Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [60]
“So…why do you live next to living people if you don’t want that?” Deeba eyed the ghosts.
“They don’t choose to stick around!” Hemi said. “After we die, a few of us just wake up again. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes centuries. Isn’t that right?”
A ghost by his side in an ancient dress nodded and rolled her eyes.
“And most of us end up here,” Hemi said. “So what? At least we can talk to each other here. And then we get accused of everything! Next thing we know, there are gangs of UnLondoners snipping at us with exorscissors! D’you know how often some UnLondoner passes over and wakes up in Wraithtown? And then when they see what’s going on, we have to hear all about how sorry they are, blah blah, they had the wrong idea about us, yak yak. Of course, by then it’s too late.”
There was a long silence. Of course, it might have been a hubbub of angry ghosts, but to Deeba, it was a long silence.
“Well…sorry,” she said. “I was told wrong.”
“Whatever.” Hemi sniffed.
There was another silence. Deeba waited for Hemi to ask her what she was doing there. He didn’t.
“Maybe…you could help me?” she said at last. Hemi eyed her.
“Me help you?”
“Please.” She began to speak more urgently. “It’s really important. I need to check something. Someone told me there was…Is there like an official list of all the dead?”
Hemi, and several ghosts, nodded.
“Yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “In the records office. Wraithtown’s a borough of Thanatopia—that’s the city of the London and UnLondon dead. We can’t move to the city center yet—don’t know much about it—but we’ve got access to some of their offical files. The dead are way more organized than the living.”
“Cool,” said Deeba. “Listen…I really need to find out if someone’s on that list.”
Hemi struggled not to look interested, and failed.
“Why?”
“Because I was told he was dead. And that he died before I’d met him. But he’s definitely not a ghost. So I want to know what’s going on.”
43
Flickering Streets
The giraffes bleated hungrily in the distance as Hemi led Deeba through the unstable streets of Wraithtown, past shops and offices clouded with their own remembered selves. Most of the spectral entourage dissipated. There were only a few flickers of ectoplasm as a curious dead or two flitted around Deeba.
“I cannot even believe,” Deeba said again, “that you’re taxing me for this.”
“Um, excuse me!” Hemi said. “This ain’t my business. And the way you’ve been talking about us, I think you’re dead lucky I’m helping you at all.”
“‘Help,’” Deeba muttered bitterly. “Half my cash…”
“Yeah.” Hemi grinned. He fanned himself ostentatiously with the out-of-date currency he’d insisted Deeba pay him before he’d escort her. “Pleasure doing business.”
“I am out of here the second we’re done,” Deeba muttered.
“Oh boo hoo,” said Hemi. “No, please stay.” They eyed each other.
“I know, I know,” Hemi said occasionally to one or another wisp they passed. “It’s alright, she’s with me.”
“We’re not used to heartbeaters in Wraithtown,” he told Deeba.
They passed phantasms of streetlights, in old styles, where illuminations had been and had gone. Little groups of ghosts gathered at street corners. They stood—or wafted, their legs disappearing—in costumes from throughout history.
“When you talk about them, you keep saying ‘us,’” Deeba said. “But you’re not like the rest.” Hemi looked away. “Someone told me that you’re half…How come I can hear you?
Plus…” Deeba reached out and shoved him.
“You’re solid.”
Hemi sighed.
“Mum was a Londoner like you,” he said. “Born two hundred years ago, died a hundred and sixty-five years ago. Dad wasn’t dead at all. He was an UnLondoner, came to Wraithtown out of curiosity.
“Mum tried to spook him. So she was all floaty sheets and woooo! and wooaaah! and so on. But he wasn’t scared. The way they told it…he just fell for her, right then. And so one thing led to another.