A Properly Unhaunted Place Read online

  “This is Pirate Week,” Jasper explained, unneces-sarily.

  “Speak the language of the realm,” Sir Morien reminded him.

  Jasper shifted his vowels around. “Ahem. The fairgrounds are rife with buccaneers.”

  Sir Morien knelt down to Rosa’s height. “I hope that you enjoy our festival, and that our revels make you feel more welcome here in Ingot. I must excuse myself to prepare for the afternoon joust, but my son and squire can provide you with a tour. He should nonetheless remember that he is charged with passing the hat and collecting tips during the belly dancers’ show.”

  Rosa smirked, but she also curtsied. “My thanks for your welcome, good Sir Knight. I wish you luck in the lists.”

  He laughed a mighty laugh. “Lady Rosa,” he said, and then went striding away through the crowd.

  “Thanks for that,” Jasper whispered, out of accent and out of character again. “He loves it when people play along.”

  Rosa shrugged. “No big deal. I’m used to showing proper respect in odd circumstances. And you don’t have to give the tour if you don’t feel like it. I can just wander around.”

  “Yes, I do,” Jasper said. “I have to offer, anyway.”

  Rosa didn’t know if she even wanted a tour. She looked around her and tried to decide.

  Ladies dressed as gypsies offered to tell fortunes.

  A wagon full of pirates rolled by and loudly rolled their every R.

  Muck jugglers juggled lumps of dried muck.

  It was all a huge game of pretend. Some people pretended hard, as if this game mattered more than anything. Others played along halfway, wearing piratic shirts over jeans and sneakers. Most were just tourists and spectators, here to watch the game rather than play along. The place made weird, cacophonous echoes of history that reminded Rosa of a library book—a very old one, with centuries of attention soaked into every page, but with several of those pages torn out and glued back together in haphazard order. That thought hurt more than she knew how to handle.

  “You okay there?” Jasper asked.

  “Fine,” Rosa said. She didn’t want to feel sad. She was done with sad. Sadness was stillness, and she wanted to be moving.

  A staged duel broke out between two performers. Rosa watched them strut, boast, and swing at each other. She winced. So did Jasper.

  “Those two aren’t very good,” she said.

  “No,” Jasper agreed. “Sloppy. They never rehearse.”

  “And they don’t even notice when their circles overlap.”

  Catalina de Erauso, Rosa’s patron librarian, had written books about duelists and geometry in sixteenth-century Spain: To hold a sword is to become the center of a circle, that most perfect and flawless form. Its circumference is the farthest reach of your blade. Those who intrude across that boundary are a danger to you, and in danger from you. Maintain your awareness of your circle and its edge.

  Jasper looked at her, surprised. “Do you fence?”

  “A little,” Rosa said. “Most specialists do. We need to make and break boundaries a lot.”

  She didn’t explain further. Appeasement specialists usually studied fencing right alongside circles, boundaries, and dangerous geometry. Rosa and her mother used to practice for fun. They used to duel whenever they got annoyed with each other and needed to vent without words. But they didn’t anymore. And Rosa didn’t want to think about the family business, or how little it mattered in Ingot. She wanted to set fire to how that made her feel, burn those feelings as fuel, and keep moving.

  She also wanted to be somewhere else, away from the two duelists who didn’t know how to duel.

  “Let’s go,” Rosa said. “I think I would like a tour.”

  4

  JASPER HELD OUT BOTH ARMS to encompass the whole festival. Pride and embarrassment wrestled inside his chest, equally matched. He did love this place, but he also felt mortified to be the center of attention—even just the center of one person’s attention.

  He took refuge behind an accent and began.

  “Welcome to the Ingot Renaissance Festival, the largest and most magnificent of its kind. The Fest began when a small band of history buffs elected to spend their summer jousting at each other. Both of my parents were among them, and supplied the horses from our family farm.”

  They passed the Mousetrap Stage, where Goose Lady was halfway through her standup routine. Ferdinand the gander perched on her head and flapped his wings to prompt applause.

