‘Brilliant!’ Angeline threaded her satchel over her neck and shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Angeline?’ Edgar stood behind his sister and crossed his arms.
‘Yes?’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ His eyes rose to the drooping figure of Travis suspended in the air. ‘We really should get him down.’
‘Do we have to?’ Angeline and Dylan asked in unison.
‘Yes,’ Edgar said. ‘And while you do that, I’ll pack up the cameras.’
‘But it’s so peaceful. Why can’t we leave him there a little longer?’
‘Because we took an oath when we joined the Ghost Club, promising “to defend all citizens against unwanted paranormal activity”. Remember that?’
Dylan and Angeline reluctantly nodded.
Travis’s head lolled about and a groan escaped his lips. He opened his eyes, blinking a few times before he realised he was still suspended in the air. ‘Aaah! What’s going on?’
‘We told you before,’ Angeline said. ‘Levitation.’
‘Levit . . . Get me down!’
‘We’re just about to do that.’ Angeline turned to Dylan. ‘We’ll need our Breakers.’
They reached into their satchels for their goggles and small wand-like devices, which they aimed at Travis.
‘What are they?’ he asked.
‘They’re Circuit-Breakers, or Breakers for short,’ Dylan said. ‘A regular circuit-breaker stops the flow of electricity when there’s too much current to operate safely, but this breaks an energy flow of a more spectral nature.’
Angeline was impressed. ‘You really have been studying.’
‘As well as perfecting falling down, I thought I’d develop a few other talents.’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ Travis asked. ‘Is it going to hurt?’
‘You’ll find out any minute now,’ Angeline replied.
Edgar stared at his sister until she sighed and threw a few pillows onto the floor beneath Travis. ‘Better now?’
Edgar packed the last of the camera equipment away. ‘Much.’
‘Ready, Dylan?’
He got into position. ‘How’s this?’
‘You’re like a regular action hero.’
Dylan blushed and looked back to concentrate on his Breaker. ‘Ready when you are.’
Angeline counted down. ‘In three, two, one!’
They pressed the activation button so that two bright flares of light fired from their devices, illuminating a previously invisible line of force surrounding Travis and holding him in the air. Sparks flickered and spat before falling to the floor like fiery raindrops.
Travis screamed and wailed as the electric air crackled around him.
‘We’re almost there,’ Angeline cried over the noise.
‘When?’ Travis yelled.
‘Just . . . about . . .’
The light extinguished like fizzling fireworks and Travis fell through the air, landing without much grace on the bed of pillows.
‘Now.’ Angeline and Dylan lifted their goggles and returned their Breakers to their satchels.
‘Ouch!’ Travis complained. ‘I thought you told me I was safe.’
‘Apart from the awkward landings, you were safe,’ Angeline said. ‘You’re okay, aren’t you?’
Travis rubbed his elbow. ‘Mostly.’
‘Good. We’ve got to go.’
‘Where?’
‘We told you,’ Edgar said. ‘We’re on a call-out and we have a ghost to deal with.’
Travis scrambled to his feet. ‘You mean that ghost I saw before was real?’
‘Very much so,’ Edgar replied. ‘Most people usually can’t see them, but she increased her spectral energy core, which means she wanted to be visible to people who aren’t normally able to see ghosts.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Maybe you were being annoying,’ Dylan suggested.
The three ghost-catchers turned to go.
‘You can’t leave me here on my own.’
‘Well then, you’ll have to come with us.’ Angeline pointed at him in warning. ‘But you’re in our territory now. Dealing with the paranormal takes skill and expertise, and if you don’t know what you’re doing it can be very dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Yes, so from now on you do everything we say or you go home. Okay?’
Travis nodded. ‘You’re impressive when you’re in charge.’
‘Wait until you see me really get going.’ Angeline turned to Edgar. ‘Is Bridie still in the attic?’
‘There’s a very strong reading up there.’
