13 Days of Midnight

Slate-gray Wednesday morning. When I open my door Ham is lying outside it like a draft stopper. I shouldn’t have let him sleep up here the other night. It set a dangerous precedent.

The chill I noticed yesterday is back, creeping into my toes. The relief I felt when I got home last night has vanished completely, replaced by a queasy sense of doom. I know I haven’t seen the last of those men. I need to check the kitchen. I take the stairs as quietly as I can and push the door open softly, using the finger of one hand.

Someone made me breakfast again. I stare at it, stomach churning. The mystery chef is back. The spread is less fancy this time: slices of processed turkey and a glass of mango juice. The meat has been arranged in a dainty fan across the blue plate. The air inside the kitchen is nearly subzero. I swear there’s frost on the glass of juice and the kitchen windows. I refuse to believe this is happening. I grab the plate of turkey strips and fling it as hard as I can into the wall. It smashes in a cascade of blue shards and flopping slices of meat. I feel calmer. I stride into the hallway, grab the cordless phone, and dial nine three times.

“Hello? Police, please. I want to report a break-in. Number seven Wormwood Drive.”

I hang up the phone and then walk back into the kitchen, scanning every corner twice over. I go over to the cutlery drawer and pull out my trusty skewer. I climb the stairs as quietly as I can, check the bathroom, my bedroom, Mum’s room, where she’s sleeping, curtains drawn, body knotted up in her duvet. As I’m closing the door to her bedroom, I hear a small, sly movement, definitely coming from the kitchen. Ham is still lying outside my room. I know he heard the noise as well. I motion for him to follow me, but he doesn’t move. My skin is crawling with fear, my arms and legs itching and prickling like I’m covered in invisible insects. Every step of the stairs seems to take an age, every tiny creak of wood under my tread sounds as loud as a cannon blast.

I cross the hallway before I can think better of it, and throw the kitchen door open.

Blotch-Face is kneeling down, doing something on the floor. I realize, with a growing sense of unreality, that he’s cleaning up the fragments of the plate I smashed, sweeping with a brush and dustpan. He turns to look at me. His face is long and greasy. The blotches are more like pustules; he’s got worse skin than anyone at Dunbarrow High. We look at each other, him holding a brush, me clutching a skewer.

The skinhead is sitting at the kitchen table, staring at me. I nearly choke with horror. He must be able to move without making a sound. I grip the skewer so hard my knuckles glow white. He’s smoking a roll-up, leaning his thick arms on the table.

“If you move one muscle, I’m going to stab you,” I tell him, voice steady. “I mean it. The police are on their way.”

“A thousand apologies, sir,” Blotch-Face replies, bowing slightly. He’s got the clear voice of a news anchor. “Have we caused some sort of offense? You appear to be . . . aggravated.”

“This is my colleague, the Judge,” continues Blotch-Face, waving his hand at the skinhead.

“Who are you?” I ask again. The skinhead looks nothing like any judge I’ve ever seen.

“Was my explanation inadequate? We can delve into detailed biographies if need be, but I thought it best to give a brief outline. The others should arrive in the next few days, I would imagine.”

“Is this about last night?” asks the skinhead — the Judge — uneasily. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he seems afraid of me. “ ’Cause if it is, then we’re properly sorry and humble, honest. Well out of line, manifesting like we did.”

“We would never ordinarily presume to attend to you when you had not specifically requested us,” says the Vassal. “My colleague and I were simply anxious due to a lack of instructions following the transfer.”

“You ain’t seem that keen on my cooking,” says the Judge. “Felt like I should ask what you wanted to eat.”

“ ‘Transfer’? Please, in as few words as possible, explain who you are and what you’re doing in my house.”

“Yes,” I say, still gripping the skewer in case they rush me. “That’s my name.”

“Was,” I say. “He’s dead. Is this about the money? Because I don’t have it. The lawyers didn’t give me it yet. I’m still waiting. I don’t have the money.”

“We have precious little use for money these days,” the Vassal says slowly. “We are part of your father’s Host. I take it you don’t understand the term?”

