‘What the hell happened with Harry tonight?’ asked Edie on the drive home. It was half eight in the morning. We’d refused to leave Maggie, Josh, and Abigail, even though Maggie had tried to get rid of us. Without her husband – and with him being so angry – she needed the moral support. We’d also been able to keep Abigail occupied so that Josh could sleep in the uncomfortable plastic chair.
When the doctors had finally seen him, they’d confirmed what we’d originally thought – most of his injuries were cosmetic. He did, however, have a fractured arm and bruised rib, so he’d have to wear a cast and take things easy for a few weeks. At least it was his left arm that was damaged, so he could still write and paint. Mock exams were almost over, so I was hoping they’d let him out of the rest because he’d been through enough stress lately. If anyone could convince them, Maggie could.
‘That’s a good question,’ I said, shifting gears. ‘Maybe he’s been under a lot of stress at work so isn’t sleeping well?’
‘Yeah, but he’s always come across as pretty boring, maybe a little mardy. I’ve never seen him that angry before. Shouldn’t he have cared about how Josh was?’
‘You would’ve thought so,’ I agreed. ‘It was definitely unusual.’
Edie hesitated. ‘Do you think something else is going on?’
‘Like what?’
‘Could they be having marital problems?’
‘How can they not be when he’s talking to his wife and kids like that?’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to Maggie when she’s home and the kids are asleep.’
Edie nodded, as if to confirm she agreed with the plan.
*
Thomas was on the sofa, stroking Spectre, when we got home. He was showing his full power, just as visible as someone who was alive. He’d been hiding his powers all this time. And we’d never even noticed. Turned out we knew even less about our world than we’d thought.
Tilly ran over to greet us, jumping up as if she hadn’t seen us in forever, when really it’d only been a few hours. I let her out while Edie prepared her breakfast, then we returned to the living room where Thomas was waiting for us.
‘So. You’re a necromancer,’ I said, sitting on the sofa. Tilly hopped up to sit beside me, then lay down, watching our floating friend as he talked. Spectre got up and relocated to above the bookcase, observing the events from afar, as he seemed to prefer to do.
Thomas got up so that Edie could sit down, then he floated back and forth across the room. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was afraid.’
‘Of Goodfellow?’ asked Edie.
‘Of a lot of things.’ He crossed his arms, keeping his head bowed as he continued to pace. ‘I was killed for my powers when I hadn’t even hit puberty. And I knew that whether I was living or dead, I’d always be a target.’
Edie frowned, shifting in her seat. ‘You were murdered?’
Thomas nodded. ‘While people believed back then, that didn’t mean they always knew what to look for. Children died young. Illness was common.’
‘But you died so suddenly. Didn’t you?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I was playing in the graveyard after church. My parents were talking just around the corner.’ He shook his head. His football appeared above him and fell to his foot. He kicked it, it flew through the air, disappearing again. If he was holding on to it when he’d died, then he could treat it like an item of clothing, or an extension of himself. So he’d be able to control if it was visible or not, just like himself. That must’ve been how, sometimes I could see it, and sometimes I couldn’t, just like sometimes I could see ghosts, and other times I couldn’t, depending on what the ghost had decided.
‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’ I asked.
Thomas pursed his lips. ‘You know, I never have. And there are times where it feels like it happened to someone else. Sometimes, it feels like it happened yesterday. Minutes ago, even. I replay every second, wondering what I could’ve done differently.’
‘You were just a child. It wasn’t on you to protect yourself.’
‘You’re right,’ Thomas agreed. ‘I was angry at my parents for a long time, but they couldn’t have done anything. It happened too publicly.’ He lowered his shoulders, staring at the floor and crossing his arms around himself. ‘Like I said: I was playing after church. My parents were by the main entrance, talking to friends. I kicked my football and it rolled around the corner and down the hill, so I chased after it. Goodfellow and Tobias were at the bottom. Tobias stopped my football and threw it back to me. I caught it and turned to run back up the hill.’ He removed his flat cap and began twisting it, as he often did when he was anxious. ‘Goodfellow started whistling. It was a horrible tune. And somehow, it made it impossible for me to move.’
‘But neither of them have powers. Do they?’ said Edie.
A small smile crept over Thomas’s lips. ‘That’s what they want everyone to think. Goodfellow really doesn’t have magical powers, but Tobias is my cousin. His father was human, so Tobias isn’t as powerful as me, but his mother – my aunt – was a necromancer.’
Well damn. I hadn’t seen that one coming.
‘How does the whistling work if he doesn’t have powers?’ asked Edie. It had been bugging me, too.
