by Holly Rivers
‘Grandma, you have to tell me,’ said Demelza, leaning forward and taking her grandmother’s hand. ‘Whatever it is, I have to know what’s going on.’
Grandma Maeve took a lace handkerchief from her cardigan pocket and wiped her eyes. ‘I know, I know. And I’ve waited far too long already.’
She took a deep breath and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small purple business card and handed it to Demelza. One side was embellished with a golden skull, and on the other, the gilded calligraphy read:
Maeve Catchpole : Spectre Detector Over fifty years’ experience in summoning the dead and comforting the bereaved.
Their home phone number was listed, and below that, in larger letters, was the phrase:
‘Death Needn’t Be The End ’
Somewhere in the distance there was the call of a nocturnal animal and Demelza let out a shaky laugh. Had Grandma Maeve lost her marbles, or was she pulling her leg? ‘Yeah . . . good joke, Grandma . . . very funny. Summoning spectres, that’s a good one!’
‘Demelza, I’m deadly serious!’ replied Grandma Maeve curtly. ‘A Spectre Detector is someone who’s able to detect the spirits of those who have passed. We’re able to communicate with ’em and summon ’em too. We do it to help people in mourning, you see, those who’ve lost a loved one and are findin’ it difficult to cope. The room underneath the greenhouse is my summoning chamber, and a summoning is what you saw me doing down there tonight. Well, the beginnings of one . . .’
Demelza opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was an incomprehensible stammer. She didn’t know what to say.
‘We reach out to those who might benefit from our services and they come to us to commune with those they’ve lost,’ continued Grandma Maeve. ‘Seeing the spectres of those who’ve passed can give ’em comfort, closure. Can help with the grievin’ process.’ Grandma Maeve took a sip of her tea. ‘Take Myrtle, who you saw earlier, for example. She lost her only son a few months ago. Fell overboard while fishin’, he did. Just dreadful. So Myrtle came to me this evening to say a proper goodbye. It helps the spectre too, of course, to know that someone is still thinkin’ about ’em even though they’ve moved on from the livin’ world.’
Demelza fell silent. Surely this had to be a wind-up? Some kind of elaborate practical joke? Yes – any second now Grandma Maeve would burst out laughing and admit that it was just an early Halloween prank.
But Grandma Maeve’s face was solemn, serious. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
Demelza huffed. ‘Grandma, you can’t communicate with dead people. And there’s definitely no such thing as ghosts! It’s scientifically impossible. Research has shown that—’
‘Oh, research smesearch!’ interrupted Grandma Maeve. ‘Not everything can be proved by big numbers and clever formulas, you know. Some things are just . . . unexplainable. Part of the mysteries of the universe. And we don’t use the term ghosts, by the way. Very old fashioned, that is, and extremely offensive. Spectre is the correct term, OK?’
Demelza let out a frustrated sigh. She was a scientist, and scientists definitely didn’t believe in supernatural hocus pocus. It was inconceivable that there could be any kind of life after death. Impossible! But at the same time, she had no other rational explanation for the things she’d seen in the greenhouse an hour earlier.
‘OK, Grandma,’ she said. ‘Supposing you are telling the truth – and this is purely hypothetical, of course – how do you summon a spectre?’
‘Well, I’ll explain it all to you in more detail another time, but basically we boil a special brew in our crucibles and then chant a summoning incantation. That stuff you saw comin’ out of my nostrils is spectoplasm. It’s a paranormal energy that us Spectre Detectors create, and it gives spectres their physical form when they arrive back in our world.’
‘And where do you summon these spectres from?’
Grandma Maeve leant forward in her chair, her pebbly eyes pinned on Demelza. ‘Well, after someone’s popped their clogs they head off to Inn Memoriam—’
‘In where?’
‘Inn Memoriam. It’s like a big hotel where all spectres go after they’ve moved on from the living world. Once you’ve checked out of our world, you check in there! We don’t know what it’s like inside though, as spectres temporarily lose all recollections of their stay once they’ve crossed the veil. Spectres stay at Inn Memoriam while they’re still in living memory, and that’s where we summon them from. But once they’ve been forgotten, they move to their final restin’ place and can no longer be reached.’
