by Lauren James
As Claudia cooed up at her mother, Leah closed her eyes, pained. “Where is Felix?”
Rima winced. “We don’t know. He disappeared after Oscar disintegrated.”
The day before, more police had come to check the building. Presumably Oscar’s family had reported him missing. They’d taken away the corpse, commenting on how much of a safety risk the abandoned building was becoming.
Rima couldn’t believe that Oscar was gone. There was something so tragic about him actually dying here, but not getting to become a ghost or see his brother. Especially after he’d loyally come back year after year to grieve for Felix.
Oscar had been so nice to her, when they were alive. He’d once found Rima struggling with some calculations for an assignment about painkiller dosages. He had been studying maths, so he’d explained it to her, drawing out diagrams and making sure she understood it all. It took hours. Afterwards, they ordered pizza and watched The X-Files together.
A few days before Rima’s death, she had taught him how to boil an egg in the kitchenette on the second floor after she’d found him trying to boil one in the kettle. They chatted as the eggs bobbled around in an actual saucepan, and then carried on talking over soft-boiled eggs and crumpet soldiers.
Harriet had no idea what she’d destroyed.
“How are you feeling?” Rima asked.
“I’ll be all right.” Leah rested her head on Rima’s shoulder and absorbed three rat spirits Rima had caught for her. She glowed a little brighter as she inhaled each one. “I’ve been a Shell before. If Claudia didn’t hurt anyone, then it was all worth it.”
Rima had been trying hard not to think about the baby. Claudia had gone to sleep for the first time since Leah had passed out, curled up serenely against her chest.
“Where’s Harriet?” Leah asked.
Rima stared out at the sunset, glowing pink and yellow behind the campus buildings. No one had seen Harriet since the fight, but there were rumours. Rumours were all Rima had to go on, now that Felix was missing, and Kasper was overwhelmed with guilt for attacking Oscar.
“She’s on the fifth floor. We think. Oscar’s energy was a lot to absorb. She’s probably still recovering from it.”
Leah nodded. “OK. So … how are we going to get rid of her?”
“I have an idea. But we should probably find Felix first.”
Leah was a bit shaky standing up, but seemed mostly unaffected by her extended sleep.
“Leah, how old are you?” Rima asked, as they began searching the building for Felix and Kasper. She had never seen anyone pass out after using their power like that – not even the oldest ghosts. She clearly couldn’t handle accessing her power at all any more.
Leah tucked Claudia onto her hip and sighed. “My full name is Aeliana Flavius.”
Rima repeated “Aeliana” under her breath reverently. Leah so rarely spoke about herself that the knowledge was something to treasure.
“It’s Roman,” she added.
Rima blinked. “Roman?”
“It’s Roman, because I’m Roman.”
Rima’s jaw dropped. “Roman. Roman? Like, from Rome?”
“Roman, as in I’m nearly two thousand years old. Around that, anyway. I’m not exactly sure when I was born. I try not to think about it. I didn’t exactly have a pleasant time, when I was alive.”
Absurdly, the first thing that came to Rima’s mind was: “But you speak English. Not Latin.”
Leah smiled. “You pick these things up. Facillimum est.”
“How are you even here?” Rima’s words came out hoarse. “This building was built in the seventies!”
“My home is buried under the foundations. Venonae, it was called.”
“A ruin is enough to keep you here?”
“For now.”
Rima shook her head. Leah – her best friend – was two thousand years old. Even Claudia had lived for millennia. They had been here during the Roman invasion of Britain. The collapse of the Roman Empire. The Dark Ages. The Tudors. The English Civil War. She’d seen everything. Leah must have been through so many unimaginable, horrific things throughout history. It was amazing she was functioning at all.
And she’d listened to Rima babble on about The X-Files for decades.
