Dark Souls

  She moved to twitch the curtain back into place, but something stopped her. A light flickering — the tiniest light. A candle.

  The ghost was there.

  Miranda froze, still clutching one of the curtains. He looked even more breathtaking this time, his face like chiseled marble. She was staring at him, she knew, but it was like staring at someone up on the screen of a movie theater. He was an idol, someone to gawk at, to admire. What he was thinking when he looked at her, Miranda wasn’t sure. She was just a teenage girl wearing pajamas from the Garnet Hill catalog, her auburn hair messy and her eyes crusted with sleep. But there was something about his intense gaze that made her feel special. Picked out in some way. Only a few people could see ghosts: That was what Nick had said. The way this ghost looked at her — it was as though there was something between them. As though he knew her.

  The ghost held up his right hand, just as he had last time, and a burst of cold, an injection of it, seemed to pierce her through the glass. Miranda pressed her own hand against the window. She knew what to expect now, the surge of cold playing through her veins, from her fingertips to her toes. And this time she wasn’t overwhelmed by shock; she had enough sense to notice details about the ghost. The sleeves of his shirt drooped, like a pirate’s shirt. She’d thought his fingers were dirty, but it was really just his fingertips, as though he’d been dipping them in something like ink — or blood. The wound across his neck, clearly visible, was a purple line.

  Tonight he wasn’t smiling at all, but his eyes were warm, velvety dark. Miranda wished there weren’t two closed windows — and a stretch of very cold open air — separating them. She wanted to talk to him, like she’d talked to that little girl ghost, Mary, in the street. Maybe, like Mary, he had something to tell her. She’d seen him three times now: That had to mean something. When she saw Nick again — if she saw Nick — she’d ask him.

  The ghost opened his mouth. Was he trying to say something? Then the flame of the candle leapt, just for an instant, and died. Everything was dark again — inside, outside. He was gone.

  Miranda peeled her hand off the glass and staggered back to bed. The sharp jolt of cold had stopped as soon as the candle went out, but she still felt shivery. She pulled the quilt back up onto the bed and snuggled down, her heart racing. What was he going to say to her? What did he want her to know?

  When she finally fell asleep, Miranda dreamed of walking along the city walls at dusk. Jenna was there, pleading with her to go on a double date with that cute Spanish exchange student, Alejandro. In the distance, the ghost watchman she and Nick had seen was pacing the battlements, holding a shining lantern. Miranda walked past Jenna, ignoring her pleas. All she wanted to do was get close to the ghost. As she grew closer, she could see that he was talking, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Press your hands down,” Nick’s voice told her, and the dream-Miranda dropped to her hands and knees. She was crawling along the stone walkway, the stones vibrating beneath the palms of her hands. The ghost wore a black coat, just like Nick’s. It flapped open in the wind, the long tails wafting with every step. When she got closer, she realized that the man walking toward her along the walls wasn’t the ghost at all. It was Nick, and he wasn’t smiling. He was angry.

  Someone was banging on the door downstairs — banging, banging, banging. Then there were thudding footsteps, and agitated voices. Miranda opened her eyes, still feeling groggy. She didn’t know if it was nighttime or morning, or if she was dreaming or awake. Her father was bellowing Rob’s name.

  Miranda squinted at her cell phone: It read 7:53. Rob’s door squeaked open.

  “What?” he called, sounding sleepy.

  “Sally’s here,” Jeff shouted up the stairs.

  Miranda groped around the floor for a sweater to pull over her pajamas. Why was Sally coming by so early in the morning? The White Boar Inn didn’t open for hours and hours, so they could hardly need Rob’s amateur services at this very minute.

  In the hallway, she bumped into Rob, still in his usual sleep gear of boxer shorts and an Iowa Hawkeyes T-shirt. Miranda followed him down the stairs. Sally was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. Jeff and Peggy were both standing, looking very serious. When Rob approached Sally, she started crying.

  “What is it?” he said, hurling himself at her feet, one protective arm thrown around the chair. Miranda stood on the landing, swallowing back panic. Something terrible must have happened. No more accidents, she prayed silently. Please, no more accidents.

