by M Dressler
A waiting Mary Berringer says, from her chair beside the mayor’s flickering fireplace, “Well, you must be Mr. Pratt.”
“I am.”
Close in, he looks as I remember. The same salt-and-pepper beard. The strong chin, thick hair. The same stylish clothing. That bit of swagger. Slowed by the limp.
The mayor is taking his luggage upstairs. I’ve curled, invisible, cold, in a smoky corner above them, to study this meeting.
“I’m Mrs. Berringer,” Mary says, smiling at him. “And this is my husband, John. We add our welcome to Martha’s.”
“Thank you very much. May I?” He points to an empty chair.
“Please do.”
“You made good time,” John Berringer says, unusually polite.
“I was in the valley exploring another lead, as it happens. So I wasn’t too far away.”
I know that easy smile—though his eyes look deeper and wetter than they used to, as though they’ve been hoisted from the bottom of a well.
“What do you mean by another lead, Mr. Pratt?”
“Lately, I’ve been on the hunt for a specific phantom, Mrs. Berringer. You may have heard about it on the news. There was a sighting, not too far from here, a few days ago. A man in a car was attacked at Lake Berry, frightened, but allowed to survive. Tortured, in other words. You might have heard about some trouble we had up north, with a new strain of haunt?”
She shakes her white head. “I can’t say that we have. But then we stay deliberately remote here and a little out of touch.”
“Part of the charm of being in the mountains, ma’am?” He’s flattering her. His way of getting what he wants.
“Exactly. Are you tired, Mr. Pratt? Should we let you rest, and begin all this in the morning?”
She wants to delay and distract him.
“Not at all, I generally keep late hours. Hazard of the profession. It’s kind of you all to have waited up for me.”
“We were anxious to make sure you arrived safely. Have you, dear?” She points to his knee.
“An old injury. Well, somewhat recent. Healing well.”
“What happened? Are you in much pain?”
“A cracked pelvis, a broken knee. In the line of duty.”
“Goodness!”
“Looks worse than it feels. It’s nothing, comparatively.”
“Compared to what?” John Berringer snorts.
“Compared, I suppose, to breaks that can’t be mended.” Pratt stares into the fire.
“You know, that’s what we have to worry about, too, at our age,” Mary says brightly. “Broken limbs are something we’re quite careful about, my John and I. Now here is Martha, coming down to us again. She’s a spring chicken!”
“A chicken, anyway.” The mayor lets out a tight laugh. “Can I get you a hot coffee or tea?” she says to Pratt. “Or maybe something stronger?”
“Coffee would be wonderful. And thank you all again for this warm greeting. If you all feel comfortable with it, and since you’re here, I can briefly get some information and clarification from you. That will give me a jump on our task in the morning.” He takes out his notepad.
Mary stares at it. “Certainly. But if you don’t mind, dear, we have some questions for you first. You come highly recommended, of course—but we do like to do a little vetting of our own, beforehand, you understand. Especially since it wasn’t the town council that called you.”
He seems surprised, but tips his shaggy head in agreement. “I perfectly understand, Mrs. Berringer. Fire away.”
“We’ve read your profile, Mr. Pratt. But can you tell us a bit more about your experiences and guidelines as a cleaner? Or hunter—if that’s the term you prefer?”
Pratt sets aside his notes and lifts his palms to the fire. “I don’t mind either term—though hunting suggests a sporting activity, something done for pleasure, a certain kind of thrill. What I do is for the public good—and the private good, too, I believe. My guidelines are simple: the living deserve peace. They don’t want to be hounded by the past. The dead, too, deserve peace, and rest. The work is not so much a hunt, a going after prey. I see cleaning, Mrs. Berringer, as closer to curating. Which to my mind means understanding and caring deeply about what belongs where, what’s best for all. So my life has been devoted to curating spaces, in a way, to make sure the dead sleep peacefully in theirs, the earth, and the living can walk freely around their homes, their streets.”
Ah, yes. I’ve heard all this before. The man warming his hands below me fancies himself a hero. He doesn’t look down and see the blood under his fingernails.
Martha asks, bringing him his coffee, “How’d you get started in this line of work, Mr. Pratt? And any sugar with your coffee?”
