The Stolen Ghosts

by Icy Sedgwick

  “No, Arthur, it was not I. She put me in charge of her realm, but she doesn’t love me as she loves the living. No, she doesn’t even like me. I suspect she barely even tolerates me,” said Templeton.

  Arthur smirked. Could he possibly be King Arthur? As Templeton turned back to face them, Arthur nodded slightly and winked at her.

  “Templeton, you are wandering off your woefully inadequate point. Sarah raised an issue, and I for one would like you to finish what you were saying about how the dead do not need the living,” said Fowlis.

  “Of course, Fowlis. Well, we in this realm cannot die. Indeed, we are the supreme expression of human life. We are beyond the reach of Time, safely hidden from War, Famine, Pestilence…even the Managing Director cannot touch us here,” said Templeton. “Only the Beyond exists for us, and even that is not an inevitable destination, it is merely a depository for those souls unsuited to life in this realm. That’s how I came up with my plan.”

  “So you have finally come to the part about the plan?” asked Fowlis, making a great show of pretending to consult a watch. Arthur sniggered and triggered a rush of snorts and giggles to ripple through the assembled haunters.

  Templeton silenced them with another hard stare. “You are a little like the villains in the movies, Templeton. You waffle on for a while, and then unveil your plan for the unwitting hero to foil,” said a young man in the front row whom Sarah didn’t recognise.

  “What exactly do you mean by that, young upstart?” Templeton bunched his hands into fists at his sides.

  “He means that you do go on a bit, Templeton,” said Arthur.

  “Shut it, Arthur. The Managing Director might like you, but I don’t, and you are really beginning to test my patience,” said Templeton.

  “Heaven forbid I do that.” Arthur rolled his eyes, and the crowd sniggered again.

  “There is no Heaven!” screamed Templeton.

  A hush descended in the ballroom. All eyes were fixed on the president. Worry creased Fowlis’s forehead. Only Arthur looked unconcerned, one thumb hooked casually in his belt as he shifted his weight to his right leg.

  But then, I bet Arthur could cut the tension with his beautiful sword if he wanted to.

  “Mr Peace, sir? What’s your plan?” Sarah tried to perfect the doe-eyed look of innocence so beloved of her mother. It worked; Templeton softened as he gazed down at her.

  “I’m going to dissolve the Veil and take the world of the dead down to the world of the living. We’re really going to show them what we’re made of.”

  Time slowed to a crawl as Templeton’s words sank in. Haunters shuffled and lone coughs broke the silence. Handle shifted from one foot to the other then back again. Fowlis stared at Templeton in mute disbelief. Argus and his assistant froze, each clinging to the other as they sought to understand. Even Arthur raised his eyebrows in surprise. Sarah looked around. She was in a room filled with the dead, yet she alone was not dead. Nor was she alive; she was between.

  “How on earth will you do that?” asked Fowlis.

  “He can’t do it himself or surely he’d have already done it by now,” said Sarah.

  “Indeed. I need this rabble, and the many more haunters I seek to recall, and I need The Ghostlie Manifestoe in its entirety.” Templeton looked at Sarah.

  “I knew that was you in the library!” She glared at him.

  “There was never any second Haunter, just Templeton using the mirror to locate the Manifestoe. You manipulated the Veil to keep yourself hidden!” said Fowlis.

  “Why does he want the Manifestoe? It’s just a book of biographies, isn’t it?” asked Sarah. Her hands flew to her mouth to stop the words but Templeton’s face lit up.

  “You’ve seen the book?”

  “Templeton, forget about it. She has only glanced at the first volume, and I deliberately left it behind when Handle told me how keen you were to get your hands on it,” said Fowlis.

  “Don’t worry your empty little head, Westerby. I know you don’t have the volume, which is a shame, since this could have all been over so much more quickly had you returned it to me here,” replied Templeton. “And I know that you’ve already worked out why I had her brought here. It became apparent that you would not bring the book back with you, which just left me with her.”

  “You can’t use mortals like that, Templeton,” said Arthur.

