Read The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden for Free Online Page B

names, each older than the last.
    That was simply cruel. The longer a soul had been dead, the more difficult it was to reach them. The more exhausting. The fog of effort took over Deadnettle and the rest as they focused on the names, and more as Mordecai called them out. Oh, it was wearying, even as Deadnettle knew they were being successful, his mouth open andspeaking with a strange voice that joined a chorus of others. Deadnettle was barely himself as he spoke, allowing his body, his mind to be overtaken by the person speaking through him. His lips parted and his tongue moved, but these were not his words.
    He liked to believe he would never say anything so silly. Some of these ancient, revered kings and queens and artists were not half as clever as people held them to be.
    The roar of the audience was enormous and Deadnettle could no longer see or hear or think as he concentrated on keeping the door between the land of the living and the dead wide-open, when it is a door that likes to stay slammed shut.
    Time passed. Deadnettle could not say how much, only that it was much too long before Mordecai rapped sharply on the wood and shouted, “Good night, friends!” over the clapping.
    The spirits left them, vanishing like candle flames in a breeze, and Deadnettle sucked in a long breath. Every bone hurt, every muscle, and the near-silent whimpers around him told him he was not alone in his pain.
    â€œI thank each one of you for joining our delightful supper,” said Mordecai when a hush had fallen again. “Should you wish to speak to a loved one, perhaps, or ask your great-aunt Nettie where her lost ring is, do not hesitate tocall upon me at the Shoreditch Spiritualist Society. I will be more than pleased to use my talents to assist you in making contact with the beyond.”
    His talents. Deadnettle did not miss that.
    â€œYou did well,” he whispered to the others. Beside him, Marigold clung to his arm, her lips thin and white.
    They’d known what to do; it was not the first time. “Take your positions, and do not shame me or you will suffer the result. And I do mean suffer,” Mordecai had said, managing to smile and hiss at once. His eyes were wild, lit with madness and excitement. “I have fed you today and rested you in preparation. You will bring your greatest strengths to this greatest performance.”
    They had arrived at the theater in the same huge, covered cart with which he had taken them to the Society moments after the Summoning, precisely thirteen years before, to the very day.
    At the time, they had been disoriented, afraid, unaware of what would be asked of them, of why they had been dragged from their homeland and brought to this horrible place.
    Now Deadnettle wished for one more second of that beautiful ignorance.
    Each year since, on this night, they had been brought here. And each year, on this night, but every other day aswell, Deadnettle wondered to himself just how Mordecai knew of its significance.
    But he would not ask. To do so would anger Mordecai. That much was certain. It would also be an admission that the date meant something of significance to Deadnettle and the other faeries. That they were stronger, more powerful now than at any other time of the year. Any admission, even of strength, was one of weakness.
    He told Mordecai nothing unless he asked.
    So Deadnettle clenched his long, pointed teeth and bore this travesty, as he did every other day, but magnified a thousand times by the candles and the glittering chandeliers of the theater.
    When they arrived, he spoke only to repeat the words he said to them every year before climbing into the cage, while Mordecai was making his way to unlock the front doors.
    â€œRemember,” Deadnettle had said to the others, so many others, and yet so many fewer than there used to be. He always tried not to think of that, and always failed. “If we work together, combine our gifts, it will go smoothly as ever.