The Apple-Tree Throne

by Premee Mohamed

no, you cannot dissimulate your circumstances, young man, I know your parents are gone, you’ve no brothers nor sisters, it’s not charity, you’ll be caretaking the place, keeping tramps and ruffians from defacing it or breaking in, and if you dare argue with me, I know where the saber hangs in the front hall.”

Laughter was better than bread, we used to say; it could be shared infinitely amongst the squad, and it did not have weevils in it.

Clark takes me to dinner at The Maharajah on Murkwell Street, and stabs me with his fork till I eventually eat.

I want to tell him there is no rhyme or reason for this pain, and yet it is always with me, sometimes asleep, sometimes awake, like a large dangerous animal I have been forced to host in my rooms.

“I hope you do not find my question too impertinent,” I begin slowly, “but it seems to me that there should be more ghosts about. But you are the only one I have ever seen.” I see many. “Oh.” Many, many. In some places the air is like pea-soup at night. They go back and forth along the secret ways, and there are very few amongst the living who can see them.

I can see the lights of the town, that peculiar glow from the electric streetlights. It is everywhere now, thanks to Lady Ridgewell’s aqua-plants, which in some way generate electricity from tides and little waterfalls the way the old mills used to do.

I let myself into the house, and remove my shoes, and limp upstairs, and glance timidly at the window, where Wickersley’s ghost fades with an expression quite inscrutable as the rising sun’s golden blades slice him to bits.

The ghost waits to be called into a room, but no one will call him, and he will wait forever.