“She’s like a mother to you, isn’t she?” said Klea.
I nodded. “I can’t go off and leave her.”
We fell silent again and I thought she’d fallen asleep. I was beginning to drift off myself when she spoke again.
“Do you mind that she isn’t your real mother?”
“Not really. When I see some people’s real mothers, I realise how lucky I’ve been.”
“Mine, for instance,” sighed Klea.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said uncomfortably, because I had meant exactly that.
“I know. Mother was never much interested in us. Well, I mean, she’s always been so smoked up.”
“You had Flara.”
She shuddered, and I patted her shoulder; I’d met Flara a few times when I was a child. A cold, hard woman.
“My nurse was lovely when I was little,” said Klea. “Flara sent her away when I was twelve. That was about money and…” She shook her head. “Curse it, why must I think of that?”
“Don’t,” I said. “She’s long gone, and from what I hear, they’re never coming back.”
“Never say never,” she said. “I think Toy will be much the same if she gets control of the family. As she will, if Blazeann becomes Matriarch. But I’m never going back. Not if I have to sleep on the streets. Don’t let your children be brought up in the Family House. It’s a recipe for neglect and mistreatment.”
“Was it really so bad? I remember Radiant being rather nice. He gave me—”
She sat up straight. “Him? No, he was vile. Vile! A beast of a man.”
I stared at her. I remembered him as a friendly man with nice books who liked to stroke my hair.
“Was he? I guess it was different when you knew him well.”
She stood up.
“Yes,” she said. “Very different.”
“How?” I asked.
“I’m not going to talk about him.” The growl in her voice warned me not to press her further. She really did hate him.
She was brushing herself down. I sat on the ground watching her, certain she was going to tell me something more, but she just stood there brushing and brushing herself long after there was not a leaf anywhere on her body.
“But he isn’t going to win,” was all she finally said. “Come on. Let’s get back to the house.”
When she put her arm round me, her shaking was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BACK AT THE house, my room was empty. No sign of the little blue backpack. Even Uncle Batty’s hidey hole was empty.
“I told you we shouldn’t have left him alone,” I hissed furiously at Klea. Something had clearly happened. A pail of water had been upturned on the floor of my room and a mop and broom lay askew beside it.
“I’m sorry. I was certain he’d be safe,” snapped Klea. “Look, I’ll go check Illy’s room.”
“Wait,” I said. I opened my door. No one was in the hall, but I almost fell over a bowl of water, a loaf of bread and five lit candles sitting on the floor in front of the doorway. A garland of flowers and a ratty-looking sheaf of last year’s wheat had been tied over the door.
“Oh, Dear Lady!” I cried.
“What on earth’s this?” Klea peered out over my shoulder.
“The room’s being exorcised. Someone’s seen our ghost.” The thought sent a chill down my spine. You heard terrible stories of mobs of peasants attacking ghosts with pitchforks when they ventured outside Elayison. That was one reason they were limited to the city. And hadn’t some peasants in the west tried to burn a ghost when they’d first seen him? Terrible visions of the ghost trussed up and thrown on a fire filled my head. Where would they throw him? We had a range in the kitchen. Into the boiler?
I shook myself.
“I’ll get up to Illy’s—”
“It won’t be Illy. It’ll be the servants.”
I ran down the hallway, yelling for Thomas, but as I reached the top of the stairs I heard a voice calling behind me.
Auntie Eff was standing in her doorway beckoning me, and something about the way she was smiling told me she knew everything. I ran to her faster than I’ve ever run anywhere.
The ghost was standing behind her door. I flung my arms around him, crying that I was sorry, and was he harmed?
The ghost laughed and squeezed me. “Someone tried to clean under the bed. Would you believe? After all your grumbling, someone must have listened. Wstts akstriuchg, but she screamed! So did I, to be honest. After she ran off, I knew I was not safe. So I came in here hoping it was empty and came face to face with Marm Eff. She screamed too, but she got over it very quickly.”
Eff shook her finger at me. “Weren’t you going to share this wonderful fellow with me? Shame on you.”
“I was going to wait till everyone was gone.”
“Well, I’m most displeased with you.”
But she wasn’t really, she was thrilled. Almost before I’d stopped fussing over the ghost, she was sitting back at her desk, patting the chair behind her. She’d piled the books and papers that covered the desktop on the floor, where they joined countless other piles of books and papers. “Now, let’s get back to this,” she said, picking up her pen. “Tell me how this universal suffrage works? You must have to keep voter lists, yes?”
“Did you tell her about Klea?” I murmured in the ghost’s ear, as he turned to join her.
He grinned and shook his head. “No chance,” he murmured.
“And Illuminus?”
“And everyone votes, even the lowliest peasants? Sirrah Shadow?” called Eff.
“Your aunt is very interested in political organisation,” said Shadow. “We have talked of little else.” He turned and smiled at Eff. “I hope I can satisfy her curiosity. I do not know much about such things. I’ve never voted.”
“What?” cried my Aunt. “When you have the right? Sirrah Shadow, I’m shocked. Do you know the Imperial Guard rained fireballs on a group of cloth workers demanding the right to be heard in the Great Council? People died that day. For the right to have a say. And you’ve never voted. Shame on you! I hope you will start immediately you get back to Ghostland.”
And she smacked him on the leg in a startlingly flirtatious way.
Shadow smiled sheepishly and said he would, and Eff decided to forgive him. Not that there was any chance she wouldn’t. Soon they were sitting side by side at her desk with him drawing a diagram showing how the ghosts’ Great Council was divided into two houses.
“I’m going for a sleep,” I said. “Wake me if you need me.”
She waved absently in my direction as I went out the door, and the ghost didn’t even look up from his diagram. I didn’t mind. My Aunt was the happiest I’d seen her in a long, long time. I would have envied her the chance to find out more about Ghostland, but I was too tired.
“She’s already planning an article about the workings of universal suffrage in Ghostland,” I told Klea back in my room. My magely cousin must have worked out that everything was fine, because she was relaxing on my bed with a glass of brandy in her hand.