Page 50 of Giving Up The Ghost
“No, no, no… Something Charlotte said. Oh my god, you’ll have a stroke if she’s destroyed it, Julian. She showed me Clothilde’s tongue!”
Ezra blinked, leaning back against the window to stare at me. “Oscar, either make sense or make peace with going to the hospital right now. What’s going on?”
Shaking myself, I told them about my encounter with Charlotte, with the box of Clothilde’s relics. And about meeting Simeon, about his warning.
About Charlotte’s hunger for him to believe I was my grandfather.
“Ezra, which house was it she tried to sell?” Julian asked.
“It belonged to one of the dead mediums.”
I tapped my fingers on my lips, staring at the house but no longer seeing it. Just a spinning chain of the dead, stretching back to tongueless Clothilde walled up alive. Her followers. Her angels… “She spoke to angels, who told her things,” I said quietly. “And after she died, she taught her children who also had the ability to see and speak with the dead.”
“And so on, and so on, and so on,” Julian muttered in a sort of singsong that told me he was mimicking something else. “And Charlotte thinks she can get this arcane knowledge from a long-dead relative, so she… Is trying to force you to raise her? What’s going on here?”
“She can’t talk to them. She can’t see them,” I said, straightening. “But she desperately wants to.”
“She’s envious,” Ezra posited. “She sees you, famous and making waves, in as much as a medium can—no offense.”
“None taken, darling.”
Julian patted the seat excitedly, adding more pieces to the picture puzzle. “She can’t work her scam on the dead medium’s house. She’s caught—she’s either not fast enough with the kiting or she’s not as good as she thinks, maybe both. So, she thinks, hop on Oscar’s gravy train.”
“But she needs a crash course,” I offered. “And thinks there’s some way to force it. Just because she’s a Fellowes.”
“Overnight fame and riches,” Ezra said in a narrator’s strident cadence. “Or maybe she was hoping to create a bit of a news story herself.” He touched his goose egg, expression thoughtful and uneasy.
Julian let out a sudden, dark laugh. “Oh my god, CeCe is going to be so pissed we didn’t film any of this.”
“Think of the numbers!”Ezra wailed in his best CeCe impression, which wasn’t really that good.
Still, Julian didn’t seem too fussed, just rolled his eyes and shook his head. “She’ll be more worried aboutusthan the potential viewership, but once she knows we’re okay, she’ll give me hell for not getting you to film anything.”
“I’ll make it up to her,” I offered. “When this is done, Ezra and I can take you to some proper haunted places that’ll give CeCe all the happy numbers she’d like. But right now…” I glanced back down the drive, a sinking and nervous feeling boiling in my veins. “I think there’s someone I need to talk to.”
* * *
The bridgewhere my parents died—rather, where their accident began—was less than five miles from the house.
“I’ve never been here,” I whispered to Ezra. “Grandmere didn’t even tell me where they’d died until I was fourteen and found out by accident. She tried to deny it and say it’d been in London, but…” I trailed off.
“Violet had issues,” he grumbled. We looked up at Julian, leaning over the bridge railing, and Ezra gave him a thumbs-up. “Are you sure she’s here?”
I nodded. “Did you get her name for me?”
“Becky. Becky Sommers. Age nineteen, from Lower Petely, but she lived in London with her fiancé.”
“Right. Well. She said she stayed in the area a lot so here’s to hoping.” We picked our way carefully down the rest of the shore, finding a relatively dry spot to stand. The River Hiz was narrow here, and slow. At least this time of year. A few ducks were busy anticipating spring despite the cold weather, paddling in the shallows and muttering to themselves, ignoring us as they went about their day. A few ghosts—children, playing with a toy boat—crouched closer to the bridge. They were oblivious to our presence, enjoying their last happy moment together on a loop.
No Becky though.
“Hello? Becky Sommers? It’s me, Oscar. You, ah, you know my parents.”
Quiet. Duck mutters. A distant giggle from one of the dead children.
A car rumbled across the bridge, slowing as they passed Julian.
“Becky, I need to talk to you. Please. It’s important.”
