Page 12 of The Prestley Ghost

“I don’t mind,” John promised, “it’s a large house, and you’re welcome in it; you make Charles happy, and I could use help organizing the library.

Since you like books.” The last part was teasing, but Charles saw the emotion there too, and wondered at it, that he’d never realized how much his brother wanted company, a home, a family, bustling into all the corners and crevices of life.

He said, “You can have any job you want, designing fashions or helping me talk to various hauntings; I think we’ll be busy, after we successfully handle this case. Family reputation and all.”

“I might like that,” Alex said. “I can help, I think.” He did not comment on the way Charles had mentioned the family, not running from it, not in terms of guilt. Charles loved him for that.

“Something personal,” John said. “If you can.”

“Well, bones and such, but honestly that doesn’t feel like me, exactly…I mean, I think of me as alive, if that makes sense. I like being pretty and fashionable, not, er, a decaying corpse.”

Charles couldn’t not wince at the thought; but Alex went on, slowly, “Rings, though…I don’t have the Foxleigh signet, they sent it to my father…

but if you could just find the very small emerald in silver, if it’s still there, it’s on my left hand…

” He held out his hand, in demonstration.

The emerald was indeed there, and shimmered ghostly in silver and green.

It was, surprisingly, the least ostentatious of the rings.

Charles thought about rings, and old loves, and where this one might’ve come from; he understood that it might’ve been a gift, which would mean that Alex still had those feelings, still cared, even if he’d said it hadn’t been true love. He bit his lip.

But Alex said, “It’s mine—I mean it was the first piece of jewelry I bought.

Not a family heirloom, not a gift. I bought it with the money from the poetry—and yes, I knew Oliver had practically forced people to buy that volume, but I still made money from the writing of it, and they were my words—and also from some profits at a gaming table.

Later I could afford larger and louder pieces, and of course I happily wore all the family adornments, and sometimes won or lost more pieces, but I just…

always kept that one. I don’t really know why. But perhaps it’ll work.”

“Independence,” Charles said, because he knew. He understood. “Your life. Not your father’s, not anyone else’s. It was what you wanted. Poetry, art, friendship, enjoyment.”

“I sound like a pleasure-garden.”

“You sound like someone who wanted to be happy.” He did not add, I know how it feels to want to be happy, but he thought that Alex heard the words, because of the smile, and the touch of airy fingers to the nape of his neck.

“All right,” John said, “Charles and I will look for your ring, by which I mean Charles will do most of the work—sorry about that—”

“Here to be helpful,” Charles said, which might’ve been more sarcastic, more grimly determined, more martyr’s words, before; but he said it more gently today, and John’s expression answered that too.

“I think we should do it today,” John said. “Midnight, for the ritual—it’s a half-moon, tonight, and autumn, which should help—so we can do some excavation in daylight.”

“I can keep watch,” Alex offered. “Not that anyone would question you. Being the resident spiritual experts. But I would also like to help.”

“Then we have a plan,” John said, and they did.

* * * *

The excavations proved surprisingly easy. Alex did not particularly want to look at himself; Charles, shoulders starting to tire from shovel-work, understood. He knew what he was meant to look for; he was not bothered by the dead, and Alex shouldn’t have to face himself, fifty years gone.

He could do this. For them all.

The bones made it easier, in a way. The remains did not resemble Alex, despite the shortness and the obvious expense of the burial.

Charles found the ring in question, and touched dry brittle bone gently, with a napkin.

Alex, appearing behind him, said, “It doesn’t look like me.

But it is.” His light voice was contemplative.

“I thought…I don’t know. I thought I’d feel more.

I suppose I’ve had over fifty years to grow used to it. ”

“You’re you,” Charles said, turning to look at him. “The you who wanted to stay, to be alive, to be part of the village and talk to people. To me.”

“It’s almost as if it’s someone else.” Alex looked at his bones again, and then away.

Charles shut the casket, wiped dirt across his face, clutched the ring.

“It’s someone who…isn’t me anymore. He was lonely, and ridiculous, and in love with pleasure, and not sure what he wanted, or how to even ask the question.

