Chapter Thirteen

Helping Ghosts

            I flipped though the pages to see if Sein had written anything more. It wasn't until the last page when I discovered he had covered an entire page with three words that he repeatedly scribbled out in his beautiful handwriting: I love Idri.

            I picked up his sketchbook, which lay under his diary. The pages were covered with skilled sketches of faces, landscapes, random objects, and flowers. There was the page of the chapel he had drawn the first day I'd spoken to him. Even more surprising to me, I found pages of drawings of one likeness—me. Countless sketches of my face and hair covered numerous pages. It was unbelievable how he could capture my looks. He drew out the shading of my face, the light in my eyes, the shape of my face, and the volume of my thick black hair. I looked absolutely angelic in his drawings; I wonder if Sein had faithfully drawn exact replicas of me. His artworks were so beautiful, I could've cried. His diary had also moved me to tears.

            "I have to find him!" I dramatically blurted. "I must go to Helerod!"

            "Wait! Idri!" cried Yoki.

            "Tell me, where's Helerod Castle?" I demanded. "I must go there!"

            "Here, go to the library," Yoki suggested. "Find a map that will lead you there."

            I immediately rushed to the first floor to the castle library. Upon a desk were scrolls of maps. I seized one and unrolled it. In the top-right corner of the map was a compass ornately drawn out in ink and colored with watercolor paints. I spotted Bormaunt Castle. The road to Helerod was about two-hundred miles from here, just as Sein had written in his diary. On the map, the road didn't seem very hard to follow. I hope it would be simple traveling from here to there.

            I grabbed a black cloak and rushed out of the castle. Yoki flew behind me. Outside, at the castle courtyard, ghost servants swarmed around us. They all reached out, trying to stop us.

            "Get away!" I wailed, trying to swat at them. My hands went through their transparent bodies. "I have you go!"
            "You can't go there on foot," a ghost woman solemnly said. She was a laundress for the castle.

            To my dismay, the drawbridge wasn't set down for me to cross. I was trapped on the castle grounds.

            "If you want to leave this place, you must help us," one ghost told me.

            I turned around; Yoki was perched on my right shoulder. A little more than a dozen of ghosts were looking at me, standing in a line.

            "Help you with what?" I asked.

            "Free us," they told me in unison.

            I stared at them, wondering what they meant by freeing them.

            "Why me?" I inquired.

            "We need a human to free us," explained one ghost. "Everyone else that lived in the castle were vampires, save for you. Well, there was also Nulena, but she stubbornly refused to help us."

            "We ghosts are souls whose bodies have died, but out ghosts live on because there is something in our lives that still haunt us," one little ghost boy explained.

            "We want you to help free us from the things that continue to disturb us after our deaths," said a ghost girl.

            "We work at this castle because the lord has captured us and forced us to perform menial tasks as servants," said the ghost stable boy. "Please, Miss Idri, help free us so we can rest in peace."

            "And after that?" I questioned warily, raising an eyebrow.

            "You'll be free to leave for Helerod," another ghost said.

            I nodded. "Alright. I'll do it."

            There were so many ghosts to help. The first ones I helped out was a maid and a chef. They were in the library with me, along with Yoki. I was seated in a cushioned chair. Yoki sat on one of the armrests. The ghosts looked at me, their transparent feet barely floating a centimeter above the carpeted floor.

            The maid and the chef came closer to me. They both appeared no more than nineteen years of age when they died. They started to tell their tale.

            "When we were alive," began the maid, "our families disliked each other. However, the two of us somehow fell madly in love with each other. We planned to elope, but in the middle of executing our plan…"

            "We were murdered," the chef said, wrapping a slim arm around the maid. "A burglar killed us and ran off with out things."

            "Our families, who loathed each other so deeply, mourned with incredibly heavy hearts," concluded the maid. "We want to tell them that we both love each other, and we want their feud to come to an end with peace."

            "How will I help you?" I asked, pondering of how I would do all this.

            "A painting and a letter would help," declared the chef.

            "How?" I questioned.

            "First, we'll need a painting of the both of us, happily together," the maid told me. "We already have a letter written to them. We'll need you to make a picture of us. When it's done, you'll deliver the painting and the letter to them."

            "You mean…I'll travel to their homes to deliver it?" I asked.

