Spirit Ascendancy

by E. E. Holmes

“I am,” she interjected, with just a slight toss of her hair.

  “—there’s no way that Neil would be able to read it. It’s just not possible.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because the Book of Téigh Anonn itself exists under a casting. It appears blank to anyone who is not a full member of the Durupinen or the Caomhnóir. Surely you knew that,” he said to me, in what I thought was an unnecessarily belligerent tone.

  “Sort of,” I said, crossing my arms defensively. Now that he had pointed it out, I remembered that it had once appeared blank to me, the first time I’d unwrapped it under the Christmas tree in Karen’s living room. I’d even attempted to use it as a journal, before I knew what it really was. But ever since we performed our first Crossing, the book had revealed its contents to me, every page crammed with runes, incantations, and explanations of the many castings the Durupinen could complete. Amidst all of the incredibly bizarre recent developments in my life, I hadn’t even questioned the sudden appearance of the book’s contents. Of course I had a magical book with disappearing and reappearing text. Didn’t everyone?

  “We were just saying that we should send a message to Lucida,” Hannah said, getting to her feet. “We should tell her about the Necromancers having a copy of the book, shouldn’t we?”

  “Yes,” Finn said. He looked moodily down at his own copy, as though he blamed it personally for one of its brethren falling into the wrong hands. “Tell her we need a plan to get out of here safely, as soon as possible. There’s no way to know when Neil and the others will be back, and I’m sure they’ll be careful to clean up after themselves before long. It would be careless to leave loose ends lying about, even if those loose ends are supposed to be trapped in a spirit cage.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said, as Hannah turned to leave. “I want to see how this blind Summoner thing works.”

  “Okay, sure,” Hannah said, smiling.

  “Will you be okay until we get back?” I asked Annabelle, who was staring into her tea again, her eyes fixed and glazed.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think… would it be alright if I tried to get some sleep?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m just sorry we had to keep you up at all. Get some rest. We’ll wake you up if there are any new developments.”

  Annabelle had already put her mug down and was curling herself into a comfortable position on the sofa before I’d even finished talking. As I made to close the door behind me, Finn stuck out his battered black boot to stop it.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said in answer to my quizzical look.

  “Why?”

  “Do you really need to ask me that? Because you’re leaving the flat and the Necromancers could be waiting for you. Don’t argue, just go.”

  It was only with difficulty that I resisted the infantile urge to stick my tongue out at him. Instead, I just tried to ignore his clunking footsteps behind me as we climbed the stairs to the roof of the building.

  Out in the late morning air, the city of London rose and fell in a series of buildings and patches of sky. The Thames was visible only by the break it made as it snaked through the urban landscape, driving the city forcefully to one side or the other of its cloudy waters with all the entitlement of royalty. I was still taking in the view as Hannah folded herself cross-legged into a casting circle already chalked onto the tarpaper of the roof. I plunked myself down beside her.

  “I’ve been curious about this ever since you mentioned it a few days ago,” I said.

  “It’s really useful,” Hannah said, fishing the stub of a white candle out of her sweatshirt pocket. Above us, the sun played peekaboo in the spotty cloud cover. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it, since Lucida only just taught me how, but it’s actually very easy.”

  She lit the candle, rolling it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger until three drops of wax had fallen and splattered on the ground in front of her. Then she closed her eyes.

  Without really knowing what she was doing, I closed my eyes too, sure a little additional concentration couldn’t hurt, but before I’d even adjusted to the darkness behind my eyelids, a rustling, breezy presence joined us in the circle, and I opened my eyes again to see who had joined us.

  A middle-aged woman, stout and frumpy, stood before Hannah, blinking bemusedly around her as though unsure of how she’d gotten there. Her hands were twisting and untwisting a small tea towel.

