Authors: Jonathan Stroud
He paused. ‘Fair enough. I suppose it does.’
‘Where was this noise?’ Lockwood asked.
‘Somewhere up ahead, maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Good. So we’re going in the right direction.’
We continued steadily, our boots ringing faintly on the wooden flooring, and soon came to the end of the main corridor. Side passages branched out left and right. Ahead of us was a prominent glazed door, somehow more modern than the ones we’d passed. There was an engraved wooden sign on the wall. Lockwood shone his torch on it.
‘
Ernest Potts Memorial Library
,’ he read. ‘Here we are, then.’
As he spoke, a cool breeze flowed over us, a stirring of the air. We swung our torches wildly up and down the passages, but saw nothing.
‘Temperature’s down,’ George said. ‘Eleven degrees now.’
‘Rapiers at the ready,’ Lockwood said. He opened the door.
Nothing jumped out at us, which is always nice. The library was large and airy, with pleasant, trendy shelves of light-coloured pine. It smelled new. Rows of neatly ordered books covered the walls. Tall windows looked out over a small, drab playing field. There was a half-moon in the sky over London, lighting the room with a feeble glow.
Wordlessly George opened his bag, took out a length of iron chain, and began laying out a protective circle in the centre of the floor. Lockwood didn’t protest. He looked and I listened for danger. We didn’t get anything.
A small plinth hung on the wall between the central windows. On it was a marble bust of a stern, well-fed, Victorian-looking man sporting an enormous pair of mutton-chop whiskers. I went to take a look.
‘
Ernest Potts
,’ I said, reading the plaque below it. ‘
Headmaster, 1925–1957
. He looks a dreadful old grump.’
‘What sideburns!’ Lockwood said, marvelling. ‘You could stuff a cushion with the hair on them. I wonder if—’
‘Hold it!’ I said. ‘I hear something.’
Silence in the library. We listened. We stood dead still.
Out in the corridor, beyond the half-closed door, there came a soft, intermittent chinking sound. Not far off, and coming closer. And with it now: the sound of footsteps, limping footsteps – a firm step, then a drawn-out
drag
, as if a lame leg were being laboriously swung along the floor . . .
‘Got it,’ Lockwood whispered suddenly. ‘I hear it too. Get inside the chains.’
We stepped into the circle.
‘Temperature’s dropping,’ George muttered. ‘Seven degrees . . . Now six . . .’
We took our rapiers from our belts.
Closer, closer came the horrid dragging footsteps. Closer came the clinking sound.
‘Keys,’ I breathed. ‘It sounds like keys.’
‘Five degrees,’ George said calmly. His breath was pluming in the air.
We stood and faced the door.
The footsteps stopped. Thin threads of ghost-fog came trickling round the side of the door. Cold blistered my skin.
Something struck the door on the outside, making the wood reverberate. It struck the wood again.
‘Lockwood,’ I hissed. ‘What do we do?’
‘We sit tight,’ Lockwood said. ‘It’s loud, it’s scary, but it’s not actually attacking us directly. If it comes into the room, that’s a different matter. Wait and see.’
Even as he spoke, a third colossal bang resounded on the door. Flakes of plaster fell from the ceiling and the floor shuddered. George and I flinched back inside the circle. We raised our rapiers, tensed our muscles, waited –
Waited . . .
Nothing came through.
Silence fell outside the door. A pressure lifted from the room. The little trails of ghost-fog dwindled and were gone.
We each exhaled long and loudly. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath.
‘Temp’s back to ten degrees,’ George reported.
Lockwood nodded. ‘It’s over. For now.’ He stepped out of the circle, strode to the door and flung it open. We emerged into the darkened corridor, shining our torches all around. Straight ahead, and to left and right, the passages stretched away. All was still.
‘Nothing,’ George said.
‘Not
quite
,’ Lockwood said soberly. ‘Look at this.’ He angled his torch beam at the wall beside the door, shining it on the wooden plate, the one that said
Ernest Potts Memorial Library
. The sign didn’t look quite as smart as it had before: two great deep gashes had been scored diagonally across the wood, carving through the words. A knife might have done it. Or claws. Or long sharp fingernails. There were lots of possibilities, basically, and none of them too pleasant.
‘Is it just me,’ I said, ‘or is something not very happy about this nice new library?’