‘It’s a hypnotism thing, that’s all I know,’ said Thomas. ‘Some people are more susceptible to it than others. And guess who was at the top of that list.’
‘That sucks,’ said Edie. It looked like she, Ben, and Fadil had been lucky, still able to talk when he’d used the same technique on them. ‘But, I mean…ghosts don’t breathe. How could he whistle?’
‘That’s the part of this story that bothers you?’ said Thomas, unable to hide his smirk.
Edie waved her arms in the air, making Tilly jump. ‘It goes against everything we know about ghosts!’
He gestured to himself. ‘And me hiding who I am for two hundred years doesn’t? Sometimes things in life don’t have the answers we want, and we have to accept that. Just the same as humans can sometimes do things we don’t expect or that we can’t explain, ghosts can sometimes, too.’
Edie stared at him, deadpan. We were never going to get a satisfying answer. At least not from him. But at this point, I’d seen ghosts do weirder things than whistle, so I was going to let it go for the sake of my sanity.
‘So what about your cousin? How did he get tangled up with Goodfellow’s plan? Assuming they were working together?’ I asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.
‘They were. Tobias has always been obsessed with finding ways to become more powerful because he didn’t inherit as much of the family powers as I did. He was envious that I could do more despite being so much younger than him. Over time, that envy ate him up inside. Goodfellow fed that and got him onboard with his plan.’
‘So…what happened? If you want to share, that is,’ said Edie.
‘They took me under the cover of some trees, where Goodfellow drained me. I don’t remember how, I just remember staring into Tobias’s grey eyes as he watched. Silently. I wanted to fight them off, but since I was paralysed, there was nothing I could do. Magically I was stronger than them, but physically I was only ten. And I was terrified. Even though I had more powers, I had no idea how to use them. The people who could help me were just around the corner, but I couldn’t scream. And everyone was too busy talking to walk around the corner and come find us. I was so drained that by the time my spirit left my body, I could appear as nothing more than a faint orb.’
Edie covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh my god.’
‘Since I was only an orb, I didn’t see what happened next. You don’t have any senses when you have so little left. It took me years to recharge. But from what other people told me, when I could speak to them again, they carried my body to where everyone gathered, making sure my death was as public as possible. It meant my parents’ hands were tied – so many people had seen me lifeless they couldn’t resurrect me. It’d raise too many questions. Believing in ghosts was one thing. Necromancy was a step too far. Family friends insisted Goodfellow take my body and do his best to preserve it for my funeral. Instead, he experimented on me to see if he could get anything else out of me. Nothing worked. They never got my powers, only my life.’
‘So all that was for nothing?’ said Edie.
Thomas nodded. ‘Yeah. My parents were elderly by the time I could talk to them again, although they always visited me in the graveyard, even when I was just an orb. They tried to convince me to cross when they did, but I couldn’t. A part of me knew Goodfellow wasn’t done yet and I couldn’t cross until I knew he was gone for good.’
‘Does that mean…you’re ready to…’ stuttered Edie, her voice cracking. I reached out and held her hand, feeling emotional at the prospect, too.
‘You don’t need me anymore.’
‘Yes we do!’ argued Edie. ‘We always need you.’ Tears dripped down her cheeks. Thomas walked over and sat on her lap, hugging her. She hugged him back, resting her head on top of his. I wished I could join in, but the most I could do was hug Edie and hope Thomas understood I’d hug him, too, if I could.
That light, the one I associated with happy endings, appeared in the distance. It was a bright white, appearing both close and really far away. We’d only seen it the night before for Tessa, and now we were seeing it for a friend we’d known for so long we’d taken his presence for granted.
Two figures stepped from the light and stepped towards us. Millicent and Percival Hill. They beamed at Thomas.
‘Thank you for helping my baby,’ said Millicent. Oh my god. They were Thomas’s parents? Well, I hadn’t expected that. But it explained why they’d worked so hard to stop Goodfellow.
Percival put his arm around his wife and grinned. They stepped back, letting us say our goodbyes.
‘I’ve done what I set out to do. Isn’t that what life – what the afterlife – is all about?’ said Thomas.
I swallowed back my tears. I had to stay strong for Edie. ‘It is. Thank you, Thomas, for all of your help. You’ve earned this. More than most people ever do.’
He smiled. ‘Will you say goodbye to Ben and Fadil for me, please?’
‘Of course.’ I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. The floodgates opened. And of course we’d ran out of tissues, so I couldn’t even wipe them away with anything other than my sleeve.
‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I couldn’t have got this far without you,’ said Thomas.
‘Are you kidding? We couldn’t have got this far without you,’ said Edie.
He smiled. ‘That’s great teamwork, right?’