  “Oh but of course I can. What other purpose do they serve? After all, she has something I want, and I have something she wants. It’s a very simple arrangement really.” Templeton turned to Sarah.

  Sarah fought to look surprised. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want Templeton to know she’d already worked out his plan. The surprise wasn’t entirely hard to fake; the shocking pull of ‘home’ beckoned with tempting fingers. Images of the library danced through her head, where she could curl up among the books. The haze of the vision flickered to think of the time she’d spend reading online the comments that no one would leave her. Or how long it wouldn’t take her to reply to the non-existent messages from her so-called friends. And wait for her mother to come home with yet more wallpaper samples. She scowled. It wasn’t much of a bribe.

  “I can send you home, Sarah. All of this will be just a bad dream.” Templeton gazed down at her and Sarah shuddered. If she did what he wanted, then her home, such as it was, wouldn’t be safe for much longer anyway. At least if she stayed here, she was among friends. She could help someone. She curled her hands into fists. Templeton must think she was stupid.

  “Sarah does not have an anchor of her own,” said Fowlis.

  “Oh really?”

  Templeton’s lip curled into a leer, and he pulled a ring from his pocket. Shaped like a dragon, it was designed to curl around the finger. Sarah looked down at her hand, and realised it was missing. Templeton must have slipped it off her when they shook hands.

  Chapter 29

  Panic and terror fought for control of Sarah’s stomach, and she retched. If he had an anchor for her, surely that meant she was dead now. She didn’t want to be a haunter! A sick sense of irony told her she was probably the only sixteen-year-old in the country who would actually rather go to college than accept their fate.

  “You cannot do this! Templeton, she is just a child! Besides, she does not know where I have hidden it,” said Fowlis.

  Templeton grabbed Sarah’s arm and dragged her across the ballroom towards the large mirror that took up most of the opposite wall.

  “No, she doesn’t, but I do. Sarah, it’s in the attic. Be a love and bring it back? Just call my name when you have it,” said Templeton as he tossed her ring at the mirror. The glass rippled the moment the ring disappeared through its surface, and Templeton pushed Sarah through the mirror after it.

  Sarah stumbled towards the mirror and crossed her arms across her face. She expected to hit the glass but it parted like water. She plunged into a burning sea of silvery cold. A strong pull on her stomach hauled her through the cold before she thrashed her arms and legs in panic.

  The silver split in front of her and Sarah fell forward into warm air. She landed on a floral rug in front of a four-poster bed. Sarah pushed herself up onto her knees and looked around her bedroom back at Cransland House. The furniture sat right where she’d left it, and the London poster dangled from dried-up Blu-Tac on the wall.

  Sarah looked down at her hands and yelped. They were translucent. She scrabbled around on the floor and looked for her ring. She found it beside the bed and slipped it back onto her finger. Sarah smirked. She wasn’t dead so she didn’t have to worry about ectoplasmic charge, or whatever Fowlis called it. Templeton couldn’t recall her now that she had her own anchor in her possession. Did that make her truly autonomous?

  He must really trust that I’m going to come back. There’s nothing stopping me staying here. Well, other than wanting to help Fowlis.

  Angry black clouds threw shadows through the window, darkening her room. The clock on the mantelpiece said it was only
3pm. If it was still the same day, she’d only been on Fowlis’s plane for about an hour and a half. Her heart leapt with a brief silent hope until she glanced at the sky again. The same bruised, boiling sky from her dream, and the clouds above HQ. Templeton’s plan must be nearer to completion than she thought.

  At the thought of Templeton, his words thundered in Sarah’s mind. The attic—he had told her to go to the attic to fetch the book. Sarah didn’t want to give him the book, but a plan tickled the edges of her mind. She wanted certain things in place before she went up there.

  She left her room and headed along the corridor. The great staircase opened before her and she ran down the stairs. Her feet barely touched the steps.

  Sarah ran into the kitchen, where she opened cupboards and drawers at random and raided the shelves for snacks. She emptied her pockets and dumped handfuls of Templeton’s grey, unappealing treats onto the bench by the sink. Sarah looked at the pile, unsure of how to dispose of them.

