The ghost straightened up, standing beside her — tall and slender, like those pines in the forest.
Next to him, Petunia looked like a little thing — she barely reached his shoulder, and even then only if she stood on tiptoe.
He didn’t pull his hand away, just looked down at her from his height.
If you looked closely, you could see he was frowning slightly.
Petunia blurted out: “You’re not human, are you?” The ghost tilted his head to his shoulder in puzzlement and thought it over.
Petunia waited for an answer.
She didn’t quite understand what answer she was waiting for herself.
Inside her, the rational and proper Petunia Evans, a Muggle who wanted to tell the entire wizarding world where to go, along with her sister, was screaming at the top of her lungs.
“He’s a ghost!
An apparition!
Someone who’s already died and didn’t go to heaven, hell, reincarnation, or wherever else, but stayed to wander the earth.
What difference does it make to you whether he’s human or not?!” “But I know everything there is to know about ghosts!” the Petunia who still dreamed of magic and wonders timidly objected.
“I read about them in Lily’s textbooks, and I know how to handle them!
They spread cold around them, can walk through walls, and…
well, according to the brochure ‘Everything You Wanted to Know About Ghosts but Were Afraid to Ask,’ they’re not dangerous to humans.” “To wizards,” the rational Petunia corrected in a nasty tone, pursing her lips in active disapproval of such an obsession with magic.
“There was nothing said about Muggles, and you and I, my dear, are the most genuine Muggles.” All the time Petunia was arguing — and losing — with herself, the ghost was pondering her question.
Finally, he looked up and shrugged.
Petunia sighed, strangely calmed by his ignorance: “Well, fine then, let’s go, I’ll feed you,” and she pulled him toward the cottage.
Her hand was almost the same temperature as a chicken from the freezer by now, but compared to yesterday, it was almost bearable.
“I just made some soup,” she said, weaving between the trees.
There wasn’t a sound behind her, and it seemed like she was talking to herself.
She turned around a couple of times to make sure the ghostly guest was still following, obediently going around the trees.
“Though I think it tastes terrible.” On the porch, she said: “Sorry, but I’m not going to invite you inside.” The ghost nodded and obediently sat down on the porch, lowering his long legs down the steps.
Petunia glanced at the top of his head — long dark hair, framing his face in strands, was gathered at the top in a loose bun.
She did that too sometimes when she was home and didn’t feel like brushing her hair, but her awful messy bun, with unruly hairs sticking out in all directions, couldn’t hold a candle to this perfect updo.
With a habitual sigh about the imperfection of the world — and its unfairness toward Petunia herself — she went into the cottage.
The flame in the hearth spat sparks at her in displeasure.
Luckily, not too many; the sparks died out in the air before reaching her clothes, but the hint was clear.
“Sorry, sorry,” she leaned toward the fire, as if about to look it in the eye.
“I was just looking for the tastiest log, but then…” she pulled back, nodding toward the open door, through which, if you looked closely, you could make out the ghost’s back.
“You see for yourself.” The tongues of flame swayed thoughtfully from side to side, then lowered a bit and returned to their previous height.
Was that…
a nod?
“You don’t mind?” Petunia clarified.
The flame nodded again.
Feeling that her head would soon spin from the unreality of it all, she whispered: “Do you think he’s…
well, good?” This time, the fire didn’t even hesitate.
It nodded again and even hummed something quietly.
Something encouraging and affirmative.
Petunia shook her head, as if to say it was time to check herself into a mental hospital, but inside she felt calm.
The magical fire had calmed her.
Who better than it to know about kinds of magic?
She picked up the cauldron — with her bare hand, it was that cold — poured a portion of soup into a bowl for her own supper later, and, grabbing a spoon, went out onto the porch.
She sat down next to the ghost, setting the cauldron right on her knees and scooping up the first spoonful of the green brew.
It didn’t look great, she had to admit.
It smelled like boiled salad.
“I’ll taste-test it,” she muttered and put a bit of the “soup” in her mouth.
Well, at least it was salty enough and moderately tart, so she hadn’t overdone the sorrel or salt.
Describing the taste of nettle was harder.
It was a bit like spinach, slightly sharp and bright green.
“Well, it’s edible.” The ghost watched her closely.
“I was gathering wild plants today,” she explained, not knowing what else to say.
She shrugged, acknowledging her helplessness.
“I never knew how, but today — here.
I went into the forest,” she waved toward the setting sun, “and immediately saw onions, and nettle, and sorrel.
Collected a whole pile.
And cooked it.” She filled the spoon, ran it along the edge of the cauldron to catch the excess drops, and brought it to the ghost’s face.
“It tastes mediocre,” she warned honestly.
The ghost opened his mouth, and Petunia bravely pushed the spoon into the darkness.
She wondered how he ate.
The ghost swallowed the soup, and she asked, holding her breath: “Well?” He nodded and gestured “delicious.” “There’s no way that’s delicious,” Petunia grumbled self-critically but with satisfaction, and scooped up a second spoonful.
So they sat on the porch, Petunia feeding her ghost, and the ghost eating with appetite, until the sun had completely disappeared behind the horizon and a deep, dark night descended on the farm.