“We are — were — your father’s servants,” says the Vassal. “And in the event of his death, dominion over his Host transfers to the eldest living heir. Which, so far as we are aware, means you, Luke. Didn’t he explain this to you?”

“I’m sure they will illuminate these affairs better than we,” says the Vassal. “I am not an expert on matters of succession.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say. “You’re his servants?”

“My colleague and I have differing opinions on this subject,” he explains, “but, yes, we are servants. We have been signed for and are now indebted to you until the event of your own death.”

“Yes,” he says, bowing again. The Judge tips his stubbly head down, too. “We are your Host, your property to do with as you see fit.”

“You’re my property? There’s laws against that. Dad kept slaves? How many?”

“The Manchett Host numbers eight souls,” says the Vassal. “They are not all as . . . reasonable as the Judge and myself. However, they will present themselves when called.”

“But . . . you can’t have slaves! It’s illegal! What am I supposed to tell Mum? Oh, yeah, we’ve got an extra eight people living in our house now? Don’t worry about it? Dad left them to me?”

“It is illegal to keep living bodies as slaves, yes,” says the Vassal. “Unfortunately, no such laws govern the soul. Since — well, this is a delicate matter for both of us — since the Judge and I are no longer alive, there are no laws about keeping us in bonded service.”

“He really don’t know?” asks the Judge. “Or is he just out to trip us?”

“You’re dead,” I say. “You’re telling me that you’re both dead. I’m talking to dead people right now.”

“Well, all right,” says the Judge. “Touchy subject. No need to rub it in.”

“We are spirits,” says the Vassal. “Your late father was a necromancer, one of those who use ancient rites to raise and bind the dead into their service.”

For a moment we all stare at one another, and then I burst out laughing. It’s too much. The Vassal and the Judge grin at each other in an unamused way.

There’s a heavy knock on the front door. Thank you, Dunbarrow Constabulary, your timing is perfect.

“All right,” I say, “you stay here. That’s the police now. I’m just going to let them in, and then you can tell them about ‘ancient rites’ and how you’re ghosts left to me by my father in his will, and then when you’ve told them that, the men with white coats and nets are going to come and take you both away.”

“Let them in, by all means,” says the Vassal. “Neither of us would presume to tell you what you may or may not do. But I do not expect they will be able to provide the aid you imagine yourself to need.”

I don’t bother to reply. The second these maniacs are out of my kitchen and sitting in handcuffs in the back of a van, the happier I’ll be. I realize that opening the door to the police while holding a weapon tends to create a bad impression, so I hide my skewer in the umbrella stand and open the door. The policemen are sensible-looking, red cheeked and broad shouldered.

“Morning, sir. So what’s the problem exactly?” the taller one asks, stepping into the hallway.

“There are two men in my kitchen,” I say. “They claim they’re friends of my father. They came into my house without being asked and now they won’t leave.”

“Let’s see what’s going on,” he says. “I’m sure we can work this out.”

He walks past me, turning awkwardly in the narrow hallway, and enters the kitchen. I breathe out with relief. His partner stays in the hall with me. Everything’s going to be OK.

“They were just there,” I say. “Maybe they’ve gone to another room.” I follow him into the kitchen and freeze up all over again. No. No. This is not happening.

The policeman is wandering vaguely toward the fridge. He looks at the rows of silver pans, at the toaster, at the shards of the blue plate sitting in the dustpan. He doesn’t look at the most important things in the room, which are the two maniacs.

“I’ll have a look around the other rooms,” he says. “My partner will check upstairs. You just stay here and yell if you need me. Is there anyone else here?”

“My dog,” I say. “My dog’s upstairs. And my mum. She’s . . . she’s sick, though.”

“We tried to explain, sir,” says the Vassal. “I am so sorry. I hope this is not too distressing for you.”

“You . . .” I struggle for a word. “You’re real ghosts. You’re dead.”

“So you’re — what?” I ask. “I’m not very — this isn’t scientific at all. It’s rubbish. This is nonsense.”

“Science got nothing to do with it,” says the Judge. “We ain’t crossed over, we lingered. That’s all there is to it.”