Demelza snorted. ‘And when they’ve been summoned, how do spectres travel back here from Inn Memoriam? On their last legs, I suppose?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Grandma Maeve sharply. ‘You ain’t takin’ this seriously, Demelza.’
Demelza slumped back in bed, trying to line up her thoughts. She felt as if she was going mad, as if she were caught up in a surreal nightmare. She liked things that could be explained with a formula or an equation or empirical evidence, not silly spiritual nonsense! She ran a hand through her hair, not knowing what to say.
‘Look, my darlin’, I know this is a lot to take in,’ said Grandma Maeve, looking into her granddaughter’s eyes. ‘But you have to believe me. People have been summonin’ the dead for thousands and thousands of years, for as long as there’s been life on earth. There ain’t many of us practisin’ in this country these days because less and less people are willing to believe, but there are still plenty of us around the world. Look, I’ll show you.’
Grandma Maeve reached into the patterned carpet bag that she’d brought with her and took out a large book bound in what appeared to be purple snakeskin. A golden skull was embossed on the front cover along with the words: Grimoire of the Dead. ‘A Grimoire is a book of knowledge, a sacred text.’
Demelza sat back, resigning herself to the fact that her grandmother was going to show her this weird book, whether she wanted to see it or not.
‘Right, let’s have a look . . .’ Grandma Maeve flicked through the pages and stopped on an illustrated world map entitled, Spectre Detectors Across the Globe. She extended a crooked finger towards the continent of Africa. ‘In Johannesburg they call their Spectre Detectors Spookzoekers,’ she said, pointing to an illustration of people in skeleton masks, whose hands reached upwards towards the stars.
Next she moved over to Asia. ‘The Spectre Detectors of China are known as the Shamans of Xian, and they was possibly the first people in the world to practise our craft. You see?’
Demelza leant forward, pulling her patchwork quilt around her shoulders, and as she took in the images she flinched. A spark of recognition had ignited in her mind, like a match being lit. Somehow, the pictures felt familiar, as if she’d seen them somewhere before. But where?
‘Why do they all have those creepy skull masks on, Grandma?’ she asked. ‘You had one too.’
‘They’re our Masks of Facelessness. We wear them during a summoning to block out distractions from the outside world and to help us mediate with spectres.’
Grandma Maeve moved her finger to a photograph of a woman in thick furs, whose mask was adorned with antlers and leaves. ‘Now this lady is one of the Nordic Necromancers, who mostly live in Greenland . . . Then there’s the Russian Yagas of Mort . . . and Meibion y Meirw from Wales.’
As Grandma Maeve continued to talk, Demelza hugged Shiver closer, trying to take everything in. It was strange – even though everything that her grandmother was saying sounded like the stuff of myth or legend, somehow it felt as if she were listening to information that she’d known all her life. It was like she was rediscovering something she’d lost years ago. It was like a memory . . .
‘MY PARENTS!’ Demelza lurched forward in bed and grabbed Grandma Maeve’s hand. ‘They had this book, didn’t they? Back in our old house! I remember it now!’
Grandma Maeve’s eyes began to twinkle. ‘That’s right, my darlin’. You were too young to un
derstand it all back then, but your parents was Spectre Detectors too. Your dad didn’t spend all that time in his shed just choppin’ firewood; that was where the trapdoor to their summonin’ chamber was hidden.
‘Your parents were two of the most dedicated and able Spectre Detectors I ever met. And now . . .’ Grandma Maeve cleared her throat. ‘Well, now it’s time for you to carry on the family tradition, Demelza.’
Demelza swallowed. ‘Me? You . . . mean . . . I . . . ?’
Grandma Maeve nodded. ‘Mmm-hmm. Usually, if someone’s gonna inherit the powers of the Spectre Detectors, things will start to happen some time during their tenth year. With you bein’ eleven I thought that the powers had skipped a generation. That’s why I was so shocked when you started talkin’ about them night-time noises this mornin’. I was so taken aback, I didn’t know what to say.’
