Page 50 of Aleko
“What do ghosts look like?” he asked, helping himself to a carrot and crunching thoughtfully. This was the part where he humored her. She might as well answer; then he would accept that she was crazy and not make a fuss when she left.
“For me, they’re usually like living the memory of something I’ve never done. But sometimes, if the memory is particularly strong, I can talk to them. Usually, the ghosts are attached to an object—like they’ve been imprinted on it.”
“Objects…” he said thoughtfully. “We have a lot of old objects.” Then he looked around the kitchen with a slight glaze of panic. “Oh, please do not fucking tell me we have ghosts here. I can do mummies, or I can do ghosts. I can’t fucking do both.”
Lia laughed at the unexpected comment and then covered her mouth in surprise.
“I haven’t seen any,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t seen many since coming to Greece.”
“Like… distinctly a lot less?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” said Lia, with a shrug. “I was worried before I came here because, like you said, Greece has a lot of old objects. But no. It’s been restful.”
“Did Alex tell you why we live in Greece?”
Lia shook her head, confused by his abrupt switch in topic.
“Did anyone even explain why we want you to translate the logbook?
Lia shook her head again. She had been wondering, but she hadn’t liked to ask Luca, and the Greens had also seemed to want to avoid talking too much with him around.
“Lovely,” said Pellos shaking his head. “OK, so, back in 1944 there was a war going on. You may have heard it mentioned.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“What doesn’t get mentioned is that the Supernaturals fought too. As you’ve been reading today in the log of theStrumwolke,the warlocks fought on the side of the Nazis. The warlocks wanted to kill all the Supernaturals, so they came up with a bomb. Alex’s brother Howell and his team attacked the Nazi boat carrying the bomb.”
“TheStrumwolke,”said Lia, putting the pieces together and Pellos nodded.
“Then something happened, no one knows what, but the bomb detonated. It killed over a thousand Supernaturals—wiped out entire mermaid clans and dryad forests—and it stripped all the magic from Greece for at least a hundred miles in-land.”
Lia stared at Pellos trying to understand what he was saying.
“That’s why we’re doing this. We want to find out what happened and maybe how to fix it. But it’s also possible that you haven’t seen as many ghosts because they got killed off, or whatever happens to ghosts, when the bomb went off.”
Lia bit her lip, uncertain what to think about that.
“I promised not to try to fix you, and I can keep that promise because I don’t think you’re broken,” said Pellos. “But I think maybe you should consider believing it too. Because I think Sebastian is right—you’re magic.”
Lia shook her head. “Trust me. I do not feel magic.”
“Yeah, one time, Killian tried to tell me that he didn’t think turning into a wolf was magic either.”
Lia burst out laughing. “What?”
“No, for real. He completely tried to pull that off. He said it just felt like his left foot.”
“What does that even mean?” demanded Lia.
“I don’t know!” Pellos exclaimed. “But he was serious. The man turns into a wolf, and he doesn’t think it’s magic.”
“I can’t even,” said Lia.
“Do you know how often I want another human around here to confirm how weird they are? I won’t tell you the number of times I have caught Hudson trying to lick his foot because he forgot he was human-shaped.”
Lia laughed harder.
“Right. My point is that if shifting feels normal to them, then probably speaking a dozen languages and talking to dead people won’t feel like magic to you either.”
