Page 9 of Giving Up The Ghost
Silence stretched, heavy and waiting. But it was empty—no spirits save my own, and it was safely stuck inside. Or wherever they belonged while we were still alive.
CHAPTER 3
JULIAN
Itried my best during dinner to strike up a conversation with Charlotte. She was economical with her replies: yes, the house was very old, no she hadn’t been here long, she’d come to England before for school trips, no she’d never been to the States.
Ezra chimed in a time or two, asking where she’d visited. London mostly. Once to Cornwall. No, she did not like the weather.
Ezra and I exchanged glances over Oscar’s head, sharing a similarwhat the hellsort of eye roll. Charlotte’s energy was saved for Oscar’s questions about some boxes she had provided, full of papers apparently. He turned to me midway through their conversation. “It’s shocking, in a way, seeing my ancestors so tangibly. I mean, I knew they existed, but I never knew the details. And it’s largely sad, reading what happened to many of them either due to the law or their community, or even family in some cases.”
Oh hello… My interest piqued to new highs at that. “These are firsthand accounts?”
He nodded, eyes bright and dimple popping in enthusiastic pleasure. “Newspapers, some handwritten letters—some even by the person in question! I’d love?—”
“They’re family property,” Charlotte interrupted. “Not for public consumption, Oscar. They’re private.”
Oscar’s smile didn’t waver as he turned back to Charlotte. “Julian’s a trained professional,” he said. “He’s not going to go grubbing about all willy-nilly. Besides, I’d love for him to take a look at some of this and get his input.”
“They are family property,” she repeated with a bit more iron in her tone. Oscar’s face fell, then smoothed into bland lines of polite acceptance. We ate in silence for a few moments before he spoke up again.
“I understand you’re protective of our history. I am too, in a way. But Julian isn’t going to spread the word around that some of our ancestors were hanged or transported. Even if he did, what does it matter? It was almost a century ago—more in some cases!—and most people now would just shrug and say so what, who hasn’t had a scandal in their family?”
“If you cannot respect my wishes, I will have to put the boxes back in storage.”
“What about his wishes then?” Ezra asked sharply. “Oscar’s part of your family too. Unless there’s some massive plot twist here and it turns out you’re not related or something. So why can’t Oscar have a say in it?”
Charlotte’s lips crimped, her cheeks flagged with pink. “The matters in the boxes are highly personal. They are more than mere historical facts. They are ourwhy. Oscar expressed his desire to learn about his past, his story not to share it with the world!”
“Hey,” I spoke up before Ezra or Oscar could jump in again. “It’s fine.” Annoying, a bit offensive, frustrating, but… fine. “I need to talk to CeCe tonight anyway, so I’ll just head upstairs after dinner, alright?”
Oscar nodded reluctantly, and after a few moments, we all fell back to eating, albeit in near silence this time.
After dinner, Oscar reluctantly left me at the sitting room door to return to his perusal of these mysterious binders after retrieving my laptop from our room for me. Charlotte retreated to her quarters and Ezra slipped out to the conservatory, phone in hand and no doubt already blistering Harrison’s virtual ears with his feelings about the entire situation.
Not ready to go to bed yet and feeling rather ignored, I headed into the study. It felt disused, a faint tang of dust in the air although the surfaces were all smoothly polished and clean. It was cold, the fireplace dark, and knee-level gas jet meant for one of those old space heater things standing naked. The thought of asking Oscar about where to find wood for the fire or even to help me find the heater crossed my mind but soured as soon as it formed fully. Between risking Charlotte’s ire and interrupting Oscar’s explorations, I chose the secret third option of just sucking it up and being cold for a bit.
It took me less time than I thought to reorganize my notes for my ongoing research, which I needed to come up with a better title for thanMy Boyfriend Can See Ghosts and Now So Can I… What the Fuck?The majority of my notes were conversations with Oscar and Ezra, though my collection from Heinrich was gaining. I had Lisa and her brother on my list to contact as soon as we got back to the States, and Enoch, knowing full well I’d need a larger cohort if I wanted this to have any meaningful impact.Maybe Heinrich can put me in touch with some people, I mused, clicking the tab to open my notes with him.
And of course, since it was my life now, I opened up to the part where Heinrich was discussing the deaths of the mediums that drove him to leave England. I do my best, when interviewing subjects, not to let my own feelings color the interaction, but it had taken Herculean strength not to roll my eyes when Heinrich told his rather lengthy story about the mediums in his circle being “stalked and murdered like some wild animals.”
Heinrich’s dramatic and flamboyant nature had, admittedly, triggered some of my internal biases, and I’d initially brushed him off as attention-seeking. But now… Well.
Granted, from what I could find, the mediums he’d known who had died were not victims of some grisly slasher with gory, spectacular deaths. But theyweredead. And there did seem to be a pattern of accidents involved.
I knew better. And I probably owed him an apology.
Opening up a new spreadsheet, I started transferring names and information over from Heinrich’s stories, listing out the mediums he noted by name, indicating which he’d only described or gave allusions to with descriptors (“that Margate woman,” “the one who did Violet’s cards that time, Oscar, you remember?”). I’d need to cross-reference with Oscar’s recollections of the names and see if Ezra could help me dig into some of the backgrounds, maybe pull up information about their deaths to flesh out whatever I couldn’t find myself.
The cold seeped into my muscles as I worked but thankfully, I was hyperfocused enough that the discomfort was background noise and not a true distraction. It took little time to find some details on the names Heinrich had mentioned and a thread that seemed to link them all to him, and by extension to Violet Fellowes.
But there had to be more… I did a cursory search for suspicious deaths over the past two years, with the modifiers to narrow it down to mediums, ghost hunters, psychics, and other related fields. A few popped up that weren’t close to Heinrich’s circle—a red hand psychic killed in a robbery, a tarot reader who committed suicide but their girlfriend insisted it was murder, a famous paranormal investigator who died in a hit and run, another who had a DUI history and died after drinking too much at a New Year’s Eve bash.
I made a separate column for them.
It took the better part of two hours to hash through everything but by then, I had been able to isolate the deaths Heinrich had mentioned as a cluster, too refined to be accidental or natural despite the fact many were older.
But what did it mean? Was it a serial killer? Or was I just seeing things, letting my feelings for Oscar and my own recent brush with death, color my perceptions?
