“I must attend a meeting of Chapter,” the librarian informed her. He pulled his pocket watch from beneath his black robe and consulted it. “I will be no more than an hour, so shall return in ample time to lock up the library before the end of the working day. While I am gone you may continue with your paperwork. Should anyone present themselves seeking access to the collection ask them to return tomorrow.”
“Yes, Reverend,” said Hecate, her pulse already quickening at the thought that she was about to be left alone. Alone to inspect the map!
“On no account are you to leave the library unattended, is that clear?”
“Perfectly, yes,” she assured him. She watched him go, listening as he descended the stairs, the whistling wheeze of his breathing diminishing with each step until he was, at last, out of earshot. Hecate remained silent, letting the sounds of the library wash over her, waiting, checking, wanting to be certain her superior had not, perhaps, forgotten something, and was on his way back up the stairwell. Only when she was convinced he had gone and must be halfway to the dean’s office in the cloisters did she get up from her chair, turn, and walk over to the map. She stood a few paces off, acknowledging to herself that she was both afraid and enthralled in equal measures. At that moment it appeared perfectly normal, inert, without sound or movement. A beautiful, important, medieval artifact, but a stable, silent one. Could she have imagined it all? Had she fallen victim to a combination of an overactive—what did her father call it?—romantic imagination, and perhaps the odors from some of the cleaning fluids used on older bookbindings? It was a possibility. Except that no such substances had been removed from the cupboard, nor their lids so much as loosened. And for all her wild fancies, she did not believe herself capable of such fantastic daydreaming. No, there was no real doubt in her mind. She had seen the creatures wriggle and writhe and heard them roar and squawk, just as the figures had shouted and called to her. That was the truth of it, and she would never let anyone persuade her otherwise.
“Such a fine example of the cartographer’s art. I, too, have stood before it many times, lost in wonder.”
The voice behind her startled Hecate, causing her to gasp as she turned. The monk had emerged from between the bookshelves, his pale gray robes sweeping the floor as he came, his arms folded, his hands tucked into his sleeves. As he moved beneath the gasolier the light fell upon his tonsure and his round, crinkly face. Hecate could see now that he was very old, and was surprised he was not stooped and that he walked without the aid of a stick.
“Forgive my joining you unannounced and without introduction. I would not wish to cause you alarm. My name is Brother Michael,” he told her. His voice was low and had about it a slight west country accent, with rounded vowels and words that sounded as if they had been rolled around in his mouth before being spoken.
“Hecate,” she stuttered slightly. “Hecate Cavendish.” Ordinarily, she would have reached out to shake his hand, as she did with every person she met. But this was turning out to be anything other than an ordinary day, and Brother Michael was most definitely extraordinary. She stared at him openly then, finding herself rendered temporarily both speechless and immobile. Now that she looked more carefully, there was something about the way the lamplight fell through rather than upon him, giving the appearance that he was lit from within. His monk’s habit rippled as he moved, but not as if his feet were kicking it with each step, more as if it were flowing through the air. More than any of these things, what caused her to have to quell a wave of panic was that she could plainly see Brother Michael cast no shadow. She had the sensation an earwig was wriggling down her spine. She imagined her father’s voice telling her to buck up, to stand firm. But then he was not the one who was, at that moment, standing between a magically animated map, and what was, she was completely and utterly certain, a ghost.
She tried to speak. Fought to form some sensible words, but her tongue was clumsy in her dry mouth.
“I understand you are perplexed by my sudden appearance. I promise you, you have no reason to fear me. In fact, the very opposite is true.”
“The … opposite?” she asked, her voice high and tight.
The monk nodded. “I feel blessed that you have been sent. After so many years of watching over the library unaided, to at last have someone here with whom I might communicate. Someone … living.”
A fizzing silence opened up in the conversation. Hecate was both astonished and reassured to find that her initial fear was diminishing, while her sense of awe and excitement increased. She summoned her courage.
“You are … you are, then, a ghost?” she asked.
Brother Michael tilted his head, his expression a little sad. “A word that has so many interpretations, and none, I fear, helpful. I cannot deny what I am, but for preference I would choose the term ‘soul.’ In point of fact, that is what we all think of ourselves here at the cathedral; the lost souls.”
“We all?” She hardly dared press him on the point but felt a thrill of anticipation as she waited for the answer.