‘But what are the noises, Grandma? What was I hearing? What was I feeling?’
‘It was your powers arrivin’, my darlin’. I know it don’t feel very nice, and if I hadn’t been caught so off guard when you told me, I would have been a lot more supportive. I’m so sorry . . .’
Demelza’s body stiffened, the cogs in her brain turning in overdrive. This time yesterday she hadn’t even believed in the paranormal – she’d always thought that spiritualists were nothing more than circus acts, fraudsters, cheats – and now she was being told that she had the power to communicate with the dead herself? It seemed ridiculous! But as Demelza looked down at the Grimoire of the Dead she couldn’t shake off the memory of her parents’ copy, and the strange sense of familiarity that was now whirling inside her. What if maybe, just maybe, this could all be true? What if she really did come from a family of Spectre Detectors? After all, what was it that the famous astronomer, Ignacio Dimitrov, had once said? All truths are easy to understand once they are found, the point is to find them.
Shiver stirred on Demelza’s lap. His body was warm and she stroked his ears, trying to calm herself. ‘So, if I really do have these special powers, Grandma – and again, this is still purely hypothetical – what am I meant to do with them?’
Grandma Maeve reached for a fig roll and nibbled at its edge. ‘Well, you see, Demelza, a Spectre Detector’s powers are strongest during youth, and they get weaker with age. I obviously ain’t gettin’ any younger and won’t be able to do what I do for ever. Soon I’m gonna need someone to take over.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘Demelza, I’d like you to become my apprentice Spectre Detector. I want to teach you everything I know.’
Demelza felt her heart freeze momentarily – she was lost for words. She wanted to believe everything that Grandma had told her, but the scientist in her needed proof. She needed concrete evidence.
Grandma took Demelza’s hand and stroked it gently. ‘Well?’ she said meekly. ‘What do you say?’
‘I need to see one,’ Demelza replied. ‘I need you to summon a spectre.’
CHAPTER 10
The Summoning Chamber
The following night, as the moon settled in the inky sky, Grandma Maeve led Demelza down the winding garden path to the greenhouse. As a reminder to keep thinking scientifically, Demelza had put on her thinking cap, and she pulled it down firmly. The air was chill, and the earthy smell of autumn hung thick and smoky on the breeze.
Demelza had been in her room for most of the day, Grandma Maeve’s supernatural revelations thrashing around and around in her mind. Usually she’d have spent a Saturday dreaming up new inventions, or testing herself on the decimal digits of Pi, or looking at creepy crawlies under her microscope, but there was no way she could focus on such things with all that had happened. The logical part of her brain still couldn’t quite believe that it could all be true – after all, no scientist had ever proven that there could be life after death. But as Demelza had delved deeper into the passages of the Grimoire of the Dead, she couldn’t stop thinking about her parents reading to her from its pages when she was a little girl. She began to piece together the tiny fragments of memory she had from that time – there had been a chapter about Spectre Detectors in the Jurassic ages, intricate drawings of skulls and skeletons, passages about crucibles, cauldrons and candles. Somehow each sentence felt more and more like a familiar lullaby, a slice of her childhood being given back to her. These pages had been her bedtime stories all those years ago . . .
‘So, are you ready?’ Grandma Maeve asked Demelza as they reached the trapdoor. The ruby-red eyes of its skull glimmered under the moonlight as if trying to hypnotize her.
Demelza looked deep into her grandmother’s eyes, and even though she wasn’t quite sure, she nodded. There could be no going back now.
Down the ladder they climbed, the intoxicating scent of herbs and spices wafting up Demelza’s nose once again.
Inside the summoning chamber, Grandma Maeve lit a few of the many purple candles that were scattered around. They were mottled with drips of hardened wax, and looked like little twisted stalagmites. ‘There you go, my darlin’,’ said Grandma Maeve, plumping up some cushions on the leather armchair by the fireplace. ‘You park your posterior on there and I’ll go get some kindlin’ for the fire. It’s gonna get a bit chilly in ’ere once we start summonin’, as you well know!’