            "You'll see," the maid said with a wink.

            I had taken a sheet of paper, a pencil, and an eraser to practice sketching the ghost lovers. I sat upon a chair, an easel standing before me with the paper upon it. The maid and the chef sat next to each other, resting in each other's arms. Looking at them made me think of Sein and me. I tried to push my mind off that subject, but I sadly scrutinized the couple as I attempted to draw them.

            I wasn't much of an artist. If Sein were the one drawing, he would've made his picture appear as though it would spring to life. I tried to drawn an outline. My lines turned out crooked, so I scrubbed them out with an eraser and tried again.

            I meticulously drew the pencil tip on the sheet of paper. For about an hour, I struggled with scratching out the shape of their bodies. Seeing that I was artistically challenged, they tried to keep their poses and expressions as simple as possible. They also gave me tips.

            "Let me show you the anatomy of a face," offered the maid. She gently took the pencil from me and drew a graceful oval on the paper. "When drawing faces, use an oval for an outline." She drew one vertical line and one horizontal line, which met at the center of the oval. "Your eye are on either sides of the line, the length of another eye in between them. Your nose goes between them." She sketched out a rough drawing of a nose. "The length of the mouth is as long as the length of the pupils set apart. You eyes may seem too low on the face, but really, they're not. Watch what happens when the hair is added." With a quick, lithe hand, she drew out long, flowing lines that formed countless strands of hair upon the head.

            "Were you an artist when you were alive?" I asked.

            "I took an art class," she told me, "but the teacher always criticized my work, so I quit."

            After a lunch of eggs, vegetables, and an apple, I resumed struggling to practice drawing. The maid gave me art lessons. She told me the best way to improve was to draw from observation. For nearly a week, I spent hours wandering around the castle, hunting objects to draw. I drew sculptures, furniture, flowers, books, and the list went on. I wasn’t the best artist, and my drawings were raw with practice, but I had improved.

When I tried sketching the maid and the chef again, my lines weren’t as hesitant as before. When it was finished, the drawing looked somewhat like them, but it wasn’t enough to tell you that it was them.

I groaned in aggravation. “I simply can’t draw! I’ll never be able to draw you both!”

The chef took the drawing from me and took a look. Then, he handed it to the maid, who stared at it for a long time.

“Idri,” she replied, “you’ve improved quite a lot. You’re a quick learner. Remember last week, when your drawings were not as well done?”

I thought of that. “Yes.”

“Well, look, they’re not quite as clumsy now. You’ll need more time and practice.”

For several more days, I drew more objects and practiced, with advices from the maid. In one week, after much grueling and frustration, I had finally drawn a portrait of the maid and the chef, happily smiling in each others’ arms. I slouched in my cushioned chair, relieved that I was done. My hand was smudged black with pencil marks. My mind and hands were weary from concentrating on drawing.

“Please don’t tell me I have to paint now,” I pleaded, tired. I had enough of a hard time drawing. Attempting to paint would be torture.

“Well,” the maid began, “seeing how you had a hard time drawing, I won’t let you paint.”

I sighed with relief and fatigue. “Thank you.”

“Do you want to deliver then now?” asked the maid. “Or would you rather wait? You seem so tired that—“

“No,” I interrupted briskly. “I’ll deliver it now.” I wanted to see Sein as soon as possible.

“Very well.” The chef held out a hand in my direction, as though he was going to stop someone in the middle of running. “When you get there, you will see two houses on either side of you. Just go to one of them, it doesn’t matter which. Knock on the door, and to whoever answers, say that you have a delivery for the lord and lady of the house.”

“Alright.” I was concerned of how this would be carried out.

            Mist shot out from the chef’s hand. Suddenly, everything around me dissolved, and was replaced with a completely different setting. On my right, a large brick house with a vast green lawn surrounded by a spiked black fence elegantly stood erect. On my left, a smaller, but tasteful house with white walls, intricate architecture, and a blooming garden appeared quite welcoming. I went to the white house. The golden knocker was shaped like a basket holding wildflowers. I used it to knock on the door three times.

            In a few seconds, a maid opened the door. She was tall and gaunt, with deep-set hazel eyes in a sallow pain. Her copper-brown hair was in a single plait down her back. She wore a white apron over a dark blue dress.

