“I have another favor I kind of want to ask,” I said.
“Favors are tricky,” she said.
“When I was, uh, gone, I met someone. I was hoping I could maybe get her from there to here. She doesn’t exactly have a name, but-”
“Blake, that’s more than just tricky.”
“She’s a non-threat, as far as I can tell. And she’s a mermaid, kind of, so it’s not like she’s going to turn Jacob’s Bell upside down. But she helped me, and a part of me wants to repay that somehow.”
“I don’t know. That’s… a pretty big deal. Adding another person to this picture.”
“I had to ask,” I said. “I won’t be upset if you say no.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll think about it. You’re a jerk, asking now.”
“Now?”
She took the mirror from the goblin. “Over here. Down the hill, watch your step.”
The sidewalk had been veering uphill, and now we stepped off it, onto the sloping hill. We both made halting progress down the hill, more a controlled fall than a walk or a climb.
Standing in knee deep snow that I could barely feel, I saw the person in the mirror come into view.
Ah.
My heart did its herky-jerky flutter in my chest.
She’d been feeling guilty, and here I was, asking a favor she probably shouldn’t give me.
Molly’s ghost, standing amid snow-dusted decorations and mementos.
Molly had never been so popular when she’d been alive.
I watched as Maggie pricked her finger with a blade that wasn’t her athame, and very carefully let three drops fall.
“Three?” I asked, quiet, unsure if I was breaching something by speaking.
“Felt right. Making a bit of a ritual of it. I try for the same time every day, same thing. I talk to her. Tell her how sorry I am. Keep the ghost alive.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She shrugged.
“I don’t know if I count, so maybe I’ll just say, one and a half of us down, five more to go,” I said. “Hi Molly.”
“Hi,” Molly said.
Maggie’s expression suggested she was as surprised as I was.
10.03
“Crap,” Mags said. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“She’s not just a ghost, she’s an aware ghost?”
“She’s not supposed to be. Look, Blake, I meant for this to be the equivalent of visiting a grave, but I can’t do this like this,” she said. She sounded a little frazzled.
Having the girl you’d helped murder speak could do that to you, really.
“Can’t do what?”
“I can’t connect you with this ghost, if she’s maybe going to give you some advantage. Shit. Look, we gotta go.”
“I-” I started, but she was already moving the mirror, turning me away, so I couldn’t see Molly’s ghost. “What’s going on?”
“The Maggie you met in Toronto wasn’t me. It was Padraic. He took my name and screwed me over. This ambassador thing isn’t just a job. It’s a necessity. If I lose it, I’m a goner,” she said.
“It wasn’t you?”
“It was Maggie but it wasn’t me. I’m shoring myself up with the label of ‘neutral party‘ just as much as you’re shoring yourself up with whatever the fuck that is,” she said. Her voice sounded strained as she made the awkward climb up the snowy slope. I could see the goblins up above.
“I get it,” I said. My mind ticked over every scene, every doubt I’d had.
Not a possessed human, but a human mask stretched over an Other.
“Nothing against you, Blake,” she told me, “You’re cool, whatever you are right now. But I’m on pretty unsteady footing right now. If one person gets ticked at me and calls me on it, they can move to take away my title and then I don’t know what happens.”
“You’ve been interacting with Molly all this time?”
“There’s been no interaction, damn it. She’s just… there. She doesn’t respond, she doesn’t move. I do the ritual thing, just as penance and to keep the ghost around, and that’s it.”
She crested the top of the hill, stepping up onto the sidewalk. She wasn’t watching the hand mirror, and my available footing swiftly shrunk as she bent down to shake her pants legs and get the clumped snow off.
When she stood, I had a better view of the two snowsuit goblins through the window of the hand mirror.
“…I don’t know what this means, but like I said, I really don’t want to start anything, and…
One was pointing.
“Mags,” I said, interrupting.
“…Connecting the wild card to a friendly ghost seems like a bad idea, so could you maybe just not-”
“Mags,” I said, louder.