  “… mustn’t leave the flat, he’ll be so angry with me if I go without telling him,” she was saying in a nervous, fluttery voice. “Where am I? I really do need to get back. He’ll be expecting me to be there when he—”

  Hannah held up a hand and the woman was struck dumb at once. Her eyes stopped darting around and instead gazed fixedly, and without seeing, straight ahead of her. The tea towel dropped to her side, forgotten. At the same time, the candle in Hannah’s hand began to spark and the little flame leaped and danced, as though something more than air had suddenly brought it to life.

  My heart thudded anxiously as I watched the flame darting… living.

  “Hannah, what are you…?”

  Hannah shushed me as she lowered the candle carefully into a teacup at her feet. Then she looked up at the ghost and spoke to it. “Lucida, we need to get out of this flat. The Necromancers have been here. They found Annabelle and imprisoned her. They have a copy of the Book of Téigh Anonn, and there’s a possibility they are headed to Fairhaven. Finn is sending you the photos of the castings they used, because we don’t know what most of them are. Send word or come as soon as you can, please.”

  The woman’s ghost turned and shot away without any sign of acknowledgement.

  “How does she know where to go?” I asked.

  “Once they’ve been severed, they don’t need to be told where to go. The sender’s message and intentions will automatically bring them to the right place. Cool, huh? I still can’t believe I can do it!” Hannah said. She passed her fingers absently back and forth over the flame, which was still jumping wildly despite the lack of wind.

  “What do you mean, severed?” I asked

  “We want her to bring the message, but we don’t want her to be aware of what she’s doing. That way, if someone intercepts her, or questions her, she can’t tell them anything,” Hannah explained. “We’re using her as a vessel to hold the message, and we need the vessel to be empty. So I performed a severing and channeled her essence into this flame.” She pointed matter-of-factly at the candle.

  Nearby, I heard Finn halt his relentless pacing.

  “When you say essence, what are you—”

  “The part of the soul that makes you human. The part that makes you an individual, with memories and experiences and self-awareness,” she said. She caught my eye for the first time since she started explaining and wrinkled her brow in concern. “Jess, what’s wrong? You look upset.”

  I shook my head, trying to voice my concerns without offending her. “So you basically just turned that ghost into some sort of… ghost zombie?”

  Yup, that was me, the queen of tact, at it again.

  “No, that’s not it at all,” Hannah cried. “It’s just like she’s… hypnotized, or something. When she comes back, I’ll release her from the flame and she’ll be as good as new. Lucida told me that it doesn’t hurt them.”

  “Hannah, I’m sorry, but I don’t like it. You’re telling me that you’re sapping spirits of their humanity just so they can play messenger for us? Doesn’t that sound completely wrong?”

  “It does when you put it like that!” Hannah said, tears springing into her eyes. “You make it sound awful, but it’s not like that. We need to get word to Lucida and this is the only way to do it safely. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a very serious situation we’re in.”

  “I had noticed, actually,” I shot back. “Somewhere between burning down Fairhaven and finding Annabelle naked and tortured downstairs I did indeed figure that out.”

  “Be serious, Je
ss.”

  “I am being serious!” I cried. “We shouldn’t be using spirits like this!”

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t we use them to help us? Why are we the only ones who should be used all the time?” She stood up; her hands, clenched into white-knuckled fists at her sides, were shaking. “My whole life they’ve been finding me, asking for things, demanding things. They’ve ruined every home I’ve ever had. They scared off every friend I’ve ever made. They’ve never left me alone.”

  I had no idea what to say. I’d opened the floodgates. Every bitter feeling she’d ever had seemed to be welling to the surface at once.

  “Now we’re in the most dangerous situation we’ve ever been in. People are hunting us down. They already killed your friend Dr. Pierce, and they’ve nearly killed Annabelle, and I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll kill more of us if it will get them what they want. And it’s all because of these ghosts! So if I need to use them to protect us, or help us, or get us out of this alive, then I’m going to do it! Don’t you think they owe us that?”

