Chapter 3
Granny Grey, with her revelation upon arriving at Aventine Manor weeks earlier that she knew a secret from his past and was not the only ghost who did, had shaken his foundation. The Cream Canary, watching him as disconcertingly as she had been, made him uneasy all over again.
Was there a connection?
Could it be that a second ghost had arrived at his home with the ability to destroy him?
He firmly dismissed the thought as he stepped into the library.
The Padmores would be given leave to wander about more or less at will for the next couple of days so they could meet the ghosts willing to be met and decide if there was one for whom they wished to swap.
Mercury would have even less privacy than he usually did.
Taking a moment in the library, knowing they would likely not find it right away, offered him a soon-to-be-rare opportunity for thinking through his best strategy.
But the library wasn’t empty. Few rooms in this house ever were. Baby Blue “sat” on a sofa next to Tacey. Both looked over at him as he approached.
“I hadn’t intended to interrupt,” he said. “I know Baby was excited to hear another story.”
“We finished our story,” Baby Blue said. His sweet little face was pulled in uncertainty and a bit of worry. “Zizzy said there are new people at Aventine. They’ve come to swap a ghost.”
Mercury nodded. “A young couple. They are somewhat recently wed and have discovered their ghosts do not get along as well as they would prefer.”
Tacey made a sound of pondering. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I suppose it would be a tricky thing to bring two ghosts together in one household.”
Mercury nodded as he sat. “It is one thing I have to take into account when making a swap. We have enough ghosts and enough space here that each new addition doesn’t have to be a perfect fit, but there has been the occasional ghost I was unwilling to add to the group.”
“But you did let the Signora join us.” Baby Blue pouted. “Most of us wish you hadn’t.”
Mercury smiled at him. “I didn’t realize until the swap was complete that she would torture us all with her performances.”
“They are truly awful,” Baby Blue said to Tacey.
“I have heard her performances,” Tacey reminded him. “And you are correct.”
“But she isn’t unkind to me.” Baby Blue sighed. “I like that about her.”
Mercury leaned in the direction of the sofa in the same moment Tacey bent a little closer to Baby Blue sitting beside her.
“Are any of the ghosts unkind to you?” Mercury hadn’t heard that they were. He wouldn’t abide any mistreatment of Baby Blue.
“Captain Capitate teases me,” Baby said. “I don’t like that, but he isn’t actually hurtful.”
“I’m sorry he teases you.” Mercury’s warnings to the Captain about treating their youngest ghost with kindness usually stopped the teasing for a few weeks at a time. “If it ever does become hurtful, you will tell me, won’t you?”
“And tell me,” Tacey added. “I’ll give the Captain a piece of my mind, I assure you.”
Baby Blue beamed up at her. How quickly the ghostly child had grown fond of their new neighbor. Mercury liked her even more for it. Baby Blue thrived when he felt safe and cared about.
Twisty Zizzy, one of Mercury’s Originary ghosts along with Baby Blue and Smythe, floated into the library.
She wore her usual look of worry as she crossed directly to Mercury.
“Did the Padmores say what kind of ghost they are looking for? A girl my age?” She made the inquiry in such a tone of fear that there was no doubt she hoped Mercury’s answer would be an emphatic no.
“Or a little boy?” Baby Blue’s tone was very similar but with an added note of pleading.
“I have promised you both that you will not be traded unless you beg me to be, and even then, it will take a great deal of effort to convince me that you mean it. You’ll stay with me for as long as you wish; I swear to you both.”
Relief passed over their faces. Even Tacey looked relieved.
Mercury had told her quite specifically that, while ghosts have been known to be cajoled or manipulated into agreeing to trades they did not actually want to make, he never did such a thing.
It seemed his would-be colleague did not yet have full faith in him.
Of course, he was keeping secrets from her, so perhaps she was right to be a little wary.
“Are we permitted to go watch the Padmores?” Zizzy asked him.
“Of course.”
“But do we have to talk to them?” Baby Blue sounded horrified at the possibility.
“Only if you wish to.”
The two ghosts looked at each other. Something silent passed between them before they both floated out of the room together, leaving Mercury and Tacey behind.
