Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy

by Jonathan Stroud

  Kipps grimaced. “You think so? The best minds in DEPRAC have failed to find it so far, Cubbins. I’ve just been at a meeting here, and no one’s got a clue. The most they’ve come up with is to suggest holding a special agency parade to reassure the public that nothing’s wrong. Can you believe it? We’ve got thousands of people evacuated, ghosts rampant, rioting in London—and they’re planning a carnival. The world’s gone mad.” He scowled at us as if it had been our suggestion, and flourished the sheaf of papers. “Oh, and see this? Copy of all the case reports the different teams have filed in the last week. Apparitions, Glimmers, chill spots—you name it. Hundreds of incidents, and no pattern whatsoever. All team leaders are supposed to read it now, and come up with our own suggestions. As if I’ll have time for that! I’ve got a funeral to go to.” He slapped the papers disgustedly against his fist. “I might as well lob this in the trash.”

  We stood there awkwardly. I didn’t know what to say.

  “You can give it to me, if you like,” George said. “I’d be interested.”

  “Give it to you?” Kipps’s brief laugh had no humor in it. “Why should I do that? You hate me.”

  George snorted. “What, you want me to blow you a kiss? Who cares whether I like you or not? People are dying here. I might be able to do something with it, do us all a favor. If you want to read it yourself, fine. Otherwise give it here. Just don’t put it in the stupid bin.” He stamped his foot, red in the face and glaring.

  Kipps and his companions blinked at him, slightly taken aback. I was a bit, too. Kipps looked at me; then, shrugging, tossed the papers across to George. “Like I say, I don’t want them. I’ve got other things to do. We may see you at the carnival—if Lockwood and Co.’s invited, which I strongly doubt.” He gave a cursory wave, and with that, the three Fittes agents sloped off into the crowd.

  If the National Newspaper Archives building were ever haunted, it would be a devil of a job to sort it. Spreading over six vast floors, each honeycombed with eight-foot-high shelves and book stacks, it’s bigger than any factory and more complex and labyrinthine than the oldest Tudor house. Plus, you’d be constantly tripping over all the scholars crouched in gloomy recesses, staring at old documents, trying to understand the history of the Problem. History was what the Archives were about; you could smell it in the air, taste it on your breath. After half an hour of leafing through century-old magazines, you felt it fused to your fingertips, too.

  George liked it; he knew his way around. He took me to the Periodicals section on the fourth level and showed me the Catalogue—a series of giant leather-bound books that summarized the contents of the floor. For events of recent decades, there was an Index, too, which cross-referenced stories contained in all the magazines. For old stuff, though, you had to locate the periodical you wanted, choose the relevant date, and sift through the endless yellowed pages yourself, looking for your story.

  Armed with a list of magazines from George, I weighed in, finding copies of the Cornhill Journal and Mayfair News from summer 1883, and taking them to the reading tables perched above the central atrium. I began to browse, looking for any mention of the horrors of Hanover Square.

  Soon I had the smell of stale ink in my nostrils. My eyes ached from poring over minute print. Worse, my mind ached from all the half-glimpsed irrelevant details. Victorian controversies. Forgotten society ladies. Essays on faith and empire by hairy, self-confident men. This was stuff that would have been dull when it was published, let alone more than a century later. It was ancient history. How could George enjoy doing this?

  Ancient history…That was exactly what Lockwood had once said about his sister, who’d died only six years ago. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how present she was, influencing his every action. I remembered his coldness the night before; his dismissal of my empathy for the little ghost. And of course Holly Munro had backed him up today: she wanted the thing destroyed, no questions asked. I’d only seen her for five minutes, but she’d been irritating that morning.

  I continued reading, moving among the shelves, steadily working through George’s list. My mind wandered. Whenever I passed the Catalogue and Index, I thought about the events, six years before, in Portland Row.

  Once, when I returned to the tables, I discovered George there, surrounded by magazines, copying lines into his notebook. “Found out about our ghost?” I asked.

