The Empty Grave

by Jonathan Stroud

  I took possession of the deliveries and shut the door on the shouting men and honking horns. Holly and I organized the agency supplies, Kipps the wood and tools. By early afternoon, when Lockwood returned home from his mysterious expedition, we had it all laid out in piles. He inspected everything like a military leader, and nodded at us, well pleased.

  “This is perfect,” he said. “Nice work, everyone. Now we just need to get the defenses in position. We’ll have some sandwiches first, though.”

  We gathered around the kitchen table. “It’s so strange,” I said. “I was sure we’d have been arrested by now.”

  Lockwood shook his head. “No. They won’t arrest us. They know we’d kick up a fuss and raise a lot of awkward questions. I’m afraid their reaction is likely to be a lot more final.”

  “Kill us, you mean,” Kipps said. He had been unwrapping a shiny new hacksaw. Now he placed it on the table, and took his plate of sandwiches.

  “That’ll be their preferred option,” Lockwood said. “From their point of view, we already know too much. But they can’t easily bump us off, either. It’s one thing to beat up George in the street. It’s quite another to dispose of all of us. That will take a major effort—and would be very risky, because they know we’ll be expecting it. Also, it won’t happen in public, for obvious reasons. Even Fittes can’t blatantly authorize murder. That means it’ll be done quietly, when no one’s around. And that’s why I’m expecting an attack here at Portland Row, probably after dark.”

  There was a silence while everyone digested this. “Tonight?” I said.

  “We can only hope not. We won’t be ready. Give us another day and I’ll be a lot more confident that we can protect ourselves. Tonight, we’ll just have to keep watch and trust in luck. Still, we can get a lot done before then. Let’s eat up and get back to work.”

  Defending 35 Portland Row wasn’t impossible, but there were definite points of weakness to overcome. On the ground floor, the front gave little cause for worry. The old black door was thick and sturdy, and adorned with so many locks and chains you would have needed a bazooka to blow it down. The library and living room windows were fairly safe, too, as both overlooked the basement yard, and so weren’t easily accessible. It was the kitchen at the back, with its steps leading down to the garden, that worried us. This was where the particleboard came in. That afternoon Kipps and Lockwood hammered homemade barricades to the inside of the windows and across the glass pane of the door. Lockwood also went out and spent quite a bit of time constructing something on the garden steps. “I’ve been inspired by our visit to Marissa’s tomb,” he said. “Might be best to avoid using this entrance for a few days.” He didn’t explain further.

  The basement had long been our main point of concern. Again, the front of the house was theoretically less vulnerable. It was true that our office windows opened directly onto the sunken yard below our front door. Steep steps led down here from the gate and, though lots of dead plants in big pots filled the space, intruders could easily reach the windows. However, after a burglary years before, we had added iron bars to these, and it was hard to see how they could be bypassed. This meant we focused all our attention on the back.

  At the rear of the office, past the rapier practice room, the storeroom, and the laundry room, you came to the back door. It was made of glass, and opened straight onto the grass of the garden. Of all parts of the house, this door was the weakest point. Kipps put a series of wooden boards across the opening, but we doubted they’d survive a sustained attack. Toward evening, extra defenses were added by Lockwood and Kipps, who spent a lot of time messing with the floorboards just inside the door.

  Nightfall came. Holly and I stockpiled weapons and watched the street. Neighbors moved around inside their houses. Arif closed up his store. Portland Row was silent. Our enemies made no move. Toward midnight, George woke up and asked for sandwiches and a bedside light. He began reading the book. The rest of us took turns on sentry duty, two hours at a time, while the others slept.

  My turn came. At two a.m., I sat by the living room windowsill, watching the street. I had the ghost-jar by my side. It was late and I was tired. I needed the company.

  “There’s a spirit standing on the garden path opposite,” I said. “I just caught the moonbeams going through it. So very faint. Man in a bowler hat. Very still and peaceful, like he’s thinking about something.”

