Gap Year in Ghost Town

by Michael Pryor

  She stood there in ominous mode, weight on the balls of her feet as if she expected a spectral army to appear at any moment and didn’t want to miss the fun. There was a whole city of lights and people behind her, but she made them seem distant and unimportant.

  It was quite a trick.

  ‘My family doesn’t destroy ghosts,’ I said. ‘We help them on their way.’

  ‘Marins are the ghost hunters who don’t dispatch ghosts.’

  ‘We do. We just go about it differently. We ease their passage and release them from their earthly bondage.’

  ‘Which is what I do.’

  ‘I’m not sure that using your sword on them is the same.’

  ‘We sever their connection with the world and they’re free.’

  ‘Free? That wasn’t what I saw. I saw a ghost being destroyed with no chance of going on.’

  She took a step towards me. The hilt of her sword cleared the sheath in a move so smooth that I was still admiring it when I realised how threatening it was. ‘You’re wrong.’

  I swallowed. ‘I know what I saw.’

  She thrust the sword back into the sheath and stalked away. I didn’t say anything, which is a bit of a rarity for me.

  This whole human/ghost thing is seriously messed up. At least, that’s the conclusion I came to after Dad’s years of history lessons. I don’t know, but I think it was that the ghost sight/easing thing had passed over Dad, as it apparently did reasonably often, that made him determined to know as much about the ghost world as possible.

  Ghost world. Messed up. Right.

  Ever since humanity learned about ghosts, some of us have been able to see them all the time, and all of us have been able to see them some of the time. Enough to make everyone a bit jumpy in haunted places. The ghosts? Hard to tell what they feel, really.

  It’s enough to say that ghosts scare the pants off people. Partly it’s to do with their association with the mysteries of death, but partly it’s because of their spooky nature. Even the least of ghosts gives off waves of fear. They inspire dread in us, enough to paralyse if we let it.

  But wait – there’s more. Ghosts like to clamp onto humans and use our vitality to maintain their existence. Good for ghosts, bad for us.

  This is why so many Companies, Brotherhoods and Orders have grown up dedicated to protecting humanity from the scourge of ghosts. Most of these top-secret bands have military origins, so their approach to solving the ghost problem is an aggressive one. Chop and hack.

  My family, though, goes about things differently.

  I wanted to explain all this to Rani Cross, but when I lifted my head she’d gone.

  Shy, I expect.

  CHAPTER 2

  You might think that ghost hunting is full of glamour and excitement, international jet-setting, hobnobbing with world leaders and stuff like that. Well yeah, nah. Ghost hunting is more about mud and cold and waiting around for something to manifest.

  I was homeschooled. Dad taught me, so my education was heavy on the history of ghost hunting, the methods of ghost hunters, the stylish day wear of ghost hunters, stuff like that. Oh, he had to teach English and Maths and the regular business, but Dad’s conscientious. I got the lot, plus ghosts.

  Socialisation with other kids? Not so much. We weren’t total isolates, but I didn’t have the everyday exposure to the usual mix you find in any school, from angels to psychopaths. It meant that my view of the world was largely determined by pop culture. Not in an Abed way, even though I sometimes found myself humming ‘Troy and Anton in the mooorn-ning’, in a sensible and not-crazy way.

  But my pop culture background is erratic. I have gaps, to say the least. Lots of it depended on Dad’s sensibilities. He went backwards and forwards over the whole TV thing, for instance. Sometimes we watched plenty of TV. Sometimes he went on an anti-TV binge and refused to have one in the house. Internet? Pretty much the same. Ups and downs.

  So, gaps.

  I had just finished Year Twelve. Dad had my future all organised, ever since I was little and had shown the family ability to see ghosts. Funny thing was that when I went all teenagery, I started to have other ideas. I didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do, I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

  It was just that I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

  University sounded like fun, but I had no idea what I wanted to study. Everything sounded good, in its own way. I’m a bit of an all-rounder, interest-wise. English, Maths, Science. Languages, not so much, but I’m happy to give them a go. Art? So-so. Music, likewise. Nothing repels me, though.

