by Lily Morton
Now it’s deserted and left to us and the wind that tears around us. Finding a bench, he settles down and pats it. I consider staying standing but then give up and sit down next to him.
“How did you know she was at my house?” I ask.
He hands me one of the bags. I open it and find a galette which is a replica of what I ordered yesterday. I inhale the scent of cheese and look up.
“I was bringing you lunch,” he says and shrugs. “I wasn’t happy with myself, the way we finished our conversation yesterday. I was rude, and I upset you, so you didn’t finish your food.”
“Oh, there was no need,” I protest. “You were being kind.”
“Not kind enough,” he says grimly. “And definitely not helpful. I could have told you a lot more than I have. I should have done that. Instead you were kind and polite, and I was a bit of an arsehole.”
“Not really,” I say. He looks at me sideways, and I smile. “Well, maybe a bit.”
Incredibly he laughs, but it breaks off as he shivers. He pulls his coat sleeves down so they cover his fingers.
“You’re cold,” I say and strip off my coat. “Here, put this on.”
“Oh no, I can’t wear your coat. You’ll be cold then.”
I shrug. “I’m fine. I always run too warm. Here, take it.”
He wraps it around himself and shudders as he absorbs the heat. “It’s so warm,” he says in a low voice. “Smells of you.”
Feeling my cock twitch, I shift on the seat. His sharp features are shaded briefly by the shadows from the branches of a nearby tree. He looks wild and feral for a second and then his face clears.
He indicates the bag. “Eat up while it’s still warm.” He pauses. “Thank you for the coat, Levi,” he says softly.
I nod and take a bite, groaning as the flavour hits my taste buds. I still as I find him studying me intently, his own lunch ignored. “It’ll get cold,” I say demurely, and he shakes his head and gives a deprecating laugh before falling on his food. And I do mean fall. He eats like a starving wolf would if someone was going to take his food away at any second.
He flushes as he catches me watching him and a strange shamed look crosses his face.
I can’t bear it, so I race into speech. “Why has Fay got it in for you, and by extension now me too, apparently?”
He shrugs. “It’s a long story. Fay pretends to be psychic. She’s got a good con going on. She reads the tarot, or should I say bullshits the tarot, and claims to be able to see the dead. For a while both of us worked in a local occult shop for a total conman called Spud. We’d speak to people’s loved ones and take their money hand over fist for passing on messages. There were waiting lists to see us, and we were rolling in money, although not quite as much as Spud.” He must see the look of disgust on my face because his next words are spoken low and entreatingly. “I didn’t question it at first, because I really needed the money desperately. I didn’t want to—”
He stops talking suddenly, and I wait for a second before breaking in. “But why today? Where do I come into this?”
“Because Logan in the pub the other night must have called her and told her I was sitting drinking with you. I thought I saw her when I left the pub that night just after you, but I dismissed it. I shouldn’t have because she must have followed you home and made four from two and two.”
“But why does she dislike you?”
“Because I broke up the happy little group when I refused to do anything else for Spud. I realised it was wrong, and I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
Pride and determination are written all over his face for a moment, and my spirits lift that he did the right thing. “But surely that’s no reason to hound someone. People are ten a penny who lie about being psychic. They could have found someone as quick as anything.”
He shakes his head, staring ahead at the mass of the Minster. His eyes track something, and, as is becoming habit, I follow his gaze and find nothing there. It’s unnerving. He shrugs helplessly before turning to me.
“I didn’t need to lie about anything, Levi. The reason it worked was because it wasn’t a con for me.” He smiles at what must be the confusion on my face. “I am psychic,” he says slowly, his wolf eyes steady and clear on mine. “I can see the dead.” He huffs. “I can also occasionally hear the fuckers, and worst of all, they keep trying to bloody talk to me.”
A startled silence falls. “You’re not exactly Haley Joel Osment, are you?” I say faintly.
