The Boy in the Smoke

by Johnson, Maureen

“This evening?” Stephen said. “Now?”

  “Right now. My car is outside. I’ll take you there, and you’ll be back here in a few hours. We might be a little late, until midnight or so. Would that be all right?”

  She was already on her feet, ushering him up and towards the door.

  The sky was still heavy with sunlight when Stephen and Felicia walked to the car. These early-summer days really did seem to go on forever. Felicia, he noted, drove the same car as his father—a green Jaguar. Even the interior was the same. She said very little on the ride, which was fine by Stephen. He’d been given the cervical collar to carry and wear as he liked, and he put it on and used it like a travel pillow to drift off into a nap.

  When he opened his eyes, they were driving through Knightsbridge. The streets were clogged with tourists taking pictures of anything and everything. The sky was just starting to dim in a great late-night sunset.

  “Where are we going, exactly?” Stephen asked.

  “Berkeley Square. Not far now.”

  “There’s a hospital at Berkeley Square?”

  “No. There is a house there. That’s where we’re doing our test.”

  They parked on the square, which was really a rectangle—a very tidy one, with a perfect green lawn. There were only a few people milling about there. The square itself was lined with flat-fronted Georgian houses, most of which looked to be occupied by businesses, and therefore, mostly unoccupied at this hour.

  “This one,” Felicia said, pointing to a four-storey house with a slate-grey front. She unlocked the door and they stepped inside. Stephen was hit by a familiar and quite pleasant smell—books. Lots of them. Funny how books could end up giving off such a scent, however subtle.

  The reception area was a long, narrow room halved by a staircase. The rest of the space was crowded by bookshelves precisely filled with what looked like old volumes, all in good condition, many behind glass. There were two rooms radiating off the reception area from either side and these, too, seemed to be full of books. By the staircase there was a very fine and elegant desk with a green-shaded lamp. Just behind this stood a grim-faced woman of about fifty, with a steely crew-cut. She wore a loose, square-collared blouse and a voluminous pair of trousers, both of which were in muted colours.

  “Hello, Stephen,” she said. “Welcome.”

  “Hello,” Stephen replied.

  Felicia looked a little confused by this exchange, as if saying hello wasn’t quite something from her world.

  “This is a bookshop,” Felicia said.

  “I guessed that.”

  “It’s a very good bookshop,” she clarified.

  Stephen gave her a side glance.

  “Why are we in a bookshop?” he asked.

  “This is a technique called ‘flooding’,” she said. “It’s usually used in the treatment of phobias and compulsions. The idea is that we quickly and safely immerse you in a situation in order to free you of fears.”

  “I’m not afraid of bookshops,” he said.

  “This is not a case of phobia. I just want you to go upstairs and look in every room of this house. And take this. It’s dark.”

  She removed a torch from her purse and handed it to him.

  “You want me to just … go upstairs? And this is going to help me?”

  “It is,” she said.

  The woman with the steely hair folded her arms over her chest and looked on. When Stephen glanced her way again, she gave him a solemn nod, which he supposed was meant to encourage, or to tell him to get on with it.

  “Right,” he said, sighing loudly and not caring that the doubt in his voice was audible. He flicked on the torch, and it spilled a very weak light. He looked to Felicia again, wondered what the hell kind of clinic he’d been sent to, then proceeded to climb the steps. The steps were carpeted with a roll of oriental red, with metal bars pinching the carpet back at the folds to keep it from coming loose. They had a mellow creak as befitted such a bookshop, which Stephen could now see specialized in antique and rare books. Prints of Georgian scenes and ducks and hunting dogs lined the steps to the second floor, which was still veiled in darkness.

  “Wouldn’t it just be easier to turn on the lights?” Stephen called down.

  “Try along the wall,” Felicia called up.

  “Try along the wall,” he murmured under his breath. He did so, feeling along, reaching into the spaces between the bookcases. There was some light coming in, the remnants of the sunset, which was now nearly at ten. But there was only the one window at the far end of this floor, so it really was quite dark up there. When he did find the light switch, nothing happened.

  “It’s not working,” he said.

  “Just use the torch,” Felicia called.

  Stephen switched on the torch and shone it around. Books, chairs, bookcases. He peered into the rooms and saw more of the same.

  “Now what?” he called down.

  “Up to the top, please.”

  Stephen sighed and began to climb again. The third floor was much the same as the second. As he turned to climb the stairs to the fourth floor, he stopped involuntarily. There was a smell of …

  Was it fire? Not fire in a fireplace, but fire as in things that should not be burning, acrid and sour. He turned around, then looked up. When he moved, the smell simply went away. It had gone from overwhelming to non-existent in seconds.

  He climbed a few more steps and hit the smell again, and again, it went away. Up again. This floor, though not structurally different than the other three, was more shaded. There were heavy curtains on the window at the top of the stairwell and they were drawn. The walls were papered on this floor, a messy flocked pattern that seemed different from the tasteful schemes of the lower floors. It felt cold. It felt …

  It felt wet, actually. Stephen drew his hand away and touched the tips of his fingers together, but there was no moisture there. He touched the wall again. Definitely wet. And yet again, his hand was dry.