It made sense that there were older ghosts here though. A few years after her death, Rima had gone exploring Mulcture Hall as a mouse, slipping into crevices under floorboards and down the sides of radiators. She’d found all sorts of lost things – tiny ceramic models, buttons, letters from old students stuck down the sides of their beds before they moved out, Polaroids, jewellery, even some money – but all of the things she found were relatively modern. The building hadn’t been there for a few decades before she’d died. But dozens of generations of people must have lived and died here before that. There must be so much hidden under the ground.
Leah being Roman felt right, in some bizarre, inevitable way. She was dressed in a white linen dress, knotted around her waist. It could be an old, old shift of some kind.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t disintegrate centuries ago. How have you never run out of energy?”
Leah shrugged. “There never used to be any rules against taking energy from other ghosts. That’s a modern phenomenon. For centuries, it was kill or be killed. So to speak. I had the advantage on any attacking ghosts – I used my power to see what attacks were coming.”
This was so surreal. Leah was some kind of warrior ghost. Why had she been content to spend the last few decades just play-fighting with Rima? No wonder she seemed so utterly bored all the time.
“You must be the oldest ghost in the building. Older than the Tricksters, even.”
At the words, Claudia let out a tiny wail. Her eyes bored into Rima like she was trying to convey a message.
Rima shivered, breaking eye contact with the baby.
What could Claudia be thinking? What had she seen over the last two thousand years? How could she stand it? Never ageing beyond a child, or expressing the thoughts that were clearly trapped inside her mind. She was begging to be understood, and – unlike with Cody and other animals – Rima had no way of hearing her.
Rima swallowed the lump in her throat. “It’s not right, that you’re both running out of energy after surviving centuries.”
She wasn’t ready to lose her. Not now. Not ever.
Leah squeezed her elbow. “It’s time.”
“It’s not! There must be something we can do.”
“If we did, we’d be no better than Harriet, Rima. You know that.”
Rima bit her lip, looking away. “I can’t imagine this place without you, Leah.”
There were three ghosts watching from the far end of the corridor. She twisted, so that they couldn’t see that she was crying. Everyone was always waiting now, hoping for more drama and gossip. They made her skin crawl. No wonder Felix had hidden himself away.
“Hey,” Leah said softly, and wiped away her tears. “I’m not going anywhere yet. And my only regret is that I didn’t tell enough people to piss off while I had the chance.”
Rima snorted, and wiped her face on her sleeve. “There’s still time.”
Leah grinned, and turned to yell “Piss off!” at the ghosts watching them. Rima’s tears turned into helpless giggles.
“Feel better?”
“Much.” Rima pulled Leah and Claudia into a hug. “I love you so much, Aeliana.”
Leah held her tightly. “I love you, too. In fact…” She pulled a Best Friends Forever necklace out of her pocket – the one Rima had given her, years ago.
Rima touched the other half of the locket, which hung around her neck. “You kept it? All this time?”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“I’m totally chill, promise! I actually don’t care whether you wear it or not!” Rima had to physically bite down on the corners of her lips to hide her grin as Leah put on the necklace.
Leah hummed in disbelief. “Now, let’s go
find the boys. If I’m disintegrating soon, then you better bet that I’m taking Harriet bloody Stoker with me.”
I don’t remember being alive. I died too young. But I’ve looked back at our lives. I’ve seen what it was like in the Roman fort where we lived. It was nice there – muddy and full of people, but a lot cleaner than some of the buildings that came later.
Leah grew up in a town full of Roman soldiers, caught in constant battle with the Celts near by. She had a speckled cat who ate out of her hands. She sang constantly. She was happy. By the time I was born, she’d lost all of those things. And by the time she died, I was all she had left at all.
Honestly, I prefer being dead to any life I could have had among the living. It’s so much less messy, being a ghost. There are fewer expectations on a girl here.
I enjoy how much people underestimate me. They happily spill all their secrets in front of a baby, showing their true loyalties. I’m not saying that I’d choose to be like this if I had another option. But I’ve made the most out of a bad situation.