  “Nope. Not a sausage on that yet. I’m taking a break, checking out something else.” He yawned and stretched. “Don’t know if you remember, but when Miss Wintergarden came to see us, she was wearing a little silver brooch.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I was meaning to ask you about that. Was it the same as—?”

  “It was. An ancient Grecian harp or lyre. The precise same symbol we saw on Fairfax’s goggles, and on that box that Penelope Fittes was holding, you know, when we spied on her in her library.”

  I nodded. Combe Carey Hall…the Black Library of Fittes House….Months separated the two incidents, but as I’d almost died on both those nights, I didn’t have any problem recalling them. The odd little harp symbol had puzzled us ever since, the few times we remembered it. It represented…what had Wintergarden called it? “Was it the Orpheus Club?” I said.

  “Orpheus Society. I’ve just been looking it up.” George adjusted his glasses as he tried to decipher his own spidery handwriting. “It’s listed in Debrett’s Almanac of Registered British Groups, Clubs, and Other Organizations as a ‘theoretical society for prominent citizens to research the Problem and the nature of the Other Side.’ They make it sound like a talking shop for posh bigwigs, but we know there’s more to it than that. It’s got a registered address in St. James. Not a clue what it is, but we should check it out sometime.” He eyed my latest pile of tomes. “How are you getting on?”

  “Nothing so far. How recent does the Index go, by the way? Last few years?”

  “They keep it up to date as far as they can, yes. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  Some while later, with George elsewhere, I strolled over to the Index shelf.

  I found the volume I wanted. The one for six years ago. A list of subjects contained in the magazines and newspapers of that year: events, hauntings, features, names.

  On impulse I flipped to the Ls.

  There wouldn’t be anything. I knew that. I wasn’t doing any harm.

  But when my inky finger ran down the column, there it was:

  Lockwood, J.

  I felt as cold as when I’d entered the sister’s room. The name, apparently, was mentioned in the Marylebone Herald, the monthly paper for our area of London. It gave the date, and the catalogue number for the bound edition.

  It was the work of a moment to locate the relevant file. I went to a remote alcove and sat there with the folder on my knee.

  The death of Miss Jessica Lockwood (15), daughter of late psychic researchers Celia and Donald Lockwood, has been reported by St. Pancras Coroners. In the latest tragic incident to hit the family, she was ghost-touched in an accident at her home in Marylebone, last Thursday night. Her younger brother was unable to stop the attack, and she was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Funeral arrangements will be announced. The family requests that no flowers be sent.

  That was it, just the scantiest mention, but it contained enough to keep me sitting there, unmoving. Many things to think about, and one most of all. The way I remembered it, when we’d talked about his sister, Lockwood had definitely implied that he hadn’t been around when the accident took place.

  This article implied that he had.

  The day got worse. Of course it did. By early afternoon, George and I had still found nothing (at least nothing, in my case, that we’d officially gone to find). It was time to get home to the office, but George wanted to do a final check on some obscure journals that were housed in another building, a few blocks from the main Archives. He said he’d follow later, so I tramped back alone to Portland Row. And when I ent
ered the hall, the first thing I saw was Holly Munro, all outfitted in an agent’s work belt and rapier. She had a cool leather coat on, and black leather fingerless gloves; also a wool sweater I’d never seen before.

  She saw me staring. “This sweater? I know. It’s not very flattering. It’s one of Lockwood’s old ones. He says it shrank in the wash. Still smells of him, though.”

  Lockwood peered out of the living room, carrying a workbag in either hand. “Holly’s joining us tonight,” he said. “Where’s George?”

  “He’s still looking. But—”

  “We can’t wait for him. We’ll only have an hour or two before dark, at this rate. He can meet us at the house. I’ve got your bag here, Lucy. We need to get going, so now’s the time if you need to pee or anything.” He disappeared.

  Holly and I stood facing each other down the hall. She had that little smile on, the default one that might mean anything or nothing. I could hear Lockwood rummaging somewhere in the next room, whistling tunelessly between his teeth.

