I’m back from London, and Julian and Emma told me to tell you “hello” and also “they send their love.” But that is not the important part of the letter, which is later. But you shouldn’t skip to that part, I will explain why soon.
Blackthorn Hall is actually pretty cool. It’s big and it’s old, and lots of parts don’t work properly yet, but Emma and Jules have done a lot to make it nice. There’s lots of bedrooms. I picked out one for me, which they called the “gray bedroom,” but honestly all the bedrooms are kind of gray. They said it’s so we can paint them if we want, they’ll be our rooms and we can decorate them how we like.
You’ll have to pick out the one you want when you visit, but I found one that I bet will be your favorite. It overlooks the gardens which I think will be the last thing to get fixed up, and so will continue to look creepy for a while. There are all these broken statues with plants grown over them, like they were trying to kill the statues. Like they succeeded in killing the statues. It looks like if you went walking down there the vines would wrap around you and pull you underground. You’ll love it.
I didn’t sleep well before we traveled to London and now I think it was because I was worried. Anush says our bodies often tell us how we are feeling even when our minds aren’t conscious of it. Like feeling nauseated before an important test. You probably know what I mean.
But it was good. Especially to see Jules and Emma. I hadn’t realized how much I missed them until I saw them. I think I felt it like Anush says, like a weird pressure in my chest that went away when Jules hugged me. Maybe it’s the same for you. Or maybe you already know how much you miss them. Anyway I thought it was important to say I also miss you and it’ll be nice when we can all be in the same house together again. I think Irene will like it there too.
Ragnor’s map did actually help, so it was good he came. He found a couple of places in London to check for more of those cursed objects, so that’s one step closer to un-cursing the house. I know, it would be cool to live in a cursed house. But it wouldn’t be fair to Rupert the Ghost, since he’s trapped there because of the curse. And anyway there’s all this renovation work that the builders won’t do until the curse is lifted. And it would be good if the house’s roof didn’t leak. That might be a little too gloomy even for you.
Now we’ve talked about the bedrooms, the house, and Ragnor, so if anyone asks you can tell them those are the things we discussed. We are now at the part of the letter where I have to tell you important things but I wanted you to have information you could share in case someone asked you if you had heard from me. I mean, if someone important asks you. If someone we don’t know asks you, Anush says you can say “Make like a tree and leave,” which I don’t understand but he says will definitely work.
So, the important part. Rupert the Ghost. I wasn’t really thinking when I wrote up above that it will be nice for us to all be together. I mean, it will be, but it’s not quite that simple, at least for me. See…Rupert saw Livvy. She wasn’t hiding or anything, and she didn’t act surprised that he saw her. But I’ve spent so much time worried about other, you know, living people finding out about her. It hadn’t even occurred to me that of course there are ghosts everywhere, all over the world, and they’ll all know she’s there. The ghosts here at the Scholomance know about her, of course, but Edvard and Prudence keep to themselves and nobody really pays attention to either of them. Prudence is always in the library pretending to shelve books (or actually shelving ghost books, I can’t tell) and Edvard paces slowly through the halls and barely ever talks. Sometimes he moans, but that’s just him complaining.
Rupert and Livvy had a couple of conversations with just the two of them, I guess about ghost stuff. She says she made him promise that he wouldn’t say anything about seeing her, but ghosts can lie. So what if he says something to Emma or Julian? What if he can tell that something is weird with the way Livvy is a ghost and he mentions that?
The thing is, it’s not just Rupert. Even if he stays quiet, I already almost made Emma suspicious by talking to Livvy myself. I had to tell her I was talking to you on the phone. I know about Rupert and I know about Edvard and Prudence, but there could be ghosts anyplace I go, and if someone else is there and they start interacting with Livvy I’m going to have to explain. I got used to Edvard and Prudence ignoring her but Rupert drifted right into the bedroom and asked her who she was.
Livvy says I shouldn’t worry. She reminds me that any Shadowhunter can see ghosts who want to be seen, like Edvard and Prudence, but that it’s much harder to see a ghost who doesn’t want to be seen, and that’s most ghosts. She says Rupert wanted to be seen — first by Emma and Jules and then by Livvy and me, though only Livvy’s seen him really clearly— but if he didn’t, I’d never have known he was there. She says she’s able to hide herself from almost all people (even Jace, and he has latent ghost-seeing powers), and even able to hide herself from a lot of ghosts. And that even if they do see her, they won’t necessarily know who she is, it’s not like ghosts can just identify each other. And she says if she has to, she’ll just lie to them.
She said a lot of reassuring things. But it still gave me a cold feeling, which I think is my body telling my brain that I’m afraid. If Julian and Emma found out about Livvy, they wouldn’t just be angry. They’d feel like they had to do something, like lay her to rest. People don’t think ghosts can be happy, but Livvy is happy. She helps me with work and she tells me advice for Anush (he has a crush on Rayan’s sister Nasha) and when we’re alone we play games or I read to her. She can’t do everything but why would being all the way dead be better? Everyone calls it “rest” but no one really knows, do they?
