Judging from their reaction, they did not believe me but were interested in my 'myth.' I did not blame them for their skepticism; they had never visited the Halls of Ancient Thought. They asked questions, which I attempted to answer without revealing information outworlders should not know of.
"On Vulcan," Jim said finally, in a peculiarly intense voice, "that may be true. But on Earth it's a different matter." He waited for quiet. After an unattractive snort from the brother, he got it. "On Earth, the spirits of the dead hover, waiting to finish business they've left behind."
"Transactions?"
"Revenge," he hissed, looking like he wanted to tag a pejorative on but would not do so in front of his mother. "For those who hurt them, or their families, and those who killed them. Take Mary Sue Myers, for example. A very good friend of mine, a lovely girl." My back stiffened. Before he had finished, there was a snort. "No comments from the peanut gallery, please," he requested evenly.
"The peanut gallery?" The brother's voice was electric with indignation. "Who died and made you nineteen?"
"Who's telling this story?"
Jim was. It was a very long story. And as he told it, the snorting stopped and even the fire seemed to hold its breath. I couldn't think why. It was unlikely in the extreme that his even-tenored voice had the same effect on his family that it had on me, and his words were lamentably superstitious.
The end of the story approached and his voice lapsed into silence. I was still for several moments, expecting to be jumped at. He merely gazed into the fire and shivered, nursing his tall glass of water. Whether he truly believed his words or was merely blanketed in the mood he had created, I could not tell.
His father began speaking next. In the course of that evening I heard no less than eight stories, each more superstitious and disturbing than the last. The eighth was a joint effort.
The brother began. "An Irishman, an Englishman, and an American were caught in a rainstorm."
"You speak," I ventured, "as though this were unfortunate."
Suddenly, Jim whirled around from the fire and dashed his water in my face. I stared at him, dripping. "You have a fire," he said, his mouth still glaring but his eyes enjoying themselves. "They didn't. For you it stopped. For them it went on for hours, and the force behind each drop was a hell--er, sorry, Mom--was a lot greater than I can manage. Also there were deep loud booming noises coming from nowhere at quasi-regular intervals, and bolts of electricity sufficient to fry metal lancing down randomly. Trust me, they were miserable. You may switch seats with me."
He stalked off to the kitchen to refill his glass. I took him up on his offer. Avoiding his family's eyes, I removed my outermost layer and held it out to the fire to dry before it could seep into my underlayers. After all, this was not the time for indulgences.
The brother cleared his throat and continued. "So they were caught in this thunderstorm and they happened across this deserted mansion."
"How convenient," I observed.
"You're being entertained," Jim yelled from the kitchen. "Appreciate it."
I raised an affronted eyebrow at him. Unfortunately, he was not in visual range.
Pointedly, the brother cleared his throat again. "Well, they were getting very wet and unhappy, so they decided to go in."
I decided not to voice the comment about violations of guest-right.
"They were loitering in the hall, when the..." He trailed off, and looked at his father and Captain April speculatively. "The Englishman said..."
Captain April looked furtively at the kitchen. "Perhaps I'll explore a little."
Jim reappeared, with more water. "You aren't doing it right."
"Oh, Jimmy..."
"It's supposed to be a stereotype," he said firmly. "Do it right."
Captain April sighed, looking put-upon. "Oh, very well." His accent suddenly gained strength. "I say, chappies, s'pose I take a bit of a jolly old look-around, wot wot?" He made a face. "Happy, Jimmy?"
"Oh, very." He was, indeed, smiling slightly. I was pleased to see it. The others were grinning affectionately and chuckling, of course, but even this much was a vast improvement.
"So," the brother went on. "The Englishman went farther into the house, and soon he came across a table, on which was resting a one-dollar bill."
"A what?" I asked.
"An obsolete form of the currency of the nation which used to occupy this territory," April explained. "Small green rectangles of paper, denoting monetary value. Dollars were units of value, and bills came in one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred dollar values."
"Thank you, Captain. A lucid explanation. Please, continue."
Jim picked up a smallish piece of wood from the pile waiting to be fed to the flames, dug a switchblade out of his pocket, and began using the one on the other with contained, savage strokes.
"Well, since the house was deserted," the brother continued with an alarmed look at his sibling, "and the dollar was covered with dust--"
"I thought that the dollar was a value unit."
"Yeah," Jim agreed absently, digging furiously into the wood with his knife, "But it was also used as a term for a the physical representation of that unit."
"Anyway, since it was obvious that nothing had been touched for years, the Englishman reached for the dollar. Just before he touched it, a voice rang out."
Lady Kirk wailed, a full-bodied whisper of wind over dunes. "I am the ghost of Able Mabel; that one-dollar bill belongs on the table!"
I started slightly, and looked at her. Jim grinned savagely, and went easier on the piece of wood. It was beginning to resemble the fireplace, complete with flaming logs and ashes.
"Good Gad, it's a bally demon," Captain April cried enthusiastically.
"And he hightailed it out of there into the storm," the brother finished. "Well, the other two looked after him, and then the Irishman decided to go in and see what had happened. He went into the same room and there, covered with dust on the untouched table, was a five dollar bill. Naturally, he went to pick it up. But before he could touch it, there was a voice."
"I am the ghost of Able Mabel," Lady Kirk moaned. "That five-dollar bill belongs on the table!"
"Jaysus Mairy'n Josuf," Kirk shouted in an extremely strange voice, running his hand over his head so his orange hair spiked wildly, "It's the bluidy li'ul people!"
I raised an eyebrow. I had been under the impression that Lady Kirk had been portreying a ghost, not undersized Humans in whatever state of sanguinuity.
