The Ghost Bride

by Stacey Keystone

  "So… what happens now?" I asked. I checked the great mirror hanging on one of the walls. My appearance had changed. Anybody who knew the Morads could now guess which family I belonged to.

  "I'll recognize you," grandpa said. "And you can move into the house."

  "I can't," I said. "I work for the Kaffales. They were so good to me; they even gave me an advance I used to buy my clothes. I should at least work for the month they paid me for."

  The house didn't understand. Why would I prefer to live in another house? Was it any better? Did it have more windows? Because it could make additions — if I wanted to.

  "I have to take care of the baby," I said. "She seems to have trouble sleeping. And she keeps releasing bubbles."

  That calmed the house. Babies were good. The house also loved babies. They filled it with joy.

  "Bubbles?" Azrikam asked, raising his eyebrows.

  "Spherical balls of concentrated magical energy," I explained, "released through the mouth. She always releases them whenever I tickle her."

  "But isn't she only three months old?" Azrikam said, looking at grandpa.

  "Yes," I said. "Why?"

  They exchanged a grim look.

  "That's too early for a baby to release their magical energy," grandpa explained. "It could be because of a malformation in the channels. They started developing too early."

  My mind started spinning. The baby started releasing her magical energy. I seemed to have a magical gift, a gift in mental magic I didn't know how to control. I made babies, children, and the sick and tired sleep. But could my magic have a more harmful effect outside my control?

  I started hyperventilating.

  "Amy," I heard grandpa's voice through a haze. "Are you OK? Why are you breathing like that?"

  I could think of nothing but my breathing, shallow and fast, but so unsatisfying. I felt a paper bag in my hands, and grabbed it, breathing into it, my head between my legs. When my breathing normalized, and I lifted my head, grandpa was looking at me, crouching in front of me.

  "Thank goodness," he said. "What happened to you?"

  I sat up on the sofa, my head heavy, my arms weak. Still. I had to know the truth.

  "I was wondering," I said. "About the baby."

  I then told grandpa, and Azrikam, who was also standing there, about my suspicions. About the gift in mental magic I supposedly had, how I could project many illusions at once, how I seemed to have a calming effect on mother, how I calmed down Erynn, and Bevan, and Emere, and how Erynn started releasing magical bubbles in my presence, only to go to sleep.

  "I didn't think it was bad," I said. "Emere said they weren't harmful to the baby. But was I secretly harming Erynn?"

  Grandpa, who sat by my side, gently grabbed my hands.

  "No, you weren't," he said. "You were saving her."

  I looked into his face, feeling nervous, my hands grabbing his with force. He was giving me hope.

  "Saving her?" I asked.

  "Now, you need to understand, Amy," grandpa said. "That this is all just a supposition. I haven't seen the baby."

  "But you must know about my talent," I said. "Please, grandpa, could you tell me more about my talent?" I begged.

  "There is a lot we don't know about talents like yours," Azrikam said. "I studied the topic, mainly because Mahalat was fascinated by it, and I wanted to find out what it was all about."

  "Did Mahalat have a talent?" I asked.

  "No," Azrikam said, and I sighed in relief. I didn't get this talent, whatever it was from that evil man. "He didn't, which was one of the things that started this entire thing. Mahalat was a very smart, very ambitious magician. He wanted to change the world, he wanted to do everything, and he couldn't. His magic was powerful, but he had no gift nor talent. As such, he could only study formal magic at the Academy. He is stronger than I am in most forms of magic, but in the one field he truly cared about, our family's mental magic, I was much, much better than him."

  "But I checked," I said, "Mahalat did not study at the Academy. He did not appear on any graduation book. I saw you, but I didn't see him."

  "That's because he never finished the Academy," Azrikam said. "He struggled with Control. And he never had the patience to apply himself and work. He believed that he should be able to achieve everything easily, because of his birth. Of course, that's not how things work. Magic, especially powerful magic, requires study and patience. And Mahalat didn't like patiently working. He liked cutting corners too much. Which is how he started with the idea. He decided that he could modify people's ethereal bodies so they would develop magical talents. Of course, he wasn't going to experiment on himself, which is why he brought Nini here."