  “I don’t actually need to pee,” I said.

  “No.” We stood there. Where had she gotten the gloves from? They looked suspiciously like the spare ones that I kept in my weapons locker. I recognized the sword for sure: it was one of the old blades we used for practice in the rapier room.

  I took a breath. “So why—”

  “Lockwood had—”

  We’d both spoken at the same time. Now we both stopped—me the most decisively; after a pause, Holly resumed. “Lockwood had a difficult interview with Miss Wintergarden,” she said. “She’s demanding instant results. A most exacting lady. He says we need as many pairs of eyes as possible this afternoon, to try to find the Source before nightfall. I offered to come along, and he’s found me a few things to make sure I’m protected and kept warm. I hope you don’t mind this, Lucy.”

  “No, not at all,” I said. Why should I mind? It was just like her to assume I had some problem with it. I gestured at her outfit. “Is this wise, though? What experience in fieldwork have you had?”

  “I went out on plenty of assignments at Rotwell’s,” she said. “In fact, when I started out, I got my First and Second Grade certificates, and afterward did rapier training so that—”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But you should know that this visitation isn’t a Type One or anything. It’s much more formidable than that.”

  Holly Munro pushed a stray hair or two behind her ear. “Well, I’ve seen some things. I was there in the Holland Park Cellar case, when our party got blockaded underground by those seven spectral dogs. It was quite a tight spot. And after that—”

  “I heard about Holland Park, Holly, and I can tell you the thing that makes the bloody footprints is ten times worse. I’m only saying. I don’t want to frighten you. I just wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Her bland smile flickered. “I can only do my best.”

  “I just hope it’ll be enough,” I said.

  Lockwood came out of the living room, stepped between us, and swung his overcoat down off the rack. “Everyone happy?” he said. “Great. I’ve left a note for George. Jake should be here with the taxi any minute, so let’s get the equipment outside. Are those bags yours, Holly? Please—don’t bother yourself. Let me.”

  Fifty-four Hanover Square was no more and no less welcoming than the day before. Dull shafts beamed down from the skylight high above, illuminating odd corners of the staircase, facets of wood, worn steps, random portions of the wall. I listened, as I always do when I enter such a house, but it was hard to hear with all Holly and Lockwood’s twittering: he softly explaining the locations of our previous vigil, she asking endless questions and laughing at his remarks. I tried to block it out, and simultaneously stifle the annoyance that twisted deeper in my chest. Annoyance had to be avoided, along with other negative feelings. Bad things happened to agents who didn’t keep their emotions under control.

  I consoled myself with the thought that we’d soon be too busy trying to stay alive to worry about any of that. Plus, George would turn up, and the dynamics would change.

  But George didn’t show.

  We got on with it anyway, hunting for possible Sources, first in the basement, then in the attic. The basement I disliked intensely: two people, to my certain knowledge, had fallen to their deaths there. The kitchen itself, separated by a kind of arch from the bottom of the stairwell, was modern and inoffensive enough, but the tiled area made my skin prickle and our thermometers drop. We probed the tiles with penknives and tested the risers of the stairs, but found no hidden cavity where a relic of the original tragedy might be found. I tested the walls for hollow spaces; Lockwood got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside the little closets that had been built beneath the staircase itself, exploring them minutely with his flashlight. We found nothing. Holly Munro discovered a nearby storeroom containing a lot of old black furniture, but on inspection we thought it early twentieth century rather than Victorian.

  “It’s possible that the tiles themselves are the Source,” I said, “if that’s where the final act of the tragedy played out. We could lay a chain net here and see if the haunting still takes place.”

  Lockwood rubbed dust off his trousers. “Good idea. But first, we’ll search the attic.”

