Dark Tales from Elder Regions: New York by Anthony Burdge

Author:Anthony Burdge [Burdge, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781500774844
Amazon: B01B0OQLPW
Publisher: Myth Ink Books
Published: 2016-01-23T06:00:00+00:00

Ghosting

by Jessica Burke

~I~

“I wonder if we should try speaking with this lot.” Bethany grumbled, asking the question they all had been thinking but didn’t want to utter, even those who lingered back in the shadows of the many doorways lining the narrow gallery. Speaking came easier to some and Bethany was not one to keep her thoughts to herself, even now.

The thick armed woman stood leaning over a dark wooden balustrade, looking at a group of people down below on the building’s first floor. She crossed her round, muscular arms over her expansive bosom, leaned out a bit more, craned her head out farther to watch the scene down below. A young man all in black – trousers, cap, shirt, and shoes- ran, what looked to her like a small, dark box, over the walls and air around him. Two additional men, similarly dressed, wandered about the great hall. One had a comparable box, but with some cord attaching the box to a wand he held in his other hand; every so often, the box emitted a piercing sound that reminded Bethany of a child’s tin whistle, only more uncomfortable to listen to. The other, a long haired man much taller than the first two stood a little apart from his fellows, repeated the same motions, only with his hands alone, which he moved along the walls, over doorknobs, keeping just an inch or two above any surface he passed. The men behaved, to Bethany’s sense, the way the blind do, trying to feel the shape of the world surrounding them in the dark.

Two women were also down there, one Bethany could not see, but heard. Every few minutes a shrill voice that actually hurt Bethany’s head from the height of two dozen feet above, remarked from one of the many rooms adjacent to the great hall, “I’m getting something! A spike! Here!” A scant breath after that outburst, the shrill woman would squeal. Then the woman shrieked what Bethany supposed was a question but was in actuality a command that made Bethany and the others wearisome and distressed as they had heard more than their share of such commands: “We’re here for you to speak with! Tell us your name!”

And yet, they did need to speak to someone to sort this all out for once and all. Bethany truly hoped it was not the shrill one.

The last member of the merry little band searching the first floor was a small lump of woman, sitting on the floor without moving and without speaking. It was hard to see much more than her head, closed eyes, cascading hair, and the general impression of a body, since the woman sat huddled in a heap. Bethany only knew the woman was relatively young, but still seemed older than the others. For a good time, Bethany thought the woman was asleep. From time to time, though, her head would tilt to the side as though she were listening to a conversation just beyond her hearing.

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