The Ghosting of Gods

by Cricket Baker

  He reminds me of George with his logic.

  “He is confused and lies,” Elspeth says. Drool spills from the corner of her mouth.

  “I revise my opinion of Elspeth,” the saint announces. “She is not honest.”

  Elspeth lifts her head. Staring off to my right, she speaks urgently. “Jesse, you must give up the quest to return to your life as it once was. It will never be again. Didn’t Chastity warn you? You will die here in Memento Mori.”

  Saint Thomas barks laughter. “Bless the Holy Ghost for hiding! I never promised the young man he would live long enough to get home. I merely suggested passage was possible with the missionaries.” He jabs with his staff. “Actually, if he dies here in Memento Mori, he will most certainly make it home. As a ghost, of course. Universal Law. A ghost must return to its own world. Your friends may follow after if they are close by. Only one of you needs die.” He claps me on the back. “You appear weak. Shall we find you a biscuit?”

  “Why would a ghost return to its home world? That’s not right…it goes to heaven…”

  “Holy Ghost! What an ignorant boy you are. Ghosts never go to heaven. Of course they don’t.” He grabs my arm. Presses his face to mine, so that I feel its coldness. “Ghosts aren’t allowed there,” he whispers. “Do you know my greatest doubt, child? Do you?”

  I shake my head.

  Clinching his eyes shut, he waves me off.

  I leave him to go to Elspeth. Without hesitation, I cross the circle. If the spying covenists want to stop me, let them.

  “Not good,” Saint Thomas says, and off he goes again, disappearing into the trees.

  Elspeth stares vacantly. “It hurts when he doesn’t remember me…”

  “I’m here,” I say, so close to her that I feel her ragged breath on my face.

  She bites her bottom lip till it bleeds. “Release me. Or has Chastity tempted you to abandon me?”

  “I trust neither of you.”

  She weeps.

  “What is your real interest in me, Elspeth? Why did you want Chastity to find me? Is it true what she told me?”

  “I thought she was my friend. Without her digging, I would have suffocated. I trusted her and confessed how my own coven had banished me from their presence. They did not understand me any more than the people of Memento Mori understood Chastity when their eyes fell upon her. I am determined to show her how wrong she is about me. She is dear to me. But you are precious. Oh, Jesse. You are meant to wipe away the tears.”

  Revived by the passion evident in her proclamation, she tries to perceive me with her sightless eyes. She smiles, and I see her teeth are tinged pink from her bleeding lip.

  “You, Jesse, have power to break the chains of ghosts. I witnessed Chastity gazing into virgin crystal, and I heard the prophecy. She foresaw your coming. We devised a plan to bring you to the forest—Chastity stole Leesel, knowing you would come for the little girl you loved. Our plan worked.”

  Silence stretches between us. Drowning in realization of my guilt, I observe the sinking of rain into the ground at my feet. “Leesel was abducted because of me.”

  “It was all meant to be,” Elspeth insists.

  “You used Leesel as bait.” I fight the impulse to remove the ecstatic expression from her face. Summoning what decency is left in me, I leave her to hang on the tombstone. She calls after me.

  “Did you not pray for a way to save your sister from her past?”

  I stop.

  “Do you not seek a way to free your sister from the crystal, to be in her presence, to hold her in your arms?”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “It’s been promised. I do not mock your religion as does Saint Thomas. Every tear will be wiped away. My life is dedicated to this evolutionary destiny.”

  It’s crazy.

  I keep my back to her, but I can’t make myself walk away. “What is it you expect me to do?” I ask.

  “Chastity confessed that you will see the Holy Ghost face to face. The Holy Ghost carries no chains. You will ask the secret of this. Then Thomas will be free of his burden, his past, his chains. I will. All ghosts will be saved. Forgiven, guilt erased. Every tear will be wiped away with the breaking of the chains.” She sighs. “And then, Jesse, it will be safe for us all to commit suicide.”

  I close my eyes. For a moment, I was listening, trying to believe her.

  Suicide?

  Saint Thomas shrieks. Again and again. He wails. “Have mercy! I’m losing my religion. Dark night, dark night, dark night!”