  Long story short, when it came time to make up my mind about what to do after Year Twelve, Dad and I sat down and discussed it sensibly. Whoops, I left out all the arguing and slamming doors and shouting that came before we sat down and discussed things sensibly.

  In the end, I applied for an Arts course. General, open, challenging, with plenty of chances to specialise later on.

  I got in, and deferred. Dad’s compromise was that I’d take a gap year, go into the family business full time. If I gave it a good go, Dad would abide by my decision at the end of the twelve months. With gritted teeth, maybe, but he vowed he’d support me if I still wanted to dump the ghost hunting to study instead.

  He’s a good man, my dad. He even let me work in the other side of the family business in the daytime.

  We have a second-hand bookshop. Selling books has been in the family ever since Dad’s grandfather came to Australia after World War Two. It gives us an excuse to chase up some seriously weird tomes on the subject of ghosts and the ghost hunters who police the world.

  Our shop is in Thornbury, one of the hipster zones of Melbourne, which means I can get good coffee and a good haircut, and our patrons are okay with old stuff that we cunningly pass off as retro.

  The shop is in a building that was once, a long time ago, two shops, before Dad converted it to one giant bookstore. It has two big window frontages under a verandah that reaches the street. The shop goes back and back and back, some twenty-five metres or more, and inside are lots of different rooms. The front part, with the counter and cash register, is the biggest. After that, a corridor up the middle leads to rooms on either side, all full of bookshelves. A few of them have easy chairs and couches so browsers can really do some quality browsing. You don’t want to rush into a purchase of Wisden Cricket Almanac 1972, after all.

  Dad is a dynamo when it comes to fitting out a bookshop. He can slap up shelves like nobody’s business. Sometimes, when we go visiting other people (which is rare), I catch him studying bare walls with that ‘I think this place needs more bookshelves’ look on his face.

  In principle, I’m with him. I always say that a house can’t have too many bookshelves or too many hooks to hang hammocks.

  Right at the rear is a kitchen, tiny bathroom and a crash room for when I need a place to sleep. The kitchen used to double as my schoolroom. Outside the kitchen is a small yard with enough room for our van. The bluestone-cobbled lane that gives access to this runs along the back of all the shops. It’s handy, but makes the rear of the shops pretty exposed. That’s why reinforced steel doors and bars on the windows are the designer items of choice in these parts.

  I know that some bookshops specialise. It’s a good way to corner a market. Sports books. Military books. Travel books. We’re different. We specialise in everything. Dad hates to turn down a book, if someone wants a trade, or if he happens to lob into a garage sale, or if he sees a book lying in the middle of the road. The result is so many books on so many subjects that it’s hard to keep track of them. Dad has a system, but it’s only known to him.

  In the end, I just love the place – mainly the smell when I open the door. Mmm…book smell.

  The bookshop mightn’t be a super-sized money spinner, but that doesn’t matter. The Marin family trust, the one set up with the gold the family managed to get out of Europe and into Australia after the war, means we’re not anywhere near broke and we have eno
ugh to pay our informants, buy useful books, stuff like that. Not filthy rich, not broke.

  After my encounter at the Conservatory, I went straight to the bookshop to open up. This was the routine we’d established for the gap year. I open the shop really early. Dad joins me later and I head home to catch some sleep before my night-time ghost-hunting activities.

  Ten minutes after I’d settled behind the counter with a cup of coffee, waiting for my laptop to fire up, the bell over the door went.

  Bec.

  Bec is my long-time friend and next-door neighbour. We grew up together. She doesn’t often make it all the way to our bookshop, but lately she’s taken to bike-riding – with a vengeance, like pretty much everything she does. Never halfhearted, is Bec. She’s probably the smartest people I know, and one of the hardest-working. Now, that’s a killer combo – smart and hard-working. No wonder she gets so much done.

  She stood in the doorway in her mixture of lycra and urban wear. She was having trouble with her helmet, thanks to her mass of black frizzy hair. Even tied back, it has a life of its own. It would probably save her from any serious head injury anyway, but she’s a stickler for rules. Some rules anyway.

