Dial a Ghost

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Is this all yours, honest?’ asked Trevor as he and Oliver made their way up the drive. The roof and towers of Helton in the sunrise looked like an ogre’s castle in a book. ‘No wonder you didn’t want it. What a pile!’

Oliver didn’t answer. Now that he was back, he was wondering why he’d been in such a panic to come home. It had come over him suddenly after Trevor’s party; sitting up in bed it got so strong, the feeling that his ghosts needed him, that he’d started to dress almost without thinking. He’d meant to creep out alone and take the night train, but Trevor had ears like a lynx. It was horrid, deceiving Matron, but nothing could have stopped Oliver.

But why had he felt like that? Everything was peaceful and quiet.

‘They’re probably still asleep,’ he said, and pushed open the big oak door.

It was very peaceful and very quiet. Addie would probably be in the bathroom trying to make the python sick, and Uncle Henry would be doing his exercises. He liked to get through them before Aunt Maud got up and told him not to strain himself.

Was it too quiet?

‘There’s a funny smell,’ said Trevor.

Oliver had noticed it too. A sweet, sickly smell, drifting down the shallow marble steps towards them.

‘Best prop the door open,’ said Trevor and tugged at the heavy bolts.

Oliver did not help him. He was walking like a zombie towards the drawing room door. He had reached it somehow… opened it.

The ghosts were inside, all of them. And they were asleep. Oliver said this aloud so as to make certain that it was true.

‘They’re sleeping,’ he said to Trevor.

He wouldn’t ask himself why they were lying like that… like sacks waiting to be dumped… like those piled-up bodies he had seen in pictures of war.

Trevor put an arm round his friend’s shoulders. He’d known at once what Oliver would not admit: that something was terribly wrong.

They began to move about among the ghosts; to call them.

Not one of them stirred. Not one of them opened their eyes.

Grandma lay under a carved wooden table. Mr Hofmann’s sad old head was in her arms; she must have tried to shelter with him under the table like people did in air raids. But what had happened here was nothing as simple as a bomb.

Eric had slithered to the ground beside his father and both of them had brought their hands up to their foreheads in a salute, as if they wanted to meet what was coming like soldiers or like Scouts.

Only what had come? What had turned this room into a battlefield?

Aunt Maud lay close to her husband, her face turned towards him as it always was when she wanted comfort. Oliver picked up her hand and felt none of the lovely, slithery lightness he was used to. It felt heavy and curdled and when he let it go, it dropped like a stone.

‘I can’t bear it,’ said Oliver, and gritted his teeth because he was being sorry for himself and there might be hope still, and something he could do.

He moved on to Sir Pelham. If anyone could survive an attack it would be him — but when he turned the hairy, pock-marked face towards him, the head lolled back and the sightless eyes were like black pits of nothingness.

‘It’s to do with that smell, I’m sure,’ said Trevor. ‘If we could get them outside into the air… ’

But Oliver had found Adopta. She lay between Aunt Maud and Lady de Bone, and both spectres had stretched out their twisted limbs towards her as though even in their final agony they’d fought for her. No, he’d got that wrong. Their arms were sheltering her, not grasping. They had made an arch round Addie’s head; they had had time to make their peace.

Oliver knelt down beside his friend. The sponge bag had dropped from her fingers; her tumbled hair was spread out in a halo behind her head. She was so frail that he could make out the pattern of the carpet beneath her shoulders.

‘Addie, you can’t go away, you can’t. I need you so much. Remember all the things we were going to do? Please, Addie, please.’

As he tried to call her back, to prop her up, his tears fell on her upturned face. But nothing woke her, and to Oliver suddenly it was as though the end of the world had come. Everything bad that had happened to him: his parents dying, the year he had been shunted between people who didn’t want him… everything got him by the throat.

‘It’s my fault,’ he sobbed. ‘It’s because I went away and left them.’ And then: ‘I don’t want to live.’

Trevor had been trying to comfort him. Now he got up and tiptoed to the door. ‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Someone’s just come in. Two people. I can hear them talking.’

Fulton and Frieda stood in the hall at Helton and gloated.

‘We’ve done it! We’ve got rid of the spooks and Oliver is dead! Helton is ours, Frieda! It’s ours. It’s ours!’

But Frieda had stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Are you sure it’s safe? They’re all done for, the creepy-crawlies?’

‘Of course it’s safe. You heard what Dr Fetlock said when I handed over the money. “Wait till morning to make sure their ectoplasm’s properly eaten and then you’ll be fine,” he said. And anyway the Ectoplasm Eating Bacterium doesn’t hurt living people. I’ve told you.’

‘No. But I don’t want to bump into half-chewed legs and fingers and things. Even if we can’t see them we might feel them. And there’s a funny smell.’

‘Now, Frieda, you’re always whining. The spooks are done for and Oliver is dead! There’s nothing to stop us now. Nothing.’

‘Yes, Oliver is dead—’ began Frieda. Then she stopped and pointed with a trembling hand towards the top of the stairs. ‘It’s his ghost,’ she said with chattering teeth. ‘It’s Oliver’s ghost!’

It was something anyone might have thought. Oliver was as white as a spectre and he held something that real boys do not often hold: a great throwing spear with a black wooden handle and a point as sharp and lethal as only the Indians of the Amazon could make it. An assegai which he had plucked from the wall and carried as if it weighed no more than Grandma’s umbrella.

And he had gone mad. Trevor saw that at once. This slight, shy boy stared down at Fulton with such hatred that the Snodde-Brittles stood hypnotized like baboons in front of a leopard.

‘I am not dead as you see,’ said Oliver. ‘But you will be in a minute because of what you have done to my ghosts.’

He lifted the spear and began to walk down the steps — and Fulton took a step backwards and fell over Frieda so that both of them rolled down on to the marble floor.

‘I too am a Snodde-Brittle,’ said Oliver, still in that level voice. ‘And I Am Going To Set My Foot On My Enemies. Now.’

He took another step and lifted the spear, and as Fulton and Frieda tried to disentangle themselves, he brought the point down to touch Fulton’s throat.

‘No!’ screamed Fulton. ‘Stop! I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry! Don’t kill me, don’t!’

‘But I’m going to,’ said Oliver. ‘I’m just looking for the best place.’

Trevor had come round behind him. ‘Here, steady, Oliver. They’ll put you away if you kill him, and you don’t want that.’

Oliver didn’t even hear him. He brushed the tip of the spear against Fulton’s throat and the scratch filled up with blood. No, not Fulton’s Adam’s apple — his heart…

Frieda was trying to scramble to her feet and Trevor moved towards her and kicked her hard in the shins. If he couldn’t stop Oliver, at least he could see that the woman didn’t run away and squeal.

Fulton was grasping his throat, screaming with terror as his hand came away dipped in crimson.

Then from somewhere above them there came a… fluttering… the sound, faint as breath, of wing beats. And then a noise so unbelievable, so absolutely amazing, that Oliver couldn’t believe his ears.

He turned his head only for a moment — but in that moment, Fulton and Frieda took to their heels and ran.