  “Those few friends taught themselves how to joust by tilting at straw dummies. They took this seriously enough to get good at it, and soon they could spear rings the size of teacups with a twelve-foot lance at full gallop. One founder, Nell MacMinnigan, learned smithy work and taught herself how to make armor so that they would be less likely to accidentally kill each other. Nell should be working at her forge today, so we can stop by and say hello. Mind the tortoise.” They stepped wide around Handisher the tortoise, who wore livery in the queen’s colors draped over his shell. “Handisher roams our festival at will. Most of the stalls sell turtle treats in little paper cups for anyone who wants to feed him. Where was I?”

  “Nell the smith,” Rosa prompted.

  “Right. Nell’s armor and weapons got fancier and shinier. The weekend jousts became more of a show. Crowds began to gather. The costumes and armor were expensive, so they started to sell tickets. And lemonade. The festival expanded from there. It began as a summertime hobby, and now it’s immense. The lemonade stall is still here, next to the Tacky Tavern. We can take refreshment there if you like.”

  “No thanks,” Rosa said.

  Jasper couldn’t tell if she was enjoying herself or not. She looked at every single thing as though hoping to spot something else hiding behind it.

  They passed the Waxworks, where the air smelled thick and sweet, and watched Duncan the candlemaker dip handmade wicks into a vat of bubbling beeswax. He hung thin amber candles from a row of iron hooks to dry.

  “There used to be another wax stall across the way,” Jasper said, his voice low. “Fantastical Candles. They sold sculpted wax castles and glittery unicorns. They also made beer steins full of wax that looked like beer, and coffee mugs full of darker wax that looked like coffee. Bad idea, I thought. Candles shouldn’t pretend to be drinkable. That’s an invitation to a mouthful of hot pain. But the beer steins and coffee mugs sold pretty well. Anyway, Duncan here, the master candlemaker, absolutely hated Fantastical Candles. He drove them away with the overwhelming force of his disapproval. Duncan never drops character—not ever—and he’s fully devoted to the absolute, several-centuries-old authenticity of his craft.”

  Rosa admired a few huge candles as tall as herself. “These would be useful in a properly haunted place.”

  “Touch them not,” the candlemaker growled over one shoulder.

  Rosa already had. She backed away and tried to rub wax residue from her fingertips.

  Jasper sighed. The candlemaker’s devotion to his work often stopped him from actually selling any of it.

  “What’s that place over there?” Rosa asked.

  “Mermaid Lagoon,” he said. “Let’s go say hello. The mermaids won’t answer us, not if they stay in character. They’ll just sing and wave.”

  He led the way around shrubs and stones, over a small wooden bridge, and down a dirt path to the lagoon. It looked like a low-budget zoo exhibit, a cement enclosure trying very hard to seem like a natural habitat. Three mermaids lounged at the far side of the pool, their legs tucked into brightly painted rubber tails. Jasper waved. They waved back. Spectators wandered through to gawk and toss coins in the water. A jewelry stall beside the path sold necklaces, seashells, and very old coins.

  Rosa watched the lagoon with a critical eye. “They don’t look very much like mermaids. Or undines. Or nymphs. Or any other kind of water spirit that I know about.”

  “You’ve seen some?” Jasper tried to ask casually. He tried to hold down his intense curiosity. It made his voice
crack. He cleared his throat.

  “Just one,” she said. “Freshwater. Lived in a big public fountain outside our library, and mostly behaved. Mostly. As long as she got steady offerings of coins and wishes.”

  “Did she grant wishes?” Jasper asked.

  “No,” Rosa said. “She ate them. Ate the coins, too, but I think she found them less nutritious than the wishes. And she looked different. Not so . . .”

  “Pretty?”

  “Flirty. She was pretty. She had really long arms, though. Two elbows at least. Sometimes three. I never learned her name. Maybe she didn’t have one. Maybe she ate it already.”

