A Festival of Ghosts Read online

  The boy and his horse approached a mangled pile of cloth and wood that used to be the royal pavilion.

  The pile stirred.

  Strange shapes began to assemble themselves from the wreckage. They looked like puppets without puppeteers. Some were tiny, others huge and hooded. Several stood close together as though holding a private conversation.

  Jasper watched them from a distance, cautious but curious. He needed to see this, all of it. He needed to understand the things that haunted his home, which used to be a completely unhaunted place. He needed to learn how to appease them.

  Small ghosts began to glide above the wrecked pavilion on wings made out of sticks and scraps of cloth. One faltered, wobbled, and hit the ground near Jasper’s feet.

  He knelt beside the haunted thing, which didn’t seem to be haunted anymore. It just lay there, inert. One of its wings had snapped. Jasper took twine from his pocket and tied the wing back together.

  The glider stirred, flapped, and flew away.

  Well that was satisfying, Jasper thought. One small appeasement accomplished. He glanced at the rest of the wrecked pavilion.

  Every hooded thing had turned to look back at him.

  Okay, he thought. Time to go, then.

  Jasper scrambled up onto Ronnie’s back. The horse tossed his head, clearly annoyed, but he trotted back toward the gates when Jasper asked him to with quick taps of his heels. Ronnie no longer tolerated reins.

  A long row of ghosts stood on the roof of the Tacky Tavern. They wore canvas mining caps with carbide lamps attached, and swung their heads in unison. Bright beams of lamplight shone back and forth across the ground. Jasper wondered what they were searching for. He wondered if they were searching for him, and steered Ronnie well clear of the lights.

  Gliding things circled above him on canvas wings.

  “Hurry,” Jasper whispered, and clicked his tongue. Ronnie hurried. Stone muscles strained against whatever ghostly sinews held them together.

  They thundered down the path, avoided the rattling bins behind the Mousetrap, moved between shuttered shops in the market square, and finally burst through open gates. Nothing followed, either behind them or in the sky above.

  Ronnie trotted back around. Jasper dismounted to lock up the gates. He didn’t do this to keep the ghosts inside. They would not enjoy feeling trapped, and the little chrome padlock couldn’t do much to hold them here anyway. Jasper locked the gates to keep the living out—especially those among the living named Englebert or Talcott. But those particular pumpkin-smashers were not the only ones who kept trying to pick fights with the dead. Best to keep everybody away from the fairgrounds.

  It would probably be best to keep himself out, too, but Jasper kept coming back anyway. He still had a tortoise to find.

  Ronnie nudged his shoulder with a pebbly nose.

  “Goodnight,” Jasper said. “I’ll walk the rest of the way home. You would spook our living horses if you came anywhere near the farm.”

  Ronnie stamped a foot twice and then fell apart. A wide cairn settled where the horse used to be.

  Jasper took one pebble from the pile and stuck it in his pocket.

  3

  ROSA DITCHED THE WHEELBARROW IN the shed behind the library. She pushed it in too hard. The edge dinged against a rusting motorcycle sidecar and rattled all the copper scrap inside.

  We need to get rid of that stuff, she thought. The motorcycle, sidecar, and scrap had all belonged to Bartholomew Theosophras Barron, the founder of Ingot. He had used copper to banish ghosts. But banishment always backfired, and Barron’s banishments had finally backfired on him.

  Rosa went around to the front entrance, which was locked. Library hours were over for the day. But she lived here, and this place knew who she was. The locks inside the door clicked themselves open when they saw her coming.

  Doorways are always haunted. Appeasement specialists are very good at moving through endings, beginnings, and haunted boundaries of every other sort.

  She went inside and waved at the portrait of old Barron that looked out over the lobby. The musty air around her shifted from warm to cold and back as the ancestors of Ingot moved between shelves, looking for books that remembered them. Wisp lanterns dangled from the rafters.

  Rosa walked slowly through the library, listening. One of the biographies made an unhappy noise about being misshelved. She put the book back where it needed to be. Three novels made gleeful noises about misshelving themselves on purpose. She put them back in their places.

