by Matthew Cody
“I didn’t say I liked it,” said Paul. “I’d just as soon be on our way. The living don’t belong in Shades Harbor.”
Carter agreed with Paul. He could feel it in the air, a cold prickle on the back of his neck. They weren’t welcome here. Reflexively, he stepped aside as a man riding an old-style bicycle, with a front wheel larger than the back one, sailed past him and nearly ran over Paul. Paul let out a cry of surprise, though he suffered little more than a flutter of his hair blowing in the wind as the man pedaled by.
“Ghost wind,” said Paul with a shiver.
Carter watched the man pedal away on his bicycle. He was yet another ghost out of time.
While they waited for Lukas and Emilie to finish bargaining for whatever it was they were bargaining for, the rest of them wandered back to the waterfront. The black ship was withdrawing its gangplank as it prepared to set sail.
“So it leaves empty like that?” asked Max.
“It’s not empty,” said Paul. “Listen.”
Then Carter noticed it—the waterfront had grown silent. In the distance he could hear the sounds of the new arrivals as they opened doors and went about their business, but here near the water’s edge, everything was quiet. The ghostly voices had all vanished.
“You mean there are ghosts on that ship?” asked Carter.
Paul nodded. “Those that were waiting on the docks when we arrived, the ones we heard but couldn’t see. Those were the souls ready to move on. The black ships bring new shades to the harbor, and take away the ones that are sailing on to the next place. We may not be able to see them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on that ship. Just don’t need bodies where they’re going.”
The ship raised its sails and disappeared into the fog.
Carter wondered what would happen if a living person tried leaving on that boat, and where it would take that person. He pulled his cloak tighter around him. Just the thought gave him the chills. Meanwhile, Max kept questioning Paul about the village, but Carter had heard enough. Careful not to wander far, he walked a few yards down the waterfront and gazed out at the sea. Were there other lands out there beyond the mists? Other places as wondrous and bizarre as the Summer Isle? Other harbors waiting for the black ships?
“You didn’t come off the boat,” said a voice, startling him.
Carter turned around to find a girl watching him. She didn’t look like the others he’d seen. For starters, she appeared flimsy and flat, like she was the film projection of a girl rather than a real girl. She had her hair done up in fancy curls and wore an old-fashioned yellow dress edged with white lace—the same dress Carter had caught a glimpse of as they were coming into town.
“I saw some people coming down the road,” she said, with an Irish lilt. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Carter, taken aback. “It was.”
The girl nodded. “Thought so. My name’s Isabelle. What’s yours?”
“Carter.” He wasn’t sure if he should be standing there talking to a girl who might be a ghost, but he was afraid to turn his back on her. What did a ghost do to you if you were rude to it?
“How old are you?” Isabelle asked. “I’m turning ten next month.”
“I’m already ten,” said Carter.
“Fibber,” said the girl. “You’re not older than me; you’re not tall enough.”
“I am, really,” said Carter. “I’m ten.”
Isabelle crossed her arms over her chest and sized Carter up. “Maybe,” she said. “But you don’t look it. You’re sort of squat.”
“I haven’t hit my growth spurt, is all,” said Carter.
“Is that why your leg’s like that?” she asked.
“No,” said Carter. He was no longer scared of the girl, but he was getting slightly annoyed. “My leg has nothing to do with it.”
As Carter watched Isabelle move, he noticed that the sea mist wasn’t blowing past her; it was blowing through her, even as it was getting thicker here on the waterfront. He remembered what Paul had said about the dead slowly fading away as they realized what they were. This girl was definitely a ghost, then. He suddenly felt sorry for her, and that fact alone made Carter want to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Hmm. Came in on another boat, whenever that was,” she said. “I got sick, back at our house, then I woke up on the boat and I was all better. Lots of us then, not so many now. Haven’t been able to find my parents, but I’ve made a friend. The professor’s been teaching me letters.”
“The professor?”
