Page 139 of Cast in Atonement

“Your understanding of Teela is based on both her experiences and your own. But your understanding of these dead can’t be achieved in the same way.”

“But Mrs. Erickson’s can.”

“Mrs. Erickson looks only at what is in front of her. She is not attempting to find resonance with her prior experience; when she does, she does so almost by accident. She listens and looks at the person to whom she is listening, and her listening is a powerful force in and of itself. There are things I would speak of to Imelda that I would not speak of to anyone else I have ever met.

“She doesn’t expect to understand immediately. She doesn’t expect to know; she expects only to learn. If she thinks of herself at all, it is always secondary, and it is invariably what can I do to help? I think, had she not been what she is, she might have developed more normally; she would have made friends as a child, made enemies as a child, been hurt, and caused pain. It’s what living people do.

“But other children were wary of her, or afraid of her, or worse, disgusted by her attention seeking—for that is how her ability was seen. She missed those interactions. She had friends, all dead, who never aged as she aged. She loved them, and I do not doubt that they loved her.

“She misses them, even now; she will often think Jamal would love this, and then catch herself. I have no doubt she is correct, but I am not Jamal.”

“No one else is.”

Helen nodded. “She understands that, and she would never attempt to replace him; it would put an unreasonable burden on the people with whom she is newly acquainted.” Helen’s smile deepened. “You cannot be Mrs. Erickson; I don’t suggest you try.”

“Would you have accepted her as your tenant if you’d met her before me?”

“No, although I would have offered her a home.”

This surprised Kaylin.

“She is too old, Kaylin, and I am weary of burying my tenants; I wish not to lose one for decades.”

Kaylin’s marks now looked like gems; the light in this odd space was bright only when it was caught and held by the marks. She wondered if she would lose them all, this time. Once, that thought would have filled her with joy. Now, she felt ambivalent. How had things changed so much in so short a time?

She shook her head. The voices of the ghosts had not resolved into any language she could understand, but the tone was familiar. She wanted the granularity of language, but Helen was right: she wanted clarity because misunderstandings had led to injury and death in her childhood. She was not a child. She no longer lived in the fiefs.

She lifted her hands—or one of them. “Helen, I think I need both of my hands.”

Helen hesitated. She then let go.

Kaylin raised both of her hands, palms up. She wanted to close her eyes to get rid of visual noise but kept them open because she could now see Mrs. Erickson’s ghosts.

They had appeared as words, as smoky mirages in the shape of words, when she had first managed to see them. She wished she could see them as Mrs. Erickson did, but Helen was right: she was Kaylin Neya, not Imelda Erickson, and there was no point regretting the difference. If she had to build a bridge, she’d need one that she could cross.

In this space, the ghostly words reflected the marks on her arms. The new additions were paler, but they seemed a shade of jade green, and even thinking that, she could see surfaces almost harden in place across the length of the dashes, the moving dots, the strokes, vertical and horizontal, that comprised their complicated shapes. They weren’t like her marks; her marks seemed almost rudimentary in comparison, although the emerald hue made them seem more solid. Where her marks were edged in ivory, that ivory now looked like a setting, an organic version of a blend between gold and platinum. To her, however, they felt like cool patches of skin.

She stood as the ghostly words began to move toward her, their voices rising and falling as if in question. “I’m Kaylin,” she said, uncertain if they would hear or register her words at all. They were far more solid now than they had ever been. She wondered if Helen could see them on her own.

Hope squawked; she had almost forgotten he was standing on her shoulder.

The words fell silent, but at least they didn’t move away. She couldn’t tell if they were listening to Hope or waiting for her to speak; she guessed the former. But she kept her hands open and palms up, although she lowered them slightly as she approached the ghosts.

How did language die? In the normal world, a language was considered dead or lost if people ceased to speak it.

These words looked, in shape and form, as if they were True Words. Could parts of a language die? Could only parts be lost, their meaning forgotten, their use extinguished? She wasn’t a scholar and had no desire to ever be one—but she knew at least one person who’d be delighted to answer. She’d ask Serralyn later—she wasn’t even certain the Barrani student had come home yet.

But the words remained where they were as she slid into their center; she stood, in the green’s dress, her marks like jewels across the whole of her body. She reached out and touched the first word; felt it shiver against her palm. She froze, waiting until the tremor subsided, as if that tremor were fear and anxiety expressed in a fashion she could understand.

She couldn’t speak to these words, but she could touch them; she hadn’t expected that. Understood on some fundamental level that it was due to the will of the green. The word beneath her hand stilled, and this time, she lifted a second hand to touch the surface of one long, diagonal stroke. It was cool to the touch but remained solid. Where her own marks were edged in ivory, these words were edged in mist or smoke; neither interfered with sensation or touch.

She swallowed. Now what? The words weren’t small; they were almost her height, and all were greater in width, given the way they were drawn. She could probably manage to lift one, but she certainly couldn’t gather them up and carry them all.

Mrs. Erickson had, somehow. A distinct image of the old woman, her hands gently cupped before her, flashed past. Kaylin looked at her hands as they rested against the surface of one word and gave up on trying to do what Mrs. Erickson had done. But it was difficult.

Mrs. Erickson probably didn’t make comparisons the way Kaylin did. She didn’t have a sliding scale of worth, of worthiness. At the moment, Kaylin felt useless because she was comparing herself to someone else. That had to stop. Yes, Mrs. Erickson could do better, but better didn’t matter.

Kaylin could lift the word, or at least she could move it; it was heavier than she felt a ghost should be, but definitely lighter than a carved jade figure of its size. The sleeves of this stupid dress didn’t help; they began to move, becoming almost entangled in the components of the word she now carried.

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