Page 4 of The Prestley Ghost
“Tried,” the ghost agreed, unreasonably calm about it. “None of them actually bothered to talk to me. They shouted a lot in Latin and waved incense around and rang bells. I decided to be nice about it and vanish for a while. You know, let them think they’d done something.”
“Chivalrous of you,” Charles said, before he could stop himself. This was a ghost. He was not here to be witty and exchange teasing conversation.
The ghost looked mildly hurt. “They went to a certain amount of effort. It seemed the polite thing to do. It didn’t hurt me, and I don’t mind being invisible for a bit.”
“A ghostanda martyr to social politeness. Impressive.”
“One does what one can to help others.” Those tawny eyes narrowed. “As you’re doing, trying to banish me. So you should understand.”
“I’m being lectured on empathy and compassion by a non-corporeal manifestation.”
“I’m only saying, you don’t know everything about other people.” The young man ran a spectral hand through his hair again, turned away from Charles toward the river. “Sometimes people are hurting. Or they need to feel that they’ve done something to protect people they love. I don’t have to be alive to remember that.”
Charles had opened his mouth to answer. The thread of heartache in the last words tugged his answer sideways. “Did someone hurt you? Or are you trying to protect someone? Is that why you’re here?” He would’ve asked in any case—it mattered, for banishment and because the folklorist background in his heart wanted to know—but he found that he wished to know the answer with an unexpected amount of interest.
“One of those.” The man did an exaggerated wave of fingers, brushing away the idea: graceful, elegant, simultaneously antique and just slightly theatrical. “Would you like to try now? It won’t work, but I’ll play along if it’ll help.”
“Now you’re humoring me.”
“I’m having fun. Most people don’t take the time for a chat.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Oh, my. Should I be astonished? Should I have read your name in the papers? Some sort of adventure-novel hero? Should I swoon?” But that was teasing; the ghost’s eyes were dancing, alight with golden interest and amusement. “You’re the new rector’s brother, I know that, but I hadn’t realized you were someone of such significance. Though, to be fair, you’ve not in fact introduced yourself. I would like to know the name of the gentleman into whose arms I’m swooning.”
“Christ,” Charles said again. It seemed to be called for. He also tried not to think about his arms around those slim shoulders. Himself scooping up a ridiculous elegant tumble of laughter and flowered waistcoat and sunshine hair. Himself being useful, firm and strong, if his pretty ghost really did somehow need rescuing and carrying.
He was possibly losing his mind. Perhaps ghosts could cause madness. Charles had not read anything to that effect in the Hayward notebooks and published philosophical treatises, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.
He said, “To be clear, Iaman actual medium—I’ve done this before—my name is Charles, my brother John is the rector, and our parents were Eliza and James Hayward—”
“Ah, the folklorists. The mayor has two of those volumes. He was excessively pleased that your brother inherited the living here. I suspect he’s considered asking you both to autograph his copies.”
“Yes. Well. Ihavebanished ghosts—well, two, anyway, the stone-thrower at Dean and that little girl in Asheton—and I’m pretty sure I can handle you too.”
This time the young man simply looked at him; and it was a wicked look, an invitation and an evaluation, taking in Charles’s height and shoulders and thighs and even, he realized with a thrill of awareness, the length of his prick under the fabric of his trousers. He heard his own words—I can handle you—and felt his cheeks warm: with the appraisal, with the terrible phrasing, with the shock of horribly sweet temptation.
He managed, “I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Didn’t you? How unfortunate.”
“What do youwant?”
“I thought I just—”
“I meant, if you can tell me, it’ll help you go on. Vanish. Find peace. Whatever’s waiting.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.” Charles did not mean that answer to come out so sharp. He cleared his throat. “No. I don’t know that. I just…see the spirits, more than most people. I can usually figure out what they need. Even if they’re not the noisy kind.”
“Charles. Was that an insult?”
“No! I just…” He gave up. Leaned both elbows on the stone. Leaned more weight on the wall, sagging. Himself and the rocks. “I don’t know everything. I can try to help you. I might be able to. That’s all.”
A pause happened. The ghost hopped up on the wall next to him, and somehow managed to perch on old stones, legs swinging. The sun had gone past the trees now; color blazed across the sky. Charles needed to get home; John would be worrying, yet again. The tiredness lurked in his bones like quicksand, lying in wait for a weary traveler’s misstep.
Evidently he was thinking in dreadful adventure-novel terms now. “How can you actually sit on a wall?”