  "To this house, you mean?" I asked. "How could he do it?"

  "None of us could speak with the house at the time," Azrikam said. "And this house has many rooms. Mahalat used one of the rooms in the cellars, a room hidden behind a cupboard we had all forgotten about. It's not like we need rooms in this house; there are plenty. He isolated that room, so nobody could hear anything inside there or see the aura inside that room. He would have gotten away with it, but one day I noticed he smelled of blood. I thought it was weird, and followed him, and that's when I discovered it. The girl in that room… the things he did… I couldn't allow such a man in my family, so I called the Council. They investigated, and they found a hidden archive in his room. The things he did… they sickened me."

  He paused, looking into the void, his face grim.

  "I don't know how he learned about the search, that the Council was after him," Azrikam continued, "but Mahalat went into hiding. We never saw him again. We had to perform the ritual to kick him out of the family using his hair, as it turns out he destroyed all the blood sampled we had on him. Maybe that's why you are still a Morad; because the expulsion was only of him, and not his blood."

  "Are you sure you kicked him out for good, then?" I asked. "That he can't come to this house anymore?"

  "I'm positive," Azrikam said. "Since I deleted his name from the family book. Yours, however, appeared, though faintly, as soon as you arrived at Marn. It seems like the family magic immediately felt you when you arrived."

  The house did feel my arrival. And it was disappointed I didn't come to it earlier.

  16

  My father's story was fascinating, and something I had to know… But not my main worry now.

  "So," I said. "My gift. Does it have anything to do with my ability to speak with the house? Can it be harmful to humans? Or magicians? Did I cause any harm to Erynn's ethereal body?"

  "Let's start with the last question," Azrikam said. "No, you didn't harm Erynn. It seems like what you did was stabilize her. Are Erynn's parents compatible with each other?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I guess so? I know Edric and Arlene are, since they mentioned it."

  "So you don't know," Azrikam said. "Sometimes children with problems are born even in magically compatible marriages, although that is exceedingly rare. But they are a lot more frequent among non-compatible ones, which is why they are avoided. Magic doesn't tolerate weakness; any malformation in the physical or ethereal body will cause a potentially lethal problem, eventually."

  "You mean, Erynn could die?" I asked, holding my breath. I had only been working with her for a week, but Erynn was such a sweet, sweet baby. That she could have a magical disease… was a devastating prospect to consider. Her parents were also such nice people.

  "If she can't get over her problems processing magic," Azrikam said. "It seems like you triggered some processes that are going inside her. Made them more visible, helped them get out instead of staying inside her."

  "What do you mean, I triggered them?" I asked, thoroughly confused.

  "You helped her take her pain outside," Azrikam said. "If my guess is correct, she was having problems with those balls of energy inside her; you helped her take them out and solved the problem of excess energy in her body."

  "And will that help her?" I a
sked him.

  Azrikam shrugged.

  "It won't hurt," he said. "As for help… I can't promise anything. But I know what gift you have, and that gift is not harmful on its own."

  "And what is it?" I asked. I had been wondering what kind of gift it could be. Something related to mind magic. Illusions, sleep, ethereal bodies.

  "Healing," grandpa said. "Soul healing. That's the gift of our founder, Amalia Morad. She was said to be one of the greatest Healers of her time. Only she didn't work at curing bodies, but souls. Or ethereal bodies, if you prefer. She could fix problems in kids, adults, help everybody channel their energy. She was said to have a very calming effect on magical children, who are always in a constant state of magical overexcitation."

  "A gift that was thought lost," Azrikam said, "since nobody with that gift has been born in the last two hundred years. Are you sure it's that, father? I have other ideas of what it could be."

  "I'm sure," grandpa said. "Because the healers in our family could also speak to the house. And if you're skeptical, we can go see a live experiment."

  "You mean…" Azrikam said, darting a nervous glance towards me.