Isabelle nodded. “He says he can show me how to read. Mother will be so proud.”
This professor must’ve been another ghost, like Isabelle. Carter turned to call to his sister but suddenly realized that the fog had grown so dense that he could no longer see where she was. He could hear the lapping of the waves nearby, but the sea itself was hidden in the thick mist.
Carter called his sister’s name, then Paul’s. After a moment, he could hear Max calling back, but she sounded a long way away. And he couldn’t even tell which direction he was facing.
“Who are you calling for?” asked Isabelle.
“Uh, my friends,” said Carter. He took a deep breath, trying not to panic. Slowly he turned around in a circle, peering this way and that, but all he could see was more fog. “I think…I think I’m a little lost.”
“Well, if you’re lost, I can take you to the professor,” said Isabelle. “He’s ever so smart, and I’m sure he can help you find your friends.”
“Uh…” He could hear Max calling his name again, only it sounded even farther away this time.
“I’m here!” he shouted. His voice came echoing back to him, but this time there was no other reply.
“It’s just over there,” said Isabelle, pointing to something in the mist Carter couldn’t see. She reached out her hand to take Carter by the arm, but her incorporeal fingers found no purchase. They were just a cold tickle along Carter’s skin.
“Now, that’s odd,” Isabelle said, genuinely surprised. “I can’t touch you.” But she didn’t dwell on it. The ghost girl turned and began drifting away into the mist. “Follow me.”
Carter didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to follow her, but if he didn’t, he would be left here all alone. Max had disappeared, and Carter was lost in this unnatural fog. He was afraid of setting off blindly on his own for fear of stumbling into the sea.
“Come on, Carter,” Isabelle called again. “I’ll take you to him!”
Carter felt himself beginning to hyperventilate, and he bit down on his cheek so hard that he tasted blood. Another moment of indecision and Isabelle would be gone as well, and Carter would be truly alone.
“Wait up!” he called.
Isabelle waited for him, and when he caught up with her, she turned and pointed. “You see? It’s just over there, not far at all.”
Isabelle had led him away from the waterfront, and the mist farther inland was not quite as thick as it had been closer to the shore. Here it was thin enough that he could make out a cottage sitting at the entrance of a narrow alley. Unlike the rest of the buildings, this little house didn’t look dingy at all. In fact, it actually looked lived-in. The windows were lit with a pleasant warm glow that chased away some of the gloom.
“The professor’s ever so smart,” said Isabelle. “Come on.”
The cottage was surrounded by a low, wrought-iron gate, which Isabelle glided through without seeming to notice. Carter was forced to unlatch the gate and he winced as it creaked with years of disuse. No one had passed through that gate in a long time. No one living, anyway.
The thought gave Carter pause, and he stopped where he was, still a few yards from the door. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move in the alley next door. When he tried peering that way, all he saw was mist and shadows, but he thought he could hear movement as well. It sounded like cloth dragging along stone
. Carter suddenly pictured gray skin wrapped in tattered rags, and long fingers reaching out through the fog….
Isabelle noticed his hesitation. “You coming?” she said.
Carter opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t take his eyes off that alley. Was that a shape he saw forming there?
“Fine,” said Isabelle. “I’ll just pop in and fetch him, then. You stay right where you are. Don’t go anywhere.”
Isabelle disappeared through the door as easily as light passing through a window. Carter backed away from the alley. He wanted to run, but he didn’t dare turn his back on the thing in the alley. The shape was drawing closer.
Just then the cottage door swung open and light spilled forth. Isabelle reappeared next to a tall, thin man wearing a pair of bent glasses that were instantly, achingly familiar. The man was puffing on a tobacco pipe as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to smooth his ever-present cowlick—the same cowlick Carter had inherited from him.
There was a final rustle of movement from the alley as the shadow, or whatever it was, fled. But Carter barely noticed, as his full attention was now on the figure in the doorway.
