A Properly Unhaunted Place

by William Alexander

  “So I see.” Nell wiped her brow with a sooty forearm. “What can I do for you, specialist?”

  “I need a little copper,” Rosa said. “Ideally something wearable. Jasper said the two of you talked about the stuff.”

  “We did. Here, follow me.” The smith took off her heavy gloves and went to the very back of the smithy. Rosa followed. “I don’t have much. And you’re not the first to ask. Englebert and his ghost-hunting militia came by earlier with lumps of raw copper around their necks, and they wanted more.”

  “There’s a ghost-hunting militia?” Rosa asked. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  “I know it,” said Nell. “Idiots of Ingot are wearing ingots as jewelry and wielding arcane weaponry. Last night they kept close to the festival, marching around and trying to intimidate trees into holding still. But now they’re gone. Not sure where they went. That makes me nervous. And here you come, making similar requests for wearable metal. Makes me even more nervous. Local ghosts are not fond of copper, correct?”

  “Not at all,” Rosa said. “Practically allergic to it.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  Rosa hesitated. “The town doesn’t really want to remember where it came from.”

  Nell made a thoughtful noise. “Think you can help? You and your mother?”

  Yes, Rosa thought. Maybe. Hopefully. If Mom’s idea works. And I really don’t know if it’s going to work. I’ve used candles to give ghosts a place to keep warm and be remembered. I’ve coaxed little bathroom spirits across mirrors with candles. But I’ve never done anything like this.

  She wanted to trust her mother. She wanted unshaken and unshakable faith in Athena Díaz and her legendary appeasement skills. But Rosa didn’t have that faith anymore. She needed to learn how to keep moving without it.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

  “Right then.” Nell pulled a blanket covering away from a low table.

  A sword lay across that table. It was short, only about two feet long, but with a wide blade. The burnished metal glowed richly orange and brown.

  “Wow,” Rosa said.

  She picked it up. Nell didn’t stop her, though she did watch her very carefully.

  “This right here is the best Bronze Age work I’ve ever done,” she said. “I’d finished the recasso blade already, and then set it aside. Most sword collectors are looking for something more recent and renaissancy. But then young Jasper clued me in to the whole copper thing. Bronze is mostly copper. Almost entirely. So I came back to this blade, and finished the hilt. What do you think?”

  “It’s so light.” Rosa rolled her wrist in a slow moùliné, testing the weight of it.

  “Very,” Nell said. “Heavy blades are overrated. Good for chopping wood and little else. Hard to recover after a swing.”

  Rosa examined the blade. “Is it Llyn Fawr style?”

  Nell grinned. “No, but close. This one is more Ewart Park-ish. You know your swords.”

  Rosa nodded. “I’ve always lived in libraries.” She set the weapon back on the table. “But I didn’t come to you for this sort of thing. We’re not going to pick a fight.”

  Nell’s grin got wider. “I like that. Very much. Because I’m not interested in helping anyone pick a fight. Certainly not the ghost-hunting boys who’ve taken up arms. But you . . . I watched you bring a stampeding tree to a standstill yesterday by drawing shapes in the dirt with a pocketknife. You’ve got skills—the sorts of skills that the rest of us here in Ingot just don’t have. So take the sword. Not to pick a fight. Just to set boundaries around you. If you need it.”

  Rosa paused. She waited for Nell to change her mind, or say Just kidding.

  “Take it,” Nell said instead. “As a saleswoman, it pains me when somebody buys the wrong thing. I’ll sell it to them anyway, because I need groceries. But it physically hurts to see somebody hold a blade that is very obviously wrong for them. This one is obviously yours. Take it.”

  Rosa took it. She buckled the leather sheath to her tool belt between the matches and the pouch of salt. The weight of it felt new and strange, but it also felt like it belonged there.

  Nell rubbed calloused hands together. “Excellent. As for wearable stuff, I have a few bracelets and armlets like mine. Take them. But I would like you to bring them back again.”

  “I will,” Rosa promised. “But don’t you want to know what we’re up to, before you let me walk away with your merchandise?”

