Ghost Messages
Authors: Jacqueline Guest
Tags: #Finians, #Novel, #Chapter Book, #Middle Reader, #Historical, #Ghost, #Mystery, #Adventure, #Atlantic Crossing, #Telegraph Cable, #Irish
- Half-title
- Title page
- Book & Copyright Information
- Dedication
- 1 Mystery Man
- 2 Secret Message
- 3 Stowaway!
- 4 Disaster
- 5 Slip of the Lip
- 6 Safe Harbour
- 7 Dirty Business
- 8 Discovered
- 9 Trapped
- 10 Cabin Boy Overboard
- 11 Fenians Aboard!
- 12 A Call to Battle!
- 13 Setting a Trap for a Rat
- 14 Foiled Again!
- 15 Treasure Chest
- 16 Deal with a Devil
- 17 Sabotage Uncovered
- 18 Fishing off the Grand Banks
- 19 The Future is Waiting'
- Epilogue
- Author's Note
- Glossary
- Morse Code Chart
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
© Jacqueline Guest, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this pub
lication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Edited by Laura Peetoom
Design by Tania Craan
Typeset by Susan Buck
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Guest, Jacqueline
Ghost messages / Jacqueline Guest.
ISBN 978-1-55050-458-3
1. Great Eastern (Steamship)--Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8563.U365G56 2011 jC813'.54 C2010-907596-X
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011921840
Available in Canada from
: Coteau Books, 2517 Victoria
Avenue, Regina, Saskatchewan Canada
S4P 0T2
For Gordon with love
and
to the real Eilish, a wild Irish lass with true fire and a wicked sense of humour.
1
Mystery Man
.-- …. .- - .. … .- .. .-.. … ..-. .- …- --- ..- .-. .. - . -… --- --- -.-
“Magic awaits here!” cried the skeletal man as
he held up a bony hand. “Fortunes told by a thirteen-year-old girl born with the second sight – the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter! One touch and Madame Ailish will lift the veil to give you a glimpse of the unknown!” He waved his shillelagh at an ancient wooden caravan. “Step right up!”
Inside the wagon, Ailish O’Connor straightened the colourful gypsy scarf tied around her long auburn hair and swiped at a crumb of cheese that had fallen onto the crystal ball from her hastily eaten supper.
“Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, my fanny,” she grumbled. “If only. At least then I’d have some help around here.”
It was getting on to evening and more light would be needed for the next tarot card reading. She lit the coal-oil lantern, the wick flaring to brilliant life; then turned it down to make the atmosphere more mysterious for her next client. They seemed to expect it, though Ailish could have helped them just as much in an open field at noonday.
Ailish and her father were here in Valentia on Foilhummerum Bay to join in the festivities celebrating the voyage of the
Great Eastern
, the mighty ship that had the daunting task of laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable. Her da’s passion was ships and this one was like no other in the entire world.
The undersea cable would join Europe and North America with almost instantaneous communication. Ailish imagined sending a message from here on the west coast of Ireland and having it received all the way across the ocean, in Newfoundland off the east coast of Canada, all in the wink of an eye. Now that was magic!
And Ireland could use something wonderful. Times were still hard, even years after the Great Potato Famine that had starved a million people. Her father, who could always see the bright side of things, when Ailish doubted such a side existed, struggled ceaselessly to make ends meet. She saw how the constant battle wore him down and because she loved him so much, she tried to ignore the irritating things he did – like going to the local tavern and leaving her to deal with the customers alone, as he had done earlier today.
As Ailish waited, she watched an industrious brown spider spin its web in an arching corner of the caravan’s ceiling, but no one seeking answers appeared at the door. Standing, she stretched the kinks out of her back and addressed the busy bug. “If my customers only knew that I truly can see mysterious things, they’d appreciate my advice more. Maybe then I could raise my fee and we wouldn’t have to worry on how to pay for our next meal.”
Only one living person took Ailish seriously, and that was Uncle Peter. He was not really her uncle, simply a family friend, and, if you wanted to get fancy about it, his proper title was Sir Peter Fitzgerald, the Knight of Kerry. As the ruling authority in this part of Ireland, he was an important man to be sure, but Uncle Peter did take her uncanny talent seriously and always listened intently to whatever she revealed. He was her favourite customer and paid handsomely for her readings.
Clambering onto a wobbly twig chair, she pushed open the small window set high in the curved wooden wall and peered out.
It was late but there were still people about. Not long ago, the scene would have warmed her soul – the turf fires smouldering, their peaty scent earthy and comforting, as the music of the fiddlers washed over her like a bright and bubbly tide. But now, it was different. Now she had no mother to share the pleasant evening with.
Early stars poked holes in the indigo canopy overhead and let dazzling pinpoints of light peep through. With a familiar pang, Ailish wondered if her ma was looking down through those tiny portals from heaven and missing them like Ailish missed her. It had been two long years since the fever took her and Ailish still ached. Tomorrow was July 23, 1865 – it would have been her mother’s thirty-fifth birthday.
She saw her da and a burly stranger walking toward the wagon. He was probably some ne’er-do-well her father had met in the pub today. Lately, her da had taken to visiting more of the drinking establishments than usual. Every town they’d passed through, he’d find some excuse to leave her and then return hours later with never a word. This was no doubt the reason why their meagre store of hard-earned coins was now gone.
As she watched them approach, the tall man looked her way, and for an instant their eyes locked. Ailish took an involuntary step backward, slipping from her precarious perch and bumping the table with her crystal ball, nearly knocking it to the floor. She felt unexpectedly flustered and fumbled with nervous fingers as she pulled off her scarf, then gathered her fortune-telling paraphernalia and tucked it into the small storage trunk.
Her father bustled into their cramped quarters, with the hulking newcomer filling the doorway behind him.
“Ailish, me darlin’,” he began, making a grand gesture with his arm, “Meet Rufus Dalton, a gent and a scholar. He’s from the mighty
Great Eastern
and is here for a wee drink and a chin wag.”
He flashed her one of his devilish smiles and Ailish knew this would be a late night.
“
Failte
, welcome, Mr. Dalton.” Ailish reached out to shake hands.
The second their fingers touched an icy black serpent slithered down her spine. She recoiled. This man carried a terrible darkness with him!
Ailish snatched her hand from Dalton’s grasp, hiding it behind her back. She turned to her father to see if he’d caught her reaction, but he still had that silly smile tattooed to his face. She wiggled her brows and slid her eyes toward the stranger, but her father was oblivious. What good did it do to have a daughter with the second sight, if you were so daft that you ignored the warning signs she sent? They could be in mortal danger.
“Something wrong?” the big man growled, his words thick with a coarse English accent.
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she was simply tired. She sighed as an overpowering weariness wrapped her in its worn cloak. Perhaps this stranger was merely
one more crooked sailor, a brigand – ports were full of them.
“Ach, no sir, just a night chill. I’ll fling a chunk of turf on the fire.” She went to the creel and busied herself stoking the potbellied stove with the peat they used to ward off the damp.
“Fetch the whiskey, Ails, me girl, and a couple of glasses.” Her da took off his coat and tossed it onto the chest of drawers they shared before lowering himself into the rickety chair she’d nearly fallen from moments before.
Ailish noted he used her nickname, knowing this was his way of trying to get on her good side when it came to his drink, which she regarded as a weakness. She avoided eye contact with the stranger and did as she was told.
Retrieving her favourite book, the one about a monster brought to life by a mad doctor, Ailish settled back against the thin wooden partition that separated the common room from her sleeping area. Peeking over the book, she saw her father pour generous dollops of the fiery amber liquid into the cracked glasses, then give one to Dalton.