The most frustrating part about being so young is that I can’t tell my mother any of the things I see happening in the future. That never used to be a problem, because Leah could see the future herself. But since she stopped using her power, I’m the only one who can see what’s coming. I’ve got no way to warn her.
I’ve known about Harriet since the English Civil War. Leah and I saw out the war in style. This site was being used as an encampment for a troop of Roundheads. They all died like locusts. Honestly, you’ve never seen such poor hygiene.
For a season, we feasted on newborn ghosts all day and night, until we couldn’t do anything but lie around and dream, swollen with energy. Too much energy sends ghosts wild and crazed, destroying them from the inside out. The white hair is an early warning sign, an indication to cut back on your indulgences. We all had it, back then.
It was around that time that I started testing how far into the future I could look. It was just a way to burn up the excess energy, at first.
A decade into the future, I saw a vision of my father learning to knit with the wool from a sheep spirit who’d died before a shearing. It was a hobby he continued for many years. It would have been endearing if he wasn’t using two human fingers as knitting needles, taken from a ghost who’d upset him.
Fifty years away, the old barn had been burnt to the ground, and we were all huddled together under the charcoal remains of the wooden frame.
A hundred years, and we were pale and weak Shells, floating around a few stray stones on the ground.
I should have stopped looking, then. It was already too dangerous, trying to see that far ahead. Time becomes unstable. Just looking could affect things – a little stray energy could cause chaos if it slipped through time.
I wanted to know how long it would take for us to disappear, like all the other ghosts around us. How could we keep surviving without people or animals or a building of any kind?
I skipped ahead in time again, and saw Harriet. It was just a flash – the vision was too small and fragile to last longer than a few seconds, stretched so far across time – but I saw a girl with a hole in the back of her head. Leah and I were there. Harriet was kneeling down beside us, a glowing chain of energy stretching from her hands to ours.
I wish I could have told Leah what I saw. But my mother doesn’t realize I have a power at all.
I try my best to help her avoid danger – crying out in warning, or leaching energy from a threatening ghost until they leave us alone. I’ve kept my mother here for much longer than she’d have managed on her own. For a helpless child, that’s about the best you can hope for.
Leah has no idea that Harriet is just the beginning. I’ll fight alongside her, when the battle starts for real. I’ll be their secret weapon – so secret, even they aren’t aware of it.
FELIX
Felix sat on the fire escape outside Oscar’s old student bedroom on the second floor. Rain trickled down his spine in an ice-cold stream, making his teeth chatter.
Oscar’s room had been emptied of his things years ago, but Felix liked to pretend that Oscar had made some of the pen marks on the desk. Just so he had something of his brother.
His death was the worst kind of nightmare: so outrageously awful that it couldn’t be real.
He kept reliving the terrible moment when he’d understood that he wasn’t going to be strong enough to stop both Harriet and Kasper from attacking Oscar. It had hit him like a punch in the chest: the terrible dawning realization that his power was going to fall short, and Oscar was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.
If he’d practised using his power more, instead of being stubbornly moral about hypnotizing anyone for all these years, he might have been able to control them.
“Hi.” Kasper was leaning out of the window, raindrops falling through him.
“Hi,” Felix said back, automatically. They stared at each other for a moment, then Kasper climbed out beside him.
In silence, they watched dark grey clouds rolling across the landscape. He knew Kasper must be feeling guilty, in the worst kind of way, but he didn’t know how to tell him that this wasn’t his fault. Not without bursting into tears. He was teetering on the brink already.
“Felix…”
“I know we have a lot to discuss. But can we just … sit?”
Kasper bobbed his head. When he held up his arm, Felix fell against his chest, tucking his face into Kasper’s side. His familiar touch anchored something deep inside him, making his pain feel so much more bearable.
Kasper pressed his lips against Felix’s head. “Tell me about him.”
