Deverell flashed a confident smile. “I’m certain that once you learn the name, whatever entity it belongs to will present itself.”
“Entity?” The word had an ominous ring to it. “You mean it’s something alive?”
“Not necessarily. But it’s something that has magic, to be sure, and therefore some kind of spirit. It could be a magical creature or more likely a ghost or some other transcended spirit.”
My breath grew shallow. “I thought ghosts are just an imprint of a dead person, like an echo.”
“That’s the ordinary version of it.” He sighed. “Real ghosts are not so benign. They’re not an imprint of the living thing, but the thing itself, only broken, incomplete.”
“I think I like the ordinary version better.”
“So do I,” said Deverell. “But a ghost trying to show you its true name is a call for help. A spirit without a body is like a raw, exposed nerve. It’s pain beyond comprehension. Constant and maddening. The only rest for a ghost is to find a new vessel to house its spirit. The ghost wants you to know its name so that you can have the power to force it into a host.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “You mean like possession?”
“Yes, of a sort, but not in the Hollywood movie sense you’re thinking of. Inanimate objects serve far better.” He gestured toward the minefield. “Even these cones and boxes would suffice, although they lack a certain elegance for the task.”
He was right about that. I couldn’t think of anything less suited to housing a spirit. A tremble went down my spine at the ghoulish turn of this conversation. “But why did this happen to me?”
Deverell glanced at the clock again. We had less than a minute left. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he said, looking back at me. “A ghost has no control over whose psyche they latch on to. It’s a matter of proximity and perhaps the bad luck of whoever is near enough at the time the death occurred.”
“But I haven’t been around anyone dying. Not recently, anyway.” It was such an odd thing to say, but true, and I felt a moment of vertigo at how strange my life had become.
“No one in the last year?” Deverell asked, gently.
My mouth fell open. “This could’ve been going on for a year? Are you kidding me?”
“Well, a year might be extreme, but it does take time for the spirit to draw enough energy to manifest its need. If it is a ghost, I would guess the death happened weeks ago at a minimum, but more likely months.”
My stomach clenched as I realized I’d been near the death of four people in that time frame—Rosemary Vanholt, Arturo Ankil, my ancestor Nimue, and the person who had murdered all three of them—Ambrose Marrow. The Red Warlock.
I ran my hands up and down my arms, shivering. The idea that Marrow could be connected to me through my unconscious mind, a literal block in my brain, made me want to scream and run away.
I fought the impulse back with all the reason I could muster. It couldn’t be Marrow. For one thing, he wasn’t really dead, thanks to his bond with his immortal familiar. And for another, his spirit and remains had been swallowed by the black phoenix. The only thing the giant bird had left behind had been The Will sword, Excalibur of legend.
I swallowed then said, “Are you sure that once I learn the name I can get this thing to stop haunting me?”
“Quite sure,” Deverell said as the bell rang. “You will become its master in every way.”
I nodded, praying with every fiber of my being that he was right.
22
Latin Lessons
I didn’t give Eli the details about my meeting with Mr. Deverell, and he didn’t ask for any.
“So long as you’re working to fix it, then I’m good,” he said. Thank goodness for that. I had enough to worry about without adding Eli’s concern over me being haunted by some unknown ghost into the mix.
As if in contrast to my bleak mood, the weather outside had taken a pleasant turn toward nice. All during sixth-period alchemy, everybody else in the class and I kept taking long, longing looks out the window at the bright sunshine. We suffered through gym afterward and then Selene, Eli, and I made a mad dash for the commons.
So did the rest of Arkwell. The place was packed with students. One group was attempting to pass a Frisbee back and forth with only moderate success—magickind tended to struggle with hand-eye coordination—while another group was kicking a soccer ball with even worse results.
But most of the students were lounging in the sunshine, sleeves rolled back and faces turned toward the sun. The grass was too wet to sit on, so people were squatted on the cobblestone paths or on the low stone walls separating the pathways from the grassy areas. Eli, Selene, and I found a place to sit on the latter.
Nobody felt much like talking. Selene pulled out a book to read while Eli leafed through the pages of his case notebook. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, letting my thoughts wander as the sunshine lit up the thin skin of my eyelids.
But a few minutes later, the sound of an approaching noise pulled me out of my happy place. I slowly opened my eyes and peered around, blinking to clear the spots from my vision.
“What the hell is that?” Eli said from my right.
A moment later I saw a group of people in brown cloaks walking down the main pathway toward the center of the commons. The hoods on the cloaks covered their faces, but as they drew nearer I realized they were chanting.
Selene tensed beside me, and she covered her mouth with her hand.