Chapter 6 - The Brahms Receive Unexpected (Ghostly) Visitors

Johann told the ghost, “I am a wizard.” “A wizard!” said Mr. Shelley, pleased. “You’ll be able to explain, then, why we were able to walk out of our mausoleum and stroll across the graveyard.”

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Recap: In the previous chapter, we witnessed something odd taking place in the old St. Claire’s graveyard. It appears that the spirits of those long departed have been stirred from their eternal rest. Rather than feeling joy at this predicament, most of them are upset and confused.

Among those confused are the late Mr. and Mrs. Orville Shelley. After a rude awakening inside of their mausoleum, the couple decide to take action. Mr. Shelley was once an investor; even in death, he does not like to sit on his hands.

He and his wife, Marilyn, set off to visit the gravedigger’s house. Can the house’s residents—Bamoy and his family—provide answers for Mr. and Mrs. Shelley? Or will the wizard be baffled as they are?

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Though people in town regarded him as powerful, Bamoy the wizard had never felt so defeated.

He paged through the grimoire, but could not find an adequate spell to protect his house from the Elf in his back-yard. He could not find a spell, because the grimoire wouldn’t reveal anything. As he stared at the pages, enchanted letters swam before his eyes, keeping secrets from him. None of the incantations he mumbled swayed the book’s resolve.

Swallowing a knot in his throat, Johann was forced to accept the truth. His skill was limited to brewing potions and casting light spells; the magnitude of his situation warranted magic far greater than his capacity.

He now had an adversary living outside of his house. To make matters worse, it was an Elf, presumably one in possession of its own abilities. The spells Johann needed in order to face an Elf would have been recorded in the ancient grimoire by a past relation. However, the book shunned him.

The worst part of it was that the book shunned him with reason. It would reveal nothing to him, because it was not his.

It rightfully belonged to his half-sister, Astrid. A book with its own intelligence, it was to be inherited by the eldest child of their magical family. His mother’s eldest child was Astrid. The book would have revealed its secrets to her, and she would have taken possession of it after their mother’s death, writing her name on the first page where he had dared to write his.

Johann, as a foolish youth, had stolen it before fleeing home. He’d done so, thinking he would one day be powerful enough to coax it to serve him. Now he knew that the ancient magic in the grimoire’s pages was unyielding.

If Astrid had not gloated so much about how she would inherit the book and not him, Johann might have left it alone. If his widowed mother hadn’t shown such a preference for Astrid, he might not have been driven to an act of revenge.

He would not now be hiding in a Scottish graveyard, ashamed of the theft he was certain his mother had disowned him for. It was why he’d never returned home to Germany, preferring to travel any place else. He’d lingered in almost every country for a season or two, seeking tutors to refine his magic, only stopping when he married Nina, because she’d wanted a house.

The useless grimoire sat on his dining room table, taunting him. Using his daughter’s earlier expression, Johann could not make heads or tails of its contents. He had not been angry with Margo for taking the book; what a hypocrite he would have been, when he had done the same thing!

In truth, what Johann did was far worse. Margo had taken the book so that she could learn from it. Johann had stolen it and vanished into the night, merely to enact payback.

Johann hadn’t told his children about the theft. He’d spoken of it to Nina in parts. She didn’t know that the book would not serve him; she knew only that it should have gone to somebody else. Nina did not scold him, though she on occasion reminded him that a book with a mind of its own would find its way home.

Over fifteen years had passed since then, and the grimoire continued in his possession, though it might as well have been a pile of scrap paper for all of the good it was doing him.

Johann paged through the grimoire, fingers trembling. A charm caused the words to writhe and squirm before him like fish in a pond. Beside it rested a glass of whisky, the effects of which only made his plight worse.

Nina had not reprimanded him for seeking a bit of refuge in the bottle this time. He’d only poured enough to stop his body from trembling. It had not worked; he continued to twitch with agitation as he begged the pages to offer him help.

Bamoy the Magician was no great man. In that moment, he was afraid.

He had dealt with many kinds of creatures in his career, but Fae were a different matter. When angered, they had the advantage of being able to disappear into their worlds, places so remote that even a wizard would think twice about attempting to follow.

It was for this reason that he searched in vain for a spell that would keep his home off-limits. A Fae would happily steal a human in form of revenge, and he could not stomach the thought of Marjorie or Adam or Nina being kidnapped. Those horrid creatures saw humans as nothing but playthings to be tortured.

Shutting his eyes, Johann chuckled without mirth, attempting to sing one of his German songs. His voice trembled; his lips could not seem to open wide enough for a melody to emerge.

