“Compelling a ghost seems a little extreme…”
“Mara, I know you and Ben think he’s a good guy, but I don’t. I think there’s something unpleasant about Albert and that he’s got an agenda separate from yours. Its not just my personal grudge. Whatever he’s up to may not be bad for you and your family, but I doubt it’s good. I haven’t met a revenant yet who thought the ends didn’t justify the means.”
“True… They don’t really think like we do—when they think at all.”
“You and Ben know that the willful ones are manipulative by nature, and Albert is willful.”
“You could try asking Carlos for help,” Mara suggested reluctantly.
I shook my head. “Carlos and Cameron absented themselves on this, and I wouldn’t want them involved anyway, now that I consider it. I think you and I can do this ourselves. Especially since I don’t want to pay whatever price Carlos would be asking for the service. And this is your house and I won’t be a bad guest in it by attacking and interrogating your pet ghost. But I have to talk to Albert.”
“Pet!” Mara objected.
“You treat him like he’s part guard dog and part favorite uncle.”
Mara frowned. “Do I…?” she murmured, and I knew she was reviewing the past at high speed, thinking hard about every interaction she’d had with Albert.
“I didn’t come to accuse you of anything,” I said, bringing her mind back to the problem at hand. “I just need to talk to Albert so that he has to answer. Can you help me do that?”
Mara glanced around. “I’d better work fast. This spell’s almost used up. A tangle won’t work so well this time—he’ll see it coming. I’ll have to use a net. This shan’t be fun and we’ll have to do it right here, since I can start the spell under this one, where he can’t see it. If I cast too many spells, he’ll be suspicious—he’s always interested in my magic and comes poking in to see what I’m up to.” She slid off the couch and dug in her apron pocket for a bit of chalk, beginning to make marks on the floor between the two sofas. She jerked her head up to stare at me. “I hope I shan’t regret this.”
“So do I.”
“When I say so, go upstairs and tell Ben we’ll need privacy in the living room for a while. He’ll understand and stay out. And he’ll keep Brian out, too, if the boy hasn’t gone to sleep yet. Albert will probably follow you down, so when you come back here well see what happens.”
I nodded and she went back to chalking diagrams that began to glow a dim gold as she advanced. When she chalked one that flickered to black, she sent me to talk to Ben. As I stepped through the fading blue vines of the privacy spell, they fizzed and fell away. Mara put one of the afghans from the couch over the markings on the floor and remained whispering over it for a moment as I left the room and went up the musically creaking stairs.
I could hear some murmurs from the room off the middle of the upstairs hall. I assumed that was Brian’s room and tapped on the door.
“Come in!” Ben called back.
I opened the door and took a step inside. The room looked like fairyland after an explosion. Toys and books and clothes were everywhere in the room that was painted with pale streamers of blue, green, and violet on one wall, trees and meadowlands on the next. Tiny faces peeked from corners and hid in the grass of the field—including a less-pleasant face that glowered at me from behind Ben’s shoulder: Albert. I ignored him and gazed around the room. A merry ceramic sun cast twisted copper rays over the railed bed where a giggling Brian lay listening to Ben read a story from a huge, leather-bound book. Brian looked toward the door and laughed, waving at me. “Harpa!”
I don’t know why Brian likes me but I assume his tendency to throw himself bodily at me and shriek is supposed to demonstrate that. His parents say so, a least. I’m not a fan of children as a rule, but even with the head butting and howling, Brian was starting to grow on me a bit. Like mold.
“Hi, Harper. Come in and help us read a story,” Ben said. Ben’s curly black hair was standing up in static waves—a pretty good sign he’d had a long day of Brian-herding.
I came over to the side of the bed and waved at Brian. “Hi, rhino boy.”
Brian stuck out his tongue and made a raspberry noise. “No rhino.”
I twitched an interrogative eyebrow and looked at Ben. He sighed. “We’re done with animals for a while. At the moment, we are an intrepid prince of Russia—no thanks to baba Irina, my mother.”
Brian spouted something I didn’t understand and Ben translated. “His highness wants his wolfhounds. No wonder they call this age the terrible twos.”
“Does that make him Brian the Terrible?” I quipped.
Ben rolled his eyes. “Too true. Here I thought a break from the budding linguists last term was going to be a vacation. I’m supposed to be back in the classroom this quarter, but the cold is keeping the university closed.”
Brian made a demanding Russian noise and patted the book in his father’s hands.
“I’m to get back to reading Ivan Tsarevitch or suffer the consequences. Better tell me what you wanted before his highness has us thrown to the wolves.”
“Mara and I are going to do some work downstairs. Just wanted to warn you it won’t be Brian-safe until we’re done. You probably want to stay out, too.”
“Ah. OK. I’ll finish up here and go upstairs for a while, then. Mara can fill me in later.” Ben was too tired to argue, even if there was a speculative gleam in his eye about what his wife and I might be doing. Ben’s fascination with magic and ghosts was certain to get him in too deep someday.
“Thanks, Ben,” I said, heading back out the door as Ben’s voice, rolling Russian consonants like the sea coming to shore, continued with the story.
I could feel the cold presence of Albert at my back as I descended the stairs.
The ghost followed me into the living room. I was careful not to step on Mara’s hidden marks but to pass very close to them nonetheless. I stopped on one side of them and turned sharply.
“Hello, Albert,” I said.
It’s rare for me to startle a spirit, but he came to an abrupt halt and floated back a bit, stopping just over the afghan. Mara had once said she didn’t see him but rather had an idea of where he was and what he was doing. I hoped it was a pretty precise idea.
A hostile approach wasn’t my first choice, but if Albert fled, I’d lose my chance. I’d give him one opportunity to volunteer. “I need to talk to you about Friday night.”
I saw the flicker of his shape and knew he was running. I pointed at Mara. “Grab him.”
She flipped the corner of the afghan up and said some sharp word that plucked on the energy grid of the Grey like a harp. A gust of unfurling magic shot up from the floor and tangled over the invisible shape of Albert with the motion of a hurricane. Mara grabbed hold of the edge of it and nailed it to the floor with her chalk, marking one last sign in the revealed circle. The afghan drifted to the floor behind her as the net sang in the Grey, its almost-human sound raising goose bumps on my skin.
I sat down on the couch I’d occupied before and looked toward the shape beneath the net of magic. “Is this all right, Mara?”
She got up and sat next to me on the sofa. “Yes. It should hold him as long as I want to leave it there. I’m sorry, Albert, but you’ve got to stay and talk to Harper. I’d not have thrown the net if you hadn’t tried to scarper off.”
Albert’s form sifted back to visibility. I supposed he didn’t see the point in wasting energy to hide when he couldn’t move. He glared at me.