Chapter 16: Ghosts and Magic

God made the illusion look real and the real an illusion. He concealed the sea and made the foam visible, the wind invisible, and the dust manifest. You see the dust whirling, but how can the dust rise by itself? You see the foam, but not the ocean. Invoke Him with deeds, not words, for deeds are real and will save you in the afterlife. - Rumi, "Mathnawi"

Zere’maya had been sleeping for a while when Karl returned to the inside of the vardo. The vardo was still moving; since they were not the lead wagon Karl had laid the reins over the back of the horses and they would follow, one behind another.

If disaster struck the puli dogs walking beside the vardo would restrain the horses long enough for someone to jump to the driver's seat.

He kissed her on the forehead, tenderly.

"So, you women have decided my fate, and that of the stars without me?" he asked, half joking, half serious.

Zere’maya considered, then nodded. "No. Not decided, but planned. Definitely we have planned.” Karl nodded.

"Nothing can be done about that, at least for now. What can be done?" asked Karl.

“Why did you dress like that, anyway, if you don't live with gypsies and don't normally count yourself as one?" asked Karl. Zere’maya smiled and curled her arms around her legs.

“You’ve asked me that question over and over again, you’re like the little children.” she commented.

“And every time I’ve asked it you’ve given me a different answer. I love your stories. You’re like Scheherazade.” crooned Karl.

“And you’re nothing like the sultan. I’m not here to save my life, just to pass the time with you. You need a handheld game in the worst way.” replied Zere’maya.

“No, I don’t. I’ve played with all of your games. None are as soft as you. None do the unexpected things you do. I’ve never met anyone like you, ever. I want to know everything you know.” said Karl.

“Now you’re sounding like Zassh.” said Zere’maya.

“I could do worse than learn to speak like Zassh.” said Karl

“You do know she’s in love with you.” said Zere’maya. Karl shook his head.

“I can’t believe that. You keep telling me this and it just won’t make sense. How in the world is Zassh’s behavior anything like a woman in love?”

“I’ll tell you a ghost story, then.” said Zere’maya. “The way I learned that I wasn’t going to be a white girl – or as close as I could come – and when I learned that uncle Balint was someone like me. I was six, or so, when I learned about love between men and women.”

An Adirondack Ghost Story

A long, long time ago – hundreds of years ago now – my father moved us into an old campsite in the Adirondack mountains. People had used the property as a resort for recovering from tuberculosis, and before that the property had been a stop on the Underground Railroad. One of the reasons we could buy the property cheap enough was that if you asked five different local people about the site, you’d get six different, horrible things that happened there – the property was considered tainted, and several times over. It looked fine, though – a little three-season camp in the woods.

I liked our trailer, though, and visited it regularly. We parked it back in the woods, kept it until someone else had a use for it, but that’s another story.

On my way to or from my ‘real house’ I met a beautiful young local girl. We always had a fun time playing together, she was waiting for her husband to take her to New York City and show her the world. She was from around here, had been working for a wealthy family when she and the young man fell in love.

He would be there any day now, and take her off to the city and from there to see the world. But truly, she confided to me, she didn’t mind the delay. She loved her home, and fishing, she had everything she had ever longed for right here – he could stay awhile, she was content with her life and her longing for him – hunger refines the taste, she said.

I told Uncle Balint about my beautiful play friend in the woods, the girl I privately thought well and again too young for marrying anyone, how we had gone fishing, and canoeing, and enjoying her last single days waiting for her love. Uncle Balint was a handsome man who liked to be thought well of by the ladies, so he asked to come meet her. I entertained him with tales of her dark hair, and her feisty manners, and her wood butchery – she was a fine builder and carver.

When I took him out to her clearing she wasn’t there. I invited him to come out with me to the river and ride in her kayak – I was certain she wouldn’t mind. But when we climbed to her canoe cave the boat was rotten to its nails – like it hadn’t been seen for many years. I looked at the river, icy cold and still with bits of snow floating in it and swore that I had been riding in it across the river and into the swamps just the day before.

Uncle Balint asked me gently about her name and her clothing – my friend turned up, he found, in turn of the century news clippings about a young woman who fell pregnant and was murdered in her sleep by her rich lover, though the gun was never found he lived his whole life under a cloud of culpability. This seemed to be impossible behavior from the man she had described, though the pregnancy part, I considered, was not impossible given her blushes. How a woman could be dead sixty years and also teaching me to whittle seemed quite the miracle. How a beautiful name like Shee’vohn could be spelled “Siobhan” made me wonder if my uncle knew how to read properly.

