Page 45 of Giving Up The Ghost
“Us,” she snapped, then smoothed her scowl into a smile. “Like us, Oscar. The two lines of the family split apart, yes? One staying in England, one going to France. This one, Clothilde, she is by far the oldest and most interesting, no? She hadfollowers, Oscar! She was revered! She birthed us, so to speak. She was blessed, they said, with a divine power.” She carefully reached into the box and pulled out oh so slowly a simple, oval medal. It was dark gray—Julian would know what it’s made from, I thought, and wanted him there fiercely—and worn smooth in spots. The image of a woman was barely visible, something like rays emanating from around her head in a sunshine halo, her face downturned and… “Is her face a skull?” I asked, fascinated. “Is she dead here?”
“Ah, no. It was how she was portrayed. She spoke with the dead, with heaven and hell both, her story goes. People came to her from far away, begging to speak to their loved ones, to their enemies, to ancient kings and warriors…” Charlotte touched her thumb to the image reverently, brushing a kiss against it in veneration. “Clothilde was imprisoned, punished by the Church, for her abilities. She was immured. Do you know what that is? No? It is where they put you in a tiny room, barely a cupboard, and seal you in with bricks and mortar. There is a small hole to receive the Host, and food in some cases. Clothilde would not repent of her sins and refused to deny what she had done, so,” she closed her hand over the medal. “Fin.”
“Oh my god,” I breathed. “Is this real?” My hand spasmed at my side, wanting to touch the medal myself.That belonged to my ancestor! To someone like me!The yearning to feel it, to hold that connection, something she’d held herself, made my skin buzz with electric need. I clenched my hands tight, nails biting into my palms to keep from grabbing it away from Charlotte. Her words sank in through my fog after a moment, though.Wait…“She had a cult?”
“Not a cult,” Charlotte corrected sharply. “She had followers. People were devoted to her. She wanted none of it, but she felt it was a gift from her god, and it would be a sin to refuse to use it. The Church felt differently so.” She tipped the medal back into the box and lifted something else out. A faded strip of ribbon that could have been any color originally but was now an unpleasant gray-brown. She motioned for me to hold out my hands and take it, laying it carefully on my palms. “And,” she murmured, bringing out a dark-colored pouch that didn’t look as old as the other things in the box but still ancient. “Now, this is a bit grim, but it is important.”
Inside the pouch, tipped into my palms, were a single small bone and something hard, dark, and grizzled. It looked like a prune, or perhaps some sort of seed pod that had once been soft and leathery but was now petrified with age. “What is this?”
“Her finger bone, allegedly, and her tongue.”
My entire skeleton tried to leap from my skin, my body jerking in reflexive horror before I could stop myself. Charlotte reached for me, her hands closing over mine to keep me from dropping the items. “Hertongue?”
Charlotte nodded, face wreathed in a beatific smile. “She had a secret follower amongst the nuns who tended to her immurement. When Clothilde died, she removed what she could. Her tongue which spoke the words, and her finger, which…” she paused. “Well. I’m not sure why the finger, really. But the ribbon had been in her hair when she was imprisoned. It was meant to be given to her daughter, but her family had fled the city when Clothilde was taken.”
My skin was crawling, knowing what was in my hands, horror and fascination warring as I tried to decide if I should throw the grim trophies into the box and run to wash my hands forever, or channel Julian and be cool about it, be curious.
I did a bit of both, shoving my hands out at Charlotte silently, grimacing until she took the tongue and bone, leaving the ribbon for last. “Why do you have this?Howdo you have this?”
She was quiet for a moment, eyes on the ribbon as she carefully wound it into a small roll to place back in the box. “Nadine worked for a private collector, some time ago. He had many examples of occult and magical paraphernalia. He was obsessed, she said, and when he found out she was related to this Clothilde, he became obsessed with Nadine. She did not care much for that. But, when the man died a year or so later, she received this as a bequest.”
“That’s one hell of a bequest,” I muttered. It was easy, in that moment, to forget everything Charlotte had done and hadn’t done in the past five days. It was as if… I glanced up to find her watching me eagerly. “Why didn’t you start with this? When we got here, why try to be coy with the binders, then making me wait for the boxes?”
“Don’t be rude,” she snapped, standing swiftly. “I wanted to wait and be sure you were serious. That you were actually here to do as you said and not make trouble or film one of your shows. Now. This is important. This is the secret.” She went to the first box, the one with the twins’ belongings, and pulled out the black binder. “Clothilde taught them. She taught generations of Fellowes before them and after.”
I took the proffered binder and glanced at the page she’d indicated. “She came to me tonight,” I read. “She showed me the secret of holding a spirit with a simple charm, taught to her by the angels.”