  Tonight the face in the jar shone pale and silvery, mirroring the moon above the rooftops. “Oh, him,” it said. “Yes, he’s thinking about something, all right. In about twenty minutes he’ll move toward the house and disappear. At about three-forty a.m. he’ll reappear, just briefly, with a dirty big bundle over his shoulder. I reckon it’s his dead wife wrapped in a rug, but you only get a flash of a pair of fluffy slippers as he sets off up the road, so I’ve never satisfied my mind on that.”

  I stared across the street. “This happens every night? I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Yeah, it’s funny how often one doesn’t see things that are right under your nose,” the skull said. “So…what shall we talk about? I know! Lockwood. He’s in his element now, isn’t he? Enemies closing in. Endgame afoot. Nice for him! He’s chirpy.”

  “Nonsense. He’s worried sick, like the rest of us.”

  “Is he? Then he hides it well. If it was me, I’d say he’s more than content with the way it’s going. Suits the trajectory he’s been on ever since his parents croaked. Oh, you can pout all you want, but you know it’s true. Going out in a pointless blaze of glory is just how he’d like it: saves him the hassle of doing the boring, complex stuff—you know, like going on living.” The face grinned knowingly at me.

  As usual, the fact that the skull was precisely echoing my own thoughts gave an edge to my irritation. “That is such a lie,” I said.

  “Isn’t.”

  “It so is.”

  “Yes, it’s our intellectual debates I’m going to miss when you’re dead,” the skull remarked. “Hey…unless they stuff your skull in with mine in an extra-special double jar! Then we could bicker happily for all eternity. How about it?”

  But I was still angry with the ghost; all day, Lockwood’s cheerfulness had propelled us onward in our work, and all day I’d been worrying about him for exactly the reasons the skull described. I scowled. “You’re disgusting.”

  “So sue me. Or let me out of this jar. I won’t bother you again.”

  “Not a chance.”

  The face retreated sullenly into the depths of the greenish murk. “There. You’re as selfish as Lockwood. He uses you to get what he wants, and you use me.”

  I snorted. “That’s not true. Any of it.”

  “Of course it is. You couldn’t blow your nose without me to guide you. You’re desperate for me to stick around. You’re happy to take advantage of my raw intelligence and charm, and at the same time you’re too frightened of me to even let me out of this cruel prison. Come on, try to deny it.”

  I couldn’t deny it. I said nothing.

  “If you trusted me,” the skull said, “you’d break my jar right now. And look—there’s a hammer right beside us!” A pile of Kipps’s tools lay on the windowsill; we were in the middle of fixing barricades here, too. “One quick swing, and I’m out! But you won’t, will you? Because after all I’ve done, you still don’t trust me, and you’re scared.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “maybe I am. But I think you’re scared, too.”

  “Me?” The ghost pulled a series of faces, each one more eye-poppingly incredulous than the last. “Baloney! How do you make that out?”

  “What are you doing here, Skull?” I said. “What keeps you tied to this dirty old piece of bone? I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re frightened of letting go. You’re frightened of doing what you ought to do, which is give up this world and finally go on into the next. You’re always boasting about how you’re different from other ghosts, how it’s all about your conscious desire for life and blah
, blah, blah, but I think your fear of death is the real emotion here. Or else why not do it? Why not head off? I bet you could. I bet you could break the connection.”

  The face had grown pale and nebulous as I spoke, and I couldn’t read its expression. “Join the lost souls drifting on the Other Side?” it said softly. “But I’m not like them.”

  “Oh, but you are,” I said. “I’ve seen you there, don’t forget.” When Lockwood and I had walked in that dark and freezing place, I’d caught a glimpse of the ghost in its full bodily form. Far from being a grotesque face, crammed in a jar, it was revealed as a pale, sardonic-looking youth, thin and spiky-haired. He’d still been tied to the spot where his skull sat in our world, but otherwise he was no different from the other gray inhabitants of the Other Side. “You could break the connection,” I said again. “You don’t have to be stuck here.”

  “Yeah, well.” The skull sounded just as grumpy as I felt. “The circumstances for that certainly haven’t happened yet. I’ll let you know when they do.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. And I’ll let you know when I decide to let you out.”

  “If you could see your way to doing it before your brutal death, I’d appreciate it. Which means sometime tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going to die.”

  “That’s what I said, too.”

