by Lynn Rushlau
in Issue 76, May 2018
A now tattered fairy, Caellery pushed wearily through the gate. Though impossible at this distance, she swore she could still hear the thump of the drums and wail of guitars from the Festival of Liberation.
The party would go on until dawn. Without her. She tripped over the threshold, caught herself on the iron gate and used it for balance as she pushed it shut. The metal’s clang echoed on the empty street.
Shuffling across cobblestoned courtyard, she tripped and dropped her key. Sighing, Caellery bent over. One of her wings hit the door and bounced her back before she could retrieve the key. Iron’s might, she was too drunk for this nonsense.
She shifted to the side and reclaimed the key. The wings caught on one of the iron ghost catchers hanging above the doorway as she entered. Caellery swore and tugged the wing free. She was so tired of dealing with the damned wings. Just inside door, she unbuckled the harness, slipped her shoulders free of the straps, and caught a wingtip in her hair. Caellery growled a curse.
Her hair had been slipping out of the damned buns atop her head all night. Several strands now twisted around the tip of the right wing. Cussing vehemently, she tugged the wings free–yanking out a chunk of hair–and tossed them on a bench. They slid to the floor. Refusing to spend another moment arguing with the damned wings, she stumbled upstairs to her bedroom.
She kicked off her sandals and tossed her clothes on the floor. The gossamer dress was stained and torn. Didn’t matter. She had other costumes planned for the last two nights of Liberation.
Chai lay curled up on the chaise by the window. She paused to pet him as she pulled on a shift. Purring, he drew his paws over his face. She smiled at him and turned to collapse in her bed.
Oh, damn. The makeup. Caellery sighed and dragged herself to the washroom to remove glittery face paint too smeared and smudged to resemble a mask of flowers any more. Ugh, she looked like wreck. Hard to believe Zitch wanted her to come home with him looking like this.
A ridiculous amount of scrubbing later, she patted her face with a towel and glanced in the mirror. A woman with wild black hair and glowing orange eyes stood behind her.
Caellery shrieked and turned around. No one and nothing stood between her and the cream colored shelves on her peach walls.
“It only has the significance you give it.”
The voice came from behind her. Caellery spun. The woman in the mirror winked.
Caellery screamed and ran. Through her room–she barely registered Chai poised to flee on the edge of the chaise. Down the stairs. Something giggled in the living room. Caellery raced out the front door and down the dark streets of Erling. As she rounded the corner, growls from something that sounded three or four times larger than a dog echoed behind her.
Caellery refused to stop to look. Oh, sweet iron protect her, she should have gone home with Zitch when he propositioned her. Shouldn’t have let Malissy convince her she was too drunk to make such a decision.
She ran halfway down the next block, slammed through a gate, and smashed into the door. She pounded on the door until Oskan threw it open.
His eyes widened. “Caellery?”
Malissy pushed him aside. “Caellery? What is it?”
“Ghost. There’s a ghost in my house.” Her eyes widened. “I left Chai there!”
It took her friends three hours and a two pots of tea to calm her enough to accept their offer of a guest bed. The world lacked enough tea to give her the ability to turn out the light. Or close her eyes.
Malissy and Oskan took her home first thing in the morning. Before breakfast. Caellery had been up all night waiting for the sun to rise, terrified that the ghost would do something to Chai. Not that she’d ever heard of a cat being bothered by a ghost. The ghosts didn’t care about animals. They hated humans.
Meowing, Chai came running down the stairs to greet her. They toured the ground floor. Her home looked the same as always. Upstairs, Oskan was the only one willing to go into the bathroom.
“There’s nothing in here!” he called.
Hovering in the doorway to the bedroom, Caellery bit her lip. There hadn’t been at first last night either. Holding her breath, Caellery entered the bedroom. Nothing happened.
She fetched an overnight bag, and filled it with clothes and costumes for the next few days. Oskan lingered in the bathroom doorway. Caellery bit her lip and glanced at him.
“Nothing?”
With a small smile, he shook his head. “You think Chai would be this mellow if anything were here?”
Caellery glanced down at her cat. He bumped his head against Oskan’s legs. His purrs carried across the room. It didn’t mean anything. The cat had been peacefully asleep when the ghost showed itself.
“I know what I saw. It was here.”
Malissy stooped to give Chai a scratch behind the ears. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll stay with us a few days.”
“That won’t cleanse my house.”
Malissy bit her lip. “Caellery. You were drunk. Very drunk.”
Caellery recoiled. “You think I imagined it!”