  “Excuse me?” said a small voice beside her.

  Rosa looked, and saw no one. She blinked, looked again, and noticed the shape of a small boy suggested by dust motes drifting in the wisp light.

  “Yes?” she asked quietly.

  “I’m looking for a book,” he told her. “I don’t know what it’s called. But it has a swimming dragon on the cover. And some jellyfish.”

  “I think I know that one.” Rosa did know it. He always asked for the same book. But she didn’t know where to find it exactly, because the book kept moving. “Let’s go look for it.”

  It wasn’t on the shelf where it should have been. It wasn’t stashed underneath that shelf, either, or tucked between the window sashes. Rosa finally found it behind one of the glass-eyed teddy bears that decorated the children’s book section. She sat on the floor and read it aloud until she felt the dust motes of the boy settle themselves and drift comfortably down to the floor.

  Her stomach growled.

  “Shhhhh,” she said to her stomach. “We’re in a library.”

  “Roooooosaaaaaaa!” Mom called from behind the audiobooks. “Is that you? Are you home?”

  “Shhhhhhhhh!” Rosa shelved the bedtime story in its proper place, even though she knew it wouldn’t stay there.

  Mom found her. “Don’t you dare shush me. I still outrank you in the Order of Librarians. Now hurry downstairs. Nell brought burgers, and yours is getting cold.”

  Rosa’s stomach snarled again. She followed her mother downstairs.

  Appeasement specialists always live inside their own libraries, or at least very close to their libraries. They need to be on call at all hours. Some kinds of haunted disgruntlements only happen at night.

  Rosa and Athena Díaz lived in a cozy basement apartment underneath the Ingot Public Library. Athena loved it, and said it felt like a fox burrow. Rosa was still getting used to living in a basement, but she did like the place better now that they had mostly unpacked. It felt, smelled, and sounded like all of their own familiar belongings. It also smelled like burgers.

  “Hi Nell,” Rosa said.

  “Hi kid,” Nell mumbled through a mouth half-full of burger. She was the town blacksmith. Nell made swords, spears, and armor for the Renaissance Festival—but that was before the festival shut down, unable to cope with the excessive number of revenants who haunted the fairgrounds. Now she mostly worked as a farrier. Nell made sure that horses stayed shod at the Chevalier farm. She also spent her time dismantling the huge circle of copper that Barron had built around the town to keep it an otherwise unhaunted place.

  Her empty burger wrapper started to move across the kitchen table. The foil crinkled itself into a shape with legs. Nell’s chair squeaked against the floor as she inched away.

  Rosa tore into her own burger. She offered its wrapper to the thing that now haunted the tabletop. It pounced on the extra foil and used it to make itself larger.

  “Did you do that just to freak me out?” Nell asked pleasantly.

  “Nope,” Rosa said between large bites. “Are you still squeamish about ghosts?”

  “Most locals are,” Nell pointed out. “But no, I’m more squeamish about bugs. That foil-thing looks like a huge cockroach now. Do roaches ever haunt? Do I need to deal with the lasting grudge of every bug I’ve ever squished?”

  “Probably not,” Rosa said. “And if kitchen ghosts are bugging you, try grinding sage in your garbage disposal. Or rosemary, for remembrance. Ei
ther one.”

  “Thanks.” Nell said. “I do so love hearing ghostly advice from the Díaz ladies.”

  Rosa smiled politely. “You’re welcome.” She started in on her fries, which were cold but still good and salty. Then she noticed more strange things piled onto the kitchen table. Notebooks. Binders. Number-two pencils. “Um, what’s all this?”

  Mom poured tea for the three of them and took a seat. “This is all for you.”

  Rosa felt suddenly unsettled. “I don’t like pencils. Pencil sharpeners kind of freak me out. I like pens, and only if I’ve mixed up the ink myself, because then I can trust it to just write down what I meant to say. Remember that one red pen at the front desk of our old library? It hated vowels. You can’t trust a pen that disemvowels all your words.”

  “You’ll learn to use a pencil,” Mom said.