“There he is, Professor,” said Isabelle, pointing to Carter and smiling. “That’s my very newest friend.”
Carter’s father, standing next to her, blinked in surprise. “Carter? What on earth are you doing here?”
Max had been chatting with Paul when she realized she’d lost track of time, and of Carter. A dense fog had rolled in all of a sudden, and she couldn’t see five feet in front of her. Max and Paul walked along the waterfront, calling her brother’s name. She could hear him calling in return, but it was hard to find him. Max was starting to worry, but the mist quickly rolled back out to sea, and when it did, they found Carter sitting on the ground outside a nearby cottage. He had his knees drawn up tight against chest, and his cheeks were flushed from crying. Lukas and Emilie appeared at the opposite end of the street with bundles in their arms, but Max was more concerned for her brother.
“Carter,” Max said, hurrying toward him. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Carter sniffed and looked up at his sister with bloodshot eyes. “I saw Dad,” he said.
“What? What do you mean?”
Carter glanced back at the little cottage. “He was in there. I talked to him, Max. It was Dad.”
Max felt the others walking up behind her, but she didn’t turn around.
“In there?” she asked. Carter nodded. How could their father be in this place, in a town full of ghosts? Unless…no, her brother was mistaken. He had to have been.
“Paul, stay with Carter for a minute.”
Paul gave her a worried look. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Just stay with him.”
The cottage door was slightly ajar, but not enough that she could see inside. For a moment, she considered knocking but then chided herself for being ridiculous. She grabbed hold of the door handle—it was cold to the touch. Then she took a breath to steel herself and gave the door a push.
It was a sparse, one-room cottage. Dust motes floated through the air and were sent swirling as she swung the door open wide. A small table and two chairs sat in the center of the room. A wooden bed with no mattress was pushed up against one of the walls next to a cold fireplace. A thick coat of dust covered the floor, and Max wondered idly if ghosts left footprints.
She was just turning around to tell her brother that the cottage was empty when she caught a whiff of something that made her gasp aloud. The smell of apple-y tobacco smoke lingered in the air. Her father’s pipe.
“He was here,” Carter said, standing in the doorway. “There was a fire going in the fireplace, and lamps lit and everything. A girl named Isabelle brought me here, but I don’t know where she went.”
“And you saw him?”
Carter nodded.
“What did he say?”
“He was surprised to see me, but he seemed glad. He was confused. He wasn’t sure where he was or how he’d gotten here, but he was passing the time by teaching Isabelle to read. He asked about you, Max. He wanted to know if you were all right.”
Hearing that made Max’s chest tighten. She was trying to keep herself together, for Carter’s sake.
“He say anything else?”
“I told him we were trying to get home, and he said he’d like that. He said he missed us and he loved us.”
Carter was crying again, and Max felt her own resolve giving way.
“But, Max,” said Carter, through his tears. “I don’t know if he was dreaming or if…if…”
Her brother couldn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. What he’d wanted to say was that they didn’t know if their father had been a dreamer…or a ghost.
Max fought against the tears. If she let herself go, she might crumple beneath the weight of it all, and that wouldn’t help her brother. It wouldn’t help anyone. She took her brother by the shoulder and backed him away from the cottage.
“Could it be true?” she asked the others. “Could it really have been our dad?”
Emilie and Lukas exchanged looks. Then Emilie said, “I know what you are thinking, but Carter said your father disappeared in front of his eyes, yes?”
“Yeah,” answered Carter. “We were talking, and then he just suddenly vanished. Like the boy I saw back in the Shimmering Forest.”
“He was a dreamer, then,” said Emilie, nodding matter-of-factly. “Dreamed himself here, and then he woke up. Remember what Paul said—ghosts are slow to fade.”
Max felt her brother’s fingers close around hers. “So that wasn’t Dad’s ghost?” he asked. Emilie smoothed Carter’s hair back from his forehead. It was such a simple gesture, yet it was filled with love and reassurance. It was exactly the kind of thing that Carter needed right now from his big sister, and yet all Max could do was stand there. She was holding herself together with fraying thread.
