The Midnight Lullaby

by Cheryl Low

  Benedict gave himself chills with that line, and Mr. Whittle's eyes filled with tears. "Oh," was all he managed before rallying a question. "What's his name?"

  "George," Emmeline prompted.

  "George," Benedict repeated with soft reverence. "And he promises that he hasn't been responsible for the loud sounds and broken things." Benedict paused, pretending to listen and laugh gently at something sweet the boy said. "He says he's a good boy and would never mess up the house."

  Emmeline rolled her eyes at him; he knew without even looking.

  "Oh," Mr. Whittle said again, eyes big and clear now, holding tight to Benedict's hand. "Then what is causing it?" he whispered, as though the culprit might overhear him.

  "It's another spirit," Emmeline answered.

  Benedict glanced in her direction. She wasn't standing off to the side with the forgotten piles of toys anymore. She was at the windows, chin down and gaze fixed outside.

  "There is something else here…" Benedict said, gently moving away from Mr. Whittle and toward the window. He stood beside her, looking past her and out at the lawn sloping off the back of the property. It led down to a large creek with a little dock and thick woods on the other side. A rowboat tied to the dock bobbed gently in the shade of a shed at the very edge of the bank.

  "He's out there," Emmeline said, her voice distant. He wished he could take her hand just to make sure she really was with him still. But she was never really with him, not like that. His Emmeline was dead. He had never held her hand and never would.

  "I see him," Benedict lied.

  "He's big and soaking wet," Emmeline continued. "He's wearing a heavy jacket, and his breath forms in the air, like it's cold…"

  It was July. It was far from cold out.

  "There's ice stuck to his jacket and his overalls," Emmeline said.

  "The creek," Benedict spoke, dragging his words out as though they were being tugged from his body unwillingly. He swayed in the mimic of a trance. "It was frozen. There is a presence in your home… A man… He brings the cold inside with him. He is soaked to the bone, dripping water and slush from the winter he can never escape."

  Mr. Whittle gasped. "There have been wet footprints down the halls! Sometimes with clumps of snow, like it was tracked into the house, but it's not even winter."

  "Yes," Benedict confirmed, creasing his brow and faking a pained headache—contact with spirits can do that, or so he heard.

  "He's looking back at me," Emmeline whispered beside him, and his eyes snapped open to stare at the spot outside where her gaze had fixed. He saw nothing, of course. Benedict never felt more like a charlatan than in these moments, when everything was working. He had the homeowner convinced. It wasn't a complete lie, though, because the ghosts were real. They were there. He just couldn't see them.

  "He knows we're here," Emmeline said and then took a step back, away from the window. "Someone struck him over the head when he was cutting wood… They dragged him to the river. Used the ax to break the ice and pushed him in."

  "Mister Whittle, I think you do have a problem here," Benedict confessed, turning toward the man. His breath formed in the air, the room suddenly frigid cold as though they stood in a meat-locker rather than a playroom.

  Mr. Whittle curled his arms around himself instinctively. "Oh, this happens sometimes…" he said. "We had someone out to check the AC, but—"

  "It's not that," Benedict confirmed.

  "He's here," Emmeline said, voice deadpan.

  Benedict turned toward her and the window, startled to find her staring back at him.

  "He wants them to leave. He wants to be alone." Dangerous levels of understanding weighed heavily in her voice. Ghosts had an almost inescapable nature that drew them into their own anger and the anger of others. They didn't feed on it so much as their anger consumed them. He saw it in Emmeline sometimes, making her dark eyes flicker with shades of vivid green.

  Benedict parted his lips but forgot his words when her gaze slipped from his, staring past him—and up, at someone very tall.

  For the flash of a second, she almost looked frightened, and then her nerves stilled, her shoulders pressing back and her chin high. Benedict took one step closer to her, slid to the side, and peered into her eyes until he saw the reflection of the room like a shadow laid over her irises. There was Mr. Whittle, wringing his wrists and standing beside the lumpy shape of the couch. Her eyes widened a little, unblinking and fixed on the room. A large, dark figure took a step forward. Benedict heard that heavy boot on the floor, and from the sound Mr. Whittle made, so did he.

