The Stolen Ghosts Read online

  He seems the type to be pleased by that.

  Sarah leafed through the yellowed pages of The Ghostlie Manifestoe and inhaled the musty smell that wafted up from the book. According to the front page, this edition was volume one of four, so Sarah hoped Fowlis had an entry somewhere within it, since she couldn’t find the next three volumes anywhere.

  She paged through the volume and sighed at its utter disorganisation. The entries appeared at random and some weren’t even in English. One looked as if it was in Latin, but she’d never been too keen on languages, and wouldn’t like to guess what it meant. One entry was written entirely using letterforms composed of tiny triangles, and yet another appeared to be written in hieroglyphics. The woodcut implied the entry was about Cleopatra.

  Sarah flicked through the book, examining the detailed woodcuts and short biographies of various ghosts. The entry about Elizabeth I named her as being “a stately, most intimidating spirit with a heart of strong valour,” before continuing to list the houses assigned to her as prime hauntings. Several houses that Sarah had never heard of appeared at the bottom of the list, and Sarah guessed that was why royal ghosts appeared to haunt so many properties. It lent credence to Fowlis’s assertion that ghosts were assigned hauntings, rather than appearing where they died.

  Entries were dated as recently as 1974, which confused Sarah due to the apparent age of the book. Even more strangely, William Shakespeare was listed not as a playwright, but as a merchant. Page after page of famous, and not so famous, names flicked by, until she finally spotted a familiar name at the bottom of page 873. According to the book, Fowlis was “a Ghost Master General, having achieved glorious pundits and exceedingly bravura results throughout his spiritual career.” The book listed his many achievements, medals and awards, before listing his biographical information. Apparently Fowlis had been just 38 when he died in 1644, shot by a drunken Roundhead in an unnamed street in London.

  Sarah gazed down at the miniature woodcut of Fowlis and a chill ran down her spine. Fowlis smiled out of the page at her. Without thinking, she patted the pendant in her pocket. The dates of his life, printed so starkly on the page, brought it home to her that Fowlis had once lived. He’d breathed, slept, dreamed, and walked around, just as she did. Sarah wondered to whom the pendant belonged. The book made no mention of a Mrs Westerby. Maybe his beloved had died in childbirth, or been left broken-hearted after his sorry demise, and her pendant ended up becoming his anchor.

  All sorts of romantic notions filled Sarah’s head until a hiss of white noise jolted Sarah from her daydream. She looked up at her laptop to see static filling the screen. She yelped, wiggling her fingers across the mouse pad and pressing keys to clear the static. Sarah even tried pushing the screen back and forth, but the static remained. She pulled the laptop across the table and brought it closer to the leather-bound book.

  The screen cleared and showed a long room with wood panelling on the walls below the stone vaults. Men and women sat at desks in niches around the walls, while others sifted through scrolls and paperwork littered across tables in the middle of the room. Feather quills scratched across faded parchment. Coloured light danced across the scene as sunlight flickered through the stained-glass windows high in the walls. Was it a library or a church? Bursts of static disrupted the image.

  The next moment, the temperature plummeted and plunged Sarah into a roiling sea of freezing air. The gaze from the mirror fell on her laptop and a high-pitched squeal filled the room. Sarah cried out and clamped her hands over her ears. She twisted around in her chair to look at the mirror, but the glass was empty. She looked back at her laptop. The figures in the vaulted room continued about their business as normal.

  Sarah pulled one hand away from her head. She reached into her pocket but the squeal stopped before her fingers reached the pendant. The weight of the gaze lifted from the room and the temperature crept back up to normal. Sarah sat still in her chair, afraid to move in case the haunting started again. Her heart knocked out a rapid rhythm against her ribs. Again, she reached for the pendant, but none of this was Fowlis’s doing. His work was disturbing, yes, but it was also playful and creative. These disturbances in the library were evil. Thinking about them prompted a spike of nausea and she swallowed hard. She would not give in to terror, not while she had work to do.

