He tries to speak with resolve, but I do not miss the undercurrent in his voice, the one that says he knows better.
“Do I look as if I am from 1737? Does he?” I wave at Nicolas. “Does anyone you have seen today?”
“I... I do not know. I...”
He trails off, and I wait to see whether he will go on. He does not.
“Where do you think you are?” I ask.
Silence.
“Do you have any idea where—?”
“Dead,” he blurts. “I am dead.”
I inwardly relax a little. At least I will not need to explainthatto him.
“You are,” I say. “I am truly sorry, but you are.”
“Then I am a ghost.”
“Yes.”
He looks over at Nicolas and back at me. “You can see and hear me, and your companion cannot.” A glance at people passing through the next gallery. “They cannot.”
“Yes. I would like to help you, if I can. May we go someplace where we might speak more easily?”
He glances at the clock one last time and then says, “All right.”
11
We have found a quiet spot with a bench, where I am sitting with Nicolas, the ghost between us. That way, I can appear to be speaking to Nicolas should anyone pass through this area. As the ghost explains his situation—to the best of his ability—I convey his words to Nicolas as if I am retelling an old story.
And a strange story it is, the sort I have never encountered with ghosts. To be fair, it is not as if I go out of my way to speak to all I meet. Nor is it as if the streets teem with them.
I have heard of something similar, though... through Edmund. My nephew also has the Sight, and last year, while in the modern world with his parents, he came upon the ghost of a man who died in a storm on Christmas Eve. While the man had passed over to the afterlife, he returned each year during the holidays to assist any who might find themselves in a winter’s accident, requiring aid. A lovely story of a lovely ghost who seemed to return quite voluntarily and quite happily.
This is another situation altogether. This ghost—Colin Booth—also returns around this time each year. Yet it is not even clear to him that heisreturning. It is rather like going about your daily business, and then, without warning, you are shot through a time stitch, your mind so stunned by the transition that you do not fully comprehend what is happening.
For Colin, he arrives in the “present”—whatever that present might be—in the same location as the clock, and he is drawn to it. He is vaguely aware that it is not his time period, nor is it a place he recognizes, but that doesn’t matter. He is driven, like a migratory bird, by a deeper purpose.
As for whythisclock...
“It is mine,” he says. “I must get it to my mother and sisters for Christmas.”
I do not know what to say to that. I fear anything I could say would be cruel.
You... know they are not alive, either, yes?
If his muddled mind has made that connection, he is refusing to acknowledge it, and it does me little good to tell him now. I will if that frees him of his annual futile mission, but I will remain silent until I am certain that it would.
“The clock is yours,” I say.
His jaw sets in a way I already recognize. This is not entirely the truth, but he is going to pretend it is. Hemustpretend it is.
“He promised it to me,” he says.
“Who promised it?”