‘I told you, there’s no rush to pass across,’ I said, trying to soothe him. ‘Your family are devastated to lose you and you’re still adjusting to being a ghost. Give it a while.’
‘Skye is right,’ Celestine said. ‘There’s plenty of time. But you might want to start thinking about what’s holding you here so that, when the time is right, you know how to let go. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’ll have a very painful future ahead of you.’
She smiled in sympathy, pressed her hand against my arm and turned away. Owen’s eyes sought mine. ‘My family are going to forget me, aren’t they?’
I felt the tell-tale prickle of tears. ‘No, they’ll never forget you, that’s not what she meant. But eventually, they will move on. They have to.’
His gaze shimmered and he blinked hard. ‘But I’ll always have you, right?’
For the first time, I truly understood what my aunt had been trying to tell me. There could be no future for me and Owen. He’d always be sixteen years old, for a start, while I got older every year. Sure, we’d figured out a way to snog but that would be as far as it ever went. We’d never get married or have children and, although those things weren’t so important to me now, maybe they would be later. As much as I didn’t want to face it, Celestine was right; a relationship with Owen would only bring me misery, no matter how hard we tried to make it work. I also knew that now was the worst possible time to tell him so.
I forced a weak grin. ‘Of course. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.’
He grinned back, relief etched all over his face. ‘Damn.’
Right on cue, Celestine’s voice rang out. ‘Skye! I could do with some help.’
I pulled a rueful face. ‘Sorry. Duty calls.’
‘No problems. You’ve got stuff to do. I should get going, leave you to it.’
I threw him a concerned look. ‘Why don’t you stick around? I’ll only be about half an hour. You could chat to some of the other ghosts.’ Gawjus George caught me glancing around and waved two dirt-encrusted hands in my direction, with a toothy grin. ‘Or not.’
Owen shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m going to head off. I’ve got some thinking to do. Maybe I’ll hitch a ride in a killer set of wheels.’
‘OK,’ I said, then hesitated. We were supposed to be going to the cinema at the weekend. Should I remind Owen, after everything that had happened tonight?
‘So I’ll see you on Saturday?’ he asked. ‘I can’t wait to see the film.’
Which answered that question. ‘Yeah. I’ll drop by the lake in the afternoon.’
‘OK,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s a date.’
He waved and turned to go. I watched him leave with a heavy heart, wishing he’d picked another word. The knowledge of what I had to do lay boulder-like in my stomach. The last thing our trip to the cinema could be was a date.
Chapter 11
In spite of some heavy hints from Megan, I ignored Nico’s invitation to sit next to him on the coach to the Tower of London. I had no plans to get close enough to let him try a repeat of his previous behaviour, no matter how heavily Megan hinted. Let her think he was Mr Perfect; I knew different.
The Tower itself seemed busy for a Friday morning. I counted at least three other school trips next to the entrance, their teachers looking every bit as frazzled as ours, and there was already a queue of snap-happy tourists waiting to go inside.
‘Split into your groups,’ Miss Pointer called, once we’d passed through the ancient stone arch and were assembled at the bottom of Tower Green. ‘You have two hours to complete these worksheets and collect evidence for your coursework on traitors. One worksheet per group and we’ll meet here at midday for our group tour before lunch. We will be catching up with you around the Tower to make sure you work with the people I assigned you to.’
Was I imagining it or did Miss Pointer stare at me as she said that last bit? Bang went any idea I’d had of tagging along with Megan’s group. Ellie threw me a contemptuous look and deliberately turned her back. Sighing, I rummaged in my bag for a pen. When I looked up, Nico was standing next to me.
‘Ready?’
‘I suppose so.’
Megan slid her mobile out of her pocket. ‘Text me if you need any help. Otherwise, I’ll see you at lunch.’ She squinted up at Nico with mock fierceness. ‘And don’t try anything funny. She knows karate.’
