“Then you’re a damn fool, aren’tyou, to try it?”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe.”
“I was there a moment today. Orso it seemed. I think I’m not damaged.”
“You escaped.”
“No, El. I didn’t escape. I – fellout again, exactly like someone sliding carelessly out of a window. I must havefallen in the same way. But I’m guessing that even happened because Iwas planning to do it, if not consciously concentrating yet. Mindliterally over matter.”
“This is shit.”
I said nothing.
Nobody else did either. Coral hadstopped sobbing. She was pleating her ghostly skirts, or thought she was, overand over, in one hand. Laurel was watching me, oddly impervious; I couldn’ttell now if she were sternly averse or vaguely intrigued. The Knight, I assumed,waited only for the Cry to Arms.
“I’m going out then, in tenminutes,” I firmly said. “Does anyone want to come too? Not for you to doanything particularly, you understand, I don’t expect participation, let alonerescue if it all goes wrong. But if you just might want to watch and learn, andsee what happens next.”
2
Elizabeth
Idon’t believe what he told us just now. I think he believes it. He imagined it,it was a fantasy – what my father used to call, so kindly, ‘ImaginationPictures’ – pictures, or movies, that is in the sense of films. He used to callit that when I told him of my prolonged waking dreams of playing pianoconcertos to a huge audience, or falling in love with handsome heroes out ofhistory, who then carried me off.
And we ghosts can imagine thingseven now, can’t we? We even imagine our bloody tears are still wet.
3
Laurel
Ido believe him, the Scholar. Yes, that was what firstly alarmed, and then mademe wander about in a worse daze than usual. And then see old men in brocade coats!I think I shall follow the Scholar, as he suggested, but keeping back a little,not to impede or distract him. Then – well, we’ll see, won’t we?
Probably very foolishly I keepasking myself now, if his gambit does work, how shall I then choose – thelibrarian has already chosen – whom I should pick for my new... residence?
But however could I select fromamong these awful remnants – these things. To be frank, I would have greattrouble, when alive, in choosing which dress or hat I would put on, hesitatingover how suitable it was, how often I had recently worn it, if it helped in anyway to minimise my un-attractions. While for dances, or parties at the house,my Mother, or Constance, or both together, would exasperatedly advise and guideme, as ever, with new clothes: “Oh, now, Laurel. Not that mauve. No, no, itwill make your complexion even more pasty.”
“Oh, how funny you are, Loll–” thisbeing Constance’s sometime-abbreviation of my hedgerow name – “you must neverwear green, dear! Your eyes will simply lose all colour. And you’ll look quitebilious. Make everyone else so, too!”
In this way, we see I’m unfit tomake a proper choice. And especially since the material I must now choose fromis extremely suspect.
4
Coral
Iwill not. I will not. I will not. Never will I. Oh – my father would think meeven more vile. He would make use of that name he used, and which I overheard,so playfully then to Miss Archer, though to her he meant no harm, I am sure. Awhoore.
5
The Warrior
Ishall walk at his back, the wise and valiant old man. Already, from attendingon him, my mean of language is, to my thought, of better clearness. My Elisethcould not entrain me in this. But there. She is a woman. And it is that I amever learned in any matter by my own kind, men. I would die to serve my lady.But my slowen mind can not, of she, nor the female race, gage any teaching butlittle.
Then so, I to hind, will watch onhim, and what he may do.
And if he is able, then I too, ashave he, will seek and make choisn, and accomplis all.
PART FOUR
Gravely Embracing
(The Scholar): As I went out again into thegrounds of the house, I believe my mind, anxious and over-excited at my task,began to indulge in – not precisely displacement activity – but a sort ofdisplacement thinking. Roughly or exactly, I was working out, dependent on myknowledge of them, my approximate age at the time of each of my fellow ghosts’deaths. (Obviously, this did not apply in either Coral, or the Knight’s case.He certainly had out-deathed us all, centuries before any of us were born).
When El died, around 1974 or 5, Ihad been fifty-eight – sixty. When Laurel died in 1918 – I was a boy of threeor four. As for Coral, I had deduced her exit occurred in the 1870’s. I thenarrived on earth some thirty-six to forty-six years after she left it. Have Ipointed out I am, rather ridiculously, the oldest in age among them, but theyoungest in ghosthood? An elderly baby, full of infantile newness, needs, andteenage solutions.
Once a church bell couldsometimes be heard ringing from the church still standing a few miles off belowthe upland. But by 2012 it was no longer rung, and by now, naturally, no oneattends the church at all. Oddly though, tonight, I seemed to sense its musicalif tinny notes. I knew that the darkness had circled round to three in themorning.
No moon, but the stars,unpolluted by lights, were brilliant as faceted, true diamonds, some of themeven showing their colour tints, yellowish or palest blue, and there a tawnyone, the eye of a fierce, space-hunting wolf.
He – my ‘prey’ – was nowhere to beseen.
This seemed ominously apt. I hadscrewed my courage to the sticking place – and my ‘victim’ had skived off.
Someone was behind me, also,walking almost in my footsteps. The Knight. I had expected him, and there hewas. We did not exchange even a single incoherent word.
In the end I reached a break inthe fruit trees. Now and then, even at night, one might find rabbits or haresfeeding on elements in the grass. I did not know as a rule