“So you . . . you’re a human consciousness? Something that survived death, some part of a human that isn’t physical. Some kind of energy or —”

“If I may, sir,” says the Vassal, “I would advise against thinking about it too much. It’s never done me any good, I know that much. Better minds than yours or mine have chased their own tails for lifetimes regarding such questions.”

“Very nice dog. Anyway, son, we had a look around, and there’s nobody here. Your mum’s asleep, seems like. Perhaps these blokes left when they heard us come in.”

There’s something in his tone that makes me think he doesn’t believe there was anyone in the house and is on the verge of delivering a lecture about false emergency calls, but I think he can also see I’m genuinely upset about something.

“Anyway,” says the policeman, “I know it must have been a scare, two strangers in your house. You said they were friends of you dad?”

“Well, you give me their descriptions and we’ll keep an eye out for them. And make sure to call if they come round again. Have they threatened you at all?”

I give the policeman a fairly accurate description of the Judge and the Vassal, which to his credit he records without raising an eyebrow, and then he closes his notebook and tells me to stay safe and leaves me alone with the dead.

“Bit of a rat, ain’t you?” says the Judge. “Getting all talkative with the coppers.”

“Speak me mind,” he says and shrugs. One of the policemen shuts the door with a bang. Their car growls in the driveway. The ghosts look at me expectantly. I put my hands over my eyes for a few moments, but when I take them away, the ghosts are still there. The trees outside nod in the wind.

“I’ve got a lot of questions,” I tell them after a moment. “Seems like I’ll be missing school again today.”

Unfortunately, my burning question — what it’s actually like to die — goes unanswered by the ghosts. They don’t remember the actual dying bit, and apparently once you’re dead, it’s difficult to even realize what’s happened to you. Some ghosts never work it out. Not all dead people, as the Vassal explains, are equally cognizant. Souls are as varied in death as they were in life.

“The Judge and I,” he tells me, “have retained the majority of the soul, our animus. We still have a strong sense of time, self, and place. We know that we exist only in spirit. Not all of our colleagues were so lucky.”

“So do they all have names like you? Are they all ‘the Something’? Do you have real names?”

“Lost my proper name when I died,” the Judge tells me. “Can’t remember it.”

“As I say, I am not an expert,” the Vassal says. “From what I understand of the process, when a spirit is bound, it must be titled, given a bond name, so that the commands that are given to it cannot be resisted. There are certain positions within a Host that must always be filled. I and the Judge fill two of those roles.”

“The Book of Eight. An infernal tome. The Book contains the rituals of binding, and much else besides.”

I keep my expression calm. I have a good idea what might be inside the little green book Dad left me.

“They’re shirkers,” says the Judge. He’s making my tea, leaning against the counter, waiting for our kettle to boil. I get a sudden rush in my head when I look at the steam condensing on the window near the kettle. The kettle really is on; it’s really boiling. If this is a hallucination, it’s a very good one.

“I mean, they’re around and all that,” the Judge continues. “They’re in L.A., most of ’em.”

The kettle boils, and the Judge picks it up and pours the water into my mug. If I look out of the corner of my eye, I can see the kettle floating in midair. When I look straight at him, the Judge comes slowly into focus, blurry at first before adjusting into a bright, sharp figure.

“So you were all in Los Angeles, and Dad died. Have the others just stayed there? Are they going to come back?”

“I didn’t realize you was now an expert on being dead, boss. How does it take us time to go anywhere? Same as it takes you bloody time.”

“We enjoy certain advantages due to our incorporeal state,” says the Vassal. “We can travel as the crow flies, so to speak. There are limits on where and when we may voyage, but they are not the same as those that limit the living. Walls and flames, mountains and oceans: such things pose no boundary. We are restricted by the movements of the stars, the music of the spheres. When the planets are in the wrong configuration, there is very little we can do.”

“There is only one who can be in all places at all times, and we are not he.”

“That all right for you, boss?” asks the Judge, thumping the tea down at my right elbow.

“I know that there is,” says the Vassal, “although this heathen may tell you otherwise.”

