Sam threw the manuscript on the desk. “What is this nonsense?” he demanded.
The journalist – a weedy little man with haunted eyes, an early bald spot, and the meagre beginnings of a moustache – jumped in fright. “Sir,” he protested, “I have it on the best of authority. The Bluestocking Belles themselves have vouched for these stories. Suitable for Halloween, they said.”
Picking up the manuscript again, apparently just so that he could throw it down with even more force, Sam thundered, “Rubbish!” Then, more reasonably, he pointed out, “I ask you, Fanshawe, is this the medieval era, and I have apparently just dreamt that I own a newspaper in the nineteenth century? This is an enlightened age, and we rational creatures no longer believe in… Let me see.”
He picked up the manuscript once again, this time to scan it, making a comment on each of the stories. “A ghost that only one person can see, and no one can hear. And that, furthermore, might not be a ghost at all. Does that sound likely?” He snorted. “And what about this one? A lady who sees ghosts meets a duke? One can only guess how ridiculous such a gentleman might find her. Oh, and look here, two ghosts assist in their romance. Ridiculous.”
Sam was just getting started. “And then there’s the lady who takes a message to a marquess. Reasonable, you might think. But a message from his dead father? I daresay any reasonable peer would show her direct to the door. And this one. A hunter is seeking his kidnapped son and stumbled across a lady on a similar mission. But not just a lady, mark you. A fairy. An actual bone fide fairy! Will our readers believe that? Or will they think we have taken leave of our senses?”
“But sir,” protested the journalist. “The ladies say…”
“The ladies, bless them, have their fingerprints all over these stories,” Sam declared. “I am very fond of them all, mark you. But fairies, ghosts, and look here – this one has a wish granting mouse! Have you ever heard of such a thing. Here’s another. More ghosts, and this time the poor ghost is trying to stop a determined lady from changing things. I could have told him that one should not stand in the way of a determined lady.” He chuckled.
“In the next one are two friendly ghosts, a wounded man, and yet another lady. Oh yes, and a dastardly plot. Well, that’s something I suppose. And last, but not least, we have a pressed-ganged man dreaming of his wife, while she dreams of him. Well, she would, I imagine. Poor thing. I wonder if he finds his way home to her?”
Greatly daring, the journalist said, “You would need to read the book to find out, sir.”
Sam glared at him from over his spectacles and harrumphed. “Very well, then. I’ll print it. Perhaps I won’t be laughed out of London.”
Sam has briefly described the stories in Moonlight Madness, the Bluestocking Belles’ 2026 collection. My contribution to the collection is Moonlight Becomes You, in which a lady sees, but cannot hear a ghost who attempts to warn her about a man who will die if she doesn’t find him soon.
Moonlight Becomes You
By Jude Knight
Hester Williamson doesn’t want to be at this house party. She barely knows anybody, and now, she is seeing things. A man. The ghost of a man, for he appears in rooms without the bother of opening doors, she can see furniture and walls through him, and no one else can see him.
Barnabus Radcliffe seems to be a ghost, though he doesn’t remember dying. Still, why else would he be inaudible, unable to grasp or lift objects, and invisible to everyone except Miss Williamson. And why does he is he certain he is alive somewhere, and that time is running out?
Meet Barney
Barney Radcliffe has a full and interesting life, with money to spare and useful work helping his father with the responsibilities that will one day be his.
And then everything changes. All of a sudden, he is at a house party, and he seemed to be a ghost.
Meet Hester Williamson
Bluestocking Hester does not much enjoy house parties. They are full of suitors who like her money but not much else about her. But when she retreats to the library, she meets a man who seems to admire her appearance as well as her practical good sense. Unfortunately, he seems to be a ghost.
An excerpt from Moonlight Becomes You
The ghost was upset about something. He followed them all back to the house, his misty shape almost disappearing in the sunlight, and came right into Hester’s bedchamber when she went upstairs to remove her coat, bonnet, and gloves.
Here, out of the direct sunlight, he was a little more solid, and she could tell he was attempting an acted charade for her to guess. Two fingers—thin columns of mist. Two syllables. Or two words, perhaps.
He held up one finger—the first syllable. He shook his head and both hands.
“No?” she tried.
That wasn’t it. “Not?”
He nodded approvingly, and held up a second finger.
He lay down on his back, his feet together, his whole body straight, his hands together on his chest in prayer position. The dark patches that marked his eyes disappeared. Had he shut his eyes?
She could think of one word that might fit. “Dead?”
He bounced to his feet, nodding.
“Not dead? Are you saying you are not dead, Mr. Ransome?”
More nodding.
“But you are a ghost. I can see that with my own eyes.”
Mr. Ransome shook his head, and then went into a whole acted routine. She guessed the first bit. He mimed riding a horse, and then threw himself to the ground.
“You were thrown from your horse.”
He nodded and then bent over and hobbled along, miming a walking stick clearly enough that she immediately guessed, “You broke your leg.”
That was wrong, she discovered, but it took a while to get to “old woman.” Indeed, Roxanne came and knocked on her door to fetch her for the painting session she was meant to be attending in the ladies’ parlor before she fully understood what he was trying to tell her.
“Begin without me, Roxanne,” she said. “I need to finish something.”
It was another half hour before she finally guessed the whole.
Late one night, a day or so before the Eve of All Hallows, Lady Dorothy Scholfield crept into the nursery of her London townhouse. Moonlight poured down from the north window on an odd shaped object. Coverlets, she suspected had been hung over chairs to create a shelter of some sort. Soft whispers came from the tent, and the faint glow from inside gave it an eerie light. She prayed it wasn’t a candle. She crept closer on silent feet until she hovered over it. “Moonlight Madness” she wailed softly in a spooky voice eliciting shrieks from under the coverlets exactly as she intended.
“So what are these stories?” the grandmother asked.