George was squinting at the sign through his thick round glasses. ‘Either that or it doesn’t like this Ernest Potts geezer. Look at the way his name’s sliced up.’
I nodded. ‘Maybe it took exception to his ridiculous facial hair. I know I did.’
‘Whatever the reason,’ Lockwood said, ‘I don’t feel that the library is quite at the centre of the haunting. Our readings weren’t strong enough inside. The Source must be somewhere else.’
Oh, did I mention Sources before? Here’s the thing about ghosts, you see. They don’t just float about wherever they like. All of them are tied to a specific thing or place – the spot where they died, or something important to them in life, or (most often) their bodily remains. We call this tethering point ‘the Source’, and
that’s
what agents look for. Find it and destroy it, or seal it up with silver – and that’s the end of the haunting. Then you can all go home for tea.
‘We’d better check out that classroom now,’ Lockwood was saying. ‘Take a look at this mysterious knife, which— Yes, George? What is it?’
George was jiggling about urgently. Either he was suddenly caught short or he’d had an idea. Or both. Sometimes the two
did
go together. Whichever, it was best not to ignore him.
‘I might hang on in the library, if that’s all right,’ he said. ‘I want to see if there’s a book about the school’s history, or some old school magazines or something. I’d like to discover a bit more about old headmaster Potts if I can. You never know, it might come in useful.’
This is George’s forte – he finds stuff out. Lockwood nodded. ‘Sure you’ll be OK on your own?’
‘Of course. You don’t need to hold my hand. I can lug anything I find inside the chains and read them in there. I’ll be absolutely safe. See you in a bit.’
George went back into the library. Lockwood and I set off down the left-hand passage. We were once again in an old portion of the school, with walls of panelling and plaster. A number of doors opened on our left and we checked them briefly as we went. The first was a storeroom, filled with mops, vacuum cleaners and stacks of toilet roll. The temperature was chilly here: scarcely seven degrees. The next was little more than a walk-in cupboard, containing paper, pens and other stationery. It too was very cold. The third, the boys’ toilets, was niffy, but much warmer – almost twelve degrees. The fourth –
The fourth door was open. We didn’t need to read its sign to know that this was the one we sought. Its window panel had been smashed; bright shards of glass glinted in our torchlight, and crunched beneath our boots as we entered the room.
Everywhere was evidence of the pupils’ rapid departure the day before: books and pencil cases littering the table; bags and coats lying crumpled on the floor. At the front of the class, the teacher’s chair lay upended. And close by, jutting from the side of the desk that faced the door, we found the object that had so terrified Mr Whitaker.
It was a long, thin-bladed knife. The hilt was wound with leather strips, very old and frayed. Fragments of grey cobwebs hung from it too, swaying slightly in small movements of the air.
‘That’s not an ordinary knife,’ I said. ‘That’s a dagger.’
‘You know what it looks like to me?’ Lockwood said slowly. ‘An old military weapon. If I had to guess, I’d say First World War issue – the kind all soldiers carried.’
‘Well, where’s it come from?’
‘Answer that, and we find our ghost.’ Lockwood straightened. ‘Listen, Lucy – I’m going to double-check further down the corridor. I’m pretty sure there’ll be nothing to find: I think the Source is between here and the library. I’ll be back in a minute, but while I’m gone, just start some readings in the classroom, would you?’
‘Sure.’
He slipped out of the door and was gone into the dark. I scarcely noticed him go. I was too busy staring at the dagger in the desk. One of my Talents, you see, is that of Touch. Sometimes, if I hold an object that has some kind of psychic charge, I feel or hear things associated with its past. Not every time. It doesn’t always work. And if the psychic charge is too strong, it can be uncomfortable or even dangerous for me. But the insights
are
often useful.
I stared at the dagger and wondered if I should risk it . . .
Of
course
I should! I was an agent. Taking horrible risks was part of the job description. We might as well have put it on our business cards.
I reached down and placed my fingers on the hilt.
At first there was nothing – nothing but the cool roughness of the leather strips that had been wrapped tightly around the metal. Nothing but the icky-sticky wispiness of the cobwebs trailing against my skin. I closed my eyes, tried to empty out my mind.
And all at once sensations came.
