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jedella ghost

TANITH LEE

Here’s a new kind of ghost story, unlike any you’ve ever read before, featuring a

new kind of “ghost,” one who lives in the world and yet at the same time is

isolated from it in a very peculiar way . . . perhaps forever.

Tanith Lee is one of the best-known and most prolific of modern fanta-sists,

with more than sixty books to her credit, including (among many others) The

Birthgrave, Drinking Sapphire Wine, Don’t Bite the Sun, Night’s Master, The Storm

Lord, Sung in Shadow, Volkhavaar, Anackire, Night’s Sorceries, Black Unicorn,

Days of Grass, The Blood of Roses, Vivia, Reigning Cats and Dogs, When the

Lights Go Out, Elephantasm, and The Gods Are Thirsty, and the collections

Tamastara, The Gorgon, Dreams of Dark and Light, Nightshades, and Forests of

the Night. Her short story “The Gorgon” won her a World Fantasy Award in

1983, and her short story “Elle Est Trois (La Mort)” won her another World

Fantasy Award in 1984. Her brilliant collection of retold folk tales, Red As

Blood, was also a finalist that year, in the Best Collection category. Her most

recent book is a new novel, Faces Under Water. She lives with her husband in the

south of England.

* * * *

That fall morning, Luke Baynes had been staying a night with his grandmother up on

the ridge, and he was tramping back to town through the woods. It was about an

hour after sun-up, and the soft level light was caught broadcast in all the trees,

molasses-red and honey-yellow. The birds sang, and squirrels played across the

tracks. As he stepped on to the road above the river, Luke looked down into the

valley. There was an ebbing mist, sun-touched like a bridal veil, and out of this he

saw her come walking, up from the river, like a ghost. He knew at once she was a

stranger, and she was young, pale and slight in an old-fashioned long dark dress. Her

hair was dark, too, hanging down her back like a child’s. As she got closer he saw

she was about 18, a young woman. She had, he said, not a pretty face, but serene,

pleasing; he liked to look at her. And she, as she came up to him, looked straight at

him, not boldly or rudely, but with an open interest. Luke-took off his but, and said,

“Good morning.” And the girl nodded. She said, “Is there a house near here?” Luke

said there was, several houses, the town was just along the way. She nodded again,

and thanked him. It was, he said, a lovely voice, all musical and lilting upward, like a

smile. But then she went and sat at the roadside, where a tree had been cut and left a

stump. She looked away from him now, up into the branches. It was as if there was

nothing more to say. He did ask if he could assist her. She answered at once, “No,

thank you.” And so, after a moment, he left her there, though he was not sure he

should do. But she did not appear concerned or worried.

“She had the strangest shoes,” he said.

“Her shoes?” I asked. Luke had never seemed a man for noting the footware

of women, or of anyone.

“They were the colours of the woods,” he said, “crimson and gold and green.

And—they seemed to me like they were made of glass.”

“Cinderella,” I said, “run off from the ball.”

“But she had on both,” he said, and grinned.

After this we went for coffee and cake at Millie’s.

I had no doubt he had seen this woman, but I thought perhaps he had made more of

her than there was. Because I am a writer people sometimes try to work spells on

me—Oh, John Cross, this will interest you. You can write about this. It does them

credit, really, to make their imaginations work. But they should take up the pen, not

I. Usually, I have enough ideas of my own.

About ten, I went back to my room to work, and did not come out again until

three. And then I, too, saw Luke’s lady of the mist. She was standing in the square,

under the old cobweb trees, looking up at the white tower of the church, on which

the clock was striking the hour.

People going about were glancing at her curiously, and even the old-timers on

the bench outside the stables were eying her. She was a stranger, and graceful as a

lily. And sure enough, she seemed to have on sparkling stained-glass shoes.

When the clock stopped, she turned and looked around her. Do any of us

look about that way? Human things are cautious, circumspect—or conversely

arrogant. And she was none of these. She looked the way a child does, openly,

perhaps not quite at ease, but not on guard. And then she saw—evidently she

saw—the old men on the bench, Will Marks and Homer Avory and Nut Warren. She

became very still, gazing at them, until they in turn grew uneasy. They did not know

what to do, I could see, and Nut, who was coming on for 90 years, he turned

belligerent.