  A small mouse appeared on the bench. Sarah squealed.

  “It’s all right, don’t be afraid. Are you a friend of Fowlis?” asked the mouse.

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked if you know Fowlis. Where is he?” The mouse twitched its tail.

  “How can I understand you?”

  “The dead can talk to animals, but you’re not properly dead, are you?”

  “I don’t know what I am.”

  “Don’t be upset. I’m Brie, by the way. A friend of Fowlis.”

  “Fowlis is the only friend I’ve got,” said Sarah sadly. “I need to get back to him. Hey, I don’t suppose you know what I should do with this lot?” asked Sarah, pointing at the sweets.

  “Oh, you need to bury them. If we eat them, we’ll be stuck in limbo,” said the mouse.

  “That would be horrible!” said Sarah.

  She found a paper bag among the recycling supplies and scooped the translucent mess inside. Brie pointed to the kitchen door with her tail and Sarah buried the package at the bottom of the compost heap outside.

  “Are you going to help Fowlis now?” asked Brie when Sarah returned.

  “I’m certainly going to try.”

  “Well, best of luck to you. And please take the mousetraps away. We like it here.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.” Sarah scrawled a reminder on the small chalkboard by the door. She had no idea how she’d convince her mother to go along with it, but perhaps she could persuade the mice to be sneakier.

  The little mouse squeaked and disappeared behind a coffee can. Sarah opened another cupboard and stuffed her pockets with chocolate bars and treat-sized bags of cookies. The temptation to snack on them right now tugged at her stomach but she resisted. It wasn’t part of her plan.

  The kitchen was large and lonely without her dad pottering around beside the stove, wooden spoon in one hand and mug of tea in the other, or her mother poring over wallpaper samples and moodboards at the table. If the kitchen represented the family, then right now hers was a sorry family indeed. She wondered where her mother was. They must have gone out early this morning and hadn’t checked on her.

  Or maybe they’ve realised I’m gone and they’re out looking for me.

  Pushing the guilt firmly to the back of her mind, Sarah went back along the corridor to the entrance hall. Six months had passed between the death of her great-aunt and her family moving in, and the house still bore a peculiar air of quiet neglect. Standing empty once again, the house felt pensive. What was it waiting for? Did the house know about Templeton’s plan? Could it feel the Veil weakening? After all, with no ghosts to haunt the living, what fear could the living have of the dead?

  The door to the attic stairs stood at the head of the main staircase. Sarah paused, one hand on the knob. She’d never been in the attic before—her parents wanted to leave the sprawling space until they’d cleared the rest of the house, and her mother worried the attic could be dangerous. Still, there was electric light up there after the entire building had been rewired during the early 1980s. Apparently her mother’s great-aunt wanted to add a whole suite of rooms up there but had never gotten around to it.

  The temptation to eat something, to come back to the world of the living and call her father, was overwhelming. Her left hand snaked into her pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. Sarah scowled at herself.

  Come on, Sarah, Fowlis needs you.

  She grimaced.

  It’s not your problem, Sarah. He got you into this mess in the first place. Why should you help him?

  Sarah pictured a miniature version of herself dressed as an angel sitting on one shoulder, with a mini devil Sarah on the other.

  Well what if Templeton succeeds? The first voice asked a valid question.

  So what if he does? So he’ll bring a few hundred ghosts to earth, ghosts that can’t be recalled and must do his bidding…they can’t actually hurt the living, replied the second voice.

  But what if they do? The first voice was persistent. The second voice fell silent, unable to answer. Sarah was torn. On one hand, the second voice had a point. Ghosts already tormented the living, so Templeton bringing the dead to the mortal plane wasn’t that much of a big deal. Or was it?

  Sarah’s boredom with her lonely life in the house rebelled against the idea of doing nothing. This was her adventure, and there was no promise that she’d ever have another. Soon she’d be going to Sixth Form, and then university, and then very likely some boring career. She had to seize the opportunity while she could. After all, she’d come this far.

