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The bracelet of Miss Safiye Thalietha was a beautiful thing, made of fine jade. Her mother had given it to Safiye when was wed, saying that it brought luck and wisdom. It was owned by her mother’s grandfather, a wizened old man who sought knowledge and who studied with sages. An assistant of Hayyan, although it seemed everyone had a grandfather or great-uncle that claimed such an association.
It was such a curious thing, though, always cold to the touch. Safiye’s husband tutted and said that it was an indication the thing was cursed and should be destroyed, but Safiye could not bring herself to do so. It was her family’s, and who was she to decry a portable oasis?
There was something even curiouser to the bracelet that Safiye never shared though, and that was the faint cry she heard come from it from time to time. It was always at night, and always a man’s voice. It knew her name, but rarely could she hear more. After a while, the voice was gone. The bracelet remained in her home, and time moved on.
Morning came one day far earlier than it should have, as, right at sunrise, Safiye’s son came running into the bedroom. Only five, his eyes were wide with fright and his messy mop of black hair even messier than usual.
“Mother!” he exclaimed, shaking her awake with such force that Safiye bolted upright. Her own hair, usually beautifully curled, was the very definition of bedhead, and upon seeing his face, she scooped him into her arms immediately.
“What is it, Iskandar?” she asked, prepared to put her boy aside and leap to her own feet if need be.
“There was a man....!” the boy said, breathless. “See-through! He...he was walking the corridors, then looked at me and said my name!”
See-through? Safiye nodded to show her son that she was listening. “What else?”
“Nothing, he just...he was gone! I saw him last night too, and he asked if I could hear him! I...I said yes, and all he said was happy I could, because he knew you used to hear him, but never said anything back!”
A frown took over Safiye’s face. None of this was good news, and that the voice she heard long ago came to the forefront of her mind was alarming. But that was not the priority - Iskandar was.
“I don’t think that man will be back tomorrow,” she said softly, making sure that the squeeze she gave her son was reassuring rather than overprotective. “I promise. Now, since you’re up so early, shall we go to the markets together?”
***
Cosimo stood, peering into the small, clear vial that was perched upon the dark ash workbench. This was it. He had achieved the greatest work of all alchemists, the thing that men had spent entire lifetimes trying to create. And he was only 26.
The Elixir of Life was unremarkable. The ectoplasm of spirits, or so his assistant said. That very same assistant, who hovered beside him, beamed as proudly as a man watching his son wed the finest woman with the biggest dowry. Ezekiel was a proud spirit, a thing of pure light, a thing beyond human comprehension.
“The only thing left to do is to ensure it works,” Ezekiel said, his voice finally cutting through the silence that sat heavy over Cosimo’s study. It was a decently sized room in the basement of Cosimo’s home, the kind of place that wives and servants knew not to go into, for it was much too personal and entered only in the dead of night. Besides, it was always cold, too cold, even in the high heat of Italian summers.
“Yes,” Cosimo said mildly. His hands did not move towards the plain glass vial. They stayed pressed against the top of the workbench. “I suppose you are correct, my friend.”
Ezekiel’s form shifted so that its front faced Cosimo. The man shivered, feeling the ill effects of his friend. It was an involuntary reaction, of course, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of annoyance in the ghostly figure’s form.
“You hesitate. Do you fear your own work?”
What responded was earnest. “If this goes wrong, I die. I think some hesitation is natural.”
It could have almost come off as a joke, but Cosimo knew the spirit did not joke. He was as serious as any alchemist, any man who studied the sciences. Ezekiel said he had been an alchemist in his own lifetime, one who remained behind to understand the mechanics of life and death. Joking simply did not happen.
Ezekiel did not move. Ezekiel said nothing. His bright eyes burrowed into Cosimo’s, and finally, the Italian alchemist reached for the Elixir of Life. What was in there was essence, to be taken as if it were a drink even if it seemed to be empty.
The vial touched Cosimo’s lips. He drank it all as if it were a shot of strong liquor, then placed it back down. Cosimo could feel Ezekiel’s eyes on him, and then felt nothing at all.
Quietly, the spirit sighed. Ezekiel knew what death looked like. Worse, it meant the formulation was wrong. There were incorrect calculations somewhere, and now he had only a few hours to go through the notes his late assistant had taken before the nearby church bells welcomed the morning. Cosimo’s body would be found then, the research destroyed, and the jade bracelet that bound him would be passed to someone else who might be ill-suited to the triumph over death.
***
Marissa liked to walk down by the sea at night. The ever shifting tides brought in so much. Ordinary seashells, sea life that crawled about the damp sand, seaweed that made the area smell like, to quote a school friend, ocean farts, and sometimes strange detritus.
There were ghost ships sometimes. Great big old-fashioned things, the kind that fought against the Armada, the ones that set forth to the New World, now forever lost at sea. She could hear their phantom bells as they sailed across the waves and then out of sight. Some days, the ships weren’t there. Others, they seemed to linger forever.
Rarely were there ghosts on the sandy beaches themselves. Too much salt, Marissa knew, and sometimes she wondered how it was the ghost ships managed to make themselves known. Perhaps there was a loophole. Perhaps that was why she saw them only some nights.
It was as she debated that particular point that she first heard a voice call out her name. It was slow. Pained. Struggling. Every syllable was agony.
“Where are you?” she asked.
There was silence. Then: “Jade.” Then a pause. “Bracelet.”
“Okay. I’m going to start looking for it.”
The spirit’s ability to speak at all was amazing, which meant it was something very strong. There was a chance that lending aid could be foolish or even deadly, but...but it had called out to her. So Marissa scoured the open beach, the half moon’s glow lighting her path
After fifteen minutes of bounding up and down the beach with keen eyes fixed on the ground, accidentally stepping on sharp rocks and hermit crabs, the bracelet poked out of the sand. It must have been beautiful once, but there was a thick patina of barnacles growing on it. Fortune was the only reason it had been washed up on the shore.
Beside it, a spirit flickered in and out. It was a man, or at least, seemed to be, for the shape of its head was almost impossible to make out.
“Thank you,” it said. “I have been....” It was gone. Then back. “Crying out for days.”
There was real pain in those words. Marissa held the bracelet carefully and looked at the spirit where its eyes would be. “I’ll fix it, and clean all the salt off. Most ghosts aren’t as articulate as you.”
“I’ve been...” A blink, and then. “Dead a long time. I am” This pause was longer than all of the rest. Nearly a minute went by. “Ezekiel.”
Warmly, Marissa smiled at the spirit. “I’m Marissa. Let’s get this salt taken care of before we converse further.”
Ezekiel nodded. The young girl, and young was the only word to use for her as she could only be 6 or 7 years old, was gifted. It could be a fine match for research.