“I approve,” Leddie said.
“I do not!” Halla stepped between Leddie and me.
But I had already made up my mind. When I saw all that laughing, crying, and terror on Leddie’s torn-up face, as if three people were using it at once, I decided that somebody had wrecked her mind too much for her to connive and plot with any skill. She was dangerous. We’d have to watch her. But I couldn’t see her as part of some deep strategy to destroy us.
I gave myself a seven-in-ten chance of being right about all that.
Patting Halla on the shoulder, I said, “It’s all right if you don’t want to do it. You can board that ship and go straight back to Bindle.”
“She is lying!” Flecks of spit flew from Halla’s mouth.
“No, she’s not. Probably not. She knows where Memweck is. You may recall that I am a liar. I therefore possess a fine sense of what the truth sounds like. Leddie, who did all that to your face?”
The woman didn’t move. Her face froze as if it had been caught doing something bad. “Memweck.”
“She’s not lying about that,” I said.
That set off several minutes of arguing, name-calling, and dirt-kicking. At the end, we had established that I would travel west with Leddie, protected by Memweck’s hairs, and everybody else could either come along or go to hell, as they pleased. But if they came with me, they’d be carrying Memweck’s hair under their skin.
Bea stepped up first to receive a semidivine hair into her arm. Whistler came after her. Halla grumbled and cursed throughout the brief, near-painless process.
Pil declined.
Halla and Bea escorted Leddie to fetch her clothes.
I took Pil aside. “You shouldn’t be leery of carrying Memweck around inside you. He tastes like blueberries, after all.”
Pil’s words tumbled out. “I told you I’d be leaving—maybe not exactly now, but you knew it would be soon, and soon is now. So don’t act surprised and don’t act sad, either. Just give me some of that silver so I can buy a horse.”
“When did you try to kill me?”
“It was . . . I’m sorry!” She turned red. “I wish I hadn’t done it. It was a foolish thing to try, and I’m sorry, really. I won’t do it again.”
“Oh, don’t say that. You may find someday that you badly need to kill me. Sorcery is an unpredictable endeavor.”
Pil’s forehead was drawn with worry, but she nodded. “I need a horse.”
I plucked seven silver coins from my pouch. “There, buy one with good wind.” I pulled out two more coins for her. “And get a warm cloak. It looks rainy.”
Pil lay her hand on my arm and squeezed once. Then she walked away fast and rounded a corner in a few seconds.
Whistler had been leaning against a tree, watching everything. “I’m sorry she left. She wasn’t too tough, but she was smart. Do you think she’ll come back?”
I shrugged. Fighting, thinking, and arguing had exhausted me. “I’m taking a walk.” Whistler muttered something, but I didn’t listen.
The nighttime sea breeze should have made for a pleasant little jaunt, but I cursed and kicked bushes for about a mile. I had known Pil was leaving, so I shouldn’t have been in such a foul mood about it. I just wanted to bitch and kick things.
I finally flopped down under a juniper tree, drew forth Harik’s book, and stared at the third page.
Ten seconds later, all 518 of my victims appeared in front of me, glowing and translucent. The ones I had killed that afternoon must have been somewhere in the herd. Manon stood in front of me and glared as if her eyes could shrivel my heart from beyond death.
I stood and pointed my sword at her. She walked toward me until the sword touched her chest.
“Manon, I have already said I’m sorry a number of times. Saying it again won’t make me any sorrier.”
“Why did you call me if you don’t want to whine and cry about how pathetic you are?” Her words were as sharp as granite, like an angry twelve-year-old’s.
“You need to hear that you’re not blameless in all this.” I stayed calm, as if I were explaining how she’d burned dinner. “You ignored just about everything I told you to do, things that would keep you safe. You wanted power, and you used it foolishly. I did wrong, but you have to understand how you did wrong too.”
“Why?” Manon sounded puzzled.
“So that you won’t suffer like that anymore!” The moment I said the words, I realized they were stupid.
“Father, I don’t have any ‘anymore.’ I’m dead. There’s nothing else for me.”
Embarrassed, I muttered, “Nothing?”
“Nothing I can remember. I guess there could be things I don’t remember, but we won’t ever find out.” Manon sneered. “Maybe you damned me to be nothing forever. You don’t know.”
“I shouldn’t have called for you,” I said.
“Wait!” Manon dropped her voice as if she was about to tell me a secret. “If you really love me, you’ll bring me back.”
“I don’t know how. And anyway, I shouldn’t.”
She pointed at my face. “You and the God of Death chat and whisper secrets all the time. Ask him! Are you scared?”
“I’m scared of this. I can’t imagine how it would be done.” But I admitted to myself that Harik must know how to bring somebody back. It was his damn book that had just brought back Manon’s ghost.
“You can figure it out.” Manon grinned. “I know you love me, or you wouldn’t be torturing yourself like this. You wouldn’t be so sad. You’ll do it.”
“No, I won’t. I won’t mention it to Harik.”
“You are such a liar, Father! I love you anyway.”
“You’re saying that to manipulate me.”
“Yes, I am. That doesn’t mean I’m lying about loving you, though. You always knew when I was lying. Am I lying now?”
“Shit!” I realized that I was hoping my daughter had lied when she said she loved me. “Yes, I love you too. I’ll find out what I can.”
Manon’s ghost