Grandma hobbled over to the store cupboard at the far end of the room and Demelza sunk down in the doughy seat, sending dust particles floating into the air like glitter. She’d expected to feel anxious, unsure, but somehow the place seemed far less frightening than she’d remembered. In fact, it now felt oddly comforting, as if it were somewhere she’d been visiting her whole life.
She gazed around, taking in the collections of curiosities, strange masks and exotic maps which adorned the walls. Fusty books bound with cobwebs were stacked high in higgledy-piggledy piles, and Demelza let her eyes wander down their spines. There was Speaking to the Dead: Volume 666 by Virginia Wang, Supernatural Studies for Beginners by Dr Una O’Brien and Graveyards of Great Britain by Jonah Maddocks.
Demelza wriggled as a bolt of excited anticipation zoomed through her body, only to quickly remind herself to continue thinking like a scientist. Professor Heinsteene had always said that ‘during an experiment, no concrete conclusions should be drawn until a set of qualitative observations has been made using a large enough sample’. She had to keep that firmly in mind!
Once the fire was crackling, Grandma Maeve clapped her hands together. ‘Right,’ she said, stretching up to a high shelf in a nearby alcove. ‘First things first.’
She pulled down a small wooden coffin fastened with a brass padlock and put it on the workbench in the middle of the room. As she blew on its lid a cloud of thick grey dust was sent into the air. ‘This here is your ghoulbox. It’s a bit like a toolbox, but less DIY and more RIP!’ Grandma Maeve chuckled at her own joke. ‘It first belonged to your great-great-grandmother, Octavia, and inside is everything you’re gonna need to become a fully fledged Spectre Detector. I have my own, of course, so this is yours to keep. Now, I know it might seem a bit gruesome, it bein’ in the shape of a coffin and all, but that’s just to stop nosy parkers from wantin’ to look inside.’
‘Like who?’ said Demelza.
‘Well, like I said before, what we do is somewhat frowned upon these days, and there are some people who’d like nothin’ more than to try and prove that we’re frauds. Then there are others out there who want to exploit our powers for—’ Grandma stopped herself and coughed. ‘Well, we’ll speak about that another time.’
She quickly pulled out a little key strung on a piece of purple ribbon from her pocket and put it in Demelza’s hand. She gestured to the ghoulbox. ‘Go on, open it up. See what’s inside.’
With shaking hands, Demelza pulled the little coffin towards her. Just like the trapdoor, it was warm to the touch, almost purring with life. ‘Why is it warm?’ she asked. ‘The trapdoor was too.’
‘That’s because they’re carved out of the wood of the yew tree.’
‘Like the ones you find in
graveyards?’ asked Demelza.
Grandma Maeve nodded. ‘That’s right. Otherwise known as Reaping Trees. Their roots and branches suck up some of the spectral energy from the graves, you see, and keep it in their fibres. That’s what you can feel.’
Demelza, still fascinated and sceptical in equal measures, put the key into the lock. It felt as though she was about to open the door to a completely new world; one twist of her wrist and her old life might be gone for ever!
She turned the key clockwise, slowly pushed the lid upwards and—
‘ARGHHHHHH!’ Demelza screamed and jumped backwards. ‘Grandma! Inside! It’s . . . it’s . . .’
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ said Grandma Maeve, hobbling towards the ghoulbox. She peered inside and rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, you weren’t frightened of Lord Balthazar ’ere, were you? Goodness gracious me!’ She reached in and pulled out a large human skull, which she began to stroke as if it were a kitten. The black hollow of its nose was shaped like a diamond, its eye sockets the deepest, darkest of caves. ‘You ain’t nothing to be scared of, are you, my dear?’
‘Good gracious me, no!’ replied the skull, his teeth clacking together as he talked. His voice was clipped, almost regal. ‘But I do prefer to be addressed by my full title, Lord Balthazar III of Upper Loxworth, if you please. One may not have a body but one can still have one’s dignity.’
Demelza felt her cheeks burning. ‘But . . . it . . . it talks. The skull talks!’
‘Well, of course I talk, girl!’ tutted Lord Balthazar. ‘I’m a Talking Head. Oh, the youth of today!’