  Rosa looked at her mother, who sipped tea and looked back at her with a perfectly neutral expression. Rosa sent a pleading look at Nell. Nell only shrugged, clearly unwilling to interfere in Díaz family business. Rosa gave in and asked directly. “Why did you buy me school supplies?”

  “Guess,” Mom said.

  “No. No, no, definitely nope.” The greasy taste of cold fries turned unpleasant in her mouth. “You can’t send me to school. I’m too busy. I need to make more lanterns. Ghost-hating vandals keep smashing mine.”

  Nell made a growly noise. “Even the ones that I made for you?”

  “Yes,” said Rosa. “Even the ones that you made. Completely wrecked.”

  The blacksmith cracked her knuckles. “Right. I’ll make more.”

  “Thanks,” Rosa said.

  Mom set her mug on the table. The haunted foil-thing cautiously sniffed it. “It’s time to take a break from the wisp lanterns, Rosa. You need to go to school.”

  “Don’t make me go!” Rosa hated to hear pleading in her own voice. “I’ll do anything else. Dishes. Bookbinding repairs. I’ll deliver overdue notices personally.”

  “That’s not a chore,” Mom pointed out. “You enjoy it too much.”

  “Then I promise to hate it instead. Just please don’t put me in a classroom!”

  Mom gently nudged the foil-thing away from her mug. “Not all teachers are like Mr. Frumkin.”

  “What was he like?” Nell asked, curious.

  “Mean,” Rosa told her. “And he had haunted hair. I was just trying to help.”

  Mom sighed. “Rosa . . .”

  “Is this about making friends?” Rosa asked. “I don’t need any more friends. I’ve got Jasper. And I could probably find another friend if you really, really want me to. I’ll start looking tomorrow.”

  “Rosa.” Mom used the voice that could make banshees shut up and listen. “This is not about you. Not exactly. You should learn how to talk to the living without scaring most of them away, but that’s not why I’m sending you to school. It isn’t just that you need to go. It’s that the school needs you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Rosa said. “Why would they need . . . ? Oh.”

  “Yes,” said Mom.

  “Because the school is haunted now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Extremely haunted?”

  “Yes.”

  “They don’t already have a specialist on staff ?” Rosa asked. “Not even in the school library? I guess not. They’ve never needed one before.”

  “And now they need you,” Mom told her. “You’ll go to class just like everyone else, but you will also be on call for emergency appeasements.”

  “Are emergency appeasements likely to happen?”

  “Yes.”

  Rosa munched on the cold fries, which had become palatable again. “I’m starting to like this idea.”

  Mom sipped her tea. “I thought that you might.”

  “Will she get paid for this?” Nell asked.

  “Shush,” Mom said. “You’re not helping. No, she won’t get paid. She’s too young to take the job officially. And the school can’t afford to hire themselves a specialist on such short notice.”

  Rosa fiddled with a number-two pencil. “Won’t you need me here, though? At the library?”

  “Of course,” Mom said. “Our first duty is to the library. But you do still live here. I’ll squeak by during school hours somehow. The interlibrary loans will be the worst of it, but otherwise this place is in pretty decent shape—at least compared to the rest of town. Ingot used to be the least haunted place in the world. Now it might well be the most haunted place. That school needs you more than the library does.”

  Rosa didn’t mind feeling indispensable. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  “Thank you. Now off to bed. You’ll need sleep for tomorrow. Don’t worry about chores. I’ll settle the rest of the library down tonight.”

  “Even the newspapers?” Rosa asked. “You usually hate dealing with the newspapers.”

  “Yes,” Mom said.

  “What do they do?” Nell asked. “Is it something that would freak me out?”

  “Probably,” Mom said.

  “Then don’t tell me about it. Night, kid.”

  “Goodnight, everybody.” Rosa left them to their tea. The haunted foil waved.

  Her bedroom was mostly unpacked. Her own books sat on their shelves, sorted by size and color rather than the strict fussiness of the alphabet and the Dewey Decimal System. Roland the toy penguin sat in the corner, quietly haunted by the ghost of a taxi driver also named Roland, next to a ukulele that Rosa’s father had never learned how to play. Rosa didn’t know how to play it either, but maybe she would someday.

