“This is a greeting after a long parting, Tacy, my little one,” she said, laughing. “Only yesterday it was you saw me.”

  “And did not think to see you again. Is it not a rule of ghosts, to disappear when their task on earth is done?”

  The automaton’s face was not expressive, and yet I would swear Mistress Angharad looked sly. “Yet here I am.”

  I sat back on my heels. “Is it giving eternity the slip you are, then? The truth now.”

  “The truth?” She shrugged sti|y. “I am as surprised as you. Perhaps there’s no eternal rule about a ghost that haunts a machine. Perhaps I am outside all rules now and can make my own for a change. Perhaps” — she rose from the settle and began her favorite pacing — “I can wear what I like and go where I will. Would you like to be trained as a mechanic, Tacy, and be my lady’s maid, to keep me wound and oiled?”

  “If you are no longer a lady,” I said, with a chill that surprised even me, “you will not need a lady’s maid. I would prefer to train as an engineer, but if I must be a servant, I’d rather be a housekeeper with a great house to run than a mechanic, which is only a scullery maid with an oilcan.”

  A man’s laugh startled us both. “Well said, Tacy,” said Sir Arthur from the kitchen door, where he’d been listening. “Only I have in mind to make your mother housekeeper, if she will do it, with a gaggle of housemaids under her to keep the place tidy. You I need to design a voice for my humanatron. You will learn engineering. Which means I must command tutors and books from London. And new tools and a new automaton from France, of course. Perhaps more than one. I suppose I must write my lawyers first and finish work on the pipe. And the foundation needs work, the masons say.” He sighed. “There’s so much to do, I do not know where to begin.”

  “Breakfast first,” I said. “And then we’ll talk about the rest.”

  There is a ghost in Cwmlech Manor.

  She may be seen by anyone who writes a letter that interests her. Mr. Whitney came all the way from Pittsburgh to talk to her. He stayed a month, and Sir Arthur persuaded him to invest in the humanatron.

  She travels often, accompanied by her mechanic and sometimes by me, when I can spare the time from my engineering studies and my experiments. Last summer, we went to London, and Sir Arthur presented us to Queen Victoria, who shook our hands and said she had never spoken to a ghost before, or a female engineer, and that she was delightfully amused.

  The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor © Delia Sherman 2011

 

 

  Delia Sherman, The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor

 

 

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