Ghost Talkers (11 page)

Ben looked over. “You're tired.”

“Yes.”

“You should sleep.” He plucked at the quilt, frowning when his fingers passed through it.

Even if she were to go to the front, which seemed a necessity, she would not go tonight. She tried to joke, hoping it would distract him further. “Shall I sleep here? In your bed? My heavens, Capt. Harford, that is rather forward of you.”

He gave a shy smile. “Sleep here? Please?”

Despite her fatigue, Ginger rather doubted she would actually sleep. But with luck, a night in familiar surroundings would help him stabilise, and then tomorrow—tomorrow she could try to make him see reason. But for now, she would try to sleep.

*   *   *

Ginger is pretending to sip a glass of champagne, just touching the liquid to her lips. Ben sits down and leans against her, a warmth against her shoulder.

He bends his head and murmurs in her ear. “I'm trying to decide if Miss Porter needs a rescue from FitzWilliam. Pretend I'm trying to wheedle a kiss?” His breath is warm and smells of the champagne, mown grass, and honey.

“Am I to take it that I shan't get one?” She raises her glass again and turns her head demurely.

He chuckles, low and throaty. “At the first opportunity.”

She shifts so that her thigh touches his and the silk of her dress shushes against the black wool of his trousers. It has been so long since she has seen him in evening wear that she had almost forgotten how elegant white tie is. Which does not make sense, of course, as he wears white tie to dine every evening, just as all the gentlemen in their set do.

There is something she is supposed to remember … a nagging sense that she is supposed to talk to Ben about something. But if she talks to him now, she will disturb whatever it is that he is listening to.

She concentrates, trying to hear the conversation over the chatter and bright laughter of their peers. There is something else.

“Ginger?”

“Hmm?” She turns her head and meets Ben's gaze.

“Can you hear me?” His eyes are bright and fixed upon her.

“Of course I can.” She lifts her hand, but the champagne flute is gone. “You are sitting right in front of me.”

“Yes … but are you aware?” He puts his hand in hers, and a gentle current of electricity coursed up her arm to her chest.

Ginger inhaled suddenly, breathing in the understanding. “Are we lucid dreaming?”

“Thank God. Yes.” Ben lifted her hand and pressed his lips against her fingers. They were warm and soft, with the slight tickle of his mustache. “I am so very sorry about earlier.”

“Earlier?” He meant something while she was awake. He had been frightened or frightening. She could not quite recall. “It doesn't matter.”

“I think I might be more fully present than you.” He turned her hand over and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Certainly, I feel more … more myself right now.”

Ginger bit her lower lip and caught her breath. “That would make sense, wouldn't it?”

They were outside, sitting under a flowering apple tree. Bees buzzed around them, mixed with the scent of mint tea. The sun dappled them and crystallised in an amber aura around Ben. Ginger sank into it, letting her own aura expand outward to brush against his with the shush of silk on wool.

Here inside him, she found radiant trust and vivid green-gold confidence—there was the haze of fear, but inside, the reasons were clear. He was afraid for her—not because he thought she was weak or foolish, but because he was all too aware of the dangers her abilities would place her in.

Evergreen and cinnamon memories brought the security of sitting by the fire and watching snow fall. She nestled deeper, trying to drive out the cold of the snow. Ben opened more deeply, flowing around her with the crackle of embers. Her soul trembled, breathless with longing.

“Oh, God!” Ben suddenly fractured into panic and pushed her away. “You have to wake up.”

“Why?” Nothing appealing awaited in the waking world. She could touch him here, but, awake she would have only a rough wool blanket and a cold room to face. “Stay with me.”

“Wake up.” He shoved her, then jerked back. “Damnation. Ginger, you have to wake up. Please, dear God, wake up!”

Ben flurried away, soul sparkling out of sight. She pushed deeper into the dream, trying to find him. The thought of returning to her own body was enough to make her weep. There was no reason to go back.

A thump tugged at her attention.