  “Not really,” Nell said. “I’d rather keep clear of ghostly things and let you handle knowing about them. Need anything else?”

  Rosa suddenly felt like she had swallowed an extra dose of awkward. “There is one more thing. I hate to ask, but could you maybe help babysit my mom?”

  24

  THE SUN WAS SETTING ALREADY. High Mountains raised up the horizon and brought early sunsets down.

  Rosa and Jasper left the Renaissance Festival, each with a huge candle under one arm. Rosa had gouged the word Aλήθεια, over and over again, into both pillars of wax.

  “Aletheia” meant truth, revealed and remembered. It was a word that washed “lethe” away.

  “People are going to be mad about this,” Jasper mused.

  “Probably,” Rosa agreed.

  “Really mad. Panicked mad. We’ve never had to deal with ghosts before.”

  “Nope,” said Rosa.

  “Plus a bunch of them came here to get away from hauntings. What if their old ghosts find them again? What if—”

  He stopped, suddenly, and swallowed the rest.

  What if Mom was haunted? Rosa thought. Maybe she couldn’t handle it at the time. Maybe that’s why we moved here. And maybe she’ll be haunted again if we do this.

  “The ghosts are all coming back anyway,” she said aloud. “They’ll break through. Soon. But if this works then they won’t flatten everyone and everything else when they come.”

  “Think it’ll work?” Jasper asked.

  “Yes,” Rosa said. “Kinda. Maybe. Hopefully.”

  “Good enough.” He hoisted up the candle. It was already getting heavy.

  “You remember what to do?” Rosa asked. “Run through it one more time.”

  “Go north,” Jasper said. “Get to the big copper circle. Put the candle on it. Light the candle. Invite the ghosts to come home. Stand out of their way when they do.”

  “That last part is really important,” Rosa said. “They’ve been stuck for a long time. They might lash out, even if invited. Make yourself a circle. Use salt. Do you have enough salt?”

  Jasper produced a handful of paper salt packets, newly swiped from the Tacky Tavern.

  “And those new bracelets fit?”

  “They seem to.” He fiddled with the studded leather things around his wrists. “They look silly, though. Makes me feel like I should be wearing a leather jacket and riding a Harley.”

  “Yeah,” Rosa agreed. “They kinda do. But the extra copper should make it easier for you to climb the hill and get close to the wall. Don’t forget to breathe when you start to get angry.”

  “I won’t.”

  They reached the road. Jasper looked north. Rosa looked south. She switched her candle from her right arm to her left. “I wish we could do this together. But we need to light these at pretty much the same time. And they need to be at opposite ends. Otherwise we’ll collapse the circle too quickly. That would be bad. Do you have enough salt?”

  He didn’t bother answering. “Thanks for doing all this,” he said. “Thanks for defending a place you hate.”

  “I don’t hate it,” Rosa said, and surprised herself by saying so. “I don’t like it much,” she admitted, “but I think I understand it better. And it’s about to change.”

  “Do you know how it’ll change?” he asked. “If this works? Do you know what Ingot will be like?”

  “No,” Rosa said. “But it will be haunted. Just like everywhere else.”

  Jasper tried to picture his hometown as a
haunted place.

  “Probably more so than everywhere else,” she added.

  He gave up even trying to picture it. Jasper had never lived anywhere else.

  “Good luck,” he said, and set out northward.

  Rosa waved. Then she hiked south along Isabelle Road.

  She passed the point where the road ended, and all of the signs warning swimmers away from the poisoned pond. DO NOT SWIM. DO NOT DRINK. WATER UNSAFE. NO FISHING. NO HUNTING. NO TRESPASSING.

  Rosa picked up a rock and threw it into the sickly looking water. She tried to throw all of her doubts along with it.

  “Hi Dad,” she said.

  The stone made an oozing sort of splash.

  Her medallion and armlet began to feel cold.

  25

  JASPER WALKED ALL THE WAY through town, just as he had yesterday. But this time he walked alone, without Sir Dad in the lead. He hoped no neighbors would notice him, try to strike up a conversation, or ask why he lugged a large candle around.

