“What do you think I mean?” Estelle uttered slowly, with a glower that could well have sent someone else to the grave with her. “Does it sound like I’m speaking Gobbledegook?”
Of course this man would never have even understood French, let alone the ugly guttural nonsense goblins spoke; Estelle was surprised if he could read and write in English, for that matter. The urgency of her situation was clearly lost on him. And, Estelle supposed, she would not have chosen him for help at all, if the first passer-by she had waylaid had not shaken her off with a wild look and gestured at this boy as if he were better-placed to see off the situation. She couldn’t fathom why... she had only cast him the briefest of glances before swooping over to him, but to her he seemed rather short and weedy-looking, with a youthful face that was not far beyond boyhood – and strangely familiar, though she couldn’t imagine why – and a daft, happy expression that could only, Estelle was sure, point to the presence of an unspeakable moron.
She had held a brief spark of hope that he was an Auror-in-training, or something. But he looked utterly bewildered by her opening statement (as long as a statement could be, spewed out in one unceasing breath), which Estelle had thought fairly plain to comprehend. She had offered more detail to it, naturally, in as clipped and emotionless a way as she could muster, in spite of the newness of her condition. But surely any village idiot might have grasped the fundamentals by now? After all, I’ve been murdered was the gist of it.
Though in truth, there were some facets of this development that were inexplicable to her as well. The first was how had she ever gotten herself murdered in a time and place so gauche as the broad daylight of a Wednesday morning, in a mundane little corner of Hogsmeade? Estelle, on those occasions she had sorrowfully ruminated on her death before – usually hand-in-hand with wondering whether anyone in her life would bother to miss her – had always expected it would be a more drawn out affair, a long slow decline of tuberculosis and her floating about the house looking deathly pale in white nightgowns, and everyone around her remarking on her admirable stoicism and forbearance, and regretting their ways when she was gone.
But perhaps it was better to have gone like this, in some ghastly manner in her prime: at least it was shocking, particularly for a debutante of her name and standing, and she might see her portrait in the papers as some cause célèbre everyone felt obliged to speak about for months. Maybe they would even rename the Hogsmeade street on which she had been killed after her. Estelle Avenue. (Maybe they ought to erect a monument in her memory?)
But – Estelle quashed these deliberations for the moment, because first she ought to see about having her murderer caught and duly punished. Indeed, and having her body recovered and laid to rest. She had been a few streets away, coming to visit a friend in Wellingtonshire, when she’d stopped on the way to receive a letter from the owl flapping about her face. And then, out of nowhere, it had happened.
“I mean to say, I was walking just there, at the turn, when I stopped and someone came up behind me and just –” Estelle grasped a hand to her own throat and squeezed to express it: strangled me. The very words were too painful to bear saying out loud at this juncture; Estelle was afraid she might – well, choke on them.
She had been choking, as she was throttled. And then she had felt the life fade out of her, and then she had gotten up and glided down the streets again to find help. (She had never imagined she would become a ghost – but she supposed she must be one, mustn’t she? She certainly felt cool and pale and and a bodiless semblance, drifting across the earth but no longer feeling anything. Surely he had seen a ghost before?)
Of course this man would never have even understood French, let alone the ugly guttural nonsense goblins spoke; Estelle was surprised if he could read and write in English, for that matter. The urgency of her situation was clearly lost on him. And, Estelle supposed, she would not have chosen him for help at all, if the first passer-by she had waylaid had not shaken her off with a wild look and gestured at this boy as if he were better-placed to see off the situation. She couldn’t fathom why... she had only cast him the briefest of glances before swooping over to him, but to her he seemed rather short and weedy-looking, with a youthful face that was not far beyond boyhood – and strangely familiar, though she couldn’t imagine why – and a daft, happy expression that could only, Estelle was sure, point to the presence of an unspeakable moron.
She had held a brief spark of hope that he was an Auror-in-training, or something. But he looked utterly bewildered by her opening statement (as long as a statement could be, spewed out in one unceasing breath), which Estelle had thought fairly plain to comprehend. She had offered more detail to it, naturally, in as clipped and emotionless a way as she could muster, in spite of the newness of her condition. But surely any village idiot might have grasped the fundamentals by now? After all, I’ve been murdered was the gist of it.
Though in truth, there were some facets of this development that were inexplicable to her as well. The first was how had she ever gotten herself murdered in a time and place so gauche as the broad daylight of a Wednesday morning, in a mundane little corner of Hogsmeade? Estelle, on those occasions she had sorrowfully ruminated on her death before – usually hand-in-hand with wondering whether anyone in her life would bother to miss her – had always expected it would be a more drawn out affair, a long slow decline of tuberculosis and her floating about the house looking deathly pale in white nightgowns, and everyone around her remarking on her admirable stoicism and forbearance, and regretting their ways when she was gone.
But perhaps it was better to have gone like this, in some ghastly manner in her prime: at least it was shocking, particularly for a debutante of her name and standing, and she might see her portrait in the papers as some cause célèbre everyone felt obliged to speak about for months. Maybe they would even rename the Hogsmeade street on which she had been killed after her. Estelle Avenue. (Maybe they ought to erect a monument in her memory?)
But – Estelle quashed these deliberations for the moment, because first she ought to see about having her murderer caught and duly punished. Indeed, and having her body recovered and laid to rest. She had been a few streets away, coming to visit a friend in Wellingtonshire, when she’d stopped on the way to receive a letter from the owl flapping about her face. And then, out of nowhere, it had happened.
“I mean to say, I was walking just there, at the turn, when I stopped and someone came up behind me and just –” Estelle grasped a hand to her own throat and squeezed to express it: strangled me. The very words were too painful to bear saying out loud at this juncture; Estelle was afraid she might – well, choke on them.
She had been choking, as she was throttled. And then she had felt the life fade out of her, and then she had gotten up and glided down the streets again to find help. (She had never imagined she would become a ghost – but she supposed she must be one, mustn’t she? She certainly felt cool and pale and and a bodiless semblance, drifting across the earth but no longer feeling anything. Surely he had seen a ghost before?)
