But I do believe in Old Kingdom crowns. Oh, yes. That’s something we finders can all have faith in.
“You do not believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. But no matter. Believe or disbelieve, I wish to hire you. On behalf of a client of mine.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“A spirit. Does that concern you, Mr. Markhat?”
“Not as long as I get paid, Granny.”
She smiled. “Wonderful.” A moth flew between us, and she giggled, high and girlish. Coming from her ancient countenance, the effect was oddly disturbing.
“Ten years ago, a man came home from the War.”
“Good for him. Huzzahs all around.”
She ignored me. “This man made his way to his wife’s door. He’d fought in so many battles. He’d nearly died a dozen times. Yet, when he stood there, his hand raised to knock, he heard something inside. A baby was crying. His baby.”
I nodded.
Granny shook her head. “He didn’t knock, Mr. Markhat. He stood there, knowing his wife was inside, knowing she was raising their child by herself, wondering each and every day if her husband was dead or alive or near or far. She lived her life around that door. And the man knew that. But even so, he didn’t knock. In fact, after a while, he turned and walked away, and he never went back.”
“Sad story. Which brings us to what?”
“This man died, Mr. Markhat. He died six months ago. He died without ever seeing his wife or his child again. By his own choice, yes. A choice he still doesn’t understand. He has regrets, Mr. Markhat. Deep regrets. He cannot rest.”
Realization began to dawn on me.
“So this bag…”
“Yes,” said Granny. “He spent ten years amassing this. Perhaps not honestly. He spent the rest of his life trying to atone for that one moment at the door, Goodman Markhat. But he died before he could see it given to his wife-and now I intend to help him see that done.”
“By hiring me? To do what?”
“Find the wife he abandoned, Mr. Markhat. Find her, or her child, or both. And give them his fortune.”
I frowned. “I thought ghosts had all kinds of mystical powers. Why can’t he just float around and find her himself?”
“How, Mr. Markhat? He can no longer ask questions. He can no longer even hear or see many of the living. Rannit itself is never quite the same twice, for him. He could wander the streets, certainly-but she might well be dead and gone before he chanced upon her.”
“So, what he’s really afraid of is meeting the Missus in the next world without sending her a hefty bribe in this one?”
Granny laughed. “Mama said you were given to somewhat plain speech. I rather enjoy it, Goodman. It’s quite refreshing. Even at my age.”
I took a deep breath and tried to decide what to say next. The bag of gold on my desk suggested a hasty yes, but that little voice in the shadows of my mind still had objections.
“How did you come by this money? I didn’t think spooks kept their pockets in the Blessed Hereafter.”
“He kept it buried in an old butter churn buried beneath a public privy.”
I nodded. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only working person who found himself in some unsavory locales from time to time.
“And he showed you where to find it.”
Granny’s black pinprick eyes had bored right into me. “He did. You could of course simply take the money and claim you delivered it, if you doubt me so thoroughly,” she noted. “If my talent is a sham, I’ll have no way of knowing whether you found the missing wife or not.”
“I’m not in the habit of cheating my clients, Granny.”
“Nor am I, Mr. Markhat.”
I guess we stared at each other for a good four breaths. To this day, I don’t know who blinked first.
I do remember getting out my good pen and my prized pad of rough-edged paper, so I could take names and dates and particulars.
Even a dead client deserves nothing but my utmost attention.
An hour later, I had names. And dates. And an address, which promised to be less than helpful because that whole neighborhood had burned to the ground and been rebuilt twice since the end of the War.
Granny Knot was gone. She had lapsed back into her put-on old hag stoop and deranged bout of muttering before she even opened my door. She had left with a wink, the handful of rags held close to her ear.
I’d listened to her shuffle and mutter down the street and away, and I’d wondered if Mama was putting on a similar act, one she dropped when I wasn’t around.
Three-leg Cat batted at one of Granny’s stray rag-moths. I read the names and dates I’d written down, let them sink in. I’m terrible with names, and nothing is more awkward for a finder than forgetting who you’re trying to find while you’re out asking questions.
Marris Sellway, the abandoned wife. Doris Sellway, the name of the child. Marris would be forty years old now. The child, nineteen. They’d lived in the top of a tall, narrow walk-up at Number Six Cawling Street.
Cawling Street didn’t exist anymore. That much I knew. And nothing else.
Just like the old days. I was given a name and coin, and I was expected to sally forth and not return until I’d found a breathing body or a lonely grave. Of course, in those days, I’d been looking for soldiers. And soldiers all belonged to units, and the units been paid, and all that left records behind which were easy for a former soldier with the gift of literacy to uncover. I suspected there would be no written records of the former Mrs. Marris Sellway left behind anywhere.
But neighbors know, and remember, and odds are many of them hadn’t moved far from Cawling Street even after the second fire.
“Time to get to work,” I said to Three-leg Cat.
Instead of ignoring me, he backed growling into the corner, every matted hair on his scarred three-legged body standing up, his back arched, his yellowed fangs bared and issuing a loud, ferocious hiss.
I swung around, expecting to find another cat or a Troll or a brace of wayward pumas lurking close at my back-but there was nothing, save my own awkward shadow.
Three-leg Cat arched up more and his growl rose. I got up and opened my front door before the daft creature attacked me.
He vanished in a blur of mismatched feet and freshly shed hairs.
I looked back. I saw nothing but my shadow, my desk and a single moth flapping blindly below the ceiling.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said aloud. “Just so you know.”
And then I locked my door and followed Three-leg Cat into the daylight.
Cawling Street, before the fires, was maybe an hour’s walk from my place. Or twenty minutes in a cab, if one was so inclined.
One was, and thus I was across the town and in the middle of the tall, new brick buildings that rose like square-caved canyons on each side of Regency Avenue, formerly Cawling Street.
Regency is a nice place. They planted rows of poplars on each side of the street, and one day long after I’m a ghost myself, they’ll maybe peek above the rooftops. For now, though, the trees are dwarfed by the buildings, and they only get a good swallow of sunlight at noon.
The sidewalks were wide and straight. The street itself was cobbled and sported far fewer potholes than any street between there and my place. The people I met were brisk and purposeful, and some of them even felt like smiling.
I remembered the original neighborhood as I walked. Cawling had been just a few more sunken roofs and broken windowpanes from being an outright slum. The street had been so thoroughly mined for cobblestones it was more mud than pavement. The ramshackle wood-frame buildings had leaned and huddled like so many drowsy drunks.
I came upon a roofing crew as I walked. While the roofers themselves scrambled around hammering and shouting out of sight far above, a band of ogres was positioned on the scaffolding below. The ogres, rather than hauling the bundles of shingles up ladders, simply hurled them from one to another as easily as you or I could have tossed a bag of feathers.