Page 38 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘Unexpected? You looked like I’d crawled out of the graveyard still in a shroud,’ Thaniel began, and then stopped, because Mori had fallen so still that he might have been turning to glass.

He understood what was happening in stages. The confusion cracked, the realisation oozed out, and then egg-yolked down his spine.

‘You mean you can remember me being dead, don’t you?’ He couldn’t believe he hadn’t understood before. ‘It’s a pretty heavy possibility at the moment, so … you’ve got it in mind that I’ll not be here soon – recently. Seeing me walking about is like seeing a ghost, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it’s not,’ Mori said, more like himself again. ‘I’m sorry. I’m full of fog, it’s the time difference.’

It wasn’t enough to smooth down the memory of the haunted look he’d had before.

‘You should go and talk to the others,’ Thaniel said. He’d said it smiling, but even as he did, it felt heavy. Though he’d had a fortnight to get used to the idea, it was the first time he’d had to be graceful about perhaps dying. He’d been determined that if the worst happened, he would be graceful and there wouldn’t be any hysterics or dramatic regrets aired endlessly to the profound boredom of everyone else. But he hadn’t realised that grace was not a thing you performed, but a weight you carried. ‘Anyone who’s going to live more than fifteen minutes and who won’t seem like the waking dead in the middle of the night.’

‘No. I was half asleep, I’m not—’

‘Shut up,’ Thaniel said. He was glad his voice was still coming out steady. ‘You’ve got a ghost following you about, don’t pretend you haven’t. I’ll try and find a cheerful hat or something; there’s no reason I can’t be a jaunty ghost.’ He hesitated. ‘Listen. Dr Haverly said I’d probably be all right here. Is that not true?’

‘You’re going to be fine. I promise. Like I say, I’m just a bit scattered.’

Thaniel tried to let it go, but then lost the battle. ‘Can you stop lying for a minute? I don’t speak samurai. I can’t tell if you’re hating every second of my being here because it’s driving you mad with horrible nightmares but you’re just being polite, or if you really don’t mind. Can you tell me straight? If you’d rather I go and stay at the legation, I’ll go. That’s fine. It’s a nice place.’

Mori looked up with shatter lines around his eyes. ‘Thaniel. I’m so at the mercy of this stupid thing my brain does. It’s a kind of sickness more than anything else. Now this minute, yes, you’re right, I can remember – I can remember your dying. It is odd to turn around and find you here after all, it is … like seeing a ghost.’

Thaniel had worked it out before like a crossword puzzle and it hadn’t sunk it truly, but hearing Mori confirm it aloud felt like some terrible unseen physician had closed a steel clamp around his lungs.

Mori must have seen his expression change, because he was shaking his head. ‘I’m only remembering the worst now because the things that will help you haven’t happened yet. But they will happen. I’ll be back to normal when they do.’

‘Right.’

Mori sighed. ‘I know it’s terrible to have to put up with that from me. If you can bear it, though, I’d rather you were here. I understand if you can’t. Not everyone wants to – to see himself reflected a ghost in someone else’s eyes.’ He looked away outside as he finished, as if he’d become suddenly aware that the daylight really was making good mirrors of his eyes.

Thaniel poured them both some more tea for something to do with his hands. He wanted urgently to lean across the table and take Mori’s. ‘I can cope. And you bloody knew I’d say that, so why all the palaver?’

‘Pride,’ Mori said ruefully. ‘I think there was a very small unlikely future where I pretended well enough for you not to notice.’

‘No there wasn’t. There might have been one where I pretended not to notice you pretending.’

Mori laughed. ‘Right. Yes.’

His eyes slipped over Thaniel’s shoulder then, and then lifted to the height of a standing person. It was so marked that Thaniel twisted round, expecting to see Suzuki lurking, but there was nobody. When he glanced back at Mori again, puzzled, Mori only shook his head and shrugged a fraction.

‘Anyway,’ said Thaniel, and cast around for a reason to get himself out of the house for a little while, and give Mori a break from his haunting, ‘I should send a wire to the legation. Let them know where to reach me.’ It was a lie. Vaulker didn’t care where he was. ‘Is there a post office?’

Mori closed both fists against his knees, but his collarbones dropped as he let some of the pretence go, relieved even in defeat. ‘Just down the road, opposite the man with the cat on the lead. I’ve got a parcel, if you’d post it?’

‘No trouble,’ Thaniel said, glad for a real reason to go. He set the teapot down again, carefully, because as though gravity had shrugged, the effort it took to lift was wrong. When he opened his hand, his fingers felt nerveless. He clenched it in his lap under the table, but it still shook. ‘Where’s it going?’

‘Aokigahara.’ Mori went to fetch it. It was marked ‘delicate’ in insistent letters. ‘They’re cocoons. Moths.’

‘Moths? The ones from the greenhouse?’ Thaniel asked.

‘You saw? There’s a ranger up there who collects them.’

‘Why is it you, providing moths?’

‘We’ve been breeding them here. They’re rare, they come out in February.’ He let his fingertips rest on the edge of the box even after he had let go. He closed up like a fan when he saw that Thaniel had noticed. After a long, strange pause with vaults that echoed with the things Mori wasn’t saying, he finally took a breath.

‘Don’t let anyone stop you sending that off. Kuroda’s men are a bit twitchy about his security.’

‘I won’t.’