Apparitionist by Geraint Jonathan

The art of projection, in this instance, involves an ingenious contraption that allows me to float above ground while speaking grave truths to those I’ve been hired to frighten. Or to comfort. Or to confuse, as the case may be. Sometimes silence is all that’s required, but silence of a special kind, needless to say, the kind they call ‘loaded’, the kind that towers, or otherwise makes a portentous impression. Ghost is what I do. It’s a living, if you’ll pardon the expression; and a good one too, in that those who require my services, being usually very rich, pay very well. I’m familiar with the interiors of castles, manor-houses, hunting lodges, theatres, the odd inn. I’m given the requirements, told what manner of ghost it is needs to haunt the place, and adapt accordingly. Doubtless, to your bodily eyes, at this moment, I appear little more than a tallish man, bearded, bald and middle-aged, but trust me, when I’m clad in dusty servant’s garb or bedecked in faded finery, my face moon-pale, I’m altogether more imposing, unsettling – especially if observed from a short distance. Should a haunting entail my having to speak, I learn the words given me, no matter the language, and intone or croak or mutter or bellow in whatever accent is most appropriate. I’ve made cryptic pronouncements in Old French, I’ve made cryptic pronouncements in Latin; I’ve cursed in Swedish, foretold ill fortune in Gaelic. I’ve been a judge who was hanged for murder, I’ve been a minstrel who drowned in a moat; I’ve even been a dead gravedigger, one said to haunt a particular cemetery adjacent to a certain cathedral. It wouldn’t do to be too specific. As I say, ghost is what I do. But never, never have I knowingly been party to any kind of plot or conspiracy or such like. My involvement in matters was always necessarily limited to brief appearances, a few words here, a protracted silence there. I was not privy to the wider machinations of those who engaged my services.

When the young woman first approached me, I was wary. Very. When she named the sum I would be paid for my ‘appearance’, I was astonished, endeavored not to show it, naturally, and, not unnaturally, accepted the offer. It all seemed simple enough: I had merely to appear among the turrets at some point gone midnight, my robed figure shrouded in fog; each appearance was to last no longer than a minute at most.

What can I say, the young woman was very persuasive. Her manner was direct, but not without humour, and the explanation she spun around this particular haunting was convincing enough, otherwise I’d not have taken it on. She was ‘spirited’, as they say, and I’ve no doubt she’d berate me for using just that word, patronizing as it is. That, in fact, was very much the issue at hand. Men, she said, were fools, and she’d a prank to play that would show them up for the fools they were. I’d not the nous, at that point, to consider whether this view might also apply to me. She had everything prepared: my costume, my wig, the face I was to wear. The Projectionator would do the rest, and I’d float for the apportioned time, as agreed. My first and second showings were witnessed by the very persons I’d been hired to frighten; all went well. What I had not anticipated was that, following my two showings, I would be required to make one last nocturnal appearance, during which I was to deliver a barrage of words – to a man already more than half convinced that I was the spirit of his dearly departed father. As I think I mentioned, I’m no stranger to cryptic declamations, gnomic utterances, but the words given me on this occasion far exceeded the number of words given me on other assignments. I’d no problem with the memorizing of said words, but I was more than mildly perturbed by their meaning – at least as much of them as I was able to comprehend. There are words, and there are words, but these were of a different order altogether. Initially, I don’t mind telling you, I demurred, sensing in it all something more than untoward; but once again, though for the very last time, the fee on offer was a little too high for me to decline. How the young woman came by such sums, I did not ask, wouldn’t have presumed to do so; none of my business.

And so it was I appeared in the interminable  fog once again, and spoke the speech given me. I did not think to question the content. Mention of murder, dastardly deeds and so forth are not so unusual in my line of work – though the sheer specificity of deeds described should have given me pause. I’d certainly no inkling of how incendiary the words might prove to be. I spoke them, was paid my fee, after which I departed, and was glad to do so. Repercussions, ramifications, consequences: these did not enter the equation. I go where the work is. I’m good at what I do, as I’m sure any number of those whose dwellings I’ve haunted would attest. But never again, I can assure you, will I allow myself to be so used, so played-upon, and by one so young, and so apparently artless, fresh-faced, candid, direct – if also humorous. Very persuasive, as I say. But then, as she said, men are fools, victims of their own emotions, all too happy to be thought creatures of Reason. I, it seems, was simply another fool. She was, as I say, young. I called her Miss. She addressed me as ‘Sir’ – though it has to be said with a hint of sneer in the pronunciation. Drop the ‘Miss’, just call me Ophelia, she’d say. A modern young woman; there’s a lot of it about.  I’m old-school, however, and ‘Miss’ she remained. That any of it happened at all is quite beyond me. As I say, repercussions, reverberations, these did not enter the equation.

Geraint Jonathan

Image: the battlements at Elsinor by Superchilum, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons