“They needed a champion,” Ghost agreed. “But I needed…” His voice fell off as he shook his head. “I don’t know. I knew I needed something, but I had no idea who I was or what I was meant to do back then. Helping them made me feel like I had a purpose, though. Even when I was killing that poor, sick old woman, I remember feeling righteous. She was the one who’d brought them all here and forgotten them, who’d left them to die buried under garbage without even a name. I thought killing her would make it right, but…”
“But it didn’t,” Marci said, squatting down beside him. “The old lady’s long gone, but this place is even worse off without her. Algonquin’s DFZ has no animal control, no shelters other than what volunteers provide from the kindness of their hearts. Once their owner was gone, no one even knew the cats were here except for you.” She smiled. “You remembered them.”
“I always remember,” the Empty Wind said, his eyes flashing blue as he rose to his feet. The wind rose with him, blowing away the pile of old advertisements and paper cups in front of them to reveal the corpse of a dead cat. From the look of it, the poor thing had been dead for at least a few days, but Ghost reached down to pet its rotting fur as if it were still alive and warm.
“I was made to remember,” he said, running his frozen fingers along the small body. “Every person, every creature, every soul who dies with no one left to mourn them, I am there. No one is ever truly forgotten so long as I exist. That is my purpose. That is why they call to me.”
“So answer them,” Marci said, nodding at the piles of trash. “I can tell from the smell that there are dozens more dead cats in here. They’re calling to you, right?”
“The dead always call,” he said as his hands began to shake. “So many voices. They need so much.”
“Then give it.”
His head whipped toward her. “Now?”
Marci shrugged. “If not now, when? The world could end in half an hour. I promised when I gave you your name that I would help you, and that’s what I’m doing.” She smiled. “Do what you were made to do, Empty Wind. Help the forgotten. Remember the dead. Give them peace. Make this place your domain, somewhere the dead don’t have to be alone, and maybe we’ll both find what we’re looking for.”
The spirit’s glowing eyes widened as he finally realized what she was trying to do. “Very clever,” he rumbled. “But do you really believe this will work?”
“If not this, then nothing,” Marci said. “But I think it will. Every time I’ve helped you help the dead, we’ve gotten closer, become a better team. I don’t think that’s coincidence. The whole idea of a Merlin is someone who helps a Mortal Spirit be their best self. I didn’t technically become one until I passed through the Merlin Gate, but it was only through your steadfast friendship that I was able to reach the gate at all. We’re clearly meant to be a pair on all levels, so it only makes sense that the way back to my job in the Merlin realm would be through helping you do yours. If nothing else, we’ll do some good before the end, and that’s never a waste.”
“Helping the dead is never wasted,” Ghost agreed as the wind picked up. “Their gratitude is forever, the only warmth I feel.” The wind grew stronger as he spoke, whistling past the broken windows. This time, though, the gale did not disturb the trash. It blew through the piles, passing through the torn papers and broken bottles and piles of rotting clothes like water through soil, and everywhere it touched, the cats appeared.
They came in droves, packing the room just as they had when Ghost had been one of them. As Marci watched, he became one of them again, transforming into a giant white cat while his ghostly voice echoed through the howling magic.
Come with me.
All through the dark basement, lights appeared. They glittered like mist, coming together to form faint outlines of cats of all ages and sizes walking out of the trash toward Ghost. They dissolved again when they reached him, their ghostly shapes blown away by his wind, but they were not lost. They were still there, their faint magic becoming part of the vortex that swirled around the Empty Wind.
Marci couldn’t begin to count how many dead cats her spirit raised. The basement was full of them, and still they kept coming, filtering through the brick walls from the garden and down through the ceiling from the floors above. With each one that joined the Empty Wind, the grim aura that had hung over the house since she’d first come here lessened. It was still freezing, and the basement certainly didn’t smell any better, but a weight had most definitely been lifted. Even the living cats noticed it, their eyes growing less wary and fearful as the dead released their grip. Then, when the flow of ghostly shapes from the mountains of trash had slowed to a trickle, the Spirit of the Forgotten Dead turned to Marci.
He was hard to see through the hurricane of magic that was blowing around him, but Marci didn’t need her eyes to know that Ghost was smiling. She could feel his happiness in her bones. The tide of joy flowing down their connection now was even stronger than the happiness she’d felt when he was playing in the magic. That had been mere giddiness. This was the absolute satisfaction of finally doing what he’d always been meant to do.
Because of you.
The voice in her head was a multitude. A haunting gale of sounds, most of them not human, threaded together into joyful words. Thank you, Merlin.
“It was my pleasure,” Marci replied with a sincere smile, squinting at the outline of her giant white cat of a spirit through the whirling magic. “So what now?”
She felt Ghost’s invisible smile widen.
Jump.
Marci didn’t hesitate. The moment the word formed in her head, she jumped, leaving her body behind her as her soul leaped into the gale of spirits to blow with them back to the realm of the Forgotten Dead, and the Sea of Magic that howled above it.
***
Marci’s first impression when she entered the Sea of Magic as a living soul was panic. The magic here had always been chaotic, but what she’d seen before was nothing compared to this. Even safe inside Ghost’s protection, the currents were strong enough to knock her around like a bug in a jar. She wasn’t even sure which part of her body was her head and which were her feet anymore when a door suddenly appeared in front of her, the only fixed point in the moving, swirling, boiling madness.
She dove for it instinctively, nearly burning off her hand in her rush to get to the blessedly stable, normal-looking wood. The moment her fingers touched its surface, the Merlin Gate opened for her, and Marci tumbled inside, landing in a heap on the stone. She was still trying to stop the spinning in her head when a hand appeared under her nose.
“Bumpy entrance, huh?”
Marci looked up with a start to see Amelia standing over her, her face grim. “What are you doing here?” she asked, grabbing the dragon’s hand. “You’re supposed to be with Julius.”