Ghost and Bone Read online

  “Do that again.”

  They all watched as the phone turned solid and then ghostly again as soon as Oscar caught it.

  “This breaks all the rules!” Lady Margaret snapped. Somehow she seemed even angrier now. “People and their possessions should not be able to switch between being living and ghost. And paragraph 19,233 of Ghost Immigration Control states that being dead without holding a living world visa or being accompanied by a spirit guide is against the law of the Ministry of Ghosts!”

  “I have a theory, ma’am,” Sally said. “See, I don’t think it’s Oscar’s fault.”

  Lady Margaret narrowed her eyes. “A theory?” she snarled, as if theories were things she scraped off her shoe.

  Oscar was delighted that Sally had dragged Lady Margaret’s terrifying glare away from him, if only for a moment. He was even more delighted that she seemed to be on his side.

  In a brisk, official manner, Sally gave Lady Margaret a quick account of what had happened to Oscar in the mortuary.

  “We all know that poltergeisting that strong needs a huge amount of phantasma,” Sally concluded. “Exposure to the phantasma probably triggered something inside Oscar. That’s why his abilities came alive.”

  “Grimstone!” Lady Margaret snapped back to Oscar. “Describe this man you say you saw outside your house again.”

  Oscar tried hard to remember. “He had a hat—like an old-fashioned detective—and he was wearing a scarf over his face. I couldn’t see much!”

  “How convenient!” Lady Margaret didn’t look convinced. “That’s hardly a description. You remember anything else about this alleged assassin?”

  “No,” Oscar said, looking down.

  “Pff. I don’t believe this story!” Lady Margaret said. “Poltergeisting is a Forbidden Craft. I can’t think of a single ghost with the power or the knowledge to pull off what you describe. It sounds ridiculous! And I can’t believe that you’ve fallen for this live human’s nonsense, Detective Cromarty.”

  “With respect, Lady Margaret,” Sally said, “there were very high levels of residual phantasma in the funeral house. Something happened there.”

  “Why would any ghost want anything to do with this idiot?” Lady Margaret asked. She seemed determined to ignore what Sally was saying. “Ridiculous!”

  “I think I can prove it, ma’am,” Sally replied.

  “Go on, then,” Lady Margaret snapped.

  “So…” Sally gave Oscar an encouraging smile before she continued. “Can you think of anyone who’s dead who might have a bone to pick with you or your mother?”

  Oscar thought for a bit.

  “No,” he said. “We’re always very nice to the dead.”

  “And how long has your family been in the funeral business?” Sally asked.

  Lady Margaret leaned in like a cobra ready to strike.

  “Since my grandma—my dad’s mother started it.” Oscar was so unnerved by Lady Margaret’s glaring eyes that he started to babble. “Her name was Barbara—and she was a single mum, very unusual in those days for a woman to run a successful business. No one knew who my grandfather was….”

  Lady Margaret snorted with disgust.

  “I fail to see how this heartwarming story is in any way relevant, Detective. You’ve proved nothing. There’s been some kind of accident. That’s what’s happened.”

  Before Sally could argue again, the door opened, and a short, plump man rushed into the room. His tweed suit was a disheveled mess. At least six pocket watches dangled on long golden chains across his chest. He was examining one of them as he came into the room.

  “So late, so inconvenient,” he muttered, throwing his briefcase onto the table.

  Lady Margaret’s demeanor transformed in an instant. Half-panicked, she stood ramrod-straight, exchanged her frown for an ingratiating grin, and quickly crushed her cigarette out on the ground with a snap of her stilettoed heel.

  “Sir.” She bowed deeply as she shook the newcomer’s hand. She had to bow deeply because she was about three feet taller than him. “This is truly an honor, only you needn’t have come. This is just a small matter, practically resolved already….”

  The two of them started whispering, too low for Oscar to hear.

  The man glanced at Sally. She was standing to attention too and caught his eye.