  They stood and listened to the fake mermaids sing. Rosa rolled her pebble around in her hand. Jasper tried to decide where to go next. He was about to suggest the Human Dice Game, where they could watch acrobatic comedians tumble inside huge wicker cubes. But then he heard scuffling noises and a louder, sharper sound, which he finally recognized as screaming.

  5

  ONE MOMENT SPED UP. LOTS of noise and movement crowded into it, all together, all at once.

  The next moment slowed right down.

  Rosa saw a beast come loping out of the forest and into the Mermaid Lagoon. She couldn’t see it clearly. Sunlight bent around the thing as though reluctant to touch it.

  She reached for her tool belt. It wasn’t there. She had left all the tools of her trade in the library basement, packed away in one of many cardboard boxes. She didn’t have chalk, salt, or a source of fire. She didn’t have her pocketknife or favorite marble. The marble wasn’t actually good for anything, but it was her favorite and she carried it with her, always. Except today. She wasn’t supposed to need any of it today. Today she had a small rock and a medallion of Patron Catalina.

  The medallion felt suddenly and uncomfortably cold as the haunted thing approached.

  Most of the beast was a mountain lion—or at least it used to be. Now it was something else. An antlered deer skull sat where its head used to be.

  The beast loped forward, half upright on hind legs. Its forelimbs dangled loose as if forgotten. The antlers moved instead. They moved with pointed, prehensile, grasping intention as though they properly belonged on the body of a crab or a spider.

  I need a circle, Rosa thought. She needed to draw a line in the dirt, an unbroken line, one that would set her apart. She needed a barrier to create a separate place with separate rules inside. But she didn’t have salt. She didn’t have chalk. And the hard packed dirt didn’t notice when she tried to draw a line with her shoe.

  Rosa needed to make a circle, but she had none of her tools because there were no ghosts in Ingot. Everyone knew that. This beast wasn’t supposed to be here. It wasn’t supposed to be.

  Coin-throwing spectators all ran screaming. The three mermaids couldn’t run, not with their legs stuck inside their costume tails. And Rosa didn’t run. She stood, stared, and scuffed at the ground with her foot.

  The skull-headed thing leaned forward as though sniffing with a nose it didn’t have. It climbed up onto the wall of the lagoon, reaching with stretched antler tips. Jasper could smell it. It smelled like blood tasted after you bit the tip of your tongue.

  He desperately wished for a sword, or a spear, or a jousting lance. Or even just a stick. A chair. Anything. He needed to insist on some distance between the beast and everyone else, everyone living. He needed to do something. He needed to move.

  Rosa moved first. She grabbed a spool of wire from the jewelry stall and threw down a wide loop of the stuff. Then she stepped inside that circle and pulled him in. Jasper shivered. It felt like the air held in that loop no longer mixed with the air outside. He still heard shouting, but it sounded far away, like a TV playing in another room.

  Rosa took the pebble from her pocket, aimed, and threw. It clacked against the skull with a hollow sound.

  The beast turned. It moved closer to the circle. Antlers grasped at the boundary. One paw touched the very edge.

  Green light flashed from that point of contact. The beast held up its head as though silently roaring. Then it ran back through the trees and was gone.

  Jasper watched the beast run. He wondered how half a mountain lion could still move so fast.

  “It crossed water,” Rosa said to herself, very softly. “Didn’t mind getting paws wet in the lagoon, either. That narrows it down.”

  “What happened?” Jasper whispered.

  Rosa bent down to examine the wire loop. A pale green patina covered the spot where the antler tip had touched and flinched away.

  “It burned itself,” she said. “Burned against the circle I made. Even though it wasn’t much of a circle. Just a wonky thing I tossed together.”

  “What happened?” Jasper asked again.

  Rosa rubbed the green-stained wire between two fingers. “Something needed new clothes to wear, so it squished a dead deer skull to a dead cat and then came down from the hills. The mountain lion might not have been dead, though. Not yet. I noticed it breathing. Which is kind of awful to think about. But it did lose its original head, so hopefully it doesn’t feel much pain. I suppose that depends where the old head ended up.”

