by R. L. Weeks
Tom stands by the door. “Well, he is and he’s on his way up here.”
My eyes widen.
He can’t come in here. I look down at my nightgown and blush.
Tom smirks. “It’s okay, you look great.”
I throw a pillow at him, which goes right through him; as I knew it would. “I thought you didn’t like Emmett?”
Tom throws his hands up. “What can I say? I’m changeable.”
I narrow my gaze. “Why?”
Tom’s smile falters for a second.
“You can’t be hung up on me for the rest of your life. I want you to be happy. You need someone real to love you, not a ghost. I followed him last night when you were sleeping. He was trying to find clues about the missing kids. Perhaps he really isn’t as bad as we thought, just a creepy guy.”
I hold my breath. My gaze doesn’t leave Tom’s for several seconds. “How did he get past my uncle?” I ask to break the tension.
“Your uncle’s out,” Tom explains. “Your maid let him in.”
Ah, of course, my new maid. I wonder when my uncle showed her around? Perhaps while I was sleeping?
Tom smirks again. “He’s here,” he whispers, even though he has no need. My bedroom door swings open.
Emmett walks in with his cane and takes off his top hat. He stops on the other side of my bed. Tom sits on my chair at the end of my bed and props his feet up, resting his head back in his hands.
“Miss Pride,” Emmett says. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
I push my hair back. “Why are you here?”
Emmett lowers his gaze to my nightgown. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t,” I say quickly. “Is something wrong?”
He shakes his head. “No, but I thought you would return to see me yesterday after you’d had dinner. I have a lot to tell you.”
“I know,” I say. “I was distracted by my uncle.”
That catches Emmett’s attention. “What did he do?”
I put my hand up. “Nothing bad,” I say, “but he was acting weird, and I think he is planning on marrying me to his vile friend.”
Emmett grinds his teeth. “Why didn’t you come and tell me?”
I shrug. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“You really think that?” he asks incredulously. “You thought I wouldn’t care?”
I play with the lace on my sleeves. “I just didn’t think you would.”
He looks up but doesn’t say anything else.
Tom breaks the silence. “Awkward.”
I glance at him and give him my best “shut up” look.
My thoughts drift back to the missing children. “What did you want to show me?” I ask Emmett.
He puts a pocket watch on the bed. “This. It belonged to Benjamin Shaw.”
I stare at the ordinary-looking pocket watch. “How will it help us?”
Emmett gives me another questionable look. “You can use it to tap into his memories.”
I swallow hard. “Right, but how do we know his memories will help?”
“Alice,” Emmett explains, “is trying to communicate with you for a reason. –
You both share the same bloodline and the unique gift of Sight; therefore, I am guessing, she can make contact with you even after moving on. She was in love with Benjamin, so it’s a place to start.”
I sit down on the stool at my dressing table. “So how is she still here? I mean, most move on, right?”
“She doesn’t appear to you like other ghosts have, right? You said she showed you a memory? I think she has unfinished business here; that’s why she is still here.”
“Then how come she doesn’t just show me herself?”
The answer comes to me before he answers. I say it aloud. “She’s been on the other side for too long. She’s lost her connection with the living world.”
Emmett agrees. “I believe you’re right.”
I glance at Tom. He looks at me sadly.
I look back at Emmett. “So her ex-partner has something do with the murders now?”
Emmett nods and pulls out an old newspaper dated from twenty years ago. He places it on my bed. I tiptoe over to look at it.
He taps the front page. “There was a string of disappearances. A man called Benjamin Shaw came here from London when suspicions of his activities caught up with him there.”
I sit forward and look at the article. “So he was a serial killer?”
“Speculation,” Emmett says. “No one can be sure of what happened—except us.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Someone else was tried for his crimes, but I think he was innocent.”
I look from the newspaper to the pocket watch. “You really think this can help?”
Emmett picks it up and hands it to me. “Why else would your ancestor push you in this direction?” His grip tightens on his cane. “Whispers of missing children are starting to circle. Another was taken yesterday, and a factory worker has gone missing too.”
I glance at Tom. “Tom Smith. He’s here,” I explain and point at the chair. “He found me after he was killed.”
Emmett looks at the chair and takes a step back. “So that’s why you said ‘Tom’ when you were at the orphanage.” He says it as a statement.
“He wants me to find his body. If not, he can’t move on,” I explain.
Emmett keeps staring at the chair. “This is strange.”
“What even is normal anymore?”
Emmett nods and reads the article again as if he’s looking for something he may have missed. I tilt my head and find myself watching the way his face looks when he concentrates. It’s almost attractive.
Emmett catches me looking at him.
I flush red. “So we should start.”
Emmett straightens up but stumbles as he steps back. “Yes.” He clears his throat. “Right. The watch.”
Tom looks between me and Emmett. “Falling in love is exhilarating, isn’t it?”
I glance at him sideways. “What?” I flush again. “It’s not like that.”
Emmett’s eyebrows knit together. “What’s not like what? You must remember, I cannot hear ghosts.”
I scowl at Tom. “Nothing,” I say to Emmett. “I was just going to tell you how Tom died.”