  He was being an idiot. There were many good reasons why dry walls might feel wet. Silk papering, for example, or a paper with a metallic sheen. They might both feel cool or wet to the touch. Maybe this entire exercise was to show him how suggestible he really was, and how you could reason your way out of a situation.

  The top floor seemed to be almost entirely disused. There were crates of books around, mostly right at the top of the stairwell, as if someone had only been willing to climb so far, then simply threw them down. The doors to the rooms were closed. It was surprisingly cold given the fact that it was the top floor and a boiling hot day. If anything, this floor should have been unbearable and muggy. Something in him strongly suggested turning around and going back downstairs. This floor was creepy. Simple and plain. Creepy. Unpleasant.

  He was not going to be creeped out by a dark hall with some boxes in it and some weird wallpaper that felt wet. He was still an Etonian—he was still himself—and Stephen was not the kind of person who simply gave up if something was a little weird or unpleasant. He walked to the first door and opened it. The room was small and cramped and looked to have been an old servant’s bedroom. It was filled with folded-up cardboard boxes and split books and a few chairs with shredded stuffing.

  Second room—larger, with an adjoining door to the first. This appeared to be maybe an old bedroom, with a fireplace on the joining wall and a shared chimney. The room was papered in a delicate pink pattern which looked both old and fresh. There were scorch marks around the fireplace. And aside from more boxes and an old metal bedframe, this room contained nothing.

  The third door faced the square. This one actually contained some light. The paper was yellow. The chairs were wooden and broken. No boxes. The entire floor was wasted space. He’d now gone everywhere there was to go and was embarrassed by his unease. If this was a test to make you feel like a knob, then he had exceeded expectations.

  “I’ve looked everywhere,” he said, turning around to leave. “And there’s no—”

  T
here was a little girl in the hall, directly in his path, just a few feet away. She was about four, maybe, with brown hair. She held the rail of the steps with one hand and a doll in the other. Where she had come from, he had no idea. He’d heard nothing, and only seconds had passed.

  He felt a tickle in his chest.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” the girl replied.

  What the hell kind of a test was this?

  “There’s a … child up here,” he yelled. “Should I … bring her down with me?”

  No one responded below.

  “Did you hear me?” he called again.

  The child plucked at her doll’s hair, pinching clump after clump.

  “What’s your name?” the girl asked. “I’m Alexandria.”

  “I’m Stephen.”

  “Hello, Stephen. This is my house.”

  Something about this girl was not right. Her clothes, for example, were like nothing he’d ever seen. And he knew people who shopped at some very exclusive boutiques and dressed their kids up in all kinds of exotic and adorable outfits. This seemed to be a kind of … pinafore? Was that the word he wanted? A little pink dress with what looked like an apron sewn onto the front?

  “There’s a chip in my doll’s face,” she said, holding up the doll. There was indeed a small chip missing from its stark white cheek, right next to the eye.

  “I’m sure it can be fixed,” he said. Not that he had any idea whether or not that was acually true.

  He looked around for any signs of cameras. Maybe someone in a lab somewhere was collecting data on his startle reflex? Something? Someone in a lab was likely laughing their ass off.

  “Not many people talk to me,” the girl said. “They get afraid of me.”

  “They do?”

  “I do get angry sometimes.”

  She hung her head shyly again.

  Even if this girl was—as he had decided—some kind of plant, she was still a small child and her lines didn’t seem rehearsed. So he had serious questions about who might let their little girl sit around in creepy old bookshops at night to freak out people who had recently been admitted to mental health facilities.

  This was a test. Stephen understood tests. He passed tests. He had to continue.

  “Why would anyone be afraid of you?” he asked.

  “Because I threw Andy into the fire.”

  “Your doll?”

  “My brother.”

  “You threw your brother into the fire?” he asked.

  She nodded again.

  “He was little,” she explained. “And he made a lot of noise. So I put him in the fire. Everyone was angry.”

  Stephen felt his muscles freezing up—hands first, then his arms, then a locking in the legs, rendering him unable to move.

  “He didn’t make a noise after that,” she said, pulling on the doll’s hair some more. “But everything smelled bad. Mummy was very angry. She held my head under the water in the bath.”

  The steel-haired woman was suddenly in view, standing at the end of the hall. Her sudden appearance caused Stephen to jump and his heart to race around a bit. She also hadn’t made a sound.

  “Stephen,” she said, “that torch you have with you. Keep it switched on, and touch the child with it.”

  “What?”

  “Just do as I say. Gentle now. Keep it on, and touch the girl with it.”

  The little girl looked up at Stephen curiously. Stephen looked once again for the cameras, but he would never find them. You could hide a camera in anything.

  “Stephen,” the woman said, with a firm voice, “I realize this is an odd instruction, but follow it. Simply touch the child with the torch.”

  Stephen felt a wall of refusal building inside of him. He didn’t like the way he was being treated, or the child was being treated—both of them creeping around in a bookstore like two unwilling players in a piece of crap performance art.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “What’s happening, Stephen?” the girl asked.