“It don’t seem very likely,” says the Judge. “I been dead near thirty years now, and I ain’t got one sniff of a pearly gate.”

“And by whose judgment is that counted as evidence?” asks the Vassal. “You have not been to the other side, colleague. None of us has.”

“The Shepherd’s been,” says the Judge. “Went to the other place and came back, too. Told me about it.”

“Take a day off. I’m sure normal service, whatever that was, will resume . . . soon. I would think. But for now, you can all take the day off. Look around the town, or something.”

For the first time the ghosts are genuinely smiling. They bow to me and then walk out through the wall and into the garden. The Vassal keeps walking, toward the town center. The Judge lingers, as if deciding what to do. When he sees that I’m still watching, he grins before vanishing, like someone switched him off.

I take a deep breath and walk upstairs with my cup of tea. Ham is in my room, wrapped up in my duvet. He grunts anxiously.

I sit and rub his head, running my fingers through his tangled fur. I don’t know what to think. When the dead were here, in my kitchen, it was easier. I couldn’t doubt myself, because it was happening to me. Now that they’ve gone, the doubts come flooding in. This is just stupid. There is no such thing as ghosts, because — well, there just isn’t, no matter what the ghosts themselves might tell you.

But this has been too orderly for a hallucination. I think when you go insane, it tends to be things like hearing voices from the TV telling you to assassinate the president. I don’t know how convincingly my mind could create different people, but the ghosts seemed unique and distinctive, and they were lucid, making a twisted kind of sense. Neither of them was anything like people I’ve met before. The Vassal doesn’t seem like someone from this century, even. He’s dressed like someone who really is from the past, rather than an actor playing someone from the past.

Assuming this is real, I don’t know what to make of Dad anymore. He had ghosts bound into his service? It makes sense, I suppose, of the time I saw him talking to himself: There was someone else there, someone I couldn’t see. What kind of person gets himself into this? Why? Were all the ghosts on his TV show real? Does this tie in with his surprisingly large fortune? All this time, I realize I’ve been wondering why he left, why it was so sudden, what happened between him and Mum. Now I’m starting to wonder if there wasn’t something else, something neither of us had any idea about, pulling him away.

I open the door to Mum’s room and shuffle in, bowl of soup in hand. Her room is dark: moss-colored carpet, wooden tribal masks glowering from each wall. She’s lying in bed, hand over her face, duvet rising and falling. I put the bowl on her bedside table.

“I’ll be fine . . .” She waves one hand at the soup. “Is this for me?”

Mum doesn’t even attempt to laugh. I wondered if she’d ask why I wasn’t at school, but I don’t think she even knows what time it is.

“That’s very kind of you,” she says. She hasn’t sat up, and I know that she wants me to go away, but I have to ask something first.

“Sorry . . . but, Dad’s show was . . . I mean, is, about ghosts. He’s a ghost expert. Does he actually believe in them?”

“Sometimes. He said they were like . . . light, is what he said. Energy. The ones that stay around on earth, they’re lost. He helped them.”

Or kept them captive. Somehow I’m thinking he didn’t mention that part to Mum.

“Did you ever see any in our house?” I ask. “A skinhead? A guy with a blotchy face?”

I watch her face when I mention the Vassal and the Judge, but there’s no flash of recognition, no surprise. She just frowns.

“It’s not really about seeing them,” Mum says. “It’s more about believing, being open to experiences? Being attuned to the energy of the other world. I never saw anything, exactly, love. I never needed to. Why are you asking now?”

“I think it’s good to keep an open mind,” Mum says. “Your father is very much in tune with the universe. He sees further than some people. Scientists think they’ve got all the answers. But they don’t.”

“Try and eat something,” I say, and leave her room. I don’t know what to make of that conversation. Mum believing in ghosts isn’t a surprise; she believes in anything you can find written up in a spirituality paperback. She doesn’t seem to have ever seen one, let alone had a conversation with one, so it seems like Dad was keeping her in the dark about a lot of stuff.

I decide to take Ham for a walk across the fields behind our house. The hedges shiver in the wind. Ham trots around, sniffing the damp earth. Other than seagulls squabbling above a newly sloughed field, we don’t see anyone, alive or dead.

