“Olivia Oliversen, did you Marley me?”

Olivia wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “Emerra,” her voice was rough with sleep, “what the hell are you doing in my room?”

“Did you Marley me?”

She rubbed her face. “What time is it?”

“It’s one-thirty. I have ghosts. They’re supposed to come one at a time, you know.”

“Ghosts.” The witch blinked. “Are you sure it isn’t a nightmare?”

She didn’t know what she was saying. Some part of me knew that. The rest of me was tired and scared, so my voice had an unusual bite to it. “It isn’t a nightmare. I know what those are like. Olivia, I have three ghosts to deal with, and I need to know if you brought them here.”

She turned on her nearby lamp and stared at me. After a second, she grumbled, “Okay, you’re not joking.” She looked around the room. “Where are they?”

I glared at her but didn’t bother answering.

They were right beside me. Since I had woken up, they showed no desire to be anywhere else. The youngest, a little boy, kept swaying through my leg, which, by now, was so chilled it hurt.

“I take it they’re here,” Olivia said dryly.

“Did you do it?” I demanded.

Olivia threw off her covers and stood up. “No, I didn’t do it! I don’t have that kind of power.” She walked over to her desk chair and grabbed the black sweatshirt that was hanging off it. “I don’t”—she paused as she pulled the sweatshirt over her head— “even know how they got in here. We have protections on this place.”

“The wreaths?”

“We have other protections too.” She opened her desk drawer and grabbed a long piece of chalk. “Iset will be in the library, but I have to get a book anyway. Can you find Darius?”

I nodded. I would never admit it, but I felt relieved as I watched Olivia gear up. I had told myself I was ready to deal with the ghosts, but I was glad I wouldn’t have to deal with them alone.

“It’ll be easiest to clear off the floor in the drawing room,” Olivia said. “I’ll meet you there.”

When we left her room, I turned toward Darius’s chambers. Conrad was standing in his open door.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I stopped beside him, trying to think of what to say. He must have smelled my unease; when he spoke again, he sounded more alert.

“Mera, what’s wrong?”

“There are ghosts.”

I wondered if I would ever not feel stupid saying something like that. At least the wolfman wasn’t going to make fun of me.

“How many?”

“Three.”

“Are they dangerous?”

I looked down at the wispy figures by my side. “I-I don’t…think so?” I looked up at him. “They’re children, Conrad.” And my ever reliable voice choked up at the end.

He reached out and pulled me in for a hug. The wave of relief I felt from that was powerful enough to make my eyes water. It was a wolf thing. Fur and a little body heat were better than anything he could have said anyway.

When he let me go, I asked, “Is the count in his room?”

“I’ll find him. Where’s Olivia going?”

“We’re meeting in the drawing room, she’s going to get Iset.”

“You head there.”

I didn’t argue. I had enough problems with the ghosts. Wrangling cats would have been easier. They wouldn’t have listened to my begging either, but at least I could have touched them. Every other step, the ghosts stopped to stare at something. Pretending to leave without them only netted me an average of two out of the three, so I’d have to go back for the other. But, eventually, I lured them down the stairs and into the drawing room.

Everyone was already there. Even Igor had risen by some unknown instinct in order to make sure we had coffee. He had delivered the brew, then disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving only four mugs and the wafting smell of dark roast to prove he’d been there.

Olivia was putting the finishing touches on a magic circle. When she was done, she stood up and stared at me, expectantly. I stared back because I had no idea what she expected me to do.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?” was my brilliant response.

“Get them in the circle.”

“Why?”

Olivia was too busy sighing, so Iset had to explain.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“So we can see them.”

I glanced down at the spell. I knew that magic circles could hold power, but I had no idea they could do something as practical as that. The white chalk glowed against the dark wood of the floor.

Ignoring my bout with self-consciousness, I turned and knelt so I’d be almost level with the ghosts. The girl ghost was older than the other two, so I picked her out as the leader. I looked in the white shadows of what had once been her eyes.

“I need you to stand in the circle.”

When she opened her mouth, another murmur of inarticulate noise tumbled into my ears. I had already spent a frustrating half hour trying to understand what they were saying and had only managed to catch a few words. It felt like the ghosts and I were having a conversation over a bad cell-phone connection. The garbled sounds kept cutting in and out.

I motioned to the circle and tried to use hand signs to help.

“Can you please stand in the circle?”

The middle child, a boy, grabbed onto the girl’s shirt and buried his face between her arm and her chest. The littlest boy closed his eyes and looked down. Only the girl was willing to meet my eyes. The look she gave me made me feel like a villain.

“Please?”

She shook her head.

“Emerra,” Darius’s voice was so loud and real, it came as a shock, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t…” I sighed. “They don’t want to go in the circle.”

“Why not?” Iset asked.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to understand them.”

“Can they understand you?” Conrad asked.

“I think so. But maybe they have a hard time hearing me. It might be easier to show them.” I turned away from my ghostly visitors and looked at Olivia. “Will it ruin something if I stand in the circle with them?”

She hesitated, then said, “No. But be careful not to scuff the chalk.”

I turned back to the ghosts. “Please,” I said, “come with me.” I reached out both my hands.

None of them moved to take them. The youngest boy looked up at the girl.

