Ghost and Bone Read online

  “Where are we?” Oscar asked.

  “The void!” Sally yelled. “And these are void horses, descended from the steeds of the Valkyries. They run so quick they can break the phantasmic barrier. That’s why they need to be bony! Can’t have any extra weight.”

  “Right,” Oscar said. None of it sounded very reassuring.

  “Whoooah!” Sir Cedric pulled up hard on the reins.

  There was a bright flash. The fog cleared.

  They were on a busy road, lights glaring out from bars, late-night stores, and high office buildings—some ancient, some made of glass, reaching high overhead.

  Is this…London? Oscar wondered. That’s fifty miles away!

  A pair of bright headlights blazed down on them. Sir Cedric didn’t flinch or steer away.

  It was a bus! A big red London bus and it was coming straight for them. Oscar screamed as the light filled his vision. He continued screaming as they drove on through it. The driver and then the passengers sitting in their seats flashed past him. None of the passengers looked up from their phones.

  Oscar was crouched in the bottom of the cart with his hands over his eyes.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Sally said. She was chuckling.

  They drove straight through another bus, then streams of cars and other vehicles. Oscar managed not to cry out but couldn’t stop himself flinching each time. To distract himself, he tried to look about him.

  “Where are we?”

  “Fleet Street,” Sally answered. “Pretty good driving, Sir C—it’s hard to be accurate in the void.”

  Then all pitched forward as Sir Cedric grunted and jerked on the reins. The cart stopped hard, the horses rearing up.

  “Blimey!” shouted Sally down to someone in the road. “You watch yourself!”

  They’d narrowly avoided hitting a child. A small, shimmering child who’d run out into the street from a tavern to chase a flickering ball. Its mother came running out and picked up the crying little boy. She waved her thanks to Sir Cedric.

  “Ought to know better, Francine!” Sally cried as the cart moved off. “You’ve only had four hundred years to teach that child to mind a road!”

  “Is she a ghost?” Oscar asked.

  “Both of them are. Francine works at the Ancient Mariner inn—best jellied eels in Londinium. They both died in the Great Plague as I recall. Snagged a watching visa to look after her family and they’re still hanging about. Not ready to let go of the living world. Happens sometimes. People stick around for a whole host of reasons. Sir C, for example, he just couldn’t give up on the living world.”

  “That’s right,” the knight grunted.

  “Some ghosts have a skill they’ve mastered—and they just want to keep doing it forever. They’ve a passion, see? Others get offered a job at the Ministry….”

  “Is that what happened to you?” Oscar asked.

  “No. I had…unfinished business.” A dark gleam appeared in Sally’s eye.

  “Wait! So are there lots of ghosts, then?” Oscar asked, still desperately trying to keep up.

  “Why don’t you see for yourself?” Sally smirked.

  Oscar looked out the carriage window, and his mouth dropped open in astonishment.

  “Wha…whah…”

  The usual houses and cars and living pedestrians were there—but they all seemed a bit faded and gray. Moving amongst them, and shining brightly, were dozens of shimmering people dressed in all kinds of historic clothing—some had ruffles and flamboyant waistcoats, another man wore a vintage pin-striped suit and fedora, and a woman in an old-fashioned sari was buying a newspaper from a scruffy urchin on a street corner. The dead seemed more real than the living.

  “Why haven’t I seen any of this before?” Oscar whispered.

  Sally shrugged. “Maybe you just didn’t look properly.”

  “That mist did something to me.”

  There were shining ghost buildings too, crammed in the gaps between real houses—or even on top of them. They came in all types. Mud huts, ancient wooden houses, drunken, half-timbered mansions leaning out over the street. They had doors in strange places, and the ghosts were moving in and out of them as if they lived there.

  They did, presumably.

  Oscar was suddenly struck by how very, very old the city was. So many people had died here. So many houses had burned down, or fallen apart, or simply been built over. But it hadn’t gone away. Nothing went away, it seemed. “This is amazing!” Oscar said.