The next day I walked out to see my friend, and I asked her the questions Uncle Balint had asked me to ask her. Had there been other young men, I asked. There had been one who had been very upset that one of “our own” had been taken away to marry, and he had come to the woods and bothered her for a few days, but he had suddenly vanished, and then I had come. There had been no visits from him since I had come, and she was enjoying the peace and quiet. He had come to the forest to have her go away with him, but she was waiting for her beloved, and he was about to show up. She was carrying a burden for someone, and she admitted so – and that the woods and fresh air was fine for a young woman expecting her first baby, she had not told her husband to be, she was hoping that he would simply think her first born early – he was a brooder and would feel bad if he knew. That too could wait, just a few days.

I related this to Uncle Balint, and he showed me how to build a ghost trap – on the way to meeting her, this young man (now very old and very ill) would encounter me. He was curious to see if this ability was to all ghosts, or just the innocent dead – if a man who had blood on his hands would seem to be as real as lovely, raven-haired, laughing Shee’vahn. I drew several pictures of her, and my uncle’s eyes grew soft and wet, and he said it was his honor to guard such a fine young woman, dead though she must be, and more’s the pity. I remember my uncle moping about and acting very peculiar indeed. Shee’vahn thought it very sweet, and though I tried and tried they were never in the same place to meet each other, though my uncle wrote her letters --- letters that grew mushier and more sentimental as time played on.

Then, one morning as I was pinning up the laundry with Uncle Balint, a little old man came up to us. My uncle shivered, but he could not see him. The old man was sad, and bitter, and his face was full of pain.

“I wanted to have a black-haired little girl like you. You remind me of someone, I don’t remember whom.” He said in a cold, angry, mean voice. Most of all, he sounded tired, horribly tired.

“Uncle Balint – he’s here!” I said excitedly.

“I’m dead – he can’t see me, but I can see him. I’m angry with him, though I’m sure I never knew him. I had to give that all up, long ago.” I looked at Uncle Balint, and then at the old man.

“Balint’s in love with Shee’vohn, too, and he’s mad at you for killing her.”

“Everyone thought that all my life. Even my wife thought that. Eventually I got married, I had children, I couldn’t die, I had to live on. I tried to live right, I really tried. He’s”, he gestured at my uncle, “got magic, he could disperse me and end my pain. I’ve lived every day sorry I woke up, and now I have an eternity to be alone. Could he have mercy and end me, finally? “

I turned to Uncle Balint. “He wants you to destroy him. Can you do that? --- You’re so angry with him – would you do that?” At that time I’d seen pig butchering. I had no wish to see a ghost die.

“Why do you deserve mercy?” asked Uncle Balint. I shivered. It would seem that, whether or not he would, that my uncle could, or at least thought he could. I hoped he was bluffing, and at once knew he was not.

“I woke up splattered with her blood. He stole my gun from my night table, and she died in my arms. I knew she was not mine to take, but we loved each other so. I ran from the room, trying to find him, then, I jumped into the river, washing off her blood. I did not want her to be scandalized; I didn’t know she was carrying our child already. She never told me. I couldn’t save her from shame any more than I could protect her life. Every day of that life I’ve lived as the one who murdered her, and who dishonored her.”

“And the man who did kill her?” asked Uncle Balint.

“I never found out who. I can feel my gun calling to me, binding me here. I wish I could give him that gun, give him the shame.” said the old man.

“You say the gun is nearby?” asked Uncle Balint.

”It’s buried under the woodshed, wrapped in tarred fabric.” The old man pointed.
“I can do that for you, old man, if you are telling the truth.” said Uncle Balint after I related the tale.

Uncle Balint and I dug under the woodpile, and it was just as he said – a seven shooter air pistol all coppery bright, wrapped up in newspaper and tarred cloth.

Uncle Balint said some words in Romany and shook his head. “I can’t reach into Hell. She is not the only woman he killed. Others have found him and he has moved on.”

“Take it, I give it to you!” said the old man eagerly. “Just let it no longer be mine, I want no part of her dying!”

Uncle Balint nodded, and stuck the gun into his belt.

At that time Shee’vohn came into the front yard. “Orville, what are you doing way over here? Don’t you remember where we were to meet?” I looked to my friend, and then over to a tall, pink-cheeked boy, well too young for marrying, and watched the two ghosts embrace. I knew better to be going into her clearing for a while. For her “just a few days” had been more than sixty years, and a good deal of hunger could be refined from such a wait.

For all I know they are reuniting still, and if not, he has taken her off to see the world, keeping his promise. Whether or not they have a spirit baby to share their joy I cannot tell you.”

Zere’maya sighed and leaned back on Karl.

“That’s a beautiful ghost story. Do you always see ghosts?” asked Karl. Zere’maya shook her head.

