The Mapmaker and the Ghost(14)

GHOSTS AND BUTLERS


“It’s you,” Goldenrod said breathlessly to the transparent man.

“It usually is,” he replied calmly, walking toward her. Goldenrod noticed that he had a slight limp.

She had to ask. “Are you … Meriwether Lewis?”

The man gave a little bow. “Indeed, I am. Or I was. Well, I’m his spirit, anyway.”

“But there are no such things as ghosts,” Goldenrod muttered.

“Who told you that?” the spirit of Meriwether Lewis asked.

“My parents, mainly,” Goldenrod confessed, thinking specifically of that one summer when she was six and had spent a great deal of nights asking to sleep in her parents’ room.

“And they are grownups, I assume?” the man asked. Goldenrod nodded.

“Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that the modern world is sorely lacking in imagination. And grownups are the biggest culprits of all. Regardless, the simple fact is, here I am. And seeing how I was born in 1774, I can’t very well not be a ghost, now can I?”

“I guess not,” Goldenrod said.

“Very well. Now that we’ve established that, let’s move on. So I suppose you were the one who was sent on the quest.”

“The quest?”

“To claim our lost discovery: the blue rose.”

“Oh, that quest,” Goldenrod said, faintly starting to grasp some of what was going on.

“Do you have any other quests going on at the moment?” Meriwether Lewis asked politely.

“No, no. The old lady told me about the rose but … well, I thought she just wanted it for her garden.” A thought struck Goldenrod, and she eyed the ghost suspiciously. “Wait, does she know you’re here?”

Meriwether Lewis shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about what goes on outside of this forest. My spirit is trapped here, you see, until the blue rose can take its rightful place as discovered flora.”

A smile slowly crept its way up Goldenrod’s face. She was completely spellbound. It’s not often that one gets to meet someone one has read about admiringly, and it’s even less likely when said person has been dead for hundreds of years. But beyond that, this man—or spirit—was speaking her language. He was telling her that her initial excitement over the blue rose was well founded.

It took a few seconds for Goldenrod to remember what had just happened to her little brother. “Oh!” she said, startling herself out of her own reverie. “This is all so interesting, Mr. Lewis—”

“Please. Call me Meriwether.”

“Meriwether. Yes, this is fascinating and, believe me, I would love nothing better than to find this blue rose, but right now, I have to go rescue my little brother. He’s been kidnapped.”

“Ah,” Meriwether said, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. Though maybe if you were a ghost haunting a forest for two centuries, nothing much fazed you. “Your little brother. Of course. And, is he your Clark?”

“Well … no,” Goldenrod said. “Not really. I suppose my friend Charla is. But he’s important all the same.”

“Of course, of course,” Meriwether said. “Well, if it’s a kidnapping that’s happened, I have a good idea who might be responsible.”

At that, he perked up a little and held his hand to his ear. “And I think there’s something over there that you may want to pay attention to.” He pointed to a faraway grove of trees where Goldenrod saw another flash of white.

When she turned back to Meriwether, he was gone. Trying hard to focus on the task at hand instead of replaying the ultraexciting conversation she had just had, Goldenrod headed quickly over to the trees. Through them, she glimpsed a man walking briskly.

The man had salt-and-pepper hair and wore a black suit. It was the crisp white shirt underneath this suit that had caught Goldenrod’s eye. With no other leads anywhere in sight, Goldenrod decided to take Meriwether’s advice. She started to follow the man in the suit.

He was a tallish man and took long strides that Goldenrod had trouble keeping up with. He seemed almost businesslike as he marched on toward his destination.

Goldenrod still had her compass out and could see that they were now walking through parts of the woods where she had never been before. They were heading on a much different path than the one Goldenrod had chased Charlie, Jonas, and company through. For a moment, she considered turning back and retracing her steps. But then she made a firm decision to trust Meriwether who, ghost or not, was still one of the bravest and greatest explorers who had ever lived. If nothing else, the man had to have a good sense of direction.

It must have been at least twenty minutes later that the man in the black suit finally stopped. He was standing right next to a bush that was covered with tiny, hard red berries. He waited there.

Goldenrod was well concealed behind some other bushes and knew the man couldn’t see her. She wondered if she should go talk to him and explain her situation. Maybe he could help. On the other hand, Meriwether hadn’t expressly advised her to do so, and her own instincts were telling her that maybe talking to a stranger deep in the middle of an unmapped forest was not the best idea in the world.

While Goldenrod was brewing over this dilemma, she heard a voice.

“Do you have it?” the voice asked, slightly impatiently.