“Pretty sure we’ve never had a train up here in the mountains,” Jasper said.
She went on. He grumbled and followed. They hiked up over one more rise, and then stopped. They had no choice but to stop.
The trail ended in a wall of rolling, roiling mist.
It looked like a glass wall with a cloudy, foggy day on the other side—but without glass. The wall was simply a line the mist could not cross, and that line was made of copper.
All sorts of oddments had been fused, riveted, and hammered together on the forest floor: wires and pipes, teakettles and pots, small statues and lumps of slag that used to be pennies. Most of it was old and stained darkly green. But one part of the copper boundary was made out of newer, shinier stuff. It looked freshly hammered into place. Rosa recognized sink fixtures from the library bathroom.
“This must stretch across the whole valley,” she said. “One long, unbroken copper ring around Ingot. It’s huge. I’ve never even heard about a circle this huge.” She knelt for a closer look.
Letters had been etched into a flattened length of pipe—one word, repeated over and over again.
Λήθη Λήθη Λήθη Λήθη Λήθη Λήθη Λήθη
“Anon?” Jasper wondered. “It means soon. ‘I’ll see you anon.’ ”
Rosa shook her head. “Greek letters. It says ‘lethe.’ Forgetting. Banishment.” She spit out the word like she couldn’t get it away from her mouth fast enough. “It means somebody did this. On purpose. Someone banished all the ghosts from Ingot on purpose.”
“Now you’re pissed,” Jasper said. “I thought you were used to anger.”
“Not this much of it.” Her voice was an icicle held like a knife. “Banishment is awful. It always backfires. Always. Even if you think you’re doing it for good reasons. And the ghosts don’t go very far. I think they’re still here. All of them.” She stood up, faced the wall, and threw her voice at it. “Aletheia.”
Mist rolled back and away from that word.
Figures crowded together where the mist had been.
They had made themselves out of leaves and twigs, clumps of dirt and coiling vines, piles of stones and falling branches. Some stood three times as tall as Rosa or Jasper. Others stood barely taller than the line of copper that kept them away. They watched the children through makeshift faces.
One figure crouched down close, directly across the copper line. She had dust-made features and a gown of scarlet leaves. The gown billowed around her. She poked and prodded at the metal with a hand made of twigs, and then flinched away from a flash of green light.
“Talk to me,” Rosa said. “Please. You took something from my mother. She needs it back.”
The ghost smiled. Her teeth were small stones.
“I am enjoying this voice,” she used it to say. The voice sounded faint, as though a thick glass window stood between them. “Your dear mother may call upon me herself after the circle breaks. We will all haunt this valley together then. I may be persuaded to share.”
Rosa pleaded, though she tried not to. “There must be something I can do, or trade.”
The ghost provoked another green flash. “There is nothing.”
“What about him?” Rosa asked.
“You’re not talking about me, are you?” Jasper whispered.
“No, of course I’m not talking about you,” Rosa whispered back. “But yesterday, when she was a tree, she came to the library looking for some sort of him.”
The ghost put both hands on the copper barrier. She did not flinch this time. Red leaves began to burn. The figure collapsed, and then remade herself with ashes.
“He is here,” she said, the stones of her smile dark with soot.
Mist rolled back and covered the figures again. It stopped short at the copper barrier.
Jasper heard a low growling noise.
Rosa didn’t seem to notice. She stared at the swirling mist and looked like she might try to jump right through.
The noise grew louder.
“Rosa? Something’s coming.”
She just stood and muttered to herself. “A little bit of banishment brought down a whole library branch, back in the city. I saw it happen. And that was just one banished poltergeist. This copper circle is huge. It’s been here for a hundred years. It’s got thousands of ghosts gathered around it, pushing against it, trying to come home. The backlash is going to be so much worse.”
Jasper recognized the growling noise as an engine. “Come on, librarian!” He grabbed Rosa’s arm and pulled her back into the trees.