“Thank you, no thank you. I had some natural proclivity, as a child. I was never afraid of the ghosts under my bed.” I’ve heard this patter, too. He’s like a music box that plays only the one ticking waltz. “Nor afraid to tell them they were under the wrong bed, and they needed to go. It’s funny, but when you’re a child, you have a very strong sense of black and white. It’s only when we get older that we sometimes start to . . .” He pauses, blowing on his cup for a moment. “To . . . lose our certainties. I was doing non-technology-based cleanings when I was in my twenties and thirties, what we called séances back then. With the turn of the millennium and the development of the colliders, of course, everything changed. I became fascinated by the new hardware. And that’s when things took off for me. When you combine—and I don’t mean to sound grandiose here, only truthful—when you combine natural propensity with state-of-the-art weaponry, you yield good results. A lot of my competitors, particularly in the public sector, think the work is simply point and shoot. It isn’t. It’s so much more than that, friends.” He nods at all of them. “There’s an art to it, to getting the job done right. There’s a passion you have to have for the work, a feeling. And that’s what I bring to each assignment.”
“It sounds like you enjoy your work, dear.” Mary smiles.
“I do, Mrs. Berringer. I take pleasure in making the world a happier, more ordered place. Not in any hunt or hurt.”
Liar. I’ve seen you wipe your boots, with satisfaction, on the dust of a blasted soul.
“Except you recently ran into a world of hurt, didn’t you?” John Berringer leans toward him. “I’ve been doing a little research into you. And what happened this past summer. Along the coast. Deaths. An investigation?”
“I’m glad you’ve brought that up,” Pratt says smoothly. “The state licensing board reviewed my work and cleared me of any negligence, Mr. Berringer. But yes, it was a painful summer. That particular haunting . . . was a complex one, and the dead that it involved . . .” He twitches, something I don’t remember him doing before. “I don’t like to ascribe emotions to the dead, you know—they don’t feel in the same ways you or I do, it’s a very narrow spectrum of feeling, primarily vengeance and anger and sadness . . . but in that case, an especially malicious and complicated range of ghostly behaviors and responses were involved, and they resulted in casualties. In tragedy. The deaths weren’t my fault, but still, you feel . . . not responsible, but present. I was present for some very unhappy outcomes.”
So, to your way of thinking, Mr. Pratt, the dead body I saved from being put six feet under was just an unhappy outcome.
“You poor man,” Mary coos at him. “Didn’t it shake your faith in your profession, dear? Don’t you ever just want to quit, walk away from all these . . . assignments?”
“No. Not at all. If anything”—the certainty returns to his gruff voice—“it’s sharpened my resolve, let me know I’m doing the right sort of work. When the living and the dead mix, Mrs. Berringer, nothing good comes out of it. And sometimes terrible things come. So that boundary must be preserved. I witnessed a particularly powerful and resourceful spirit there along the coast. I saw her steal the tissues of a freshly dead human being, take that body on as her own, and escape. I saw this happen,
right in front of my eyes. Some of my colleagues believe I imagined the hybridization, under the stress of my injuries, or to avoid the outcomes of any trial or— But it’s not in my nature to conjure chimeras, or deny culpability. I believe—in fact I know—there is now something out there the likes of which we have never before seen. And if we don’t find it, and put it to rest, it will upend life as we know it, and everything that we agree is life. The resulting hybrid, it was . . . it looked like someone, something completely new . . . unrecognizable . . . an amalgam, a wedding of the dead and the living. Remarkable. Clever, I don’t deny it. Our current weapons can’t be shot at flesh, at human tissue, as a safety precaution. You understand that by taking over a fresh body, the spirit has insulated itself against further attack.”
Well, a girl is entitled to a bit of Irish luck, isn’t she?
“Good God! That’s the ghost you were chasing at Lake Berry?” Martha gasps.
“And I’ll chase her till I find her, Madam Mayor.”
“But that sounds awful. Does the hunt become all you think about?”
“I won’t deny I can be focused. Fixated on what’s good and right and ordered and logical. But I’m not obsessed with one specific ghost, if that’s what you mean.”