The spoon scraped against the bottom.
Petunia looked into the cauldron and was surprised to find it empty.
Wow, he could put it away!
“Well…
are you full?” The ghost nodded and gestured his thanks.
“It would have been tastier if I’d had at least some eggs,” Petunia said, putting the cauldron away inside the house.
“But I don’t have a chicken, or the skill to find bird nests.” Something squelched in the bushes.
She flinched and pulled her legs up in fright.
The ghost rose to his full height and made a commanding gesture, urging her inside.
He himself stepped off the porch and took a few steps toward the bushes where the sound had come from.
The bushes immediately went quiet.
Petunia giggled, grabbed the doorframe, and used it to pull herself up.
A prickling sensation ran through her calves as fresh blood flowed back into the compressed vessels after sitting for so long.
“I still need to get a log.” She hobbled to the woodpile, pulled out the first one she touched, and went inside.
“Good night,” she wished the ghost.
He, barely visible in the darkness, bowed farewell and disappeared.
Petunia closed the door and leaned against it with her back.
A violent trembling suddenly took hold of her — she shook as if from chills, and her legs became weak and wobbly again.
The realization of how reckless she had been — again!
— hit her like a train and swept over her completely.
Waiting out the attack of weakness, she slid the bolt shut and, holding onto the wall, made her way to the fireplace.
“Here, as promised,” the log she’d pulled out at random was a bit big, but as soon as she started pushing it into the hearth, it fit perfectly, and the fire crackled with satisfaction.
“Thank you,” Petunia briefly patted the fireplace, the way she might pet a cat or a dog, and sat down at the table.
The soup wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought, she decided, eating every last bit from the bowl.
Of course, with proper broth, an egg, and some potatoes, it would have been much, much tastier, but this was fine.
The main thing was it was edible.
Pushing the empty bowl toward the wall, Petunia flexed her fingers and started on her journal.
On a separate sheet, she sketched a map from memory, and in the margins drew leaves of sorrel, nettle, and fiddlehead fern.
She also found time to describe the encounter with the deer — she put the bit of fur she’d taken from the bush into the book — and devoted detailed attention to the habits of her ghost acquaintance.
When she finished with the journal, she sat a while longer, flipping through a book by the light of the magical lantern, looking at the illustrations.
But her thoughts wandered far away, and so even while looking at the intricate letters and pictures, she didn’t see them.
She kept remembering the ghost’s face — the most beautiful face she had ever seen in her life.
No one, not even the world’s most famous beauties, could compare to him.
She wondered who he was.
Even if he didn’t remember himself, he was clearly not human.
Maybe he was one of those who built that city?
Petunia closed her eyes, calling to mind the snow-white palaces surrounded by green gardens, and with a mental effort added the ghost to the picture.
As if he were sitting in a watchtower, stretching out his long legs, flipping through a book, with the wind blowing through the window openings playing with his hair.
Or, no — as if he were standing on a staircase, slightly leaning on the railing, looking down.
Someone else was beside him, equally tall and long-haired, and they were talking about something, and then the wind swept in, carrying flower petals torn from the trees past them.
Petunia frowned.
No, something didn’t add up.
She wasn’t Sherlock, of course, not even Miss Marple, but something was wrong.
The ghost absolutely didn’t fit into the city’s scenery, and where his place might be — she couldn’t say.
Only a vague feeling whispered that no, she was wrong.
Even when her head hit the pillow, she was still thinking about where her ghost had come from.
He was sitting in a tree, his back comfortably against the trunk, one foot braced on a branch, making arrows.
A bundle of blanks lay on his knees, from which he quickly and deftly carved straight, thin shafts, slightly narrowing one end to fit a arrowhead later, and marking the nock on the other for the bowstring.
In the heavy pouch at his belt, every time his elbow brushed against it, there was a pleasant jingling.
Those were brand new arrowheads, fresh from the blacksmith’s hands.
Someone called up to him from below.
He tore himself away from his work and leaned down, grabbing a branch with his hand.
A friend, smiling, was holding out a bundle of feathers to him, and he laughed — he’d completely forgotten.
What were his arrows without fletching!
The work went smoothly, the knife flashing in his hands like a tiny bolt of lightning, and soon his quiver held two dozen brand new arrows, their sharpened points gleaming.
When he finished the arrows, he jumped down from the tree, waved to one comrade, exchanged a few words with another.
A large group of hunters had already gone into the forest; he alone was late, and intending to catch up, he set off into the woods with a light step.
A small settlement with houses right in the trees, securely hidden by thick canopies, quickly fell behind him.
He walked, stepping silently on the forest floor, and the forest before him was like an open book.
A hare had run by here, a fox was stalking a mouse there.
Here a bear had left marks on a tree, marking its territory, and a little further on, a line of tracks — a she-wolf had passed with two pups.
Something rustled overhead.
He tilted his head back, noticed a shadow among the branches.
He climbed easily and quickly, and with a deft movement took two small, warm eggs from a nest hidden among the branches.
They would make a fine addition to his midday snack.