  The voice of her mother in the hallway interrupted her thoughts. Her heart rate slowed to hear such mundane sounds. Abandoning the laptop and the Ghostlie Manifestoe, Sarah left her chair and headed into the corridor.

  Her mother was muttering to herself in the kitchen, slamming doors and rearranging the appliances she kept on display. Mrs McKenzie wore another of her silk headscarves, and a quilted jacket, with lipstick so red it made Sarah’s eyes hurt. Several curls had escaped the scarf, and bobbed as her mother stormed around the room. Sarah preferred the sharp suits and clean lines favoured by her mother in London.

  “We’re an absolute laughing stock!” squawked her mother, and it really did sound like a squawk. “Annabella McDonough announced to the entire tea room that all this ghost business was a lie, and that we put on a show to get rid of the Campbells! Beastly woman says we didn’t want her to see how shabby this place is!”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “So you invited her here in the first place and then chased her out?”

  “Exactly! It doesn’t make any sense. But all I know is that dough-faced harpy has told anyone worth knowing in the area that this place is a wreck, that I’m simpering and can’t manage a large old house, and that you’re sullen! Simpering! Sullen! And kids chanting gibberish at me! A journalist even came up to me to ask why that ridiculous paranormal investigator hadn’t been able to find anything; seems he’s been spreading his own nonsense about us.”

  The door opened and her father walked in. He carried a book from his office, occasionally glancing at it and murmuring to himself.

  “James! Do you know what they’re saying about us in the village?” shrieked Sarah’s mother. Her father looked up, surprised. He put down the book.

  Sarah didn’t want to hear it all again. Her mother launched into another tirade about the gossip in the village, and she slipped out of the kitchen.

  Chapter 16

  Sarah sat on her bed and studied the sheet of paper she held. Handwriting full of curls and swoops laid out the pros and cons of her proposal in pencil. Sarah mouthed silent words as she re-read her argument. Fowlis unnerved her, and she wanted to be sure she had prompts in case she forgot herself. After a few moments, she slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out the pendant.

  “You rang, m’lady?”

  Sarah looked up to see Fowlis at the bottom of her bed. He raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips. His crossed arms and tapping foot reminded her of Mrs Sagalia back at school. Fowlis would be better at disciplining a class of rowdy fifteen-year-olds than the ageing hippie ever was.

  “I’ve had an idea!”

  “You have? Well I am sure that this must be an entirely new sensation for you, but do not feel you must call me every time that something momentous occurs.” The corners of Fowlis’s lips tried to curl upwards.

  “There’s no need to be horrible.”

  “I apologise, young Sarah. I do not often get the chance to exercise any wit on the mortal plane, although that may be because I never engage in conversation with the living these days. Naturally I am in the middle of a haunting, so I should ask what it was that you required of me?”

  “Ooh what were you doing?” asked Sarah.

  “I should not presume to tell you and spoil the surprise, although you will be able to observe the results if you should pass through the entrance hall at some point today.”

  “That thing with the armour was genius. How do you know what a penalty shoot-out looks like?”

  “I spent some time haunting a pub during the World Cup in 1996. There is very little that you can do to make an impact upon a crowd of football fans during their team’s game so I simply watche
d it with them. We did have a rudimentary form of football in my time, although nothing on the scale of your sport,” replied Fowlis. “However, we did not begin this conversation to discuss football. What was this idea of yours?”

  “Well you have to scare people, right? That’s what you do, what you’re best at. I’m guessing you’re in a whole heap of trouble for talking to me too. Well, how much would it help you if you could scare a whole bunch of people? Not just us?”

  “The family that were here when I arrived were something of a bonus, that much is true. Sadly, since you discovered the nature of my existence here I fear things have rather gone off plan, and there are things afoot at my HQ which I would sooner attend to,” replied Fowlis.

