Марк Лэйдлоу - 400 Boys and 50 More

The day was brisk; the wind from the sea made her shrink into her wraps. The wheels of her conveyance juddered unpleasantly over every twist of root or rocky stub. Deep in the shade of the Pellapon Woods, they pushed her to and fro until she spied the purple caps and yellow veil of the ghost mushroom, growing in a fairy circle at the base of a blasted oak. The caps stained her gloves as she gathered three of the dozen or so that grew in the mold, and then the Terrors wheeled her back to her alchemical lab. Belladonna berries and other elements waited in tincture, but it was the ghost caps that exerted the key influence and she prized them for their freshness. In a mortar she made a grainy purple paste thinned with spirits and various liquors, then blended this with the other tinctures.

She set aside most of the violet solution as ink for the next special printing of Ghost Pennies, but a small flask she extended to the Terrors. Four hands reached for the purple vial, but she held it back a moment.

“You are Protector Princesses,” she said emphatically, to impress them with the gravity of their errand. “Behave like such for once. Cook will admit you and identify the portion to receive Our sacrament.”

Thus the affairs of the Kingdom kept her busy until well past nightfall.

No sooner had Toby returned from one circuit of the district than they arrived back at the office to discover the next mound of missives waiting. Merricott cheerily handed them over, and Toby accepted his new assignment with a buoyant optimism that Hewell found exhausting, as it appeared to indicate that the lad thought he would soon come to the end of the work—an impossibility, given that the mail would never cease to flow. As a senior of the postal system, it behooved him to show no sign of impatience or fatigue, but Toby’s unstinting enthusiasm proved difficult to match. After a time, Hewell fell into a daze, following along without much attention to the particulars. He had long since memorized their route on the postal map he carried and felt he could have taken over Toby’s duties with little trouble.

It was not until sometime after nightfall that the day’s final delivery was made and they returned to the post office one last time. Merricott had long since removed himself homeward, to dinner and to bed. Toby shared a light repast of bread and cheese they had collected on the final approach. These sat poorly with the earlier meal of crab apples they had picked along the road and eaten as they walked.

Hewell made no mention of the night mail and prayed that Toby would not mention it, either. He wished to be done with this day, if only it might be done with him.

As they finished their meal, Toby said quietly, “I feel that I can trust you, sir. More, She has hinted that I can.”

“She?”

“In time, sir. In time. We have one last letter to deliver. Would you care to come along?”

“Something tells me that I might,” said Hewell, and he looked on in fascination as Toby opened his courier pouch and drew out the blank envelope he had secreted there that morning. It had traveled with them all day, neither of them remarking on it, but a haunting presence nonetheless. The envelope was unsealed, and Toby bowed the sides that he might reach in and retrieve a piece of folded paper. Opening this revealed a blank sheet and one loose postage stamp. It was the same Hewell had seen on the letters delivered to Pellapon Hall the prior day: violet and blotched, both regal and malignant.

“I have for you, sir, the penny stamp of our Kingdom. We call it the Ghost Penny.”

“I assume it will cost me a penny, then?”

“As you say, Mr. Hewell, and well worth it.”

Hewell handed over his solitary copper, glad that he always kept one on hand in the event of just such an emergency—one never knew when a letter might need mailing, and not even an officer of the Royal Mail could post correspondence without a stamp.

Toby accepted the coin and cupped it in his hands. He pursed his lips and puffed away the crumbs of bread and cheese from the tabletop where they had dined, then opened his hands and released not only the penny but a pair of dice. And not typical dice. One was cubic, but its pips were replaced with asymmetrical scratches, perhaps hieroglyphs. The other had more faces than Hewell could count without losing track and was marked with Greek letters. Toby examined them both closely, then took a small hand-bound volume from his breast pocket and opened it to a page on which grids were filled with marks corresponding to those on the dice.

“Very well,” Toby said to himself. He then handed the blank paper and envelope to Hewell with odd, stiff formality. “Seal this up as if you’ve written a letter to be mailed, then stamp the envelope.”

Puzzled but amused, Hewell folded the sheet several times and slipped it into the fibrous envelope. He then took up the Ghost Penny and regarded the pale visage upon it, with its single blurred red eye. The backside was sticky with a wash of gum arabic and the purple stain had bled into it.

“I require something with which to dab the stamp,” Hewell said.

“It is traditional to place the Ghost Penny on your tongue and rest it there a few moments,” Toby said. “That will be moisture enough. Like the Penny Black, it is self-adhesive.”

Hewell licked the violet stamp, surprised to discover that it tasted of those very flowers, with a sugary sweetness that barely masked an underlying bitterness. His fingers, as they smoothed the stamp in place, were all atremble.

“And now, by the ruling of the Concordance, I am to show you this.”

Toby spread out a district map. At first it appeared identical to the one Hewell carried, all its features familiar from the day’s wanderings. However, the place-names and designations were markedly different. The main street was labeled as The Row of Silent Ones. There were a Ghastly Bypass and Staring Knolls; also Tiny Gnashers—a bridge above the Ghoulfast Cataract—which he had seen himself that day and crossed repeatedly on that selfsame bridge, although he could easily have waded the so-called cataract (in truth a very small weir) without wetting his knees. Toby ran a finger along a dotted, circuitous path marked as the Ghost Road, which touched each location on the map. “This is the route I take when performing my secret post, sir. We will follow it tonight, to reach the Specter’s Seat.”

At the bottom of the map, Hewell finally spied a legend, neatly calligraphed: Spectralia .

Deakins was right, he realized. This was a game. And although he had never been fond of time-trivializing amusements, he found himself caring very much about the outcome—thrilled to be engaged in it.

Seeing the district annotated with unfamiliar designations, he wondered what world he had been led through all that day. This one had slumbered unseen within it—unseen by him, that is, for it occurred to him that Toby saw them both.

And the others—Binderwood’s bewildering populace—how many of them took part in this game? Last night, stalking Toby through the fields and finally to the Cotter’s hut, he had seen men, women, children—the aged and the spry—all attending to the strange cowled figure in the wheeled chair. A soft yet rough voice—feminine and ageless—few of her words had reached him. But for her audience they appeared to hold great power.

Tonight he supposed he would hear them for himself.

“You must address your letter, sir.”

“Oh, yes. To whom?”

“To yourself.”

Hewell blinked, dipped a pen, and did as he was told while Toby watched closely. He tried to pass the letter to the boy but was refused. “This one is yours to deliver.”

They set off without further delay. The Ghost Road ran parallel to the public road in many places, even crossing it on occasion. They went in silence. Hewell soon found that they did not walk it alone. From certain houses as they passed, costumed figures emerged and fell in behind them. Horns and scales, masks of textiles, claws purloined from taxidermied creatures. None spoke. The cortege added to a growing sense of immanence; the night was gravid with revelation. Obscure emotions bloomed. Inner silences, thoughts forever unvoiced, threatened to make a thunderous clap that would deafen them all. It occurred to him he ought to have felt terror. Instead he felt wild joy.