  A dragging sound scraped across his nerves, clawing up his spine. The hulking silhouette reflected in her eye lifted an ax from the floor, tossed it back over a shoulder, and then lurched toward Mr. Whittle.

  Chapter Three

  Benedict swore beneath his breath and twisted away from Emmeline. His shoes caught the edge of the rug when he launched himself at Mr. Whittle, almost tripping and jerking the coffee table. He tackled the man, pushing a startled breath from Mr. Whittle's lungs before they both landed heavily onto the floor between the couch and the low table.

  "What on—" Mr. Whittle had only just begun to protest when the table beside them was cleaved in half with a thunderous crack.

  Benedict collected himself quickly and was on his feet with both hands gripping the front of the other man's jacket, hauling him up and pushing him back into the nearest corner. A distorted roar burst through the room, shaking the walls and battering their senses. Benedict pressed Mr. Whittle into the corner, holding him there until he knew to stay put. Benedict stepped back, plunging his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His left came up with a stub of chalk. He crouched down and drew a half-circle, encasing Mr. Whittle in the corner, and quickly scraped little figures into the edges of the line, mouthing old words his mother had taught him.

  "Ben…" Emmeline said his name somewhere in the storm still raging through the room, rattling the pictures off the walls and shaking the floorboards underfoot.

  Benedict thumbed open a pocketknife in his right hand, sliced the pad of his thumb, and dropped blood onto the newly etched seal. "Close your eyes," he ordered Mr. Whittle as he stood. "If you don't look, it won't see you." A flimsy patch for a leaking boat; no one could keep their eyes closed forever. His brother had done this to him once, hidden him from a spirit while they finished the job. Of course, he had been a child at the time. They had dragged him along in hopes that the danger of the situation would bring his gifts to birth. It hadn't worked, though he had been given enough material to fuel his nightmares for life and a thorough understanding that there were plenty of things in the world he could not see—and that did not make them any less real.

  "Benedict!" Emmeline shouted.

  He turned to see her standing much closer, eyes big and gaze cutting between him and something between them. Oh God, it was right there? Right in front of him? He rolled the piece of chalk between his fingers, thoughtlessly wetting it with his blood. All at once, the room stilled, and not in a calm-at-the-end-of-a-storm sort of way, but frozen, caught in a second that held fast. And then the frames of the pictures on the floor burst, the walls cracked, and Benedict was lifted off his feet. He hated being lifted by spirits. It wasn't the sense of hands jerking him upward. It wasn't a pull on his clothing or a grip on his arm. It was pressure everywhere, seizing up his body and dragging him into the air as though gravity had abandoned him.

  He couldn't breathe; his only comfort was in knowing that it wouldn't last. It never did. It took too much energy to lift someone. Not even the most powerful poltergeists could hold a person long enough to smother them though they had plenty of other ways of doing damage.

  Gravity returned to him. His body hurtled through the air, across the room, and slammed shoulder-first into the half-circle of windows. They shattered, and daylight blinded him. An embarrassing "hmph" escaped his lips when he tumbled out the window and rolled down the slant of the roof.

>   He landed on his back in a thick bed of peonies, blooms bursting with white and pink petals all around him. For a long, dizzy second, he lay there, staring up at the bright, blue sky. At least it hadn't been a rose bed. He sat up, shaky hands patting himself in search of broken bones. None. He stood, grabbing hold of an iron fence to steady himself before noticing the spikes at the top that could have easily impaled him if he had been a couple of inches to the left. He gagged a little, almost losing his lunch.

  "What are you doing?" Emmeline yelled.

  He looked up at the broken window, expecting her to be leaning out it.

  "Get your shit together!" she snapped, and he jumped, finding her standing on the other side of the fence. She passed through it when she closed in on him. "He knows why you're here."

  Benedict groaned. That was the problem with his ghost partner—if she saw into other spirits, they could see just as well into her.

  "Where?" he grunted the question.

  Her arm stretched out, pointing toward the creek and the little shed at the back of the property.

