3
Mercury set the third and final trunk from the attic on the floor of his bedchamber.
The next phase of his plan was beginning to formulate in his mind, and he needed to gather the necessary equipment.
He had learned as a child on the streets of this unforgiving city to be prepared for almost anything.
Though he’d not been in this house for years, he’d made certain that, should he return, he would have whatever he needed to navigate whatever had brought him back to London.
This particular return would require him to hide his identity in any number of situations, hence the trunks of clothing.
He pulled out all he needed to dress as a tradesman.
He then assembled clothing that would give the impression of a servant in a well-to-do household.
Mercury was in the process of gathering the pieces needed to portray himself as a poor and hardened person of the streets when Testy Tolver and Gary the Green passed through the wall.
“We are a vast deal more than five hundred feet from the tavern.” Mercury spoke as he continued creating ensembles appropriate for any number of identities. “So you haven’t been there for the hour or more that I’ve been back here.”
Testy Tolver sniffed in precisely the way he always did when feeling himself insulted, which was often.
Judgmentalness was one of his Integral traits.
“We returned by a very circuitous path. We did listen when you extolled the wisdom of making it difficult for anyone to connect either of us to you.”
“That is very much appreciated.” He tossed a pair of well-worn boots on a nearby chair. “Did either of you learn anything at the tavern?”
Testy Tolver’s ghostly lips curled. “My conversational companions spoke of nothing but the weather. It was, I assure you, painfully tedious. I have suffered a great deal.”
“Mawky is meant to be the martyr among us,” Mercury said with a twitch of his lips.
“This isn’t martyrdom,” Testy Tolver said with another sniff of vexation. “It is wretchedness that I do not deserve.”
“Thank you for enduring it,” Mercury answered sincerely.
“For Tacey’s sake, I am willing.” The ghost’s often condescending air gave way to the tiniest flicker of real fondness.
Mercury shifted his gaze to Gary the Green, who needed no more invitation than that.
“I had a bit more luck. While no one I spoke with or listened to mentioned the Vanns or an enormous ghost, talk did touch on a couple of the correct age who’d been drawing attention.”
“In what way?”
“Putting on airs. Acting finer than everyone suspects they actually are.”
That did sound like the Vanns. Mercury himself had noticed inconsistencies in their mannerisms and behavior.
“This couple,” Mercury asked, “are they regulars at the King’s Head tavern?”
Gary the Green shook his head. “They were seen there weeks ago, but not since.”
That wasn’t overly helpful. “And no mention was made of a ghost who is roughly the size of a mountain?”
“No, but he could’ve stayed outside like your other ghosts did tonight.”
Mercury rubbed at his chin, then the back of his neck. “And no one’s seen them in weeks?”
“They have, just not at the tavern.”
“Where, then?”
“In Marylebone.”
That actually made sense. A lot of corners of the Marylebone area of London housed those with some claim to the gentry as well as those of the merchant class who were making names for themselves. “We’ll have to go snoop around. The Vanns could blend in well there.”
Testy Tolver looked him up and down. “Could you blend in well there?”
A slow, swaggering smile tugged at Mercury’s lips. “I am more than ‘Mercury Raine of Aventine Manor.’ I can be what I need to be whenever I need to be.”
The two ghosts exchanged knowing glances.
It was Gary the Green who spoke for them both. “All of the Aventine ghosts have suspected, from the time each of us joined your household, that there was more to you than even we were permitted to see.”
“And you did not take offense at the possibility that I was not being forthright with you?”
“All of us have been attached to someone who didn’t treat us as they ought.” Testy Tolver didn’t hide his contempt. “That you’ve never mistreated any ghost says more about who you are than do the secrets you might be keeping.”
Except those secrets, if revealed, could hurt all of them.
“Thank you for your ears tonight,” Mercury said. “I’ll ask some of the other ghosts to undertake the next bit of espionage so you can have a respite.”
They both accepted the offer, floating away without argument.
Gary the Green hesitated just long enough to look back at Mercury with an expression of protectiveness.
The other ghosts were often recipients of Gary the Green’s Integral trait, but Mercury hadn’t yet been.
It was both touching and, admittedly, a little uncomfortable.
He must not have been doing a very good job of convincing his ghosts that all would be well.
And they likely could all see how much he not only worried about Tacey but also missed her. It wasn’t merely that he’d grown used to having her nearby. And it wasn’t merely that she had become a friend. There was something more, though he hadn’t allowed himself to put a name to that feeling.
The Scholar, one of his most reclusive ghosts, floated through the wall mere moments later. Never in the years that the very academic-minded ghost had been with him had the Scholar sought out Mercury; it was always the other way around.
“Why do I suspect you haven’t broken with convention because you have good news for me?” Mercury sighed on the question.
The Scholar adjusted his ghostly spectacles, eyeing Mercury with his usual searching gaze. This time, though, there was some unease behind it.
“Best spill whatever it is,” Mercury said.
“You’ll not like it.”
“I have ‘liked’ very little these past two days.” Mercury motioned for him to proceed.
“I brought a few of my books with me, and I’ve been reading them since we arrived.” The Scholar tucked his arms behind his back, one hand clasping the other wrist. “I’ve learned something new on a topic of concern to you.”
“Phantomic memories?” Mercury had asked the learned specter about that phenomenon more than once lately.
Ghosts arriving at Aventine Manor had begun “remembering” things about him, things they couldn’t possibly know, things that could destroy everything Mercury had built and everything he kept hidden.
“We know that these memories can begin to surface when the ghost who gains them is in close and prolonged proximity to the person the secret is about.”
Mercury nodded. They had established that.
“The development of Phantomic memories,” the Scholar continued, “can, it seems, be contagious.”
“Contagious?” How could memories be contagious?
“It has been documented that even ghosts who have been in company with people in the past, sometimes for extended periods of time, without developing any new memories, can quite suddenly do so.”
“That sounds like a delay rather than an . . . infection.”
But the Scholar shook his head. “It has only ever been known to happen when a ghost already acquainted with a person comes into close proximity to a place or another person that is connected with the memory they suddenly acquire.”
Mercury swallowed thickly. “If a person were to bring his ghosts to London, a place where significant portions of that person’s past occurred, then one or more of those ghosts could become infected with ‘memories’ of that person they did not have before.”
“It’d seem so.”
Mercury dumped the boots off the nearby chair and sat.
The weight on his mind and the knot in his stomach were both growing.
“So, by returning to a place tied to his well-hidden past, this poor person would not only have to worry that every new ghost he crossed paths with might suddenly know things about him that they shouldn’t, but also that his own ghosts could, without warning, be in possession of his secrets as well? ”
“That’s the front and back of it.”
Blast it all.
“You would be far safer if you left London,” the Scholar warned.
Safer, perhaps. But alone again. And cowardly.
“I’m not leaving without Tacey, and no amount of personal danger will convince me to do otherwise.”