Teina stood well back from the tree and watched the volt meter as Jimox, invisible among the leaves, ran the electric chainsaw. As soon as the saw fell silent, she noted the voltage, but knew he needed a moment to get his ear cups off. “You okay up there?” she finally called.
“Yep, except for all the sawdust in my fur. Undercut’s done, and I didn’t go too far and get my saw trapped, this time! How’s the battery?”
“Eleven point eight, coming back up toward twelve. I think it’ll handle the last cut.”
“Okay, I’m putting my gear back on.”
Soon the saw started buzzing again, and it wasn’t long before Teina heard a loud crack and the dead branch tumbled to the ground, breaking into several pieces on impact.
She switched off the inverter.
“I need a shower!” came her partner’s voice from the tree. “Saw coming down.”
Teina received the chainsaw, dangling from a rope, then a bag containing ear cups, goggles, and saw-adjusting tools. Jimox made his way carefully down through the branches. “Whew!”
“I want a shower too,” Teina declared. “I like to be all fresh and pretty when we go out to Ghost Island.”
“That’s tonight, isn’t it?” he asked while coiling the power cord.
“Yeah, and Giona says we have visitors from far away.”
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“We might hear some new stories!”
Jimox collected the chainsaw and tools, Teina pulled the power wagon, and they headed for the maintenance building behind Olde Towne where they kept it all.
As sunset light faded and dusk approached, the pair carried oil lanterns, not yet lit, as they silently stepped into a little boat at the Forestland Lake dock. Their weekly journey to the lake’s island, renamed Ghost Island after being set aside as a sanctuary for their non-material friends, was a solemn occasion that made Jimox and Teina want to clean up and dress up a little.
They also knew to be silent most of the time. Many of the lingering spirits who had stories to tell were very shy, after having died untimely or unjust deaths. They had the best chance of sharing if the pair of monkey mammals did little but listen.
Giona was different from most of the other ghosts. Jimox and Teina now knew that she could have moved on to the spirit world long ago, even before they met her, but had chosen to stay behind to help her fellows achieve the same happiness she already enjoyed.
At the little dock on the island, Jimox jumped out and tied up the boat while Teina kept it steady with the oars. Hand in hand they walked up the path toward the clearing. Half-seen misty shapes peeked out from behind trees and bushes, watching and faintly moaning or chattering among themselves.
Fresh, dry rugs and pillows were in place, as always, onto which the pair of guests settled. By agreement, they were no longer in Similand. This island belonged to Giona and the ghosts, to do with as they pleased, without interference from the mortal couple who maintained the rest of the old theme
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park.
Giona danced into the clearing, the handful of Similand regulars close behind. About a hundred came more slowly, and perhaps a hundred more just watched from the bushes.
“It is an honor to be here, Giona,” Jimox announced with an air of formality. “We probably would have died in the quake if you and the other ghosts hadn’t . . . um . . . helped us move to Fairy Castle.”
Giona giggled and Teina grinned.
The pair fell silent, put arms and tails around each other, and leaned back to see and hear whatever might take place.
As the darkness deepened, more spirits crept out of the trees and shimmered in soft shades of greens and blues, with sometimes a tinge of yellow. The angry reds and oranges that Jimox and Teina remembered from Gibson’s Bay and downtown Westron were rarely seen anymore.
With encouragement from Giona, twelve ghosts came forward that evening to tell their stories. What they had to say varied from just a few words, to ten or fifteen minutes of rambling, but in each case the pair of mortals listened carefully. Most of what they heard about Burning Day was the same as they knew from their own hometown in the north. A few stories included injustices that resulted from the fear running wild in the last days of the former civilization. One shy ghost spoke of an abusive parent, and found the courage to rest in Teina’s hand when she offered it.
“Weeee!” Giona called in her tiny voice as the abused spirit turned a pure blue and floated up into the sky, never again to be seen or heard on Siminia Three.
Sometime after midnight, Jimox and Teina said good-night to the remaining spirits, less in number by seven or eight. They silently lit their lanterns and made their way back across Forestland Lake.
Jimox rowed, and by the time they came to the far dock, Teina was asleep in the bottom of the boat.
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