I stepped out and crossed the square, and came right up to her, standing

be-tween her and the old boys.

“Welcome to our town. My name’s John Cross.”

“I’m Jedella,” she said at once.

“I’m glad to meet you. Can I help?”

“I’m lost,” she said. I could not think at once what to say. Those that are lost

do not speak in this way. I knew it even then. Jedella said presently, “You see, I’ve

lived all my life in one place, and now—here I am.”

“Do you have kin here?”

“Kin?” she said. “I have no kin.”

“I’m sorry. But is there someone—?”

“No,” she said. “Oh, I’m tired. I’d like a drink of water. To sit down.”

I said, and I thought myself even then hard and cruel, “Your shoes.”

“Oh. That was my fault. I should have chosen something else.”

“Are they glass?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

I took her straight across to Millie’s, and in the big room sat her at a table, and

when the coffee came, she drank it down. She seemed comfortable with coffee, and

I was surprised. I had already realized, maybe, that the things of civilized life were

not quite familiar to her.

Hannah returned and refilled our cups—Jedella had refused my offer of food.

But as Hannah went away Jedella looked after her. The look was deep and sombre.

She had eyes, Jedella, like the rivers of the Greek Hell—melancholy, and so dark.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“With—?”

“With that woman who brought the coffee.”

Hannah was a robust creature, about 40. She was the wife of Abel Sorrensen,

and had five children, all bright and sound—a happy woman, a nice woman. I had

never seen her sick or languishing.

“Hannah Sorrensen is just fine.”

“But—” said Jedella. She stared at me, then the stare became a gaze. “Oh,

those men outside . . .”

“The old men on the bench,” I said.

Jedella said, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be impertinent.”

I said, squaring my shoulders, “I think you should see Doc McIvor. He’s

bound to have some plan of how to go on.”

I had formed the impression she was a little mad. And, I confess, I wondered

how she would react to the notion of a doctor.

But Jedella smiled at me, and then I saw what Luke had only heard in her

voice. Her smile made her beautiful. For a moment I saw her as my muse. I

wondered if I would fall in love with her, and feed upon her mystery. The writer can

be selfish. But, in my own defence, I knew that here was something rare,

precious—rich and strange.

“Of course I’ll see him,” she said. “I have no one, and nowhere to go. How

kind you are.”

What happens when the doctor is sick? An old adage to be sure. But Doc McIvor

had gone to visit his niece in the city, who was expecting her first baby. Everyone

knew but me. But then, I had only lived in the town for five years.

I did not want, I admit, to give Jedella, with her Lethe eyes and Cinderella

shoes and heavenly smile, over to the law, so I took her to my rooming-house, and

there Abigail Anchor came sweeping forth in her purple dress.

“I can give her that little room on the west side,” said Abigail. “This girl has

run away. I know it.”

“Do you think so?” I asked.

“Oh, to be sure. Her daddy is some harsh man. Perhaps forcing her to marry.

I won’t sit in judgement, Mr. Cross. Indeed, Mr. Cross, you may know more than

you say. But I won’t ask it—”

“I don’t know anything, Mrs. Anchor.”

“That’s as you say, Mr. Cross.”

I met Luke Baynes that night in the Tavern. We had a beer. He grinned at me again.

“They’re talking. Your sweetheart’s stashed away at Ma Anchor’s.”

“Yours and mine. You saw her first.”

“Then it is the girl with glass shoes.”

“A strange one,” I said. “She keeps to herself. But when I came out tonight,

she was at her window and the blind was raised. She was looking along the street.”

Luke said, “Don’t you know anything?”

“Not a thing. Abigail has sheltered her from the goodness of her heart. Her

name’s Jedella.”

“I don’t believe,” said Luke, “she’s real. She’s a ghost.”

“I took her arm,” I said. “She’s real as you or I.”

“What is it then?” he said.

“I think she’s crazy. A little crazy. Probably someone will come after her. She

can’t have come far.”

“But,” he said, “she’s— wonderful.”

“Yes,” I said. “A fascinating woman. The woman you can’t have is always

fas-cinating.”

“You’re too clever,” he said. “I fancy going courting.”

“Don’t,” I said. I frowned into my drink. “Don’t.”