  Sarah leaned against the door. The dead already scared people by rattling a few doors and occasionally throwing things across a room. What if they took on a more terrifying aspect when they reached the mortal plane? Besides, they were dead, so how could the living hope to get rid of them?

  Sarah pushed the door inwards. The stiff hinges squealed from years of disuse. She didn’t think her parents had even seen the attic; her mother hated the possibility of creepy crawlies, and her father would never have thought to see if there was anything useful up there.

  There might be corpses up there, whispered Sarah’s devil voice.

  The attic stairs creaked underfoot and each footfall sent up tiny puffs of dust. Sarah spotted a light switch halfway up the staircase. She flicked the switch and yellow light flooded the stairs, flickered but stayed on. The vast roof came into view far above her head. A side banister appeared, separating the staircase from the attic.

  Sarah gasped to see the scale of the roof space. Huge framed paintings had been stacked against each other and leaned against the eaves under large plastic sheets. Freestanding mirrors, chests of drawers, tables and bookcases jostled for space. Some were covered with dust sheets, while others stood bare under the harsh electric light. She wandered down a wide space between the piles of furniture that formed a central aisle. The bookcases were empty, which made her search a lot easier.

  “If I were using an attic as a place to sleep, I’d need something to sleep on,” said Sarah. Speaking out loud made her less scared to peer into the shadows. A series of angry squeaks prompted her to look up and see bats hanging from the gable wall.

  “Oh hello,” said Sarah.

  She held out a hand and a bat detached itself from the wall, fluttered across the attic and landed in her palm.

  “Who are you?” asked the bat.

  Sarah stared at the fuzzy little creature. Apparently she could speak Bat as well as Mouse now that she was in limbo.

  “Sarah. I live here, downstairs. Well, I used to. Right now, I’m sort of between worlds,” replied Sarah.

  “Where’s Fowlis?”

  “He’s stuck in the world of the dead. The guy who runs the place has gone a bit mad. He wants to bring the realm of the dead onto the mortal plane, and he needs me to find a book for him. Apparently Fowlis left it up here.”

  “Is Fowlis in trouble?” The bat creased its little face in concern.

  “I think so. That’s why I ne
ed to get back as soon as I can. I just need that stupid book.”

  A crack of thunder tore open the sky. The sound rolled around the attic, sending furniture rattling. The light swung from the fixture, throwing distorted shadows across the walls. They danced and twisted like frenzied sprites. The bat peeped in her hand and covered its head with one leathery wing.

  “I didn’t think you’d be afraid of thunder,” said Sarah.

  “That’s no ordinary thunder, miss.”

  She turned to look around her, wondering where Fowlis might have put the book. Would he have hidden it, or just left it up here? A chaise longue stood nearby, its cover thrown back as if someone had recently slept there. Sarah hoped that was where Fowlis had rested. She gulped and wished she’d never watched those horror movies about people who lived in attics for years before the homeowners found them.

  Another peal of thunder boomed above the attic. Seconds later, a low roar and insistent hiss filled the room. Sarah couldn’t suppress a grin. She loved heavy rainstorms. There was something so cleansing about them. Was it a sign that she was going to succeed?

  The bat detached itself from her palm and flitted back to its brethren. She turned around, disorientated by the swinging light fixture. Its harsh yellow glare threw a shaft of light across a bookcase behind the chaise longue. It glinted off something small and golden.

  Sarah ran across the attic and brushed her fingers along the spines of the books. The light threw another beam and the golden reflection appeared again. Not just gold—golden lettering. She reached back between two dusty tomes for the source of the glint. There, hidden at the back of the bookcase, was The Ghostlie Manifestoe.

  “He could have found a better hiding place,” said Sarah.

  “Would you have found it without that light?” asked the bat. It covered his head as another shaft of light fell across the furry creatures.

  “Fair point.”

  Sarah pulled the book free from the bookcase and ran her thumb along the edge of its ancient pages. The bat squeaked at her.