Gap Year in Ghost Town

by Michael Pryor

  This might sound like a finely tuned ghost-hunting machine, complete with ‘hut, hut, huts’, 0400 hours, and stuff like that, but it’s really just something that Dad and I stumbled onto. All his figuring of ghost hunting was based on his father’s and uncles’ notes, and what he observed of his sister.

  To tell the truth, I hadn’t really done any concerted, systematic ghost hunting until this year, this gap year. Oh, I’d done a bit, either with Dad tagging along or observing Aunt Tanja, but nothing serious, nothing solo. So this year has been the king of ambivalent years. I’m not sure I want to carry on the family tradition and become a Big Bad Ghost Hunter, but I’ve sort of been itching to get into it having heard so much about it. I’ve been at it for about three months, and it’s been a gentle start, I’d say. I’ve managed to find and ease the passage for a few dozen ghosts, mostly Weepers and Lurkers, nothing too confronting. This all means that I’ve had a taste of what Fulfilling My Destiny (it always had capital letters when Dad said it) is all about, and it’s pretty cool.

  But I’m still not sure if I want to dedicate my life to it.

  So after the action-packed morning of Rani’s visit, Dad took over the shop and I headed home. A tram, then a bus, then a tram, got me back to Parkville, which was, as usual, swarming with uni students and medico people, none of them aware of ghosts – except maybe as that uneasy back-of-the-neck prickling shivery feeling, or an unexplained headache, or a feeling of unearned sadness and loss. All these are ghost signs, possibly, and if I spot enough people feeling poorly for no reason, it’s a hint that I need to start sniffing around for malignant spooks.

  We couldn’t afford our house if we had to buy it today. It was only my great-granddad’s smuggled gold and his eye for a useful location that got it for us. And no one since has been stupid enough to sell such a prize, no matter how many cheesy estate agents have begged us to.

  ‘Rambling’, that’s what these estate agents would put on the sign if it ever came up for sale. ‘Federation charm’, that’d be there too, and ‘unique opportunity’, in big bold letters.

  Parkville is an old Melbourne suburb; tiny, really, full of grand Victorian terraces and other big houses, plus lots of smaller historic cottages on small blocks. Our house is one of the rare ones with a huge block of land, big enough for massive front and back gardens with some big old trees. It’s usually under some sort of agriculture or other, growing much of the food the Marin family eats. Chooks, too, not that we have any now, but the chook shed and yard are still there if we ever have the urge to get into poultry again.

  Get home. Eat. Sleep. A simple life is a good life, sometimes.

  My body knew when Dad got home, even though I was still sleeping. He rattled around in the house, doing some cooking, picking up books from bookshelves and putting them back again, a noise that I knew well.

  The house is too big for the two of us. Even when Judith, Dad’s second wife, is in the country, it’s still too big. That gives us plenty of storage space, though, and some of the bedrooms are full of stuff that has accumulated over the years.

  I dragged myself out of bed some time later, showered, climbed into jeans, a T-shirt and a black woollen jumper. I selected a dark navy pinstriped jacket to go over the top.

  In the kitchen, Dad was cooking one of his wintery stews with peppercorns and plenty of bay leaves. He loves bay leaves.

  He looked over his shoulder. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

  ‘Not for breakfast, thanks. I’ll save it for later.’

  I went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of orange juice.

  ‘Use a glass,’ Dad said without looking.

  I stopped with the bottle halfway to my lips and started to argue. A reflex. I knew that. I found a glass in the overhead cupboard and filled it.

  I was getting good at this maturity thing.

  Dad added his finishing touches to the stew, filled the stove-top espresso maker, put it on, then joined me at the kitchen table. It’s an old, battle-scarred lump of wood that’s seen a thousand thousand meals, arguments and emotional scenes.

  ‘You’re ready?’

  He often asked if I was ready, before I went out. Partly it was a genuine desire to see if I was as prepared as possible. Partly it was to reassure himself that he’d done all he could.

  Dad came with me when I first started confronting ghosts. Fifteen was the magic age when he first allowed me to do what our family heritage, my observing of Aunt Tanja, and his training had pointed me towards. As hard as it was to stand back while I went in to grapple with ghosts, he did it. But he was always there, until this year, when he said I was ready to go solo.

  Dad stood, and the chair was noisy on the slate tiles as it scraped back. ‘I’ll drive you, if you like.’

  ‘Coffee and toast first,’ I mumbled. ‘Then I’ll make my own way. Thanks.’

  He glanced at the stove top. ‘Coffee’s ready. Bread’s in the pantry.’

  He patted me on the shoulder as he left the kitchen. To work on the family tree some more, would be my guess.

  As I headed out into the night – right after midnight – I had my backpack with me. Last night I hadn’t taken it to the football and felt naked without it. It contains my essential ghost-hunting gear and I’ve gradually refined its contents.

