Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day(27)

Why would Danny come here? He’s from California; he crossed the country to hide from the circumstances of his death. He ran away from who he’d been when he was alive, and most people don’t run to places like Mill Hollow. Even some of our neighbors don’t know we exist. We’re a footnote in the history of the state, one more tiny tick of a town clinging to the ridge of the mountains for as long as we can before the Appalachians shake us off, roll over, and go back into their dog-dreaming slumber. I’ve never mentioned the Hollow to Danny, not when we spoke in public, not when we spoke in private, not ever. Delia knows where I’m from, but she wouldn’t have told him. She wouldn’t have had a reason to. Ghosts don’t tell tales out of school where other ghosts are concerned. There are too few of us for that, and the dead hold grudges.

“He’s not alone.” The words make so much sense, spoken aloud, that it’s difficult to understand how I didn’t see it before now. But then, this isn’t the sort of thing I do; this isn’t the sort of story I belong in. I glance toward Brenda. She’s nodding. “Someone had to bring him here,” I say, and hate the words. “But why Mill Hollow? Why my hometown?”

“You’re an old ghost, as human ghosts go.” My surprise must show, because Brenda takes her eyes off the road long enough to offer me an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, kiddo, but it’s true. Most people are greedy when it comes to moving on. They grab all the time they need, give their weeping relatives a little youth as a going-away present, and head into whatever comes next. You’ll always have ghosts like Delia—she’s going to outlast us all—and the few who stick around for centuries, but most ghosts? Nah. They realize what they are, they haunt the living for a few years, and then they’re done. They want to know what comes next. Hanging out here is like spending all your time in the parking lot at Disney World, and then deciding never to go inside.”

“I’ve never been to Disney World,” I say. I can’t think of anything else.

Brenda laughs. “Too late now, I’m afraid. So many dead people were making their pilgrimages to the Happiest Place on Earth that it was throwing the numbers off. Disney started taking fingerprints, and when that didn’t work, they went to this new system where they tag all their guests like migrating cattle. No little electronic gadget on your wrist, no amusement park for you. Not too late for Disneyland, though, if you wanted to head for California. Just do it soon. Disney’s done letting ghosts ride for free.”

I’m not sure which is more disturbing: the idea that ghosts would flock to Disney World in such numbers that it would become a problem, or the thought of Disney knowing enough about the dead to do something about it. I shake my head, trying to clear the thought away. “What does me being an old ghost have to do with anything?”

“Delia stayed in Manhattan so that it wouldn’t become unmoored. She wouldn’t have needed to do that if her family hadn’t buried her out in Babylon—a town in Connecticut. Far enough away from New York that she can’t go back to her grave without losing her grasp on her chosen home. You’re too young to be an anchor for a place the size of Manhattan. But Mill Hollow? You can anchor Mill Hollow just fine.”

“How can I anchor Mill Hollow? I haven’t been here in forty years.”

“You’ve never left, remember? Your bones have been here this whole time. Your bones could have been keeping the town anchored to the world while your spirit’s been haunting other halls. If there were no other human ghosts here, you would have been the nail around which everything revolves. A small-town ghost, known to be haunting a big city? Oh, darling. You painted the target on your own map.”

I stare at her. “You’re not making any sense.”

Brenda’s headlights illuminate a stop sign, red and white and gray with dust from the mines. She could probably blow right through it at this hour of the night, but she stops anyway, twisting in her seat to face me. Her expression is grave.

“There are two ways a ghost can anchor a place to the world. The active way, that’s what Delia is doing in Manhattan. At the same time, as long as she’s a haunt and in the world of the living, she’s also a passive anchor for Babylon, where she’s buried. That’s why witches and ghosts don’t fight more than we do. If we needed you to stay where you were buried, there’d be a lot more ‘Sorry, but I have to bind you into this oak tree for the sake of everyone I love.’ Nimue did Merlin, just like the legends say. What they miss is that Merlin was dead at the time, and if he’d gone chasing dishware across Europe, he’d have been leaving Camelot without an anchor. His bones were long gone, you see, and he allowed no other ghosts to haunt his hallowed halls. So you’ve been haunting New York, and all this time your bones have been here, comfortable in the soil, part of what’s anchoring Mill Hollow.”

“Why does that explain Danny being here?”

“Because a town this small is highly unlikely to have more than one human ghost. As long as you were in Manhattan, Mill Hollow was the safest place for him to go. Already anchored, but with no one to ask why he was in town. Him, and whoever he’s working for.”

“You mean the witch.” That is the long and the short of it. Danny is a ghost, and ghosts can’t do much to their own kind. We can’t prison ourselves in glass, can’t trade time between us. For those things, you need a witch. And the ghosts of Manhattan are missing.