  “There was a break-in at the pub,” Jeff explained. “The pub cellar. It was vandalized — that’s right, isn’t it, Sally?”

  Sally nodded, brushing tears away.

  “What do you mean, vandalized?” asked Rob.

  “Everything thrown around,” Sally said, sniffing. “Barrels disconnected, beer poured everywhere. It’s just a mess.”

  “But everyone’s okay?” Rob asked in a low voice, and Sally nodded again. Miranda exhaled, relieved that nobody seemed to have been hurt. “Just a break-in, right?”

  “It wasn’t a break-in, though.” Sally looked up at Peggy and Jeff, her face pale and streaked with tears. “That’s the mystery. No sign of a forced entry at all, the police say.”

  “The police?” Rob echoed.

  “They’re over at the pub now. The door leading down there was locked, and the access in the alley — you know, the trapdoors. They were locked, too. Locked and bolted.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Peggy said, her voice anxious, glancing over at Jeff.

  “I know,” Sally said. “That’s why they want to see Rob.”

  “Me? Who wants to see me?”

  “My parents. The police.” Sally looked as though she was about to cry again. “You’re the only other person with a key.”

  “They didn’t think I did it?” Rob frowned. He stood up slowly.

  “They don’t know what to think,” said Sally, her eyes welling up. “That’s why I got so angry, and then all upset. I’m so stupid — I know this crying doesn’t help. But it’s so unfair to blame you.”

  “They’re blaming me?” Rob ran his hands through his hair. He looked like a cornered animal.

  “Not blaming — that was the wrong word.”

  “I’m sure they’re not blaming anyone.” Jeff sounded gruff. “But of course they want to talk to you, to see if you can help shed any light on all this. Sally, what about the employees who left last weekend? Maybe one of them still has a key.”

  Sally shook her head.

  “They handed them in. And anyway, Dad had the locks changed on Monday, just to be safe. That’s why nobody understands how this could have happened.”

  “I’ll go talk to them now, if that’s what you want.” Rob looked at Sally, and she started to get up, pushing her chair back. “I just have to get dressed.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Jeff.

  “Okay,” said Rob, and he bounded off up the stairs.

  “I think I’ll go with you, too.” Peggy put down the coffee mug she’d been cradling throughout the conversation. “Rather than just stand around here worrying.”

  “I’ll go get dressed, then,” said Miranda, turning on her heels.

  “No need for you to come,” said her father.

  “You’re staying here,” said her mother, practically at the same time.

  “Why?” Miranda was indignant. Sally flashed her a sympathetic look.

  “There’s no need to make a family excursion out of this,” said Peggy. “You can just stay here and have your breakfast. We’ll be back soon.”

  “Very soon.” Jeff nodded. “Once we explain to Sally’s parents about Rob’s condition …”

  “No!” Miranda was amazed at how quickly she’d reacted, and how loudly she’d shouted. Everyone looked at her. “I don’t think Rob would want you to … explain things. Or say … anything about … anything. You know.”

  Sally looked completely befuddled. Miranda wondered i
f she should ask Sally to go wait outside in the street while she ordered her parents to keep their mouths shut about Rob’s claustrophobia. He would go nuts if he knew they’d breathed a word about it.

  Her father seemed to be catching on.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” he said. “But it might be important for them to know that Rob would never go into that cellar by choice.”

  “Why not?” asked Sally, genuinely puzzled. “He goes down there all the time. When he’s helping my father, I mean.”

  “Really?” Peggy paused in buttoning up her trench coat. “I’m … surprised to hear that. That’s … that’s good.”

  “It’s great,” agreed Jeff, a little too enthusiastically. Sally looked from one to the other, as though they were crazy Americans she couldn’t begin to understand. Miranda wished they would just stop talking.

  Rob came thudding down the stairs again, asking if anyone had seen his shoes.

  “By the door,” said Peggy. “You have the cellar key with you?”

