The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery

by Allison Rushby

  “He’s calling the spiritualist ridiculous. Worthless,” Violet continued to whisper.

  Then another voice called out — a voice that shushed the living men.

  Silence, then . . .

  “Er ist hier!” the voice that had shushed everyone called out. It sounded as if a chair crashed to the floor as well. As if someone had stood in surprise. It had to be the spiritualist. So, he’d finally felt Viktor Brun’s presence. There was much talking from all of the living men.

  Violet strained, trying to catch what they were saying. “They’re going downstairs, to something called the Hall of the Dead.”

  Flossie’s eyebrows shot up. That sort of a name couldn’t be a good thing.

  After a while, Flossie could hear footsteps. The men were leaving. When it sounded as if the last person had left the room, she peeked over the top of the trunks. No one was in sight.

  “We have to follow them down there,” Flossie said.

  Flossie and Violet kept their distance, following the men through the castle. Eventually, they started down a set of steep stone steps with an iron handrail, and then the men entered the room below.

  Flossie took in the room as best she could from her position, her back pressed against the wall. She and Violet needed to stay out of Viktor Brun’s line of sight.

  The circular room was made entirely of stone and rose to a large dome, decorated, again, with swastikas. Beneath the dome, in the center of the room, a round pit held a flame, which flickered and danced, throwing light onto the cream-colored stone of the walls. There were twelve plinths surrounding the flame, which clearly corresponded to the twelve seats upstairs. Flossie could see they were meant to hold something important — maybe even ashes, considering that the room was called the Hall of the Dead.

  Craning her neck, Flossie took a peek at Viktor Brun. He was standing close to a group of the men around a specific plinth, the crystal skull under his arm. The spiritualist placed a black velvet drawstring bag on top of the plinth and opened it.

  When Flossie saw what was in it, she jolted. It was another crystal skull! One that was far, far brighter than the skull that Viktor Brun held. She immediately panicked.

  The Nazis had two crystal skulls?

  Seeing her startle, Violet caught her arm.

  “Two skulls?” Flossie whispered.

  Violet shook her head. “No. Don’t you see?” she replied. “Oh, Flossie. I know what they’ve done now,” she whispered. “They’re clever. So horribly, terribly clever.”

  Flossie frowned. She still didn’t understand.

  “Look again,” Violet said, seeing her confusion. “Closely.”

  Flossie tried to calm herself and view the scene before her once more. There was Viktor Brun holding his crystal skull, and there was the other crystal skull on the plinth, gleaming under the light of the flames, making Brun’s seem dull by comparison and . . .

  Oh.

  Oh, of course.

  There was only ever one skull.

  “It’s the same skull, isn’t it?” she whispered to Violet. “Only Viktor Brun has the twilight copy.”

  “Yes. The first skull you saw deceived you because of its brightness, but they’re attuned. One is linked to the other. I can feel the vibrations.”

  “How is that possible?” Flossie struggled to work out how they’d achieved all of this.

  “Think of Hugo and his walking stick and his top hat,” Violet said.

  Flossie frowned again. To be honest, she preferred not to think of Hugo Howsham at all if she could help it.

  “Items that are buried with the dead remain with them,” Violet prodded. “You, of all people, know that.”

  This was true. As Violet had said, this was why Hugo Howsham had his fancy walking stick. And how Amelia would have had a doll if her parents had buried her with one. Items of significance that were buried with the dead remained with them in the twilight forevermore.

  However, things still didn’t make sense.

  “If he was buried with the crystal skull, and that’s how he has a copy of it in the twilight, how do they have the real crystal . . . ?” Flossie trailed off as she started to put the pieces of the puzzle together. “Ah.”

  “Yes,” Violet said. “Rather disgusting, but that’s what I believe they’ve done.”

  Flossie made a face as Violet continued on with her explanation.

  “I’m guessing that, sometime after his burial, the living members of this society retrieved the original crystal skull from his grave.”

  Flossie shuddered with the thought of it — of the living officers opening up his coffin and prying the crystal skull from his hands. “How do you think they knew that it would work? How could they even know that objects buried with a person would be replicated in the twilight?”

  Violet gestured toward the spiritualist. “I very much doubt that they did. I think that our friend here guessed and hoped that this might be the case. In life, I always wondered myself if objects buried with the dead held significance in the twilight. People have believed this to be the case for a long time, after all. Remember what the ancient Egyptians used to bury with their dead — chariots, couches, mummified cats — some of the earlier pharaohs even took their servants with them. I suppose the timing and nature of Viktor Brun’s death was right to test out the skull’s abilities, though I have no idea how they managed to capture Viktor Brun’s soul within it.”

  Flossie’s eyes moved back to the two skulls. One in the living world. One in the twilight.

  And if she could have cried, she would have, because it was now obvious that Viktor Brun had done it after all.

  He’d found a way to bridge two worlds that were never meant to be connected in any way.

  Inside the domed room, the living men’s voices began to rise steadily, bouncing off the ceiling with strange acoustics.

  Flossie leaned in close to Violet. “What’s going on?” It sounded as if they were arguing about something.

  Violet listened in as the voices became even more heated, then she began to whisper as fast as she could, combining the arguing voices into one.