I spend the afternoon alone. My secrets are multiplying. The world as I understood it to exist last night is no longer relevant. There is an afterlife. I don’t have to take it on faith: I know. Mark texts me, reminding me about practice. I ignore it. I’m going to work even harder on pretending to be normal, but I don’t know how right now. I watch TV, play with Ham. Mum stays in bed. The Judge and the Vassal don’t come back, and I make my own supper.

As I push the bedroom door open, meat skewer in hand, it occurs to me that this has something to do with the ghosts and there’s probably nothing I can hit with a weapon anyway.

The screams are louder now. They’re definitely male, so they’re not coming from Mum. The screamer gasps, shouts indistinguishable words, screams some more. Standing in the corridor outside my room, looking at the landing, I see something strange. There’s a source of very bright light at the bottom of the stairs. Deep yellows and oranges pouring up from the hallway, casting huge flickering shadows around the darkened landing.

I’m answered by more shrieks. I’m poised to take the stairs two at a time, then stop.

Standing in my hallway is a blackened human skeleton cloaked in flame. Scraps of flesh and hair are still clinging to the bones. There are stringy globs of fat dripping down the skeleton’s ribs and legs, pooling on the floor. The skeleton turns and looks at me, raising its arms up into the air. The blackened jaw falls open and fire streams around the thing’s head.

“Adveniat regnum tuum!” shouts the thing. The jaw swings open and shut dramatically as it shouts, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. The thing is grotesque but not exactly frightening. There’s something dismayed-looking about its posture, like it’s as confused as I am.

The skeleton bellows with pain, the noise reverberates throughout the house. Ham starts to bark in the kitchen.

“Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra! Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris!” the ghost shouts, jaw flapping madly.

“Pater noster, qui es in caelis! Sanctificetur nomen tuum! Adveniat regnum tuum!”

Ham is still barking, throwing himself against the kitchen door. I have double chemistry tomorrow morning. This isn’t what I want to be dealing with. The ghost starts to walk up the stairs toward me, hobbling on charred stubs.

“Sometimes one needs a classic ghost in the retinue,” says a voice from the landing behind me. “For old times’ sake. It’s tradition. You need a screaming skeleton in your collection if you wish to hold your head up in the company of accomplished necromancers.”

“Thanks for warning me about this,” I say, waving my hand at the skeleton. The Vassal raises one thin eyebrow, tugs at his cravat.

“The Heretic is . . . tiresome, I must admit. He’s the eldest of all the Host. He’s forgotten everything, even their reason for burning him.”

“He can recite several prayers in Latin. It seems to be all he managed to retain.”

“His animus is badly corroded. He was bound by several necromancers before your father. There is power in old spirits, but a long binding dissolves their reason.”

I can see the scraps of melting skin up close now, blackened fat bubbling on his bones. I try to work out where the fire is coming from exactly, but it seems to flow out of the Heretic’s bones. There is no heat cast by the ghost, but I can still smell the burning flesh. The ghost takes another halting step toward me.

“Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra! Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris!”

“The Lord’s Prayer,” says the Vassal. “First section. He could recite it in its entirety when your father first acquired him, but even that seems beyond his abilities these days. It is a sorry sight.”

The Heretic is right in front of me, empty eye sockets bubbling. He takes another step and suddenly his fleshless face is right inside mine, and then through, the spirit lurching into my body and out the other side. I feel cold and greasy. The ghost continues to stumble onward, across the landing and through an outside wall. I can still hear him screaming.

“I do not have great influence over the Heretic,” says the Vassal. “Nobody does. There is not enough of his animus left to communicate with.”

“If I may, sir, a quiet word . . . I hope you will not feel me outside my bounds to say that you seem very lax on the Host.”

“You’re all dead. I’m still sort of getting my head around the whole ‘ghosts exist’ thing. How am I supposed to act, exactly?”

“Your father, sir, he understood the needs of the Host. We need discipline, structure. There must be rules and boundaries. There used to be control, sir. You have shown no control of the Host at all. We are not usually given days off.”

