“We should go,” she whispers. “How long have you been breathing like that?”
She noticed. I step closer to the—what? Apparition? Illusion? Spontaneous fog? The longer I stare, the quieter my heart beats in my ears. I’m no less scared. Yet there’s an uncanny comfort emanating from it. It’s warm but not like fire. Like Bridget’s hand in mine. The tug of my hair when Elle braids it.
It doesn’t make sense. Certainly not to Bridget. She squeezes myhand. I squeeze back and take another step closer. There’s more shape to it now. Out of focus and yet there’s something there I’ve known for a while now but never had a name for.
The knife that skittered to my hand. Shaking cupboard doors. The key to this room?
“I know who you are,” I tell him. “I don’t know how. But I’m right, aren’t I? Show yourself.”
Bridget is asking me to leave again, but I can’t give up on him. While Elle has been dabbling in something beyond me, a force that creates fire in the eyes and compelled her to hurt Bridget, does she know she created something down here too?
The focus shifts like a lens flipped the right way. Where the hazy patch was, there floats the ghost. Was he waiting for my invitation? Awoken by our presence?
He’s young. His clothes are loose and well worn, a patched pair of trousers and rumpled work shirt under suspenders. I recognize them. Elle’s clothes. His beard is trim, well maintained.
His eyes are rounded at the bottom and flat at the top, creating a perpetually sorrowful gaze, though his brows are upturned in shock, his mouth open in surprise. I’d think him real, were he not partially obscured by the bricks behind him.
“I’m not dangerous!” he sputters in a rush.
Bridget nods but stays silent. I’m frozen in place.
“My name is James,” he continues, his gaze shifting back and forth between us as he drifts to the ground. “I lived here. I mean you no harm.”
“James Douglas?” I ask. The name the glassblower mentioned; I’d forgotten until now.
His gaze stays on mine, softening. “Miss Caroline. Yes. I know—”
I take a step back. “How do you know my name, sir?”
I’ve learned not to trust what appears to be gentle.
James lifts his hands, palms open, and doesn’t move. “I’ve known of you since your arrival with your sister. I’d be happy to explain. But”—he glances upward at the ceiling—“are you two alone here?”
“Don’t answer that,” Bridget whispers, gripping my hand.
“How can we trust you, sir?” I ask. He seems soft, plaintive. But Chamomile once appeared as a friend.
James bites at his lip. He’s so real despite the transparency. I expected a ghost to be ethereal, not a man I might’ve seen during a walk in the city. But that’s all ghosts are. Imprints of the living, no grander for having died.
“I don’t agree with what Elle is doing,” he explains. He refers to her so personally! “Has she told you about me? About what happened?”
I hesitate from speaking. Is this a trick? I’m not good at riddles.
“We won’t find common ground if we can’t trust each other withsomeinformation,” Bridget interjects, squeezing my hand once more. “He’s dead. What can he do even if he wanted to?”
“Nothing,” James offers. He wants to be helpful. How long has it been since he last had a conversation? “Until now I thought it impossible for you to see me or hear me. I’ve observed you. I have no ill will. You love cheese and chocolate. You like to steal from the storage room when Elle is upstairs. You sing when you wash dishes, twice as loud when your sister can’t hear. She loves you. No matter her brutality.”
I’m rooted in place by the details, speechless. How much of my life has this man known? A blush spreads across my face at the thought.
“Are you always here?” Bridget asks. “Have you seen everything?”
James shakes his head and forms a tight smile. “I drift in and out. Some days I’m stronger, I can even move shutters or flip pages. I am entangled with this spot, same as when she killed me.”
A spike of ice rips through my jaw and down my neck at the wordkill. It’s undeniable now. What did this kind-eyed man do to deserve it? She must have needed to do it. Elle has so much turmoil inside her, butcruelty was never her vice.
“When I saw your labored breathing, Miss Caroline, I couldn’t stand to watch,” he continues. “I pushed through. Same as the night I pushed the knife.”
“That’s how I knew it was you. The knife. Something in the feeling.” My heart leaps up my throat at the memory. I thought Chamomile an angel, even Bridget at first. Now staring at a true ghost, all I can see is how human he is. “You used to rattle the shutters too, didn’t you?”