‘Let’s go.’ Angeline led the way along the corridor to the narrow stairwell barred by the ‘No Entry’ sign. They each climbed over the chain and up the creaking stairs.
When they stepped through the attic door, the lamp beside the camp bed was on, lighting up a thick veil of dust. And at the head of the bed, Bridie sat cross-legged.
Travis stopped and grabbed Angeline’s arm. ‘She’s a real ghost?’
Dylan bristled at Travis’s hand on Angeline’s coat.
‘Yes, and you have to stop talking so we don’t frighten her.’
‘Frighten her? She’s the one being a ghost.’
Bridie sat up and shot a seething glare at Travis, whose heels began to lift from the floor.
‘Whoah!’
‘It’s okay,’ Angeline pleaded. ‘He’s promised not to cause trouble. If he does, I’ll gladly escort him out of here myself, I promise.’
Bridie’s stare lingered a moment longer before Travis’s feet landed on the floor with a thud.
Bridie met Angeline’s gaze. A sadness circled her eyes, filling Angeline with a heavy dread that she desperately wanted to shake away. It was then she realised that Bridie’s lips were moving.
‘Is it just me who can’t hear what she’s saying?’ Travis whispered.
‘Sometimes spectral visitors communicate on a frequency level that is unintelligible to humans,’ Edgar explained.
Travis frowned. ‘What language are you speaking?’
‘I mean it, Travis,’ Angeline glowered. ‘We have to work and you have to be quiet.’
He was instantly silent.
‘Does that mean we’ll need the Spectral Audio Recorder?’ Dylan asked.
Angeline smiled. ‘Exactly.’ She reached into her satchel and pulled out a small black box attached to a set of headphones. ‘Bridie, we can’t hear you, but we’re going to try something that will help us.’ She slipped on the headphones and fiddled with the dials.
‘Locating electronic voice phenomena – or EVP – can take some time,’ Edgar whispered. ‘The first man to discover EVP was Fredrich Jurgenson. He was in his garden recording birdsong on 12 June 1959, but when he played it back, he heard a man’s voice he hadn’t heard during the recording. There have been many such recordings since then.’
‘I’ve got her!’ Angeline disconnected the headphones and increased the volume. ‘Bridie, if you speak now, we’ll be able to hear you.’
Bridie’s mouth clamped shut and she stared at her human guests.
‘It’s okay,’ Angeline said. ‘We’re not going to cause you any harm. We know you’ve been trying to tell us something, and we really want to listen.’
Bridie studied her hands that were tangled in her lap, and for a brief second Angeline feared she would disappear.
‘We know about the boarding school and how strict it was.’ Angeline paused. ‘We also know how you died.’
Bridie’s head snapped up. The room became even colder; a deep, icy breeze covering them all.
Travis began rubbing his arms, and he found himself crying again. �
��Is anyone suddenly incredibly sad? And what’s with the icy chill?’
‘Ghosts have a tendency to lower the temperature.’ Dylan rubbed his hands before tucking them into his coat. ‘A bit like what happens when you enter the room.’
‘Very funny, Mr Smart Guy, why don’t I –’ Travis began, but Angeline gave him a look that immediately silenced him before returning her focus to Bridie. ‘We’ve read newspaper articles and the statements about the night you died, and how Robert Thompson –’
‘It’s not true.’ Bridie’s voice was soft, as if it would float away.
Edgar frowned. ‘But the statements and the court case –’
‘Came to the wrong conclusion.’ Bridie sniffed. ‘Mr Thompson didn’t do it.’
Angeline inched closer to Bridie.
‘Is that safe?’ Travis whispered to Edgar.
‘It is when you’re Angeline. She’s very good at this.’
‘But what if the ghost gets angry again.’
‘She can handle it,’ Dylan defended his friend. ‘She’s braver than you think.’
Angeline stopped beside the camp bed and sat next to Bridie. ‘Can you tell us what really happened?’