“Most of the departed are able to travel to the afterlife without difficulty or delay. For some, that is not the case. Something prevents them from moving on. Something tethers them to this earthly realm, even though they are no longer of it. Their insubstantial forms linger, against their will, and each is kept to a place of significance to them.” He paused, withdrawing a hand to indicate the chained books, the movement slow and fluid. “For myself, there could be nowhere more important. My own situation differs in the small fact that it was always my choice to stay with my beloved library.”
“Your library? But, I don’t believe Hereford Cathedral was ever a monastery? How did you come to be here?”
He smiled, an expression that made his already wrinkled face crinkle so much that his bright eyes almost disappeared. “How much you know, and how marvelous that you do! We shall be the very best of friends, I have not the smallest doubt. You are correct, of course. I was a monk at the abbey in Shaftesbury, sent here to assist in the setting up of the chained library. Fate determined that I was never to leave.”
“The very first time the books were chained was … the fourteenth century, is that right?” Hecate was astonished at how quickly conversing with a ghost had started to feel normal.
“I arrived in summer, the year of our Lord 1373. There was so much work to be done. The then bishop of Hereford had spent time at our abbey and knew of my love of books. I was so pleased to be here at, as it were, the birth of the library.”
Hecate smiled, for a brief moment imagining this ancient phantom experiencing, as she had done, his first day at his new place of work, in the very same library, all those long centuries ago. Something else he had said had struck her as important and she was eager to return to it.
“Brother Michael, you said ‘We all.’ Are you telling me there are other ghosts here in the cathedral? Other lost souls?”
“Oh yes, we are small in number, a little family of sorts. But of course, you have already seen some of my brothers and sisters,” he replied.
Hecate swallowed and a thrilling shiver ran through her. “When and where did I see them?”
“Why, only this very day you walked past Mrs. Nugent in the Lady Chapel.”
“The new cleaner?”
“Cleaner, yes, but far from new. The dear lady met her end during the reign of King George III. It is for him she so lovingly tends the cathedral, for she died on the eve of a royal visit.”
Hecate gave a small cry of astonishment, an exclamation of delight, though she was uncertain it was seemly to feel that way about someone who had died. “And did she … did Mrs. Nugent see me?”
“She noticed you at once and came to tell me, though I had already seen you in here. She was not the only one to wish to speak of your arrival. Young Corporal Gregory spied you as he looked up from his vigil in the Stanbury Chapel and knew that you were special. We all did straightaway.”
“Special?” Her mind raced, recalling the soldier in his scarlet uniform apparently at prayer.
“Certainly special, my child, because you have the gift. The gift of communing with the dead.”
5
Hecate raced toward home that afternoon, pedalling even faster than was her habit, desperate to share her news with her father. The more she attempted to rehearse how she could start the conversation about having met and spoken with a ghost, the more she realized there was no sensible way to do it. But it mattered not. Her father, of all people, would listen, would take her seriously, would believe her. He was the one person with whom she could share her secret. As she began to climb the hill toward Hafod Road she leaned forward, shifting her weight to aid her pedalling feet. Even so, the bicycle wobbled as she steered around a pothole, and the movement caused her dress to flap against her leg. In an instant, her skirts had caught in the chain, bringing her to an abrupt halt. So sudden was the change in speed, and so deeply fixed to the chain was her dress that both she and the bicycle fell sideways into the mercifully empty road. Hecate cursed under her breath as her shoulder took the brunt of the fall and her elbow connected with the rough, unforgiving stone of the street. For a moment she lay there, held fast, unable to right herself.
“Oh for heavens’ sake!” she muttered, forcing herself upward even though it meant using her painful elbow to do so.
“Are you all right, miss?” A young man in a flat cap and brown tweed jacket stepped toward her.
“Yes, perfectly fine, thank you. Ouch!” She flinched as she tried to sit up further, her ankle catching on the pedal as she attempted to drag herself free of the bicycle.
“Let me help you,” he said, crouching down to examine the chain. “You came a right cropper, miss. Saw it as I came out my front door. Here, hold still. You’re caught good and proper.”
“If you could just remove my hem from that wretched chain…”
He worked the woolen fabric loose. “There, it’s out. Bit oily, I’m afraid. And torn, too.” He reached down and took her arm, helping her to her feet.
