announcement of marriage that year, nor at the next. After three elegant but remarkably unsuccessful seasons, Miss Snow was declared with some heartache to be firmly on the shelf.

  Some years later, only a fortnight from her thirtieth birthday—and the highly anticipated label of hopeless spinster—Miss Snow could claim herself in possession of three rather notable accomplishments. The first being her role as indulgent aunt to seventeen nieces and nephews, the lot of which appeared to be rather more agile, precocious, and sticky than society would have led her to believe children to be. All the better to visit with gifts and spun sugar, then leave them with their rightful parents.

  The second accomplishment being the ring worn upon her right hand. With no insignia in place, nor any particular marker upon it, none but those who knew what to look for would recognise it as a tracking ring from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences—her truest and most lasting love.

  The third accomplishment, Miss Snow reflected as she alighted from the one-man mail-coach kind enough to carry her from Dublin to Galway, was her history. Comprised of a long string of successes, Miss Snow’s resume was a laudable one, her reputation that of an agent who could be trusted to get a job done. This would explain why she found herself currently in possession of the name of a man who was to be her partner in this current endeavour, written inside a mandate from Director Fount:

  Have received word of plague in Galway. Mirrors historical activities, research enclosed. Travel immediately. Rendezvous with resident agent T. Kensington Kennedy.

  Director Fount, if indeed he had written the letter, was taciturn to the point of rudeness. More likely, this had been transcribed by another, and delivered post-haste.

  Nevertheless, Miss Snow was not an agent who questioned her orders. So prepared, she waved cheerfully at the skeletally thin old man who’d manned the levers guiding the mail coach and twitched her coat more firmly into place about her neck. The cold in Galway was bitingly refreshing, and she expected her cheeks to bloom as rosy as that of the hearty Irish folk who lived here.

  If a majority of said hearty Irish folk staring at her seemed to be doing so rather too hard, Miss Snow acclimated it to the slim line of her trousers and the impact of her smile—a force to be reckoned with on any day, or so her many suitors had claimed.

  That she was British, and therefore the enemy in these trying times, was all part of the game.

  Caitriona Kensington Kennedy was a girl who took after her da more than most would like. She was taller than most lads, burdened with his wide shoulders and thick arms—which was useful for the work she’d helped him complete, to be sure, but not at all what a lass should be known for.

  That the two of them, father and daughter, had crafted such delicate items as to be courted the world ‘round did not seem to matter to the residents of Galway. She should have been married long ago, they said, and did a disservice to her father’s upbringing in saying it.

  At least, she’d been given a reprieve from such concern while she’d tended to her da, even if it was a reprieve she would have given near anything to not have.

  While the tensions between the farmers and their British landlords had ensured that most tongues remained fixated on the returning famine and the rent those bloody landlords demanded despite it, Caity spent the past fortnight at her da’s bedside, bathing his fevered brow and coaxing what little food or water he’d accept into his parched mouth.

  In the end, only whiskey would do. He spat out everything else—food and water—as if it caused his tongue to swell.

  Now that he’d gone, the wake held and the funeral rites finished, she stood at the side of his cold, freshly turned grave and wasn’t sure if she was to cry or sigh in relief. The final days and nights had been bad; so much so that she’d felt guilt for thinking it a welcome end for them both.

  It wasn’t raining today, though it should have been. Ireland lost a good man.

  Maybe, she thought as she hunched her shoulders against December’s frigid wind, Ireland wasn’t weeping because she got to claim him in the end. Buried in the earth as he was, he’d rot with all of the too many good men Ireland had claimed when the famine turned bad enough to starve her sons and daughters.

  One day, Caity’d be right there, next to her proud da and sweet ma, who’d been taken by a different fever long before the potatoes went to rot again and the first blood spilled in this sodding land war. Until that time, she wondered if she’d ever find warmth again.

  “Are you Mr Kennedy’s daughter?”

  The voice came from behind her, carried on the wind in such a way that it seemed to float like an angel’s hosanna. The educated tones of an English woman did not belong in Galway, no matter what landlords might claim Connacht.