  Benedict nodded, head throbbing when he did. He started dragging himself in that direction. His back twinged, his legs stiff, but every step got easier, faster, under the mounting sense of urgency.

  The slope of the grass helped, downhill always better than uphill. He sank his hand into his pocket again, fishing out another bit of chalk. He couldn't remember dropping the last piece, somewhere between being picked up by a ghost and tossed out a window. Luckily, he always carried extra.

  "He's coming," Emmeline said, suddenly beside him, keeping pace and throwing quick glances back toward the house.

  Benedict almost lost his step when he reached the shed beside the narrow dock. He ground his teeth against the sharp pain shooting up his back. Sunlight glittered off the clear stream as it rolled over the stones, darkening under the shadow of the dock. He shouldered open the flimsy door and fell inside. Dust billowed up from the old wood planks. Crates of lawn decorations, fishing rods and supplies, and gardening tools gathered in the corners. He couldn't help but notice the ax leaning against the wall, cobwebs collected around it as though binding it to the spot. Falling to his knees, Benedict swept his arms across the floor to push the stacks of junk aside, clearing a spot. He touched the chalk down, barely starting to draw the seal when a furious, booming voice made his stomach drop.

  "What's his name?" Benedict shouted.

  "Roger Clifton James," Emmeline answered, voice steady but outside the shed.

  He wrote the name inside the seal, looked over his work once, and then nodded, crawling to his feet and reaching for the old ax. His fingers brushed the rough wood wall, the corner, cobwebs, but not the handle of the ax. He twisted toward it, staring at the empty spot before turning a full circle to study the little shed. The ax was gone.

  The roaring of the ghost had ended, nothing but the gentle rush of the creek and the groaning of floorboards underfoot.

  Catching his breath, Benedict slowly opened the shed door. The ax lay on the soft, grassy bank of the stream. He took a step outside, gaze sliding up to where Emmeline stood not far beyond the weapon. She leaned up on her toes, toward nothing he could see. She spoke softly. Had she calmed the ghost? Soothed Mr. James into a trance of some kind?

  Benedict took long, careful strides toward the ax, as though being quiet would allow him to go undetected.

  He could make out the soft sound of Emmeline's voice, rushed, as though the words she spoke were coming out piled on top of one another, no spaces in between. He was almost to the ax when he chanced another glance up at her. Her eyes shone a vivid green, brighter than any blade of grass or perfectly lit emerald. The corners of her mouth grew sharp, teeth clicking every so often around her hushed words. It couldn't be calming, whatever she said to the ghost. It just couldn't be.

  He didn't have the time to worry about it or second guess his choices. He needed to get the ax and break the seal in the shed. He needed—

  His breath came out in a cold cloud just as he touched the handle of the ax. He stared down, the grass gone and his fingers curling into snow to wrap around the handle. That wasn't possible. This spirit couldn't be strong enough to make him see something like this, to feel the dry cold of the snow clinging to his skin.

  Benedict had only begun to straighten his legs and stand when a body slammed into his, lifting him up and pushing him back. Together, he and the ghost crashed into the water. He felt it break under his back, not the way water should break, but the way thin ice might. Cold enveloped his body, but he felt it most around his skull and down his spine, agony slicing through him with such a shock that he bowed, arching into the other man. He was pushed down until his back touched the stones at the bottom. He tried to get to the surface, but a weight held him down.

  He forced his eyes open, cold stinging at every nerve. The blue water shimmered with shapes of the world beyond the surface, bright with all the white outlines of winter. The surface was so close. He reached up, his fingers pushing out of the water, chunks of ice bumping his knuckles.

  She stood there at the water's edge, looking back at him. For one terrible second, Benedict stilled, staring at Emmeline. Her mouth opened, gasping for air, and tears slid from her green eyes. Misery pooled in her expression, swirling in all the details of it. He saw everything in her then, splayed out before him. She was frightened, heartbroken, furious, and unsure. But what she wasn't was merciful.

  What had she done?

  Why?

  Had the anger of the other ghost infected her?