  Most would probably take issue with what Jasper meant to accomplish with that candle.

  He left the sidewalks and struck out through the northern foothills. No one ever came this way. Jasper hiked without a clear path or trail. He pushed through brush and scratching branches.

  The bracelets grew cold against his wrists. He tried singing “The Ballad of the Hapless Highwayman” just to distract himself. It was one of Sir Dad’s favorites, and Dad’s voice made panic impossible. Jasper’s voice cracked a little. Dad would have relished the chance to ride off on a knightly errand. Jasper felt more and more foolish the farther he climbed. He tried to embrace that foolish feeling. He sang louder about the misadventures of the very worst robber to ever rob highways. But the song dwindled and fizzled by the time he reached Barron’s circle and the roiling wall of fog.

  A motor rumbled close by. Jasper heard wheels on Barron’s track, and froze. It’s him, he thought. Crap, crap, crap. Dead man Barron is riding this way on his motorcycle. But it wasn’t Barron. Four mopeds came racing around the bend instead, all four ridden by festival folk.

  Englebert the stable boy rode in the lead. He held a guisarme—a big spear with extra hooks and spikes all over it, clearly forged by Mr. Smoot. The guisarme balanced awkwardly against the handlebars.

  Humphrey the Victorian rode with his ornate flamethrower strapped to his back.

  Two spear-carrying members of the royal guard brought up the rear.

  The ghost-hunting militia braked their mopeds and dismounted. All of them wore lumps of copper on necklace chains. All of them looked twitchy with rage that they didn’t understand.

  “We know what you’re doing,” Englebert said. He practically shouted the words. “We can’t let you do it. We have to defend Ingot from the dead.”

  Rosa stood beside the copper barrier, her toes almost touching it. “Lethe,” it said, over and over again, etched into metal.

  She scratched Aλήθεια into the side of a wooden match with the point of a needle. Probably unnecessary. The word was already all over the candle itself. But she wanted to be sure. This was the place closest to the copper mine, the part of the circle that had broken yesterday. This would take extra care.

  Rosa took the travel mug and used her salty compass to pick the precise spot. She lit the memorial candle, held it sideways, and dripped hot wax over fused copper bathroom fixtures. Then she stuck the base of the candle to the dribbled pool of molten wax.

  Mist swirled in darker colors behind it.

  “Come in,” Rosa said. “We’re inviting you in. We’re inviting you home.”

  The wick burned orange, and then it burned green.

  Rosa let herself believe that this might work.

  A wind rose up around her. The temperature dropped.

  Bartholomew Theosophras Barron came riding up the path. He dismounted from his motorcycle. Green candlelight reflected in his eyes.

  “You will not do this, child,” said Barron’s ghost.

  Rosa drew her sword.

  Jasper set the candle on the ground and stood beside it.

  The militia fanned out around him. He was the center of their vengeful attention.

  He hated being the center of attention.

  I don’t know how to handle this, he admitted to himself. Dad would know, but I don’t. He felt a brief, bright flash of resentment for his father and the easy way he seemed to handle every kind of scrutiny. Jasper wasn’t sure how much of that resentment was his own, and how much he borrowed from behind the wall.

  I’m not my dad, he thought. But I can play him. I can borrow some confidence that isn’t really mine.

  Jasper shifted his posture to stand like Sir Dad.

  Look at me. Listen to me. It is right and fitting that I should have your attention.

  “You’re trying to defend our town,” he said to the other boys. “Good. Thank you. But you have this whole entire situation backwards.”

  “We stood safe for a hundred years inside this circle,” Englebert said. He clearly meant to sound brave, but his voice whined and undermined him. “The town founder told us so. Now some girl swoops in from the city to say we’ve been doing it all wrong?”

  “She knows her business,” Jasper said simply.

  “But she doesn’t know ours,” Englebert insisted. “A haunted Ingot won’t be Ingot anymore.”

  “Then we will mourn what it used to be,” Jasper said, his father’s cadence in his own voice. His imaginary confidence started to feel solid and real. “We will also live to recognize what else it might become.”