Ginger paused, floating in a half-dream. A sudden pain in her shoulder intruded itself in her consciousness. Trying to shrug it off, she spun away, but she was not so deeply asleep as before.

Something slapped against her ribs. Then her upper arm. Her legs. A sudden jolting flurry of hard corners slammed against her. Something wood crashed.

Ginger tumbled against the floor, awake. Books lay scattered around her, and the bookshelf rested at an awkward angle against the wall. It had knocked the bed over when it fell.

Her body was cold. She gasped, breath wheezing into her empty lungs.

She had stopped breathing. Coughing, she sucked in another breath, and her lungs ached with the cold air. She must have been too far out of her body. Shaking, Ginger rolled onto her side.

“Ben?” Her throat ached with even that single syllable. Ginger coughed again and pushed up to sit, braced on her arms. “Ben?”

Taking in a deep breath, Ginger let her soul slip a little free of her body so she could see him more clearly. The spirit realm hissed around her as veils of energy flowed past one another. In the corner, under the bookshelf, a shadowy spot of cold wavered. He must have projected into the mortal realm to knock the shelf over and exhausted himself.

“Ben?”

The door flew open, bouncing against the wall. Merrow stood in the doorway.

 

Chapter Nine

Merrow was dressed except for his jacket. His sleep-mussed hair meant he had probably arrived in the night and slept in his clothes, in the manner of soldiers at the front. A plaster covered a large abrasion on his forehead. His jaw fell open as he stared at the mess.

Ginger cleared her throat. “The bookcase fell over.”

He flinched physically and in his aura, which folded in on itself. “Why—why are you here?”

“I was sleeping.” Ginger pushed to her feet, struggling not to trip on her skirt. She had to brace herself on the wall to fend off dizziness.

“Did you—did you do this?” He stared in horror at the room, which gave every appearance of her having had a tantrum.

“No—” Ben had said not to tell anyone he was still around as a ghost.

Merrow's aura spiked with alarm. “Someone … someone trashed the captain's apartment?” He wiped his hand over his mouth, eyes darting about. “I need to ask you to leave.”

“Perhaps I can help tidy.”

“It's not—not appropriate for you to be alone in the captain's room.” He tugged at his collar. “At night.”

“There can hardly be anything inappropriate about it, since my fiancé is dead.” She had meant it as a joke, but it drove home the reality again. Ginger pressed her fingers against the rough plaster wall and bent her head. Breathing was as difficult as it had been when she had first woken. “My apologies. That was a coarse joke to make.”

“We did that—that sort of thing all the time. Jokes about death, I mean. At the front.” The young man's aura was thick with fear and grief.

“Why are you here, instead of at the front?”

He stepped into the room, collecting packets from the floor and stacking them on the desk “I'm here to—to pack Capt. Harford's belongings and return them to his parents.”

The cold spot that was Ben rose from the floor. She could almost see him in the shape of his aura again. He drifted toward Merrow, going a silvery blue-green with curiosity.

Ginger rubbed an incipient ache above her right eye. “You've come from the front. Did you bring his things, by any chance?”

“No. There—there was an explosion…” He picked up the packet of Ginger's letters, flipping through the envelopes.

The idea of him, or anyone other than Ben, reading those intimate words soured Ginger's insides. “Those are mine.”

He stopped and looked at the letters again. “They're addressed to the captain.”

“Yes, but I wrote them.” Ginger held out her hand. “I would like them back, please.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Stuyvesant. The captain's orders were very clear.” He turned the packet over in his hands, frowning at the disorder in the room. “If anything happened … I'm to—to collect all of his papers and send them to his parents.”

“Please.” Ginger took another step closer.

The papers on the desk rattled in a breeze.

“I wouldn't feel right making—making that decision for them, ma'am.” He tucked the packet under his arm. “I'm very sorry.”

The breeze rose into a wind, swirling in a vortex around Ben. Visible in a flurry of paper, the wind flung itself at Merrow. The young man was shoved back.