“Only when they need my help. That old man had been lingering on the brink of death for a long time – not alive, not dead. A ghost trap can be enough to pull someone on the edge of dying all the way over. Siobhan was happy, waiting for her love. Uncle Borat thinks it’s likely that I drove away the man who killed her – an innocent child can show up a guilty spirit, I would be like a beacon to some other spirits looking for vengeance. We were two innocent young girls – we attracted each other.” said Zere’maya.

Karl laughed. “A young woman who gave herself to her husband to be and hid her pregnancy wouldn’t be an innocent gypsy woman. Her family honor would be stained.”

“That’s where different cultures come in. Among the local Indians a young woman has a great deal of power choosing and unchoosing her husband. To her background – Indian, French, and some Welsh in there – she was behaving honorably. She probably seduced him, and was protecting him from his culture’s rules by not telling him. He had a perfectly unhappy, proper marriage, but I went way out of my way to meet his grandkids – his children all made it well out of ‘proper life’ – at least one of them married and moved to the Adirondacks. I think that he would have been proud.” said Zere’maya.

“I feel sorry for his children – born outside of love and outside of his choice.” said Karl.

“I think he loved them as he could. And that’s what I mean. Uncle Balint moped around for weeks and never admitted that he could see her right before the end, but he drew pictures of girls who looked just like her. He wanted to protect her and live with her, to be the one who made her safe from danger. But he always drew her in gypsy clothes, just like the ones I wore when I came here, and shortly before he left our home, after helping my father settle in after mother had left us both, he gave me my first full costume. To me dressing this way meant being loved the way Uncle Balint loved Siobhan, the way Uncle Balint loved me, even the way young Orville loved Siobhan.

“Did Uncle Balint ever marry?” asked Karl.

“That’s a hard question to answer. I know he married for children and for honor. I don’t think he ever had a great love. I don’t think women like Siobhan are all that common. Not enough of them to go around.”

"So you are in the position I would be in if I went to Dragon court?" asked Karl. Zere’maya nodded. "Unless of course I can find some way to change your magic so you can become a dragon or human at will, as it would seem your kind should be able to do."

Karl rolled his eyes and made a gruff sound. An uncomfortable pause later, "So what is your best guess as to what happened when you arrived?"

"Whatever should not have happened -- has happened. I don't know what, exactly. I can guess that I was lying there for no more than four days, no less than the morning of the day you found me, based on the color my bruises were when I woke up -- black, fading to green and yellow you tell me. It's hard to be more precise since as badly hurt as I was that should have been enough, even with all my magic and technology.

My Rhee hasn't checked in which implies she's either dead or otherwise unable to come get me. Not that anyone likes to return from a mission in complete failure. Most people who come to Earth – my home world -- fail. Most prefer to die or leave Magic than return. I can be reasonably sure the man I replaced lived out his days -- or, more likely, hours -- in the disaster I was responsible for."

Zere’maya threw out her hands in a helpless gesture. "I am traveling further and further away from the site of whatever happened. I can only be thankful that no matter how I stack it you can't be the person I'm after, nor anyone in the caravan. Helping you just keeps me alive, makes me happy, and feels a little like the job I live to do. I was marked for death the night I overdid it magic-wise, and have simply missed my opportunities ever since. This is another difficult world, where we lose more demons than we bring back. Places like this they send the old ones. I knew the risks. I didn't want to fail, but there was no one even close to my abilities available to send. It was me -- or let magic die alone."

Karl rode along silently with her for a while. "What was your last day like me -- just alive -- like?"

"I've gone over it any number of times. I'm one of the few, I actually knew my would-be rescuer a little. I was in a restaurant reading Rules for Radicals when this fat little old man came up. He looked at my book and just about had a stroke, saying I shouldn't have it and asking me how many other people had it. I told him that it was everywhere, but only fat brained people actually read it. I told him about those books people admire but don't actually read and he looked calmer. I asked him to prove that he knew my book's rules and put it in back of me. If he convinced me, he could have my company for the rest of the day. I didn't have a lot of money," confessed Zere’maya, "and I wasn't offering sex, just the undivided attention of a pretty girl. I had nothing else to do until midnight, when I would fire off my spell.

“He stood there in the middle of the place and recited them from the heart. I was convinced. I would let him buy me things all day." said Zere’maya.

"And what are the demonic rules of conduct?" asked Karl, very interested. Zere’maya laughed. “All right.