  Jasper stared at the girl who stared at the wire and spoke calmly of missing heads and half-lions.

  “What happened?” he asked, one more time.

  Rosa looked at him then, and she looked overjoyed.

  “A haunting,” she said.

  6

  ROSA FELT HER SENSE OF time return to normal. Breath and heartbeat fell back into their usual rhythms. Each moment handed off “now” to the next.

  The trio of mermaids hurried to get out of the water and out of their immobilizing tails.

  Jasper continued to watch the trees, his earlier curiosity sharpened by fear and wonder.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that before?” he asked.

  “No,” Rosa told him. “I really haven’t tangled with rearranged wildlife before. But I did handle a pigeon-eating statue once. He’d swallow everything but the wings, stick those mangled wings back together, and then convince them to fly all by themselves. The statue got loose in our library, along with a whole flock of his birdless wings. Mom was on call at another branch, so I had to chase them out myself.”

  “You are a deeply unsettling person,” Jasper said. “Statues move where you come from?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Not usually. But they are heavy, sculpted memories, so they’re pretty much always haunted. And if any of the restless kind see my mother coming, they move very fast and in the opposite direction.”

  She stepped outside the wire circle, dug out her phone, and pushed the only number in the “favorite” menu. Mom needs to be here. Mom needs to see this. But Mom didn’t answer, not after several rings. Rosa stuffed the phone back in her pocket.

  Jasper left the circle. The look on his face completely changed in that moment.

  “We should finish up the tour,” he said, distracted. “Then I need to get to the belly dancer’s show. I’m supposed to pass the hat.”

  “Excuse me?” Rosa couldn’t quite believe that sideshow tips had taken sudden precedence over ghostly things. “What about the haunting?”

  “Ingot isn’t haunted,” Jasper said. “I wish it was sometimes. But it isn’t.”

  “Okay,” Rosa said. She slowed down and spoke carefully. “Do you remember what just happened?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Rabid mountain lion. Scary. They don’t usually come all the way down here.”

  She glanced at the mermaids—now just a trio pulling blue jeans over bathing suits. They seemed annoyed, but not afraid, and they left as soon as they had pants on.

  Rosa scooped up the wire and twisted off a piece. “Your memory worked a whole lot better inside that circle. Give me your wrist.”

  “Right or left?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  He held out his left arm. She looped some wire around his wrist and twisted the ends together to m
ake a hasty bracelet.

  “Tell me what you saw,” she asked him. “Tell me what came out of those woods.”

  “A mountain lion,” he said, but then his eyes sharpened. “Part of one. With a deer skull for a head. And the antlers moved around in ways that they really aren’t supposed to.”

  “Whew,” Rosa said. “Good. Please don’t take that bracelet off. Not even to shower. You might forget to put it back on.”

  Jasper blinked a couple of times, his head still fuzzy from overlapping memories that didn’t quite agree. “Why did I . . . ?”

  “No idea,” she told him. “Maybe Ingot is haunted and always has been. That’d be nice. But maybe ghosts keep themselves hidden here. No echoes, no memories. I can’t think why they would do that, though. Have you seen other rearranged wildlife before? That you can remember, anyway?”

  “No,” he said. “And I’ve spent every single summer in this field. I’ve got a picture of Dad on horseback with a lance in one arm and month-old me cradled in the other.”

  Rosa tried to call her mother again. “Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up. I don’t even know where she packed our tool belts. And she should be here. She’s the specialist. Pick up!” Rosa needed her mother to stop napping beneath a building that had no need or use for her. She needed her to get back to work, to become herself again, ablaze with skill and vital purpose. She needed both of them to be in motion. But Mom didn’t pick up. Rosa put away her phone. Then she clapped her hands together in a let’s get to work sort of way. “Right. Okay. If it comes back, it’ll probably follow the same path it took before—which will bring it here, to the lagoon. Haunted things follow habits. So we need to work a little appeasement on this spot. And I don’t have my tool belt. Do you know where we can find matches and a pocketknife? And salt? Lots and lots of salt.”