  “It’s in my wallet,” Rob said, tapping his pocket. “Exactly where I put it last night. I checked.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” Sally said. Miranda thought she was trying to persuade herself, by the sound of it. Her cheeks had turned all flushed when Rob came downstairs again.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” echoed Jeff, and a few minutes later they were all gone, leaving Miranda nothing to do but sit at the table by herself, hoping that Rob wasn’t in any trouble, and wondering why bad things just kept on happening to them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When Rob and her parents got back from the White Boar, Rob’s mood was grim. Nobody had accused him of anything, he said, but they were all mystified about how a locked cellar could get trashed overnight. The police had recommended that he return the key to Joe, Sally’s father. Just to be on the safe side, they’d said; best not to have a spare key floating around.

  So now all Rob wanted to do was brood and mope. Jeff finally left for the archives, and Peggy had two rehearsals to squeeze in, one with the singers and a pianist in drafty Victory Hall, and the one this afternoon in the Minster, where Miranda would be going.

  Until then, Miranda was charged with “looking after Rob,” whatever that meant. Leaving him alone: That was the best thing, she decided. She bought him a plastic-wrapped sandwich from Marks & Spencer for lunch, using some money her mother had left tucked under the fruit bowl. Rob ate it in silence, sprawled on the sofa. When he said he was going out for a walk, she didn’t ask where he was going, and she didn’t remind him about the Minster rehearsal later on. Miranda knew that when things went wrong, sometimes the only company you could stand was your own.

  At the ticket desk inside the Minster’s south transept, Miranda flashed the EVENT PERSONNEL laminated pass her mother had left for her. Although the concert itself was going to take place in the main part of the cathedral — the nave, according to the brochure she was handed at the desk — the rehearsal was closeted away in the Quire, behind the impressive carved Screen of Kings. Musicians from a different orchestra, their rehearsal over, were on their way out, with her mother’s orchestra only just arriving. Musicians were easy to spot because of their instrument cases and — Miranda couldn’t help noticing — dubious fashion choices. One man struggled to wheel his giant double bass out through the safety doors. Miranda remembered a random piece of advice her mother once gave her, something about never dating a double bassist: They could never go out for a coffee after a concert, or drive a car smaller than a station wagon, because the instrument was just too big and unwieldy. The double bass was the least of this guy’s problems, thought Miranda. Peggy should have warned her about dating men who wore Crocs in the wintertime.

  While her mother’s musicians set up, Miranda wandered around the Minster, the biggest and oldest church she’d ever seen. On an overcast day like this, there was a chilly calm to the place. Though it was early in the afternoon, the church already seemed to be sinking into darkness, subdued purple-gray light filtering through the stained-glass windows.

  People sat in the rows of red-cushioned chairs set up for a service. Some were praying, more were talking, several were asleep, and one was actually eating his lunch. Miranda’s footsteps echoed across the marble floor. The stone of the columns and soaring ceilings looked scrubbed clean, like bones. Conservation work was going on all over the place. Miranda couldn’t even see into the crypt, which the guide told her lay directly beneath the Quire, because it was all boarded up, and a sign informed visitors that there would be no entry at all to the crypt until March. The pictures she’d seen in Tales of Old York would have to suffice, Miranda thought, drifting toward the Great East Window.

  This was another building site, she discovered. In the far corner, a stonemason sat on a low wooden stool, chipping at a stone embellishment set low in a column. In place of the tennis court—size window hung a giant printed banner, a reproduction. The real thing was being taken to pieces elsewhere.

  “It’s said that the Minster can never be completely finished,” came a voice from behind her — so close behind her that Miranda could feel his breath on her neck. Nick!

  Miranda swung around. Nick stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing up at the giant window poster.

  “There’s always scaffolding up somewhere,” he continued, not looking at Miranda. “And the story is, a promise was made to return the Minster to the Roman Catholics, but only when it was finished. So the Church of England makes sure it’s never finished.”

  “Is that true?” Miranda was so relieved to see him. Or rather — that he’d seen her first, as usual, and still wanted to speak to her.

  “No.” Nick grinned. “Nothing is true. Everything’s just lies and stories and broken promises. Isn’t it?”

  Miranda felt a pang of guilt.