  Despite such dark predictions, the night passed without incident. No one attacked us in our beds, and the only disturbance was George calling for cheese on toast at five in the morning. Dawn came at last, and we met again for breakfast. The kettle had only just boiled when a furious knocking sounded on the kitchen door and Flo Bones appeared, looming like a haunted scarecrow at the window. She bore ominous tidings and a rather crumpled box of chocolates for George.

  “Excuse the brown stains on the cardboard,” she said, brushing at the side of the box. “Just a bit of river mud. I didn’t pass an open drain or I would have washed them off on the way here. Well, I see you’ve all been busy. What’s that trip wire thing halfway up the steps?”

  Lockwood shut the door behind her. “Sorry, Flo. It’s a deadly mantrap. I should have told you.”

  Flo reached under her hat and scratched at her scalp. “Good thinking, and it seems like you might be needing a few more of them and all.” She broke off, and regarded us levelly.

  “Why?” Holly said. “What have you heard?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know as I should say, seeing as how it’ll give you all the willies. And it ain’t confirmed, neither. Just a bit o’ hearsay what’s washed along the Thames and been gathered in her sack by old Flo. But the word is—” She glanced over her shoulder, made a lucky sign, and lowered her voice. “Word is that Sir Rupert Gale’s been in deep discussions with Julius Winkman, and your names have been mentioned.”

  So much had been happening these past few days that I had completely forgotten about the black marketeer and his recent release from prison. It took me a moment to understand the implications.

  Lockwood was way ahead of me. “Ah, that’s it, is it?” he breathed. “Of course…They’re old acquaintances. Gale used to buy black market Sources from the Winkmans. Sorry, Flo—I interrupted. Do go on.”

  While he was speaking, Flo had helped herself to Lockwood’s mug of tea. “Yeah, Julius Winkman,” she said. “Since his release, he’s been lying low. There’s been word sent out that he don’t want to see no relics or stolen goods or any of that stuff. ’Course,” Flo went on, rolling her eyes, “that don’t mean nothing, as it’s his missus, Adelaide, and that young smear of cow-cake Leopold, who take possession of all the hush-hush items these days. So officially, old Winkman is all aboveboard now. But they say that Gale went to see him, and since then Julius has been out recruiting some of his old associates, fellows who ain’t so particular about the kind of work they do. Head-crackers, bone-breakers, knife-men, and stranglers—that sort of tidy gentleman. Rounding them up, routing them out of the inns and wharf-side stews, getting them tooled and ready for a dicey and unspecified job.” Her blue eyes gazed at us from the shadows of her hat. “Unspecified…but concerning you.”

  “That’s why they’ve taken so long to get going,” Lockwood said. “Fittes and Gale are getting the Winkman family to take us out. Marissa keeps her hands clean and shuts us up, while Julius gets the revenge he’s been seeking ever since we got him arrested after Kensal Green that time. Hey, presto, everyone’s happy.”

  “Except us,” Holly said. “We’ll be dead.”

  No one had much to say to that. “Maybe it’s better this way,” I said at last. “Maybe it’s better that it’s not going to be other agents coming after us. They won’t be trained, like us, will they? They won’t have swords.”

  “No,” Kipps said, “just guns and knives. Hooray.”

  “We’re going to be trapped in here,” Holly whispered. “What if our barricades don’t work? What if they get in? There’ll be nowhere to run.”

  We gazed at one another. My hands felt cold; a worm of dread coiled tightly in my stomach. By the looks of it Quill and Holly were experiencing much the same thing. Not Lockwood, though. His eyes glittered; a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. On seeing that smile, the worm in my stomach coiled a whole lot tighter.

  “Maybe there is somewhere we might go,” Lockwood said. “Somewhere Winkman’s men would never follow.” His smile broadened. He gave a little laugh. “You’re going to think I’m mad.”

  We waited. “Anything would be better than getting chopped into pieces by a group of smelly relic-men,” Kipps said. “No offense intended there, Flo—you’re a girl. Come on, Lockwood—what’s the plan?”

  Even then, he was slow to answer. He was weighing his thoughts, judging how best to present them to us. Finally he said, “I was just thinking that we could use Jessica’s room.”

