by Gafford, Sam
Dodgson. And?
Carnacki. It’s a good deal more than just feathers and twine. Further than that, I couldn’t tell you. Remember, I heard the cry. It’s hard to take accurate readings when things keep drifting in front of the instruments.
Dodgson. You seem to be coping remarkably well.
Carnacki. Don’t lie to me, Dodgson. I know when I’m in a funk.
Dodgson. All right. But there’s no need to talk yourself further into it.
Carnacki. At any rate, by evening I still wasn’t getting anywhere with my only clue, so I realised I’d simply have to brazen it out in the electric pentacle, just like Miss Allenby.
Dodgson. You ought to have rung me up earlier.
Carnacki. Yes, most likely.
Dodgson. You can see it now, I suppose? That place?
Carnacki. Vividly.
Dodgson. And the creature?
Carnacki. Yes, the scavenger is circling. It scents weakness. Doesn’t seem as impatient as last night, but then it must be used to going years between meals.
Dodgson. Perhaps if it’s not hungry it’ll let you drift on by.
Carnacki. Unlikely. I can only think of one plausible reason for the thing to suddenly change its Allenby-only diet. I enraged it by trying to deny it Miss Allenby, and perhaps consciously, or perhaps on some vicious impulse, it’s decided that I shall suffer for it.
Dodgson. Horrible.
Carnacki. For me, if it succeeds, undoubtedly. But in the scheme of things it’s no more horrible than the dog who bites the man who taunts it by taking away its dinner, if I may put it like that.
Dodgson. An angry dog would just nip you and have done with it. There’d be none of this awful waiting, thinking about what’s coming. It doesn’t seem like animal instinct to me, Carnacki. It feels like malevolence.
Carnacki. Oh, the wait isn’t so bad. How many men ever get to observe such a remote realm as I’m now seeing? And thanks to you I can study it almost at my leisure. No need to worry about my physical body misbehaving in the meantime. I’ve enough observations to found a whole monograph on.
Dodgson. If you make it through the night with your wits intact.
Carnacki. Dodgson, you aren’t helping.
Dodgson. Good heavens, I’m sorry. I didn’t— But I can’t help getting indignant on your behalf. It’s all so damned arbitrary. Why the Allenbys? Why you? Animal instinct? Some silly quirk of personal electric tensions? Such nonsense cannot have such real, such horrible effects on people. I quite refuse to credit it.
Beat.
Dodgson. Mutters. Perhaps all that’s left is to finish that whiskey. What did I do with it?
Carnacki. Dodgson, what was that you just said?
Dodgson. Oh, I was just going to fix us something more to drink, that’s all.
Carnacki. No, before that. What was it you said? Say it again, will you?
Dodgson. Say what again? When?
Carnacki. “Such nonsense cannot really affect people,” or some such. And “I quite refuse to credit it.”
Dodgson. I know, defeatist of me, sorry. Forget I said it.
Carnacki. Forget indeed! Dodgson, you are a marvel. I do believe you have it in you to save my skin tonight.
Dodgson. Surely not. I mean, if I can, of course—but how so?
Carnacki. Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and Dodgson. My friends. My echo chamber. My council of war. Why you, do you think, Dodgson? Why you tonight, and not any of the others?
Dodgson. I’m sure I don’t know.
Carnacki. I took a gamble on your unique insight, a gamble that appears to have paid off.
Dodgson. Carnacki, what on earth are you getting at?
Carnacki. Dodgson, my friend, you are unique among our little cabal in that you’ve never quite shaken the suspicion that I’m a complete fraud.
Dodgson. What? Now hang on. That just isn’t true.
Carnacki. No, listen. This is important.
Dodgson. I don’t mean it when I call you that. It’s just a joke.
Carnacki. Then you’re a fool.
Dodgson. I beg your pardon?
Carnacki. Arkright heard the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual uttered by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee. Jessop survived that ordeal aboard the Mortzestus. Even young Taylor has a measure of innate psychic sight. When we all sit ’round the fire and I spin you chaps some yarn about some unusual occurrence, they simply listen, because their own experience tells them such things are not impossible. But you, Dodgson. Your senses, your experiences . . . Your existence has been entirely mundane.