“For me, sir, it is. I am a loyal servant. I believe that if I must be bound, then I will bear it with the dignity befitting a gentleman. You will never need to use any discipline on me, sir. However . . . my colleagues are not all willing servants, sir. Some of them see themselves as slaves. Some, like the Heretic, have no conception of their position in the world at all.”

“The Host needs proper discipline. You need to learn the protocols, the rituals. You need to issue a general summons to every member and clearly lay out boundaries.”

“We are, sir. We are your Host, your property. However, words of command mean nothing to us if they are not backed up by spiritual power. You are a necromancer now, sir, by inheritance, if not by choice. You must fulfill your role.”

“It might be wise,” says the Vassal, “to read everything that he left to you. Ordinarily I would never advise anyone to delve into the Book of Eight. I am a God-fearing man, but I fear the works of the Devil even more. However . . . some of the Host . . . some of them are dangerous, sir. I won’t speak ill —”

“Quite, sir. Nevertheless. Your father’s collection was the envy of many who moved in his circles. We are not some flea-market amassment of second-rate chain rattlers. We must be managed, as one would manage anything that one knew to be powerful and dangerous.”

“My pleasure, sir. I would advise that you look at your father’s correspondence, at the Book itself. He left them to you for a good reason.”

The Vassal nods and fades away into the darkness. He’s got a point. I don’t know the first thing about the Host, except for what the Vassal and the Judge have told me. If I’m going to be the boss, I need to know what I’m doing, especially if the ghosts are dangerous.

The Heretic keeps it up most of the night, bellowing out the Lord’s Prayer at foghorn volume. He walks a loop around the outside of the house before marching into the kitchen, setting Ham barking again. Mum, unbelievably, sleeps soundly. I’m very tempted to pop some of her pills. I’m sitting at my desk, homework forgotten, trying to make sense of the documents Mr. Berkley gave me. You’d think if he knew he was leaving his Host to me, if this was all planned, Dad could’ve left me a simple sheet of paper. Bullet points, typed up on a computer.

Instead I’m faced with a kaleidoscope of bullshit. Dad’s papers are a mess. They’re in no particular order and don’t seem designed to be read by anybody who isn’t him. Some were composed on a typewriter, some written by hand. Some of the papers are yellowing and crinkled; a few are caked with something thick and dark that I can only hope is spilled chocolate milk. Most of the handwritten pages are done with an old-style dip pen and ink, with script packed into dense little rows, hundreds to each sheet, both front and back. They’re completely covered in tiny columns of numbers, like the math homework from Hell. Some of the numbers, I realize, squinting closer, seem to be written backward. They’re unreadable. The pages are gibberish. I sift through the pile until I come across something that isn’t.

Thursday:

Ice in sink again. Poss some manifestation of guilt/loss?

Stars out last night. Equinox approaching — feel it in my bones. They’re starting to strain at the bonds again, like they always do.

S & J are right, I fear. Ahlgren has to go — I’m exposed. Only way. He can turn against me at any time. But knowing I must betray him makes the taste no sweeter.

It seems like a diary entry, but without context or date there’s not much I can learn. He sounds depressed. Who is Ahlgren? Why betray him? Did Dad have enemies that I don’t know about? How did he die, exactly? I look for other pieces of clear prose like this, something that might follow on from here, but I can’t find anything.

I put the papers to one side and pick up Dad’s green book. The Book of Eight. I hold it in one hand, turning it in the glow of my desk lamp, the golden star on the cover reflecting the light. The Vassal called it an infernal tome, I remember, but it’s the key to necromancy. I run one finger down the book’s spine. The leather is supple and smooth to the touch. I remember that the last two times I tried to open it, the clasps were stuck, but I have a feeling that if I try them now that I’ve actually spoken to ghosts, something different will happen.

I pull at the clasps, expecting them to snap open, but they’re stuck as fast as ever. I really ought to tear the clasps off the book. Who cares about damaging it? I need to know what’s inside. I get a pair of scissors and prepare to cut the front cover away from the book’s binding. The scissors are poised to cut through the green leather when I start to feel really strange.