‘Oh,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s a nice name. What are you doing up? Is the rain getting in through the roof, or something? I told Crawler we needed to fix that …’
‘No. The roof’s fine.’ I bit my lip. ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’
Speaking and thinking was getting harder by the second.
In the end, I just blurted out: ‘Oh, please don’t take the poison.’
Scanlon shuffled some papers around on the desk busily. His face went tight and still.
‘It’s fine. I’m actually fine about it—’
‘But you shouldn’t be fine about it! You’re making a massive mistake!’
Finally, he met my eyes, and his glare was frightening, because it was the look of someone who had made up his mind. ‘Am I? The more I think about it, the more I realise it’s perfect for me.’
‘How can you say that?’ I gasped.
‘Look, I haven’t had the life you had.’ He sounded exhausted. ‘And I know you had a wonderful, loving family, but not all are like that. So it’s sweet of you to care, but you don’t have to. I won’t miss anything, I won’t miss my happy life, because I never had it to begin with.’
For a terrible, empty second, I wondered if he was right. And then a beautiful word popped into my mind.
‘Fudge,’ I blurted out. It felt so right I said it again, like a prayer. ‘Fudge. Proper, crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth fudge. From Devon. Have you ever had that type of fudge?’
He gave me a quizzical look. ‘Er, no. I can’t say I have.’
‘Right. There you go then. You can’t die till you taste that. You literally can’t – it’s a rule of the universe. I’m surprised you didn’t know that – all babies get told that in the womb. You must have not been listening. Anyway, that’s the rule, so there you go. Also …’ my words began to come more easily now, ‘dog’s ears. The actual feel of a dog’s ear. Have you ever stroked a dog’s ear?’ I was rambling, but at least I had his attention.
‘No,’ he sighed. ‘I told you, I haven’t had the life you’ve—’
‘So you can’t die until you’ve stroked a dog’s ear. They’re very soft, you see. You can’t, in fact, die until you have owned a dog. Because you will love them, and they will love you a hundred times back, even when you’re a complete ratbag, and they’ll make you happy. And then you can spend entire evenings stroking their ears and rubbing their tummies. So you can’t take the poison till you’ve done that for at least five decades, okay?’
A minuscule smile played around his lips.
‘Waking up on the very first day of the holidays,’ I added, after a moment’s thought. ‘It’s like waking up in paradise, and you can’t—’
‘—die until I’ve had that?’ said Scanlon.
‘You’re catching on. Well done. When you see a fox at night, and it looks right at you. Reading in bed when it’s raining outside. Sitting by a fire in the winter. Cats purring when you walk into the room. You might not have had those experiences yet …’
Scanlon’s whole forehead creased with pain, so I quickly added, ‘But you will. I know you will.’
That snow blizzard inside my head stopped and I saw everything then, saw my life as if it had happened yesterday, saw it in glowing, beautiful clarity. That short sweet miracle I’d had. And I gave thanks for it, and then I passed it on.
‘Hot bubble baths. Putting on clean pyjamas. Trees in autumn. Horses in fields. Cinemas. Sweet peas.’
I paused, swallowed. ‘Swimming in the sea.’
Scanlon gave me a quick, surprised look. ‘Really?’ he asked.
I nodded. Everything inside me ached, but it was a good hurt, like a wound finally healing. ‘Totally. When you dive under a wave, and come back up again, and all you can see is the sunlight, darting off the water in front of you. It’s … it’s … the most amazing feeling in the world.’
He blinked.
And then my voice changed, and grew deeper, and I gasped as I realised that I was speaking in Dad’s voice, as he said: ‘Standing in a field when the sun goes down, waiting for the band to start. Meeting the person you want to marry. Holding your children—’
Then that voice changed into Mum’s: ‘Blackbirds outside your window, kissing your babies, dancing—’
And finally, I spoke as Birdie. ‘Holding hands across the hammocks and waking up on Christmas morning!’