“Baby Blue is particularly concerned about the possibility of being abandoned,” Mercury said. “I have known him all my life but I still am not sure if that is one of his Integral traits or if it is the result of him being perpetually five years old.”
Tacey smiled at him. “I like him, and I enjoy spending time with him. Zizzy worries about abandonment as well, but she seems worried about most everything.”
He nodded. “That is one of her Integral traits.”
“You are well known for making a lot of trades,” Tacey said, “which everyone attributes to both your prowess as a broker and your significant number of ghosts.”
“Both are important to my success.”
“But you told Baby that you don’t trade for ghosts that you think will wreak havoc on your household,” she said. “Have you truly refused a trade for that reason? Even a lucrative one?”
“I never undertake a trade that will make anyone involved, including the ghosts, unhappy. That, in my extensive experience, is even more crucial to my reputation and success as a ghost broker than volume of trades. People come back time and again because they know I will do what is right, not merely what is profitable.”
“That is the sort of broker I would like to be as well.” She nodded with conviction, then winced. Something humorous hovered in the expression. “Assuming I can ever sort out how to do it.”
“You will,” Mercury said. “Eventually.”
“‘Eventually’ doesn’t help you much at the moment. You have new clients here and your business partner is rather useless.”
“We’ll approach this first combined effort as a chance for you to observe and ask questions, when neither of the Padmores nor any of the ghosts are around obviously.”
Her eyes darted to the right of him, looking at something just behind him, though he knew, were he to turn around, he wouldn’t see anything there.
He had learned to recognize her expression when looking at or listening to her Invisible attachment.
He hoped he would at some point grow accustomed to the ever-present possibility of a ghost hovering nearby whom he couldn’t hear or see or even sense.
“My father also found it a little unnerving,” Tacey said, apparently knowing what he was feeling and why. “I can warn you when he is nearby”—she motioned in the direction of her Invisible attachment—“though not when doing so would reveal him to anyone else.”
Mercury shook his head. “I’ll either grow accustomed to it or find a way to not be bothered.”
“Thank you, again, for protecting this secret. For protecting me.”
“Thank you for being willing to learn how to help with this business. I am good at what I do, but sometimes I am not the right fit for a client. Having another option that keeps them at Aventine Manor is a welcome thing.”
“Except no one can know that I am part of the actual transferring of ghosts; otherwise they will realize, along with the ghosts who make their home here, that I have an—” She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to.
Only those with multiple ghostly attachments could broker transfers. If she traded openly, it wouldn’t be difficult for people to realize that, though she had appeared to have only Granny Grey, she clearly had another that couldn’t be seen. That was a dangerous thing. For both of them.
“Then, having a friendly neighbor with whom a client might connect more easily than with me will help them feel at home so they will remain here long enough to choose to undertake a Transferal. That will also be very helpful.”
Her eyes pulled a little wide. “Oh.”
“That is an ‘I have suddenly had a moment of brilliance’ expression if ever I’ve seen one,” Mercury said.
“I have had a sudden moment of brilliance.” She stood, so he did as well. “I have been lamenting that I cannot assist in the actual brokering yet, but that doesn’t mean I cannot be helpful at all.”
She hurried toward the door of the library.
“What do you have in mind?” he called after her.
“I think Mrs. Padmore might appreciate a neighborly call. And your nearest neighbor is about to very conveniently knock at your door.”
“Convenient, indeed.”
His smile lingered even after Tacey had left. He found himself often smiling when he was with her or thinking about her. And he found himself thinking about her more than he would have expected. It was strange. Pleasant, but strange.
And nearly as strange, he was alone in his house.
That almost never happened, and it certainly wouldn’t last. Mercury didn’t know what to do with himself.
He wandered a bit. He straightened a painting.
Brushed a bit of dust off a few books. He snatched up a pen knife he’d left on his desk and pulled open the drawer it belonged in.
Putting it away, his gaze fell on an iron key he’d not thought about in some time.
Mercury took it out of the drawer, holding it in his open palm. It wasn’t the first thing he’d stolen in his complicated and difficult life, but it was likely the thing he was most proud to have pilfered.