  “Stop that!” Englebert shouted, spit flying. Jasper heard something else riding alongside that rage. “Stop pretending! You’re not a knight. You aren’t doing anything noble. We are. We’re noble. And we’re not going to let you do this.”

  Jasper watched the others who stood behind the stable boy. They looked both determined and uncomfortable.

  He glanced at the wall, where fog rolled, roiled, and pushed against the line it could not cross. Dried leaves crackled near the copper barrier as frost covered them.

  Maybe I can reach it, he thought. If I run. Maybe I can dodge between them, get this massive, awkward candle where it needs to go, and then light the Zippo. Sure.

  He knew that he couldn’t, but he gathered himself up to try it. Then his sense of time shifted.

  Everything happened slowly, each action distinct and separate from every other action.

  Humphrey pointed a gear-encrusted hose at the sky and let loose a warning burst of flame.

  Englebert held up his weapon in a menacing way. He held it entirely wrong.

  Behind their posturing the copper barrier cracked. Mist leaked though the breach. Cold air tickled at the back of Jasper’s teeth and made his breath catch.

  Too late, he thought.

  He whacked the ground hard with the tip of his staff, drew a wide circle around himself, and threw down salt.

  Then the dead broke through.

  Rosa stood with her back to the wall. She used her sword to draw a hasty half-circle around the candle and herself.

  She had only enough room for a half-circle.

  “An incomplete shape will not hold, child,” Barron said. He said it kindly, as though offering her helpful advice. Then he blew the candle out from several feet away.

  Her left hand fumbled at her belt pouch for a handful of salt. She got the clasp open and scattered the stuff in front of her. “You still can’t step over this.”

  Barron drew a rusty fencing foil from the mess of scrap metal in his sidecar. “I have no need to step across your awkward line in the dirt. I only need to reach over it to dismember that ungainly memorial candle. Please stand aside.”

  Rosa took up a fighting stance instead.

  “Ah.” Barron smiled. His smile looked grotesque. “To the death? No. Redundant. To your honor, then, and my own.” He offered a formal salute with his rusting sword.

  Rosa returned the salute. She wanted to
say something brave and clever, but she didn’t have time. He attacked. She parried in a quick, panicked reflex.

  You know how to do this, she insisted to herself. Remember how to do this You used to duel with Mom all the time. But she had never crossed swords with a dead banishment specialist before.

  Barron attacked again. She parried again, moving hastily as though trying to swat a zigzagging fly.

  “Surrender,” he said. “Your art is made of compromise and embarrassment. Mine reshapes the world and its possibilities according to my stronger will. And I will not yield. I will not be appeased. I will maintain the wall around Ingot Town.”

  He struck high, low, and to the center. He moved in straight lines. Ghosts often do.

  Rosa offered parry, remedy, and counter. She moved in arcs. The tip of her bronze blade marked the outer circle of her farthest reach, and she shifted her stance to expand that reach.

  Barron struck as though chopping wood. Whackity, whackity, hack. High, low, and to the center. Again. Always. He fought in echoes, stuck in the endless loop of a compulsive haunting. He moved in patterns doomed to repeat.

  Breathe, Rosa thought. Don’t forget to breathe.

  Barron attacked. She didn’t bother to parry the rusty foil this time. Instead she just stepped aside, and cut off Barron’s hand at the wrist.

  He looked surprised, and then delighted.

  “Well done, child. You may be capable of working your will on the world after all.” He picked up the bloody, green-splattered hand and pushed it back into place, smoothing skin over the cut as though sculpting with clay. “But you will grow weary eventually, and I will not. Another bout?”

  He saluted again.

  Rosa had already relit the candle.

  “Isabelle Barron,” she said, “be remembered. I invite you in.”

  26

  THE COPPER BARRIER CRACKED. FOG came billowing through like a breaking wave. It flattened the militia and their mopeds, shocked summertime trees into scarlet colors, and flowed wide around Jasper’s circle.

  Figures moved through the fog. Long-limbed and towering things came striding by. Smaller things came skittering. Spirits made new clothes for themselves from dirt, leaves, and whatever else they found.