Scanlon’s eyes widened, and he pressed his lips together very tightly.
And then the voices of all three of them joined together, and they said the same thing. To him. To us. To me. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Everything that happened wasn’t your fault.’
They forgave me. And because they did that, I could forgive him.
‘Please don’t take the poison,’ I said to him softly, in my own voice. ‘I was wrong to blame you. You were only a boy, Scanlon, when he made you start hunting. Please don’t throw your life away because you feel guilty. The only person who needs to feel guilty around here is him. He’s the real poison. And you’re going to make someone an amazing friend one day. You’re going to have loads. Because you’re awesome. You’re loyal, and kind, and clever … And with any luck, your friends will become your family, and then all of this will fade away, Scanlon. I swear.’
Scanlon took a deep, shuddering breath, brushed his eyes roughly and looked down at his desk.
‘Fudge?’ he said, after a moment. ‘Is it that good?’
I LAUGHED.
‘Totally,’ I said. ‘It’s like angels having a party on your tongue. It’s all that is divine in the universe condensed into one beautifully crumbly cube.’
‘Wow,’ he said.
‘Start with vanilla first – the classic. Then try salted caramel. Some people like rum and raisin, some don’t. Experiment. All I will say is this: be picky about where you buy it from. Remember that, and you will be okay.’
‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. I just wish I’d said it earlier. About the fudge, I mean.’
His smile faded. ‘The only thing is – I can’t leave this place if you’re all still here. I’d feel like I was abandoning you to him. To them.’
‘Ah,’ I said, finally. ‘Well, that’s all right, cos I’ve got a plan. And it will free us all.’
I hope.
His lovely eyes lit up then, and for a brief moment, I simply basked in relief. That horrible smell had finally gone. His life was safe.
I longed to sit down and close my eyes. That cold blank snow inside me, that sense of closing in, closing down, was ever present now. But I wrenched my brain back to what needed to be done. It wasn’t over yet.
‘Get the others,’ I said. ‘And hurry. We haven’t got long, and it’s going to be a long night.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Scanlon.
I grinned. ‘Crawler wanted us to bring the house down, didn’t he? Well, we’d better start practising.’
AND THE
THUNDER OUTSIDE
CLAPPED APPROVINGLY.
WHEN THE TRAIN finally slammed into my bedroom the next morning, I was exhausted. We’d been up all night. I’d spent hours teaching the others what I knew. I’d also had to unlearn my training, and dig deeper, locate a different kind of anger, one I’d never used before. I only had one chance to make it right. Was I up to the job? Were they?
For a sickening moment, as the customers sat and watched me expectantly, gasping for breath as the poison worked on them, I hesitated. Am I doing the right thing? What if it all goes horribly wrong? How would he punish us? How would he punish Scanlon?
As if in answer, that low thundercloud outside gave a deafening crack. It was so close now, I felt it was circling the building, looking for me.
The audience began to murmur. ‘This isn’t what we paid for.’
‘Looks like it’s half asleep.’
‘Thought this was meant to be the highlight of the show?’
‘Oh, hi,’ I said casually.
The
whispers started up again. ‘Didn’t realise it would talk to us.’
‘Bit arrogant, if you ask me.’
‘What are we meant to do, answer back?’
‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘You just sit back, and let us take over.’
This time, bringing my anger out felt completely different. It wasn’t like following a script. It was like digging a hooked claw into my heart and hauling it out through my skin. Pain and grief burnt in every single part of me, and I nearly blacked out from it. I gritted my teeth, threw my head back and screamed. For an awful, still moment, nothing happened.
And then the storm finally fell.
Fury ran up and down my body like flames licking wood. I unscrewed the rivets in the beams above. They swung pleasingly from the centre of the room for a second, before falling with a clatter to the floor, missing the people in the ghost train by millimetres.
With difficulty, they all clapped.
‘Oh, wonderful,’ I heard someone gasp.