“Your father is safe, and I think maybe he’s looking for you, Carter, in his own way,” said Emilie. “In his dreams.”
Then it struck her, just how thick she had been all this time. Of course Emilie understood what Carter was going through and what Max was going through—every New Hameliner did. Max had been acting as if Carter and she were special. She’d demanded things of these other children—she’d threatened and cried and felt sorry for herself and worried for her brother. While every adult these New Hameliners had ever known had long since turned to dust. Yet these children hoped. They hoped that there was magic enough out there to return them not just to where they came from, but also to when they came from. It seemed a feeble hope to Max, yet the New Hameliners clung to it with everything they had.
From this moment forward, Max would need to follow their example if she was going to get her brother home. If anyone hoped to escape this land of eternal childhood, then they were all going to have to grow up a little.
Max put an arm around her brother and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Emilie is right, Carter. Dad’s alive and well, I know he is.”
“How?” asked her brother.
“Because, for once, let’s believe in happy endings. What do you say?”
Despite their deep misgivings, they agreed to spend the night in Shades Harbor. Evening was upon them, and according to the map, the next several miles of road skirted the edges of the Bonewood. Even Paul had to admit that a room in the village was probably safer than making camp anywhere near that notorious forest. After a little searching, they found a small inn run by a plump woman who seemed to be dreaming that she was the concierge at a luxury hotel.
While the rooms were dusty and smelled of mildew, Carter welcomed the chance to sleep in a bed again. And once Lukas got a fire going in the fireplace, the room almost started to feel cozy, or as cozy as it could get in a village full of spirits.
“Well, here’s what we’ve managed to get,” said Lukas as he unrolled a large bundle onto one of the beds. Inside was an assortment of food a
nd supplies. There were a few wedges of cheese, some trail rations made up mostly of nuts and dried fruit, a few changes of clothing, though no pants for Emilie and no shoes to replace Max’s lost boots. But there were weapons—three long daggers, each easily the length of Carter’s forearm.
“No bows?” asked Paul, frowning.
“We were lucky to get these,” said Lukas, and he handed one to Paul and another to Max. The third he stashed in his own belt.
“But how did you get them at all?” asked Max. She was weighing the blade in her hand, as if she knew what she was looking for. “I still don’t understand it. The shops here are all empty, so how did you find weapons and food?”
“There’s a trick to dealing with these ghosts and dreamers,” said Lukas. “To them, this whole place is just a part of their dream, or the life they think they are still living. Think about it—they aren’t wearing real clothes, and yet not a one of them is naked. If they believe they are wearing clothes, then they are wearing clothes. That butcher we saw getting off the boat believed he was still a butcher, so he carried the tools of his trade.”
“A bloody, disgusting-looking meat cleaver,” said Paul.
“Yes,” said Lukas. “So we just had to convince the shopkeeper that he was selling what we needed.”
“Wait,” said Carter. “So if you ask one of these people for anything, it will magically appear?”
“It didn’t turn out to be that simple,” said Emilie. “These ghosts and dreamers can be stubborn, and that shopkeeper loves to haggle. I was forced to trade away most of my herbs and my tea kettle.”
“But if all this stuff was dreamed up, won’t it just fade away again?” asked Carter.
Lukas kicked one of the bedposts. “This whole town was dreamed up by someone a long time ago, and it’s still here.”
“What he’s saying is, he doesn’t know,” added Paul. “Might last, might not. Either way, better dig in while you can.” With that, the boy plopped down in front of the fire and started gnawing a hunk of cheese. Emilie joined Paul next to the warm rug, and the scout broke off a hunk of cheese and shared it with her without comment. Carter thought about joining them, but something about the way they were sitting together felt too private to disturb. Maybe they were finally coming to some kind of truce, and Carter didn’t want to risk messing that up.
