Chapter 3
Smythe, the ghost who, to his own delight, acted as the butler at Aventine Manor, greeted Mercury and Tacey as they reached the house.
He had most likely arrived home exactly five hundred feet ahead of them.
Smythe didn’t mind leaving Aventine for the occasional jaunt, but he took great pride in his role overseeing the household.
He would have been horrified at the thought of Mercury opening his own front door.
“We have visitors who will likely arrive in the next quarter hour,” Mercury told him. “Mr. and Mrs. Vann and their ghost, the Violet Giant.” He saw no signs of recognition on Smythe’s ghostly face. Smythe also hadn’t previously crossed paths with the mysterious phantom.
So how did the Violet Giant know Mercury?
“Shall I tell the ghosts to make their way to their usual places when a client arrives?” Smythe asked.
Mercury shook his head. “This will be approached as an ‘elongated tour’ rather than an ‘impressive greeting.’”
“Ah. Very good.” Smythe floated away to spread the word.
“What is an ‘elongated tour’?” Tacey asked.
“When someone comes to Aventine because they are enamored of the idea of a house filled to bursting with ghosts, we don’t enact the same display as when someone has come specifically to undertake a ghost swap.”
“I remember that display. The ghosts . . . danced around you as you descended the stairs. It was quite a sight to see.”
He offered a crooked grin. “I know.”
Tacey laughed lightly. “So, what role ought I to play in this elongated tour? I’ve never been part of one before.”
He motioned her into the drawing room. “What role would you like to play?”
“Ideally?” She glanced around, likely checking for listening ghostly ears. “I would like to be an actual partner in your business.”
The Aventine Manor ghosts respected that Larissa Lodge was Tacey’s home and didn’t float inside without being invited. The situation was easier, and safer, to discuss there.
Mercury set his hand on her arm. “You’ll sort it out. I have every confidence in you.”
“And I have almost none.” She tried to smile, but he could see that she was, indeed, feeling a bit defeated.
He led her to the sofa near the fire. “Can you sense when your ghost is nearby, even before you see her?” Tacey had more than one, but on the off chance they were overheard, he didn’t dare acknowledge that directly.
She gave that some thought as she sat. “I suppose I can. I even sometimes find myself looking around for Granny because I know she’s there.”
“The next time that happens, focus on how you sense her there. That might be helpful.”
“I will.” A bit of hope returned to her expression.
Mercury spotted Smythe floating just on the other side of the threshold. “Would you like to don your greeting-visitors jacket?”
Ought he? It wasn’t his first greeting of the Vanns. But it would be their first impression of Aventine Manor. The jacket communicated his success and dependability. But was that what was needed just then?
“You seem a little scattered, Mercury,” Tacey said, not unkindly.
“I am a bit.” Which was not at all like him. He needed to get himself sorted out before the Violet Giant arrived. That was a mystery he couldn’t afford to not solve.
“Your jacket?” Smythe pressed, the very item in question hovering beside him.
“A good idea. Impressions are important.”
Mercury crossed the room and stepped out into the corridor.
He pulled the iron key from his pocket and kept it concealed in his hand.
Smythe helped him change from the jacket he’d worn into the village into this more traditional one.
As the change was being made, Mercury spotted one of his more elusive ghosts a few doors down, watching him with a look of sorely tried patience.
Once he was changed, his key safely deposited in his pocket, and Smythe was floating off with his divested jacket, Mercury made his way to where the Winged Monk hovered waiting for him.
While the ghost did dress like a monk of Robin Hood’s time, he was not, in fact, winged. Ghosts’ names were sometimes baffling.
“Are you planning to go to the village often?” the Winged Monk asked. “There are no good rooftops in the village. Not like Aventine.”
The Winged Monk had, from his very first day at Aventine Manor five years earlier, taken up permanent residence on the rooftop. It was where he preferred to be.
“Miss Wilde has not had a chance to come to know the villagers or learn what diversions are available in the area. I will likely leave Aventine now and then to assist with those introductions and adventures.”
“Now and then?” The ghost eyed him suspiciously—apprehension was one of his Integral traits. “How often is ‘now and then’? That could be quite often.”
Mercury shook his head. “It won’t be. There are enough resident ghosts who deeply dislike leaving the estate.”
“Rum Nicky and Holly Hock are worried about it too,” he said. “They don’t like leaving Aventine any more than I do.”
“I know.” If the Winged Monk weren’t a ghost and, therefore, not corporeal, he would have set a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Please remind them that I don’t take lightly the impact of my occasional departure on the Aventine ghosts who severely dislike being uprooted.”
“I will. And thank you. Not all people are considerate of their attachments.”
“Mercury is.” Granny Grey spoke without warning from behind him. Ghosts had a tendency to do that, so Mercury was not easily startled by it.
The Winged Monk floated off down the corridor.
“I haven’t met him yet,” Granny said.
“Which means you haven’t been on the roof.”
“The roof?”
Mercury smiled. “It’s where he prefers to be.
” They were alone in the corridor, as near as he could tell, and he did need to ask her a pressing question.
