“Oh!” Miriam exclaimed. “You’re a… a raven!”
“Course I am,” said Lucky. “What did you expect? A mongoose?”
“No... But… but… You’re a bird. And you can talk?”
“Comes with the job. Cloak of Lady Death and whatnot. Which is all metaphorical, meaning that I never met her properly. Though I can tell that you have–and quite recently if I’m not mistaken.”
“So I’m dead.” The girl said it as a statement and not a question.
“I should think so,” the raven replied. “First bit of evidence of that is the fact that you are talking to me. Second… Well, I’d tell you to take a peek behind you at what’s left of your earthly vessel, but um…”
The ghost grunted as though struggling. “I can’t really turn my head yet.”
“Probly a good thing. See, there’s some vultures (they’re really good for the environment you know?), who have caught wind of your particular aroma and…”
“And?”
“Now they’re having a bit of a go.”
“A go?”
“As in, there goes a nice length of small intestine. Slurped it like a worm, that one did.”
“Ew!”
“Ooh! And there goes a bit of your liver, right down the gullet. Tastiest part if you ask me.”
The ghost girl shivered. “Could we talk about something else please? What’s your name?”
“Lucky-I-Ain’t.”
“That’s a sad name.”
“Not really. Last name’s You. As in Lucky-I-Ain’t You.”
“Oh. Well, can I just call you Lucky?”
“A rose by any other name still gives you a thorny butt.”
“My name is Miriam,” said the ghost girl. “What happens now?”
“Right! Okay, here goes.” Lucky cleared his throat. “I hope I can remember everything from the training manual. You are here because you are dead. Under normal circumstances I’d be escorting your soul to the Great Beyond. Which, by the by, is a much longer journey than the migration of the blackpoll warbler.”
“The blackpoll what?”
“Exactly. Those winged little meatballs get all this credit for long-distance flying but they couldn’t hold a feather to a Death Raven. I mean, they get articles in magazines, gaggles of photographers. It’s really unfair.”
“Can we get back to that… Great Beyond? Is that where I’m going?”
“Oh right. At some point, yes. But your phys’cal appearance as a ghost means there’s some unfinished business that needs attending before you can go.”
“What unfinished business?”
“No idea. That’s for me to not know and you to find out.”
“So I’m just supposed to go around haunting people or something? For how long?”
“Till you figure out your unfinished business.”
“And then what?”
Lucky cocked his head sidewise as if thinking. “Finish it, I suppose. Though, honestly, I don’t know. But let’s think this through logically. What’s the last thing you remember before you bit the dust–or, erm, rather, the giant rock at the bottom of the cliff?”
“I was… camping. And there was... a plan. The BIG PLAN.”
“Ooh. A plan is always a good start,” said Lucky. “Especially if it’s an unfinished plan.”
“Yes! It was an unfinished plan! But I don’t know if that’s all of it.”
“Okay. What else then?”
“I was being chased.”
“Chased, huh? So you were murdered?! That makes everything an awful lot easier. Seventy-two percent of ghosts are due to murders. Stabbings. Shootings. Poisonings. Opera. The worser the murder the stronger the ghostly inclinations.”
“I think I might have been tripped.”
“Hmm… Tripping isn’t a very grizzly murder. You know who did it?”
“There were small voices,” the ghost said at last. “And maybe a red hat.”
“Small voices. Red hat. Uh huh. Yep. Wait. What?!”
“Yes. Not children, though. Little… people.”
Oh no. She can’t mean– “That’s, um… not so good. Rather… well… unlucky, in fact.”
“Why? What happened to me?”
“Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, but it sounds like you had a run in with the faerie folk.”
“Faeries? Oh come on. There’s no such thing.”
“Right. And there’s no such thing as ghosts or talking ravens either.”
Miriam’s ghost wobbled ponderously. “You do have a point.”