D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

“I’ll get ya an ale in a minute, Ethan,” the barkeep said, his words stumbling over one another.

“There’s no hurry, Kelf.”

“Aye,” Kannice said. “And he probably won’t be staying long.” The words came out flat, and there was a troubled look in her eyes.

“What’s happened now?” he asked, unable to keep the weariness from his voice.

“Another message has come for you,” she said. “I’ll get it in a moment.”

“If all my letters are going to come here, I might have to start paying you more for my ales and chowder.” He smiled.

Her expression didn’t change.

“Who’s it from, Kannice?” But already he had an inkling.

“Marielle Harper.”

Of course. Marielle Harper: his first love, and once his betrothed. Ethan loved Kannice, and she knew that. But she also remembered that for a long time, even after they began to share a bed, he had mourned the end of his engagement to Elli. Kannice was not the kind to be jealous, or to tolerate jealousy in her man. But to this day, she freely admitted being jealous of Elli.

For her part, Marielle remained standoffish toward Ethan. She didn’t approve of his spellmaking, and had yet to forgive him for concealing his powers from her during their brief betrothal. She had come to accept that her children, Holin and Clara, cared for him, and she grudgingly allowed him to be a small part of their lives. But she would not have sent a message to him, particularly here at Kannice’s tavern, had her need not been great.

He tried to conceal his impatience to see the missive, but Kannice knew him too well. She glanced his way, her expression darkening, and muttered, “I’ll get it now.”

She handed another bowl to Kelf before walking to the far end of the bar and retrieving a small, folded piece of parchment from a shelf below the polished wood top.

Walking back to Ethan, she handed it to him, saying not a word. He unfolded it and saw that in fact the missive was not written in Elli’s hand. He read, his blood turning colder with each line:

Mister Kaille,

I am writing to you on behalf of Marielle Harper, who bids me tell you that her son, Holin, has taken ill with the smallpox. The family has been removed from their home in the North End and is now staying at the Hospital in New Boston.

Louise Colson

“What does it say?” Kannice asked, watching him.

He handed the missive back to her.

She scanned it, and looked back up at him. “Ethan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know…” She winced, canting her head to the side. “Let me get you something to eat and then you can go to them.”

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry. I came back here to sit and rest.” He cupped her smooth cheek in his hand. “And to see you. But it seems that’s not going to be part of my evening, at least not yet.”

“You will come back later, though, won’t you?”

“I don’t know. It will be late, if I do.”

Kannice pulled a key from within her bodice and slipped the lanyard from which it hung over her head. “Here,” she said, holding it out to him. “You can let yourself in, even if I’ve gone to sleep. But I want to see you. I want to know you’re all right.”

He took the key, put the lanyard around his neck, and brushed a strand of hair off her brow. “Then I suppose I’ll see you later,” he said, and walked out once more into the humid night air.

It was a dark and desolate walk out to Pest House Point, as the strip of land on which sat the Province Hospital was known. The streets of New Boston were largely empty, and too many of the houses in this part of the city bore red flags, which rose and fell in the light breeze, rustling softly. Between Kannice’s tavern and the West Meeting House, he must have seen at least a half-dozen houses marked as quarantined. Once Ethan was past Chambers Street, walking west on Cambridge, there was little to see at all. Houses and gardens gave way to open leas, empty save for lowing cows.

Before long, the hospital loomed up ahead of him, homely and austere. A few of its windows shone dimly with inconstant candlelight, their glow reflected in the waters of the Charles River, just beyond the point. Others were dark. A murmur of voices reached him from within the building, along with the sound of crying. He wondered if Elli and Clara were among those he heard.

He approached the entrance to the hospital, but was stopped by a guard before he reached the door.

“You can’t go in there,” he said. “And you wouldn’t want to if you could.”

“Someone I know came here today. A boy. I want to speak with his mother.”

The man shook his head. “You can’t.”

“Not even if she were to stand by her window and I were to stay out here?”

“Do you know which room they’re in?”

Ethan fished in his pocket for a few pence. He held them up for the guard to see. “You could find out for me. The lad’s name is Holin Harper; his mother is Marielle Harper.”

The man’s gaze shifted between Ethan and the coins. At last he held out a hand. Ethan dropped the coins into his palm, taking care not to let his fingers so much as brush the man’s hand. The guard nodded and went inside.

Ethan waited on the path leading to the entrance, staring out across the river toward Cambridge. Mosquitos buzzed his ears, and whip-poor-wills called from over the Common. He glanced repeatedly at the door to the hospital, looking for the guard, but seeing no one. The minutes dragged on, and Ethan started to wonder if the guard had taken his coins and retreated to where Ethan couldn’t reach him.

He considered knocking on the hospital door, but chose to give the guard a few minutes more. It was a large building, and no doubt there were many unwell people within.

As Ethan gazed out across the water again, something caught his eye. A flash of light reflected on the river’s surface. He looked up at the sky and back at the building, but saw nothing. He assumed that he had imagined the light.

He decided that he had waited long enough and resolved to knock on the hospital door. But just as he turned away from the water, he saw it again: a glimmer of white light that danced across the surface of the river for a few seconds between reflections of candlelight, and then vanished. He turned to face the hospital, gazed back over his shoulder at the spot where the light had appeared.

And saw it again.

He looked up at the hospital and saw its source. A glowing ghostly form had appeared in one of the windows. It stood there for but a moment before moving out of sight.

Ethan knew that he shouldn’t have been surprised. People died at the hospital with some frequency. That shades should be appearing here, as well, made perfect sense. But he could only imagine how the hospital’s patients would respond to seeing spirits of the dead in their rooms.

“You there!” The guard stood in the doorway. “She’s around back, on the second floor.”

“Thank you.” Ethan walked to the door as the man watched him, wary and hopeful, as if unable to decide whether Ethan meant to give him more money or force his way inside.

Ethan stopped a few paces short of the door. “How long have the shades been here?”

The guard stared at him and licked his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Aye, you do. I think that’s why some rooms are darkened and others aren’t. They could fill every room in the hospital, couldn’t they, but they’re forced to keep some of the rooms locked, because the ghosts show up every night after the sun goes down.”

“That’s…” The guard rubbed a hand over his mouth. “How’d you know?”

“I saw one in the window. And I’ve seen others all over the city. When did they first appear?”