  Both her eyes are dark brown, almost black. This is important, because one of them isn’t real. Well, it’s not imaginary, but it’s not the one she was born with. Tiny Bec had an accident, a nasty one, and she had to get a replacement. The one she most often wears is really, really good. Most people wouldn’t know it’s a fake, as it moves around when the other one does – clever stuff – and the iris even gets bigger and smaller with the light, thanks to technology.

  Bec doesn’t hide any of this. She calls her robo-eye a feature, not a drawback. I used to feel sorry for her, but she told me off once, and since then I hardly even think about it. ‘It’s not who I am,’ she said. ‘I’m not defined by this. I’m Bec, and just like you have a weird ridge inside your right ear, Anton, I have one eye.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my ear?’

  ‘Never mind. It’s bizarre, but I don’t sideline you because of it.’

  She also gets some weird and wonderful eyes she uses on special occasions. Glow-in-the-dark eye? You bet. Eye of Sauron? If she feels like it. Cat eye? Easy.

  She pointed her bike pump at me. ‘What happened to you last night?’

  I sighed and turned away from the laptop and the inventory.

  The inventory spreadsheet was my latest crusade. Dad always says he knows every book on every shelf, which I doubt, but I’d taken on the project of cataloguing the contents of the whole shop.

  I was glad of any distraction, though. ‘Sorry about that,’ I said to Bec. ‘Couldn’t be helped. Don’t stand in the doorway. Come in if you’re coming in.’

  She looked over her shoulder. Pointedly. ‘Sorry. I seem to be blocking the hordes of invisible customers who are trying to make their way into your fine establishment.’

  She blinked, hard, then rubbed her left eye. With a sigh she popped it out, inspected it, and snapped it back in again. Even though I’d seen her do it a million times, and I was used to it, I was glad no one else was in the shop. It seriously freaked people out, but that never bothered Bec.

  ‘It’s Thornbury,’ I said. ‘It’s before ten a.m. Not many people are up and about yet.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Bec looked sceptical, but she closed the door behind her. She studied the rack of 1990s pop music magazines for a while before fronting the counter where I sat.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Come out and tell me. You hated the football, right?’

  I was near the Conservatory last night because, after years of nagging, I’d finally caved and gone to the footy with Bec, and the MCG is not far from the Fitzroy Gardens. From a distance, you wouldn’t pick her as a die-hard footy fan, but she has the Melbourne disease good and proper. Since birth, when she was wrapped in a red and blue scarf, she’s been devoted to the Melbourne Football Club.

  Bec is a rational and reserved person, normally, except where football is concerned. Being as smart as ten smart people put together, her passion usually comes out in an amazing head for statistics, charts and data, but she is also a stubborn match-goer, rain or shine, success or failure.

  Once, I made a joke about being a one-eyed supporter. Never again.

  Me? I like footy, but I’d never really got into the live-match thing. Bec had nagged me for years and I’d always been able to put her off, but in a fit of weakness, I had given in and gone with her to a game. Her team – which was my team, since I was a good friend – lost.

  It was when we were filing out of the ground and I was patting her on the back as she cried – what are friends for? – that I’d felt my pendant stirring, letting me know that a ghost was manifesting somewhere nearby. The crowd heading for Jolimont station was massive and gave me a chance to slip away. I think I told Bec that I wouldn’t be long.

  I think.

  I shut the lid on the laptop. ‘It was a good game. Sorry about the result.’

  ‘That’s hardly an answer,’ she said. ‘You hated it, right?’

  ‘No,’ I said, and I surprised myself. It was true. Bec’s enthusiasm had been infectious. When she jumped to her feet, I did too. When she cheered, I joined in. When she went wild at the umpire, I pretended I didn’t know her.

  ‘If you enjoyed it,’ she said, ‘then why did you run away?’

  ‘Ghost hunting.’

  Dad had always stressed the secret nature of our family business. We could endanger ordinary citizens if we introduced them to the whole spirit world thing. It was pretty much an article of faith with all ghost hunters.