            “How may I help you?” she interrogated politely.

            I handed her the letter and the drawing, which were both tucked into an en. “Please deliver this to the lord and lady of the house.”

            “And who is it that’s calling?” she asked.

            “I…I’m an acquaintance of the lord and lady’s deceased child. This was requested to be delivered to them.”

            The maid picked up the envelope from my gentle grasp. “Thank you. I’ll make sure this gets to them.”

            When she closed the door before me, I felt mist surround me again and I was back in the castle library. The maid and the chef were sitting on the carpet around a ball of light. I joined them, watching what occurred inside the ball.

            The maid I had just spoken to handed my delivery to two weeping, middle-aged spouses. The husband sadly took it in his hands and extracted the two folded pieces of paper. As he unfolded them, the drawing slipped from his rough hands and fluttered to the floor. His wife picked up the drawing and brought it in front of her red, teary eyes. Her eyes widened when she realized who the drawing was of. I was relieved that the drawing actually resembled the maid and the chef.

            “It’s our daughter!” she exclaimed. “Look! It’s also the son of our despicable neighbor!”

            They both read the letter thoroughly. They read through it a second time, and then a third. Out of joy, the husband rushed out of the house. His wife, surprised, hurried after him. They went to the brick house next door, where the husband excitedly pounded on the door. When it was opened by a man with a brown mustache, the ghost maid’s father yanked him into a tight embrace. The man, who must be the ghost chef’s father, looked surprised beyond words. The maid’s father excitedly showed him the letter and the drawing. When the chef’s father looked at them, he smiled and invited the maid’s parents into the house. The feud among the two families was finally over.

            The ball of light flickered into oblivion. The chef and the maid stood up, proclaiming, “Now we can rest in peace.” They floated up into the air; as they did, they gradually dissolved into mist, and then nothing. They were finally resting in peace.

            The next ghost I helped was the stable boy. I began helping him the day after I finished helping the maid and the chef.

            The stable boy was probably about thirteen years old when he died. He had hauntingly wide gray eyes and gentle red-brown curls. He had a bit of a tan; he was dressed in a loose cotton shirt, a jerkin, and brown breeches.

            “When I was alive, my father died because of a winter fever when I was seven. Five years later, my mother remarried to a widowed man with a son a year younger than me. My stepbrother and I became the best of friends and loved each other dearly. However, my stepfather came to loathe me. He constantly drank and was never seen without a whiskey or a wine bottle. He hated me because I would inherit the family’s wealth when he died, because I was the eldest child. When I caught a fever, my stepfather saw it as a golden opportunity to have me killed. He served me a meal of soup in bed, and poisoned it. It had killed me.

            “My dear, sweet brother was a timid, quiet child. He kept a diary and knew that my stepfather plotted to kill me all along. He never told me because he his father threatened to give him more than just a plain, boring flogging if he told anyone about his plan. When I passed away, my stepfather threw his diary into the flames of a fireplace, so that no one would read its pages and find out that he had poisoned me. A day after my death, my ghost was captured to serve as a stable boy here. My funeral will be held in a few days. I need you to recover my brother’s diary for me to show everyone the truth of my death.”

            “How will I do that?” I asked. “It was burned in the fireplace.”

            “With the help of ghost powers,” he said, “you can do it.”

            The stable boy gave me instructions. “You will go into my home. There, you will gather all the ashes in the fireplace.”

            “And then?”

            “Then I’ll bring you back here.”

            Mist softly streamed out of his small hand. Everything around me dissolved, and I found myself standing in a dark parlor. Despite how well-furnished it was, it was cold. I saw the fireplace, made of white stone. A large mirror hung over it, reflecting little brass figurines modeled upon the cold mantle. The stable boy had given me a little bag to collect the ashes, along with a small metal shovel. I gingerly crouched before the fireplace and collected sooty ashes with the shovel. I scooped up piles of it and shook them into the bag. When I dumped the last bits of ashes into the bag, I jumped at a barking voice.

            “You! What are you doing?”

            I clumsily twisted around, losing the sturdiness of my feet and landing on my backside. A tall, bulky man with a cruel expression eyed me.

            “Thief!” he bellowed. “How’d you get here?”

