The Ghost of Josiah Grimshaw (27 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

'We should ask the Mentors,' Lana suggested as they walked out of Eleanor's office and back towards the main hall. 'And Wilbur...'

'You called?' said a voice behind, startling them both.

As Wilbur stood over them waiting for them to speak, Lana shifted from one foot to the other, putting her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

'Erm, yes. We have a question... about a possible angel?'

'Yeeesss,' he said slowly.

Emma delved into her satchel and pulled out the photographs of Emelia. 'Do you know her, Wilbur?'

Gazing down at the images, he stroked his chin with his fingers before turning to Lana, then Emma, and shaking his head.

'Sorry, she's not particularly familiar. I don't think I've seen her before. But then, I've had to deal with countless people and paranormals in my time. She looks a little like you though, don't you think?'

'Yeah, I've been getting that a lot. Thanks though, Wilbur,' Emma replied as they left him standing behind them.

'We already know Declan and Saleena don't know her, so who next?'

'Let's ask Zane and Marian. Diarmuid and Liam will know where they are.'

Liam was still deep in concentration on his laptop, sitting in the same spot, beneath the statue of the Praxos angel.

'Liam?' asked Lana as she approached.

'Hm hm?' he responded without looking up.

'Do you know where Zane and Marian are?'

'They're out with Diarmuid,' he said flatly.

'Do you know where?' asked Emma.

He just shrugged his shoulders. Lana leaned forward to see what he was doing. When she saw that he was just playing a stupid game, she became irritated, pushing the laptop shut.

'Babe... I was right in the middle of... oh never mind,' he said, shaking his head, a bit peeved.

'We need to know where they are,' she demanded.

'They went to the Tower of London ages ago.'

'See... that wasn't so hard, was it?' she said flirtatiously, making him laugh. 'You wanna come with us?' but he shook his head and re-opened his laptop to continue playing the game. Before they walked away, he winked, 'Practise makes perfect.'

After trying to phone Diarmuid, they found his mobile was switched off. He must be in the middle of a tour, they figured and so they moved on to finding the other Mentors.

With none of the other Watchers in the immediate vicinity, the girls had to phone them to find out where they all were. Moira and Imran were on a boat trip with Brody and Oksana, Ava and Rupert were shopping with Megan and Rhydian, Penny and Nisha didn't know where Habika was and Bryn was busy sorting something out for Eleanor.

'Great. Now what do we do? Time's running out. We're going home in a couple of days,' sighed Lana as they sat down in the dining room with a cup of tea.

'Let's talk to Joe. See how he is... Joe... Josiah. You there?' asked Emma quietly looking around the large room.

Within moments, the ghost of an elderly man hovered before them, his face filled with sadness.

'I'm here,' he said slowly.

'How are you doing, Joe?' Emma asked, feeling awfully guilty.

Sighing heavily, the old ghost approached her and looked at her face. He attempted a smile but failed terribly. 'Same, same,' he uttered.

'Joe, I'm so sorry about everything. We didn't mean to bring you so much grief.'

'You didn't bring me grief, Emma. I've lived with this grief my entire life. Ever since... ever since...'

'1953?' Lana interjected and he nodded slowly.

'Yes that's right. Ever since she vanished. My Emelia Doris,' he sighed.

'Sorry?' Emma said suddenly, her attention captured. 'What did you say?'

'Ever since she vanished,' he murmured.

'No not that. The bit about her name. You just said her name, her full name?'

'Emelia... Doris,' he whispered, his eyes widening. 'I'd clean forgotten her name. It just came back to me now. I didn't even realise I'd remembered it. Emelia Doris,' he sighed.

Emma and Lana had immediately jumped up and disappeared out of the room, leaving Joe and their cups of tea behind.

'Sorry Liam, you're just going to have to practise later,' Lana said loudly as she ripped the laptop out of his hands and plonked herself down on the ground with Emma beside her.

Liam barely said a word, he just stood up and walked away, shaking his head.

After twenty minutes, Lana let out a high pitched squeal, 'I think I found her, I found her. Look here, look. Emelia Doris, born to the wealthy Doris-Baxter family in 1827. Oh, she died in 1845, just 18 years old. There's a sketch of the family,' she said as she waited for the image to open. When it did, the girls just sat motionless. It wasn't her.

'I really thought it was going to be her. I mean, how many women are there out there called Emelia Doris? I'm so bummed,' sighed Lana as Joe appeared suddenly by their side.

'What's going on?' he asked.

Glancing at each other, Lana leaned over and closed the laptop.

'Oh it's nothing. We're just doing a bit of research. Nothing that would interest you,' she said. Looking somewhat downtrodden, he vanished as quickly as he'd appeared.

'Why didn't you tell him we were looking for her?' asked Emma, a little put out.

'I don't think we should until we find out exactly what happened to her. Let's just wait. All we know is that she probably wasn't human. We shouldn't say anything until we know for sure.'

Emma reluctantly agreed as they heard the grandfather clock in the living room strike five o'clock. Moments later, Eleanor came bounding out full of energy, wearing black leather jeans and a pink t-shirt covered in sparkly sequins.

'Hey girls, any luck?' she asked as she whizzed over to them, grinning, stretching her arms high above her head.

Lana and Emma both nodded their heads and explained that Joe had finally remembered Emelia's full name.

'Perhaps now would be a good time to show you our special archives,' she said as she motioned for them to follow her. Leading them down one of the tunnels, Eleanor pulled a necklace out from underneath her t-shirt, revealing a key dangling from it. As they approached an old wooden door, she bent forward and unlocked it, pushing it open. The girls followed her inside before she closed and locked the door behind her. The flick of a switch revealed a small room with two doors either side. Turning to the right one, Eleanor used the same key to unlock it. When it was pushed open and a light switch turned on, Emma and Lana were gobsmacked by the sight before them. It was a massive room, not unlike the main hall, and it was full of filing cabinets, huge book stands and boxes upon boxes were neatly placed among them.