Two weeks passed, and Jedella lived in the room on the west side of the Anchor

house. She gave no trouble, and I had had a word with Abigail about the rent. I

believe Abigail helped with any female things that Jedella might have needed, and

certainly, I was presented with a bill before too long. My trade had brought me

moderate success, and I did not flinch.

Otherwise, I saw no reason to interfere. I gathered from Abigail that Jedella

did not much wish to go out, yet seemed quite well. She ate her meals in private, and

enjoyed the services of the house. Now and then I noted Jedella at her win-dow,

gazing along the street. Once I lifted my hand, but she did not respond. I let it go at

that.

Of course, word had got around about the unknown young woman. I was

some-times pestered, but knowing next to nothing myself, could be of little

assistance.

Did I want to draw Jedella out? Rather, I was inclined to avoid her. Real life

that takes the form of a story, or appears to, is so often disappointing. Or, if one

learns some gem, must one become a traitor who can no longer be trusted with

anything? I prefer to invent, and that keeps me busy enough.

Luke did try to introduce himself to the woman on the west side. He took her

flowers one afternoon, and a box of sweets in a green bow another. But, Jedella

apparently seemed only amazed. She did not respond as a woman should, hopefully

a flirtatious, willing woman. He was baffled, and retreated, to the relief of the two or

three young ladies of the town who had such hopes of him, some day.

On the last Friday of that second week, just as I had finished a long story for

the Post, I heard at Millie’s that Homer Avory had died in his bed. He was nearly 80,

which for the town is quite a youngster, and his daughter was in a rage, it seemed,

for she had always loved him and had been planning a birthday dinner.

Everyone went to a funeral then, and presently I heard it was fixed for

Tuesday. I looked out my black suit with a sensation of the droll and the sad. My

father had once warned me, “You don’t feel a death, John, not truly, till you start to

feel your own.” He was 50 when he said this, and he died two years after, so I may

not argue. But I felt it was a shame about Homer, and about his daughter, who was

60 herself, and had lost her husband ten months before to a fever.

On Monday evening I was reading some books that had come in the mail,

when a light knock sounded on my door.

It was not Abigail, evidently, who thundered, nor Luke, who burst in. I went

to see, and there stood the apparition called Jedella, still in her dark dress, but with a

new pair of simple shoes. Her hair was done up on her head.

“Good evening, Miss Jedella. Can I help you?”

“Mr. Cross,” she said, “something is happening tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Oh, do you mean poor old Homer’s funeral?”

“That,” she said, “is what Abigail Anchor called it.”

“Abigail? Well, what else. A burial, a funeral.”

She stared straight at me. She said, still and low, “But what is that?”

Abigail had her rules, but it was just light. I drew Jedella into the room and left

the door an inch ajar.

I made her sit down in my comfortable chair, and moved the books.

“How do you mean, Miss Jedella?”

She seemed for a moment disturbed. Then she composed her pale face and

said, “They say the—old man—has died.”

“He has.”

“Was he one of the three men I saw in the square that day?”

“Yes, just so.”

“He has some terrible illness,” she said. She looked about distractedly. “Am I

right?”

This unnerved me. I could not put it together. I recalled, I had thought her

slightly insane. I said, quietly, “Unfortunately, he was old, and so he died. But,

please believe, he had no ailment. He passed away peacefully in his sleep, I gather.”

“But what do you mean?” she said.

“He’s dead,” I answered. “I’m afraid it happens.” I had intended irony, but

she gazed at me with such pathos, I felt myself colour, as if I had insulted her. I did

not know what to say next. She spoke first.

“This funeral, what is it?”

“Jedella,” I said firmly, “do you say you don’t know what a funeral is?”

“No,” said Jedella, “I have no idea.”

If I had been three years younger, I suspect I would have thought myself the

victim of some game. But peculiar things happen. Oddities, differences. I sal down

in the other chair.

“When a man dies, we put him in the earth. If you are religious, you reckon he

waits there for the last trumpet, which summons him up to God.”

“In the earth,” she said. “But how can he stand it—is it some punishment?”

“He’s dead,” I replied, like stone. “He won’t know.”

“How can he not know?”

Tanith Lee - Jedella Ghost.pdf

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