Emmett gives me a look. “That would be a good idea.”
Tom sits down. “I was meeting my manager.”
Something in my memory triggers. The factory. Something important about my father’s factory. Who owns it now?
“I went to a house,” Tom says, disrupting my thoughts. “There were two girls there.”
“He says he went to meet his manager at a house and there were two girls there.”
Emmett nods. “The orphans?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“I don’t think I was meant to see them. I have a tendency to wander. When I saw them, I tried to leave, to get help. They were tied up.”
“What’s he saying?” Emmett asked.
“That he tried to get help when he saw them. That he wanders sometimes and saw them when he wasn’t supposed to.”
Emmett raises an eyebrow. “Then what happened?”
I look at Tom, who sighs. “Then the men shouted at my manager. I think the house was a share. My boss looked genuinely surprised that the orphan girls were there too. I don’t know what happened to him.”
I look at Emmett. “Two men shouted at his boss. His boss was shocked too. He thinks it was a house share. Like flats.”
Emmett nodded. “That makes sense.”
I gulp. “He doesn’t know what happened to the boss.”
“He’s still at the factory.”
Tom scowls. “They let him go?”
I give him my best “I’m so sorry” look.
Emmett looks at the chair. “Tom, can you describe the men to us?”
Tom stands up and walks over to me. “Tell him they both had dark hair. One had a scar on his eyebrow. One was tall—about six feet high—and th
e other was shorter, about five foot three.”
I relay what Tom said to Emmett, who just nods.
After a minute, Emmett pulls out his pipe. “Well, I guess we should look at the house again. I’m surprised you haven’t thought to yet.”
I look at the ground. “I’ve been busy,” I say defensively.
Emmett sighs. “Right, well, let’s go look, and then you can use the pocket watch.”
“What about the manager at the factory?”
Emmett shakes his head. Tom does the same thing. “Am I missing something?”
“If he knows we are on the case, they will leave or kill us and we will never solve it.”
Tom agrees. “He’s right, Raven. We need to avoid suspicion.”
I panic as they both stand up. “Wait.” They both look at me. “What about my uncle? He wants me here for dinner tonight, and if he sees you Emmett…he will be furious.”
Emmett lights his pipe and takes a puff. “You’re right. I will go and search the building myself, and you can look at the memory of Benjamin Shaw.” He walks over to me and hesitates in front of me. “I won’t let anything happen to you. For now, however, we must play the part.”
I close my eyes. “Okay.” My heart races. “I’m nervous about tonight.”
Emmett’s expression softens. “Let me worry about that. You just worry about getting yourself dressed. Now, first things first,” he says, lowering his voice, “the pocket watch.”
Anxiety grips me as I hold the pocket watch that belonged to Benjamin Shaw.
Emmett takes my hand. “He used it on the day he died. I suggest you sit down when you use it. You’re a fainting risk.”
I almost smile. “I will.”
Thirteen
I close my eyes and allow the memory to consume me like Alice’s did when I touched her gravestone.
It comes easier than I thought it would, and I spiral into the memory of Benjamin Shaw.
The drizzle and fog make it seem as if night has already fallen. I hurry down the small cobbled street in-between drab grey-and-brown shops with flats above them. Candlelight flickers in the windows as we pass.
The street is surprisingly empty of people. Three rats scurry away from a pile of horse dung as Benjamin Shaw passes it.
I see Mr Shaw check his pocket watch. He has on the same clothes he was wearing in Alice’s memory. I follow Mr Shaw as he stops in front of a butcher’s shop, and I read the grimy sign. “London’s Finest Shaw Family Butcher’s”
I can feel his energy. Something is different about tonight.
Benjamin Shaw pulls off his expensive top hat and tousles his curly black hair. The windows to the flat above the shop are dirt-encrusted and broken in places.
I jerk my head to the left as a boy coughs on the side of the street. He looks so pale, so thin, that I know he will not last the winter, but I remind myself that there is nothing I can do. This happened many years ago.
I turn back to Mr Shaw as he pulls out a bronze key from his cloak and unlocks the door to the shop. I hurry in after him as the little bell above the door tinkles. The shop is empty.
I follow him through to the back and wind in and out of the hanging pigs and past buckets of the most foul-smelling meat I have ever come across.
He disappears through a wooden door. I hurry and walk through it and make my way quickly up the spiral stairs behind him. The small oil lamp he carries lights the staircase enough that I can see ahead of me, but when I turn back, I am met with blackness.
We finally reach the top, and Mr Shaw walks into the flat.
My eyes widen as I walk into the most depressing room I have ever seen. The room reeks of death. The rotting floorboards creak as he walks on them. Spiderwebs lace the walls, and a thick layer of dust covers the oak side tables. Above the empty fireplace hangs a portrait of a man who strikes a strong resemblance to Mr Shaw, and I presume it must be his father or grandfather.
Mr Shaw dusts down his black cloak. He sits on one of the brown armchairs and twiddles his thumbs.