Dodgson. As if Arkright didn’t remind me enough of that.
Carnacki. I’m not trying to slight you, you dunderhead! I’m saying your judgement is unsullied. There’s a solution to this horrid business and I can’t see it because I’m too used to accepting impossible things as fact. But you can. You can see the way out. What have I missed, Dodgson? What doesn’t add up?
Dodgson. I don’t know. I don’t know, all right? I don’t know.
Carnacki. Think. You do know. Just think.
Dodgson. Whatever happened to keeping a perfectly open mind?
Carnacki. What’s that to do with anything?
Dodgson. You told us all a thousand and one times never to dismiss a thing out of hand just for seeming impossible. Are you saying you expected me to ignore that?
Carnacki. I’m saying it’s likely more things seem impossible to you than seem impossible to me, or Arkright, or the others. I’m saying that you must steel yourself consciously not to scoff at things that we simply accept. I’m saying you notice more.
Dodgson. But I’ve always—
Carnacki. Did you want them to be true?
Dodgson. What?
Carnacki. All those yarns I spun you all by the fire—hauntings and monsters and curses and possession and death. Did you want to believe they were true?
Dodgson. I always believed you were honest. Didn’t I say so?
Carnacki. That’s not what I asked.
Dodgson. Did I want such ghastly things to be real, you mean? Did I, personally, wish for young Aster to be devoured by the Black Veil, or poor Bains to be dragged to hell by the Hog? What kind of man do you think I am?
Carnacki. A loyal one. But a sceptic at heart.
Dodgson. Perhaps you’re right.
Carnacki. I’d stake my life on it.
The electric pentacle flickers.
Dodgson. What was that?
Carnacki. Never mind that. Concentrate. What doesn’t add up?
Dodgson. I don’t know.
Carnacki. The slightest thing. Anything that gave you pause.
Dodgson. Well . . .
Carnacki. Yes?
Dodgson. How do you explain the creature, the bird, I mean, still being able to detect Miss Allenby despite the electric pentacle? That shouldn’t have been possible.
Carnacki. Quite right. Quite right. Perhaps . . . perhaps it’s like hiding under a sheet in an empty room? One is concealed, but the hiding place is obvious?
The electric pentacle flickers.
Dodgson. Are you quite sure nothing’s—
Carnacki. Let me worry about the apparatus. Keep going.
Dodgson. Well, I still don’t understand how this so-called family curse comes to affect you at all.
Carnacki. Yes. Good. That’s the part that seems strangest to me, too. I suspect if we can discover why the behaviour of the phenomenon has changed now, after generations of consistency, we shall find the key to the whole business.
Dodgson. Then there’s the matter of the charm.
Carnacki. No, Dodgson, I think we’ve found the right line of enquiry, if we can just focus.
Dodgson. It’s not like you, that’s all.
Carnacki. What’s not?
Dodgson. Do you trust it to protect you? I suppose you must. We’ve established that the pentacle can’t hide you.
Carnacki. Hang on. Slow down. Why wouldn’t I trust the
charm?
Dodgson. Let’s see. Provenance unknown. Hasn’t worked in living memory. Testing inconclusive. Why would you trust it?
The electric pentacle begins a constant flickering. The sound of wings begins to draw closer.
Carnacki. It would have saved Miss Allenby if she’d kept her head and kept it on.
Dodgson. Funny how everyone seems to believe that. You, Miss Allenby, sceptics both, supposedly. If keeping it on’s going to save you, why are we even having this conversation? Why didn’t you simply ask me to, I don’t know, tie you up and sit on you until morning?
Carnacki. I . . .
Dodgson. May I see the note?
Carnacki. Pardon me?
Dodgson. The note that came with the charm. It’s in your pocket, there. May I see it?
Carnacki. Whatever for?
Dodgson. Indulge me.
Carnacki. If you insist. Hands it over.
Dodgson. What language is this supposed to be?
Carnacki. English.
Dodgson. Don’t be absurd.
Carnacki. “Whosoever of my kin doth find himself in need of more than earthly protection . . .”
Dodgson. That’s not what it says, Carnacki.
Carnacki. Of course it is. Read it.