Chapter 5
Levi
He doesn’t say anything for a long beat but then he snorts and breaks into laughter, and unable not to, I laugh too.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I say after a few moments. Then suddenly I have to ask, “What were you looking at in the Golden Fleece the other night?”
He looks startled, as well he should, but he still answers. “The serving woman that always stands in that room.”
“And I’m guessing she’s not …” I hesitate before whispering, “A person?”
He shakes his head. “Not anymore, no.” He pauses. “Well, not unless she’s got a major transparency problem.”
Incredibly, I want to laugh, but more questions are forming in my brain. “And on the ghost tour at the last site you could see the Devil’s last victim, couldn’t you?”
A shadow crosses his face. “She’s always there.” He shudders slightly. “It’s not pleasant.” His gaze sharpens. “How do you know?” Then in a rush, he asks, “Did you see her too?”
Blue’s voice is a mixture of cynicism and hope. It makes my stomach hurt. It must be so lonely being him. I shake my head and his expression falls slightly. “No, I’m sorry. I thought I did for a second, but when I looked again it was just the tree moving in the wind.”
His mouth ticks up. “You’d be surprised. You know that flicker you sometimes get in the side of your eye?” I nod. “Well, that’s a spirit.” He pauses. “Usually, unless you’ve just got a really bad twitch.”
“Really?” I ask, turning to him and propping my knee up on the bench in my eagerness. “So why can’t I see anything?”
“Maybe because you turn too quickly to see.” He shrugs. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I don’t know how I do it. Maybe I move slower or my brain has a different wavelength than yours, but I see them.”
“Them?”
Blue sighs. “All of them.” He gestures to the Minster. “Like the two men on a scaffold over there who probably worked on the Minster hundreds of years ago, and the monk who crosses the park here, his hands in his sleeves, looking cold and cross.”
I look at the empty view in front of us. “You can see all of that?” He nods. “You poor fucker,” I mutter. “York must be a sodding nightmare for you.”
A glimmer of humour crosses his face. “You have no idea.”
“How long have you been…?” I hesitate, and he grins.
“You can say psychic, Levi. It’s not the same as having the clap.” I stare at him, and he relents. “Since I can remember. I’ve always seen spirits. Even when I was a child.”
“What did your parents say?”
His expression closes. We’ve reached the end of that line of questioning. I try a different tack, not wanting him to leave. He fascinates me but not just because of the psychic business, which is making my head explode. I think if I hadn’t experienced what happened in my house this week, I wouldn’t have believed him. But I do. In some strange way, he seems like someone I’ve known for a long time.
“So, did you see anything in my house?” I ask.
He nods almost reluctantly. “Fay’s mum was there, but then that’s normal because she follows Fay everywhere trying to get her to be good. Poor woman must be knackered because that’s a thankless bloody task.”
“Anything connected to the house itself?”
“There was a woman in the doorway when I came into the kitchen,” he says slowly. “She looked agitated.”
“Could that be the lady with the
lily of the valley perfume?”
He nods. “I think so. I smelled it strongly in the hall when I came in.”
“So why is she doing all this?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know whether she is. It feels like there’s something else in that house with her.”
He pauses and despite the broad daylight, a shiver passes down my spine, and I suddenly feel like I’m five again and there’s a monster under my bed.
“What?” I ask in a low voice.
He looks impatient and I draw back, stung. “I don’t know, Levi,” he finally says. “I couldn’t see it. I could only feel a presence there, and it wasn’t nice. In fact, it was fucking awful. Scary.” He shoots me a sudden entreating look. “I’m not good at controlling this thing I have,” he says in a hurried tone, the words skipping over each other like sticks on a busy stream. “I see ghosts when I don’t want to, but I mostly can’t hear what they’re trying to say. I can get a sense of it, but I don’t know whether I’m right or wrong. And sometimes I feel stuff but can’t see it or say why.”