  Sally nodded. “You’d be surprised what goes on under your nose, eh? Londinium, a city of ghosts, right on top of the living city. And much more interesting, if you ask me.”

  She was right. What if his dad was here? The thought was almost too exciting to grab hold of. His dad! He might actually see him again.

  “Does my dad live here?” Oscar asked.

  “We can look him up,” Sir Cedric said. “He’ll be on the record.”

  Oscar couldn’t believe any of this. How did it all work? What would he say to his dad if he found him? How would he explain this to Mum?

  He stretched his bad leg like he always did when he was confused.

  But that ended up being a big mistake.

  The cold, tingly feeling inside him disappeared, and Oscar turned real and solid. He fell through the cart, thumping down into the road. Pain jolted through his bad leg. The horse and cart trotted away in front of him. Sally’s head was craned out the side, her wide eyes fixed on him with utter astonishment.

  Around him, the living world had turned back to full color. The noises of car horns and rushing traffic became loud, and Oscar realized that in his ghost form the sounds of the living world had been muted too. Oscar could still see the ghosts, though they had lost some of their shimmering moonlit quality.

  “Blimey,” said a bearded ghost wearing a cravat, turning from a line at a fruit stall to stare at Oscar.

  The fruit vendor, a large woman in an apron, gawked. “Did that ghost just turn into a fleshy?”

  “Won’t be a fleshy for much longer,” a thin woman in a ball gown said, looking past Oscar.

  A horn blared in Oscar’s ears. His head snapped round, and he was blinded by headlights. Two tons of black taxi skidded toward him. The taxi driver swerved to the right and crashed into a lamppost. A bicyclist smashed into the taxi and went somersaulting over his handlebars.

  He landed beside Oscar.

  A crowd gathered. Ghosts and people. The humans had no idea ghosts moved around them. Now Oscar was in his human form, the living regained their color and pointed at him, some taking out their phones to record videos.

  “…just appeared from thin air, I swear!”

  “…almost got hit!”

  The taxi driver was screaming at Oscar. The bicyclist was screaming at the taxi driver. Sally was screaming too, but only Oscar and the ghosts could hear her.

  “You idiot!” she yelled. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re making? Turn back into a ghost right now!”

  The cart had rolled on ten paces without him.

  “Um…ah…”

  It was impossible. He could feel all the people staring at him. His bad leg hurt where he’d landed awkwardly.

  “I don’t know how,” Oscar said.

  “You what?” the taxi driver growled.

  “Just think!” Sally shouted.

  But it was hard to think—with all those eyes and all that noise and confusion whirling around. The taxi driver and the cyclist were standing nose to nose and looked like they were about to fight.

  Oscar shut his eyes.

  “What are you doing, you idiot! Hurry up!” Sally yelled.

  The first time he’d done it, he’d seen the picture of his dad. That was when he changed.

  The second time he’d bee
n slipping through the cart, and then he’d thought about his dad and then…

  Oscar pictured his dad in his head. It wasn’t hard. He’d stared at that particular photo so many times. He knew every detail of it. His dad’s little bald spot. The faint smile on his lips. The careful way he was holding the little boy in his lap—as if he would never let anything bad happen to him.

  “You can do it, Oscar.”

  Oscar vanished.

  “Thank Mortis! You didn’t look like you knew how to turn back.” Sally chuckled.

  “Don’t do that again,” Sir Cedric said. “This is a level-three breach.”

  “Three?” Sally shook her head. “There’s more than thirty people who’ve seen him. It’s a four at least! You’re more trouble than a train full of soul feeders, Oscar.”

  “You’re too much paperwork,” Sir Cedric grumbled. Then he stiffened, like a dog catching a scent. “Hear that?”

  A wailing screech of a siren was coming closer and closer.

  “Uh-oh,” Sally said. “Here comes the awkward squad.”

  The siren was getting louder.

  “Who are they?” Oscar asked. “They don’t sound good.”