An old, rust-covered motorcycle came riding across the mountainside, parallel to the copper barrier. It stopped and puttered where Jasper and Rosa had stood just a few heartbeats ago. Various tools, a blowtorch, and random pieces of copper filled up a sidecar.
The driver dismounted, unfolding lanky arms and legs. He wore large goggles and a long mustache. He looked like a pilot from the very first age of airplanes.
He also looked like the lobby portrait of Bartholomew Theosophras Barron, founder of Ingot.
Barron kicked at the barrier, testing his new patch of shiny metal. The wall above it took on the deep greenish gray of thunderclouds. He nodded, satisfied. Then he climbed onto his bike and took Isabelle Road down the mountain.
Rosa glared at the valley and the direction the bike had gone. They could still hear the faint growl of its engine. Then she picked up a stick and swung it hard to make a swishing noise.
“He came riding from that way,” she said, pointing with the stick. “He rode widdershins, probably around the whole thing. Checking for breaks. Patching them up. Maintaining one big, banishing circle around the town.” She rolled her wrist as though the stick were a sword. Then she tossed it aside.
“How is he still alive?” Jasper asked. “I know that mustache. It’s everywhere. In portraits. Up on the wall of the post office, and in the bank, and in the library. But Barron would have to be a hundred and fifty years old by now.”
“Let’s go ask him,” Rosa said. She marched down the trail.
Jasper hoisted his quarterstaff and scrambled to keep up. “You know where he’s going?”
“Home, probably.”
“The library was a manor house, before it was a library,” Jasper said. “His house. Which I know, because I am very well versed in matters of local history.” He took on a tone of exaggerated self-importance, one that Sir Dad often used.
“And the tree said she had come home to claim him when she went rampaging at the library,” Rosa said.
“So the tree was Isabelle Barron.”
“Seems likely,” said Rosa.
The two hurried down the mountainside, farther away from the circle’s edge. Seething anger seeped out of them.
Jasper felt better.
Rosa didn’t. She would rather have stayed angry. Mom’s voice was still stuck on the other side, held close by a ghost in a gown of ashes. Rosa didn’t want to leave it there. But she also knew what always happened to banishment circles—and to everything inside them.
17
BEHIND THE LIBRARY THEY FOUND a rickety gardening shed. It was locked, but it had a small window. Through the window they saw the old motorcycle.
“Have you poked around the rest of the library much?” Jasper whispered. “How many apartments are there in the basement?”
“Just ours,” Rosa whispered back. “But I don’t think we should look down.” She watched the upper windows for light and movement. Tower rooms jutted above the rooftop as though the library were a small castle of red brick. “I think we should look up.”
They paused in the front lobby to admire the mustache in Barron’s ornate portrait. Then they walked casually inside.
“We’re just here to borrow some books,” Jasper said. He felt a little bit conspicuous to be armed with a quarterstaff. “That’s all we’re doing here. I’m going to look at the pitiful shelf of graphic novels, even though I’ve read them all and only two of them are any good.
La la la.”
Rosa hitched up her tool belt. “I live here,” she said. “I don’t need an excuse. So I’m just coming home. Yep. That’s all I’m doing.”
The front desk was empty. The whole place seemed to be empty—which was strange for the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer. No one else was there to notice the innocent and nonchalant performance.
Rosa led the way into Special Collections, which was also empty. But then they heard someone descend the forbidden staircase, so they ducked underneath a table.
Mrs. Jillynip came down the spiral stairs. She held a tray covered with a cloth. The tray made small, sharp noises like empty dishes clinking together as she carried it, with utmost care and deliberate, frustrating slowness, through Special Collections and away.
Rosa and Jasper peeked out from underneath the table.
“I’m amazed she carried food and drink in here,” Rosa whispered. “Not supposed to do that.”
They scrambled for the stairs. Jasper tried to hold the quarterstaff with care, but it still knocked against the steps a couple of times.
“Shhhhh!”
“Sorry!”
