D. Jackson - Dead Man's reach

“So you’d be willing to take me back if I stopped working for Lillie?”

Kannice’s expression turned serious. “I’ve been ready to take you back all along, Ethan. You’re the one who wouldn’t stay.”

“I was waiting for an invitation.”

“And I was waiting for some indication that you wanted one.”

He gave a small, mirthless laugh. Kannice took his hand, and laced her fingers through his.

“Let me get you some bread and chowder. I’d wager every coin in my till that you haven’t eaten a bite today.”

“You’d win that wager.” He fished in his pocket for a half shilling.

“Ethan, don’t.”

“I’m not so desperate that I can’t pay for my supper. Not yet at least.”

She glared at him, trying with only some success to look stern. At length she relented and held out her hand. “Very well.”

He gave her the coin and she started back into the kitchen to get his meal. But then she halted and faced him once more.

“Do you know the boy’s name?” she asked.

“No. But I have a feeling we all will before long.”

Christopher Seider.

He was the son of a German laborer. And he was eleven years old.

The other young man who had been shot was Samuel Gore, the son of a captain in the colonial militia.

Word of the shootings spread through the city like smoke from a fire, until by nightfall no one was speaking of anything else. Gore was expected to recover, although Dr. Joseph Warren, who had treated the young man, said that he might never regain the full use of his hand.

Seider’s condition was far more grave. He was alive still, though only barely. Several doctors, including Warren, had tried to remove the shot from his lung, but none had succeeded. Most said it was merely a matter of time before the lad died.

Kannice’s tavern filled up as it always did, but on this night her patrons were unusually subdued. They ate and they drank, but conversations were spoken in hushed voices. Ethan heard not a thread of laughter.

Diver and Deborah came in and walked to a table a good distance from Ethan’s. Diver wouldn’t even look at him. Ethan considered joining them and telling Diver that he had decided he would no longer work for Lillie. But he was still wavering on what he should do come the morning, and he wasn’t convinced that Diver would care even if he did choose to terminate his arrangement with the merchant. He had been working for Lillie this morning, when Christopher Seider was shot. Nothing else mattered.

Instead, Ethan sat alone, sipping an ale. Like every person in the Dowser, he awaited news of the boy’s condition, looking toward the door each time it opened. But again and again he was disappointed.

As he sat, he turned over the morning’s events in his mind, sifting through his memory of what had been said and done. And so it was that at last he recalled something that should have been foremost in his mind.

“ Veni ad me, ” he whispered. Come to me.

Uncle Reg winked into view in the chair across the table from him, his eyes burning as bright as brands. He had balled one of his glowing hands into a tight fist; with the other hand he gestured wildly. Ethan had no idea what he was trying to convey, but he didn’t think he had ever seen the ghost more angry.

Calm down. Ethan said this in his mind. No one who wasn’t a conjurer could see Reg, and Ethan didn’t wish to draw the attention of every person in the Dowser by appearing to speak to himself. You’re angry with me. Because you didn’t want me to dismiss you earlier today?

Reg threw his arms wide. Ethan knew that if he were capable of speech, he would have berated him.

I’m sorry. I was thinking about the boy and nothing else.

The specter’s expression softened. He offered a curt nod, and then opened his hands: a questioning gesture.

There’s been no word yet, but I fear the worst. You wished to tell me something?

Another nod.

You felt a conjuring a short while before Richardson fired into the crowd. I did, too. At the time, you couldn’t say where it came from. Do you know now?

Reg shook his head.

Do you know what kind of spell it was?

No.

So then it’s possible that the conjuring had nothing do with what happened on Middle Street.

Reg did not respond at first. After a few seconds he gave a slow shake of his head. He tapped his chest with his fingers and then made a sweeping motion with his hand.

You believe the spell was related to the shooting of the Seider boy. I understand that much. But the rest … Ethan shrugged. I’m sorry. Sometimes I really wish you could speak.

The ghost nodded at that.

Were there other conjurers there today? Did you sense that anyone was casting spells on the street?

No.

Is there a conjuring I can try that would-

Reg held up a hand, forestalling Ethan’s question. He tapped his chest again.

“You,” Ethan whispered.

Reg nodded. He made that same sweeping gesture again.

Ethan shook his head. “I don’t-”

The ghost frowned and rubbed a hand over his face. After considering the matter, he placed an open hand to his brow and swiveled his head, as if he were searching for something.

You were looking around. On Middle Street?

A nod. He pointed to his chest again, then to his eyes, and once more to his chest.

I don’t- A chill passed through Ethan, making him shudder. “My God,” he said under his breath. You were looking around, and you saw a ghost, a spectral guide, a being like you.

Reg nodded with great enthusiasm.

A ghost, Ethan said within his mind, wanting to be clear on exactly what Reg was telling him. Not an illusion spell.

Reg tapped his chest again, more emphatically this time. A ghost.

Ethan’s heart had started to labor. “Was it one you had seen before?”

A man seated at an adjacent table glanced Ethan’s way, his expression a blend of dismay and alarm. At that moment, Ethan didn’t care who heard his question or what they thought of him speaking to himself.

“Was it Nate Ramsey’s guide?”

Nate Ramsey was the merchant captain and conjurer who, during the previous summer, had nearly managed to kill Ethan, as well as Mariz and Ethan’s friend Tarijanna Windcatcher. He did kill Gavin Black, another friend and an accomplished conjurer in his own right. The captain had raised an army of shades by desecrating graves throughout the city, and had come within a hairsbreadth of rendering powerless every conjurer in Boston except himself.

During their final confrontation on Drake’s Wharf, Ramsey set a warehouse ablaze and appeared to perish in the conflagration. But though Sheriff Greenleaf had men of the watch search through the rubble, no one ever found the captain’s body. To this day, the possible implication of that fruitless search haunted Ethan’s dreams, and lurked in the back of his mind during his waking hours.

To Ethan’s profound relief, Reg shook his head. No. It wasn’t Ramsey’s ghost.

You’re certain?

Yes.

Could it have been one of the ghosts Ramsey controlled last summer? Is he trying to deny us access to our spellmaking power again?

Reg shook his head yet again.

Ethan didn’t realize until he exhaled that he had been holding his breath. You didn’t recognize this specter?

No. He tapped a finger to the side of his head, beside his eye, and then raised his hand to his brow again, as if searching.

But you think it was watching, or rather, that the conjurer was watching through the ghost. You think he cast the spell when he did for a reason.