  “I have no idea,” Stephen replied. He moved to put his arm around her in protection, but when he did so, something felt wrong. He looked down to see that about one-quarter of his hand appeared to be inside of Alexandria’s arm.

  “Stephen,” the woman said again. “Do it.”

  He checked again. Hand, definitely sticking into the arm. He pulled his fingers back quickly.

  A projection, surely. This was all a trick, and it had to end. He pushed the torch in Alexandria’s direction, and the moment it made contact, her eyes went wide and she seemed to let out a silent scream …

  … or something. Because then there was a light, bright, white, flooding the hallway and blinding him for a moment. Then there was a rush of air, like a massive industrial fan—or a dozen massive industrial fans had all gone on at once. Then the rush stopped, and there was a strange, new smell in the air, vaguely floral, and vaguely like a wood-burning fire—but really neither one adequately described it.

  When his eyes adjusted again, the steely woman was gone. As was Alexandria.

  Stephen got up quickly and leaned over the rail.

  “What the hell was that?” he called. He hurried down the steps, two at a time. Felicia was waiting for him downstairs with an expression of polite interest.

  “What … ” Stephen pointed up at the ceiling. “Just … what?”

  “Why don’t you sit,” Felicia said, pointing at a chair. “Talk to me about what just happened.”

  “What just happened? Is this some kind of Derren Brown thing or—”

  “Stephen,” she said, “calm down. Sit. Talk to me. Tell me exactly what you saw.”

  Stephen did not sit. He paced from the chair to the glass-fronted bookcase.

  “You sent me to talk to some child who said she threw her brother in a fire,” Stephen said, his voice rising to a yell. “And then she said her mum drowned her in a bath. And then that woman said to touch the girl with the torch, as if that isn’t creepy. And then the girl isn’t even there. What is she? How did you project—”

  “There is no projection.”

  “Or reflection, whatever. Some trick with glass and light. What the hell is this supposed to be?”

  “It’s not a trick,” Felicia said calmly.

  “I should report you,” Stephen said, pointing his finger.

  “Report me for what?”

  “This can’t be ethical, what you’re doing. Are you even a doctor?”

  “No,” she said.

  He hadn’t really expected to be right on that one, and it stopped him.

  “What’s going on?” he said. “Who are you?”

  He noticed he sounded more calm, but he was anything but.

  “You’re now standing in what many people consider to be the most haunted building in London,” Felicia said. “Aside from the Tower.”

  “You’re telling me that you brought me here because this building is full of ghosts? That’s what this is about?”

  “These things are hard to measure,” Felicia replied. “We have to rely on anecdotal evidence, but there’s quite a lot about this place. Eight people have been reported to have gone mad with fright after staying upstairs, and three have reportedly died.”

  Stephen laughed—a dark, unhappy laugh—and put his head in his hands.

  “Stephen, listen to me,” she said. “The world is more complicated than you know. You’re rational. As am I. Most ghost sightings are not real. But that is not the same thing as saying ghosts are not real. Many supposed ghost sightings are the products of suggestion—the mind’s desire to find patterns in randomness, so shapes are seen in shadows, ordinary noises become whispering voices, the cold breeze from under the door becomes a spectral presence. That’s all well understood. Actual ghosts—”

  “No,” Stephen said, shaking his head. “No.”

  “Please let me finish. Actual ghosts are … well, we don’t know precisely, but they appea
r to be a malfunction of some kind. Leftover energy that does not disperse quite as it should.”

  “Take me back to the hospital,” Stephen said.

  “Let me finish. There is a reason there are so many stories. There is a reason the stories go back through so much of history. We understand very little about it, but here is what we do know—people who truly can see ghosts develop the ability after a close brush with death. Also, this event—whatever it is—needs to take place between the ages of fourteen and eighteen or so. There can be slight variations, depending on individual brain chemistry, but that’s generally how it works. We don’t have enough data to know if it runs in families.”

  “Fine,” Stephen said, raising his hands. “I’ll go myself.”

  He went to the door, only to find it locked. He shook it once, then turned back to Felicia.

  “This has to be illegal now,” he said. “Open this door. I signed myself into the hospital, but I never agreed to be locked in.”

  “We’re not in the hospital.”

  “Which means this is tantamount to false imprisonment, most likely. I’ll break the pane if you don’t open it right now.”

  Felicia didn’t move, so Stephen grabbed an iron doorstop from the ground and lifted it.

  “You have a valuable ability,” she said. “You could serve your country.”

  She joined him at the door and pointed to a car idling at the kerbside, maybe twenty yards away. It was a prim and anonymous-looking black Mercedes.

  “The driver of that car is instructed to take you to Thames House,” she said. “Do you know what Thames House is?”

  “You’re talking about the headquarters of MI5?”

  “I am. There is someone there who wishes to speak with you. Listen to what he has to say.”

  “Now you’re telling me I’m going to go talk to some spies,” he said.

  “Security services, not spies, necessarily. The very location should give you some confidence that this is no prank. Just go, listen, and then you’ll be returned to the hospital.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No,” she said. “I will not be coming. My role in this is over.”

  “And if I wanted to go back now?”

  “Then the car would take you. But you’d wonder forever about what they wanted to say to you at MI5.”