It took a moment to find my voice again.
“How long have you been here?” I dared ask.
“Not long compared to some others in this hell hole, but… long enough to have gleaned some of the evils of this place. No ghost in this particular pool has been here for more than a few months. I was captured about three months ago, and when I arrived along with a group of other ghosts, this pool was completely empty.”
“You were also captured by the fae?” I asked.
She looked almost embarrassed to admit it. “I too had fallen for the myth of the light in the portal that would lead one to the other side—a lie spread by the fae among the ghost community to ensure they have a constant, easy supply of them.”
Wow. The extent of the deception was staggering. I wondered how they had initially planted the lie. I guessed that would have been the hardest part, because once the rumor started spreading, desperate ghosts would latch onto the hopeful fable… just like Chantel and Nolan. They were willing to suspend disbelief for any far-fetched story, simply because they’d been at the end of their tether and saw no other way out of their miserable half-existence.
“And what about the other pools? There are loads in this place.”
“I do not know if all of them were caught by fae,” the elderly woman replied. “Some could have been collected by the ghouls themselves—I suspect many of them were. At least those on this upper level.”
“Upper level?”
“The newest recruits are kept here on this level, the highest level,” the woman explained. “At least, while there’s still life in them. Gradually, as spirits lose their shine, they get shifted down, down, down… until eventually, when their souls have all but died, they get cast into the furthest depths of The Underworld. The Necropolis, some call it.”
“A necropolis for ghosts?”
She grimaced. “Strange, isn’t it, how even ghosts can have graves.” She paused as Chantel’s sobbing intensified.
I furrowed my brows. “How do you even know all this?”
“I’ve done my fair share of wandering,” she replied wearily. “At least in the beginning, when I first arrived and was far more reckless than now. I visited the caverns deep down. It’s…” Her voice faltered, horror filling her eyes. “Let’s just say it’s so bad, you can practically tell how many years they’ve been here just from glancing at them. It’s rare to find a ghost cognizant enough to even talk to down there.”
Years.
“There’s got to be a way to escape,” I hissed. “We’re ghosts, dammit!”
It was Nolan who replied this time. “I tried, Joseph,” he murmured behind me. “Chantel and I tried and… it wasn’t worth it. Trust me.”
I whirled on him, stunned. He’d barely been here a day. How the heck can he have given up so quickly? I felt a sense of frustration—even anger—toward him for being so spineless.
“We tried to flee for the exit,” Chantel managed. “But they caught us. They caught us and they…” Her voice choked up again.
“What did they do?” I demanded, lurching closer to the couple.
Nolan shook his head, while Chantel buried her head in her wispy hands. “Don’t make us talk about it,” he rasped. “Please, Joseph, just take our word for it.”
I twisted to face the elderly woman, raising a brow. “What do the ghouls do to those who attempt escape?”
As helpful as the woman had been until now in answering my questions, chillingly, she too became tight-lipped.
I cast my gaze around the rest of the hapless ghosts in this pond. All was quiet by now as they listened in to our conversation. “What do they do?” I shouted. Anger overtook me as none offered up an answer.
How can they all be such wimps?
It wasn’t right for me to feel anger toward these poor, unfortunate souls. They’d done nothing to harm me. But I realized that it wasn’t really anger propelling my actions. Beneath my heated temperament was ice-cold fear.
I cast my eyes back to the surface of the water, where the ghoul had been hovering to make sure that I remained within the water. I could no longer see his shadow looming. I could only assume that he’d moved elsewhere.
I attempted to adopt a calmer tone before addressing the old woman again. “None of us are bound by chains. We have free movement. We can pass through walls. We can—”
“And so can ghouls,” the woman finished for me. “And for your information, the only reason that they don’t chain us is because, again like fish, they like to see us roaming about. That is also why they like to have a constant influx of ghosts, to decorate their chambers—those with fresh life in them. And those ghosts who drain out get shifted down lower, out of sight. Because what attraction is there to a bloated, unmoving fish? I also have a suspicion that they enjoy the chase when a ghost disobeys their will… I’m sure they also enjoy the discipline that follows.”
“What do you mean by discipline?”
“Just trust me when I say you don’t want to find out.” The woman pursed her lips.
I couldn’t accept what she was saying. I was a ghost. A spirit, barely even existing. I’d given up the confinements of a physical body and one of the few advantages I had left in this half life was that I was ethereal… and yet not so ethereal that ghouls and fae couldn’t touch me…