Of course you aren’t, dear.
“Don’t you have a family, dear? Time for other passions and concerns?”
“I travel a great deal, Mrs. Berringer.”
“But why stop for our problem, which, I hate to share with you, might in comparison to what you’ve just described seem like no problem at all?”
“Let us return to your situation, then. And no worries: I’m delighted to be here and to help. A cleaner still has to make a living, ma’am.” He bows. “And I’ll speak plainly: chasing something no one else as yet believes in is expensive. So I’m happy to assist. Tell me what it is you are dealing with in White Bar.”
“Thank you, dear. That’s exactly why we’re here. John and Martha and I are part of the town council. Along with Ruth Huellet, our town archivist, who as you may know is in the hospital, and Bill Schoden and Harold Dubois, who will be joining us shortly. They’re just across the square, finishing up some business in the café, but now that they’ve seen your car they’ll be bundling up to get over here.”
Pratt takes up his pen. “And where is the young man who first made the report, Seth Huellet?”
“I believe he will be accompanying them. But Mr. Pratt, we may as well tell you that we’re concerned you have been misinformed. Our dear Ruth has suffered a stroke, and hasn’t been speaking plainly. The young man—her son—isn’t really from this town, and hasn’t seen his mother in many years, and we believe has jumped to conclusions that are not accurate. You’ll likely want to go and see dear Ruth yourself, but what you hear may not jibe with reality, we’re afraid.”
“And what is that reality, Mrs. Berringer?”
“You’ll be able to see for yourself in the morning. We preserve the past, here, Mr. Pratt; we are not, to our knowledge, haunted by it. We keep the past alive and well, in our buildings, customs, period details. People come here for the authentic gold rush experience. Perhaps this has created confusion for a young man who thinks he knows the Bar but who hasn’t lived here and doesn’t know us at all.”
“He said”—Pratt looks at his notes—“according to his mother you were ‘infested’ with ghosts. He hasn’t, he was clear, seen them himself.”
Martha frowns. “Well, we certainly did have ghosts at one time. But now we’re clean as a whistle. It’s what the tourists demand, you know. Atmosphere, but clean.”
“So you’re saying, Mayor Hayley, you believe the report that brought me here is in error.”
“That’s our suspicion. Our hope. But of course, you’re the expert, Mr. Pratt. You’ll want to talk to—excuse me, I hear some stomping on my porch, I think they’re here, Bill, Harry, and Seth. Just a moment, and you’ll be able to ask Seth yourself.”
The door blows open, and the three men, arms linked, stumble into the pink light of the sconces, their heads down, their necks painted with snow. The first to let go of Seth Huellet’s narrow shoulder is Bill. Then Harold. They slap and shake the ice from their own backs and then, loudly, from the frail back of Ruth’s son.
“Hey, sorry about your rug, Martha!” Harold calls and shivers. “Wild out there! First of a series of squalls, apparently.”
“Don’t worry about the carpet. Come sit by the fire, boys. This is Mr. Philip Pratt.”
Harold turns first to Seth. “Let me take your coat, son, you’re not from here, are you, so you don’t know, but you don’t want to stay in wet things, trust me. You’ll freeze.”
Seth Huellet lifts his head and chin, his iced hair falling back. He moves meekly to one side as Harold passes him with the gathered coats.
“Sit down, Seth,” Martha invites. “Bill, can you get some more coffee for everyone?”
I stay curled in my corner. The snow blows in sheets across the windows.
“Good evening, everyone. I was just saying,” Pratt continues, “that I’d like to get a few things a bit more in focus this evening, and then I’ll hit this case hard and strong in the morning. If that’s all right with the assembled council?”
“It is,” Martha says.
“Now.” Pratt returns, businesslike, to his notes. “You’ve made a claim—or one of you has”—he looks at Seth—“that this town is haunted, and you understand that once a claim has been made, it must be investigated.”
“Of course.” Mary nods at Seth. “We all understand entirely.”
“You also understand that there are recent laws in this state that require you to report any haunting or any evidence or suggestion of a haunting, on pain of criminal penalty. This is to discourage the hiding of fugitives.”
“My goodness, who would want to hide a ghost? They’re such dreadful things!”
