D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

“I believe the appearance of your mother’s ghost may be tied in some way to what was done to her grave. I believe that seeing her might help me determine how it is she’s come to be here.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you have experience with … beings of this sort?”

He couldn’t very well deny it. “Aye, sir. As I’ve said, yours is not the only household to be so afflicted. I believe I can help you. But I need to see her.”

Rowan wiped sweat from his upper lip with a shaking hand. At length he nodded and stood. “Yes, all right. But I beg of you: Please try to remain quiet as we make our way to the room. I don’t wish to wake my father, or Esther for that matter.”

“I understand, sir. Lead the way; I’ll make as little noise as possible.”

Rowan nodded, and led Ethan from the study, back through the parlor, to a broad curving stairway with a polished wood banister and white balusters. The wood of the steps matched that of the banister. A portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Rowan, he in a black suit, she in a pale blue dress, hung on the wall over the stairs. Several of the steps squeaked as they trod on them. Ethan winced each time it happened, but Rowan did not appear to be too alarmed.

At last, with Ethan lagging behind, the young man turned and whispered, “My father is not so light a sleeper, Mister Kaille. I’m more concerned with any noise you might make in his and Mother’s room, or in the corridor upstairs.”

Reaching the top of the stairway, they turned left and made their way down a dark corridor past several closed doors. At this point, Rowan began to walk more slowly, and with greater care. Ethan did the same.

Halfway down the corridor, Rowan stopped in front of a closed door and looked back at Ethan.

“In here,” he mouthed.

Ethan stepped past the man and pressed on the door latch until he felt it give. He cast one quick glance at Rowan before pushing the door open and slipping into the room. Rowan made no effort to follow, which suited Ethan. He didn’t want to explain what he was doing with a pouch of mullein or a bloody cut on his forearm.

As soon as he was in the bedroom, he saw the shade of Abigail Rowan. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap.

Or what was left of her hands, in what had once had been her lap.

Rowan had prepared him, but still Ethan shuddered at the sight of her. She wore a dark dress; Ethan thought it must be the gown in which she had been buried. Her face was like something out of a child’s nightmare. Her cheeks were sunken, her lips dried up and pulled back to reveal her teeth and the bone that would have been covered by her gums in life. Her nose was gone; all that remained was the split cavity where it had been. No doubt her eyes would have been equally appalling, but they glowed so brightly that Ethan could not see the horror beneath the glare.

Her hands had darkened and were now covered by what looked like a thin layer of hard, leathery skin. Ethan could see the contours of the bones beneath.

She glowed purest white, like starlight, or the color of a winter moon. She had not been a conjurer in life, and so, it seemed, she did not show a conjurer’s hue in death. Or so he thought. Staring at her intently, Ethan realized that he could discern some faint hint of color in her face. But she was insubstantial, translucent, and he couldn’t be sure that what he saw wasn’t pigment from objects behind her.

When she perceived that he was there, she stood and backed away from him.

“Don’t be frightened,” Ethan said, raising his hands in a placating gesture, as he had a short while before upon being greeted at the door by her son and his pistol. “I won’t harm you.” Not that I would even know how. “I met your husband and children today. I’m trying to find out what has happened to you.”

She didn’t back away farther, but she watched him warily, like a bird poised for flight.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Ethan asked.

She stared back at him, giving no indication that she understood, or that she had even heard him.

“ Veni ad me, ” Ethan said, watching the woman, hoping she wouldn’t vanish when Reg appeared. Come to me.

She took another step back as the ghost winked into view beside Ethan. For his part, Reg just stared at the shade, his eyes burning like torches.

“She’s being kept here the same way Patience is, isn’t she?”

Reg turned to him and shook his head.

Ethan blinked. “She’s not? Then how-?”

Reg held up his hand right in front of Ethan’s face, and pointed at Abigail’s shade.

Ethan looked at the shade once more, and realized that her right hand did look different from the rest of her. Its glow was darker, and it did have some color: a bluish tinge, or maybe sea-green. It reminded him of a hue he had seen, though he couldn’t place it. Scrutinizing her face once more, he realized that he had not imagined that hint of color a moment before. Her head and her hand both glowed with it.

“So she’s being held here,” Ethan said. “That’s why the heads and hands were removed from the corpses.”

Reg nodded.

“Ask her if she knows why she’s here,” he said. “Please.”

The old ghost stared at the shade for several seconds, before turning to Ethan again and shaking his head.

“Is she in pain? Is she suffering?”

Reg grimaced at the question, but didn’t nod or shake his head.

“You have no easy answer for that, do you?” He eyed Abigail, mulling his own question. “How long has she been here?” he asked, wondering if Abigail would have a different answer than had her son.

But Reg held up three fingers. Three days.

“So, she was at peace already,” Ethan said, the horror of what had been done to her dawning on him. “She was in the realm of the dead, and she was pulled back.”

The old ghost nodded, Ethan’s fury mirrored on his features.

“How?” Ethan asked. “How could they do that? It couldn’t be enough just to take her hand and skull, or even that piece of cloth. It would have to be-” He felt cold radiating from his gut through the rest of his body. “The symbol,” he said in a whisper. “That’s how they’re doing it. Am I right?” he asked the ghost.

There were times when Reg appeared to delight in leaving Ethan uncertain and uninformed. He was a splenetic old fool, and the power binding him to Ethan had spawned a relationship that was complicated to say the least. But his shrug this time conveyed such sadness that Ethan knew he took no pleasure in his inability to answer.

“Before, when we saw Patience, you said that there were more ghosts here in Boston. Are the others more like Patience, or more like this one?”

Reg pointed to the shade of Abigail Rowan.

“I was afraid of that,” Ethan said. “Would that there was some way she could tell us who’s done this to her.”

“Or that she could speak to her husband.”

Ethan spun. Alexander Rowan stood in the doorway, his son behind him. The father was dressed in a sleeping gown and he held a single burning candle.

“I don’t know who you’re talking to, Mister Kaille, but I trust you’ve found a way to communicate with my wife.”

“Sir, I-”

“It’s all right, Mister Kaille. I’ve heard people speak of witches. For a time I didn’t believe in them. And after that I convinced myself they had to be evil. But there stands the ghost of my wife, looking like a monster, and acting like she’s afraid of us all. Who am I to decide what is evil and what is Godly?”

“Aye, sir,” Ethan said, surprised by the man for the second time that day. He faced Reg again. The ghost, who could be seen only by conjurers and those with conjuring blood in their veins, held out a hand to the shade.