  But Bec was Bec. Recently, I shared the whole ghost thing with her, to stop her bugging me about why I wasn’t going to uni. And she’s proven to be incredibly useful; having an ordinary civilian’s point of view puts things in perspective, sometimes.

  ‘Oh. That’s different. What was it? A Moaner? A Growler?’

  ‘A Lingerer, in the Conservatory in the Fitzroy Gardens.’

  ‘Old?’

  ‘Victorian. Eighteen-eighties, maybe.’

  ‘I wish you could photograph them,’ she said wistfully. ‘I could pin down its origin era.’

  ‘While I was concentrating on him, a Rager came up behind me.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. And that’s when I met someone.’

  I told Bec about the mysterious Rani Cross and her ghost-hacking ways. If I omitted any mention of a possum riding me like a cowboy rides a bronco, it was in the interests of economical storytelling, right?

  ‘I think I get it,’ she said when I finished. ‘You’re only in this ghost-hunting business because it helps you meet hot girls.’

  ‘Well, if that’s a side benefit of my noble calling, who am I to argue?’

  Bec rarely teased me about my awkward and dismal romantic efforts, which was one of the things I liked about her, but she didn’t mind reminding me about them – and she didn’t mind listening to my tedious wonderings about what I was doing wrong and what I should do differently. No advice, but she was a good listener.

  ‘Okay, then.’ She pointed a challenging finger at me. ‘I’ve got one for you.’

  I grimaced. ‘Hit me.’

  ‘What’s the capital of Mongolia?’

  ‘Give up.’

  ‘Ulan Bator. Coolest capital name since Ouagadougou.’

  ‘So it’s my turn now? I’ll have one for you tomorrow.’

  Ever since we were really little, Bec and I have taken it in turns to ask each other trivia questions. The more obscure, the more off-beat, the better. We don’t keep a point score or anything like that. It’s enough to dazzle the other person with bizarre facts. And if you happen to answer correctly, it’s a win of epic proportions. Of course, no googling or other external help is allowed in answering. It’s an honour thing.

  ‘Take your time,’ she said. She’d seen a stack of old kids’ magazines and her attention was wandering.

  The bell rang
again, the door opened and I was sandbagged.

  ‘I’ve found you.’ The sword-wielding, shadowy ghost hunter from last night looked around. ‘Nice shop.’

  Bec looked at me. ‘The mysterious stranger reappears?’

  I put my head in my hands. All I wanted was a nice simple life where I could hunt ghosts, do a part-time university course, be rich and famous and happy and have a talking alpaca. Was that too much to ask?

  ‘Stop groaning, Anton,’ the ghost hunter said. ‘How do you do? I’m Rani.’

  I looked up, but she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to Bec.

  ‘I’m Bec,’ Bec said. ‘Can I see your sword?’

  Rani glanced at me. ‘I can see that I’ve been the topic of conversation.’

  I tried to look innocent. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Look,’ Rani said to Bec, ‘I need to have a private word with your boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

  ‘I’m not her boyfriend.’

  Bang. Bec and I had said it so many times now it sounded like expert double-tracking. I was about to start on my rant about gender stereotyping and how people assumed that any boy/girl relationship had to be a romantic one and how that was both demeaning and ignorant, but Bec warned me off with a look. She’d heard it a million times before. She’d actually critiqued it until it was a smooth and irresistible diatribe. She liked to set me up and watch me crush loudmouths with the force of my argument.

  Not this time, though.

  ‘Sorry.’ Rani had a different coat on this morning. Long, but in a dense herringbone pattern. The scarf was different too. Solid black.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Bec can hear what you’ve got to say.’

  Bec looked at me, and then at Rani. ‘I can go for a coffee, if you like.’

  ‘You don’t like coffee.’

  ‘I’m trying to learn. Cool factor.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t go.’

  Bec slapped her pump in her other hand. ‘It looks like something’s going on between you two. He—’ she pointed at me with the pump, ‘doesn’t want to talk about it while you—’ she pointed at Rani, ‘do.’