  “I’m so sorry about last night,” she said in a breathless rush. “I got there early, but my father was at the museum, the one in Monk Bar, and he saw me and … I just had to go. I hope you weren’t waiting forever.”

  “I saw you go,” he said casually, as though it was no big deal.

  “You … you saw me?”

  “I keep my eyes open.” Nick looked at her. She could tell that he wasn’t angry. He had the slightest smile on his face — sardonic, of course.

  “So, are you following me?” Miranda teased. Something about being here in the Minster, standing in an actual building, made her feel more secure, more brave. Until now, she’d only ever seen Nick out in the streets.

  “I could ask the same of you,” he said. “I come in here every day. And now, all of a sudden, here you are.”

  “I thought you didn’t like the Minster.”

  “Well, you know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  “Which am I?”

  “Hmmm. Not sure yet.” He was still looking at her straight in the eyes, and Miranda felt very shy all of a sudden.

  “I’m … I’m here for the rehearsal,” she said. The stonemason working on the column dropped something — some sort of tool, like a chisel, Miranda guessed, watching it shoot across the shiny floor. She leaned over to pick it up so he wouldn’t have to get up from his low stool. But as her fingers reached for it, she grasped nothing but air. She could see the chisel, which looked homemade, but she couldn’t feel it at all.

  The man, his smile grateful, turned his head to look at Miranda. He was wearing the oddest floppy hat, and something that looked more like a tunic than an apron. He stretched out a dusty hand. Instantly, splinters of cold pinged through her, prickling the length of her body. Behind her she could hear Nick’s soft laugh. Right in front of her eyes, the stonemason faded from sight. Moments later, there was nothing — not him, not his stool, not his wayward chisel.

  “He’s always here,” Nick told her. “Somewhere in the Minster. Always messing with some piece of stonework. Probably his mates murdered him because he was a perfectionist. Doe
sn’t like me much, but he seemed to take to you. At least his dog wasn’t around today. That animal’s a menace.”

  “His dog is a ghost?” Miranda didn’t even know that was possible. And then she thought of the black cat slinking around the White Boar Inn — the cat that her parents couldn’t see. Maybe she’d already spotted an animal ghost without realizing it.

  Nick was nodding.

  “Loads of people have heard him bark. Even people who can’t see him can hear him. You’ll see people looking all around for him — they think someone’s brought a dog in. He hates me, for some reason. Barks like mad whenever he sees me.”

  “I didn’t think about ghosts in the Minster,” Miranda confessed. She should have realized the stonemason was a ghost. She wondered how many other ghosts she was passing every day, stupidly unaware that they’d been alive in another century.

  Nick opened his mouth to say something, but the next voice Miranda heard was her mother’s, distant and muffled, but recognizable nonetheless. She was calling the orchestra to order. A violin squeaked; there was some laughter.

  “The rehearsal’s beginning,” she told Nick. “My mother’s conducting the orchestra. Do you want to sit in for a little while? It’s in the Quire.”

  Nick’s face clouded over, as though Miranda had just said a terrible thing. As though he’d just decided she was a ghost.

  “Go ahead. I’ll catch you up.” He stood with his hands in his pockets. Miranda hesitated — was he just planning on leaving abruptly, the way he usually did? She walked away slowly, willing him to follow, looking for the entrance to the Quire. It wasn’t far. On the stairs, she looked back; Nick was still standing there watching her.

  “Sit in the back,” he called, and she nodded.

  Sitting in one of the choir stalls — in the back, as instructed — Miranda felt overawed by her surroundings. The Quire was a sanctuary at the heart of the cathedral. It looked like a beautiful jewelry box, exquisitely carved and upholstered. The orchestra and singers sat on ordinary folding chairs, but Miranda, tucked into a corner so she could see everything, felt as though she were sitting on a throne. Above her head loomed the shining pipes of the organ. Colorful shields and heraldic emblems were set into the wood all around the stalls. A hymnbook sat in front of her, and there was a cushioned rest at her feet, to kneel on during prayers. In the very center of the Quire, separating the choir stalls from the orchestra’s area, stood an imposing golden lectern shaped like an eagle.