She watched Jack join Belle in bed as Gretl settled on her side but Baron, although he lay down on his belly, watched Myrtle.
Myrtle gave the dog a friendly wave and Baron let out a gentle woof.
“Quiet, Baron,” Jack ordered softly and instantly Baron put his jaws on his front paws but he didn’t take his blinking eyes from the girl-child ghost.
Myrtle walked backwards, melting through the wall and once through, she zoomed to where Lewis was hovering at the window in the eastern turret, watching the storm.
“Lewis, Lewis, Lewis! Belle’s going to help us!” Myrtle cried upon reaching him, grabbing his arm to give it a good shake.
Lewis turned to look at his sister.
“She can’t help us, Myrtie Mine,” he replied, using the nickname their mother had given Myrtle so many years ago. “She has to be –”
“She saved a bunch of children from drowning. I heard it. She told Jack the whole story,” Myrtle explained excitedly.
Lewis’s ghost form went still at this news.
“She’s a real-life hero,” Myrtle announced. “She’s going to find a way. I know she is. I could tell by her voice. Everyone is going to help her. Everyone but Jack, that is,” Myrtle told him then suggested brightly, “I think we should appear in front of Jack!”
Lewis rolled his ghost eyes to the ceiling then back to his sister.
“I keep telling you, no. You’re always wanting to appear in front of Jack. You wanted to appear in front of Gareth too.”
“I liked Jack’s father,” Myrtle sulked. “I don’t know why you won’t ever let us –”
“I don’t either,” Lewis explained for the millionth time. “We just can’t. I don’t know why, I just feel it. We can’t. Something will happen, something bad.” He floated closer to his sister. “Please, Myrtle, just listen to me and don’t do anything silly. If Belle wants to try, we can help her. But you have to promise me you won’t appear in front of Jack.”
Myrtle looked sullen a moment then she nodded jerkily.
“Promise me, Myrtle,” Lewis pressed.
“Lewis –”
“Say it out loud.”
She crossed her arms on her chest then said waspishly, “I promise.”
If Lewis could breathe, he’d have let out a breath.
The rules were, if you promised out loud, you couldn’t break the promise, both of them new that by heart.
Myrtle floated away in full pout.
Lewis looked out the window and decided not for the first time and, he reckoned, not for the last, that he hated storms.
Especially thunderstorms.
Then he looked at the spot where his then new ghost self had watched through the pouring rain and booming thunder, the bad man throw his struggling, screaming, crying mother over the cliff.
His thoughts were not on his mother but the woman who reminded Lewis of her.
Belle was a real-life hero.
This was good news for Lewis knew (though Myrtle didn’t and he hadn’t told her in all their hundreds of years together, though he didn’t know why, just like he didn’t know why they couldn’t appear in front of the masters, he just knew) that his mother, too, had saved a child from drowning in the sea.
It was one of the reasons why she was much loved in the village.
Therefore, Lewis had real hope.