Ghost Messages Part 1

Ghost messages.

Jacqueline Guest.

For Gordon with love.

and to the real Eilish, a wild Irish la.s.s with true fire and a wicked sense of humour.

1.

Mystery Man.

"Magic awaits here!" cried the skeletal man as he held up a bony hand. "Fortunes told by a thirteen-year-old girl born with the second sight a" the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter! One touch and Madame Ailish will lift the veil to give you a glimpse of the unknown!" He waved his s.h.i.+llelagh at an ancient wooden caravan. "Step right up!"

Inside the wagon, Ailish O'Connor straightened the colourful gypsy scarf tied around her long auburn hair and swiped at a crumb of cheese that had fallen onto the crystal ball from her hastily eaten supper.

"Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, my f.a.n.n.y," she grumbled. "If only. At least then I'd have some help around here."

It was getting on to evening and more light would be needed for the next tarot card reading. She lit the coal-oil lantern, the wick flaring to brilliant life; then turned it down to make the atmosphere more mysterious for her next client. They seemed to expect it, though Ailish could have helped them just as much in an open field at noonday.

Ailish and her father were here in Valentia on Foilhummerum Bay to join in the festivities celebrating the voyage of the Great Eastern, the mighty s.h.i.+p that had the daunting task of laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable. Her da's pa.s.sion was s.h.i.+ps and this one was like no other in the entire world.

The undersea cable would join Europe and North America with almost instantaneous communication. Ailish imagined sending a message from here on the west coast of Ireland and having it received all the way across the ocean, in Newfoundland off the east coast of Canada, all in the wink of an eye. Now that was magic!

And Ireland could use something wonderful. Times were still hard, even years after the Great Potato Famine that had starved a million people. Her father, who could always see the bright side of things, when Ailish doubted such a side existed, struggled ceaselessly to make ends meet. She saw how the constant battle wore him down and because she loved him so much, she tried to ignore the irritating things he did a" like going to the local tavern and leaving her to deal with the customers alone, as he had done earlier today.

As Ailish waited, she watched an industrious brown spider spin its web in an arching corner of the caravan's ceiling, but no one seeking answers appeared at the door. Standing, she stretched the kinks out of her back and addressed the busy bug. "If my customers only knew that I truly can see mysterious things, they'd appreciate my advice more. Maybe then I could raise my fee and we wouldn't have to worry on how to pay for our next meal."

Only one living person took Ailish seriously, and that was Uncle Peter. He was not really her uncle, simply a family friend, and, if you wanted to get fancy about it, his proper t.i.tle was Sir Peter Fitzgerald, the Knight of Kerry. As the ruling authority in this part of Ireland, he was an important man to be sure, but Uncle Peter did take her uncanny talent seriously and always listened intently to whatever she revealed. He was her favourite customer and paid handsomely for her readings.

Clambering onto a wobbly twig chair, she pushed open the small window set high in the curved wooden wall and peered out.

It was late but there were still people about. Not long ago, the scene would have warmed her soul a" the turf fires smouldering, their peaty scent earthy and comforting, as the music of the fiddlers washed over her like a bright and bubbly tide. But now, it was different. Now she had no mother to share the pleasant evening with.

Early stars poked holes in the indigo canopy overhead and let dazzling pinpoints of light peep through. With a familiar pang, Ailish wondered if her ma was looking down through those tiny portals from heaven and missing them like Ailish missed her. It had been two long years since the fever took her and Ailish still ached. Tomorrow was July 23, 1865 a" it would have been her mother's thirty-fifth birthday.

She saw her da and a burly stranger walking toward the wagon. He was probably some ne'er-do-well her father had met in the pub today. Lately, her da had taken to visiting more of the drinking establishments than usual. Every town they'd pa.s.sed through, he'd find some excuse to leave her and then return hours later with never a word. This was no doubt the reason why their meagre store of hard-earned coins was now gone.

As she watched them approach, the tall man looked her way, and for an instant their eyes locked. Ailish took an involuntary step backward, slipping from her precarious perch and b.u.mping the table with her crystal ball, nearly knocking it to the floor. She felt unexpectedly fl.u.s.tered and fumbled with nervous fingers as she pulled off her scarf, then gathered her fortune-telling paraphernalia and tucked it into the small storage trunk.

Her father bustled into their cramped quarters, with the hulking newcomer filling the doorway behind him.