The governor of the orphanage had regularly locked him in the tiny room he’d been relegated to.
When Mercury hadn’t been cooperative enough.
When Mercury refused to answer questions.
When people came looking to adopt. In the end, the governor had locked him in for any reason at all.
So, one day, he stole the key, locked the door to that room behind him, and ran away.
Mercury bounced the key in his hand, pushing away thoughts of locked doors and horrid treatment. He had escaped, and this key was a promise to himself that he would never again be so powerless.
He wrapped his hand around the unyielding metal. Never again.
For reasons he chose not to explore, Mercury closed the desk drawer without returning the key. He put it instead in his pocket and made his way to the drawing room.
Not long after his arrival in that room, Mrs. Padmore stepped inside looking eager and curious.
“Your ghostly butler said a lady in the neighborhood has called.” She turned her hopeful gaze on Mercury.
“I believe my nearest neighbor, Miss Wilde, has come for a visit. She is a delightful person, and I suspect the two of you will like each other very much.”
“Oh, how lovely.” It was the most animated Mercury had seen her since she and her husband had arrived.
Smythe floated inside in the next instant. “Miss Wilde.”
Tacey entered the room next, her bonnet in her hand and her cloak draped over one arm. She had thought through all the intricacies of portraying herself as arriving rather than strategizing. She was going to be an excellent business partner.
“Mr. Raine,” she said with a friendly smile. “You will, once again, find me too curious for my own good, but I saw a carriage pull up to Aventine Manor and simply had to see for myself who had come to call.”
Someone eager to make the acquaintance of new arrivals was an excellent role to play in the situation.
“Miss Wilde,” he said, “this is Mrs. Padmore. She and her husband have come to possibly undertake a ghost swap.”
“Oh, excellent. Mr. Raine is the most sought-after of ghost brokers, after all.”
“Yes, he came highly recommended.” Mrs. Padmore crossed closer to her, smiling broadly. “You live nearby?”
“As nearby as one can without actually living on the estate.” Tacey smiled at them both in turn. “How long will you be at Aventine Manor, Mrs. Padmore?”
“Mr. Raine says the process will likely take at least ten days.”
Tacey turned to him. “You will not begrudge me a daily call while she is here, I hope? Perhaps more than once per day.”
“I know you enjoy meeting new people, Miss Wilde. I will not begrudge you that.”
It was all the encouragement Tacey needed. She hooked her arm through Mrs. Padmore’s as if the two were old friends. “Have you met many of the ghosts yet?”
“Only two.”
“I know nearly all of them,” Tacey said.
“Then you could tell me things about them: what they are like, how they treat the other ghosts, that sort of thing.”
“Absolutely. And you can tell me what you are hoping for in your swap and perhaps I can help you narrow down your options.”
“I would love that.” Mrs. Padmore looked calmer than she had up until that moment. “I also have an attachment. You won’t mind if my ghost follows us around?”
“Not at all. I spend enough time here to not be the least bothered by ghosts.” She looked around. “You’ll have to point out yours.”
“She isn’t in this room but will make an appearance soon enough, I’m sure. Her name is the Cream Canary. She is very quiet. And I have never known anyone, ghost or person, who is as intelligent as she is. I think she might be a genius.” She looked over at Mercury. “Can ghosts be geniuses?”
“I suspect they can.”
Mrs. Padmore returned her attention to Tacey once more. “I think she might be a genius. She knows absolutely everything.”
“I cannot wait to meet her,” Tacey said.
As the two ladies crossed through the door of the drawing room, Tacey tossed him a triumphant grin. He replied with the tiniest bow acknowledging her success.
Just as soon as they stepped out of the room, Granny Grey poked her head in. “Tacey is brilliant.”
“Yes, she is.”
“You are fortunate to have her for your neighbor.”
“Yes, I am.”
“And something about the Cream Canary is . . . unsettling.”
Mercury’s smile dropped away on the instant. He had sensed something was unusual in this newest ghostly arrival. To know Granny had as well only added to the disconcerting effect.
He tucked his hand in his pocket, wrapping his fingers around the iron key. He didn’t know enough about the Cream Canary to decide if she was a threat, but he meant to find out.