My leg muscles were screaming by the time we got to the top of the winding steps. Mister Lewis got me and Shane to push open a big door on to the battlements. It’s his hands, you see. Being a ghost, he can’t do much pushing because they would just go through the wood.
‘We’re here. Sshh,’ he whispered, putting his fingers to his lips again. ‘Just wait here a moment,’ he went on. ‘I’ll have a look around to see if the coast is clear before you come out.’
‘Ha, you’re going to go invisible,’ I giggled. ‘You don’t want to scare the watchman.’
‘Eh, something like that,’ he said before disappearing.
‘How did he do that, Milo?’ whispered Shane.
‘Because he’s a ghost, Shane.’
‘A real ghost! Are you serious? So you weren’t joking me!’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Hm, fair enough,’ whispered Shane.
See what I mean? Nothing panics Shane – except maybe when he first meets a dead man.
Mister Lewis wafted back after a minute or two, the moonlight shining through one of the skinny windows, showing up his puzzled frown.
‘Strange,’ he said, ‘No watch outside. Battlements are empty.’
‘He probably went down for a sandwich, or something,’ I said.
Mister Lewis shook his head. Just a slight shake in case he’d lose some bits, as happens when he gets excited.
Well, there wasn’t much to see when we went on to the battlements.
‘They’ve turned off all the lights in town!’ exclaimed Shane. ‘Look. Milo. Look at how dark it is. The houses and streets have no lights.’
‘Electricity wires must be down,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said Mister Lewis, ‘it’s just the old part of the town in the area around the castle which is in darkness.’
‘That’s weird,’ I said. ‘You’d think if one part goes then the whole lot would go too. That has happened during bad thunderstorms …’
‘Well,’ put in Mister Lewis again, ‘we’re sort of in a different era just now.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Shane.
‘Listen carefully,’ Mister Lewis said, pointing in the distance. ‘You see where those trees are against the moonlight?’
‘Yeah, that’s where we live,’ said Shane. ‘Me and Milo live over there.’
‘Right,’ Mister Lewis went on. ‘That’s the newer part of town. The now part. And you see where we’re standing here?’
‘Yes, of course we know. We’re on the then castle,’ I quipped. ‘Get it?’
The old guy’s brain is going down the tubes, I thought. Should we leave, Shane and me, before we get caught up in a dead man’s ramblings?
‘We are indeed, Milo,’ he said. ‘But we’re not in the now.’
‘What’s he talking about, Milo?’ whispered Shane.
I was too scared to ask.
Then Mister Lewis gave a slight cough before saying words I would never have expected to hear.
‘We’re, eh, back in the fourteen hundreds,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry,’ he went on, as Shane’s chin slipped down to his chest and my knees buckled like boiled chicken legs. ‘It’s just for a little while – until I get Ossie sorted.’
I noticed he crossed his fingers as he said that. Did that mean we might be stuck here in the past for longer? Forever even? I wanted to faint and wake up in my bed. But, hey, Mister Lewis was my good, if deceased, buddy, and buddies don’t mess with their pals.
Shane squeezed my arm, really hard. ‘Hey Milo,’ he whispered. ‘I think I’d actually like to go now. Right now,’ he added. ‘We’ve seen enough. I don’t much like this century.’
Before I could croak an answer, Mister Lewis herded us over to another vantage point on the battlements.
‘You see that light?’ he said, pointing away in the distance.
Sure enough, when we squinted our eyes we could see flickering lights far away through the trees.
That,’ said Mister Lewis, ‘is where we must go on your bicycles, across an ancient track. The town, the people and this castle are depending on you two chaps, and Ossie and me.’
Well, Shane and I looked at one another. I hoped he wasn’t going to fall down in a faint again because I needed him as he was the only other live person here. Spooks are OK in their own way, but when the chips are down you want a warm-blooded mate to be with you.