“You said you heard something outside too. Something growling? Down the street?” Malissy caught Caellery’s right wrist and lifted it by the bracelet of thin iron links that encircled her wrist. She nodded at the iron ring around Caellery’s right ring finger. “We walked in under your ghost catchers. Nothing could get in here. And nothing can touch you.”
Caellery’s eyes grew wide. “My wings caught on a ghost catcher when I came in last night. Maybe it broke.”
Oskan shrugged. “I’ll go check. You guys about ready?”
He left without waiting for an answer. Caellery scooped up Chai. “Can you get his basket? It’s in the closet.”
They met Oskan outside. “A couple of the charms were tangled, but I straightened them out.”
Caellery frowned. Tangling wouldn’t be enough to let in ghosts. Not even one broken catcher would have been, not when nine hung on her house.
Oskan shrugged again. “We’ll call a tinker to take a look at them all. We did have hail a few weeks back. Maybe the ones on the roof are bent or cracked. You’ll stay with us until your house checks out clean.”
Caellery enjoyed breakfast with Malissy and Oskan, and lunch with a group of girlfriends from work. But that afternoon, she bailed on her plans. She’d never survive the night without a nap. She returned to an empty, quiet house.
Pinned down by her cat, Caellery managed a few hour sleep. Though not totally rested when she woke, she felt more up for the night’s festivities. She threw open the closet doors–Chai immediately darted inside to check things out–and stared at her two costume choices. Traditional rebel outfit or slave? Each night of the weeklong festival, everyone would be dressed as one of those two or as fairy overlord.
Or a ghost.
Caellery shivered. Only fools tempted the ghosts by mocking them. She looked slowly around the room. Her eyes slid right past the mirror. Nothing could be in here. There was nothing wrong with Oskan and Malissy’s ghost catchers.
Her hand lingered over the rebel costume. She could use some of the courage of her ancestors. They’d risen up three centuries ago and destroyed the fairies who’d kept humankind enslaved for untold millennia. Literally untold. Human history survived as rumor and tall tales. Nothing written went back before the Rising.
Caellery twisted her braid around her head in a rebel’s crown and tied on her boots. She glanced in the mirror. For a second. Her gaze darted over her left shoulder. Nothing was there. Shuddering, she hurried to the door and flipped the light.
A soft breathless laugh sounded behind her. She slammed into the hall wall opposite her door before she realized she’d even been moving. Shaking, she turned and stared into the dark abyss beyond the doorjamb.
Another laugh drifted up the stairs. A familiar laugh. Malissy. Caellery dropped a hand over her eyes. What an idiot. She wasn’t at home. Wasn’t alone. Other people lived here and they made noise. Like laughter. Caellery huffed at herself. She pivoted and ran lightly down the stairs.
“Caellery, you look fantastic!” Malissy shot up from her seat to give Caellery a hug.
“So do you!” Caellery exclaimed as they parted. Malissy twirled to allow the layers of her fairy costume’s skirt to fan out.
Fairy Lord Oskan ushered them out the door to meet their friends. Drinks in hand, they joined the crowds filling the streets on the way to the parade downtown. Laughter carried them around the corner to Main Street, but behind the laughter something growled.
Caellery started and spilled her drink. Her sudden jump drew three of her friends’ attention. Asking if she were okay drew everyone’s attention. By the time she’d reassured everyone that she just tripped over her own feet, the corner stood yards and yards behind them.
The boisterous crowd around her prevented her from seeing anything lurking in the dark. Ahead of them, downtown, the drums throbbed into life. Impossible to hear anything else over all this clamor.
The growl had probably been part of a conversation–mock rebel and fairy arguments. She’d taken part in two already and hadn’t made it downtown yet.
Or maybe a dog in one of the homes they’d been passing growled. Chai would have freaked with this much noise outside. All this racket likely upset plenty of dogs.
Malissy was right. Caellery couldn’t possibly be hearing ghosts growling in town. Besides the ghosts were remnants of dead and gone fairies. Fairies had spoken a language, now extinct, but a spoken language. Their ghosts wouldn’t growl.
They reached the parade route while Caellery was lost in thought. She sipped her drink as everyone debated which food vendors to visit. Caellery chose to join the group getting rice bowls.
“Oskan and I are going for fish and chips.” Touching Caellery’s arm, Malissy yelled over the clamor. “You’ll be okay?”
Caellery forced a smile. She wasn’t a child. Was she acting that much like one? “Of course. Don’t worry about me!”
Zitch sidled up next to Caellery at the rice bowls vendor. “No glittery fairy tonight?”