  “Sir Merriweather Northcote,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Second in charge of the Ministry. Mortis’s right-hand man. Big, big, big cheese. Very important.”

  Turning from Lady Margaret, Northcote rummaged through his briefcase until he pulled out a sheet of paper. He frowned at it, then looked straight at Oscar. His weak, watery eyes gave nothing away.

  “So you can turn into a ghost, eh?” he said.

  “Um…” Oscar wasn’t sure if that was true.

  “Quick, boy! Do you know how valuable my time is?”

  “No?” Oscar answered truthfully.

  “Is he an idiot?” Northcote snapped. “Does he know how much Mortis’s damned paperwork is towering up on my desk, solely because of his antics this night?”

  “He is both unnaturally stupid,” Lady Margaret said, “and unnatural.”

  “Not a winning combination,” said Northcote. “Now…” He fumbled around in his various pockets. “Where are my blasted glasses?!”

  “On your head, sir,” Sally said with a straight face.

  Northcote glared at her. “You aren’t much better, Detective. This boy is extremely dangerous, and you’ve let him run riot. It will be noted on your permanent record. Lucky for you that you’ve proved reliable in the past.”

  “Very poor judgment.” Lady Margaret glared daggers at Sally. “Not what the GLE expects in our senior officers. The boy is certainly dangerous. The detective should have sensed that immediately.”

  Oscar was about to say that was ridiculous. Dangerous! How could he be dangerous? And then he thought about the wilting flowers—and how everything he touched died—and his own protest died in his throat. He looked down at his knees, blinking. What if they were right? Maybe he was dangerous. Maybe that’s why his dad had died….

  “It’s not his fault, sir!” Sally yelled.

  The fact that she was standing up for him made Oscar feel even worse. He hadn’t told Sally the whole truth, had he? He hadn’t mentioned his Curse.

  “Fault is not the issue,” snapped Northcote. “Keeping a lid on this little problem is. Lady Margaret, I trust you will personally contain this now. Send the boy home, until we can work out what to do with him. This is a delicate time, as you know—any hint of an upset could be very significant.”

  “Of course, sir!” Lady Margaret bowed. “Not a whisper will leak out. You can count on the GLE to do its duty, my personal guarantee.”

  “Good.” Northcote pulled three watches out of his waistcoat, inspected them all with a sigh. “So much to do, so little time. But that’s the curse of being late, eh!”

  He bustled out of the room.

  Lady Margaret’s oily simper vanished, and a stormy scowl took its place. The sudden change of expression on her shredded face was horrific. Oscar had never realized that so many muscles went into a frown.

  “Take this problem home, Detective. Make sure it disappears. Boy—you will not change into a ghost again. When the Ministry knows its position, you will be contacted. Have I made myself clear?”

  “But what about the ghost that attacked him?” Sally said. “The man in the hat! That might be even more dangerous.”

  Oscar was impressed that Sally still dared to argue with Lady Margaret.

  “I am not interested in your theories, girl. I am interested in doing what my superiors tell me to do. You would do well to follow my example.” The threat was clear.

  With one last scowl for good luck, Lady Margaret left the
room.

  Sally took Oscar to the untidy office she shared with Sir Cedric. The headquarters of the GLE was a chaos of corridors and staircases, full of busy ghosts bustling around. There were huge crystal chandeliers hanging from the ornate ceilings. The cornices were decorated with more gargoyles, whose monstrous faces overlooked tapestries: some of the images depicted famous arrests, and others were portraits of ex–police chiefs. Sally’s office was high up, near the top of the tower. The door was carved in spiky gothic letters with her and Cedric’s initials and the words Detectives, Phantasmic Breaches, and Forbidden Crafts.

  Inside, the room was bathed in moonlight from a magnificent arched window that gave a view over the park and the city beyond: the sprawling jumble of living and dead cities, falling all over each other—half-sparkling, half-dark.

  Around the stone-flagged office, documents and forms and folders were piled into teetering mountain ranges on every available surface. Comic books and old-fashioned serial storybooks poked out of the stacks. Oscar also noticed a giant jar of candy. Sir Cedric wasn’t there.