"Ailish, me darlin'," he began, making a grand gesture with his arm, "Meet Rufus Dalton, a gent and a scholar. He's from the mighty Great Eastern and is here for a wee drink and a chin wag."

He flashed her one of his devilish smiles and Ailish knew this would be a late night.

"Failte, welcome, Mr. Dalton." Ailish reached out to shake hands.

The second their fingers touched an icy black serpent slithered down her spine. She recoiled. This man carried a terrible darkness with him!

Ailish s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand from Dalton's grasp, hiding it behind her back. She turned to her father to see if he'd caught her reaction, but he still had that silly smile tattooed to his face. She wiggled her brows and slid her eyes toward the stranger, but her father was oblivious. What good did it do to have a daughter with the second sight, if you were so daft that you ignored the warning signs she sent? They could be in mortal danger.

"Something wrong?" the big man growled, his words thick with a coa.r.s.e English accent.

Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she was simply tired. She sighed as an overpowering weariness wrapped her in its worn cloak. Perhaps this stranger was merely one more crooked sailor, a brigand a" ports were full of them.

"Ach, no sir, just a night chill. I'll fling a chunk of turf on the fire." She went to the creel and busied herself stoking the potbellied stove with the peat they used to ward off the damp.

"Fetch the whiskey, Ails, me girl, and a couple of gla.s.ses." Her da took off his coat and tossed it onto the chest of drawers they shared before lowering himself into the rickety chair she'd nearly fallen from moments before.

Ailish noted he used her nickname, knowing this was his way of trying to get on her good side when it came to his drink, which she regarded as a weakness. She avoided eye contact with the stranger and did as she was told.

Retrieving her favourite book, the one about a monster brought to life by a mad doctor, Ailish settled back against the thin wooden part.i.tion that separated the common room from her sleeping area. Peeking over the book, she saw her father pour generous dollops of the fiery amber liquid into the cracked gla.s.ses, then give one to Dalton.

"Slainte! Good health!" Her da took a long gulp of his drink before going on enthusiastically. "This transatlantic cable is a grand adventure, to be sure, and I've heard miraculous things about the s.h.i.+p."

"Aye, that be right," Dalton agreed, taking a small sip. "The world is filled with many seafaring marvels, but the Great Eastern remains the most fantastic of all. Why, she's five times bigger than any s.h.i.+p afloat!"

"*The Wonder of the Seas,' they call her." Ailish's father took another deep draught of his drink.

Dalton nodded. "And she carries fifteen thousand tons of coal, enough to sail near round the world without refueling. The Great Eastern is the exact right vessel for laying this cable."

Listening to this, Ailish rolled her eyes. You'd think the two of them had single-handedly built the blasted boat, they sounded so full of themselves.

Although the visitor's gla.s.s was still half full, her father refilled it and his own, spilling a little onto the faded tablecloth in his haste. "Coal, you say, but I heard she was a sailing s.h.i.+p?"

Dalton nodded, swirling the whiskey in the gla.s.s. "She has six masts and enough canvas to cover a small village, but she also has a screw propeller and giant paddlewheels on either side which is why nothing stops her."

Ailish went back to her book while the two men continued talking and drinking. The heat from the stove made her drowsy, and she'd almost dozed off when the sound of her name roused her.

"Ach, Ails, you've got this place as hot as Hades." Her father wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, then removed his colourful orange striped vest, the one her ma had sewn for his birthday, and carefully draped it over the back of his chair. "Ailish is the apple of me eye, Rufus. She has the second sight, you know. Famous, she is."

He beamed with pride, but Ailish was tired and thoughts of her ungrateful customers leapt to her lips. "For all the good it's done us. We're poor as church mice."

"Now, now my girl, you've helped many souls and that's no lie." Her father chided gently, his speech slightly slurred.

Ailish's temper flared with the peat. "I work hard to help these folks but to them it's all sham, a penny's entertainment, and we end up spending our lives drudging around in this infernal caravan and eating champ!" The thought of another meal of boiled potatoes made her stomach gurgle unpleasantly.

"I know it's been hard since your ma died, Ails." When he mentioned her mother, her da found something interesting to look at in the bottom of his gla.s.s, avoiding Ailish's gaze, and she felt guilty. She knew how much her mother's death had pained him too. "But your ma would be proud if she knew you were keeping up the family tradition with your fey gift. Besides, me darlin', we won't be doin' this for long. I'm that close to makin' our dream come true." He winked at her before turning to their visitor.