He’d have to do so a bit in cipher, like he’d done with Tacey.
“The Violet Giant knows me, but I have never encountered him before. Is he one of the ghosts you have told me I need to be looking for?”
She had told him there were ghosts who, if not found and gathered and made to be allies, could reveal the secrets of his past.
“I can’t say if he’s one of the knowing ones,” she said. “Not yet.”
“It takes a little time for you to sense it?”
She nodded.
“I will see if I can convince the Vanns to make their visit more than just an afternoon call.”
“And if they don’t intend to stay?” Granny asked.
Mercury pushed out a tight breath. “Then we will find ourselves in a very difficult situation.”
Carriage wheels crunched on the gravel drive, signaling the arrival of the unexpectedly important visitors. Mercury and Granny Grey exchanged quick looks before she disappeared through a nearby wall.
Mercury walked back toward the drawing room. Another of his ghosts, Pearl, stood very still, watching the front door.
“Is something weighing on you, Pearl?” he asked.
“I can feel something coming.”
Pearl couldn’t predict the future. She couldn’t give detailed accountings of things to come. But she felt things hovering on the horizon.
“Are you feeling something good coming?” Mercury asked.
She turned toward him. “Something big.” And, on that declaration, she floated up and disappeared through the ceiling.
Something big. That was a remarkably good, if terribly simplified, description of the ghost who was about to enter the house.
Mercury stepped into the drawing room.
Tacey was standing at a front-facing window, holding the curtain back just enough to peek through. “The Violet Giant is enormous. I almost can’t believe he is real, even though I am seeing him with my own eyes.”
Mercury joined her at the window and peeked out as well. The Vanns were just then alighting from their carriage. “Ghosts come in tremendous variety. I am constantly confronted with ghosts who are unlike any other I’ve met before.”
“I will get to meet unique ghosts too, then.” She looked up at him, her expression pleased. “I will enjoy that.”
“Have you met the Winged Monk yet?”
She shook her head. “Is he one of your ghosts?”
“He is. I’ll introduce you the next time you’re on the roof.”
“The roof?” She laughed out the two words. Her eyes were mesmerizing when she laughed.
“There is also a ghost who prefers to remain in the dungeon.”
Surprise pulled at those mesmerizing eyes. “There’s a dungeon?”
“Well, a basement, but ‘dungeon’ sounds much more dramatic.” Oh, how he enjoyed teasing her. It was an aspect of his personality that he’d not known existed before her arrival in his life.
A moment later, Smythe announced the Vanns.
They stepped into the drawing room, and the Violet Giant entered behind them.
Though he walked through the open doorway, his head passed through the wall above it and his shoulders through either side.
He was truly the most enormous ghost Mercury had ever seen.
Knowing their role in an elongated tour, Captain Capitate, followed shortly by Testy Tolver, floated through the room.
“Are there ghosts appearing and disappearing all the time?” Mrs. Vann asked, her eyes wide with amazement.
Excellent.
“There are a great many ghosts, and they wander about at will,” Mercury said. “You could spend weeks here and likely not meet all of them.”
“Good heavens,” Mrs. Vann whispered. “I have never even imagined such a place.”
“You are welcome to explore,” Mercury said. “And I hope you will stay for dinner, perhaps even break your journey for a day or two.”
Oh, it was a risky strategy. Keeping the Vanns and, more importantly, their gargantuan ghost so nearby increased the likelihood of secrets being revealed. But if he didn’t discover what the Violet Giant knew and how . . . He didn’t even like contemplating the enormous implications of that.
“What a generous offer. We will consider it.” Mr. Vann offered a quick dip of his head. “Do your ghosts often spend time out on the grounds?”
“They do. Most are quite fond of being out of doors.”
“Could we walk through the gardens, then?” Mrs. Vann asked. “I am also very fond of being out of doors, especially in beautiful gardens.”
“The gardens at Aventine Manor are particularly nice,” Mercury said. “They are tended to by a ghost, actually.”
“Truly?” Mrs. Vann seemed more enamored of the ghosts at Aventine than her husband did. “Oh, Abel. Can we go to the gardens now?”
He agreed, then they both looked expectantly at Mercury.
“Smythe will show you how to reach the back garden.” Mercury motioned to the ghostly butler waiting in the doorway.
The Vanns followed him from the room, but the Violet Giant remained behind. It was as good a time as any for Mercury to begin learning what he needed to know.
“Have we met before?” he asked the enormous phantom.
“Not that I recall.” His voice rumbled just as it had at the Rooster and Ram.
“The people you have previously been attached to didn’t cross my path at some point?”
He shook his gigantic head. Dare he ask the question directly? How else would he learn the answer, though, if he didn’t?
With a surge of both determination and anxiousness, he pressed forward. “How is it, then, that you knew my name without being introduced?”
The ghost’s confusion lasted only a moment. Then realization dawned on his spectral face. “Oh. You don’t know.”
Mercury swallowed thickly. “Don’t know what?”
The Violet Giant’s laugh, though quiet, ruffled the curtains and made the low flames in the fireplace jump. “This, Mercury Raine, could prove a very interesting visit.”