  Caity turned, her back up already, though she couldn’t figure just why. Perhaps more of the tension besetting the province had affected her than she’d thought.

  The woman who stood a respectful distance away was not a sight Caity expected to see. She wore trousers, which was all fine and well for some of the working lasses, but odd on a lady, and her hair was wound into a fetching coil, sleek but for a bit of a wave. It was the healthy colour of good soil to plant in, rich like the darkest wood, and framing a truly lovely face.

  From the top of her low hat to the tips of her glossy riding boots, the lady was—well, she was a lady. In trousers.

  Caity’s brow furrowed.

  “Oh, dear, are you simple?” The question seemed as if it should cause offense, but it was asked with such a winsome smile that Caity flushed, deeply embarrassed to be so charmed. “I’m looking for the daughter of T. Kensington Kennedy.”

  Her da’s name earned a narrowed glare. “Who’s askin’?” she demanded. “We’ve got no call for entertainin’ the likes of—” She caught herself, her callused hands curling into fists inside her father’s old coat pockets. We. As if her da were still alive.

  Sympathy filled the stranger’s smile. “I know you’re grieving, and I’m sorry,” she said gently. “But there’s foul things afoot and I’m in need of a partner.” She gave no opportunity to interrupt, striding forward with a gloved hand outstretched. “My name is Miss Lobelia Snow, you may address me as Miss Snow. Are you T. Kensington Kennedy’s oldest?”

  “Only,” she replied, accepting the hand and feeling rather more as if the wind had swept her up off her feet to deposit her in this woman’s oddly compelling presence. “Me ma named me Caitriona, me da gave me Kensington. I was the only child.”

  “C. Kensington Kennedy?” Her smile quirked, bringing a lovely warmth to eyes the colour of moss in a clear spring. “Delightfully apropos. You’ve the shoulders of a blacksmith, but the hands—” her gaze fell to the scarred fingers clasped between soft kid gloves “—of a tinkerer. Tell me, Miss Kennedy, did your father teach you anything?”

  Caity snatched her hand back, bothered when it tingled. The sudden loss of warmth from Miss Snow’s handshake should not have been so obvious. Her eyebrows drew down so hard, she could see her own black eyelashes as she glowered. “He taught me everything he knew,” she said firmly. “I can do anything he’d be needed for.” And she would, too, in his name. That was the way she’d respect his memory.

  That she hadn’t quite decided that until this moment was tucked away for later thi
nking.

  Miss Snow’s smile ratcheted up to near blinding delight. “Wonderful! Exactly what I’d hoped to hear. I confess, my dear, you are not at all what I’d expected, but I believe providence is smiling.” She beckoned. “Come, there’s work to be done.”

  “But I—”

  “Come, now,” she insisted, much more imperiously than a British woman should on such dangerous ground. She strode back towards the gate, where the wrought iron separated the living from the dead.

  Caity shot an apologetic glance to the pair of graves, one covered by winter dark grass and the other a hillock of turned earth, and hurried to catch up with the strange woman before she strode out of sight.

  Miss Snow possessed a remarkable sense of people. Although C. Kensington Kennedy did not particularly look like agency material, there was something to the way she held herself—as if she was greatly aware of her height, yet could not be shamed to bow for the comfort of others. She was a full head taller than Miss Snow, who was not herself a petite woman, and the width of her shoulders beneath her patched coat suggested she was no stranger to hard work.

  If she was half the master crafter her father was, Miss Snow would return to London with a report and a new agent, rather than just the one.

  “I understand that there’s some protest from the Irish Republican Brotherhood,” she began.

  “Hsst!” The girl’s whisper, emphasised by a sudden waving of both hands, halted Miss Snow’s conversational gambit. “The English haven’t any right to go talkin’ about it like that.”

  While poorly phrased, Miss Snow understood the gist. “I’m not here to make trouble for either side. Although,” she added as she strode down the road, towards the city centre, “if the Irish need aid from the monarchy, I see no reason why Parliament shouldn’t grant it. Claiming a country comes with its own responsibilities, yes?”