  “That horrible Campbell woman went around anyone who would listen, telling them that this place is haunted. I saw her on the news; she was on about seeing orbs and hearing voices. Anyway, there are now journalists asking to come and stay at the house. Mum thinks they’re trying to make fun of her, but I think it would be an amazing opportunity,” said Sarah.

  “For what?”

  “Well, all these people can come and stay, and you can scare them! That’ll prove that the house really is haunted, so people will stop saying that my mum set it up so no one could see how shabby it is, and then my dad’ll know the place is haunted as well! He’ll have to believe it if lots of people see it. It might even help us with publicity when the B&B finally opens.” Sarah consulted her list of arguments.

  “If I scare people away, more people will come. You do realise that, don’t you?” asked Fowlis.

  “So you can scare them away too! It’s brilliant! You’d be able to earn loads of points for that, surely?”

  “My dear girl, it is not a question of ‘earning points.’ The truth is, I cannot stay here forever. I must leave when my haunting is complete, and to be honest, I do not have time to linger,” replied Fowlis.

  “Why not? It’s not like you have reservations somewhere that you have to make. You’re dead, what else could you have to do?” asked Sarah. “You’ve been gone since 1644. I’m sure a few more weeks won’t make much difference.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Fowlis narrowed his eyes and Sarah shivered. A bloom of frost appeared on the photo frame beside her bed.

  “I found a book down in the library and you were in it. I didn’t know you’re only thirty-eight,” replied Sarah. “So anyway, you can stick around a bit longer and help us out!”

  “I am truly sorry if you think that I am somehow at your eternal beck and call, m’lady, but I must complete my haunting and return to HQ. There are pressing matters to which I must attend.”

  Ice clung to the sharp edges of Fowlis’s tone. Sarah wanted to ask what was wrong, but she couldn’t stop herself from plunging on. “What could be more important than scaring people? Isn’t that your job?”

  “I cannot tell you any more, m’lady, but would you please release me to continue my assignment so that I may leave? It would be even more helpful if you could return my anchor.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on. Why do you always have to be so vague?”

  “I am simply vague because there are things in this world and the next which are not your divine right to know. I am not your pet or your servant from whom you may demand information that is not yours to know whenever the whim takes you. I am, in fact, an entity in my own right, and I wish that you would respect that my destiny and yours are not the same, and were never intended to be intertwined.”

  “What’s wrong? Have I annoyed you?”

  “My lady, let me speak plainly. I simply do not have the time to perform parlour tricks for the benefit of your family. Please, allow me to go. I am sure that my entry in The Ghostlie Manifestoe would have informed you that I do not beg, but in this case, I shall make an exception. Please, I beg you, return my anchor and never pick up that book again.”

  Quick as a flash, Fowlis knocked Sarah’s hand and she dropped the pendant. He disappeared as the pendant hit the floor. Sarah looked down at it, dumbfounded. She could pick up the pendant again and drag him back to ask what was wrong, but he’d looked so angry. She wrapped the item in a scarf and put it back in her pocket.

  Chapter 17

  Fowlis strode away from Sarah’s room in a fury. How dare she reduce him to performing tricks for a mortal family? He wanted to blame Handle for sending his anchor to a place that could be easily searched, but his assistant had chosen the best place he could. On one level, he genuinely liked Sarah’s plan because it allowed him to recoup some of his losses. If he managed to scare twenty people in the house, surely that would offset the fact that his anchor had fallen into mortal hands? Then again, the council would no doubt deduct points since the mass scaring was as a result of living intervention. He’d never be able to face the council again if they found out that his haunting was such a success because he teamed up with a mortal. He might have no problems enlisting the aid of bats or mice, but it broke so many rules to work with actual people.

  Still, he couldn’t really think too much about the haunting when there were problems at HQ. He wondered if Handle would make contact again. He hoped that Handle would bring Templeton with him next time. Why would the council be trying to keep Templeton away from him? Naturally it was embarrassing to lose your top haunter, but surely it would be best for all concerned if he were allowed to help from a distance?