  “That hag called me girl!” Sally was still fuming about Lady Margaret. “She doesn’t care about cases or helping the dead. All she cares about is sucking up to the chief and getting promoted. You know Lady Margaret’s only been dead for fifteen years!”

  “Don’t worry…I’m sure you’ll get there one day,” Oscar said.

  “If I wanted to get there, I would have done it last century,” Sally snapped. “Who’d want to be Lady Margaret? All she does is toady up to Mr. Mortis and push paper around. She’s an idiot!”

  “Why does she look so…”

  “Rat-bitten? Because she thinks it’s more dramatic, I suppose. We ghosts can appear pretty much how we like. Though most of us prefer to look like we used to. It just feels right, you know.”

  Oscar had always wanted to have long hair, but his mum had never let him. He thought hard about his hair growing for a second, then put his hand to his neck to find…

  “Gosh,” Oscar said.

  “Yeah,” said Sally, cocking her head to one side. “I think that suits you better. Do you want a Gobstopper?”

  “Um…yes, please.” Oscar took one of the round hard candies and popped it in his mouth. It tasted almost right—a sort of dusty lemonish flavor. His new hair felt a bit heavy when he moved his head.

  Sally had pulled out a typewriter and began typing furiously. After a minute, she ripped the sheet of paper from the machine and held it up in the air.

  It vanished.

  “Good. Off to the visa people at Ghost Immigration. That’ll start the ball rolling on finding your dad. If he ever stuck around in the Living World and got a visa, they’ll know,” she said.

  Oscar pointed at the typewriter. “How did that…” He trailed off, realizing he was asking another question, which Sally didn’t like him doing.

  “Phantasma,” replied Sally. “It’s not just people who have it. It’s everywhere, and it can be harnessed like an energy source. That message was just powered through the phantasmic barrier, across the void, straight to those pen-pushing bureaucrats. Voilà! So what about you? I’m supposed to take you home now.”

  “I don’t want to go home,” said Oscar quickly. “I want to find out what’s going on….And thank you for looking for my dad.”

  “No problem.” Sally looked at him. It was another one of her long, penetrating stares. It felt like her gray eyes were scalpels, peeling him apart. It was doubly odd coming from a thirteen-year-old girl.

  “Tell me, Oscar,” she said eventually, “why do you want to stay a ghost? Normally that’s the last thing a living person wants to be.”

  Oscar had to stop and think. It was pretty bonkers when you put it like that. He wondered again if he should tell her the truth.

  You see the thing is, Sally, I’m a freak. I kill things I touch.

  He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Well…someone tried to kill me. I can’t just wait for them to attack me again.”

  “Sure,” Sally said. “That makes sense, but do you really want to stay dead?”

  “Yes,” Oscar said, surprised by how sure he felt. “I like it here. It’s like…here I make more sense, you know? And I can run really fast and I don’t have to use my crutch….This is basically the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me!”

  Sally grinned. “That’s good. Because I would have taken you back if you wanted. But we’re not going to do that now.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Really annoy Lady Margaret.”

  Sally scribbled a note to Cedric, explaining that he had to cover for her for a bit. Then they borrowed a carriage and horses and rattled north as if a full-on riot of blood-crazed knights was behind them. A hour later, they turned onto a small nondescript street. It was dark, and everyone was still asleep.

  “Here we are,” Sally said, pulling at the reins. “I’m the red door.”

  Her house was modest, practically indistinguishable from a thousand other London terraced houses—except that it was slipped inside another, real house—like a hand inside a glove.

  The front door wasn’t locked either. Inside, he found a bigger mess than in her office. Mounds of papers. Half-read books in teetering towers. Three jam sandwiches forgotten on the sofa—and bags of sweets everywhere. They were all made by the same sweetmaker: Mr. Werther. Gas lamps gave light from where they hung on the walls, lending strange shapes to the garish Victorian textured wallpaper.