  “I’m not saying they shouldn’t help us,” I said. “We need all the help we can get! But there’s a line, Hannah, and it’s not always very clear where exactly it is, but I’m afraid we’re crossing it. First the leeching, and now this? It feels like a pretty damn short walk between what you’re doing and what the Necromancers did to the spirits down in Annabelle’s flat.”

  “How can you say that? It’s completely different! Those spirits were in pain! But I’m not hurting her!” Hannah said, gesturing down to the candle again, still dancing and swaying with its infusion of spirit energy. “I’m protecting her! If she was caught trying to deliver that message and I hadn’t severed her, the other Durupinen would use her to get information about us!”

  “But we’re using her too, don’t you see that? We can’t lose sight of the fact that these ghosts are human beings! You can’t just remove someone’s humanity, just because they’re dead!”

  “I can, actually,” Hannah said quietly. “You just watched me do it.”

  We glared at each other. Finn had stood so still during our argument that he might have been turned to stone.

  “Have you ever stopped to think,” I said slowly, “what would happen to that ghost if that candle went out?”

  Hannah continued to glare, angry tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “Good,” I said. “I just… let’s not lose sight of why we’re putting ourselves through all of this in the first place. We have a job to do. It’s not fair, and I know it completely sucks, but we have to do it.”

  “I know that. If you think I don’t know that, then you don’t know me at all.”

  What could I say? Wasn’t she right? She was my own sister; we’d shared a womb together, and I barely knew her at all—not in the way I should have. I should have been able to predict the ends of her sentences, to know the meanings of the slightest shift in her facial expression. I should have known the sounds she made when she was asleep, and the feel of her hand when she held mine. But I didn’t. I’d barely been able to scratch the surface of this fragile, damaged, enigmatic person who should have been my other half and my best friend. I was almost too afraid to get below the surface, too afraid she might shatter if I dug too deep. And now we had no choice but to cling to each other, two virtual strangers cast from the same mold.

  I was saved the pain of agreeing with her. The candle flame began to spark and leap unnaturally as the ghost of the woman returned. Her tea towel was dangling loosely from her slackened grip as she opened her mouth and spoke in a voice that was half her own, and half Lucida’s.

  “Don’t leave the building, whatever you do. They might be lying in wait for you. No Necromancers have shown up here, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t watching and waiting for their opportunity. Tell Finn I got his photos, but I’ll need to do a little more research before I can make heads or tails of all the different castings and what they might mean. I will make arrangements to have you moved. Wait for me if you can, but send a message if you need to vacate before I get there. Keep each other safe.”

  The voice echoed briefly before dying away, leaving the woman’s ghost floating, vacant and unseeing, in the air before us. We all looked at her for a moment, like we were waiting for something to happen, though of course it couldn’t.

  Hannah caught my eye, for a brief moment. Her face was defiant as she turned to the candle and, with the murmured words of her casting, released the essence back into the waiting ghost’s body.

  “I… where am… I really ought to get back. He’ll be so angry. Can you please let me go back?” she pleaded.

  Hannah looked at her a moment, mouth open as though to say something to her, but instead she blew out the candle and the woman vanished, tea towel still clutched between her worrying hands.

  6

  Disappearing Act

  TAP, TAP, TAP.

  I looked over at the window and saw her floating beyond the glass, her tiny fist poised to knock again.

  “Mary? Is that you?”

  She nodded vigorously and smiled. Despite my confusion at seeing her, I smiled back. I untangled myself from a nest of blankets on the sofa and ran to the window. I yanked and pulled on the battered old lock until it reluctantly squeaked open.

  “Come on in. Oh, wait.” I pointed to the runes we’d drawn below the sills. “I forgot. We warded all of the windows.”

  “Come out here with me,” Mary said with a laugh, and floated in a playful little circle, like an ivory leaf in the wind. The breeze caught at her long white nightgown, buffeting her back and forth.

  “Sorry, I’m fresh out of pixie dust,” I said.