I gasped. I took a sharp breath in. They weren’t nice sensations, and they filled me with a swirling tide of bitterness and fury. There was pain and dull resentment there, and envy too. But most of all there was
greed
– a hard, tight avarice that lusted after valuable things. Fleeting images came and went: I saw laughing children, school passages and classrooms (old-fashioned, but recognizably the same as the ones we now explored), and (dimly) soldiers struggling in a muddy field. But by far the strongest picture was that of an open box or chest filled with coins, and it brought with it a feeling of dark glee.
I nearly took my hand away then, but suddenly, rising from the past, I saw a face I recognized – a beefy face with enormous side-whiskers. It gazed at me fiercely and seemed to speak. And now I was awash with fear and hate, and I was fleeing through the corridors, trying to get away, trying to reach my secret place . . . A door slammed . . . I was alone and safe! Safe for the moment! And, best of all, I still had my precious—
‘
Lucy!
’
My eyes snapped open. The voice broke through my trance. I snatched my hand away from the knife and, turning, peered off through the open classroom door and down along the passage. I did so almost blindly. It’s always hard when you’ve used your Talent. Your head’s all woozy, and your senses don’t quite work. Like waking from a dream, it takes you a few moments to come round. Plus it was very dark.
‘
Lucy
. . .’
Halfway back towards the library, I saw a figure standing, tall and thin. It beckoned to me quickly.
‘Lockwood?’ I felt in my belt for my torch. ‘Is that you?’
The shape beckoned once more; slipped out of sight towards one of the storerooms. By the time I’d stabbed my torch on, it was gone.
‘Lockwood?’ I called again.
No answer. But I’d heard the urgency in the voice, seen the eager beckoning. I hurried out of the classroom and along the corridor. It was very cold out there.
‘
Lucy
. . .’
No mistake this time. The voice came from behind the door to the store cupboard. I reached out to turn the handle—
A cough sounded right behind me.
I whirled round, shone my torch up. Lockwood stood there – calm, unflustered, one eyebrow elegantly raised.
‘Luce. What are you doing? I thought I told you to stay in the classroom.’
I blinked at him foolishly. ‘Er . . . yes, you did. But didn’t you just call me?’
He looked at me.
‘Didn’t you just beckon me to come?’
‘I did neither. I’ve just been exploring further down the corridor like I said I was going to. As predicted, I found nothing. Because it’s
here
that the action is. As you’ve just proved. What did you see?’
I shuddered, looked towards the cupboard door. ‘I don’t know. But whatever it was, it wanted me to join it in there.’
Lockwood’s eyes narrowed. ‘Well, perhaps we can oblige it shortly. But only when we’re properly armed. Learn anything in the classroom?’
I took a deep breath. It’s always difficult to express what you get through psychic sensations. It’s hard to put it into words. But this time I didn’t even have a chance to try, because at that moment a loud, shrill and unmistakably George-like scream resounded down the corridor from the library. It echoed off the walls and faded.
Lockwood and I stared at each other, wide-eyed.
‘Oh, you know what George is like,’ Lockwood said. ‘He’s probably dropped an encyclopaedia on his toe.’
Even so, he was already running.
Well, it wasn’t a
single
encyclopaedia that was the problem, as we discovered when we burst into the library. To aid his reading George had evidently taken a lantern from his bag and set it burning inside the iron circle, and by its flickering light we saw a startling scene. Almost all the books that had been so neatly arranged around the shelves had been ripped out and hurled across the room. They lay scattered every which way, spines up, spines down, pages ruffling and twitching. The only spot free of them was the space inside the iron chains, and it was here that George was crouching, white-faced, hands crossed protectively over his head.
‘I know you’re an avid reader, George,’ Lockwood remarked, ‘but this is a bit messy even for y—’
‘Watch out!’ George’s cry came too late. Even as he spoke, a heavy hardback book struck Lockwood on the side of the head, sending him toppling to the floor. And now a host of others were rising into the air, carried by a random, unseen force. They whizzed this way and that, thumping into walls, bouncing off the windows. I dived to the side: one shot straight past me and crashed against a shelf. All across the room, books were shifting, shelves rattling, chair- and table-legs scraping as they moved across the floor. On the plinth beside the windows, the marble bust of Ernest Potts was shaking violently, as if it were about to burst. I bent down beside Lockwood, who lay on his side, half dazed.