  “They’re not. They’re the wipers,” Sally started. “They’ll make sure no one remembers this little accident.” She cocked her head to one side. “Course, not sure what they’ll do about you. Me? I’d want you to talk, but the wipers do like everything to be tidy. And you’re a mess.”

  “I’m not a mess! I’m in danger,” Oscar pleaded. “My mum’s in danger. There was a ghost that attacked our mortuary. And I can meet my dad! I haven’t seen him since I was tiny. I need to find out what’s going on. Please don’t let them wipe me!”

  Sally and Sir Cedric exchanged a look. Because of his helmet, it was hard to tell what the knight was thinking, but Sally’s eyes widened.

  Oscar was worried too. If his memory got wiped, he’d forget all this amazing new stuff.

  Worse, he’d never meet his dad.

  Oscar didn’t wait for the wipers to find him. He jumped from the carriage and ran off down the nearest alley.

  His new legs worked like magic, and he just went, picking up speed until his toes were barely brushing the paving slabs. Left. A right. He was hurtling—but now his path was blocked by a crowd of tourists, arguing over a map.

  “Get out of the way!” Oscar shouted.

  The other ghosts moved, but the humans didn’t even look up.

  “WATCHIT!” Just as he was about to smash into the pack like a bowling ball, Oscar remembered that he was a ghost, and they wouldn’t be able to hear him.

  They couldn’t stop him either. Oscar zipped right through the tourists’ bodies without breaking stride. They didn’t notice a thing, though it felt a bit funny to run right through living people. Oscar got a little shiver, a scrap of thought, from each one. The last man was thinking about cabbages.

  “Hoy! Come back here, you rascal!” Sir Cedric roared.

  Oscar glanced over his shoulder and saw Sally and the armored knight tearing through the same crowd of tourists. They were right behind him!

  He shouldn’t have looked back. Suddenly, a wall was looming in front of him. There was no time to stop. Oscar threw his hands in front of his face, fully expecting to smash his teeth and smear his nose flat on the hard brick.

  Instead, he felt nothing. He surged through the wall into an empty office full of desks and computers.

  Nothing could stop him! Oscar let out a wild whoop as he charged on. He didn’t stop for doors, or water coolers, or photocopiers. He didn’t stop when he ran straight from one building into another. He didn’t stop when the floor suddenly disappeared and he found he was running on empty air over a busy street.

  As he sprinted on, he sank gradually back toward the ground, treading down through the air. He was aware that behind him, Sally and Sir Cedric were still chasing him, but he was also aware—with a burst of savage glee—that he was running away from them. These fools couldn’t keep up with Oscar Grimstone!

  Oscar had never run away from anyone in his life. He’d never felt like this either. Before, limping across a room without a crutch would leave him gasping for breath. Now, the pure joy of speed filled him with a golden glow. He wasn’t getting tired. He was getting faster.

  Funny how it took becoming a ghost to feel alive.

  And he wasn’t tiring out. As the two ghosts fell farther behind him, Oscar swerved off the road and charged down a narrow passage, ignoring the steep steps with great bounding strides. Ahead of him, the passage opened into a wider space. He could hear the murmur of a large crowd.

  Maybe he could lose the two police ghosts in…

  “Wha…,” Oscar moaned.

  He came out of the alley and stopped dead. He was on the riverbank. All around him, long lines of ghosts stretched out as far as he could see. Men, women, children, even babies shone brilliantly against the dull gray ordinary world. They were all waiting patiently to board an enormous ship that glowed with the same eerie ghost light. It was the biggest ship Oscar had ever seen—it had three great smokestacks like an old ocean liner out of the movies. Thousands of shivering green lights flickered at its windows.

  Something strange had happened to the river too. Oscar hadn’t spent much time in London, but he was pretty sure that the Thames couldn’t possibly be this wide. He couldn’t even see the other side—only a faint, far-off glow just beyond the horizon.

  It felt more like he was standing at the edge of a great black ocean.

  What was going on?