“Never again after dealing with those wings all night! You look magnificent though.” Caellery grinned. Zitch wore a shimmery blue wig falling over iridescent robes. A “silver” crown held the wig in place. “Must we call you Overlord Zitch for the rest of the evening?”
Trading mock insults, they collected their food and drinks and wandered back to join Oskan, Malissy and a score of other friends. Oskan and Malissy both frowned over their food.
“What’s wrong?” Caellery nudged Malissy.
Plastering a smile on her face, Malissy shook her head. “How’s the rice bowl?”
A fanfare of trumpets announced the start of the parade. First came the Thiessen Marchers, the official band of the Thiessen military, who led the Festival of Liberation parades in all major cities of Thiessen.
Following the band, marchers carried effigies of fairies, dressed to represent the six who’d held the highest positions of power back when fairies ruled the humans. First came the Hierophant in his purple robes. Behind him followed the Sorceress, the Overlord, the Warden, the Mistress of Breeding and the Master of the Wilds.
Wanting to throw her drink at them, Caellery’s hand tightened on her cup. She glared at the effigies who controlled every aspect of her ancestors’ lives from what they were allowed to wear, to eat, the work they had to do, where they lived, even who they had to breed the next generation of slaves with. But the fine to throw anything at the marchers in any of the festival parades was more than three years of Caellery’s salary. She held her impulse in check.
Between each effigy, marchers carried banners recounting how each met their fate–grisly deaths for all but the Hierophant and Sorceress. Those two fled and remained trapped with the remnants of their kind behind the Iron Doors.
Dozens of floats followed. Each detailed a different part of the Battle of Vist Forest, the penultimate fight of the war. Tomorrow’s floats would detail the final battle at the Iron Doors and the victory won by their human ancestors.
Caellery cheered along with everyone else as the first float appeared. The Children of Rebellion in replica rebel attire acted out the preparations for the Battle of Vist Forest. Rebel leaders plotted battle plans in the dirt–paper maps far too dangerous to create. Paper far too big a luxury for a human to have had, let alone waste on sketches.
Behind the float marched children from Mearen Conservatory singing a tradition rebel hymn. The crowd, Caellery included, joined in.
The next float displayed fairies and humans about to begin the battle. Caellery blinked. Why were their fairies mixed in with the humans? One looked her way, winked, and leaned in to rip out the throat of a rebel.
Caellery’s horrified gasp was lost in the music and cheering. The fairy looked back at her, face splattered with blood, and flashed out of existence. The rebel continued his role in the charade, raising his hoe over his head and yelling battle cries with the rest of the humans. His throat was unmarred.
A ghost.
She’d seen ghosts in the parade. Which was impossible. All the roads of Erling were flaked with iron. And the rebel enactors would be wearing iron. The weapons they held would be made of iron. No ghost could manifest in the parade.
No ghosts had been documented in any city in Thiessen since the paving of city roads, generations ago. Caellery couldn’t remember the year off the top of her head, but knew the last sighting of a ghost here in Erling happened long before her grandparents were born.
The next float rolled into view. Zitch slammed into her, spilling his drink. He yelled at the person who tripped over him.
“Sorry. You okay? Did I spill on you?” Caellery shook her head to every question. Zitch leaned over and peered in her almost empty drink. “Did I spill your drink?”
“No!” She grinned at him.
“Well then, you need more!” He dropped an arm around her shoulders and shepherded her to the nearest drink stand. Zitch looked Caellery’s rebel outfit up and down. “I do believe the winners should supposed to be gracious and do the buying? If the–“
Caellery gasped. A hulking fairy loomed over Zitch’s shoulders. The fairy’s hair whipped around his face and flew back to reveal glowing red eyes.
“Caellery?” Zitch shifted in front of her, blocking her line of sight. “What’s wrong?”
Caellery shook her head. “I’m sorry. I thought I…I need that drink.”
Three people stood between her and the counter. Caellery stared at the list of drinks, wondering if any would get her too drunk to see ghosts. At the counter she stopped herself from ordering the biggest size. She’d want another drink later. She knew she would. She shouldn’t use all her money in one go.
Still she ordered two.
“Who’s that for?” Zitch asked.
Stepping to the side of the booth, Caellery downed the first one in three gulps and tossed empty cup in a bin.
“Um. Caellery?” Zitch cocked his head to the side.
“What? Ready to get back to the parade? We’re missing half of it.”