‘Mr Thompson was a gentleman and a loyal friend.’ Bridie sniffed again. ‘He knew more about true friendship than anyone I knew.’
‘Are you saying Mr Thompson had nothing to do with your death?’
‘He had something to do with it, he just didn’t cause it – and no one at that time or since has ever wanted to know the truth.’
Angeline’s smile removed some of the chill from the room, or at least it did for Dylan. ‘We do, and we’ll be here for as long as it takes you to tell us.’
‘See,’ Dylan said to Travis. ‘I told you she was good.’
The young girl took a deep breath. ‘I was sent to Gravesend College after my parents were killed in a road accident. They used to always say that I had a lot of spirit, but after they were gone I became very quiet. I think Mr Thompson noticed that as soon as he saw me. He was the only one who knew what it was like to lose so much, and we became each other’s only friends.’
‘What about the other girls at school? You must have been friends with some of them.’
‘A few were nice to me and let me dine with them at mealtimes, but I never could find the right things to say.’ Her sad eyes met Angeline’s. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘It does.’ Angeline nodded. ‘We were told Mr Thompson was tormented by the ghosts of soldiers. Did you ever see them?’
‘No, but he did mention them. He would see them sometimes at night. It never bothered me, but others made fun of him and thought he had lost his mind.’
‘Was it true he was chasing them the night you died?’
Bridie shook her head and the temperature in the room plummeted even further. ‘No, he wasn’t doing anything of the sort.’
Dylan and Travis both wiped tears from their cheeks.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Angeline continued, ‘but we found some pages from your diary underneath the floorboards, and it seemed you were being tormented by someone.’
‘I was.’ Bridie looked down as if she was trying to disappear into herself. ‘Freya, Mary and Elizabeth.’
‘The three girls you boarded with during the holidays?’
‘They had teased me almost from my first day of school. I told the principal, but she said I needed to learn to stand up for myself and that Gravesend College was about creating girls with strong wills and minds to conquer any problem.’
Angeline pursed her lips. ‘From what we’ve read, this school wasn’t very big on caring.’
‘I tried to do as she said, but it only made things worse. Those girls gave me Chinese burns that left welts on my arms. They locked me out of the dormitory so I was forced to sleep in the cold corridor, and when they did let me back in, they would put surprises in my bed, like frogs or mud. One time, they even threw in a dead rat.’
‘Charming,’ Edgar said.
‘Is that when you created the room in the attic?’ Angeline asked.
‘That was Mr Thompson’s idea. He suggested it would be a haven from all the unpleasantness of the world. He found an old camp bed and even bought sheets and blankets.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the actions of a murderer to me,’ Dylan whispered.
‘He was the nicest friend I’d ever had.’ Bridie sighed. ‘On my last night, I was writing in my diary. It was after dinner and the other girls were in the reading room. I’d become very good at listening for their return, but they’d crept down the corridor without me hearing. Freya snatched my diary and began reading it aloud. They all laughed and made fun of me. Each time Freya finished a page, she tore it out and threw it into the air.’
‘Some of which must have fallen through a gap in the floorboards.’
Bridie nodded. ‘I felt so angry. I had to get my diary back, so I lunged for it but Freya ran from the room. I chased her all the way to the roof, where she was holding it in the air, threatening to throw it over the edge. She saw how uncomfortable I was, being up so high, so she threw my diary so that it landed close to the edge. She said if I wanted it so badly, I could just pick it up. I slowly made my way over, trying not to look at the ground far below the edge, and finally got it. When I turned around, she was right behind me. I tried to move past, but she wouldn’t let me, and Mary and Elizabeth giggled and blocked the doorway. Freya said I could go if I stood on the very edge of the building for at least ten seconds. Just thinking of how high we were gave me a terrible case of vertigo.’
‘A spinning sensation in the head that creates the impression you are about to fall over,’ Edgar explained.