  In some ways the top of the stairs mirrored the bottom: the actual area of interest was very small indeed. The servants’ rooms lay beyond a paneled corridor and didn’t have much to do with the tiny attic landing, which was little more than a set of polished floorboards, perhaps twelve feet square, bounded on one side by the final neat elm balustrade. Wan blue sky showed through the skylight. As I’d done the day before, I looked over the banister and saw the stairs’ great flattened spiral corkscrewing smoothly down through the gray interior of the house, around and around, deeper and deeper, all the way to where shadows enfolded it in the basement four floors below.

  It was a terrible drop. Poor Little Tom, to have fallen there.

  If anything, the attic was even less fruitful than the basement had been. We found a cold spot, and a loose floorboard, which got Lockwood excited, but when we pried it up we found nothing but dust. A few spiders scuttled out, which might have meant something. There were no dried bloodstains, no dropped knives, no sinister fragments of clothing; and the rest of the landing was bare.

  “Just a thought,” Holly Munro said, “but might the staircase itself be the Source? If the boy bled all over it, if the terror he felt as he ran up it was still fused into the wood…”

  “…the whole thing could be the channel to the Other Side,” Lockwood said. He whistled. “It’s possible. Not sure how that’s going to go down with our client, if we tell her she needs to rip her precious staircase out.”

  “I’ve never heard of a Source that big,” I said.

  Lockwood was staring up at the sky beyond the glass; it was like a slab of uncooked bacon now—gray and pink, laced with pale striations. “There have been cases. George would know….I wish he’d hurry up. You said he only had a couple of journals to look through.” He checked his watch, came to a snap decision. “All right, we need to get cracking. We’ll lay out chain nets in the basement, like you suggested, and on the landing here. If that stops the haunting, all well and good; if not, we’ll think again. I want us to observe as we did yesterday, and not engage. I’ll take the basement this time, see if I spot anything different. Lucy, you can watch up here. Otherwise candles, defenses, everything as before.”

  “What can I do?” Holly Munro asked.

  I smiled at her, leaned against the banister. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’m really parched. Could you get the kettle on, do you think, Holly? And, if you can stretch to it, I’ll have a couple of biscuits, too. Thanks so much.”

  Our assistant, after only the most minuscule hesitation, nodded. “Certainly, Lucy.” Smiling her compliant smile, she pattered down the stairs.

  “She’s good,” I said. “I’m glad you brought her.”

  Lockwoo
d was watching me. “You need to be a bit more generous. She doesn’t have to be here tonight.”

  “I’m just worried for her sake,” I said. “You felt the energy of the apparitions last night. She’s a novice at this. Look—she doesn’t even know how to attach a rapier to her belt. She nearly tripped over it then.” I allowed myself the smallest grin, saw Lockwood’s gaze on me, and looked away.

  “Well, you needn’t worry too much,” he said slowly, “because I’ll keep an eye on her. She can stand beside me in my circle. That’ll keep her safe. You’ll be all right, I know. So get your chains set up now. I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes.” And with that he was off, spiraling away down the stairs, his long coat drifting—and me watching him go, hot-eyed.

  Nothing in the next few hours contributed much toward improving my mood. The house went dark, and our lines of snuff-lights bloomed into soft, pale life, marking the route for our ghosts. We ate, rested, checked our supplies. George didn’t turn up. This was perplexing; we worried that events in the containment zone had somehow spilled over to delay him. Certainly, I missed his company, as Lockwood remained distinctly chilly toward me over sandwiches and biscuits. Holly’s presence unsettled me. She was at once submissive and assertive, her inexperience overlapping with her smooth self-confidence. Both these aspects, in different ways, contrived to snare Lockwood’s attention. It left me out on a limb, feeling awkward and exposed.

  Lockwood had laid out a silver chain net on the basement tiles with, a little way off, a loop of iron chains. True to his word it was a capacious one, just right for two. As night set in, he and Holly retired to it, still chatting softly, while I had to trudge off to my lonely vigil at the other end of the stairs. Part of me knew I was being unreasonable. Nothing Lockwood was doing was essentially wrong. But the rightful pattern of events—of him and me working side by side—had been disrupted, and my disapproval chafed at my belly, as if I’d swallowed a bucketful of sharp stones.