Chapter 5
Mercury was entirely accustomed to ghosts wandering in and out of his bedchamber at all hours of the night.
If he asked them to grant him his privacy, he knew they would.
But it didn’t really bother him. After all, a constant stream of ghosts had been part of his life since before he could even remember.
Thus, when Baby Blue passed inside through the walls that night, Mercury was neither surprised nor upset. Of course, he also wasn’t sleeping, so there was very little to complain about.
He watched the little boy float over and sit on the foot of the bed looking distraught.
Mercury sat up. “Has the Captain been decapitating himself again?” Baby found the sight of the headless ghost unpleasant.
But the little ghost shook his head. “The Violet Giant has been talking for ages. His voice rumbles so much that it’s keeping me awake.”
“I can’t help the nature of his voice, and neither can he,” Mercury reminded Baby. “I am certain he has no idea you’re able to sleep and, therefore, likely hasn’t even guessed that he might be disrupting your slumber.”
Baby Blue’s face twisted in thought. “Are there any other ghosts who can sleep?”
“None that I know of,” Mercury said. “But that doesn’t mean there definitely aren’t.”
“Pearl can sense things in the future,” Baby said, “and I haven’t heard of any other ghosts who can do that. Wallaby, in the dungeon, can speak without moving his mouth. I don’t know if any other ghosts can do that either.”
“I didn’t realize you had met Wallaby.”
Baby Blue looked almost offended. “You traded for him seven years ago. I remember that, though I haven’t seen him since.”
“You clearly have an excellent memory,” Mercury said.
Baby Blue likely would have looked terribly proud of that evaluation if he hadn’t looked exceptionally tired. “Could you ask the Violet Giant to stop talking so I can sleep?”
“I cannot invade the Vanns’ bedchamber. That would be unforgivably rude.” It was also a terribly convenient excuse to avoid confronting the enormous specter. Mercury wasn’t a coward; he simply had ample reason to be wary.
“He isn’t in their room,” Baby said. “He’s in the corridor, walking around and talking.”
“Talking with whom?”
Baby Blue offered a fatigued shrug. “I don’t know. Only his voice rumbles like that. It’s the only one I can hear through rooms.”
Mercury had noticed its tendency to shake and travel. “It can’t be heard in here, though.”
“I can hear it,” Baby said.
“You can?” Mercury certainly couldn’t.
“I hear it like a tremor inside me. I feel it.” Baby Blue turned pleading eyes on him. “Please make him stop. I’m so very tired.”
As much as Mercury would have preferred to avoid the Violet Giant until he had a better idea of how to proceed, he couldn’t resign Baby Blue to misery. He cared far too much for the little phantom.
“I’ll see if I can find our colossal visitor and ask if he’ll hold off on the conversations until the morning.”
Baby Blue yawned and lay down, curling in a ball on the foot of the bed.
When Mercury was little, no more than five or six, the age Baby Blue appeared to be, he’d often slept like that too.
As he’d grown older, the little boy ghost had remained the same.
And Mercury had felt more and more like Baby Blue’s older brother.
And now, that connection had shifted into something more like an uncle.
In time, would he feel like a grandfather?
It was a strange thing to ponder. His connection to the ghosts who were grown didn’t feel as though it had changed much.
Then again, other than Smythe, none of the grown-up ghosts had been with him his entire life.
Zizzy had been, but she, even when he was tiny, had felt like a little sister. She still did.
Mercury pulled on his dressing gown and stepped out of his bedchamber.
What was he going to do if the Violet Giant turned the petition for quiet into a confrontation?
Mercury had surprised himself by thinking earlier of the possibility of blackmail.
He hadn’t, until that moment, considered that he might find himself on the wrong end of a bit of blackmail himself.
I promised Baby Blue. And he had never broken a promise to the dear little boy.
So Mercury squared his shoulders and set himself to the task at hand. He’d not gone far when he heard the distant, rumbling voice of the Violet Giant.
He did his best to follow the sound, unsure exactly where it was coming from.
He wound around and through rooms and down one corridor after another.
He passed a couple of his ghosts as he did.
They, of course, weren’t sleeping. When he crossed paths with Gary the Green, who could generally be depended upon to know where to find the ghosts he knew about—none of his ghosts knew all of the others—Mercury stopped.