  "Yes," grandpa said, firmly. "Let's take Amy to the nursery, let her meet her cousins."

  "Are you sure it's healing?" I asked, nervous. I was relieved that my gift wasn't harmful to other people, but I was still on edge.

  "Don't worry, dear," grandpa said, gently grabbing my hands and pressing them against his chest. "I'll monitor the situation. I'll make sure you don't do anything remotely bad."

  "That's a relief," Azrikam grunted.

  My cousins, Leila, Davyn, and Nigel, were awake, with a woman I assume was their mother chasing after them. It was early morning, but the toys were already spread around the room. The kids were cheerily yelling as they pursued each other, while their mother looked at the scene in despair. From what grandpa told me, the kids were seven, five, and three. They'd gone through the worst phase for magical children, the first two years, and now they were just developing their magic, their survival secure.

  When I entered the room, the woman, my aunt, whose name I wasn't told, looked at me in amazement. And with what seemed like hostility. Why, I wonder?

  "Cloris, dear," Azrikam said, "I'd like to introduce you to my niece, Amy. Amy, this is my wife Cloris."

  Cloris, a woman in her late thirties, with chestnut hair, dark brown eyes, and a weary, tired face, looked at me with surprise.

  "Niece?" she asked, relieved.

  Wait a minute — did she think I was the daughter of…

  "Yes," Azrikam said. "She's my brother's child. It seems like the expulsion of Mahalat did not work on a blood level. She's a Morad, too."

  "Mahalat?" she asked. "I thought he disappeared."

  "And he is still disappeared," Azrikam said. "Amy doesn't know where he is, either."

  "I only remember seeing him twice," I told Cloris, to calm her, "and he didn't show his real face then."

  The kids, who realized nobody was paying attention to them, started approaching us, with curiosity plastered on their faces.

  "Who is that?" Davyn, the middle one, asked Leila, the oldest one.

  "She's the lady from the portrait," Leila said. "Can't you see it?"

  "Kids," Azrikam said, "this is your cousin Amy. Amy, these are Leila, Davyn, and Nigel."

  "Hello," Leila said. "You look like the lady from the portrait. Are you her?"

  "No," I replied. "I'm quite a bit younger than that. I'm your cousin."

  "Does that mean you will play with us?" Davyn asked.

  "Yes," I said. Why not? "What would you like to do?"

  "We were playing hide-and-seek. Would you like to be it?" Davyn asked.

  "Just remember to stay in the house," Azrikam said.

  "Yes, dad," Leila said. Then she looked at me, "will you play with us or not?"

  "Yes," I replied. Then I went towards the wall and started counting. "I'll count to thirty. Go hide now! One, two…"

  It didn't seem like I had any calming effects on the kids. The little devils wore me to the bone, making me play hide-and-seek, tag, the musical chair game, and play fight with me. I was feeling tired after just a couple of hours of this (why do people ever become parents?), and they finally agreed to let me read them a book.

  When I finished reading, their mother, who had left, while Azrikam and grandpa observed us, came back and announced it was time for lunch.

  While the children run to wash their hands, I collapsed in the armchair, exhausted.

  "Whatever effect I seem to have on babies," I said, "I don't seem to have on three- to seven-year-olds. Calm, they weren't."

  "That's because you haven't seen them usually," Azrikam said. He turned to grandpa. "Did you notice?"

  "In all the time you spent playing, they didn't fight a single time," Grandpa nodded. "Usually, they become eternal enemies and best friends in a single morning. Today, we managed with way less drama."

  "I think we can say with certainty that, whatever effect you seem to have on children," Azrikam said, "you have a smaller effect on healthy ones."

  "Which is normal for healers," grandpa said, "and your other supposition is wrong."

  "What other supposition?" I asked.

  "Nothing," they responded, simultaneously.

  Grandpa looked at Azrikam, they nodded at each other, and the grandpa started talking again.

  "Your uncle thought you might be an enchanter," grandpa said. "Enchanters, unlike healers, can negatively affect the people around them. If they want other people to do things they don't want to do. That was the gift Mahalat wanted."