At the top they found a fancy, filthy set of rooms. The air smelled thick, like mildew or the pages of unloved books. Dusty sunlight broke through leaded windows and then got lost in the piles of odd instruments, stacks of paper scribbled over with mathematical calculations and Greek incantations, and furniture that used to be luxurious before it got forgotten, left to rot beneath the stacks and piles of other things.
Rosa spotted several trophies with little brass swordsmen at the top. A fencing master, she thought. No wonder he’s good with boundaries and circles.
A tall and slender man stood hunched over a table, examining a map. His mustache trailed down below his face and rustled against the paper. He did not notice that he had visitors. And Rosa was not sure how to address the ancient founder of Ingot Town.
“Mr. Barron?” she finally said.
The old man stood up straight, peered through the dusty light, and noticed them.
“Miss Díaz.” His voice felt like genteel sandpaper in her ears. “Welcome. I would offer you refreshment, but I have supped just now and the dear Widow Jillynip already cleared it all away. But do please join me for conversation. Will you sit?” He looked around. “I did have chairs here once. They may have broken. Or else I might have removed all the copper fittings and put them to new purposes. That seems likely. My apologies. I hope that you do not mind standing.” He moved aside to make room at the table. “Is your mother with you? No? Still convalescing? No matter. I’ll speak to her later. And we have so very much work to do that this cannot wait.”
Rosa and Jasper both felt like they had skipped a few pages. Neither one of them knew how to catch up. They stood close, side by side, and approached together.
The map on the table displayed the whole valley of Ingot—including an X marked “Barron Copper Mine” at the southernmost end of Isabelle Road. A circle drawn in bright green ink cut off that road near the X. The circle surrounded the whole town and valley. A thick green dot marked the library in the very center.
“We have so very much to do,” Barron said again, and tapped at the map with the tip of a ruler. “This is why I brought you here, Miss Díaz. This is why I sent for you.”
18
ROSA CROSSED HER ARMS. “YOU brought us here.”
“I did.” Barron bent down to peer at the details of his map. He looked like a stork hunting for frogs. “I did. I am still on the board of this library. I’m on the board of most institutions hereabouts, of course, though I have so little time for the meetings. And now I find myself in dire need of assistance, so I made certain that the library hired the best specialist they could find. And by bringing your mother here we also got you thrown into the bargain—a smaller specialist of no small accomplishment. That was a fine piece of luck. I congratulate you on your fairground efforts. They did ultimately fail, but you had very little warning or opportunity to prepare. I am still impressed.” He cracked long knuckles on his long fingers. His voice seemed to stretch and elongate the time it took for him to speak. “I am likewise impressed that the two of you were able to approach my barrier this morning. That showed extraordinary strength of will.”
Oops. “You saw us,” Jasper said.
Barron hesitated, just a little, and when he spoke he addressed Rosa. “I did see you. And I am sorry that I did not offer you a ride back into town, but my sidecar was too cluttered for passengers. Besides, you were hiding. I did not want to make you feel foolish by pointing out your inadequate stealth. Dear Isabelle and myself never had children, but while on holiday I played hide-and-seek with my sister’s sons. I never found them as quickly as I could have. I let them think themselves more clever than they were in fact. That gave them confidence. Very important. I hope you are feeling confident as well. Now to business.”
Jasper and Rosa looked at each other sideways. They both wanted to laugh, or yell, or turn right around and leave. But they forced themselves to play along.
“What business did you have in mind, sir?” Rosa’s words were respectful thorns on the stem of her voice.
“Our business, of course,” Barron said with a sandpapery chuckle. “The business of dealing with ghosts. I keep the town safe from hauntings. But now my boundary is wearing down. They have begun to break through. Your cute little tricks of chalk and salt might help slow down intrusions, however, and that would give me time to repair every breach as it occurs. Most of them occur right here.” He tapped one thick finger at the bottom of Isabelle Road. “Right where you hid yourselves earlier.”
“Right where we saw Isabelle herself,” Rosa said.