  If you’re thinking stuff like holy water, crucifix and stake, you’re way off the mark. And you’d be thinking vampires, anyway. What the twenty-first-century ghost hunter needs is pretty much what a twenty-first-century guy needs. I have a phone charger, my pro standard GPS unit, a water bottle, a book and an e-reader just in case I finish my book. Can’t be without a book. Ghost hunting sometimes means hanging around waiting for something I’ve felt to manifest itself enough so I can tackle it. Waiting = reading. There is no substitute. Apart from Facebooking and Instagramming and Twittering, maybe.

  Just before I caught one of the last trams for the night I did the three-way slap, checking my phone, wallet and keys were all there in my pockets. All set, all secure, all systems go.

  When I got to the Fitzroy Gardens, I didn’t see Rani until she stepped out of the shadows of one of those giant Moreton Bay figs.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d show up,’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘Unfinished business. I don’t like to leave ghosts hanging.’

  ‘I heard you whistling.’

  ‘Sometimes I whistle when I’m nervous. Don’t even realise I’m doing it.’

  ‘Don’t be nervous. This should be a doddle,’ she said.

  I followed in Rani’s almost silent footsteps, avoiding patches of light. She paused some distance away from the Conservatory and pointed.

  The Lingerer from last night was drifting along under the trees that lined Lansdowne Street, then he turned towards the Conservatory. He was wandering, head down, shuffling along, soundless. Once he reached the building, he began to circle it, wafting through the benches, pots and even the fountains in his way in the best spectral fashion. No sounds of mourning, no scary sobbing, just drifting along like a bored emo waiting for something to be disappointed with.

  A couple of laps, then he propped himself up against the wall, as if he was tired.

  ‘Yup, plenty dangerous,’ I whispered to Rani.

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive.’

  ‘True. Sometimes I look like a complete idiot when the reverse is true.’

  ‘You’re an incomplete idiot?’

  ‘Very snappy. Remind me never to hand you an opportunity like that again.’

  ‘You won’t have to hand them to me. I make my own.’ She frowned. ‘It’s going through the wall.’

  One of the hardest things to deal with about ghosts is their neat trick of insubstantiality. Mostly this means they can pass through solid objects like walls and floors. It makes following them a nightmare.

  ‘Something inside the Conservatory must be attracting him,’ I said. ‘He keeps going back there.’

  Rani touched me on the arm. ‘Now it’s your
turn. Show me your tricks.’

  Does everyone get all fumbly when someone is watching them closely, or is it just me? Instead of the casual moves I was aiming for, I ended up groping for my pendant under my jacket and T-shirt in a way that was possibly indecent. Then I nearly dropped it before I could manoeuvre it to the lock.

  Smooth, that’s me, all the way through.

  Inside it was steamy and fragrant with growing stuff, just like before. The whole place isn’t much more than twenty-five metres end to end, so it didn’t take long before I saw the ghost huddling in the corner. He was crouched against the wall, almost sitting on the ground behind a spreading hydrangea.

  Remembering the debacle of last night, I did a quick one-two glance over each shoulder. Rani nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I have your back.’

  The ‘shhk-snik’ sound of her pulling her sword part-way out of the sheath and then settling it back home was reassuring. A friendly face with a quality weapon in hand does that to me.

  I spread my arms and advanced on the ghost. ‘Hey there, matey,’ I said. ‘Why so blue?’

  The ghost looked up. His eyes were empty wells that went on and on and on, opening on something that wasn’t here and wasn’t there. I’d learned not look into ghost eyes. Too easy to get lost, and get trapped in a place of horror and despair with no way home.

  I kept up my soothing patter.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m here to help. Turn your frown upside down. Chin up, tiger.’

  When I first started, Dad presented me with a long list of ritual phrases that were meant to be helpful in calming ghosts, to reassure them and stop them fleeing. Trouble was, they were all so olde worlde that I couldn’t use them without cracking up. They made me sound like a cut-rate Hamlet, all full of ‘prithees’ and ‘hearkens’. I tried, really I did, but I couldn’t take them seriously. Then I got thinking, and decided that it wasn’t so much about the words as the sounds and the attitude they conveyed. If I was calm, if I spoke gently, I figured that was the crunch. After all, ghosts aren’t champs when it comes to intelligence. They probably wouldn’t be able to tell a prithee from a yo.

  So I made it up as I went along. If nothing else, it kept me amused.

  ‘Hush, hush, don’t cry. Momma will buy you an apple pie.’

  I moved in, arms extended, then knelt when I was close enough. The ghost continued to shy away from me, trembling, eyes averted. The creature was lost and confused, forlorn and tormented, not remembering how he had come here but knowing that he was hurting.

  Not really the unexploded bomb that Rani thought all ghosts were.

  I reached out with my palms foremost, fingers upwards. Slowly, I pushed forward until I made contact with the ghost. This superficial touch is where I always run up against some resistance, and I had to push harder until my hands sank into his chest.

  Then I gathered myself and twisted my hands in an action like wringing out a wet cloth.