He cried out, raising his arm over his face to stop the papers that pelted him. In the spirit realm, Ben stood between her and Merrow, responding to a perceived threat to Ginger. He rose over the young man, back arched forward. His form was deep grey shot through with molten red. He grabbed a book and threw it at Merrow.

Each manifestation into the physical world sapped his energy. She had to stop him. As weakened as Ben was, his spectral form could wind up trapped in its fear and anger, unable to complete its task.

Merrow staggered back under the onslaught, and, despite the fear wrapped around him, shook his head. “What is—I don't understa—oof.” A book slapped him across the mouth.

Supporting herself against the wall, Ginger pushed a little farther outside her body. Distantly, she felt her knees begin to buckle and paused to tighten them. She took a breath. Turning her attention to the spirit realm again, she called, “Ben, leave poor Merrow alone.”

The reds and blacks ground against each other, scraping like gravestones.

“Ben! Darling, please listen to me.”

He swarmed forward, his figure distorted so that it was barely human, only an amalgam of emotions.

“Ben!” Something … there must be something that would call him back to himself. Helen had tried evoking a memory of a happier time with Ginger. “You promised me a kiss!”

He slowed, but the wind did not stop whipping through the room.

“Don't you remember? We were in the Lake District at that ghastly house party, and you thought Miss Porter needed to be rescued from FitzWilliam. And you were right; you went and spilled champagne on him. You promised that I should have a kiss later, but—”

“I did, though.” He turned.

“Not that one.” Ginger shook her head, though truly, she did not keep track of which kiss was which. “Kisses of greeting, teasing kisses, romantic kisses, kisses of farewell, but not the deferred one from when you rescued Miss Porter.”

He swayed, staring at her without the memory of blinking. “Didn't I?”

“No.” She wet her lips. “In fact, there was another deferred kiss just last week. So leave Merrow alone, please, because I require your full attention.”

“But he has your letters.”

“It is my prerogative to give them to whomever I like.” She paused, remembering to breathe. “Merrow may have them to give to your parents.”

“Oh.” Ben scrubbed his hands through his hair, but it stayed unmussed and perfectly pomaded. The wind stopped.

With a rattle, all the paper dropped to the ground. Well. She should have tried giving the letters to Merrow sooner.

Ben stared at her, confusion flickering over him. “I can't kiss you, though. That will hurt you.”

“Not now, sweetheart. No.” Ginger pulled back into her body. Cold and numb, she shivered as she leaned against the wall.

Merrow straightened slowly. He stared at Ginger as if she were the ghost. “Is he … is the captain? He's…?”

“A ghost.” They had planned to keep it a secret, but with Ben poltergeisting, there was little point in it.

“I thought—” Merrow dropped Ginger's letters and jumped when they hit the ground. Horror surrounded him. “I thought we only had to report in to the Spirit Corps, and then we were released. We have to keep working even after we're dead?”

“No—oh, God, no.” Ginger pushed away from the wall, holding her hand out to soothe Merrow. “Nothing like that. Ben was … Ben was murdered. By a traitor.”

“Not—” Merrow's voice cracked. “Not in the explosion?”

“No.” The poor thing. Merrow must have slept until the explosion shook the camp, then gotten caught in the horror of that. Before the war, she could have imagined few things as awful. There was one, though, that required no imagination. Ginger took a breath and faced him directly. “A British officer strangled him when he went out to smoke.”

Merrow's aura flooded with guilt. “I told him … I told him that smoking would be the death of him.”

“Well…” Ginger swallowed and studied the papers on the floor.

“Sorry, ma'am.” Merrow stooped and picked up her packet. “I reckon he's made it clear that he wants you to have these.”

Ginger took them, shivering as Ben came to stand beside her. “Thank you, Merrow.”

“Are you—are you all right, ma'am?” He shifted his weight. “Forgive me for saying so, but you look … you look a little done in.”

Ginger crossed the room to the chair, which stood by the now bare desk. She sank into it, feeling the weight of her mortal form pressing down upon her. “May I ask you to find Helen Jackson and have her to bring our circle here? It would be most helpful. I need help to stabilize Ben.”