  Everyone looked at him blankly. “What, lock ourselves in there, you mean?” I said. “I suppose the door is strengthened with iron, because of the death-glow, and we’ve got a heck of a lot of psychic objects up there we could—Oh.” My brain made the required leap, and my mouth fell open. “Surely you’re not suggesting—No. No way.”

  “We’ve got the objects,” Lockwood said. “We’ve got the chains. We’ve got the spirit-capes.” He turned his beaming smile on Holly and Kipps. The truth had just dawned on them; they too suddenly understood what he was saying. “We can make ourselves an emergency exit,” he went on. “If all else fails, we can escape. Of course we can. Why not? We’ve got all the materials we need to create a gate to the Other Side.”

  Utter silence greeted the statement. Even Flo seemed speechless. We stood there, staring at him in our little kitchen in Portland Row.

  “Is this a private wake, or can anyone join in?”

  The voice came from the hallway door. Everyone turned: there stood George. He was in his pajamas, and very gray about the face—gray, at least, where the purple bruises weren’t blossoming. The bandage on his head had come off, and you could see where the hair was still matted with congealed blood. His sleeves were too short, and there were bruises on his arms. He stood awkwardly, limbs shaking, clasping the doorframe for support. But he was standing, for the first time in days.

  “Look at me,” he said. “Upright again! Things can’t be so bad, surely.” He gave us a mottled smile. “Hey, and there’s the proof of it! Are all those chocolates for me?”

  Dubious as Flo’s gift undoubtedly was (my theory was that she’d found the box floating down the Thames and had dried the chocolates out individually on riverside stones before repacking them), it was good to see George taking an interest in it. It helped sustain him during the long argument that followed his arrival.

  No one could fault Lockwood’s ingenuity, or the audacity of his plan. But the dangers involved with it seemed almost more terrifying than the ones we already faced, and it took all his charm and forcefulness to persuade us even to discuss it. The idea of a making a spirit gate in our own house gave everyone pause.


  It had long been known that a single psychic object, or Source, such as the skull in the jar, provided a small hole through which a ghost could pass from the Other Side. The idea of a spirit gate, as made by the shamans in their spirit houses, and as created in secret by the Rotwell Agency and (we guessed) by Marissa Fittes as well, was essentially an extension of this principle. If a great number of Sources were placed in a single location, their powers combined to rip a much larger hole between the worlds. If it was big enough—and if you had sufficient protection, in the form of a spirit-cape—it was possible to pass through and back again. But the assembled ghosts that thronged the gate itself had to be kept in check by vast amounts of iron, and the Other Side itself was perilous, as Lockwood and I knew full well.

  “There’s the freezing cold, for starters,” I said. “And the physical effort it takes to cross over, even with the capes. Would you willingly put yourself through that again?”

  “If it was a question of survival,” Lockwood said, “of course I would.”

  “Plus there’s the threat from the ghosts at the gate. I know Rotwell ringed them with lots of chains…but what if they broke out here?”

  “They wouldn’t break out. We’d build the circle carefully.”

  “Forget the ones at the gate!” Holly cried. “What about the dead on the Other Side itself? The place is packed with them!”

  Kipps gave a hoot of agreement. “Right! We get enough trouble from a few stray spirits over here! Stepping across is like stamping on a hornet’s nest. From what you and Lucy experienced, they get drawn to the presence of the living. You only just escaped them.”

  Lockwood shook his head. “That was only because Lucy and I were wandering about the countryside. If we went through here, we’d just be in another version of thirty-five Portland Row. We wouldn’t leave it. We’d just stay put.”

  “Have we even got enough Sources to do this?” I asked.

  “Think about the energy already coming from the death-glow over my sister’s bed,” Lockwood said. “I bet that would do half the job on its own. And we’ve got a whole cluster of psychic objects in Jessica’s room already, plus the things hanging all over the house.” He looked through the open door into the hall, where the shelves of pots and gourds could just be seen. “My parents collected them for us,” he murmured. “They’re there to be used. And I believe my sister would want us to use her room, too. She’d want to help us escape.”