Johann hadn’t felt this helpless since he was a boy, and he had taken great precautions to ensure he never would again! He had gone so far as to choose a house no one else would want, one whose very location was a repellent to curious wanderers. After all, most humans shared a natural fear of graveyards…

Johann heard soft footsteps. He looked up to find Nina approaching him. Her face had shown many emotions that day, from anger about his decision to educate Margo, to fear after the Fae attacked her. Now, there was only compassion.

She drew the chair across from his and sat, then took his hand in hers. Their eyes locked. For a precious moment, he felt that lightness that made a man young again.

“No one blames you,” she whispered, reaching up to touch his face, her fingers soft. “Nor is it Margo’s fault. We have never been an ordinary family, Johann.” 

He took her hand, pressing a soft kiss on her knuckles. They fell silent for several heartbeats, looking at one another the same way they’d done when they first met. Nina had been fascinated by his craft and magic; he had been fascinated by her beauty and curiosity. She had not been overwhelmed or frightened by the nature of what he studied, nor did she allow herself to be intimidated by his nomadic lifestyle.

“No,” said Johann at last. “We knew from the start that our family would never be ordinary, but it was not my plan to put my wife and children in danger.”

“You haven’t, though,” she replied. “We’ve been living peacefully since Marjorie’s birth; it is only now that something has gotten out of hand. It came from the outside, wearing a disguise that would have fooled the best of us. The town gossip didn’t help; they believed that it was a human child.”

“We cannot blame them for having been fooled,” Johann reasoned. “They do not know how to distinguish child from Fae at a distance. Those devils can be persuasive, if one is not on their guard.” He smiled without cheer, releasing her hand to brush a fleck of dust from the grimoire’s useless page. “When I was approached by Mrs. Goode about the matter, she was frantic. That poor boy, she kept saying. Bound to animal form by a monster who should not be in our vicinity!” He shook his head. “Those words were spoken in a moment of fear, but she forgot that I profess the same career as that so-called monster. It’s likely that I’ve learned the same spells; the difference is that I would never use my abilities to harm a child.”

Nina smiled. “Of course not, my dear. You have a golden heart; I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Magic does not always equal evil, but those who do not understand it could be inclined to think otherwise. I saw the way that you spoke to the thing in the basket. I saw how gentle you were, as if attempting to calm a child of your own. Do not hang your head! You were resolute in using your abilities to do good.”

If only you knew the whole of it, thought Johann—but he silenced his remorseful thoughts, allowing himself to take comfort in his wife’s praise, at least for the moment.

He remembered her horror at the thought of teaching Marjorie the ways of magic. Though he never wished to see displeasure on his wife’s face, he felt it was a matter they ought to address again.

“I’m sorry if my earlier choice put Margo in danger,” he said, with a sigh. “If I had known the nature of the thing we were trying to help, I’d have sent both of you upstairs. But she does need an opportunity to observe what I do in the greenhouse. If she was drawn to the grimoire, it means that she has power in her veins. If someone does not teach her to harness it, she’ll find herself getting into trouble.”

Nina bit her lip, turning away. She clasped her hands on the table and closed her eyes, exhaling as if in prayer.

“I know,” she whispered, “and we discussed this before we had children. There was always a chance that they would be born with abilities like yours, but part of me hoped that such a thing would not happen. When she was born and I first held her, she was so sweet and tiny.” Her eyes softened as she recalled that moment. “I did not picture her standing at a cauldron making strange concoctions. I pictured her playing in the yard, climbing trees, scraping her knee and—”

Johann interrupted with a smirk: “Margo has done all of those things, though. It’s always been a struggle to keep her in the house. I recall chasing her when she was a babe, for she enjoyed hiding behind gravestones, and she was so small that she could get into tight corners. The townsfolk raised their eyebrows at our choice of a home, but I’ll argue that it provided a fine playground.”

Nina chuckled at the mention of that cherished memory. Her eyes gleamed as she prepared to reply with one of her own, but in that instance the color drained from her face. She stared at a spot in the far corner of the kitchen, conversation forgotten.

Johann drew in a breath, sitting up. He should have known better than to think their whirlwind of a night was over.

Bracing himself, he turned. In the corner stood an elderly couple, hands clasped as if for reassurance. There was no way of explaining how they could have gotten into that nook, for there weren’t any windows through which they could have crept.

There was something odd about them; their colors were not vibrant enough for him to differentiate them from a dream or hallucination.

Neither of those things, he thought, standing and taking a step in their direction. They are ghosts.

