Ghost excerpt NOW WITH BGS

Late afternoon was a deep, delicious gold, with a scattering of Thumbhops chirping and squabbling in every tree. On every side of Kharas Morn, deep in the forest, the roar of the festival could be faintly heard… the buzzing pop music blared out of old speakers, the traditional hooting and clicking of the Priestess, two of her Order, and their acolytes, the bellowing of cart-beasts, and the popping of firecrackers lit by naughty children.

Deep within the forest was a very, very old idol. Most of its features had been smoothed away by wind and rain, except for four deep notches where eyes and nostrils had once been, and the light indentations where details had once been carved. The Priestess had not forgotten him; she had coated him in honey, given him a red paper hat, and laid a honey-drenched sugar-bun and a twist of jerky at his feet.

Suddenly, the dappled light within the forest moved. A tiny Kojra stepped out of the darkness, crouched beside the idol, and took the bun. It was the worst kind of stale – a bit gummy from the honey, and a bit soggy on the bottom, and hard in the middle. There was a colorful host of insects stuck all over it, kicking their legs.

The Kojra boy popped it into his mouth and chewed, grimacing.

He was more legs and arms than Kojra, thin and gangly all over but for his great golden eyes, which seemed too large for his head. His throat was mottled with pink, the mark of encroaching adolescence. His name was Risha, which meant Stick.

He swallowed and made another face, this one so strained it half-closed his eyes.

“Hurry, foreigner,” he said, picking up the jerky. “Father doesn’t want you to linger too long out of his sight.”

Another dark shape stepped out beside the boy, this one cloaked and hooded with a worn, stained crutch under his arm. After a short pause, he picked up the idol’s red paper hat and put it on his head.

“Everyone will know you don’t belong. You look like an idiot,” said Risha in the Deep Forest dialect.

“Isn’t that what Festival is all about?” the man said. He had a funny accent and a feminine voice. With a hitch in his gait, he hobbled toward Kharas Morn.

“Legs,” said the boy, puffing up his throat.

The lame man hesitated, but did not turn his head.

“I hope they catch you and throw you in a pit of Gajja-cats,” said the boy, gnawing on the jerky.

“Thank you for your vote of confidence,” said Legs, tipping his new Festival hat without looking back. He disappeared into the foliage.

Risha concentrated on the jerky, which was proving remarkably difficult to tear. “Gods must have teeth of stone,” he said in a muffled voice.

Beside him, the idol did not opt to disagree.

*******

Risha watched them from the alley, beneath a fern that had sprouted up in a heap of earth. He was barred with golden light and speckled with dark shadow. If anyone had looked into the alley, they would have seen nothing. He was frond and shadow and garbage with unblinking golden eyes. He studied the two with a hunter’s eye.

The blue-feathered girl was hawk-eyed with a curled lip. Behind her doddered the blind boy, his eyes cracked open and his fingers curled in hers. He was wearing a toy sword on his hip. They stopped at one of the hovels, two of its windows boarded up. The girl stuck a key in the door and jiggled it.

“So you’re saying all our problems are over because of that?” Risha asked. “The girl?”

Beside him, the cloaked man leaned on his crutch, panting softly. He nodded.  “An understandable mistake. See the blind boy?”

Risha blinked and took a second look, this one longer. His black tongue flicked out and fluttered in the breeze.

“Yes,” said the cloaked man. “Not much longer. Then he’ll be ready to join us.”

The lock finally gave and the girl laughed. “At last!” They disappeared inside; the door clicked behind them.

The Kojra boy sucked his tongue back into his mouth, curled his tongue inside his cheek, and stared with flat eyes up at the cloaked man. “But he’s blind,” he said. “He can’t even run. What use is a Ghost who can’t see or run?”

“You’ll see, trust me,” said the cloaked man. “Trust me and we’ll all be rolling in gold.”

“Father won’t like it,” said the boy.

“He’ll like it after a month or two.”

“A month? He won’t give him five minutes,” said the boy. “You really are crazy.”

“And when have my schemes not worked?” the cloaked man asked.

The boy stuck his tongue out as though tasting the air, and in a flicking motion curled its forked ends until they went in his nostrils.

“Don’t give me that,” said the cloaked man. “Bad manners.”

The boy grinned – a row of sharp yellow teeth, and two little gaps where his long nasty fangs could snap out at a second’s notice. “You keep watching if you want,” he said, rising to his feet and turning to the forest. “I got work to do. And afterward, when I tell father, you’ll see who he believes.”

The cloaked man leaned down until the stained handkerchief over his face was inches from the boy’s. “When I’m proved right,” he said, “you won’t touch a penny of what I earn on that kid.”

“When I’m proved right,” the boy said, turning just enough so that one could see the golden arc of his eye, “I’ll have father throw you and all the other hairy foreigners in a fiery pit.”

The cloaked man raised himself with soft, pained gasps until the crutch bore all his weight, and watched the boy slip silently into the shadows between the trees. He said nothing, but the rumbling of his satisfied purr made all the leaves brushing against him tremble.