Deception by Lee Nichols Page A

pass right through her ghostly form and smash into the wall.
    So I just smiled. “Glad to meet you.”
    “You must be Emma,” she said warmly. “I’m so happy to — ”
    “You talk !” I squeaked.
    “One of my many talents.” She laughed. She even had a Mary Poppins accent that was faintly English.
    “Really? What else can you do?”
    “Well, my dear, I’ve been known to coddle, tease, manage, advise, and — I’m sorry to say — even gossip .” Her eyes twinkled at me. “I’ve run households and raised children. Never my own, though.”
    I goggled at her, amazed to meet a talkative ghost.
    “For you,” she continued, “I’ll manage the staff and perhaps even teach you a few things. And, I dearly hope, be a friend to you in this difficult time.”
    “Who — who are you?”
    “I’m Martha,” she said. “Did Bennett not tell you I was coming?”
    “Oh! Oh, he did, but he didn’t — ”
    “Well, he’s distracted these days, poor boy.” Her eyes creased with concern. “Still mourning his loss, and — ”
    “Wait!” I said. “You’re real .”
    “Pardon?” she said.
    “You’re not a gh — not a — I mean, you’re really here . Finally.” I squeezed her arm, and yes — she was flesh and blood. “I’m so glad to meet you.”
    She inspected me, and behind her sweet face I sensed a keen intelligence. “I’m struck by an uncomfortable feeling that we owe you an apology,” she said. “In any case, I’m sorry I’m so late in arriving — everything’s at sixes and sevens back home.”
    I had no idea what that meant. “Well, you’re here now. Can I help with your bags?”
    “Relax,” she said. “Nicholas will do it.”
    “Nicholas?” I asked. “Who’s — ?”
    But there he was, the urchin, carrying her sea chest upstairs, his back bowed under the weight … grinning happily.
    “Oh,” I said. “Um.”
    “Surely you’ve met the staff?” Martha asked me.
    “Um,” I repeated. She saw him, too? So he wasn’t a ghost?
    “Better with a footman, of course, but the Sterns prefer a small staff.” She beckoned me toward the kitchen. “Well, they did when they were in residence.”
    “Are the Sterns gone? I mean, for good?”
    “For the foreseeable future,” she said, filling the teakettle with water. “The whole family is still in shock.”
    “What happened?”
    She sighed and bustled around with the tea bags and honey. “Nothing good, I’m afraid. A few months ago — ”
    The front door slammed open, and Bennett called, “Martha?”
    A warm smile rose on her face. “In the kitchen!”
    A moment later, he strode in and, without a glance at me, wrapped Martha in a fierce hug. “You look beautiful,” he said.
    “I look the same as always,” she said, stepping back to eye him. “ You look pale and exhausted. And too skinny.” She turned to me. “Is he not eating?”
    For some reason, his pleasure in Martha, his clear affection for her, made me crabby. Maybe I was jealous, or maybe … well, okay — I was jealous. Not of the affection, so much, but of their smiles and shared history. I felt like the outsider I was, like I’d never know him as well as she did.
    “He’s too grumpy to eat,” I said.
    “Grumpy? My sweetest little boy?”
    Bennett looked at me, a laughing appeal in his eyes. “If she breaks out the baby pictures, I’m begging you — run .”
    I refused to be charmed. “We still need to talk.”
    “I haven’t seen Martha in two months, Emma, I — ”
    “Bennett,” she interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    He sighed as he looked at me. “The day’s warming up. Let’s go in the garden.”
    Bennett and I strolled through the now-barren rose garden, toward the red sumac and the Japanese maple.
    “So,” he said. “I’m listening.”
    This was it, the moment I spilled all my dark secrets. After which Bennett would call the men in white coats. But I didn’t care; I couldn’t keep this bottled up any longer. I took a