  And why was there a copy of The Ghostlie Manifestoe in the house? HQ recalled them during the attempted coup in the 1980s when a group of psychics tried to impose the will of the living on the world of the dead. The council kept the copies locked in the safe in the archives—or at least, that was the official version. He headed towards the library to see the volume for himself.

  The thick tome lay on the table beside Sarah’s laptop. The screen showed an image of a cavernous room, occasionally interrupted by bursts of static. Fowlis’s mouth dropped open when he saw assistants hard at work at their desks in HQ. He looked between the Manifestoe and the screen. A scrabbling of claws on wood announced the arrival of Brie. She clambered onto the table and ran across to the laptop.

  “Dear Lord, did Sarah see this?” he asked.

  “I think she did,” replied Brie.

  Fowlis bent over to peer at the screen. The purple-haired girl with the tattoo of a swallow on her neck was Effie. She worked with William Morris. The boy with long brown hair and a permanently hangdog expression was Barnes, who worked with Bram Stoker.

  “Ah, I see, I see. This must be the Chariot Room.”

  “I don’t see any chariots,” said Brie, sniffing the screen.

  “The Managing Director named each of the rooms at HQ after the Major Arcana of the Tarot cards. She has a bizarre sense of humour at times,” said Fowlis.

  “Where’s your assistant?” Brie looked between the screen and the mirror.

  “Handle is in the Hierophant Room. I shall have to ask him how this is possible, although I suspect it is the same phenomenon that allows me to speak through the electric boxes. I do not think this works the same way that the mirrors do. It would appear that the workers in the Chariot Room are as yet unaware that they are being observed.”

  Fowlis looked down at the table, pitted and marked with age. He longed to stroke its scarred surface.

  “You know, dear Brie, if I had to pinpoint it, I would say that being able to touch things is the thing the living most take for granted. They can experience their entire world through touch alone. Yes, they may go blind, or deaf, or even lose their sense of smell, but they can always touch,” said Fowlis.

  He wafted his hand over the table, trying to imagine how the coarse wood grain would feel beneath his fingers. Being a ghost had its advantages, but the loss of tactile sensation never failed to move him.

  “Can’t you feel things on your plane?” Brie squeaked again, twitching her tail.

  “Oh, I can feel things well enough, but being beyond the Veil, they do not truly exist in
the way that these things on the mortal plane exist. They lack a certain sense of solidity. I only know how soft the feather of my hat is, or how intricate the brocade on my coat is, because I can remember how they felt when I was alive.”

  Fowlis switched his attention from the ruts of the table surface and looked at the Manifestoe. Since it was a product of his realm, Fowlis could reach down to pick it up. He leafed through it, smiling as he passed the names of his friends. He chuckled when he reached his entry. The woodcut was a flattering portrait and the description captured his high level of professionalism and capability for the job. Seeing his dates of birth and death jarred his good humour, but Fowlis brushed it off. He’d had more than 360 years to get used to the fact he was dead; he could hardly feel squeamish about it now. Even still, he did catch himself absently brushing the spot on his chest that proved his downfall. It still bled ectoplasm on exceptionally cold days, and Handle had real trouble getting the stains out.

  Taking the book with him, Fowlis left the library and headed up to the attic so he could think.

  * * *

  Sarah returned to the library. She realised she’d left the book beside her laptop, and she hoped the bursts of static hadn’t fried the graphics card. Her mother’s mood meant lunch was unlikely, and she didn’t feel up to discussing the ghost with her father. Maybe Jamie would have finally sent her a message. Sarah wondered if it would be worth contacting some of the groups who led paranormal investigations. Tim might have been a waste of time so far, but it didn’t follow that all investigators would be the same.

  She pushed open the door and found her laptop standing open. The cavernous room and the static had gone, replaced by her screensaver. The Ghostlie Manifestoe was missing.