  Elspeth’s beatific expression vanishes. She strains, whispering Thomas’s name, but he’s lost, gone away.

  I doubt his sanity. Hers.

  And my own. Because now I have an idea. If Elspeth is right and I will die here in Memento Mori, I must make sure my friends are present, so they can follow in the wake of my ghost to return home.

  Ruth emerges from the forest, surrounded by covenists. “Enough,” she simply states.

  They escort me back to my hut.

  36

  she heals what should not be healed

  Ruth sends word by Hannah, the little girl who is Leesel’s friend, to tell us to come out of our hut and be witnesses. “So you may know the truth about Elspeth,” Hannah explains.

  Leesel, considered part of the coven, does not join us where we’re stationed at the wall of a hut. It’s our first sight of her since she left us staggering with sleep into the next hut. She looks well enough. Wearing a heavy robe, she’s easy to find among the other small girls, who wear only their dresses. Leesel’s cowl is pulled up over her head. The morning is cold.

  Ava squeezes my hand.

  “I don’t like the feeling of this,” Poe whispers to me.

  Me neither. I wrap my arm around his shoulders, hug him to me. “I’m going to get us out of here, Poe. I’m going to get us home.”

  Ruth claps her hands. With no other instruction, the sisters arrange themselves in concentric circles in the clearing that is the center of the village. They sit, legs crossed and backs straight. “Bring her,” Ruth says. She sounds weary, though I know the covenists aren’t supposed to require sleep.

  A clump of women emerge from a hut, carrying a body. Ropes of black hair, now streaked with grey, hang from the lolling head.

  “What did they do to her?” Poe asks, horror in his voice. “Mother Mary, she’s barely alive. I hardly recognize her.”

  The covenists surround Elspeth, chant numbers at her, and let loose of her only to catch her when she falls. Ruth paces, watching. Seeming impatient with the efforts of her sisters to rouse Elspeth, she signals with her hand, and a girl pops up from her space in the innermost circle. Holding something in her hand that glints, she delivers the object to Ruth.

  A silver spoon.

  Elspeth stands. She pushes the hair away from her face and out of her eyes. I see her face—it’s pinched, sallow. But the dark eyes burn. Shrugging off the women who hold her, she lunges forward to snatch the spoon out of Ruth’s hand.

  “I thought so,” Ruth says.

  Stunned, I take in the sight of Elspeth and the changes, which two days tied to the tombstone, on Ruth’s drugs, have wrought upon her. Her eyes are sunken in her head. Her dress swallows her to the extent that I think the neck hole may slide off her rope-scraped shoulders.

  Panic unexpectedly tightens my chest. I don’t want to lose Elspeth.

  Parting her once cherry lips that are now deathly pale and chapped, she slips the spoon into her mouth. Her eyes close.

  I have to do something. My eyes take in the number of gathered covenists. What can I do? I have no weapon…

  Murmurs from the covenists.

  “This is awful,” Poe says. He pulls at his hair. “What makes them treat her this way? I can’t look at it.”

  Neither can the covenists. They turn their heads, look down, cover their faces—anything but look at Elspeth. Only one face stares on. Leesel’s. She’s crying, silently.

  Ruth d
ismisses the small group of women guarding Elspeth. “We will speak our minds,” Ruth declares, “as well as listen to the voice of the one we have been forced to restrain by rope and drug.” Walking the inner circle, she bends to lift the chin of every woman and girl she comes to. “We had no choice. Shame has no place on our faces. Without our intervention, Elspeth would possess. And what comes of her acts of possession? Has not everyone here seen the woman called Chastity? How she rocks in her corner?”

  Covenists nod. Curse numbers.

  Look afraid.

  “Elspeth must be stripped of whatever ghost possesses her,” Ruth exclaims. “I regret we have not yet learned to accomplish this without death. I have not wanted this! I know this distresses all of you, my sisters. But I believe you will agree with my judgment once all is revealed.”

  Beside me, Ava lets go of my hand. Her arms cross over her chest. Satisfaction in Elspeth’s condemnation brings a grim pleasure to the line of her mouth.

