Page 3 of The Prestley Ghost
“Well,” said a light wry voice, “don’t do that, if that’s what you’re thinking; I wouldn’t advise it, and I should know,” and the hair shivered at the back of Charles’s neck, and along his arms, because the cold hadn’t just been cold.
He snapped his gaze to the left. A thoroughly luscious man, perhaps a few years younger than Charles’s own twenty-six, was leaning insouciantly against the stone wall beside him;leaning was not the correct term, given that the man’s elbows were transparent and slipping in and out of rock, and his old-fashioned full-skirted coat swung in ripples as if it were gauze and not rich green velvet. He had blond hair, the color of sunlight and as weightless, and tawny-brown eyes that were also almost gold, at least as far as could be seen in ephemeral form; and his face would have made sculptors fall to both knees, if not for the faint delicate outlines of trees and fields through the shape of him.
The young man even smiled, and it was a beautiful smile, Charles registered through all the amazement, and indeed flirtatious, though perhaps less so than wistful. “I could try to pull you out, only I’m not good at much beyond small objects. But I would try.”
“You’re the ghost.”
“Ah, you’ve heard of me.”
“You were in the churchyard—”
“Yes,” the ghost said helpfully. “But now I’m here.”
* * * *
The ghost was indeed here. Charles clung to the wall and to equilibrium. He knew how to talk to ghosts. He’d done it before. He normally had more warning. “Why aren’t you confined to one place?”
“Are we meant to be?”
“Yes!”
“Oh.” The young man considered this. “Well, I suppose I’ve never gone much further than the bridge at the mill, or the edge of the forest, so perhaps you’re not wrong.”
“I’m not—whyare you here?”
“At first I was curious—” The young man shrugged—Charles had never seen a ghost shrug—and ran a hazy handthrough his shoulder-length hair, a tumbled romantic fall of gilt-edge light. “And then I got worried. It’s a bad spot.”
“Why is everyone worried about me,” Charles grumbled, accidentally aloud.
The ghost’s eyebrows went up. “Should we be? Would you like to talk? I’m a fairly good listener.”
“No!” He scrambled for self-control. Being a good medium. Helping people. Using his gift. Doing good with it, the way John had decided they should, the way Charles himself wanted to. Helping ghosts, not…being helped by them. Or whatever might be happening. “I’m fine.You’renot. You’re a ghost.”
“Er…yes? I thought that was obvious? Should I wave my arms a bit and make distressing noises?”
“Christ,” Charles said, inadvertently. “You’re not just a ghost, you’re a ridiculous one.”
“How lucky for you that I’m not easily insulted. Honestly, I was trying to help.” The young man eyed the river. “It’s also going to be very cold. Unpleasant.”
“I’m not trying to drown myself!”
“Oh. Good, then.”
“I was just thinking.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m supposed to be banishing you.”
“Ah.” The ghost leaned against the old grey stones of the Prestley wall again, even closer to Charles. He was even more angelic up close, except perhaps for the eyebrows, too dark and heavy for that pretty face; but somehow that made him more human. The brocade of his antique waistcoat held a tapestry of flowers and leaves, in contrast to Charles’s plain blue and brown lines. “Did you want to try that, then?”
“You sound as if you don’t believe I can.”
“A few people have tried, a few decades ago.” The ghostleaned in a bit closer, and Charles would’ve sworn that was deliberate, a temptation, and he might indeed be susceptible to gorgeous men with eyes like summer heat, but ideally the man in question would be alive and breathing and not transparent. Not to mention that he had a job to do.
He got out, “Tried?” The beauty was distracting. Even more so, this ghost appeared to have some sort of conscience, or kindness, or benevolence, assuming the attempt at assistance had been genuine. That was unusual. And intriguing.
No. Not intriguing. Charles managed not to swear aloud.