I bit back a grin. The only karate I knew was from an old eighties film we’d watched a few weeks ago. Somehow, I didn’t think the ‘wax on, wax off’ routine was going to scare Nico. But I wasn’t too worried; like Celestine said, if he was going to try anything, it wouldn’t be somewhere busy like the Tower, in spite of his suggestion that we’d be alone at some point. My only real worry was that I’d fall under his spell again and I only had to remember his chilling behaviour at Highgate Cemetery to avoid that.
‘I’ll be fine, Megan,’ I said, smiling. ‘Catch you later.’
‘I’ll protect her, don’t worry.’ Nico tried to place an arm around my shoulder. I smacked it away. Megan, on the other hand, practically swooned. Strike up another point for Nico, I thought darkly. At this rate, she’d be running his fan-club by the end of the day.
‘So who’s going to protect me from you?’ I asked, as Megan and her group huddled together to decide where to go first, leaving the two of us alone.
Nico pointed at a pair of Yeomen Warders not far from where we stood. ‘Look around. There’s plenty of Beefeaters for you to call on.’
Curiosity got the better of me and I peered at the men in their distinctive navy blue and red uniform. They were certainly eye-catching, I’d give them that; I wouldn’t have any trouble spotting one if I needed back-up.
‘The first question is about famous prisoners,’ I said, transferring my dubious gaze to the worksheet. ‘Do you really think Miss Pointer will know if we spend the next couple of hours in the gift shop and Google the answers when we get home?’
Nico studied the map we’d been given. ‘I think the cuddly Beefeater teddy bear you’d buy would give you away and there are only so many jars of Ye Olde English Honey I can stand seeing, so let’s go.’ He looked up from under his enviously long eyelashes. ‘Unless you’re really afraid?’
I stared at him, unable to make up my mind. On the one hand, he’d scared me witless that night in February but, on the other, I remembered how close we’d once been; I’d thought we had something special and I had trusted him with my deepest secret – he was the only living person outside my family who knew I was psychic. Which one was the real Nico? ‘I’m not scared of you.’
He must have read my uncertainty. ‘Look, Skye, I know I’ve been an idiot and you have no reason to trust me but, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about what I did in the cemetery. I’d just got back from Romania and my head was all over the place.’ His black gaze rested on me. ‘I wanted to impress you, to make you see that I wasn’t ordinary like the other kids in school. But I went about it the wrong way. I should never have tried to pressurise you the way I did. I’m sorry.’
I didn’t know what to say. With those smouldering good looks and air of mystery, Nico was a million miles from being ordinary. But there was no getting away from the fact that he was involved with something bad and that something had changed him, made him dangerous. Some girls liked that in a boy but they didn’t carry my secret; the last thing I should do was get involved with him again. So why was I having trouble keeping that at the forefront of my mind? ‘You used me.’
He shook his head angrily. ‘No. I told you before, I didn’t ask you out because you could see ghosts. I had no idea about your gift until later. After my trip to Romania, it made sense to get you to help me.’
Troubled, I chewed my lip. ‘How do I know you won’t try it again?’
Nico went still. ‘Things are different now. Don’t ask me to explain because I can’t.’
‘Can’t?’ I echoed in derision. ‘Or won’t?’
His jaw clenched. ‘It’s
complicated. You’ll just have to trust me.’
‘How can you expect me to trust you after everything that’s happened?’ I demanded, trying to ignore the battle I sensed was going on inside him. ‘Trust is something you earn, Nico, and this secrecy thing you hide behind is getting old.’
‘Right,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘Because you don’t have any secrets, do you?’
I glanced away. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘No, it isn’t. Everyone has something they want to keep hidden from the rest of the world, for whatever reason. I told you all my secrets when we were together, although I’d be the first to admit I screwed things up big time.’ He gripped my arms and forced me to look into his eyes. ‘So it’s not that I don’t want to be honest with you. It’s that I don’t understand everything myself yet.’
As I stared up at him, I realised something was different. Not with the way he looked; he was still the same boy I’d known and loved but there was a subtle change in him I hadn’t noticed before. I couldn’t pin down what it was, though, and forced the thought away.
