Page 11 of The Prestley Ghost
“Too much, at the moment. Though my father—and any number of other people—would’ve laughed about that; thinking too much was rarely my problem. Or any of ours.”
“Anything you want to tell me.”
“Well.” Alex got up from the stone, moved a step or a drift, went to look out into the village. “For one, everything these days is lighter. Brighter. Lamps at home, streetlights…when I was born the world felt darker. I don’t mean that as an insult to my own time; it was soft and familiar, all black velvet and candlelight. It’s just different, now.” In the cool austereautumn morning, he stood out: a stray bit of brightness himself, a previous century’s whisper of opulence and embroidered frock coats, of late theatre nights and high-heeled shoes, of tipsy laughter and wealth and a harmless reckless reel between taverns and grand houses and bedrooms.
Charles moved closer. Drawn in by that tattered beautiful loneliness. “Do you miss it?”
“Oh, sometimes. I miss knowing the world—knowing little things, like the best place to find a strong pot of coffee after stumbling out of Marlowe’s wonderful brothel at three in the morning, or the tailor who always had the best hand with a good imported silk. I doubt any of my old favorite shops still survive, in London or home at Foxleigh.” Alex watched a cart pass, a delivery; Charles couldn’t tell of what, from the distance. “I miss my friends. But it’s not…I do also like seeing the world, now. New novels, new fashions, new inventions. The railways. Steam—I’d love to ride a train.” And his voice was the voice of the young man he was, for an instant.
Charles watched him. Couldn’t not. Such delight, such joy. When he himself had almost forgotten that: wrapped up in guilt, in obligation. But Alexander Leonfeld—despite a shocking painful death, at too young an age—had loved candlelight and soft dark and good silk and strong coffee, and even now looked at the world and wanted to explore.
He said, voice rough, “Would you want to do that, if you could? To travel?”
“Ah, you’re looking for unfinished business.” Alex’s voice was deliberately light, just then. “Of course I would, but it isn’t that. Or I don’t think so. I don’t actually know what it is.”
“Not all ghosts do.”
“No, I imagine not.” Alex had also shifted closer, so near they might’ve touched. The coldness of him was palpable, seeping through clothing; but Charles could not move away. “Ithink at first it was just surprise. I hadn’t expected to die. I didn’t believe it.” He stopped. “You know the story. If you found me.”
“Only some of it. There was a duel. You weren’t supposed to get shot.”
“No, well…” Alex sighed again, a ghost-exhale on the wind. “We were all so…so young, I suppose. Young and wealthy and utterly idiotic, with titles or money or both, and we all liked…flouting convention in various ways, and none of our families approved, of course, but we all proclaimed loudly that we didn’t care. Thoroughly, to borrow a description,careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately mortal…not that I think we were good enough to deserve the Shakespeare reference. We liked parties and late nights and opera singers and those male dancers at Marlowe’s, and also each other, in all sorts of combinations…wine and brandy and champagne the night before, composing poetry or a violin concerto or a painting of sunlight in the morning, not that we were all that talented, but we tried…the whole group of us, Ellis and Oliver and Jane Talbot and Bennett Sefton and Kit de Courcey, and sometimes someone would sleep with someone else—or more than one—and it’d be a delight, and sometimes someone wouldn’t’ve been told first, and they’d get jealous…”
“Was that what happened?”
“What happened was that we were mostly still wildly drunk and Oliver and Bennett got into a shouting match about Kit, and someone said something actually unforgiveable, and then someone had pistols, and I tried to calm everyone down, but they were determined. They picked the spot over by the river, in the Rookwood park. I agreed to be Oliver’s second because I thought maybe I could still talk them out of it. Oliver fired wide on purpose, and so did Ben, but Ben couldn’t hit a barn even sober, and dying hurts more than one might expect,but at least it was quick.”
“Christ,” Charles said. He wanted to take Alex’s hand. He wanted to answer that blithely dismissed long-ago pain with comfort: I’m here, you didn’t deserve that, you shouldn’t’ve had to be hurt, I’m sorry. “You…no wonder you’re here, it must have been…awful. For you, for them.”
“Worse for them.” Alex wasn’t looking at him; but those cold fingers were suddenly real enough to brush Charles’s, forlorn; and Charles swung that way and caught Alex’s hand between both of his, wishing he could warm it. “That was more or less the end…Ben actually joined a monastery, astonishingly enough. Ellis Rookwood…I was never sure whether that was an accident, or guilt. Kit went off to write for the opera and be happy, I think. And Oliver…left, after he buried me. He couldn’t stand to be here. I’d thought if any of them heard me—like this, I mean, calling out—it’d be him, but I didn’t have much control over how and when I could be visible yet, and also I think he didn’t want to know.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes. Well, no, and yes. I think…” Alex was looking, now; their eyes met. Alex’s body remained insubstantial, hazy, a dream of a young man who’d once tried to help, and who’d died for that. His hand was cold in Charles’s, because it would not warm. “The way that you love someone, when you’re both twenty years old and foolish and careless and falling into each other…when you aren’t thinking about the future, only about now, and fun, and liking each other…I think he felt more than I did. I thought so then, and I knew it wasn’t fair to him, and I’d almost said something, except we’d all said from the start that we wouldn’t take anything seriously. It was easy to keep having fun. I think now I should have told him how I felt, or didn’t. I’ve had a while to think about it. It wasn’t kind. I wasn’t kind, really, back then.”
“You were,” Charles said, “you are, you told me you tried to stop it, what happened—you tried to calm everyone down, you didn’t shoot anyone—and you’ve never hurt anyone, not even now—you worry about me in the cold, and you show up to defend me from the mayor and his wife—”
Alex laughed, but sadly. “You didn’t need the help.”
“You aren’t ever cruel.”
“Sometimes only bored,” Alex said, “and willing to pop up out of nowhere and flirt with churchyard visitors.” He was clearly trying to be self-deprecating, but he was also holding Charles’s hand.
“That’s my point, I think. Some ghosts can—can hurt people. I’ve seen—Iknowthey can. And what I’ve done—never mind. But you…you never have. You might tease or startle people, but you wouldn’t ever harm them.” He wanted to touch more; he lifted a hand, reached out, realized the futility at the last second: his solid fingers, not quite brushing Alex’s hair, wanting to cup that cheek, to make Alex see how true this was.
He could do none of that. He saw his hand, and the outline of the trees and grass and stones through the watercolor hues of Alex’s shape. He stopped.
“Charles,” Alex said, “I—” He turned; motion was happening. John, at the church side door. Looking their way.
Charles swore under his breath. “He’ll try to walk out here next, and that grass is wet—I should—”
“You love him. So very much. You and your brother, saving people, rescuing ghosts. Bringing us peace.” Alex’s chilly hand slid out of Charles’ grip. “I should go. For now.”
“Alex—”
“I just need to think,” Alex whispered, and was gone. Cleanly, coolly; and the immediacy cut like a knife, sliced like a bullet. A pistol shot. Staggering.
Charles stood in place, in the churchyard. Fought to catchhis breath.