  "But I'm not an enchanter," I asked.

  "So it seems," grandpa said.

  "We should go for lunch, too," Azrikam then said. "Cloris won't be too happy if we're late."

  I got to talk to Cloris, my aunt, at lunch. She was way nicer than Azrikam, showering me with interest and kindness. After alleviating her fears that I was her husband's illegitimate child or something (or at least that's what it seemed like to me), she calmed down and was willing to be nice to me.

  "So, Amy," she said, giving me another chicken wing, "do you know any people here, now that you came here?"

  "Well," I said, "I've got a friend. And a fiancé, apparently."

  "But you've only been here for a month and a half. How could you be engaged?" Cloris asked, surprised.

  "I've known him longer than that," I said, "for two months, to be exact. I also think it's too fast. But Martinus insisted. He decided he wanted to marry me, although I'm still considering it."

  "Martinus?" Cloris said, her brows furrowing. "I think I've heard the Novaks' boy, the youngest, got engaged out of the blue to somebody nobody's ever heard of. There have been rumors that it's a, you know, gunshot wedding…"

  I looked at grandpa and Azrikam. Grandpa was eating his chicken leg with a thoughtful expression on his face, while Azrikam was chewing something with his usual unhappy expression.

  "Nothing like that," I replied. "In fact, I've decided that, while I'll get engaged with him, we'll only marry when I finish the Academy."

  That was the decision I made. After all, in five years, I'll either find a way to break it off in a non-traumatic way, he'll get sick of it and leave me alone, or, who knows, I may fall in love with him. I did kinda like him, as a boyfriend, at least.

  "You're a first-year right?" Cloris said. "So that would mean five years. A five-year-long engagement… that is cruel to the boy."

  "Five years sounds about right," Azrikam said, "to negotiate a marriage contract."

  I stared at him in incomprehension. What marriage contract?

  "Now that you're a Morad, Amy," Azrikam said, "you can't just decide for yourself. While I don't disapprove of the Novak boy, I don't exactly approve of him, either. He's too young for marriage."

  "I'm not sure I want to marry him," I said, "not yet. Although I'm starting to think I'd be OK dating him."

  "You can't
just date somebody, Amy," Cloris said. "Regularly spending time with a young man you're unrelated to would destroy your reputation."

  "And that's why I'm OK with being engaged," I said, finishing the chicken wing and leaning back, full and satisfied. "Since I can always break it off."

  "Does he know that?" Azrikam asked. "The boy seemed serious when I saw him."

  "I haven't told him yet," I said. "I was about to talk to him today, but then I saw your message, so…"

  "That's just great," Azrikam said. "Since it will be better if I talk with his parents about this, make sure we come to an understanding."

  "Oh, no," I said. "Not his parents. I need to speak to him first, before you talk to his parents. Especially his mother."

  "I've heard Mrs. Novak is a force of nature," Azrikam said. "I thought I would only start dealing with issues of courtship in about twenty years, when my daughter gets old enough, but I guess I'll start practicing now."

  "Especially," Cloris said, "since it won't take twenty, but ten to fifteen years till our daughter has suitors."

  That didn't seem to make Azrikam too happy. But then, Davyn started swinging breadcrumbs with gravy onto his sister. A general commotion erupted, and our conversation stopped until we were seated in the living room again, while Cloris escorted the children back to the nursery.

  "But what would you discuss with his mother?" I asked, going back to the previous conversation. "We barely started, I'm not even sure this will go anywhere."

  "You're engaged," Azrikam pointed out, "as your uncle, I have to make sure they do right by you."

  "And what would that involve?" I asked. "In my world, young people sort out their relationship first, before the parents get involved. And I'm not sure I'm even going through with this."

  "You invited me to your engagement party," Azrikam said.

  "Sure," I said. "I asked Mrs. Novak to organize an engagement party. A big, flashy, expensive party. I thought it would help dissuade Martinus from his silly idea of marrying me."