  The living room was aglow in a constant shimmering fire that burned in the grate. A large bulletin board was covered in notes and strings. It looked like a spider had started a scrapbook.

  Oscar tiptoed through the clutter to investigate. In the center of the board, at the heart of the maze of string, was a stiff old black-and-white photograph of a Victorian man and woman. The woman was pretty, and her familiarly high cheekbones and sharp sparkling eyes looked so much like Sally’s that Oscar knew she must be her mother. The man was in a detective uniform. Next to them, a tattered Wanted poster caught Oscar’s eye.

  Hieronymus Jones

  The diabolical alchemist and inventor is wanted in connection with forty-two outstanding crimes, including ghost murder, mischievous and malignant hauntings, inappropriate use of phantasma with intent to harm, and the possession of forbidden devices and contraptions in contravention of Article 15, 23, and 234 of the Ghost Convention of 1934. Jones died in 1888 but is unlikely to dress in Victorian clothes. He is a master of disguise and has been known to hide in plain sight. Do not approach unless suitably shielded. Please alert the authorities immediately if you have any information about this highly dangerous ghost.

  Sally came into the room.

  “Did you catch him yet?” Oscar asked, pointing at the poster.

  Sally’s eyes blazed. Oscar was surprised at how furious she looked.

  “No,” she said. “That’s not important. Just a cold case I’m working on.” With a grunt of effort, she grabbed the board and flipped it over.

  “Sorry,” Oscar said. “I didn’t—”

  “It’s time to start a new case,” Sally interrupted. “The mystery of Oscar Grimstone.”

  They both got to work. Sally wrote SUSPECT. Beneath she gave a profile of the attacker: Wears hat and scarf. Trained in poltergeisting. Oscar helped her pin a piece of string to another bundle of information labeled WITNESS. There was a profile of Oscar: Oscar Grimstone, twelve years and seven months old, from Little Worthington. Able to turn into a ghost. Phantasma readings off the charts.

  Once again, Oscar wondered if he should tell Sally about his Curse. That he killed things he touched. He glanced at her. She was scribbling on a note card, eyes gleaming, filled with purpose. Maybe he could trust her?

  But before Oscar could decide, a piece of paper suddenly appe
ared in the air. Sally snatched it up and read it quickly, then handed it Oscar.

  NO SIGN JULIAN GRIMSTONE

  “Does that mean he’s not here?” said Oscar. His voice wobbled. He hadn’t realized how much hope had built up inside him. Tears formed in his eyes.

  “No—it just means that there’s no record of him in ghost London right now.” Sally put a hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “But don’t worry, Oscar. Plenty of ghosts slip through the cracks. Just means we need to do more digging.”

  Oscar took a deep breath. “Okay. Can we do that now?”

  Sally stuck a card on the bulletin board, beneath the profile of Oscar: Julian Grimstone. “Sure. If we find out about your dad, we might discover what you are exactly. Maybe he’ll have the answers.”

  Sally turned from the room.

  “So where do we go?” Oscar said, following her out the front door.

  “The place is kind of hard to describe.”

  They climbed into Sally’s cart and galloped through the streets of London. This time, Sally pushed the skeleton horses so recklessly through the oncoming traffic, that Oscar closed his eyes the whole way. It was really hard to remember that the bus you were riding toward was not going to smash you and your ghost carriage into a million pieces.

  He was very relieved when Sally drew up the horses outside the British Library.

  The normal, living person’s building was shut up for the night, but a small, discreet wooden door shimmered a ghostly silver in the redbrick wall. A flickering green lantern above the door illuminated a sign that read Department of Records.

  “This is where they keep track of everyone who has ever lived and died,” Sally explained. “And everyone on the Other Side as well. We can find your dad’s file, and yours too. But I warn you: Try to stay calm, all right? You’ll get used to it after a few breaths.”

  “Stay calm? What do you mea— ARGH!”

  Oscar saw what was on the other side of the door, and his mind seemed to explode.