They squeezed their way back to Malissy and Oskan. Wicked laughter followed Caellery. The crowd, she told herself over and over. Everyone in this crowd was having fun, laughing. Of course wickedness tinged some of that laughter. When better to say nasty things about fairies and laugh about those nasty things than Liberation?
She was not hearing ghosts. Just people.
And all those nasty words that seemed to be hissed in her ears, like “kill,” “destroy,” and “die” were nothing but bits of conversation from totally normal humans in the crowd around her. Mock arguments. Discussions of the Battle of Vist Forest. Normal conversations that happened throughout Liberation. Fairy ghosts absolutely were not whispering threats in her ears.
Nor did she see fairies zipping in and out of Amstreuth Academy Marching Band. Or hovering over the Amstreuth Primary Choir. Smirking. Laughing. Making threatening gestures.
She didn’t see any of that.
She refused to.
Closing her eyes, Caellery took one swig of her drink after another. And when the cup she tilted between her lips came up empty, she squeezed through the crowd, back to the drink stand.
Zitch half-carried her home. She tried to go home with him, but Malissy overruled that.
She attempted to fall down their stairs twice, before Oskan scooped her up and carried her to the guestroom. Malissy offered to help her undress, but Caellery pushed her away and shooed her friends out of the room.
She tugged feebly at her dress, gave up and flopped over on the bed. One foot dangling over the edge, she drew the covers to her head. Something bumped against her foot. Caellery drew her knee in, pulling the foot under the covers. The bed shook like someone jostled against it.
“Wha–?” Caellery muttered, opened her eyes, and screamed bloody murder. The ghost standing beside her bed smirked. She scrambled to the other side of the bed. The ghost flashed out of existence and reappeared beside her. Screaming, she slid down the wall and drew her hands over her head.
The door flew open. Light spilled in from the hall. Oskan and Malissy crashed into the room. Oskan held a bat.
They’d drawn her attention for just long enough for the ghost to disappear.
“I saw …” A ghost couldn’t get into this house. She knew that. They knew that. They’d think she was crazy if she told them the truth. Using the wall for support, Caellery rose. “I’m sorry. A…a nightmare. I’m sorry.”
Oskan waved his hand, pivoted, and stumbled out of the room. Malissy approached the bed. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to tell me about the dream?”
Caellery shook her head. “I’m so sorry I woke you guys. Tell Oskan I’m sorry.”
Caellery’s parents always hosted a huge family breakfast the final day of Liberation. Nerves shot, Caellery headed to the meal alone. She braced herself the entire visit for something to happen. For her family to notice something was very wrong with her.
But no laughter spooked her. No ghosts appeared.
After breakfast, everyone walked down to the Erling Courthouse for the annual Liberation commemoration speeches by a slew of government and military officials followed by performances by local opera and pop stars.
After the ceremony, Caellery caught a trolley across town to meet Oskan, Malissy and a score of other friends for a picnic and concert on the waterfront. They hung out all afternoon, drinking, eating, and laughing, dancing to various performers, while waiting for the sun to set.
Caellery drank, ate, and laughed with the rest of them. She danced with Malissy, danced with Zitch. She pretended she didn’t see the huge male ghost looming behind Zitch every time she looked his way. Nor did she let herself notice the whispered threats directed at her.
Contact began with a sharp sting. Caellery slapped her arm.
“Mosquito?” Oskan asked.
Caellery rubbed her arm. “Yeah, must have been.”
He looked suspicious, but didn’t challenge her.
A few minutes later, something poked into Caellery’s spine. She jumped to her feet, claimed she needed to pee, and stalked away. She wrapped her right hand around the iron band on her left wrist. A live fairy from beyond the Iron Doors would recoil, screaming in pain, to touch her while she wore this much iron.
A ghost could not touch her. Absolutely could not. All the lore on ghosts said contact with this much iron would shred a ghost to tatters.
So.
Not a ghost?
Caellery straightened her right arm. No discoloration. No swelling. No sign anything actually stabbed her.
Iron shield and safeguard her, she was going mad.
She had to be, didn’t she? Ghosts couldn’t get past her ghost catchers. Ghosts couldn’t appear on the streets of Erling. They definitely couldn’t come into contact with the iron-banded people on the floats. Nor with Caellery’s iron-banded self.
The grassy waterfront lacked the iron flecks of Erling’s roads, but the park wasn’t haunted. The people of Erling would never allow any place within the city limits to be haunted. And far too much iron stood between this park and the outskirts of the city, where dangers actually lurked. A ghost would have been shredded long before it got this far.