  How could she look at him like that? Like she was frightened to see him die but eager for it at the same time. What had he done to deserve it? Was she caught up in her own ghostly anger and lashing out? Would she regret it? No. No, he couldn't see anything about her now that would let him imagine regret in her later.

  Suddenly Benedict gulped air—warm, summer air. He blinked, shaking and shivering, his teeth clattering and arms stiff with cold when he curled them around his chest. Mr. Whittle stood in front of him, ankle-deep in the creek and holding him up with a grip on either arm. Shards of ice fell off Benedict's shirt and vest, melting quickly in the July heat.

  Benedict, still shaking with the cold that had pierced his bones, dragged himself up the bank. He reached out for the ax, hand trembling and fingers blue. Mr. Whittle grabbed it quickly up off the grass and handed it to him.

  Emmeline stood off to the side, staring anywhere but at him and not looking particularly apologetic either.

  Benedict walked past her, into the shed, and hacked at the floor with the old ax, cracking the floorboards and the seal, chopping Mr. Roger Clifton James's name into pieces.

  Almost as soon as it was done, the cold released his bones. He waited a moment in the quiet that followed, listening to the creek outside. This was the moment where one of his siblings or cousins would extend their supernatural senses out into the world around them and see if the angry ghost was still present. Benedict could not do that, so he pretended. But he was sure Mr. Roger Clifton James was gone—because he had done this dozens of times before and they were always gone when he and Emmeline left.

  Benedict walked out of the shed, handed Mr. Whittle the ax, and informed him that the violent spirit was gone—purged from the family house. He assured him it would not return. They never did once they had been sent on.

  Mr. Whittle barely knew what to say, flabbergasted as he gripped the ax.

  Benedict shook the man's hand and thanked him for saving his life in much the same manner he might thank a person for a good cup of coffee. Nonetheless, Mr. Whittle inflated with pride and held the ax a bit more confidently.

  "Would you like me to call you a doctor, Mister Lyon? You're soaked to the bone. We must get you dried off and—"

  "Not necessary, sir," Benedict assured him, starting up the grassy slope toward the house. He wasn't moving as quickly now, and the angle of the ground was no longer in his favor. "It is a long drive, and
I really would like to get home to rest." He played up his spiritual exhaustion for the man, as though falling out a window wasn't enough to account for his hobbling stride.

  Mr. Whittle persisted until Benedict made up some bit about needing to leave the house quickly so that it could settle back into its natural state without the magnet of his extraordinary spirit in the way.

  He unbuttoned and peeled off his wet jacket, socks squishing inside his shoes as he marched across the gravel driveway to his car. He unbuttoned his vest, peeling it off, too, and throwing both garments into the backseat. Emmeline stood on the other side of the car, and for a moment, he stood there, their eyes locked.

  Her jaw was set, her lips pressed, and her chin ever so slightly upturned. There was no apology in her gaze.

  Benedict took a deep breath and settled into the driver's seat, drenched to the bone and puddling on the leather seat.

  He glanced in the rear-view mirror. Emmeline sat in the corner of the backseat, arms folded, and attention turned out the window. She didn't look as guilty as he would like. She just looked bored, resigned to a car ride, and more than ready to go home.

  He wasn't sure what she had done today or why, but he wasn't ready to talk about it either, so he turned on the car and pulled away from the newly cleansed property.

  Chapter Four

  Benedict reached their apartment in the city, the chill of the creek still clinging to his skin. In fact, he felt as though it was a haunting all its own—icy fingers of a dead winter having sunk down into flesh to wrap around his bones. He left a puddle where he stood in the elevator and ignored the glare of his nosy neighbor two doors down.

  It wasn't exactly that he was cold, not really, but the memory would not fade, and by the time he got into his apartment, he decided his only choice was to melt the ice in his head. He abandoned his clothes in a wet pile in the bathroom, and then he stood under the spray until the whole room was choking on steam. He wanted to feel uncomfortably warm, right down to his bones. And it worked. Soon enough, he was sweating and thirsty, his brown skin flushed with heat. But even when Benedict drove out the memory of the cold, he could not forget the helpless terror of drowning so close to the surface—or the look on Emmeline's face, just watching him die.