Something strikes me as odd. As he sits still on the lonely armchair, shadow men surround him. These ghosts are unlike any I have ever seen. I have heard of them before, however. Grandmother has told me of how the shadow men are spirits of those who have died violent deaths. They become demons, parasites of existence, and they feed off the darkness.
Something strikes me. If they feed on darkness, then why are they surrounding Mr Shaw?
“Leave me alone!” he shouts as they close in on him.
He can see them?
One extends its long, bony black arm and strokes the air surrounding Mr Shaw’s face. “Soon…” it whispers, “you will be ours.”
“No,” he says with a gasp. “Please. I am done with this life.”
I draw closer to these shadow men cautiously, still a little paranoid that somehow, they may see me, but I remind myself that I am not a ghost or on the other side of the veil; I am simply a spectator in a memory.
A shadow man on his right hisses. “Bring us more.”
“I cannot keep killing.”
“You enjoy it,” one of the shadow men whispers in his ear. “Remember your first.”
A smile threatens to crack his unmoving lips as he thinks back, but the curve relaxes, and Mr Shaw regains his composure. “Things are different now.”
“One more,” another one hisses and the others join in the chorus.
Mr Shaw buries his head in his hands and pulls at his hair. “No.”
“No?” They hiss in response.
“No,” he says, standing up. “I will not do this for you anymore. I have killed too many. I have…changed.”
They cackle, and the room drops several degrees. “Just one more.”
“It is always one more!” he shouts and pulls out a butcher’s knife.
One of the shadow men grins sadistically. “Once you kill, we are with you.” They place their hands over his heart. “You have debts to repay to us. We keep the murderers, rapists, and evil alive, but you must feed us the darkness.”
Their eyes are hollow and their bodies a matte-black colour. They’re almost transparent, but something is eerily alive about them.
He shakes his head and brings the blade up to his throat.
Horror fills me as I realise what he is about to do. “The line ends here.” He glides the freshly sharpened knife across his throat.
“A baby lives inside her,” they hiss. “The line does not end with you. We will take what is owed to us.”
Benjamin panics as he hears their words, but it is too late. Blood sprays the walls and spiderwebs. I cover my mouth as I watch the horror unfold.
The shadow men suck on the darkness that leaves him as he breathes his final breaths. Like an aura, the darkness swirls around him until the shadow men take it all and Benjamin Shaw is no more.
Fourteen
Dying isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. It’s painless and quicker than falling asleep.
I look at my body, which is nestled safely on my bed.
Emmett and Tom have returned. I must have been dead for a while.
Tom steps in front of me with wild eyes.
“Oh, my! Raven, are you dead?” He looks from me to my body. “How has this happened?”
I shake my head slightly. “I went into the memory like you both told me to.” I notice that my voice sounds childlike.
Tom reaches out to comfort me, and for the first time, his fingers hit my skin.
We both jump at the electricity of it. “I can touch you.”
My eyes widen.
“It’s not as bad as I thought.”
Tom looks at Emmett. “He’s going to have to fight this alone.”
Something knots in my stomach. “I wanted to help the children. We were close to figuring it out. I just know it.”
Tom tilts his head. “How can you be so cool with being dead? I lost my composure before I found you when I realised I was dead.”
I pr
essed my lips together. “We all deal with things in different ways.”
I reach out and touch his fingers. He entwines his with mine, and I feel energy pulsate through me. Tom’s usual expression had changed into one I haven’t seen before.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have let you do this.”
I lower my head. “You couldn’t have known.”
He looks into my eyes with such intensity that I feel as if I will burn up at any moment. He parts his lips, squeezes my hand, and leans in close. I close my eyes, but nothing comes. I open one and look at Tom. “What’s wrong?”
He looks at me sadly. “You’re not dead, and I need to help you back into your body.”
I tilt my head and look at my body. “How do you know?”
Tom nods. “It looks like you’re in-between life and death.” He takes my other hand and leans into my cheek, placing his lips softly against it. “I’ll miss being able to touch you, but I am glad you still have a chance to live,” he says and walks me over to my body.
As I lean over myself, a face appears in the mirror by my bed. It’s my face, but I don’t recognise the reflection. It’s almost empty of any emotion.
Tom pushes me forward, and I fall back into my body.
I open my eyes and gasp for air. Emmett sits me up and looks at me, concerned. “Are you okay?”
I jump up and look behind me at the mirror. That was weird. Tom is standing next to it. He looks at me with more sadness that I can bear.
“Raven,” Emmett presses. “What happened?”
I look from Tom to him. “So, so much,” I say, and out of nowhere, tears fall down my cheeks.
Emmett takes my hand and sits me on the bed. “You are shaking,” he says, and he covers me with his jacket. “It’s okay. Let me go get you a drink to pick you up.”
I listen to him leave and stare at Tom with a heavy heart. Neither of us has the words to fill the deafening silence. Instead, we both look in the mirror. “Did you see it?”
Tom narrows his eyes. “See what?”
“The thing in the mirror?”
He shakes his head. “No. I was just looking at you,” he admits.
I feel nauseous.
“Tom,” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Don’t mention it.” His eyes look sad. “Please.”