I put out my hand on his arm to stay the words and still as a warm thrumming energy seems to coat my palm. He stares at me with surprise written on his face. I struggle to remember what I was going to say. “It doesn’t matter, Blue,” I say. “Just do your best.”
He shakes his head. “It isn’t good enough,” he says angrily. “It never is. Why can I see a fucking grey lady in the Shambles and I can’t tell a friend not to get in a car because they’re going to die?”
“Because you’re not in charge of the universe,” I make myself say in a calm voice. I rub his arm. “At least not yet.”
He subsides back on the bench, and a smile glimmers across his face. “Not yet, but I have big plans.” He looks at me quizzically, and I realise that I’m now holding his hand.
“Sorry,” I mutter and drop it quickly. For a second Blue stares at me and I rush into chatter. “So, you said earlier that you could have told me more about my house. Is there buried gold in the cellar, or a poltergeist in the parlour?”
A shadow crosses his face, and my smile drops away. He twists to face me. “You’re not the first person to ask me questions about your house.” He pauses. “Although you are the first person to gate crash a ghost tour.” He sighs. “The man who had the house a few years ago came into the shop I was working at as a psychic. He wanted to know the house’s history and about the supposed spirits.”
“What? What did he say?”
“He seemed to be having the same problems as you. He said windows kept opening and he could hear footsteps and smell perfume.”
“Oh my God, really?” I ask excitedly. “That’s amazing. I remember Mr Fenton saying that he was the one who did all the work in the cellar. I’ll ring the solicitors when I get back and see if he can forward this bloke my contact details. I need to talk to him.”
He grimaces. “That’s not exactly possible.” He hesitates and then shrugs. “He died, Levi.”
“What? When?”
“It was a couple of years ago.” He looks at me uneasily. “He died in the house. They found him at the foot of the stairs with his neck broken.”
“What the fuck?” I draw back in shock.
He grabs my hand. “I know. I couldn’t tell you that on the ghost tour or in the pub.” He shakes his head. “How could I have? You sat there all perfect looking and all I could see was the face of that other bloke and I felt…” He breaks off suddenly with a shocked look on his face.
“Felt what?” I ask, staring into the weary depths of his eyes.
“Nothing,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.” I sag slightly. “I promise I’m going to help you, Levi,” he says earnestly, his long cold fingers clutching mine. He sighs angrily. “Although what help I’ll be, I don’t know. I can’t even control what I do.” He squeezes my hand. “But I’ll find someone who can help you. I promise.”
I look helplessly at him. “I know you will,” I say finally. “I believe you.”
We stay like that for a long second until his phone rings. He jerks as he looks at the display. “Shit, I’ve got to go. Are you alright?”
I nod. “I’m fine, honestly,” I say, resisting the urge to ask who he’s meeting.
“I think that might be because you don’t really believe all of this is happening.”
I hesitate and opt for honesty. “Not really. But I will.”
He nods. “It’s inevitable.” He pauses before speaking in a rush. “Listen, be careful. The other man’s death was ruled an accident but…”
“But you don’t believe that, do you, Blue?”
He shrugs off my coat and hands it to me. “No, I don’t. There’s something in that house. I’m not sure whether it’s Rosalind, the Victorian murderess, or something else. I’ll be in touch,” he says with a world of weariness in his voice. The shadows under his eyes seem even more pronounced than they were earlier, and when he walks away he seems as ethereal as one of the spirits he claims to see.
Claims, or does see them? Am I actually sitting here believing the word of someone who has openly admitted being friends with con artists? Do I, who once didn’t believe in ghosts at all, believe that Blue sees them? I think of his worn-thin appearance and nod. Sees them and is tortured by it.
I stare at the open expanse of grass and trees. There’s nothing to see here at all but apparently it’s teeming with spirit lifeforms.
“I do believe him,” I say slowly.
