1868, Early August

The three manesologists, exhausted by a night full of ghosts and their problems, sat down on the blackened rocks of what had once been a white bench. They were only vaguely aware that dawn was breaking. Most of the golden light was blocked by the skeletal ruins that howled as the wind rushed through their broken windows and empty halls, the needle-legged, giraffe-necked steam beasts, which had labored night and day for over a year to turn a fraction of the ruins into habitable salvage, and Gog and Magog, the ghost kings of London, who loomed above their realm like two dark mountains with eyes of fire.

What light from the dawn that did reach the manesologists was obscured by a sphere of silvery-white light that protected them from the many leering, screeching, ghosts outside.

A man burst into flames and ran screaming through the sphere of light, but passed harmlessly through the manesologists as a black shadow. The manesologists didn’t so much as blink. The man was a common ghost. Most of London’s ghosts were “runners” like himself.

A woman in a white sundress gently pushed a pram with blue ribbons past them and wished them good morning. She was evidently an older ghost, one before the Fireball of 1865.

The manesologists were in a gated clearing of mud and dirt that was once known as Kensington Gardens. Dead earth and dry puddles were all that was left of a place that was once London’s green heart.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“I hate this place.” Martin Glass, the youngest of the three, said. “I hate these ruins, and the screaming, and the million lost, mad souls we can never help.”

Bitter tears fell from his eyes and splattered on the mud below.

“It’s too much.” he said. “It’s too damned much.”

Joseph Morton, the oldest of the three, patted his young friend on the back. “You don’t mean that, boy. You’re only tired. We’re all tired.”

Martin whimpered softly and cried on.

“Look!” Matthew Ernst exclaimed, suddenly standing up. “Look at the lake over here!”

Matthew walked over to the lake, protected by his own personal orb of silvery-white light.

“I suppose that’s nice.” Martin said. “The rain brought back what the fireball evaporated. Bodies of water are the least changed parts of London.”

“No, look at what’s in the water!” Matthew pointed and Martin followed his finger with his eyes. He saw a black duck leading her yellow ducklings through the water. The animals of London were unbothered by the ghosts. They never understood the ways of humans to begin with.

Martin’s eyes went from one duckling to the next and the next…

“Old man!” Martin nudged Joseph. “Look! The third duck in the row!”

Joseph squinted his old eyes. “What about it, boy?”

“Look harder!”

Joseph did so.

“A ghost!” Joseph exclaimed. “A ghost duckling!”

The duckling was the same sunny color of its living siblings, but a slight translucency marked it as a ghost. It was like a little spark of golden light and the shaded water shimmered beneath it.

Martin smiled. “Mother duck doesn’t mind the little fellow at all, does she?”

“Animals don’t know what makes a ghost a ghost.” Matthew said. “They’re fortunate in that regard.”

“They are.” Martin said. “When your entire world is just a pond, it doesn’t matter if its haunted or not. If only all the world was a little haunted pond in Kensington Gardens.”

And in the once-green heart of the metropolis that was once London, three exhausted manesologists took solace in a little duckling, bright and immortal.