Wryght
“I found this, under the bed,” says Isabel, concluding her retelling of the previous evening’s events to Brother Risoven. She hands him the lacquered bead before standing to gather the breakfast dishes.
Risoven holds up the bead and moves his lenses in and out from his face with the other hand. His owlish eyes squint and blink. Finally, he lowers both hands, turning the small object between his fingers.
“It’s a prayer bead,” he says, with equal measures of confidence and confusion.
Of course. A string of meditative beads isn’t among Isabel’s tools, but she should have recognized it, by sight if not by its smooth surface. It would have belonged to a priest—a servant of Alcos, by the rich red color.
The answer comes at the head of a wave of more questions. It isn’t impossible that a priest of Alcos would have paid a visit to the lighthouse, to pay a visit to a faithful keeper on a long, lonely watch, but where was the rest of the string? Had it broken? How long had this solitary bead been under the lighthouse keeper’s bed? She had thought it belonged to his attacker, but why would a murderer have this?
“Should I prepare a plot for our friend downstairs?” Risoven asks, interrupting Isabel’s thoughts.
She shakes her head, both in response and to bring herself back to the present moment. “Not yet. I haven’t found his family. They might have plans for him.”
Risoven finishes his tea and gets to his feet. “I’ll make sure he’s ready, then.”
The wind blows softly across the blue field as Isabel leaves the chapel. It’s not as early as she would have liked, but between summoning up the old lighthouse keeper, transporting the body, and fetching her horse from the Temple District, she hadn’t gotten in until well after midnight. It’s midmorning now, the sun warming her Sentinel’s blacks, and high banks of clouds drifting unhurried out toward the sea.
A hush has fallen over Mondirra. Even Isabel, usually unheeding of the moods of the living, can tell something is amiss as she makes her way back to the River District. Her route is marked by suspicious glances and hushed warnings, and a few frightened gazes follow her through the unusually quiet market. A Sentinel isn’t quite like the holy knights of old; Isabel’s presence is as frightening as it is reassuring. It’s never a good thing when one of her order is necessary.
She supposes that people have begun to draw the same conclusion she has: that the grisly scene in the Shell District and the display at the lighthouse are connected. A twinge of fear chills her, despite the warmth of the morning, at the thought that the wider public has learned of the disastrous summoning of Mikhail Ranseberg, and begun to fear for their own souls.
It’s been barely a day, she reminds herself. Even if Berend and the Shell District constable are prolific tellers of tales, the Church of the Seven would be busily reassuring the congregation that nothing had changed: every soul will still, eventually, find its way to Ondir in the end.
Mikhail will not, at least if things remain as they are. Isabel still doesn’t know about the lighthouse keeper.
She arrives at the River District’s naval office, a tall, narrow building rather like a city house, bedecked in wooden shingles and the Gallian coat of arms. Inside, a very young man in a very starched collar and a sharp officer’s coat sits behind a desk. On either side stands a stone-faced guard in a surcoat and a kettle helmet, carrying a spear.
The officer looks up from his paperwork with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, Sentinel? How can I help you?”
Isabel steps in the door and removes her hat, acknowledging the man’s rank with a slight bow. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the terrible business up at the lighthouse,” she begins.
“I have,” the officer interrupts. “I have my men patrolling the area, and I’ve been in contact with Inspector Brouder, as well. I assure you, I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Isabel bristles a bit at his tone. It suggests she isn’t necessary—understandable, as no one wants to need a Sentinel around, but she’s already involved. “Of course,” she says with flat politeness. “There’s some church business I need to finish—I’m looking for the name of the late keeper of the lighthouse, and his next of kin. Apparently he was new to the post and the constables didn’t know him.”
“The man’s name was Thurgood Wryght, and he does not have any family that I’m aware of,” the officer says. “I hired him myself. He was a solitary sort, but he did frequent some of the shops along the riverside. Perhaps someone there might know if there are any relatives in the city.”
“Thank you,” Isabel says. She intends to ask Mr. Wryght himself. If all goes well, there won’t be a need to stop at every place of business in the River District.
The officer gives a sharp nod. “Is there anything else you need?”
“I don’t believe so.” She bows again and removes herself from the office.
A handful of constables pace the path up to the lighthouse, and there are three men in the blue and white uniforms of the Gallian navy among them. They don’t acknowledge Isabel as she climbs up the hill, but they walk a little slower behind her and a little faster as they pass.
The door to the lighthouse is open. Two constables are inside the keeper’s apartment, one making notes in a small bound book while the other explains, with broad, sweeping gestures, a rather lurid possibility of the purpose of the bloodstained chair and its ends of frayed rope. He falls silent at the sight of Isabel, but he doesn’t question her, and he resumes his tale as she starts up the stairs and goes out of sight.
It’s dark in the light room. The aperture has been closed, and all the lights put out. There is a dark stain in the center of the floor, where the body had been lying, and the faintest smell of decay hangs in the air.