  You’re the one who put him in the stupid skull with your strange death ritual. Now get him out!

  I can’t get him out, you ridiculous man. He’s dead. It’s only his soul that’s in there.

  But all we’ve been able to retrieve so far is some basic information on troop movements. It’s not enough. We need more.

  Violet and Flossie’s eyes met. So it was true. He was getting information through to the living. Flossie’s lifeless heart sank as the voices rose again and Violet continued to translate.

  What’s the point of Brun following Churchill around if he can’t tell us everything he’s seen and heard easily?

  Don’t you understand that it’s not that simple? There is so much noise in the skull. So much disagreement. So much distraction.

  Flossie reached out and clutched Violet’s arm. “The other person,” she said. “The other voice I heard. The second soul.”

  Violet nodded in agreement, her eyes still on the men. Her hand reached out to grab at Flossie’s arm. “Oh, no!” she hissed.

  Flossie took in as much of the scene as she could. The living officers had quieted down and stepped away, leaving the spiritualist alone with the crystal skull on its plinth. Viktor Brun stood above the skull, both hands on top of it. The spiritualist knelt on the floor, his hands on the skull as well. When all was silent, the spiritualist began to breathe slowly, in and out.

  Meanwhile, one of the living officers hovered by the spiritualist’s side, notebook and pencil in hand.

  For a long time, all was silent. And then the spiritualist began to murmur. At first his voice was halting and unsure, but as time passed, he began to sound surer of himself, the phrases rolling faster off his tongue.

  “I can’t hear what he’s saying,” Flossie whispered into Violet’s ear, worried about being heard by Viktor Brun now that the room was so much quieter.


  Violet closed her eyes, listening hard. “Something about the War Rooms and some names. Names of ships, I think.”

  Flossie covered her mouth, stifling a gasp. “No! Violet, we have to do something.” She grabbed at both of Violet’s arms. “How can we stop him?”

  Violet’s brow was furrowed with thought. “I don’t know, I . . . I think the only way would be to sever the connection. And the only way I can see to do that would be to destroy the crystal skull in the living world.”

  “How? We can’t destroy something in the living world. And, oh —” Flossie remembered something. “The other person!”

  Violet’s face fell. “You’re right. If we destroy the skull, not only would Viktor Brun’s soul be lost forever but the soul of the other person, too.”

  Flossie knew how wrong it would be to destroy the soul of an innocent person. Without a soul, no person could ever be properly, and happily, at rest.

  “I can’t think of any other way to stop him,” Violet said.

  Flossie scrutinized the skull. It almost seemed to be alight as the flame fluttered and danced in front of it. As she watched, the spiritualist’s voice began to murmur again, and the officer beside him took more notes.

  More information.

  They didn’t have any time to waste. “Let’s go,” Flossie told Violet. “We’ve learned what we came here to find out. Now let’s see what we can do about it.”

  It was as Flossie had said. They now knew what the Ahnenerbe’s mission was. They knew who was involved in it, what they were doing, and what they were capable of. They also knew that Viktor Brun could do what they had feared — he could pass messages to the living via the crystal skull.

  The dead were now officially at war along with the living.

  Safely back outside the castle, Violet and Flossie stopped at the end of the bridge. Flossie turned back toward the castle and caught a flash of black out of the corner of her eye. Wait, had that been . . . ? For a second she thought it might have been Hugo Howsham’s coat disappearing around the castle’s stone wall. She was seeing things. She needed to stop being so jumpy and concentrate. Just as she was about to speak, she noticed something in Violet’s expression.

  “What is it?” Flossie asked.

  “I’ve only now put two and two together,” Violet answered, moving the papers she held from one hand to the other. “Do you remember I told you about the Externsteine?”

  “The rock formation?”

  “Yes,” Violet said. “I heard them mention it just before we left, and they also said something about the upcoming full moon. It finally makes sense to me. I think they’re going to try to concentrate the connection between the two skulls and the worlds of the living and the dead by using the site during a full moon.”

  “Would that work?” Flossie asked.

  “Unfortunately, I think it would.”

  Flossie wanted to slump onto the hard stone beneath her feet. She felt just the same as she had on first awakening in Highgate Cemetery when she had been told she was in charge of hundreds of thousands of interred. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t know how. Or what to do. Or when to do it.

  “How will we know when the time is right?” Flossie asked.

  “They’ll wait until the moon is at its highest peak. The spiritualist will be able to tell them exactly when that is, and I’ll be able to tell you. I’ve always been able to feel the waxing and waning of the moon, and I can feel it still, even in our world. Flossie, I think this could work well for us. If I’m right about what I think they have in mind, the crystal skull will be up high on the rock formation. It would be situated in quite a vulnerable spot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, one good push . . .”

  Their eyes met as they thought about that second person. Flossie didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. But if they didn’t destroy the skull, how many other lives would be lost? There were no right answers to be had here. It seemed there never were in war.

  “So, one push,” Flossie said. “But how? How can we move an object in the living world?”

  It was clear that neither of them had any idea.

  “We’ll think of a way,” Violet said.