I shiver as a gust of wind blows my hair about and penetrates the folds of my clothing like sharp fingers pinching. So, what now? My house is apparently haunted by the ghost of some random woman who may have pushed the previous occupant down the stairs. That’s if some other spirit didn’t get there first. I snort and shake my head. It’s like Poltergeist but without the television.
I stand up. It’s late afternoon, and it’s gloomy and cold. Time to go home, much as I don’t want to. That thought stops me in my tracks. I don’t want to go home. What the fuck?
That place is my home. I’ve poured money and love into it. If there weren’t any paranormal activities going on, it would be a real home. I stiffen my spine. It’s not running me out of my home, whatever it is.
I take a step, and notice a wallet on the ground in front of the bench. I crouch down to pick it up. It’s made of faded blue leather with a design of flowers cut into the material. It looks old and handmade. I open it, hoping to find a driving license or contact details, but instead I find a twenty-pound note and a few business cards which have the details of Blue’s ghost tours printed on them. That’s it. Nothing else. No credit cards or store cards. No driving license or half a ton of crap like the stuff that bulges out my own wallet.
This wallet doesn’t even look like something he’d own. I’ve already got the impression that he prefers starker things. I huff a laugh. Who am I kidding? I don’t fucking know the man.
Nevertheless, he’s now minus a wallet, and I race towards the gates to look around to see if I can spot him. No sign of him. I curse under my breath, because how can I return it to him if I don’t know his address? I’m just reaching for the card to get his phone number when a crowd of tourists part, and I spot the blue of his hair as it bobs along before disappearing down a side street.
I start to run, dodging round tourists taking photos, and narrowly avoiding a collision with a shivering busker playing a lonely lament of “Purple Rain.” When I get to the street Blue disappeared down, I look around wildly and spot him walking slowly down near the end.
He turns at that moment to look behind him, and I open my mouth to shout at him, but for some reason I hesitate. Thoughts fill my mind of his tiredness and the stiff way he held himself as if he was hurt today, and without thinking I jump into the nearest shop doorway. I wait there breathing noisily while an old lady looks at me in an affronted manner and manoeuvres round me with a put-upon sigh.
“Sorry,” I mutter and poke my head round the entrance. Blue ha
s turned back and is walking slowly again, his hand returning to his ribs occasionally as if supporting himself.
I ease out and start to follow him.
And that is what you’re actually doing at the moment, I tell myself. You started off with a kind gesture but now you are following this poor lad like some sort of fucking stalker. Abort, abort. Stop doing this.
But I don’t. I follow his slow pace, dodging around people on the narrow cobbled lanes and occasionally hiding in doorways as he leads me down street after street and the houses get progressively dodgier. We’re far from the touristy charm of the Shambles now, and I’m having to go slowly because there aren’t enough people around to hide behind.
I look around curiously. This was obviously a wealthy street once. The houses are big and gracious with bay windows and long front gardens, but it’s obviously fallen on hard times. A lot are boarded up. Others have been made into flats, and saggy curtains hang across the windows giving the houses a slovenly impression.
Blue’s quite far ahead of me when he disappears. One minute he’s there, the next gone. I blink and look around, but the street is cold and empty. I pick up my pace, still looking around cautiously. This doesn’t feel like the sort of place to be skipping about in. I breathe in, considering for the first time whether Blue could have led me here deliberately. I have the discretion of Inspector Clouseau, so maybe he’s been aware of me following him all along and led me here so his mates could mug me. I slow down. I don’t know him, after all.
But he brought me lunch. He confided in me. Surely that has to mean something? There was that glimpse of a vulnerability under his hard exterior that I’d witnessed for a moment before he shuttered it away. I think of the way he’s trying to help me, not because he should, but because he wants to, and I walk quicker.
I trust my judgement. My mum always told me that. Trust what your head and heart say if they speak together. Ignore society and other people’s opinions and do what you know to be right. I feel the customary sharp pang in my chest at the thought of her and push it away as I come to the spot where Blue just vanished into thin air.