"We'll be living with my brother Seamus in Heart's Content, Newfoundland once this cable's laid. He's what you call a telegrapher, and a fine one if his letters are to be believed."

Ailish cleared her throat loudly, interrupting her da before he divulged any more private details to this stranger. "I'm sure Mr. Dalton doesn't need to hear our family plans."

But he charged on, oblivious to her hint. "Yes, sir, sixteen hundred miles across the Atlantic, that's where the Canadian end of this miraculous cable will surface, and that's where we'll be if everything works out the way I've planned. We'll be buying a fine fis.h.i.+ng boat and a grand house to live in. Ah, 'twill be amazing, it will."

Her patience at an end and exhausted from her long day, Ailish couldn't listen to that old story once more or she'd scream. "Da, I'm too tired for any of your fairy tales and we shouldn't be discussing this in public." She threw a silencing glare at her bleary-eyed father, but he resolutely shook his head.

"It's not blarney, Ails. It will happen. Why do you think I've been scouring the taverns from here to Belfast? Not for the drink, to be sure. I've not a s.h.i.+lling for that. I've been looking for a buyer for a very special trinket. Soon, we'll be having it all, la.s.s, and I'll prove it to you."

The news her father hadn't been squandering their money on whiskey came as a surprise and a relief to Ailish. But where, then, had their savings gone?

Tilting slightly, her da stood, then lurched to the potato basket and rummaged in it. She wondered what he was up to as he straightened unsteadily and held out a small bundle of dusty sackcloth. "This is going to make our dream come true."

Carefully, he unwrapped the mystery parcel and Ailish gasped as the soft lantern light glinted off a tiny statue of a golden horse. Diamond eyes dazzled and the intricately braided silver bridle was anch.o.r.ed with small fiery rubies. She gazed at the figurine.

"Is it real?" she breathed, spellbound.

"Right out of the palace at St. Petersburg. I bought this off of a Russian soldier boy who was fleeing the czar and needed money, any money. It cost me more than I wanted to part with a" two pounds, which was all our hard earned savings a" but I've been around a wee while and could see the value in this golden filly." He chuckled. "Your Uncle Peter laughed when I showed him the bill of sale. He said it was worth a small fortune and would replace our savings a hundred times over. We'd be set for life. And he told me we'd have no trouble selling it, the thing's that fine. Once we're done here, we're going to Dublin. Rufus says he'll introduce me to a merchant who'll buy this, and then it's off to Newfoundland for us."

Boots sc.r.a.ped on the rough wooden floor and both Ailish and her father turned to the brooding stranger who listened so quietly.

She swallowed. There was something about this man that made her afraid and she knew her da should never even have told him about this treasure, much less brought it out in front of him.

Dalton's eyes narrowed into slits that reminded Ailish of a lizard. She shuddered, feeling as if someone was shovelling dirt onto her grave. The look on her father's face told Ailish he, too, was having second thoughts about the man he'd chosen to help him sell his fabulous statue. Fl.u.s.tered, he hastily re-wrapped the tiny gilt horse in the sacking and stuffed it back into the basket.

"Ach, but that's business that can wait for tomorrow." He tossed the words off lightly, as though what he'd shown her was nothing at all. "Now, off to bed with ye and no more foolish talk."

Ailish nodded mutely and retreated to her cramped sleeping area, closing the door. Her head was filled with questions. Why hadn't her da told her about this sooner? She wouldn't have nagged him so much about his frequent trips to every village watering hole if she'd known the why of it.

As she lay listening to the murmur of voices, she couldn't stop wondering if the statue had been genuine. Or was it just sparkle and s.h.i.+ne, with no substance? It seemed too amazing to be true, but if it was reala Oh, if it was real, then this would indeed be the end of the leprechaun's rainbow for them, and just a short hop to Newfoundland!

a" a a" a a"2 S Gla.s.s shards rained from the sky and struck the roof of the caravan in a crystal storm. Other sounds drifted into Ailish's dream a" scuffling, b.u.mping and thumping. Groggily, she dragged herself out of a leaden sleep.

The noises continued, but more loudly now and she could hear cursing. Ailish was fully awake in an instant. Throwing back the covers, she leapt out of her warm bed and yanked open the sleeping room door.

