Page 38 of Giving Up The Ghost
She rolled her eyes, pushing her wet hair from her forehead. “We weren’t besties or nowt, but I knew ‘em. Two orders o’ cod an’ chips, saveloy for your dad, and a side salad for your mum.” She wrinkled her nose, adding, “She was the only person to ever order a side salad, long as I worked here. I worried about that.”
I wanted to laugh, to cry, to demand a thousand details or as many as a former chip shop employee could give me about my parents. But… “How do you know who my parents are? I’m sure you served a lot of people’s parents during your tenure at Benny’s.”
She snorted. “Weren’t even a Benny there. Owner was Penny Hartmann. When she got the sign made, the painters fucked it up and it was too expensive to fix, weren’t it.”
“That sounds aggressively accurate,” I muttered. “But my parents?”
“Oh. Well. That’s where this gets kind of awkward.” She held out her arms, drawing attention to her damp clothes and general sodden appearance. “When I died, I talked to them. I didn’t know I was dead like. I thought I was just hurt real bad. They were kind to me, you know? Talked to me, let me figure it out on my own. See, I just thought I was staying with my friends or something.” She frowned down at her feet, one shoe off and one shoe on like the nursery rhyme. “It was confusing for a bit. I lost time. Thought I’d pissed off my fiancé cause he couldn’t talk to me even when I shouted at him. My parents, they never paid me much mind after I moved out, but I got proper angry that they only drove by my flat real slow on my birthday, didn’t even stop to say hi.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “It’s never easy, such a drastic change.”
She snorted. “Understatement of the century, mate. But your parents, they talked me through it, you know? I’d see ‘em a lot. Always by the river up near Avesford. I died there.” She glanced away, back towards the mouth of the alley. I could see Julian and Ezra trying to act nonchalant there and failing miserably. A small smile touched her lips before she turned back to me. “Your mum asked me to find you. Said you were going to London, gave me an address and all, like I was gonna hail me a cab.” She laughed hollowly. “But it was near here, and I jumped at the chance, didn’t I? There are not many places I can go these days. The bridge, the river—right proper fun, that, scaring snot-nosed kids trying to have a go under the bridge there—my old flat, even though the old bat who lives there now thinks I’m a rotten floorboard makin’ noise?—”
“And the café,” I added. “And apparently Benny’s.”
“The café is where I used to go every day for lunch. Got sick of the smell of cod,” she laughed sadly. “And Paulie worked there. We were gonna get married after he finished uni.” She stared down at her left hand. A gold ring flicked in and out of sight. “Well. Your mum asked me to find you since she knows I can come down to London if I like. You weren’t hard to find, once you weren’t at that weird house.” She sniffed and looked back down the alley. “I used to see you with your grandda. I think. Was it you, then?” When I didn’t answer, she rambled on. “It’s weird, innit? How we got so tied together in a way. Me an’ your folks, now me an’ you. Though I don’t guess we’re that tied up. I’m just a messenger, aren’t I? Your mum was proper annoyed about that house back in the village. It’s weird as hell.”
My stomach gave a hard lurch. I stepped closer, noting for the first time she wasn’t as solid appearing as I thought. I could see the faintest outline of the shop door through her face, the corner of the window bisecting her cheek. A waft of river water and cigarette and sweet rot rose from her ghost as she leaned closer. “You know the house?”
“Well, know of it really. I died up there, didn’t I? On that stupid stone bridge. So now I just sort of…” She made a gesture with one hand, a sort of wobbly wavy one that looked like she was pantomiming a ghost. “Every one of us spooks up ‘round Avesford knows the house,” she whispered back, rolling her eyes at me. “It’s like a black hole for us, isn’t it?”
“What?”
She made a face like she couldn’t believe I was smart enough to manage not to walk into traffic without guidance. “Everyone in Avesford knows the house is weird,” she said very slowly. “And your mum wanted me to find you, got it?”
“Why?”
She reached out for me, her touch cold and shockingly heavy against my chest. “Because she won’t leave him behind.” She flickered, cursing fluently as she seemed to fade a bit before snapping back into full color. “Christ, I hate this. It makes me feel so gross. I need to go but listen, alright? Your mum said to be careful. The other mediums, the ones Violet, whoever that is, hung about with? They’re angry. They need help. They’re stuck and whatever happened to them wasn’t natural.” She paused, and added, “She said help.”
“Help? Is she?—”
“She didn’t tell me more than that,” the woman interrupted. “Shit. I can’t stay.”
“Wait! Wait! Why did she come to you?”Why not me? I’m a fucking medium for god’s sake!
Her smile was sad, ashamed. “We’re kind of tied together, whether I like it or not. My dumb ass was crying about my fiancé flirtin’ with my bestie Jess. Gone up to Avesford to have it out with her an’ she’d told me to fuck off. I was crying, being all dramatic. I got on the bridge out of town and…” She brought her hands up and clapped them hard together.
They made no sound.
“Your parents talked to me after the accident. They were far kinder than I deserved. They told me when my body was found a few days later. They tried to help me communicate with my parents. With Paulie.” She was nearly gone now, voice thin and hollow as she faded. “I ain’t seen your dad in ages, but your mum checks in on me when she can. She knows how lonely it can get, I think, to have no one even talkin’ about you.”
Something oily and yellow and bitter clawed its way up my throat as realization bloomed. “My mum…”
“We died together, me an’ your parents. It was my fault, the accident what killed them. Figure the least I could do is follow their son to London to pass on a message, even if I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.”
CHAPTER 9
JULIAN
My own headache was threatening to rival one of Oscar’s worst by the time we turned down the lane to the house. “So, walk me through this again,” I said through gritted teeth. “You were attacked by a wad of ghosts last night?”
Oscar made a face. “That’s really not the best way to put it.”
“But the house can’t be a void or black hole or whatever your café ghost called it,” Ezra protested for the third time. “Not if you’ve both heard the crying ghost and the ghost wad attacked you.”
“Please stop sayingghost wad,” Oscar muttered. “All I said was the house feels weird, and something about the ghosts all being in the cellar was strange, and maybe—maybe—there’s something about the house that’s off-putting to ghosts. Like the fact, it’s belonged to my family for generations. Something about mediums living there.”
“I’d think that’d draw them in like a magnet,” Ezra said, and I agreed.