“Please trust me,” I whispered. “I want to help you.”

I had never meant something more in my life.

The girl reached out. She couldn’t actually take my hand, but she rested the ghost of her fingers over mine. A moment later, the youngest boy mimicked the gesture. I eased myself to my feet while trying to keep my hands where they were, then I slowly backed up and coaxed them past the boarder of the spell.

When I heard the faint gasp echo from person to person, I knew they had come far enough. I lowered my hands.

I had warned Conrad that they were children, but even he wasn’t prepared to see them. There was something so forlorn about them, it made your heart ache. Their shabby clothes and skinny faces showed they’d lived in poverty, but that wasn’t the worst of it. It was their eyes. And their expressions. And how they looked so ethereal. It was as if only a part of their souls had been left behind—the sad part.

The ghosts must have heard the gasps as well; they looked around the room with startled gazes, taking in each figure.

Which was probably…a lot…to take in.

I stayed as still as possible and tried to sound relaxed: “Could they see you before?”

It took a few seconds before Darius found his voice. “I doubt it. Not with how they’re staring at Iset and Conrad.”

“Maybe they only saw us as shades,” Olivia said.

“You could ask them,” Darius pointed out.

But that didn’t seem important to me.

“It’s all right,” I assured the ghosts. “They’re my friends. They aren’t going to hurt you.”

The girl moved her eyes from Conrad to me.

“Yeah, I know, but I promise, they aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Not that we could,” Olivia murmured.

“The fear is real,” Iset said, “even if the threat isn’t.” She slid off her seat and knelt outside the circle.

“What do you think?” Darius asked her.

She tilted her head as she regarded them. “Their style of clothing is old. Very old. I remember something like it, but I can’t remember the decade.”

“What about the century?”

“Sixteen, seventeen hundreds? The girl is probably around ten or eleven years old.” Iset pointed to the next oldest. “He could be seven.” She lowered her finger. It was possible she felt uncomfortable pointing to the smallest boy. He looked frail enough, that kind of gesture might break him. He stared at Iset with wide eyes that reminded me of Kappa. “And he’s probably only five or six.”

“He looks too small,” Olivia said.

“Children were smaller back then. Especially if they were malnourished.”

“Are they siblings?” Darius asked.

“I can’t tell.”

“Emerra?”

I asked the little girl, “Are these your brothers?”

She hesitated, then shook her head.

Olivia said, “Are they brothers?”

The little girl looked at her but didn’t respond.

I tried: “Are they brothers?”

This time, the girl nodded.

Iset said, “What’s your name?”

The ghost said nothing.

“Emerra,” Iset prompted.

“What’s your name?” I repeated.

In a voice that was only half there, the ghost of the little girl said, “Anna.”

“Do they only understand Emerra?” Conrad asked. “Or will they only answer her?”

“That’s a very good question,” Darius muttered.

“Ask them where they come from,” Olivia said.

I relayed the question.

There was a wraithlike wash of sound, but I could pick out a few words: home, east, together, and town.

“What language are they speaking?” Olivia asked.

I blinked and looked up. “Is—is it not English?”

Everyone stared at me. A few long and uncomfortable seconds passed before Iset said in her beautifully mild voice, “Emerra, can you understand them?”

“Well, not all of it. Sometimes it’s too faint—”

“But when you can hear them, it sounds like English?” Darius asked.

I knew something was wrong; the answer was so obvious, it made the question sound crooked. “Yeah.”

Darius and Iset looked at each other.

Olivia announced, “That’s not possible.”

“It seems it is possible,” Darius corrected her.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Olivia ignored me. “Only Jacky can do that.”

Iset said, “Jacky was the only one we knew could do that, but apparently—”

“No! That’s not possible!” Olivia turned to Darius. “Where’s Mr. Noctis?”

“He’s at the Vatican.”

“He’s in Rome?” I cried. “He told us he had a meeting!”

“He did. The meeting was at the Vatican.” Darius raised his hand in a shrug. “A few thousand miles doesn’t really matter to Jacky, so he wouldn’t think to mention it. He might not be back for a week or more.”

“But we need him here!” Olivia said.

“Why?”

Conrad’s abrupt question drew everyone’s attention.

When no one answered him, he elaborated: “What would he do that we’re not?”

“He can understand them,” the witch said.

“So can Emerra.”

Olivia threw me a glare laced with enough poison to kill an elephant, but I had a hard time feeling guilty since I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong.

Darius asked Iset, “Can you recognize the language?”

She sighed. “Well, it has a Germanic root, but I’m only guessing based on the sound. I can’t understand the words.”

I will never claim to be the swiftest spear in the armory, but even I had caught on by that point.

I rubbed my eyes. “Why can I understand them if they’re not speaking English?”

“We don’t know,” Darius said. “As you may have guessed from Olivia’s reaction, we’re a little surprised that you can. The gift of understanding is…rare.”

“It might not be that though,” Iset said. “Emerra might have some special connection with the ghosts that we don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The vampire stood up from where he’d been leaning against the couch and walked toward the three ghosts. He went down on one knee so he’d be closer to their height. They couldn’t understand him, but he made his voice as soothing as possible. “What matters is finding out how they got in, and how we can help them.”