“He was always so much braver than me.” He was trembling, letting out short, muffled sobs against Kasper’s chest.
Kasper let Felix talk, holding and supporting him. They moved closer with every inhale, until Felix was half sitting in his lap.
When he finally pulled away, the rain had stopped. Kasper rubbed water away from Felix’s cheek with one thumb. Felix pretended that it was rainwater instead of tears.
“You’re going to survive this. I promise.” Kasper swallowed. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been there.”
“He died because of Harriet, not you,” Felix insisted.
“You had to stop me. Again.”
“I’ll always be here for you. What I said before – I was wrong. I’m not going anywhere. If you need me, I’m here.” Just like Kasper was there for him.
Kasper’s hand came up, pressing at the back of Felix’s head until their foreheads touched. His pupils were blown wide open. “I’m not going anywhere, either.”
When his gaze dropped to Felix’s lips, Kasper sucked in a stuttering breath. Felix was shocked once again by how close they were. Kasper kept pushing at the boundaries he’d erected between them; creeping closer each time they touched, then darting away again. But maybe now, maybe finally, this was—
Someone yelled, “There they are!”
Felix’s heart stopped. Kasper’s head reared back.
Rima and Leah were barrelling across the room towards them.
HARRIET
Harriet was waiting for Oscar’s power to manifest. She’d done this enough times now that she could tell from the way it was bubbling under her skin that it was almost ready. She hadn’t given up the hope that it might be something useful. Even if it didn’t let her get back to her gran, it could still help her to defend herself if the others came after her again. She’d barely managed to hold them off last time.
She had felt sick and dizzy ever since Oscar’s death. Her lost eyelid and the incisions down her back from Rima’s claws had been oozing constantly. Her whole body felt torn to pieces, like a scab that wouldn’t heal. She itched and itched and itched until she wanted to scratch her skin off.
After the fight had ended, she’d turned invisible and slept in the shadows, lost in the wracking torments of energy. Slowly, as light turned into darkness turned
into light turned into darkness, Oscar’s excess energy died away until she could think again.
Regret overwhelmed her. She hadn’t meant to kill him. All she’d wanted to do was use Oscar’s body to get home, but everything had somehow spiralled out of control. The energy and chaos and adrenaline had got mixed up in her head, and he’d just tasted so delicious, better than anything she’d tried before.
Killing humans was different to making a Shell disintegrate. Killing Oscar … that was murder. She’d murdered him. Felix’s twin brother.
Was she a monster, or was this how everyone felt on the inside? Were they all somehow wishing for blood and death and fear, too? Was everyone else just better than her at pushing those urges down?
Harriet focused on making Oscar’s power manifest, because that felt like the only thing she could control any more. She had tried hunting rats to get a burst of energy, but she hadn’t been able to catch one. There was no one around to trade with, either. The whole population of ghosts in the building seemed to have disappeared. They must be hiding away somewhere until the fighting was over for good.
Gradually, Harriet realized that heavy electronic music was playing near by. It vibrated through the floorboards and made her head pound. It was coming from a group of human students who were making their way through the hall.
They were clearly hours into their pre-drinks, and covered in glowing fluorescent paint. Shining phone lights into the shadowy corners, they kicked old beer cans across the concrete, making room to set down their own bottles of vodka in the corridor where Harriet was hiding.
“All right, Squash Club!” one of the boys said, clapping his hands together. “Where are the freshers at?”
Four pasty students stepped forward, looking nervous. The boy poured lemon juice into a bottle of Baileys, and shouted, “What team?”
“SQUASH!”
He eyed up each of the freshers, then handed the bottle to a blonde girl, who looked dismayed.
“We like to drink with Charlie, ’cause Charlie is our mate,” he began, and the watching students joined in, shouting the rhyme as the fresher choked down the congealed liquid. “AND WHEN WE DRINK WITH CHARLIE, SHE GETS IT DOWN IN EIGHT …”