  Poe is different. Hunkered against the wall of the hut, he holds his head and kneads his hair. He prays with trembling lips. “VENI, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende.”

  Unlike Ava, he can’t watch.

  Ava loves those she loves. She does so fiercely. With an abandon that moves me. But it’s all she does.

  Ava sees my distress. “I want her to die,” she says flatly.

  I turn from her.

  Ruth circles Elspeth, who continues to stand, eyes squeezed shut, with the silver spoon in her mouth. “Keep your spoon,” Ruth says. “Let it comfort you. But open your eyes so that I know you hear and understand me.”

  Elspeth’s eyes open. Covenists shift, ever so slightly, so that their concentric circles spread outward, as if a stone had been dropped in their midst.

  The stone is Elspeth. Perfectly still, she no longer sucks her spoon. Her eyes lock onto Ruth and do not blink.

  Ruth speaks gently, as if to a child. “You will keep no secrets from us. Know that the means to obtain your compliance are at my disposal. Chastity’s mind is fragmented, but she is not so damaged that I have been unable to communicate with her.”

  Whatever implication these words carry, Elspeth is affected. The spoon falls to the ground. Her arms hang limply. With little strength to hold up her head, her face is lifted just enough so that she can stare at Ruth. Her apparent loss of the ability to blink is unnerving. But I see that her pupils are not as constricted as before, and her eyes follow the movements of Ruth.

  Until they find me. I step forward.

  “What of Elspeth’s secret past?” one of the covenists calls out, before I have a chance to speak. “Is it true her own sisters renounced her?”

  “Of course,” another answers. “Why else did she come? They wouldn’t have her. Her spiritual powers are abnormal.”

  Ruth at first seems hesitant to speak. It’s almost as if she’s waiting for Elspeth to offer up a defense of her behavior. If so, Elspeth doesn’t take the cue.

  If she ever had abnormal powers, where are they now?

  Ruth’s shoulders straighten. She’s gaining confidence. “Elspeth’s ambition to take the sting from death has led her to do unspeakable things. She attempted to heal what should not be healed, yes, as we suspected. But more than that, she threatened one of her own with sleep. She was not banished from her coven. She escaped! They intended to kill her.” Ruth pauses while the coven murmurs. “She could destroy everything we have worked for. She has the power to put our entire coven to sleep. Saint Chastity has admitted this is so.”

  Elspeth cries, silently.

  “Not only does she have this power, but she intends to use it. How do I know? Jesse.” Ruth comes to me, raises her voice as she roughly grabs my arm. “Jesse confessed his purpose. Elspeth needs him to retrieve her first ghost.”

  I shake her loose. Back away.

  Ruth opens her arms. “It is Elspeth’s first ghost, which knows how to put us to sleep forever.”

  This last statement transforms her audience. They reach for one another. Gasp. Shake their heads.

  “Kill her,” a voice shrieks. “Kill Elspeth!”

  “Oh, shit,” I mumble. I’ve got to do something. They’re going to kill her because of what I said.

  Covenists shriek curses as a bitter wind blows through the village, rattling lanterns on tree branches. Ruth stands tall, pleased with her work. She allows the panic. Poe hugs himself, shivering. His eyes meet mine. I know he expects me to do something. Should I wait? Should I rush forward, and take Elspeth, who stands catatonic?

  I barely twitch, and Ruth holds up her hand. “Jesse, hear me,” she says. Her voice is calm.

  After a moment, I nod.

  “If Elspeth knew what you are, she would kill you,” Ruth says. Slowly, she walks around me. I rotate with her, unwilling for her to be at my back. “But perhaps only after you have served her purpose. Shall I tell her what you are?”

  I’m unable to answer. I don’t know what to do.

  Chastity is brought to the center of the circles.

  Covenists gawk at her. The seer with soft skin trembles. She sways. She rubs her arms, hunches her shoulders, hides her face. A small girl calls out, “Let us see your weird eyes! They don’t blink!” Chastity shrinks further, appearing shamed at the fascination of the children.

  “Leave her alone.” Elspeth has wakened. She glares at the little girls. “Your curiosity gives her pain,” she rebukes.

  “And how did you hurt her, Elspeth?” Ruth asks. Acid laces her voice.