Dodgson. I can’t. What is this script? Arabic? Hieroglyphs?
Carnacki. Are you quite in control of your senses?
Dodgson. Are you?
One candle goes out.
Dodgson. Give me the charm.
Carnacki. What?
Dodgson. The charm and the note are handed down together, you said.
Carnacki. What of it?
The second candle goes out.
Dodgson. Hiding under a sheet, in an empty room, and—and holding up a lantern.
Carnacki. You’re supposed to make sure I keep it on!
Dodgson. Give it to me. Give it to me, Carnacki.
The third candle goes out.
Carnacki. It’s got to you. You’re mad.
Dodgson. What happened to the power of my mundane existence?
The fourth candle goes out.
Dodgson. Seizes Carnacki’s left wrist and wrestles the charm from it.
Carnacki. Draws his revolver.
Dodgson. Wraps the charm in the note and sets both alight at the fifth candle.
Carnacki. Aims the revolver at roughly where he last heard Dodgson speak. Confound it, Dodgson!
Dodgson. Tosses the burning note and charm out of the Pentacle.
Carnacki. What’s got into you, man?
The fifth and final candle goes out. The glow of the electric pentacle steadies. The sound of wingbeats recedes.
Carnacki. Lowers his revolver.
Dodgson. Has that done it?
Carnacki. I can’t hear it any more.
Dodgson. Hear what?
Carnacki. The herald. I don’t see it overhead either.
Dodgson. Then I was right? The curse was nothing to do with the Allenby family. It was something in the charm.
Carnacki. What one might term a haunted or cursed artefact, masquerading as a hereditary spiritual entanglement or family curse. Of course the victims tore the thing off, the moment they realised it was guiding the herald towards them, but the realisation always came too late. And if the charm were of the herald’s own being, as it were, a part of the creature itself, then of course it would remain uninsulated by the electric pentacle.
Dodgson. You’re yourself once again, I see.
Carnacki. Myself, yes. I think so. But not yet whole.
Dodgson. You see the chasm still?
Carnacki. Yes. Though as long as the pentacle holds, without the charm to give me away, I should knit back together quite naturally. I may yet write that monograph.
The cry of a monstrous carrion bird. The sound of monstrous, frantic wingbeats. Wind.
The electric pentacle flares bright, then goes out with a pop and a spray of sparks.
Darkness.
Dodgson. What in heaven’s name was that?
Carnacki. Dodgson, take my gun. Where are you, Dodgson?
Dodgson. Why? What for? What’s happening?
Carnacki. I can’t see. I may miss. I may hit you.
Dodgson. I heard it, Carnacki. Is it coming for me, now, too?
Carnacki. No. Perhaps. I doubt it can discriminate. Take my gun.
Dodgson. But what for?
Carnacki. It’s coming here, Dodgson. It’s lost track of me in the abyss so it means to manifest itself on the physical plane. Death is preferable to whatever it has in mind. Where are you?
Dodgson. I won’t do it.
Carnacki. You must. I’m not afraid. I’ve seen beyond the veil. There’s nothing there.
Dodgson. I refuse.
Carnacki. Puts the gun to his temple and cocks it.
A sound like many voices whispering in an unknown language becomes audible over the sound of wings.
The electric pentacle lights back up. The chalk lines of the Water Circle glow. So do the signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual which Carnacki drew on the floor with water. And so does a new series of lines, which combine with those of the Water Circle to form a new, more intricate pentacle. Signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual appear, glowing, on Carnacki’s and Dodgson’s foreheads.
Carnacki. Drops the gun. Dodgson.
Dodgson. Is this it?
Carnacki. The centre, Dodgson.
Dodgson. Goes for the gun.
Carnacki. Manhandles Dodgson into the centre of the circle, by the trunk. Back to back, now. We have to ride it out.
The wind gains strength.
The whispering overpowers the wingbeats.
The cry of a monstrous carrion bird in pain.
Stillness. Silence. Darkness.
Dodgson. Did you see? Ghostly faces in the dark. Watching.
Carnacki. I saw.
Pause.
Carnacki. I’ve said before there are entities that sometimes intervene when a human spirit is threatened by the Outer Monstrosities. Of course it doesn’t do to count on these things, but . . .