            I screamed when he stormed towards me, like a charging bull. Abruptly, to my rescue, I instantly disappeared from the house. I was back in the castle library, standing before the stable boy.

            I relinquished a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you for saving me. That was your stepfather, wasn’t it?”

            The boy nodded.

            “So, what should we do with these ashes?”

            “I will transform them back into my brother’s diary,” he explained. “I need two maple leaves and a pinch of salt. I’ll mix them along with the ashes in a teacup. Then, the diary will be restored.”

            I went out into the garden to find a maple leaf. There were numerous gardens that surrounded the castle, so it took me nearly half an hour to hunt down a maple tree. The sun was high in the afternoon sky, and it felt quite unpleasant on my skin.

            When I retreated indoors with the maple leaf, the stable boy took it and beckoned me to follow him to the kitchen. There, he nonchalantly placed the maple leaf at the bottom of the cup. Then, he dumped the ashes over it and added a pinch of salt. He carefully poured boiling water over the ingredients; we watched the items drift in the liquid. With a small silver spoon, he stirred; the mixture gradually merged into one. I watched him calmly stir, and listened to the clinks of the metal spoon against the china of the teacup. In a few minutes, a slim, leather-bound book emerged from the teacup, which was now empty. The stable boy eagerly snatched it, and cried with triumph, “I have it! I finally have my brother’s diary for proof!”

            He flipped through the pages, skimming the small, neat handwriting. He handed it to me. “Keep it until tomorrow. My funeral will take place; I’ll transport you there, and you can give it to my mother.”

            “How will I know who your mother is?” I inquired.

            “You’ll know because she resembles me,” he stated.

            About half an hour after noon the next day, the stable boy transported me to his funeral. The cemetery was different from Bormaunt Cemetery. It wasn’t as morbid; it was acres of green lawn, pricked with white wooden crosses. The stable boy’s body lay in a wooden coffin, his arms crossed over his scrawny chest. Funeral attendants mourned for him, save for one. It was the stable boy’s stepfather. Although his head was kept low, his expression betrayed a gleefulness that flickered upon his face. Standing next to him, a small boy bawled and wiped at his heavy tears in vain with soaked black sleeves. Next to him was a tall, gangly woman. Her soft, red-brown ringlets flowed to her waist. Her head was bent forward, and her closed eyes leaked tears at a fast pace. Her gloved hands were clasped before her face in a prayer. She must be the stable boy’s mother.

            I cautiously drew towards her, wondering if her husband would recognize me. Yesterday, he only saw my face for a very short time, so perhaps he wouldn’t remember me.

            “Lady?” I inquired when I stood before her, looking up at her face.

            She opened her watery eyes upon me, surprised to see me standing before her.

            “Are you the mother of the boy you are mourning?”

            She nodded once. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

            I handed her the diary. “He wanted you to read this the moment you receive it.”

            She glanced at the diary, and then at my face. She gently took the diary in her hands. “Thank you, dear girl.”

            I walked away from her, leaving the funeral guests. When I was out of their sight, the stable boy brought me back to the palace library. In the ball of air he was watching, his mother was reading her stepson’s diary. She read of how dearly he loved her son, and how indescribably horrified he was at his father’s wicked plan. She read how fearful he was of his wrath, and how he was unable to speak up. There was an unfinished entry with an accidental line scratched across the page. That must have been when the stable boy’s stepfather snatched his son’s diary and threw it into the fire.

            The stable boy’s mother was livid; she had found out the truth of her son’s death.

            “You!” she yelled at her husband.

            He glanced up, surprised. “What?”

            “He didn’t die of fever! You poisoned him!”

            All the guests looked up, shocked of the words that spewed from her mouth.

            “I have evidence!” the stable boy’s mother cried. “It’s in the diary!”

            “That’s my diary!” her stepson gasped.

            The stepfather looked stupefied. “I…I thought I burned it…”

            The diary was passed around among funeral attendants. They all gasped, dazed when they read the words that was written. They all gawked at the stable boy’s stepfather.

            The stable boy’s mother took her stepson by the hand. “Your son will stay with me. You’re not fit to be a suitable father!”

            Men chased the stable boy’s father, and he was arrested for murder.

            When the ball dissolved into thin air, the stable boy disappeared. He finally rested in peace.