  I move, shaking off Ava. Covenists shrink aside as I cross their circles. Bending to the ground, I pick up the silver spoon and offer it to Elspeth.

  She trembles and the spoon slips through her fingers. I pick it up, press it into her palm, and carefully bend her fingers around the silver.

  Ruth ignores what I’ve done. She gets in Chastity’s face. “Speak. You know the future. Tell me, will Elspeth possess again?”

  The coven silences. Chastity speaks.

  “She will.”

  “But I’m sorry,” Elspeth cries out in a hoarse voice. She turns away from me, staggers, drops to her knees, grabs the bottom of Chastity’s robe and kisses it. “You hid from me. I was desperate. Possessing you was the only way I could catch you. When you resisted…the fall was an accident! You know I meant no harm. I only wanted you to come back to the village.”

  “I don’t like it here,” Chastity says softly.

  “That doesn’t matter.” Elspeth kneads the edges of Chastity’s robe. “You shouldn’t be alone. The coven will accept you.”

  “Have they accepted you?”

  Elspeth releases the robe. “No.”

  Chastity addresses the coven. “Elspeth will put you to sleep. All of you. The entire coven. But Ruth is wrong. She can do this now, without her former ghost.”

  Ruth startles.

  I remember what Elspeth said to me in the graveyard. I need not mix. Yet what sleepy girls they will be.

  “Sleep is intolerable,” Ruth whispers.

  The coven whispers. We must strip away the ghost, they say. We must strip it now.

  “You will not kill Elspeth,” Chastity says, keeping her face down. Her voice is quiet but certain. “She is too brilliant.”

  An urge to kneel beside Elspeth nearly overwhelms me. She knows. Her eyes flash at me, pierce me, and I sense her demand that I act. Her chin dips slightly. Her upward gaze intensifies. She is…calculating.

  Hannah’s voice whimpers in the silence.

  Elspeth’s expression is one I know well. It’s the look of a priest commanding me to abandon my doubts. The look of a priest ordering me to trust that God has safe hold of my dead sister. The look of a priest I know I can’t trust.

  A coldness comes over me. Elspeth’s flinch is almost imperceptible when I step back from her.

  “Is Elspeth too powerful for you?” Ruth shrills, roughly grabbing Chastity’s clothing. “What of the mixture you diag
nosed? It has contained her.”

  “No longer.”

  Elspeth’s body crumples to the ground. Her head hits last, and hard. There’s a pregnant pause in the village, and the circles crack.

  37

  holy trinity

  Disregarding the chaos around her, Chastity tilts her head and draws fingers through long strands of her streaked hair, pulling it loose from its braids. She sways. Escape, she mouths at me.

  Nodding, I stumble backwards.

  The vision of Elspeth’s empty body unnerves me. It’s not dead—her chest heaves up and down, as if the self-exorcism required tremendous physical effort. Or maybe the body struggles to stay alive with the ghost missing. I don’t know. I’m an exorcist of dwellings, not people. I want no part of this.

  “Where is her ghost?” a little girl screams.

  Ruth clutches the girl’s shoulders. “Go, hide. Elspeth veils her ghost. You won’t see it if it comes for you. Go, Delia, hide.”

  Ava screams Leesel’s name.

  I’m colliding with covenists as they scatter, crying and shouting, urging one another to hide. In the middle of it all sits one woman, her leg in a splint. “Don’t leave me,” she pleads, reaching out for someone to help her.

  Leesel. Where is she? I shout her name into the pandemonium.

  I glimpse Ava rushing toward a hut. Poe grabs her, pulls her, and they vanish among the delirious covenists who run in wild circles rather than heeding their own cries to hide. They spin, gasp, jump into the air, as if chased by unseen poltergeists. “Where is the ghost?” they cry out. “Where?”

  Catching Hannah as she rushes to a hut, I ask her where Leesel is.

  “She got away!” She slaps at me and I let her go.

  Poe runs alongside Ava. Together they call Leesel’s name, but there’s so much screaming their voices are lost. Covenists begin to chant one of their nonsensical formulas, as if numbers were a kind of spell to protect them.