The ghosts stared back. They appeared to be as unsettled by the situation as Johann and Nina. The woman’s eyes darted about the room, stopping on the table and on the shelves, the flowerpots adorning the corner and the basket in which the raccoon had been trapped. She took in the details with fascination and sadness. It was this sadness that convinced Johann the ghosts had not come with the intention of harming them.

It was the ghost-man who spoke first. He was dressed in an outdated but elegant suit, complete with a pocket-watch on a chain. His white hair had been combed back; his brown eyes were milky, perhaps a quality of being a ghost. On his finger gleamed a silver wedding band identical to the woman’s.

“Are you the gravedigger?” the ghost-man asked.

Johann noted that the ghost’s voice was steady and proud, hinting that he had given many speeches before his life ended.

“Who are you, sir?” he inquired, too befuddled to answer the man’s question.

“My name is Mr. Orville Shelley,” was the reply, “and this is my lady wife, Marilyn. I am an investor—or, I suppose I must correct myself: I was an investor, before my death.”

Johann recalled the townsfolk speaking of Mr. Orville Shelley, a highly respected figure who had done much in his time to help the growth of their community, when it was small enough to be considered a village. He’d funded the construction of many buildings. His house was the grandest in their neighborhood, with a balcony wrapping around its periphery. It was now occupied by a different family, having been sold by the grandchildren of Mr. Orville Shelley, for they had all relocated to Edinburgh.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” said Johann, deciding it was right to greet a man politely, regardless of whether he was alive or dead. “And your wife, as well. Though I am bemused about how you are standing in that corner. I don’t mean to be rude…”

Mr. Shelley inclined his head, clasping his hands with the confidence of a businessman.

“I forgive your confusion,” he said, “as we share it on our part. We’d hoped that whoever lived in this fine home might be able to provide answers about why we we’ve been stirred from our eternal slumber.”

Johann looked over his shoulder at Nina, who had gotten to her feet, equally confused. He’d always suspected that ghosts existed, but had never come into contact with one. Now, he was holding a polite conversation with two of them.

“I am not the gravedigger,” Johann explained, when Mr. Shelley’s jaw began to tense with impatience. “There have been no burials in this graveyard for several generations. My name is Ba—Johann,” he corrected himself, when Nina kicked his ankle. “Johann Brahms, and I live here with my wife and two children.”

“You have children, yet chose to purchase a home in the midst of a graveyard?” Mr. Shelley raised an eyebrow. “You must be one of those eclectics, or perhaps you are an alchemist. Those types never seemed to have qualms about extravagance.”

“A dilettante,” Mrs. Shelley agreed.

“Not an alchemist.” Johann smiled. “I am a wizard, and that is the reason why I chose this place as my home. I didn’t want to live near people, lest they come in the night and poke about in my things. My green—er, workshop contains objects that no one should touch. Magic is unpredictable.”

“A wizard!” said Mr. Shelley, pleased. “You’ll be able to tell me, then, why I am no longer dead.”

“Dear, we are still dead,” Mrs. Shelley reminded her husband in a low tone.

“Oh, you know what I mean, and so does he,” said Mr. Shelley. “Why is it that we were able to walk out of our mausoleum, stroll across the graveyard, and slip through the walls of your home? Is there a magical explanation for this sudden awareness? We are not yet accustomed to being conscious again, but you cannot fault us for being puzzled at the fact that we are no longer unconscious.”

Johann heaved a sigh, raking a hand through his hair.

“I cannot tell you why you are no longer resting in your mausoleum,” he admitted, “but something did take place earlier that might have triggered a chain of events—” He broke off and then asked, though intuition told him the answer already: “You aren’t the only ghosts who are wandering the graveyard, Mr. Shelley?”

Mr. Shelley and his wife exchanged a glance before he shook his head.

“Step outside, Mr. Brahms,” he said, voice heavy with uncertainty. “It would appear that every soul who was ever buried in this graveyard is now wandering, puzzled and listless, asking the same questions as my wife and I.”

“Blast it,” mumbled Johann. “That Fae must have done something to alter this hallowed ground. Nina,” he said, voice trembling, “I do not know how to solve this, I—”

She placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Let us step outside and see. We’ll find a solution.”

At a loss for words, he nodded, happy to let his wife take the lead.

Could things get any worse?

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Dear Reader,

I hope you’re enjoying The Graveyard House as much as I’m enjoying writing it. Each Monday is a treat to me, as I get to share with my trusted patrons another glimpse into the magical Brahms family.

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—Mariella