“I’m attempting to locate the Violet Giant.” Though part of me hopes I don’t find him, Mercury added silently. “I can hear his voice, but haven’t found him.”
“It carries, doesn’t it?” Gary said. “When last I saw him, he was on the third floor, walking around the east wing. But he sounds a bit closer than that now.”
Closer. That didn’t sit comfortably on his thoughts. He would eventually have to have a conversation with the ghost. He needed to discover if the giant specter might be one of those Granny called “the knowing ones.” And, if he was, what it would take to keep him at Aventine Manor.
Why, then, did he feel so blasted reluctant to merely talk with the Violet Giant? When Granny Grey and then the Cream Canary had arrived with dangerous information, Mercury had faced the problem head-on and without hesitation. What was wrong with him?
Mercury continued on, forcing himself to stop being so lily-livered.
The Violet Giant’s rumbling voice grew a little louder.
Asking the giant to refrain from these conversations so Baby Blue could sleep would offer some insights to the specter.
If he scoffed or objected or grew argumentative, that didn’t bode well for taking him in as part of the household.
If, on the other hand, he was understanding and accommodating, that would be a point decidedly in his favor.
If he lobbed threats at Mercury over whatever secret he knew, that would certainly speed up the timeline on which Mercury needed to decide on a strategy.
A mere moment later, Mercury turned down a corridor in the east wing on the second floor and saw the Violet Giant slowly walking in his direction. Their eyes met and, though Mercury hadn’t made any noise, the ghost did not seem the least bit surprised to see him there.
“I have a rather unusual request,” Mercury said.
The Violet Giant nodded.
“Our little ghost, Baby Blue, has the unique ability and need to sleep. He is struggling to do so tonight because your voice carries so easily through the rooms of this house.”
“I have been told it does that.” It spoke well of him that he replied in a quieter voice than Mercury had ever heard him use.
The ghost was already being considerate.
It was unexpected but not unwelcome. “We have finished our conversation, so I can keep my voice down or silent entirely until morning.”
“We?” Mercury was curious which of the ghosts the giant had been speaking to. They were not at all near the Vanns’ room, so it was unlikely he’d been speaking to either of them.
Rather than answer, the Violet Giant offered an enigmatic smile, not unlike the one he’d produced in the tavern and again in the drawing room earlier that day.
“You’ve made it very clear there is something you are keeping from me,” Mercury said, “something you think I ought to already know.”
The Violet Giant nodded.
“And do you ever mean to tell me what it is?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” That was not an overly comforting response.
Mercury took a slow, steadying breath. “Have you told anyone else?”
The giant shook his head. Deep relief washed over Mercury. Whatever it was the Violet Giant knew, he’d not spilled it in anyone’s ear.
“Am I correct”—Mercury forced himself to unclench his jaw; how suddenly inexpert he’d become at controlling his emotions—“to feel fortunate in your forbearance?”
“Extremely fortunate.” With a slight dip of his enormous head, the Violet Giant slipped through a wall and out of sight.
For a long, tense moment, Mercury didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. Whatever the Violet Giant knew, it was every bit as dangerous as Mercury feared. He could no longer deny that.
The Violet Giant seemed more likely than not to be the third of however many ghosts Mercury needed to collect. He had to sort out a way of doing it with very little time and in spite of Mr. Vann’s lack of enthusiasm.
There was one ghost to whom Mercury always turned when feeling overwhelmed by a difficulty or intrigued by a puzzle. And, thus, it was to the isolated and not easily accessed tower that he retreated in that moment.
Each step further from the Violet Giant and closer to the Scholar, who resided in said tower, brought relief. He breathed with more ease. His thoughts calmed. He was by no means unconcerned; he was simply less overwhelmed.
The Scholar was at his desk as always, stacks of books surrounding him, a couple open in front of him. It was always the same. He never left this tower, although he would have had to earlier that day, poor ghost.
It was likely good that Mercury had decided to come visit. He felt himself obliged to acknowledge the inconvenience of that afternoon’s outing to this, his most reclusive ghost.
“’Twas that you couldn’t sleep, Mercury?” the Scholar asked as he waved a hand over his book and flipped a page. “Or had you something on your mind?”
The Scholar waved to the empty chair that Mercury always sat in. Indeed, he suspected he was the only person or ghost who ever did.