He died with friends, and he wasn’t alone, though I don’t think he knew how important that was. At least it was quick.”

“You’re not alone,” Charles said to him, and held out the ring. In his dirty palm, it matched the unaged version on Alex’s translucent finger. “And we’re your friends. And—and more.”

“You’re everything,” Alex said, sitting on the edge of his own grave, gazing at Charles. “Everything.”

They filled in the grave. John did a small blessing, a gift, a soothing of disturbed earth.

They went back to the rectory, and Charles brought Alex’s ring inside the wards, into their home, into the library.

Nothing happened for a moment; and then Alex shimmered into view, coat-embroidery swinging, hair gold, eyes bright, face and body like a delicate painting over vellum, held up to light, books and shelves visible through him.

The joy in his face matched the feeling in Charles’s chest.

They had dinner, because John insisted: for strength.

They set up the ritual space in the library, mostly because it did have the right amount of space and also the journals and records and John’s more detailed research notes if that became necessary.

Charles, putting mistletoe—for protection and vitality, both presently desired—into windows, the doorway, thresholds, said, “We’ve got two spare bedrooms, upstairs—if you want your own space—or if you want, for warmth, for… connection…you and I…”

“I like the idea of having a room of my own,” Alex said, thoughtfully, “but just for…I don’t know. Writing. Clothes. I want to be with you. Would you mind sharing?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” Charles said, and John said, while lighting a candle, “I’d like to point out that I’m happy to conduct marriage services, you know, I know it’s only been a few days, but given that you’re talking about sharing a bedroom, I feel I should at least make the observation. ”

“It’s legal now,” Alex said, as if reminding himself. His eyes danced.

“Let’s solve this problem first,” Charles said. “Bringing you back, more or less. Then…then we can talk about plans. Er. If you would like that.” He would, he thought.

Alex grinned at him. “I enjoy the two of us having plans.”

John sighed, a sigh which contained a whole discursion upon flirtation and focus, and lit the next candle. The library kindled to life in candleflame and salt-circles and research and cups of tea.

Almost midnight; and Charles got carefully into the nearly-closed circle, and set the ring down in a twinkle of emerald in front of himself.

Alex came in as well, drifting, fingers touching Charles’s arm under a rolled-up shirtsleeve.

John closed the circle, and murmured a quiet incantation, Latin and Greek, opening gateways and removing impediments.

The clock began to sound. The halfway point in the night: the moment of change, the witching hour, poised on the edge. With the half-moon beyond, at the turning of the seasons, autumnal and changing.

Charles Hayward, child of passionate scholars of folklore, born with that gift, knew how to talk to the presences at the edges and in the secret spaces. He always had.

He picked up Alex’s ring. It was tangible and heavy. He told Alex to keep touching him.

He began, carefully.

He knew about opening doors, about pushing.

He knew about fulfilment, and promises kept.

He knew how to persuade, how to speak to a ghost or a haunting driven by need or pain or sorrow.

He’d never known exactly what he did, only that he seemed able to hear and to show an answer in turn, like some sort of empathy or absolution: yes, you’ve done what was needed, you may rest. And when he did that, the release, the reprieve—the crack, the open sliver of light—opened up or gave way, and something went, and the pressure had gone, and the world felt right.

He did not want Alex to go. He wanted Alex here.

And so he thought about what they both wanted, and needed.

Alex loved the world, and had not had a chance to see it all.

Charles wanted to give him that. And the answer, the thread of light that felt right, the flowing shining trail of brilliance that opened up, lay in Charles’s own hand.

He was aware that he wasn’t breathing much, that his hands were cold. This space wasn’t meant for the living, not for long. But he knew why he was there.

He could save people. He could help. And this was the right answer, for all of them.

He took Alex’s hand—luminous to him, unseen by anyone else—and wove the long shining tapestry-thread into it. Alex trusted him entirely, and let him work.

He put the other end, carefully, into the emerald: something that existed, that belonged in the material plane, that mingled emotion and solidity.

He pulled a thin thread out of it, as well, and pressed it against his own heart: not to steal life, though that boundary was the tricky part, but to shape a body, the feeling of it, the reality: something not just a stone, and woven out of vital essence.