“Did you?” Barron asked, but it was the opposite of a question. His tone chased away answers rather than asking for them. “Did you? Well. Yes. Well. Anything you can do at that spot would be very much appreciated. Meanwhile, I will continue to patch and patrol along the entire border. I have enlisted others to help me do this, and given them the means to approach that boundary. A first, for me. This has always been my undertaking, and mine alone. But no longer.”
Rosa felt her patience slip away. “Why did you make the border in the first place?” Barron dug at his inner ear with a long pinky finger and pretended not to hear the question, so Rosa asked again. “Sir? Why did you build that circle?”
“I am protecting Ingot.” Barron’s slow voice hardened, but he tried to slap a shiny gilt of kindness on it.
“Yes,” Rosa agreed. “You’re protecting Ingot from dangers you created, and ghosts that you banished. But why did you banish them? How did this whole doomed project get started?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Barron said. “These efforts are not doomed, my dear child. I have maintained a functioning border between the living and the dead for ten times the span of your life thus far. I can maintain it for longer yet.”
“Not very much longer,” Rosa insisted. “Banishment leads to backlash. And the longer you keep it going, the worse the lashing out will be. You’ve kept your circle closed for a pretty long time—”
“Yes,” he said, proud and smug. “I have.”
He wasn’t listening. Rosa tried harder.
“—so, when it finally collapses, it will kill every single living thing in this valley. Then the old ghosts and the new ones will circle each other, howling, for the next thousand years at least. Ingot will be home to nothing and no one but bare rock and screams.”
“Really?” Jasper whispered.
“Yeah,” Rosa said. “Really.”
Jasper tried to digest this. His bracelet felt uncomfortably warm.
Barron just blinked at Rosa, stunned. Then he chuckled. “Aren’t we the little pessimist? I am gratified, however, that you understand the importance of our work.”
“This isn’t our work!” Rosa shouted, louder than she meant to be. She tried to hold her temper close and not let it fly around the room. “This isn’t my work.
This is banishment, and banishment doesn’t work. You can’t keep that circle whole. It isn’t possible.”
“Ah,” Barron said. “But all technical feats and accomplishments are considered impossible, at least until someone like me finally achieves them. And I confess that I have never understood the difference between banishment and appeasement, apart from the weakness of the word ‘appease.’ It smacks of cautious timidity and surrender, don’t you think?”
Rosa didn’t, and tried to say so, but Barron’s voice rolled right over her.
“Surely our work is the same,” he said. “You deal with ghosts. I deal with ghosts. The only fundamental difference, as far as I can see, is that my methods are much more effective, and they last. Will you assist me, and save Ingot, or will you waste more time quibbling?”
He took a small glass from the table and sipped. He didn’t seem to notice that the glass was empty, and also broken. Neither did he notice when he cut one finger on the jagged edge.
Barron’s blood dripped green from his hand to the map below.
19
ROSA BACKED AWAY SLOWLY.
Jasper lifted his quarterstaff.
Barron sipped a drink that was not there.
“Well?” he asked. “Please don’t disappoint me, child.”
“I’ll check in with Mom,” she said, pleased at how steady her own voice sounded. “I’ll see what we have handy for those cute little appeasement tricks.”
“I am very much obliged,” Barron said, and turned back to his map.
Rosa and Jasper bolted down the stairs. This time they didn’t care how much clattering noise they made.
“He’s dead!” Rosa whisper-shouted as soon as they reached the bottom. “He’s already dead! Going through all his old motions. And talking a lot. I’ve never heard a ghost talk so much. The voices usually fade. Plus they’re stuck with whatever words they said out loud while they were living. Sometimes I say random words, a whole bunch of them, just to make sure I’ll have them later. He must have really loved the sound of his own voice when he was still alive. I wonder when he died. I wonder if he even noticed when it happened. And why is he bleeding green? Never seen anything bleed green before. Mom probably has. But I can’t ask her about it. I mean, I can ask, but she can’t give me any answers.”
A Properly Unhaunted Place Page 7