The sight that met her eyes made her breath come in small, feathery gasps. Her father lay on the floor, a halo of crimson blood around his head. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the sticky red stain as it soaked into the worn wooden planks.

The potato basket lay tipped on its side, the contents scattered. Rufus Dalton was nowhere to be seen.

"Da!" Ailish cried. She rushed to her father's side, terrified of what she would find.

His skin was ghostly white as blood continued to seep from the jagged gash on his head. Tears pooled in Ailish's eyes and her mother's dead face swam in those tears a" the same still, pale look that her father had now.

"You can't die, da. You can't!" She had to do something, but what? Then she remembered Mrs. Murphy in the wagon next to theirs. The widow woman was a midwife and knew some doctoring.

Her father groaned as his eyes fluttered, then opened. Weakly, he held up the sc.r.a.p of sackcloth. "The blagger took the golden horsea" he rasped. "Ails, he took our future."

Rage boiled up like liquid fire; then a wave of guilt hit Ailish, extinguis.h.i.+ng the flames. She'd known Rufus Dalton was evil. She should have done something more, made her father listen. She, of all people, should have heeded her feelings, but no, she'd ignored the warning and now her dear, sweet father had paid the price.

She heard the pain in his voice and wondered if it was because of the blow on his head or the loss of the wonderful statue. Either way, it was up to her to fix the problem. She owed him that.

"Don't you worry about your treasure, Da. I'll get it back."

And as Ailish ran for help, she vowed she would.

2.

Secret Message.

Ailish wasn't sure she was doing the right thing leaving her injured father with Mrs. Murphy, but if she were going to find Dalton, she had to act fast. Pulling her paisley shawl over her head to ward off the chill, she ran through the pre-dawn darkness to the dock. She had to stop the low dog before he made it back to his s.h.i.+p.

Rounding a tall stack of crates, she saw an early morning dockworker busily writing on a piece of paper. "Excuse me, sir," she asked, her breathing laboured from her run. "Have ye seen a bloke called Rufus Dalton? My da sent me to give him a message."

"You're too late, miss." He nodded in the direction of the harbour.

Ailish looked to the sea and there, silhouetted by the thin strip of pink dawn light, a small s.h.i.+p steamed out of the bay. She knew it would be the ferry to the huge cable-laying s.h.i.+p, docked far out in the bay because of its size.

"Oh no, no, no!" she wailed, watching as her quarry slipped like quicksilver from her grasp. "He can't get away this easily!"

Concern at her plea was plain on the sailor's face as he tried to rea.s.sure her. "Come now, don't fret, la.s.s. I work on the Great Eastern and will be taking these last crates out to her before we sail. Tell me your message and I'll give it to Dalton when I see him." His rich Irish brogue was warm and friendly.

Ailish shook her head dejectedly. "Don't trouble yourself, sir. You were right, it's too late." She turned and slowly walked away.

She'd failed. It was her fault her father had been hurt and now she had to tell him she'd let their hope for the future sail away.

Climbing atop one of the wooden crates, Ailish sat and tried to think of what to do next. She had to get that statue back, but how? As she wiggled trying to get more comfortable, the rough wood snagged her pantalets tearing a small hole in the undergarment. She pulled her dress further down to hide the tiny embarra.s.sment and as she did so, the lid wobbled. The crate must not be nailed shut.

Jumping off, she pushed on the heavy cover and managed to move it enough to look inside. The crate held bits and bobs of machinery, but there was enough room for a thin girl to hide within. She smiled as a crazy idea flashed into her mind.

She'd follow Dalton to the s.h.i.+p; then while they were unloading the cargo, she'd find the statue, steal it back, and return to sh.o.r.e with the ferry before anyone was the wiser.

Checking to make sure the dockworker was busy, Ailish clambered into the large box, sliding the lid back into place behind her. A crack in her wooden canopy let a tiny sliver of early morning light into the crowded compartment and the smell of the fresh salt air had a tang to it. If this crate was going to the Great Eastern, then so was she.

Yawning, she settled in to wait.

Ailish awoke with a start. Rubbing her eyes, she uncurled and tried to stretch her cramped muscles.

The air smelled differently now. She caught a whiff of oil and the bite of metal. She must already be aboard the s.h.i.+p, which meant it was time to find Rufus Dalton and the treasure. Struggling to her knees, Ailish reached over her head and pushed on the lid.