‘Real sense of peril,’ said someone else, grey and shaking.
‘Great build-up of tension,’ panted a third. ‘Masterful.’
‘Thank you,’ I said politely, picking up my heavy single bed and throwing it, panting, at the window.
As it smashed, and the glass fell into a neat little pile at my feet, and the window frame groaned and collapsed, the people in the ghost train made admiring noises, although a few gazed in confusion at each other.
‘Did any of you feel that?’
The roar of the thunder overhead was too loud for us to hear much else, but we could easily sense the shift within the building – a feeling of things being loosened, of coming undone.
‘Oh my,’ said someone. ‘The floor is shaking. I felt a tremor.’
‘It felt like the building was shaking too,’ added his companion. ‘From side to side.’
‘That is possible,’ I said reasonably. ‘After all, the others are wrecking their rooms too.’
They looked at each other.
‘I thought there was only one poltergeist?’ said a woman slowly, forcing her words out with difficulty.
‘Not any more,’ I said. ‘We’re all at it now. We had a chat last night. Turns out, there’s a lot for us to be angry about. They’re all furious downstairs. You should see them – it’s quite beautiful, really.’
Underneath the sound of the thunder you could just about make out a crashing, banging noise coming from elsewhere in the building, and peals of wild, jubilant laughter.
‘We’re so angry,’ I said, taking a hammer to the wooden floor and banging at it until I could see the room beneath. ‘I’m angry at what they suffered. We’re angry at Crawler, and what he did to us. And to his son. But we’re also angry with you. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’
The floor beneath our feet began to groan and splinter. I saw someone swallow nervously.
‘If too many beams and planks and joists get damaged,’ I explained carefully to the aghast audience in the train, happily remembering everything I learnt during the Sea View restoration, ‘then the integrity of the entire property will be compromised.’
‘What does that mean?’ spluttered a purple-faced man from the ghost train.
‘It means run.’ I grinned. ‘Honestly, you lot have more money than sense, don’t you?’
Forty grown-ups got up with a gasp and began pushing and shoving each other in their rush to get out of my room.
Crawler burst in.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? Setting yourself free? You’ll hate it out there, Poltergeist. They all will. They’ll have nothing if they don’t have this place.’
Even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, I answered him anyway, just for the joy of saying the truth.
‘Maybe, but that’s a risk we’re prepared to take. Oh, and by the way? You’ve been wrong all along, Crawler. It’s so much better when you get angry with feeling. So much more powerful. You’ve been missing a trick all this time.’
And for a second, I could have sworn his eyes looked at me, properly, in surprise and frustration.
‘Crawler?’ I said slowly. ‘Did you hear me just now?’
Something about the way his pupils contracted at the question seemed very suspicious. He’d gone completely still.
‘Crawler, can you see me? Have you only pretended you couldn’t see ghosts all along? So that your son had to do all the dirty work for you?’
So he didn’t have to get tangled up in their emotions, and their lives. That’s what Scanlon was for. Crawler had used his child as a sponge, to soak up all the guilt he should have been burdened with instead.
‘Crawler? I know you can hear me.’ Once I’d spotted it, it was so obvious.
His jaw went very tight then. And, as if he was relieved that he didn’t have to keep up the pretence any more, he looked straight at me. It was like being given an electric shock.
‘Fine,’ he said, gesturing to the wrecked room. ‘Pull it down if you want to. I’ll rebuild. We can rebuild together. Something bigger. Something better.’
The sound of crashing and splintering seemed, for a moment, to fade under the ferocious persuasion in his face. I gulped. His smile was almost gentle, nearly loving.
‘Come off it, Poltergeist,’ he said softly. ‘Stop pretending. You love it here. And listen, I’m impressed that you’ve orchestrated this, er, little uprising, really I am. You’ve gone up in my estimation. I’ll give you anything, anything at all. What do you want, a bigger room? A whole Haunted House to yourself? Or – better yet – how about a poltergeist theme park, completely dedicated to you? Consider it done. We can be business partners if you like. You and me, frightening the world. How about it?’