“Mrs. Berringer, it used to be everyone felt that way. Lately, however, misplaced sympathies have started to . . . arise. And the dead, or rather those who should be dead, have become more . . . adept. As we were discussing earlier. But let’s see what we might be dealing with here, and assume it—or they—aren’t part of the new strain. Son, you’re the one who put in the call to me?”
“Sure,” the young man mumbles.
“You visited your mother in the hospital. And she said she had been attacked.”
“Well, um, no, she didn’t say that, not exactly. She was sort of confused. Confusing. Her mouth’s not working too well right now. Or her mind. Because of the accident. She hit her head.” He looks around the room. “Stroke. She’s half paralyzed.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. Then tell me again what she said, exactly.”
“I don’t remember, exactly. She hit her head.”
“But”—Pratt smiles, encouragingly—“you didn’t hit yours, did you?”
“No.”
“Then please try to remember as much as you can. You reported that your mother had accused the town of White Bar of non-reportage of not one but several ghosts. That’s quite an accusation.”
“Poppycock!” John Berringer bursts out. “Poor Ruth’s addled. We’ve reported every ghost who’s ever troubled us here, as she would know better than anyone else, if she were in her right mind!”
“Would that mean you haven’t reported ghosts who haven’t troubled you?”
Even wounded, Pratt’s still sharp. Careful, everyone.
“You can check our records,” Martha offers. “Ghost after ghost was reported, especially when you hunters first came on the scene.”
“Seth,” Pratt tries again, not giving up, “your mother did or did not suggest several ghosts are in this vicinity?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I mean, I, I think I misunderstood her. I think she doesn’t even understand herself. Her mind is all garbled from the fall. I mean the accident.”
“I thought you said it was a stroke. Have the doc
tors determined the cause of this—fall?”
“Not yet.”
“You told me your mother was discovered wounded in a museum she runs.”
“She was,” Bill says, nodding. “It’s just at the other end of the square, Mr. Pratt. She’s very proud of it. We all are.”
“I’m sure. I look forward to visiting it. Are you aware, councilmembers, that archival locations are where a significant portion of aggressive behaviors by the dead toward the living take place?”
They seem surprised.
“Why would that be?” Bill asks.
Well, we’re not too fond of the past being gaped at as though it, and we, are freaks.
“Because museums are, in a way, cemeteries. Epitaphs. Places of final rest. Aggressive ghosts take exception to them. They don’t want to be buried. Or they have been buried, and take exception to that fact.”
“But our museum doesn’t bury the past,” Martha says. “It illuminates it.”
“It’s a question of perspective, I’m afraid. We, the living, we like to lift the past into the light. But the dead don’t want to admit they’re a part of the past, don’t want their being in the past illuminated. They don’t want to accept the natural order of things. Seth, it sounds like you’re uncertain, now, about what your mother told you? That’s perfectly understandable. None of us”—he looks at all of them—“likes to think we might be walking with the dead swarming all around us. And it’s true that it’s rare, these days, to find more than a single entity in a given location that needs to be cleaned. Multiples are the exception now, not the rule. However, it’s also true that those who have seen a ghost or ghosts tend not to be mistaken. We get very little false reporting, in my field. Why? Because, when you’ve seen a ghost, you generally—though not always—know it. Something sounds a very special alarm inside you. The living recognize what isn’t living. You might say it’s part of our evolutionary history. The elephant on the veld mourns the death of her mate or offspring . . . but then she joins the herd, and moves on. The dead must be left behind. Our instincts know it. So I would recommend, in fact I’ll insist, Seth, at this stage, that we all treat your mother’s words with respect. If she is speaking through pain and disability, as it seems to me she must be, then she is still fighting to speak, which isn’t easy for her. She may be garbled in some particulars—believing, for example, that you all must have known about what attacked her. Some victims seek to place blame elsewhere to avoid blaming themselves for the harm done to them. The truth is this: no one is to blame in cases like this, no one but the ghost itself. We are where we are supposed to be. They aren’t. I’m here to make sure everything is in the right place. And before I leave, on your behalf as well as that of your future visitors and neighbors, I will make sure it is.”