"And he ran out into the storm like all the devils of hell were after him."
"George!"
"Sorry, Mom. It's part of the story."
"I had thought it was a one dollar bill," I protested.
"It was," Jim hissed, all his attention on his knife. "Shut up."
"And the American," the brother went on in a voice overburdened with suspense and significance, "looked after him, scratched his head, and decided to take a look himself. So he sauntered into the room and there, on the grimy table, was a dusty ten-dollar bill."
"The bill has changed denominations again?"
This time they all ignored me.
"The American reached for it, but before he could touch it, the voice came."
"I am the ghost of Able Mabel," Lady Kirk wailed. "That ten-dollar bill belongs on the table!"
Jim looked up from his wood, mildly interested. "Yeh?" He didn't have to get up and walk to swagger; his drawling voice and the cockeyed glance he was giving his mother did it for him. "Well, I'm the grandson of Davy Crockett; that ten-dollar bill belongs in my pocket."
They all started laughing or, in Jim's case, smirking faintly. They tapered off as their amusement met my incomprehension.
"I do not understand," I said flatly.
Kirk and his elder son groaned. Captain April tipped his head back and covered his eyes. Jim hunched his shoulders, smoothed his face to blankness, and bent over his carving.
"Why and how did the dollar change values? And why was this ghost's final task to guard it? And--"
"Children and Vulcans," Kirk muttered. "Never tell jokes to children and Vulcans."
"That's not fair, George," Captain April chided from beneath his hands. "Children often have quite a good sense of humor."
"Bedtime, children," Lady Kirk announced.
The brother groaned. Jim closed his knife, returned it to his pocket, and made for the stairs, clutching the wood tightly and ignoring his water. I heard him pounding up the stairs, two at a time, and then the impact of his banging door shook the house.
I picked up his glass without a word, and brought it in to the kitchen. There was a neat stack of dishes in what looked like the human equivalent of a sink. Before adding Jim's glass to the pile, I raised it to my lips and swallowed until it was empty.
Hearing an approach, I put the glass down and turned to look. As I had judged from the footsteps, it was Lady Kirk. "That was sweet of you, Spock," she said, glancing at the glass.
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Sweet?"
"Yes. Never mind. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the stories."
"On the contrary, T'Wynn. I found them to be quite... unusual. And the effort you put forth on my behalf was much appreciated."
"I'm sorry about Jim," she said unexpectedly. "I don't know what's wrong with him tonight. He usually likes surprises."
"This is not how I remember him," I admitted.
She sighed. "Sometimes I wish he'd just throw tantrums like his father. They're much easier to deal with, and they don't last as long."
"Easier?"
She chuckled. "Much. He gets these cold spells from his grandmother; my mother. Whenever he does this all I can see is her, and I never could win with Mother." She shook her head fondly, dark straight hair sliding across her shoulders. "He's her image, too. I suppose it's the price I pay for his brother; Georgie hasn't lost his temper in years. Come upstairs, you're rooming with him."
"Indeed?"
"It wasn't my idea."
My attempt at neutrality must have failed. "I see."
"Neither do I. We'll ride it out, Spock. They do end."
Startled by the unanticipated offer of support, I looked at her. She offered me one of Jim's quieter smiles. I bowed slightly. The quiet smile transformed to an impish one as she made me a curtsey.
She walked upstairs with me as I carried my bag to the brother's room. She hustled me into the bathroom and showed me how to use all the old fashioned mechanisms, and then she left me. I was uncomfortable with such a great use of water from someone else's private residence, but the brother told me that the only thing to be embarrassed about was not using water for that purpose when sleeping in someone else's private room, so I made use of the facilities.
The brother called in at one point to ask whether or not I was burned black yet, and I explained that Vulcans perceived temperature differently than Humans. This touched off a lengthy and technical discussion through the shower door, which ended in his dumping a number of blankets on my bed and apologizing for the malfunctioning heat-regulatory unit in his room. I decided that perhaps my first impression of him had been unfair.
After a time, he began to snore.
Perhaps a Terran would not have noticed. To me, it was intolerable. It would have been to any Vulcan. I recall a week when my mother had an infection of the upper respiratory tract and my father purchased two pairs of earplugs, gave one to me, and moved into the guest room.
I rose, closed the door behind me, sat on the stairs, and listened. There were noises from Commander and Lady Kirk's room that I stopped listening to quickly. Captain April was breathing regularly and deeply, and much less noisily than the brother. I could still hear him, but it was less irritating now that I was not trying to sleep next to and in spite of it. The distance and the door also assisted. Jim was quite definitely awake. He was not only breathing irregularly but, if I was interpreting the data correctly, pounding his mattress rhythmically. Or possibly the pillow. It may indeed have been the pillow. The steady thunk was less solid than I should have expected if it had been the mattress.
That was neither the pillow nor the mattress. At a guess, it was his head. Wondering why he was striking himself, I reached out tentatively.
He was angry. And embarrassed. Very angry. He thought my name--no, he had said it aloud. I steeled myself for the expected rage, and was thus completely unprepared for overpowering regret. There was a good deal of disgust tempering the rage, but I now saw that it was primarily self-directed. In the manner that a fossil is made, his anger was replaced by determination and possessiveness. Curious about how he intended to possess himself, I pushed deeper, and found that now he was thinking of me, and that the anger had been reassigned. He was now aiming it at... my father and... a girl... named Spring?
I stood. I would have to tell him about T'Pring, of course, but I had T'Pau's blessing and Vulcan mores to back me up. I expected a very good explanation for both this Spring and the regrettable and superstitious Miss Myers.
I pushed his door open and stepped into the dark.
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