My body went limp with longing. An entire theme park? I could see it all. ‘Poltergeist’ in lights. The adulation. The total licence to misbehave, my temper swelling like a nightmare, growing bigger every day. I could stay. And together, it would be a total cinch for Crawler and I to persuade Scanlon to stay too. The other ghosts could go, but the three of us would grow old together. Like a family. A twisted, weird one, admittedly, but a family nonetheless, if you didn’t look too hard at it.
Crawler could sense my weakening, and he cocked his head to the side slowly, with something a lot like tenderness.
‘Stay,’ he said. ‘You need me. I need you. Together, we can build something incredible.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you this, Crawler, you always seem to know exactly what I want.’
And we smiled at each other.
In that shared glee, I made up my mind. I felt a stab of regret, but who was I to fight my destiny?
I knew what I wanted, and now I had to take it. Someone might be hurt, but that was the price I’d have to pay. And I had to act fast, before I changed my mind.
I STEELED MYSELF to say the next bit. ‘But the answer’s no, Crawler. No more.’
I placed my hand in front of his chest.
He winced. ‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘Trying to find your heartbeat,’ I said solemnly. ‘It’s funny, really. All the ghosts in this building have more heart in their little fingers than you have in your entire body. You might as well be dead inside. And deep down inside your wasted soul I think you know that too, don’t you?’
His eyelids trembled slightly, and he almost – almost – nodded.
‘I’m tempted by the theme park, not gonna lie,’ I said. ‘And there’ll always be a part of me that likes to break and rage – but I’m not going to do it for you, not any more.’
‘Everything you are you owe to me,’ he said.
‘Everything?’ I frowned. ‘You made me into nothing. You erased me. You stole my name. I don’t owe you anything.’
‘I saw what you wanted to be,’ he insisted. ‘I brought it out of you.’
‘You saw one part of me, and you ignored everything else,’ I replied shakily. ‘You distorted me to line your pocket. I’m not going to st
ay. I don’t need you. And you know – you know – that this is over.’
He looked away. Suddenly, he looked old, and afraid, and I almost felt sorry for him.
‘Leave him alone now,’ I said. ‘Leave all the ghosts alone too. They’ve done their time. This is your chance to do some good, for once. No more hunting.’
His nod was barely perceptible, but it was there.
CRASH! The wall next to us slipped and fell to the ground, making us both jump. And for a minute, as the dust and the wind flew around us, as the thunder shook the forest, we gave each other tiny smiles, bound by the same irresistible thought.
‘Nice touch,’ I muttered.
‘Yeah,’ added Crawler. ‘Would have been better with—’
‘Someone screaming,’ I said.
We nodded together, imagining it.
Our eyes met. A wicked, lingering thrill flickered in both of us – a recognition.
Even now, I could almost hear that spooky organ playing, could only imagine how brilliant it would sound as it played across the vast expanse of Poltergeist Land …
I ripped my attention away from him then.
‘Go,’ I said. ‘Please. Go.’
And he went.
Then I waited. I’m meeting an old friend, you see.
A few seconds later, there was another resounding CRASH! as the three remaining walls fell away, leaving me standing on only some rough floorboards, surrounded by a darkening sky.
Lightning skipped towards me, darting through the treetops like an excited child. I thought of my father. ‘I wanted to paint the storm. Stand inside it. See its colours.’ Well, now I knew what the fuss was all about. It was dark. It was glittery. It was unpredictable. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
I tipped my head back. The first drops of rain began to fall. They carried the blood and salt and dirt away from my face and body, and I was washed clean.
And now it was here, now the storm swirled above my head. We meet again.
I opened my mouth and heard myself laughing loudly, with delight, and the storm laughed right back with me, and as it did so it took that tiny bit I’d swallowed as a baby, back up into itself.
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