  “We have to,” Flossie replied, her gaze moving back to the hills beyond the castle. Once again, she wondered if she should tell Violet about Viktor Brun and her father. She wanted to, but still thought it would be unwise. If Hugo Howsham found out that she had a personal connection to Viktor Brun, she’d never hear the end of it.

  Violet’s hand came to rest upon her arm. “Let’s return home,” she said.

  Flossie opened her eyes directly outside Kensal Green Cemetery. She tapped her iron ring upon the small iron gates set inside the larger ones for the living. She expected Hugo Howsham to appear on the other side of the gates in an instant, and when he didn’t, she became wary. Had she seen him at Wewelsburg Castle? Then she caught sight of him on a path some distance away and he shot toward them, his top coat flying out impressively behind him. Somehow, that man always seemed one step ahead.

  “Miss Birdwhistle.” Hugo Howsham swung his key on its iron ring into his hand and unlocked the gate to his cemetery. As he pulled the gate open for his sister, Flossie took a step back, which she instantly regretted — she hated letting him think for one second that she wasn’t up to her role, even if she often felt that way herself.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have very good news,” Flossie said, gesturing toward the papers Violet held.

  “I’ll explain everything to Hugo. And I’ll fetch you when the full moon is near,” Violet said hurriedly. Flossie understood — it was best to leave her to break the news to her brother. She would know how to handle him. “Don’t worry,” Violet added. “We’ll work something out.”

  Hugo Howsham watched the pair closely, but when he saw that no more information was immediately forthcoming, he returned to locking the gates.

  “Before you go, I have a message for you,” he said when he was done with the lock and Violet was standing safely beside him. “The Turnkey of Tower Hamlets was here. She said to tell you that you must go to see someone called Grace immediately. Apparently she and her sister have both been taken into surgery.”

  Flossie wavered. She didn’t have much time. She needed to return to Highgate and speak to Hazel, but she also wanted to help Grace.

  In the end, she decided to make a quick visit to Lambeth Hospital.

  Grace’s twilight form was in the same corridor that Flossie had left her in. She was sitting on a chair close to the entrance to the surgical theaters. She seemed smaller than ever — her back hunched over, her gas-mask box pushed to one side. Michael was talking to her quietly. His eyes met Flossie’s as she approached, and he shook his head.

  “The sisters had some time together, in a ward,” Michael said. He took a moment to smooth his mustache. “It seems both had internal bleeding of sorts. They went back to surgery at almost the same time. Ruth . . . she didn’t make it.”

  Flossie’s hand flew to her mouth. Oh, no. Poor Grace. “Has anyone come to see them? I heard they have an aunt nearby,” Flossie said.

  “Afraid not.”

  Flossie’s shoulders sagged.

  “I’ll grab a breath of fresh air outside,” Michael said, then paused, realizing what he’d said. “So to speak.”

  “Thank you,” Flossie said to his departing back.

  Grace’s form was almost doubled over in her chair. What was it about her? Flossie was used to dealing with all sorts of people in the twilight due to her job as Turnkey, but every so often she met one who was special. Someone who she really wanted everything to work out all right for. Like Amelia.

  And Grace.

  “I’m so very sorry, Grace,” she said, placing her hand on Grace’s rounded back. As she connected with her, she was shocked to feel that Grace’s presence was now much stronger in the twilight world. Flossie tensed. She couldn’t let Grace do this. She couldn’t let her
make this choice. Not now. Not like this. She would regret it. Flossie knew she would.

  It was in that moment that Flossie understood why she’d come. Why she cared so much.

  It was because Grace had no one else to fight for her. Her mother was gone; her sister was gone now, too. Her father had been stolen away to war. Perhaps her aunt and cousin were also no more.

  If Flossie didn’t take the time to fight for Grace, who would?

  Flossie thought back to her old life and how lucky she had been to have people who would fight for her. She had come close to death several times when the rheumatic fever had first hit. It hadn’t been like later on, when her heart had simply given out and there had been no choice to make. With her initial illness, there had been several moments when she had had to make a decision. When she’d felt that if she wanted to, she could have closed her eyes, let go, and sunk deep, deep down into her bed for all eternity. Her mother had brought her back from that place time and time again. Talking to her. Sitting with her. She would never forget the sound of her mother’s voice calling her back, cajoling her, forcing her to remain in the land of the living. “Which dress should I wear today, Flossie?” “Cook wants to know if you’d like beef or chicken broth today.” “Which book should we read this afternoon? Come on, now. I won’t start until you point to one.”

  “Grace,” Flossie said now, moving around so she stood directly in front of her. “Look at me.”

  Slowly, as if the effort was almost too much, Grace raised her head.

  “Grace, I know what it is to lose people you love — to have them torn away from you. My father, my sister, my niece . . . it happened to me, too. Right now, you’re being asked to make a decision, and it isn’t a decision to be made lightly. It might seem like following your mother and sister is the easier option, but it’s not —”

  The wail of the air-raid siren cut through Flossie’s words, and Grace’s eyes darted up suddenly. Grace grabbed the notebook and pencil Flossie had left for her and wrote as fast as she could.

  She wrote the words in angry, jagged letters, underlining the final word several times.