‘What’s not to understand, Nico? Your dad got you into some pretty evil stuff and you’re following along blindly.’ I shook his hands away. ‘And don’t try to convince me the Solomonarii are angels waiting to happen because I’m not buying it.’
With an impatient huff, he shook his head. ‘Of course we’re not. But it’s not as black and white as you’re making out. Being in the Solomonarii has . . . benefits.’
I opened my mouth and closed it again. If by benefits he meant being able to terrify the life out of me then he was right on the money. ‘Like what?’
He hesitated. ‘Let’s just say I don’t need your gift any more.’
Staring at him, I tried to work out what he meant. In the cemetery, he’d wanted me to help him control a ghost to pass some Solomonarii initiation rite. If he didn’t need me to do that any more, it could only mean one thing; that he’d learned how to do it by himself. ‘You passed the test,’ I said in a flat voice.
‘Yeah. I can do all kinds of things now. Controlling the weather was only the start.’ He glanced around and his gaze settled on a pair of ravens hopping across the green. ‘Watch.’
Frowning in concentration, he held out a hand to the birds and muttered something under his breath. The ravens cocked their heads towards him. One cawed harshly and shook out its feathers. Nico mumbled again but I still couldn’t make out the words. The birds seemed to understand, though; the larger of the two flapped its wings and hopped clumsily across the grass. Then it leaped upwards and landed on Nico’s outstretched arm. The other opened its beak and croaked again.
‘I could make it do anything I wanted,’ Nico said, lifting his hand and staring into its beady black eyes. ‘The Warden here clips their wings so they can’t escape, but it would try to fly over the wall if I told it to.’
A mixture of fear and revulsion ran through me. ‘That would be cruel. Let it go.’
Nico shook his arm and spoke a single word. It sounded strange, like another language; Romanian, maybe? The raven spread its wings and jumped onto the ground. ‘I didn’t say I would,’ he said, ‘just that we understand each other. Like I said: benefits.’
Now that I came to think about it, hadn’t he mentioned being able to communicate with animals before, that night in the cemetery? It was another talent of the Solomonarii and something else about them to make me uneasy. Controlling a single bird was one thing but what if he had a whole flock under his command? Or a pack of rats, or wild dogs? Suddenly my mind was awash with the horrible possibilities. Then I remembered the affinity I’d felt with him, even before I’d told him about my gift, and the truth dawned on me: in a lot of ways, Nico wasn’t so different to me. We were both teenagers struggling to deal with being different, with a fate we hadn’t really chosen. Maybe I was being too hard on him. I gave myself a mental shake and the gnashing teeth of the dogs faded away; clearly, I’d been watching way too many horror films. ‘So what are you, Romania’s answer to Dr Doolittle?’
His eyes glittered with amusement. ‘If you like. I’m trying to show you that I don’t need your help any more, so you can stop worrying that I’m only interested in your gift.’
If he was trying to make me feel better, it wasn’t working. ‘There’s still the small matter of the ancient evil clan you belong to.’
‘The Solomonarii aren’t evil,’ he insisted. ‘OK, so they haven’t always been saints and some of the things they do are questionable but maybe I can change that.’
Folding my arms, I scowled. ‘That’s not what you thought in the cemetery.’
He frowned and once again I caught a glimpse of some inner turmoil.
‘I was an idiot then,’ he said and let out a sigh. ‘Like I said, it’s complicated. But believe me, the last thing I want is for the Solomonarii to hurt anyone else.’
Anyone else? I stared up at him, trying to work out what he meant. According to Mary, the Solomonarii were a danger to the living and the dead but this was the first time I’d heard Nico acknowledge the fact and I wished once again that I knew more about them. Coupled with his cryptic comments about complications and things not being black and white, I was starting to wonder if something had happened to shatter Nico’s rose-tinted view of the Solomonarii. More than anything, I wanted to believe that Nico could use the powers they had given him for good. The problem was that he’d lied to me before and I couldn’t be sure this wasn’t another ploy to suck me in. But as Celestine had once suggested, maybe somewhere underneath the new Nico lay the old one.