Dodgson. Carnacki.
Carnacki. I suppose the whole business with stranding spirits in the Outer Circle was a way to circumvent the notice of those powers.
Dodgson. Tom.
Carnacki. William.
Dodgson. Must you?
Carnacki. Must I what?
Dodgson. We’re alive, aren’t we? Can’t you leave it at that, just this once?
Carnacki. Perhaps I’d better.
Pause.
Dodgson. You’re working it out in your head. I can tell.
Carnacki. I’ll need an explanation ready for Arkright. You know what he’s like.
Beat.
Dodgson. Laughs.
Carnacki. Laughs.
Morning.
Carnacki. Is dismantling the electric pentacle and scrubbing out the Water Circle.
Florence. The first time I got lost. When I was just a little girl. We were by the sea. I was exploring the rock pools and I must have gotten carried away. When I looked back it was dark and I couldn’t see Mother. The tide was in and nothing around me looked familiar any more. I thought I might be out there among the rocks all night, alone. It still makes my heart jump just thinking about it.
Carnacki. I know the feeling.
Florence. Well, it’s like that. Only more. Imagine not being able to see home even as a distant star.
Carnacki. I doubt I can even begin to.
Florence. Are you envious?
Beat.
Florence. Where did it all start?
Carnacki. We’ll never know.
Florence. But you have a theory. You can’t not have theories about things.
Carnacki. I don’t know. Perhaps some ancestor of yours got on the wrong side of some shaman or mystic with knowledge of the Unseen World.
Florence. Someone like you?
Carnacki. Or perhaps it was meant for someone else entirely, and your ancestor just happen
ed to fall afoul of it. The one responsible may not have foreseen how it would come to be passed down through the generations. Though if that part was deliberate . . .
Beat.
Florence. You are envious. I can tell. Is that why you lured it back?
Carnacki. That is not what I was trying to do.
Florence. Still. I know where home is now. Everything looks familiar again. I’ve seen such horrors and such wonders. Would you like to hear about them before I go?
Beat.
Florence. Will you visit once in a while?
Beat.
Carnacki. I’m sorry you went through what you did. I ought to have seen what was happening.
Dodgson. Don’t feel badly, old chap. You had a far worse night than I.
Carnacki. Hm? Sorry, Dodgson. I was miles and miles away.
Dodgson. Are you quite all right?
Carnacki. I’m alive, am I not?
Dodgson. And in one piece again.
Carnacki. Just about.
Beat.
Dodgson. Thank you.
Carnacki. Thank me? Why?
Dodgson. It’s thanks to your precautions that I’m safe.
Carnacki. I suppose you’re right. That’s something, at least. Help me with this, would you? Hefts one end of the trunk.
Dodgson. Hefts the other end of the trunk.
They exit carrying the trunk between them.
Author’s note
If you’d like to put on a production of Audience with the Ghost-Finder, you’ll need my permission. It probably won’t be hard to get. I’ll probably be ecstatic that someone wants to pay me the compliment of performing my work. But I like to know when these things are happening, and if your production is commercial and aims to turn a profit, I’d appreciate the opportunity to negotiate my cut.
You can contact me by email ([email protected]), on Twitter (@MJStarling), or find me in various other internet places, all catalogued at www.mjstarling.com.
Contributors
Jim Beard, although actually quite terrified by the subject of ghosts, finds them a terribly fascinating thing to write about. His pulp fiction work includes Sgt. Janus, Spirit-Breaker, his ode to Carnacki; Captain Action: Riddle of the Glowing Men, based on the famous 1960s action figure; and Monster Earth and Monster Aces, tributes to Japanese style-giant monsters and the Universal Monsters, respectively. Jim has also written comics for DC, Dark Horse, IDW, and Bluewater, and edited a book of essays on the 1966 Batman TV series, Gotham City 14 Miles. Jim lives in Northwest Ohio, with a lovely and talented Appalachian dulcimist, and can be found on the net at his Facebook fan page, www.facebook.com/thebeardjimbeard, and at the Sgt. Janus Spirit-Blog, www.sgtjanus.blogspot.com.