Bridie said, ‘With each step I took toward the edge, I felt as if someone had tied a rope around my waist and was pulling me to the ground.’ She took a deep breath. ‘All I could think of was that if I lasted ten seconds I could go inside where it was safe and warm.’
‘Then what happened?’ Angeline asked.
‘Mr Thomson appeared on the ground below. He told us to come away from the rooftop – it was too dangerous. The girls called him names and said that he was crazy, but Mr Thompson didn’t seem to hear them. All he could see was me standing close to the edge, and the expression on my face must have told him how scared I was, for he ran straight inside the building. Soon after, I could hear him screaming my name as he climbed the stairs. He cried out that he was coming to get me. The girls laughed that my “knight in shining armour” was coming to rescue me. They had a way of making laughter sound so cold.’ Bridie looked down. ‘I was never sure what I had done to make them hate me so much.’
‘How could those girls be so mean?’ Travis sniffed and shook his head.
Dylan and Edgar spun around to face him, incredulous.
‘So Mr Thompson wasn’t crying out soldiers’ names but coming to help you?’ Angeline asked.
‘Yes, and by the time he’d arrived I was shivering so much I could barely stand. My knees felt as if they would collapse. He knew immediately what was happening. His face twisted into a look of sadness I’d never seen on anyone. He raced forward to help me, but the girls screamed at him to stay away, thinking he was coming for them. I know they said it in fun, but he was my knight in shining armour. He’d rescued me on so many occasions when I felt sad by telling me stories about his childhood and the war. He was very humble, mind, never a show-off, but I could tell even when he said it was another who was the hero, it was really him.’
‘His army records and letters from soldiers prove that,’ Angeline said.
‘Do they? I am so pleased,’ Bridie said, ‘because that is how I knew him to be.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Mr Thompson moved closer but Freya yelled at him to keep his distance. He held his ha
nds in the air, trying to show them he meant no harm. He pointed at me, as if trying to tell them something.’
Bridie stopped.
‘That was when you fell.’ Angeline’s throat tightened.
‘My knees just bent. Everything went quiet. For whole seconds I felt as if I was floating. It was the most peaceful I’d been in a long while. Then the screaming started. Doors in nearby buildings flew open. Miss Lloyd-Jones and Cook came running, waving torches. They heard the cries from the roof first and then they found me. They called the ambulance and tried to calm the girls, who were now blubbering and spouting words in short, garbled snippets. I watched it all like it was happening to someone else. The police came soon after and tried to make sense of it all.’
‘We’ve read the statements from the girls and Miss Lloyd-Jones,’ Angeline said. ‘Why didn’t Mr Thompson stay and tell them what really happened?’
‘There would have been no point. No one would have believed him. Not only was he a loner, which made people suspicious, they also figured he’d been to war and seen terrible things, and that must have made him guilty.’
‘But it’s not true,’ Angeline said.
Bridie shook her head. ‘Not a word of it. I’d been picked on during my entire school life, and my only friend in the world was blamed for my death.’
‘But that’s not fair,’ Travis blustered, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘Those girls bullied you and then lied about what happened, and no one ever knew the truth. We have to find a way to make it right.’
‘I can’t believe I am going to say this, but for the very first time in my life I agree with Travis.’ Angeline gave him a half-smile before turning back to Bridie. ‘Do you think we could find any evidence to prove what really happened?’
‘I know we can.’
‘You do?’ All four stared at the young, pale girl.
‘Freya was a bully, but after that night she was plagued by what she had done. The only place she allowed herself to acknowledge the truth of what had happened was in a diary.’
‘You have her diary?’ Angeline’s eyes widened.
‘Yes, and there were others who knew the truth but felt they could not speak. In the immediate panic after my fall, Miss Lloyd-Jones was comforting Mary, who confessed everything. Miss Lloyd-Jones quit her position at the school soon after, and in her resignation letter she revealed what she knew.’
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