'What is this place?' asked Lana as she stood staring around her.

'It's our filing system. It goes back hundreds of years. Here you'll find everything you'll ever need to know about the Paranormals, the Elementals, the Others, even the Watchers, Mentors and Guardians... not that there have been too many of those. Not in England anyway.'

'But it's so... so... so big. It would take months, if not years, to go through this lot,' Emma sighed, with a gulp.

'Not necessarily,' Eleanor smiled as they followed her through the mass of paperwork until they stood in front of a smaller door that was already unlocked. As she pushed it open, there was a little desk with a modern computer on it.

'It might seem like an awful lot of paperwork, but we keep it all backed up on the archive computer. Wilbur and a few of the others keep it up to date.'

'Wilbur certainly keeps himself busy,' smiled Lana as she walked up to the computer. 'Can I switch it on?' she asked.

'Of course. You know what to do. I'm going to leave you now. I'll give you the key. Now, use your heads. Think,' she said tapping the side of her head. 'As Watchers, you have remarkable brain power that you just haven't tapped into yet. The answers you are searching for, may well be here. If they are, I believe that you can find them. Think about Josiah,' she said with a smile before turning around and closing the door behind her.

'Wait,' shouted Lana as Emma rushed to the door and opened it. 'What about the password?' she yelled but Eleanor had already gone.

'Great.'

'It's okay, Lana. We know what it is, we just have to think,' she said tapping the side of her head with a chuckle.

'Okay then. Let's try... Praxos,' she said as she typed.

'Too obvious,' Emma said just as the computer flashed back, ' Access Denied'.

'Watchers?'

Access Denied.

'Eleanor?'

Access Denied.

'Hayden-Jones?'

Access Denied.

'Wilbur?'

Access Denied.

'Angel?'

Access Denied.

'Skulls?'

Access Denied.

'I know,' Emma smiled as she leaned forward and typed in the name Tarquin and pressed enter.

'Access Granted.'

The girls squealed before Lana turned to her and asked, 'What's Tarquin?'

'You don't remember?' Emma asked as Lana shook her head, confused.

'Tarquin was the name of the man Eleanor loved,' she said sadly.

'Oh, that's so sad.'

'So what do we look for now?' Emma asked.

'All we know is the name Emelia Doris.'

'Let's just do a search for that then,' Emma said as she typed it in and pressed enter.

There were several Dorises, most of whom were fallen angels, although there was one reference to a Doris who was married to a man called Nereus and had something to do with Greek Mythology. There were also a few Emelias. One Emelia Hilton was an Elemental who was killed by the Skulls in 1949, another was a Watcher who currently works in New Orleans and the third was something called a fae who lives in Nairn in Scotland.

'What's a Fae?' whispered Lana.

'Let's have a look,' Emma said as she clicked on it. Immediately several images popped up of innocent looking beautiful people, with a long description which began 'Fae, also known as fairies, faeries or fay are human in appearance with magical abilities and sometimes wings (it remains unknown why some grow them and some don't). Generally, the fae work alongside Praxos but there have been several who have been tempted by the darker side of paranormal life. Mirelia Murdoch, for instance, was infamous for having been involved in the kidnapping and torture of Tabitha Collins and her family in 1659. Fortunately Praxos was able to contain Mirelia before further wrongdoings could be carried out. Mirelia perished in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Further reading can be found here...'

'Fairies are real?' breathed Emma dumb-foundedly. 'That's so cool.'

'This is freaking me out, Sis,' said Lana. 'If fairies are real, what else are we going to find here?' she asked nervously.

'We need to know. This is part of our world now. There's no point in freaking out. It's too late for that.'

'What else is there?'

'An Emelia Roundhead who was a known Shifter, worked with the Skulls.'

Lana gulped, 'A Shifter? Is that what I think it is?'

Emma continued to read the description to herself before nodding, 'Yeah. It's a creature that looks human that can change its form to look like someone else,' she shivered.

'Is that all the Emelias and Dorises?'

'Yeah. What should we look up next?'

'Try Nameless'

'No, nothing,' Emma said as she thought for a second and typed in, Unidentified.

A list with the title, Paranormal Individuals who remain Unidentified, appeared on the screen. Scrolling through them, the girls subconsciously inched closer together.

'Amazons, Angels, Banshees, Changelings, Demons, Djinns, Elementals, Fae, Ghosts, Ghouls, Harpies, Mothmen, Mermaids, Ogres, Shifters, Sirens, Wendigos, Werewolves, Witches, Vampires, Zombies ... the list goes on, Sis.'

But Lana had gone white.

Turning to look at her, Emma couldn't help but laugh a little, albeit somewhat nervously herself. 'Might as well get used to those names because we're going to be dealing with this kind of thing a lot in our future,' she joked half-heartedly.

'I... I'm not so sure I want this future,' she gulped.

'Really Lana? You don't mean that, do you? Remember how we felt when we attacked those guys in the alley? Yeah?' she said as Lana nodded. 'Remember that rush of adrenaline. That kick we got? Well, we get to feel like that all the time once we pass this task and go to the Academy. This is what we're meant to do with our lives, Lana. It might sound scary now but look how lucky we are. This is phenomenally awesome,' she laughed.

'I... I guess so,' Lana said, calming down. 'It's just a bit freaky that's all.'

Emma leaned her head momentarily on Lana's shoulder, 'I know Sis. I know.'