  “Hurry up! Hurry up! Last chance to board for your trip to the Other Side!” An officer in a crisp white uniform with a three-foot-long golden megaphone was roaring orders from the deck. “Keep calm and carry on queuing. We still have manners, even if we’re dead.”

  “There he is!”

  Oscar glanced back and saw Sally and Sir Cedric steaming down the passage toward him. He dived into the crowd, pushing through the neat lines. Ghosts groaned as he stepped on their toes and squeezed between them. After he made his way deep into the heart of the crowd, there were more grunts of disapproval, and several hard stares.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said the thin-lipped woman who he’d cut in front of. “I’ve been waiting here for two hours.”

  “I’m sorry,” Oscar said, thinking fast. If she made a scene, he was sure that Sally and Sir Cedric would notice at once. “I just…I just saw the killers who murdered me. They were back there. I was scared—I wanted to hide.”

  “Crumbs, I’m sorry, love.” The woman’s scowl softened. “That’s awful. Here take this—that way they won’t recognize you.”

  She shrugged off her large duffle coat.

  “Thank you,” Oscar said. Gratefully, he huddled deep inside the heavy coat.

  “Wait,” the lady said. “If they killed you, how are they dead as well?”

  “Well…It was funny.” Oscar started thinking of another lie. “They slipped on my blood…and drowned. That’s why they’re so angry!”

  “Nice one!” the lady said. “Shhh. Heads down. Here they come.”

  Through a gap in the duffle coat, Oscar saw Sir Cedric’s armored feet stomping right by him. He heard Sally calling his name.

  “Ooh—those two looked mean! So why did they want to kill you?”

  “Um…because my father was a…a judge, and he sent their brother to prison.”

  The woman, whose name was Muffy, kept on asking questions, and Oscar’s lie kept getting bigger and stranger. It turned out that Muffy had died because she’d choked on a grape.

  “It’s not nearly as dramatic as being murdered,” she sniffed. “The chap from this ministry who collected me found it pretty amusing. Guess I could see the funny side. It’s all a bit of fun being dead, isn’t it?”

>   All the time, the lines of ghosts continued to shuffle forward. They actually moved quickly. The officer with the megaphone kept roaring instructions, urging them on and praising the ghosts for staying in an organized line. Oscar still wasn’t sure why everyone wanted to board this huge steamship.

  As they got closer, Oscar realized—with a jolt of horror—that the ship was actually made of bones.

  “Nearly there,” said Muffy cheerfully. “I wonder what happens on the Other Side.”

  Oscar decided he didn’t want to find out.

  “Thanks for the coat, Muffy,” he said. “But there’s something important I just remembered. Good luck!”

  He tried to sneak away—but he was instantly spotted by Captain Megaphone.

  “Hey there! Step back in line!” the officer boomed. “No barging, no cutting!”

  Oscar didn’t step back in line. He continued walking away, hoping it wasn’t him that had been spotted.

  It was.

  Out of nowhere, two skeleton sailors appeared on either side of him. They grabbed his arms so that he couldn’t move. Their ivory-yellow grins were not friendly.

  “Excuse me…,” one skeleton said, raising his hand to stop him. “Do you happen to have a visa to stay in the Living World, sir?”

  “No, I don’t,” Oscar said. “But that’s all right. I was just on my way to get one.”

  “Oh, that won’t do, sir,” the other skeleton said. “If you’ve been assigned to cross over to the Other Side—that’s what you’ve got to do. You had a chance to apply for living world visas when you filled out the post-death forms. I trust your spirit guide gave you the post-death forms?”

  “Yes! I mean…No! I just need to—”

  “No, you don’t, sir. No visa, no sticking around. Let’s carry him on board, Bob.”

  “Right you are, Helen. Up he goes.”

  As if he weighed nothing, the two skeletons lifted Oscar up by his arms and carried him between the patient rows of ghosts toward the gangway that led up to the ship. There was nothing Oscar could do about it. Their bony fingers were as cold and strong as iron bars.

  “Wait!” he shouted. “There’s been a mistake.”