“That was obviously a copy,” she breathed. “Typed years ago, by one of our mutual ancestors. But look! Oscar! It’s all here.” She swept her arm at the boxes, fairly vibrating with excitement. “All of them, it has been passed down, person to person after death. And you,” she turned me to face me, “are on the verge of discovery, yes? I was reluctant to show this to you but now that you have met Simeon, now that you have heard me out, I can trust you.” She scowled suddenly, grabbing her phone from her pocket and glaring at the screen. “Merde!” She turned her gaze up to the ceiling for a minute, frowning. “I need to go! I’ll be back shortly.”
“Wait,” I called belatedly, stunned. “Wait, I need to talk with you about the house! Charlotte, wait!” I made it halfway up the stairs before she closed the door in my face. “Hey!”
Of course, there’d be no response. And of course, there was no signal, so my phone was useless for the time being. I picked my way back down the steps and headed for the window Ezra had used the other night. It was back in place, but whether that had been Ezra or Julian slipping it back into a semblance of normal or Charlotte fixing it, sealing it, I didn’t know yet. “This is ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous,” I muttered, grabbing one of the sturdier boxes and pulling it towards the window. It bobbled on the glittery stone inset, popping out the loose piece I’d tripped on the other day. “Shit. Damn it!” I gave it a poke back into place, but it didn’t set right. It was, I noticed, cracked. Missing several chips out of it and making it uneven. Another poke and it cracked some more, the stone fragile thanks to all of the cracks apparently. Grumbling, I decided to deal with it later, dragging the box the rest of the way to the window and climbing up to reach the latch.
And that’s when I found out I’m shorter than I thought, my reach falling an inch or two away from the simple flip latch, even when I rose onto my toes. “Come on, late-term growth spurt,” I muttered, stretching harder and desperately wishing my bones were rubber for just a minute. I hopped down and looked at the other boxes, debating if making an ersatz staircase to reach the window was worth the trip to A&E.
The ghosts moved fast this time, too, swarming forward as I stepped onto the floor, but unlike last time, they didn’t overwhelm me. Instead, from the shapeless, formless mass came the figure of a woman, her face vaguely familiar. She rubbed her arms with her hands, watching me warily. As she moved into the shadows, I could see her more clearly. She had the sharp features of my family, her hair curly like mine but shot through with gray, glasses perched at the tip of her long nose. She wore a simple dress, what my grandmother called an at-home dress, and looked scared and nervous.
She raised her hand like some storybook ghost, pointing her spectral finger at me.
No, not at me, I realized. Behind me. “The window?” I asked.
She frowned deeply, moving closer. Her finger never wavered, passing through me as she closed the distance between us. Sharp cold burned through my chest, dragging a gasping breath free. I buckled, the pain driving me to my knees, her finger passing through my shoulder and neck, leaving a trail of icy fire in its wake. She bent low to glare at me, her eyes dark pits. Jabbing her finger again, I forced my head to turn and follow her direction.
A narrow bench ran under the window, along the length of the old cellar. When I was a boy, it had been a place for Grandfather to stack hobbies he’d let lapse and broken bits and bobs from around the house. The flat surface sat atop a small cupboard where holiday decorations lived in the off-season. “The storage bench?”
She lifted her brows. If she’d had eyes, she’d roll them I decided. The cellar door opened, and she withdrew but did not disappear. The mass of spirits behind her pulsed in a translucent, dark tangle where faces and limbs sometimes emerged. A crowd, I realized. A crowd vying for attention, each one trying to push ahead of the other but something holding them back. My gaze traveled down to the ghost’s feet. She stood in the gap in the stone, just wide enough for a person’s feet to stand together. “The stone keeps you back,” I muttered. “How…”
The stairs creaked but I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the spirits .
“Oscar! What do you see?” Charlotte demanded, rushing down the steps, practically leaping for me. “Do not lie to me! Is it Clothilde? No, it would be someone else, wouldn’t it? Talk to me, damn it!” She pushed through the ghosts, not even registering them. The woman stared at Charlotte—or at least turned her face towards Charlotte—teeth bared in a fierce scowl that made me stumble back a step. Charlotte grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake, demanding that I speak, talk to her, tell her what I was seeing, who I was seeing.
“I knew they would come for you! I knew it! All it took was ensuring you understood! Oh, please! Tell me?—”
A voice I thought was in my head but no, it came from outside of me, whisperedDon’t tell her. Don’t.
Well. I’m always one to listen to a disembodied voice. “It… It was my mum.”
Charlotte’s arms dropped and her face fell comically fast. “Your mother? She is not a Fellowes. She was a Drummond.”