Exhaling slowly, I pushed the doubts aside and made up my mind. ‘In the interests of getting this coursework out of the way, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt,’ I said, waving the worksheet in front of him like a shield. ‘Don’t go thinking I trust you, though, and don’t try anything funny. Like Megan said, I know karate.’
Nico threw me a relieved grin and raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Yeah, about that. You do realise that using chopsticks doesn’t automatically make you a black-belt, right?’
‘Oh, I think you’d be surprised,’ I replied, turning towards the nearest tower and flashing a sunny smile over my shoulder. ‘It really all depends on where you stick them.’
* * *
The rooms where they’d kept the traitors imprisoned weren’t exactly plush. In the past, they’d often been flooded with foul-smelling water from the nearby Thames and rats snatched whatever food was tossed to the unfortunate prisoners. I didn’t want to think about how many must have died in that squalor before they reached the gallows. According to the interactive displays, one of the inmates had been an innkeeper accused of sorcery. Looking around, I was grateful the display wasn’t one hundred per cent interactive; there was no sign of the so-called sorcerer himself, or any other of the ghosts reputed to haunt the towers. There were plenty of tourists, though; both Nico and I were glad when we’d answered the last question and could head out of the congested rooms to a gravel-strewn pathway around the back of the armouries.
Leaden clouds overhead were adding to my subdued mood. The buildings loomed over us, creating a threatening atmosphere. Hardly anyone had ventured around this side of the Tower; there wasn’t much to see, apart from a pair of ravens pecking at the gravel. I’d read that ravens had always been at the Tower and it was rumoured that something terrible would happen if they left. Suddenly, I was glad Nico hadn’t made them fly away; superstitions sometimes had an element of truth behind them.
Heading towards a nearby bench, I sat down. ‘Come on, let’s go over the questions to make sure we didn’t miss anything.’
Nico sprawled beside me, his long legs making mine look shorter than ever. ‘Why do you care so much about doing well at school? It’s not like you’re going to need the qualifications in your kind of work.’
I stared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He shrugged. ‘Aren’t you going to work at the Dearly D with your aunt? I
don’t suppose they’ll care about whether you’ve got a GCSE in media studies.’
I shifted uncomfortably. ‘Maybe I want to be more than just a psychic.’
Nico threw me a measuring look. ‘Why would you? People who can do maths are everywhere.’ Lowering his voice, he leaned closer. ‘People who can talk to the dead aren’t. We’re not like everyone else, Skye. We can do so much more. I didn’t understand that until my father introduced me to the Solomonarii.’
He had a point, I supposed; I’d known all my life that I was different. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t do a normal job, did it? ‘What do you mean, “We can do so much more”? Like what?’
‘Ghosts are the spirits of people who’ve died but who aren’t ready to pass across, right?’ When I gave a slow nod, he went on. ‘You spend all your time trying to find a way to get them to the astral plane, even though they don’t always want to go. So why not let them stay?’
I opened my mouth to reply and closed it again. There were a hundred reasons why ghosts needed to pass across and, if he’d asked me a few weeks ago, I’d have happily reeled them off. But that was before I’d met Owen, with his desperation to stick around, and now I wasn’t so sure that moving ghosts on was always the right thing to do. No one had ever tried to get rid of Mary, that was for sure. Shouldn’t ghosts have some kind of say in whether they passed across? ‘But what would they do? Most of them can’t figure out how to leave their haunting zone by themselves.’
Nico smiled. ‘The Solomonarii have been working with ghosts for centuries. We take lost souls and provide them with tasks to do, give them a life and a purpose again. It’s win-win.’
A memory stirred in my mind as I recalled something Mary had said when I’d asked her about the Solomonarii. I fired an accusing glare his way. ‘Don’t give me that, those ghosts are known as the Eaten, as in consumed. It doesn’t sound like much of a partnership to me.’
My So-Called Phantom Love Life Page 8