Besides she hadn’t seen the same ghost twice, which would mean an entire pack of them loose in Erling. An incursion like that would have led to the cancellation of all festivities and the military out in force, iron weapons at the ready.
The snickering male ghosts creeping along behind her? Figments of her madness, nothing more.
She couldn’t stop from flinching a few minutes later when she washed her face in the bathroom and looked into the mirror to see half a dozen leering ghosts behind her.
“You’re not real,” she told them. She pivoted, walked through where they would have been–nothing stopped her–and strode back to her friends. She helped herself to another beer and plopped down beside Zitch.
At sunset, the music turned to battle hymns and the first of the parade barges floated into to view. The barges displayed scenes from the final battle at the Iron Doors. The portrayals of the deaths of the highest fairy officials drew the loudest cheers from the crowd.
Caellery beamed throughout the event. There weren’t any ghosts on the barges. Not one fairy aside from the dead effigies appeared.
On the water. She ignored the whatever might be flitting around her. Whispering in her ears.
One of the final barges floated past bearing paper mache replicas of the Iron Doors themselves. The Doors slammed shut as they passed. A final boom of the drums, and the music changed to serious, sad ballads commemorating the dead. Everyone on the shore rose and bowed their head.
The memorial boats followed the Iron Doors. Dozens of boats filled with candles to honor the humans who died to win humanity’s freedom and the millions who were born and died in slavery over the centuries.
As the last of the boats passed, a lone trumpet played on the far side of the river. Everyone walked to the banks and tossed in flowers for the dead.
Soon another horn joined in. Then fiddles, followed by drums. The tempo of the sad dirge picked up. The playing grew faster and faster, and the song meandered into the Rebel Battle Hymn. Caellery joined in the singing, staring defiantly at a sneering “ghost.”
They sang the song three times. At the end of the final verse, the first firework screeched into the sky and burst into shimmering silver stars. The crowd roared.
The fireworks lasted about a half hour, and then Liberation was over until next year. Caellery and the others spent another fifteen minutes picking up and chatting, but no one lingered. The festival was over. Everyone went back to work tomorrow.
Malissy threw an arm around Caellery’s shoulders as they staggered back to their house. Caellery concentrated on the conversation and ignored everything else she saw and heard.
She was so drunk. Work was going to hurt tomorrow. Maybe she’d stay home sick. Though skipping work the day after the end of Liberation was a good way to begin the end of one’s employment.
At the house, Malissy groaned and flopped down on the sofa in the living room. Caellery dropped into an armchair opposite the couch.
“One last drink?” Oskan called as he walked towards the kitchen.
“Sure!” Malissy yelled.
“Oh, I shouldn’t,” Caellery said, dropping her spinning head into her hands.
“Come on, it’s the last night of Liberation. Everyone will be exhausted and hung over tomorrow. Everyone’s supposed to be.”
Malissy rose, unbuttoned her rebel’s jacket, and tossed it over a chair. The jacket tumbled over the back, spilling the contents of its pockets on the floor. A half-empty sheet of iridescent tabs swooped to the middle of the room.
Staring at the sheet, Caellery climbed to her feet.
Malissy made some noise. Maybe the start of a word.
Caellery glanced at her, bent over, and picked up the paper, careful to only touch the white border. Heat flushed down her neck followed by ice. She stared at the hallucinogenic tabs, cocked her head, and stared at Malissy.
“Why?”
“Zitch.” Malissy spat.
Caellery shook her head. “What about him?”
“He’s flirting with you! Asking you to bed! And you’re–you’re going along with it!”
Caellery couldn’t stop shaking her head. None of this made sense. Why would Malissy care if Caellery and Zitch hooked up? Malissy was married. She wasn’t–The tabs were yanked out of her hand.
“What the hell?” Oskan asked. He stared at Malissy. “The ghosts? You did that to your best friend? Seriously? What is wrong with you? If you didn’t want her flirting with the man you’re cheating on your husband with, you probably could have just asked her.
“I already knew. Why couldn’t she? Or does her opinion actually matter to you? You think these would keep your affair secret? I can’t believe you would do this to Caellery. I thought she at least mattered to you. Haven’t you noticed how freaked out she’s been? How could you? I–” He threw the tabs at Malissy. “I can’t play this game anymore.”
He pivoted and left the room.
Caellery stared at Malissy over the broken remnants of their friendship.
©May 2018 Lynn Rushlau
Lynn Rushlaus’s work has appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery, as well as in Cirsova, The Colored Lens, andthe anthology YOU ARE HERE.