Read Online Emily's Ghost by Antoinette Stockenberg - Free Book Online Page B

had no idea that a
ghost could be embarrassed.
    In a solemn voice he
continued, "I was hanged by the neck until dead in front of
seventy-six townsmen, one o' which was my eleven-year old brother,
in the year of our lord eighteen hundred eighty-seven, for the
crime of murdering a young lady of station in her
bedchamber."
    Not just a ghost; a
murderous ghost. "How did you murder her?" Emily whispered,
dreading the answer.
    "Goddammit, I did not
murder her! Do ye hear anything I say?"
    "Yes, of course; no, I
understand perfectly," Emily said quickly. "I only meant, how ...
was she murdered?"
    "Strangled," he replied
with something like distaste. "A vicious job, with no thought
behind it."
    A thoughtful , murderous ghost. Emily
heaved a sigh of utter exhaustion. It was obvious that the night
was never going to end.
    "She was wearing a
medallion of pale rose crystal. It hung on a heavy plated chain,
which ended up bein' the weapon," he added calmly.
    Emily went very still. Her
hand reached up to the locket that she'd wanted so fiercely; she
remembered the paroxysm she'd felt when Cara fastened it around her
neck. She shook her head, unwilling to accept the
connection.
    "Ay, it's the very one,"
said Fergus O'Malley with an ironic look, pointing a ghostly finger
at her throat.
    She tried to unfasten it
and hurl it away from her. But the clasp seemed sealed shut, or
else her hands were fumbling too much.
    "And, ye were obliging
enough to wear it someplace that mattered to someone like me. I
don't mind tellin' ye, I began to despair of ever being able to
straighten this mess away."
    She wasn't understanding
him at all. "Please ... I'm so ... tired," she pleaded, letting her
hands drop helplessly into her lap. She wondered if she were going
to faint again.
    "Don't tell me ye're
tired!" he shouted, snapping her awake once more. "Ye've gone an
hour or two without sleep; I've waited a hundred-odd years to get
on with the rest of my eternity. So who's more tired,
hey?"
    He crouched down in front
of Emily and seemed to grab the arms of her chair, terrifying her.
He was close enough for her to see a mole on his right temple; she
would have bet her life he was absolutely real.
    "Understand me once, and
understand me good," he said in a voice thick with emotion. "That
necklace showing up at that s é ance were my ticket back across the
veil. I might not get another chance to prove my innocence for
another hundred years, or a thousand. I had no idea who'd be
wearin' the jewel, who it was I'd have to use as my instrument on
this side. I was prayin' it wouldn't be some addle-headed whore,
which is all I figured would wear a cheap trinket like that. When I
learned ye was with the press, I was glad: some of them what
covered me trial was sharp as tacks. But now, lookin' at ye, I'm
not so sure. Ye're a fearful little thing. I might've done better
with the whore."
    "I resent that," Emily
flashed, fully awake now.
    "Resent what?"
    "All of it, dammit! I
mean, what do you expect? You drop into my condo, scare me to
death, nearly blind me, order me to investigate something or other
--"
    "Not 'something or other'!
A murder!"
    "A hundred-year-old
murder! I'm not a detective; I'm an investigative reporter. I
thresh out slumlords, and they're usually alive when I do
it."
    They were eyeball to
eyeball, she sitting, he crouching. She wanted to swing at him for
half a dozen valid reasons, but the thought that her hand would
pass right through him was more intimidating than if he'd had a gun
pointed at her head. She contented herself with a sullen, "Besides,
do you know how cold a hundred-year-old trail can be?"
    "I know exactly how cold a
hundred years can be," he answered quietly, not moving his gaze
from hers.
    Emily stared into those
green depths and looked away. There was too much pain there, too
much knowledge for a young man to have. "I don't understand," she
said, almost shyly. "Where have you been staying for the past
hundred years? I guess, not in