“1. Power is what you have *and* what onlookers *and* your opposition thinks you have.”2. Never go outside of your experience. The result is confusion, doubt, and retreat.”3. Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the opposition. Here you want to cause confusion, doubt, and retreat.”4. Make the opposition live up to their own book of rules.”5. Humor is our most potent resource. It is almost impossible to counterattack someone's sense of mirth. Also it unsteadies the opposition who then react to your advantage.”6. A good tactic is one that you enjoy. If you are not having a ball doing it, there is something wrong with the tactic.”7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. People can sustain enthusiastic interest in any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment.”8. Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, keep on learning and reaching out and recruit everything that happens over to your side of the understanding.”9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”10. Keep the pressure on. Maintain a constant pressure on the opposition. Sometimes the most effective action is simply failing to leave. The USSR simply wasn't there one morning. Learn from this.”11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. Read ‘Copy This!’ for practical details.”12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You have to know what to say when your opponent asks you, "If you're so smart, what would you do?"”13. Pick your target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Don't attack an abstract such as a corporation. Identify a responsible individual and ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame." said Zere’maya, proudly. Karl looked disappointed.

"I thought it might have to do with when you were allowed to kill people or methods of magic or something like that."

"No. Magic is never the same twice. Even the same person visiting the same world can experience magic very differently. It belongs to a place, like light from a light source -- no two alike, and it evolves." said Zere’maya.

"I've worked worlds with no magic I could detect, except for the rogue. That's the nature of wild magic -- and it's very destructive." said Zere’maya.

"What would have happened if your people had decided not to intervene?" asked Karl.

"Mostly, the rogue magician dies. Depends on how many people they will take with them. Mostly, I'm here to prevent a spectacular and particularly disgusting variety of suicide, not that most of the magicians know that. They are mostly like me, then -- if it didn't work there wouldn't be any reason to continue living. It's cutting at the fabric holding all of us together, creating a burn hole where magic itself can unravel."

"So you can assume that the magician died this time?" asked Karl hopefully. Zere’maya shook her head.

"No, not with a skilled practitioner left for dead, an unfindable and probably dead Rhee, and no seeming change. That's what you don't want to find, a very, very bad sign. I've been to worlds to collect the remains of practitioners who died. It feels like springtime -- like something had opened up. Not continuing murk, storm clouds, overcast."

"What is that likely to mean?" asked Karl.

"There's a magic user loose on the planet -- we somehow took on her or his bad-magic recoil -- with a completely bad attitude ready to try something bigger. And if the magic user could hurt me, from what I understand the only species on the planet that tough -- is a dragon."

"Yup. That's really bad." said Karl.

"Would you have any idea who might be rogue magician among the dragons?" asked Zere’maya. Karl shook his head. "I haven't had any contact with the dragons since I got tossed off of the cliff. Every now and then I see one of the servants -- I looked human, they feel sorry for me. I was a sweet little kid for an unscaly untrainable monster." said Karl.

"Oh." replied Zere’maya. That explained why they seemed like they might be Karl's mother, and why they never looked the same way twice. Just checking up on him, maybe a mixture of sympathy and guilt.

"Could one of them have been waiting to meet you, and gone rogue?" asked Zere’maya.

"I really don't think so." said Karl. Zere’maya sighed.

"There's something I have to tell you." She explained about the seeming endless flow of magic, how it would seem it didn't originate in Karl -- just too much, and the mysterious emptying of the bottle implying that his anger and misery were going somewhere -- magic being like electricity, if it can go out, it also is coming in.

"So you are saying that something happened -- someone gave me magic while I was still inside the shell?" asked Karl. Zere’maya nodded.

"It's not much, but it’s the best I have to go on. I freely and willingly chose to serve here, this whole world is too new and too strange to me to not make the most of the rest of my life -- or the rest of my time here." Zere’maya smiled.

"I know you can't cut me, but I can cut you." smiled Karl.

"It would be very difficult, I'd heal quickly, and why would you do it?" asked Zere’maya, surprised.

"I have a very blunt knife, but good enough to cut that little rabbit-skin purse of yours, it's very good for cutting fur -- at least when with you, Zere’maya." said Karl. At the sounds of his words the vardo slowed and stopped. He kissed her gently, then got out of the vardo to tend to the horses and settle the camp down for the night.

Zere’maya smiled. The first time she had heard that joke was in ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’, from the innocent young wife reading to her future sister in-laws. "Some say, too, the custom of parting the bride's hair with the head of a spear was in token their marriages began at first by war and acts of hostility, of which I have spoken more fully in my book of Questions."

She had traveled worlds where marriage was conducted without thought to lovemaking, and it was up to her to imagine what the lives of those outside the Gypsy camp might be, here, where husbands might get their wives sisters, and at their marriages no brides were kissed.

Zere’maya smiled, and began to prepare for Karl's returning.