‘It is.’ I wiped my face with my sleeve again. It was already soaked. ‘You’d better go. You and your parents have got a lot of catching up to do.’
Millicent and Percival didn’t say anything. They’d lived in our world; they knew that even though death was an everyday part of what we did, it didn’t make the goodbyes any easier.
Thomas hopped off Edie’s lap. ‘If you ever need me, I’m just a seance away.’
*
I went over to Maggie’s as soon as they were home. I was too restless to do anything else, and almost four decades of friendship had taught me that she wouldn’t say that she needed moral support, but she most definitely would.
Josh and Abigail were asleep upstairs, leaving a tired but restless Maggie to her thoughts. Not a good combination.
As soon as I walked in, she hugged me. I hugged her back, unable to close the door behind me because she hadn’t even given me the chance.
‘Thank you for helping my son,’ she said, stepping back while trying not to cry. She held her finger under her eye to catch the tears, a habit she’d acquired from years of wearing mascara and trying to stop it from bleeding.
I stepped forwards and closed the door. ‘Always. How is he?’
‘Bruised. Abigail is insisting on looking after him, so they’re curled up together in my bed.’
I smiled. ‘That’s really cute.’
‘Yeah. The police want to talk to him about what happened. What’s he supposed to say?’ She shrugged helplessly, wandering into the living room.
‘Well, he knows he was beaten up by someone. So that, I guess.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘It’s scary that the police will never catch this guy, so some of the victims’ families will never get closure.’
I nodded. It sucked. ‘I wish we could give them that, but it’s never that easy.’
‘Nothing ever is,’ said Maggie, adjusting the clip that was holding up her hair. It was her too-lazy-to-style style. ‘Have you had breakfast?’
I chuckled, grabbing her and getting her to sit down in the kitchen. ‘You’ve had a rough night. I should be the one asking you that.’
‘No. I haven’t had time.’
‘I’m no chef, but I can rustle something up. What do you want?’
She gestured to a carton of eggs by the stove. ‘Scrambled egg. You always did make really nice scrambled eggs. And the largest coffee ever.’
‘That I can do.’ So I stuck the kettle on and fished a jug out of the cupboard. I knew where everything was because Maggie’s system hadn’t changed since she’d moved into her own place in her early twenties, and if anyone ever tried to change it they felt her wrath.
‘Are you OK to do stuff? I mean, your headache—’
‘Has finally gone.’ I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so good, actually. Lack of sleep not included, of course. Everything was back in colour and surround sound. I could finally enjoy every moment again. Ironically, I couldn’t wait to curl up in bed and catch up on some long overdue sleep.
‘That’s amazing.’ Maggie smiled. ‘Thanks for staying with us, by the way.’
‘You don’t have to keep thanking me,’ I said. ‘I’m just doing my job.’
Maggie snivelled. ‘You always do so much. More than you have to. I’m so sorry I cut you out like that.’
I stopped what I was doing and put my hands on her arms. ‘You don’t need to apologise, Mags. You were traumatised. I get it.’
She shook her head. ‘I still find it hard to tell what’s real, but Alanis is really helping.’
I smiled. ‘That’s good. Hopefully Josh will be more willing to talk to her now.’
‘If he’s not, he’s still going and he can sit in her house stroking the bloody cat for an hour every week until he’s ready to open up if that’s what it takes. I thought I’d taught him better than to adopt toxic masculine stereotypes like bottling up emotions. Apparently not.’
I rubbed her arm, then resumed making her food. She’d feel better once she’d eaten. Although it wouldn’t change how she felt about what she’d just said. ‘Speaking of toxic masculinity…’
‘Harry?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, sticking the eggs into the microwave. ‘What the hell was that all about?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s not the first time that’s happened. Harry hasn’t been acting like himself lately.’
I froze. ‘Do you think…?’
‘No. Don’t be silly. I thought you said most of the ghosts from First Pit had gone, and the ones who stayed were nice ghosts.’
‘You should keep the amulet a bit longer, just in case. You can never be too careful.’
Maggie’s body tensed. ‘Careful of what?’
‘I just think it’s sensible to be protected, that’s all. After everything you’ve been through, I think it’s better to err on the side of caution.’
Maggie took a deep breath. ‘Yes. All right. Yes.’
The microwave beeped. ‘Fiddlesticks. Forgot to stir it. I’ll make you some more.’
‘It’s fine. I’ll eat it as it is. If I have to wait much longer I’m going to start chewing on my arm.’
‘Don’t do that. If you do that, who’s going to save my failed cooking experiments?’
‘The bin. That’s where most of them belong.’
I glared at her, but she was probably right. There was a reason she was a chef and I cooked the same three recipes.