  She hung her tool belt on the wall next to her sword, which Nell had forged out of local copper.

  Rosa wished she could bring the sword to school with her. Better not, she figured. Local ghosts are practically allergic to this metal, and whatever haunts that place might take offense if I showed up heavily armed. The teachers probably wouldn’t like it, either.

  She lit five of the six votive candles that she kept on the windowsill: four small white ones for her grandparents—who Rosa had never met or heard from, dead or living—and one big red one for her patron librarian Catalina de Erauso. Rosa had never met Patron Catalina, either, but ghosts that old and venerable tended to dissipate and did not usually answer the call of a candle.

  “Recuerdo,” she said, because her grandparents all spoke Spanish, and because Patron Catalina lived in Spain five hundred years ago. It felt wrong to say “remembrance” in any other language. “A todos os recuerdo. Por favor recuérdame.” It also felt a little weird to promise that she would remember five people she’d never really known. But she did know their stories, and wished that they could know hers. She also wished she could speak more Spanish than just a few phrases. Even Mom’s sense of the language seemed rusty now.

  Her quilt started humming. Every patched piece knew a fragment of a different lullaby. All together it sounded like a discordant mess, but Rosa still found comfort in the noise. It reminded her of traffic, which she missed. Ingot was a much quieter place. From her basement bedroom she couldn’t hear whatever small noises the town made anyway, because her window wasn’t real. Someone had once tried to make up for the room’s claustrophobic lack of windows by painting a landscape on the wall and then nailing a wooden frame around it. But the fake window did a pretty decent impression of the outside world. Maybe it remembered another view, from another place.

  A sixth votive candle was marked with the name Ferdinand Díaz. Rosa lit it, but only briefly.

  “Don’t haunt us, Dad,” she said. Then she licked her fingertips and pinched all of the flames away.

  4

  THE CHEVALIER FAMILY FARMHOUSE HAD spent many decades settling its foundations into the ground, until it finally felt comfortable. Some of the walls and floors inside had shifted into odd angles. Jasper’s own room was one of the oddest. It was large, but long and thin, with barely enough room for his bed at one end. The floorboards had warped into an obstacle course for Matc
hbox cars.

  Jasper woke to the sound of stones scraping against that floor.

  He leaned over the side of his bed and clicked on a flashlight.

  Household spirits were moving their pebble pile again.

  They do love small piles of pebbles, Rosa had told him. Put a handful somewhere in your room to keep them occupied. It makes them feel welcome. So he did. The spirits who haunted the underside of his bed had immediately stacked those stones into a small cairn. Every night they knocked it down and then slowly set it up again, pebble by pebble, in some other spot on the uneven floor.

  It was almost time to get up, anyway. Jasper turned on the bedside light, which was made from an outdated globe that showed the nations of the world the way they weren’t anymore. A poster of the solar system hung on the wall above the globe lamp. Next to that was a tapestry of a knight and a dragon settling their disagreements. On a shelf beside the tapestry sat a big pile of comic books and one framed photograph of Jasper’s father, armored and on horseback, cradling his infant son in one arm.

  Jasper climbed out of bed and out of his room. He brushed his teeth and set a coin on the new shelf by the bathroom mirror, just to say thanks and hello to anything that might be lurking on the flip side. Then he got dressed for his first day of fifth grade. The clothes were new. Jasper had grown a fair bit since the last day of fourth grade. Most of those clothes didn’t fit anymore.

  He paused to take up his quarterstaff, feel the weight of it, and wish that he could bring it to school with him. The staff was useful for insisting on distance between himself and dangerous things. He knew that he definitely should not go armed to school, though. The rules of the festival didn’t apply to the rest of the world.

  He stuck the staff back into the umbrella stand, which was already full of wooden toy swords that Jasper had swung around as a toddler, and then went downstairs. The back staircase that led to the kitchen was narrow and awkward, as though built during a bygone age of very thin people. Jasper himself was fairly skinny, but his broad-shouldered father needed to turn himself sideways to take these stairs.