Isabel opens one window for enough light to prepare the ritual. She could have returned to the chapel—a spirit does not have a living being’s relationship with distance, unless it has fixed itself to a particular space—but this place offers her the darkness and quiet she needs, as well as isolation in case something goes wrong. She’s far enough from even the constables downstairs that they might not hear the horrible, distorted screams that Mikhail’s ghost had made.
She finishes her preparations and braces herself, gritting her teeth. Her hand tenses around the handle of the bell. The candle wavers despite the windows all being shut once more.
There’s no way around this. I have to know.
She calls the name of Thurgood Wryght, and rings the bell.
A cold wind sweeps upward from the floor, tearing through the room in a wide spiral. The flame gutters again, dimming to a tiny point before reasserting itself.
In the center of the chalk circle sits a man.
He is translucent, but his image is strong, limned in clear gray light. He is curled up in an apparition of the wooden chair from the apartment, arms over his face. Dark slashes across his bare flesh match some of the wounds on Wryght’s body.
He flickers once, and Isabel doesn’t dare breathe, but then he’s steady, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Soft, fearful weeping echoes from the corners of the room.
Wryght’s ghost is whole, but he is not well. Some spirits show wounds, but most are able to move about, and are not trapped in the circumstances of their deaths. The torture he had experienced might have been enough, but Isabel can’t rule out the possibility that magic had bound his spirit in this position in the same way the ropes had bound his body. The previous ghost had mentioned a flash of light.
Even if his appearance is magically stunted, Wryght has the potential to become a dangerous ghost, the kind that destroys its surroundings and reanimates the dead in its rage and grief. The room shakes and the floorboards creak, and another gust of wind troubles the candle flame.
“Mr. Wryght?” Isabel calls out in a soft voice. “He’s gone now. It’s over.”
Wryght’s arms come down from his face. “He’s gone,” he echoes. “Who are you?”
“Isabel Rainier. I’m a Sentinel.”
His chest rises and falls in shaky, panicked breaths. “What do you want with me? What do you want?” The floor trembles again.
Isabel holds out a hand to steady herself. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she says. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Wryght’s eyes widen in fear, shining pale and bright. He glances around the room.
“No!” he cries, and an icy blast of air blows through, rattling the shutters and peeling a layer of dust from the chalk circle.
The candle is made to burn through inclement weather, but it will go out if he persists, ending the ritual prematurely. “He’s gone,” Isabel says over the wailing wind, “but I need your help to find him. Can you help me, Thurgood?”
At last, Wryght heeds her, the wind subsides, and the room falls still. He hunches down, placing his feet on the floor, his hands over his face. “I thought he was a priest,” he says. “He said he would pray with me. It’s lonely out here—I invited him in.” A sob shakes his shoulders.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” says Isabel.
Wryght is weeping now, and his image wavers. “Birdie,” he sobs. “Oh, Birdie, I’m sorry.”
He’s unfocused; it’s no wonder, after what he’s been through. “Who is Birdie?” Isabel asks.
“Birdie,” Wryght says again. He looks up, as though he’s just remembered Isabel is there. “Birdie, the baker’s widow. She’s always so sweet to me. She gives me the ends of her shortbreads.”
If this is what’s important to him, if this is what keeps him present and talking, then Isabel is willing to hear it. “It sounds like she cared about you a lot.”
Wryght gives another sob. “I was going to ask her to marry me, but now…” he puts his hands back over his face. “It hurts.”
“Would you like me to bring her something from you? A message?”
“Yes.” He holds out his hands, and an image of the strongbox from his apartment materializes between them. “There’s a gift for her in here. Give it to Birdie.”
“I promise,” Isabel says.
The box disappears. He nods.
“When I talk to Birdie, she’s going to want to know that I’m doing everything I can for you,” Isabel tells him. “Do you remember the man who did this to you? Did you see his face?”
Wryght gets out of the chair, grimacing in pain as he pushes himself up. “He put out the light,” he says. “He didn’t say anything, he—” He reaches up, touching the back of his head.
“He hit you,” says Isabel.
Wryght stumbles forward, arms out against invisible furniture. He turns around mid-fall, reaching out with both hands and scratching wildly at the air. Distantly, Isabel hears the clatter of wooden beads falling to the floor.
She takes a step back. There’s no image of Wryght’s attacker, but she thinks Wryght may have hurt him—a scratch mark, perhaps. It might be something that could help her find him.
The apparition flickers, and Wryght is back in the chair, knees pulled up to his chest and arms over his head. “It’s so lonely in the lighthouse,” he sobs.
There isn’t much more she can ask him. Isabel is reluctant to keep him here, in any case, to relive his pain again. “I will do as you have asked, and take the gift to Birdie,” she says. “There’s no need for you to stay. Do you see the light I’ve placed for you? Do you feel Ondir’s call?”
Wryght raises his head. He looks, transfixed, into the flickering candle.
“There will be no more pain in the world beyond the gate,” Isabel continues. “There will be no more suffering. Do not be afraid.”
He reaches out to the light, unfolding his limbs, and fades into the darkness. Isabel is alone in the light room once more.
Thanks for reading! We’ll check in with Berend again next chapter and bring our protagonists together once more.
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