  She stared at me curiously, so I clarified. “I can’t fly, Mary. I’ve got this body that gets in the way of things like that.”

  She laughed again. “You can just shed it. Shed it and soar!”

  I shook my head. “It’s not quite that easy.”

  “Oh, but for you it is. Go on, then.”

  I wasn’t smiling anymore. “No, Mary. I can’t come with you. I have to stay here.”

  Suddenly she was nose to nose with me at the open window, her hair floating around us like mist on the water. “Cut your strings, Jessica,” she whispered. “Cut your strings and fly!” Then she looked down at my feet and giggled.

  I followed her gaze and screamed. There at my feet was my own body, crumpled on the floor, eyes glassy and empty. And then I was falling. Falling into the empty pools of those eyes, which widened into chasms, ready to swallow me whole. A door slammed shut behind me.

  I woke up with a yelp as I felt my body hit the couch with that peculiar thump that starts you from a dream in which you are sure you are plummeting to your death. I looked around wildly. The room was dim with the pale, colorless light that precedes the dawn. Savvy was standing by the bathroom, one hand on the doorknob, looking sheepish.

  “Sorry, mate. Closed it a little harder than I meant to.”

  “I… that’s okay,” I said, a bit out of breath. I frantically patted my hands over my body. It was reassuringly solid, though clammy with cold sweat.

  “You okay there?” Savvy asked, as she crossed back to the couch.

  “Yeah. Just had a nightmare. A weird one. I’ll be fine,” I said.

  Savvy shook her head. “It’s one nightmare after another around here, innit?”

  “Truer words were never spoken, Sav,” I said. I laid back down, but sleep, a fickle friend in the best of times, did not revisit me.

  §

  Two days dragged by in agonizing slowness. There was never any more discussion of sending Lucida another message. In the first place, there was really nothing new to tell her; in the second place, I think my argument with Hannah about blind Summoners had shaken her confidence in using them, and though she speculated aloud what might be keeping Lucida, she never once suggested that we send one to go find out.

  The knot of uneasine
ss in my own stomach grew by the hour, especially as the sense of health and energy I’d gained from the leeching began to fade away. Milo had taken to his own ghostly version of pacing, disappearing and reappearing over and over again in the same pattern of locations in the flat until Savvy, jumpy from her own highly-strung nerves, shouted at him to stop before she grabbed him by his hair and tossed him through the nearest open Gateway; after that, he contented himself with flickering feebly in and out of focus to channel his excess anxiety. Annabelle slept for a solid fourteen hours after she filled us in on her captivity, but her slumber was wracked with nightmares that caused her to cry out repeatedly, and she still looked drained even after she’d woken up and had her first real meal.

  We were all teetering on the edge of freak out, but in no one was the stress more palpable than in Finn. He was wound so tightly I thought he might start pinging off the walls at any moment, like a little silver ball in a pinball machine. Every sound made him jump. Every movement, even from one of us, sent him springing from his chair, poised for an attack that didn’t come. He subsisted on adrenaline, a few half-hearted swallows of food, and the strongest coffee we could coax from Lyle’s battered old coffee pot. He couldn’t even write whatever he usually wrote in his shabby little black books, huddling over them for a few moments at a time before sighing loudly and shoving them back into the depths of his pockets. What he could do was be even more snappish and bad-tempered than usual.

  It was at the very zenith of our tension, just after Finn had shouted at me for drumming my fingers on the table, and I had opened my mouth to literally release the Kraken on him, when the door to the flat burst open. Everyone screamed, and Finn leapt to action impossibly fast, which would have been impressive, except for the fact that “leaping to action” meant tackling me to the ground and shielding me with his body.

  “What the—Finn get OFF of me! It’s just Lucida!” I cried, wriggling fruitlessly while he processed this information for himself. Then, with one fluid motion he was on his feet, and I was left to mutter mutinously and massage my upper arms, which he had clamped in a vice-like hold in his haste to fling me to the ground.