The day was still new when Dunstan and Elspeth left their house for Mrs. Abernathy’s. After the previous evening, Elspeth refused to let Dunstan go somewhere he might find baked goods without her.

It wasn’t a bad day for a walk, but the weather felt unsettled. The wind seemed to whisper rumors between the leaves of the elm trees, while the sun ducked behind restless clouds. They passed the millpond, with the water wheel turning steadily. They could hear the machinery laboring, turning the stone.

“What do you suppose Old Karl is doing today?” Elspeth asked. “It’s too early for this year’s oats.”

“Probably keeping himself busy milling dried beans from last year,” Dunstan grumbled. “Ma will probably send me down to buy flour this week.” The Wainwrights had eaten their share of beanbread; bean flour was cheaper than wheat flour, and not everyone was willing to hire Aldrich to move goods for them. The two kept walking.

As they neared the town, they paused on a hilltop to squint into the distance, where they could see a crew laying iron rails on a roadbed that had been recently constructed parallel to the river.

“They say when the line is finished, you’ll be able to ride from Dalkirk to Ceolburg in a day,” Dunstan told Elspeth, breaking the silence himself for the first time that morning.

“Could not,” she insisted.

“Could so, Da was talking about it with the marketwarden yesterday! He said it’s five days, Ceolburg to Paris,and only that long because the rail lines aren’t all connected! When you can ride the train the whole way, he figures it’ll only be two!”

“What does it matter?” she asked him. “You don’t know anyone in Ceolburg.”

“No one knows me, in Ceolburg.” Elspeth made a face at his reply.

“There will still be ghosts there,” she argued, “probably even more than there are here!”

“They won’t know me, either. There wouldn’t be any reason for them to bother me.” He rubbed his face with his hands. Elspeth’s brows knitted as she looked at him.

“You look awful,” she said.

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep,” he answered. His eyes were bleary, with dark bags underneath.

“Were they noisy last night?”

Dunstan nodded. “A few of them started a fight, and then the rest of them got drawn in, until they were all running around shouting and swinging weapons at each other, but they’re all dead already, so nobody ever wins. They just end up swarming around the hill until dawn, like ants when you step on an anthill, making a din and carrying on until they vanish in the sunlight.” Dunstan didn’t like to talk about what he saw, not since he’d been a young child, but the lack of sleep had gotten to him that day. “They’re getting worse.”

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“What do you mean? They’ve done worse than that before, haven’t they?”

Dunstan thought for a moment. “The worst single thing they’ve done is when one came in through the door while Da was checking on the oxen. That was the night that things kept getting knocked over, and I ran away.”

Elspeth remembered that night, she’d been seven years old, and Dunstan twelve. Their father had heard the oxen making noise and gone to check on them, then the cups on the table had all fallen on the floor. His eyes wide with terror, Dunstan had crouched in the corner, while chairs tipped over, shoes flew across the room, and anything on a shelf plummeted to the floor. Aldrich had come running back when he heard the screaming, but was unable to see the source of the disturbance, much less do anything about it. Dunstan had finally fled into the night, with Aldrich chasing after him, while Evelyn and Elspeth hid in the barn. The boy had hidden in the woods for two days before he finally came back. They’d been cautious about opening the door after dark since then, and there had been no repeat incidents thus far.

“What I mean,” Dunstan continued, “is that they’re all agitated these days, not just one or two who’ve always been irritable. The King of the Hill comes down from the fort more often, and the others all notice when he’s around.”

“That’s the one on the horse, with the helmet that covers his face?” Elspeth asked. Her brother nodded. They didn’t know the real name of the apparition, and Dunstan was in no hurry to ask.

“What is it that’s riling them up?”

“It’s me,” Dunstan sighed. “They know I can see them, and hear what they say. I’ve been too close for too long. They don’t pay attention to most people, they only bother if they notice you noticing them, and they seem to forget easily. I’m there every day though, and they know now. They’re watching me.”

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know,” the young man shook his head.

“They can’t...” Elspeth wasn’t sure how to phrase it, “hurt you, directly? Can they?”

“Maybe? Not normally, but some nights they feel different, like they could if they really wanted to.”

“Did that one in the house try?”

“No, I think he was trying to rob us. They get confused sometimes and forget that they’re dead, so they go back to what they were doing before they died. I guess he was sacking villages, and it ended poorly for him,” Dunstan replied glumly.

“But they can’t just walk through the walls, or creep in the windows, or anything like that?” Elspeth frowned. “I don’t like the idea of invisible strangers in our house.”

“That one came in through the door, when Da went out to check on the oxen. Some places they’re already inside, though. I think the ones at home haunt where the fort was, and the battlefield around it, so they can’t just come into our house. It’s different if they’re actually haunting a house, then it seems like they can come and go through the place at will.”

“What do you do then?”

“I pretend to be like everybody else, like I can’t see them. That usually works, if they’re not paying attention,” Dunstan kicked a stone on the track, it bounced and rolled ahead of them for a few paces before disappearing into a hedge. “Keeps whoever lives there now from kicking me out, too.” There had been a couple of social visits when he was a child that had ended awkwardly. The two walked quietly for a moment, each caught up in their own thoughts.

“I think you’re brave, you know?” Elspeth finally said, her eyes downcast. “For dealing with all of that, I mean. And the other things too; other people not believing you, the ones that tease you.”

Dunstan blinked. “I don’t feel brave. I mean, I didn’t choose this, I wouldn’t choose it! I just...” He searched for the words for a moment, before giving up and letting an exasperated sigh. “Thanks, El.”

“You’re welcome.”

The rest of the journey passed in comfortable silence.