  Even though I was prepared for it, I rocked backwards when the ghost flew apart. For a few seconds it was like being caught in a wind tunnel, but instead of wind, I was buffeted by visions: a dog, slobbering with joy; the coldness of water at a beach; children of my own; working, digging away at what had become the Fitzroy Gardens; a scrape, a cut, an infection; pain and sickness and distraught people all around.

  Then the finality, a moment of gratitude when the ghost finally let go and moved on. It was a moment that made me want to cry.

  And that was it. I opened eyes I hadn’t realised that I’d shut.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Rani said softly. ‘And you’re shivering.’

  I rolled my shoulders and neck. I got to my feet, every joint creaking like I was four hundred years old. ‘The poor thing.’ I rubbed my face with both hands. ‘I just helped him leave.’

  ‘That’s what I do,’ she said carefully. ‘My way is just a little more abrupt.’

  ‘And violent,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget violent.’

  ‘It’s the right way.’

  ‘That’s what you were told.’ I tugged my jacket around me, straightening the lapels. ‘It’s the hammer problem.’

  ‘The hammer problem?’

  I pointed at her sword. ‘When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘You do understand that you’re insulting four hundred years of dedicated service to humanity?’

  ‘What can I say? I call ’em as I see ’em, and if the Company of the Flightless thinks chopping up ghosts is the best way to deal with them, then I’m seeing stupidity.’

  Her grip tightened on the hilt of her sword. ‘What did you say?’

  I nodded at her knuckles. ‘Hammer problem?’

  She glared at me.

  ‘Look, I’m insulting you deliberately,’ I went on, ‘and instead of arguing rationally you’re getting set to make me a head shorter.’

  ‘Insulting and condescending,’ she said. ‘You obviously don’t mix with people who carry swords.’

  ‘I was demonstrating my proposition. That sword is a two-edged sword, so to speak.’

  She let go of the hilt and crossed her arms. ‘All right, convince me. I’m now rationally asking for an explanation of that tosh.’

  ‘That sword is all sorts of awesome, but when it comes to ghost hunting I think it makes the people from your organisation see things too simply. See ghost, chop ghost. See ghost, chop ghost. See ghost—’

  ‘Enough. You’re labouring the point.’

  I’d taken a chance. I’d prodded this spooky ninja warrior girl because…Because why? Because I was jealous of her style and swagger? Because I honestly thought she was wrong? Because I thought she’d listen?

  I clapped my hands together. ‘Right, who’s hungry? I don’t know about you, but I’m always famished after dealing with a ghost.’

  ‘You insult me, you insult my heritage, you insult my beliefs and now you want to go out to eat?’

  ‘Or we could skip eating and go straight to dancing. How’s your tango?’

  You know that line, the one that when you’ve crossed it you’ve gone too far? Yeah, I’ve always had trouble seeing it early enough.

  The sword was part-way out of the sheath. She stopped, thrust it back, took two steps and grabbed my earlobe. Really, really hard. She twisted, and it was like a squadron of wasps had decided to test their stings on the side of my head.

  A jerk, and I fell to my knees.

  ‘You think you’re an expert on ghosts,’ she said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Well, I did ace that online “What Ghost is That?” quiz. Yipe!’

  ‘I can tell you you’re not,’ she said. ‘You’ve handled a few lesser ghosts, that’s all. You haven’t seen what they can do.’

  ‘I don’t know about…’

  She let me go and stepped away. I’d been leaning in her direction so hard that I fell over.

  She stood in the doorway, CGI dramatic, with the coat swirl and all. ‘I’ve seen what you can do, now, and my instructors were right when they said that the Marins have fled from the battle, that they’ve resigned themselves to confronting the most paltry of ghosts.’

  ‘Paltry? Who are you calling chicken?’

  ‘Go back to your books. Leave the real ghost hunting to those who understand the challenge.’

  Then she was gone.

  I dusted my hands, eased out of the Conservatory and locked it behind me. I headed through the gardens, kicking myself for being smart when serious was called for.

  CHAPTER 5

  Let’s face it, she was right. There was a whole lot I didn’t know about ghosts. In some ways, that’s because there’s a whole lot that no one knows about ghosts. Of course, that hasn’t stopped all sorts of people in this ghost-hunting business from having opinions – which means there have been some slam-bang arguments over the centuries.

  Three ghost-hunting theoreticians battle it out IN A CAGE! I’d pay good money to see that.

  Try a questio
n as simple as ‘Where do ghosts go in the daytime?’. You’d think that would have been sorted out right at the beginning of time, when people first started being aware of ghosts. The standard answer, out there in ghost-hunting land, is that full-on sun is bad for their insubstantial being, so they slide onto the ghost plane, their natural resting place, and they emerge again at night. But, thanks to the Marin family archive, I’ve read a few dozen other opinions. Some say that ghosts don’t go anywhere in the daytime – we just can’t see them because of the sun. Others say that they hide in the darkest place they can find. My favourites, though, are those who use the favourite New Age buzz word and blurt ‘quantum’, even though they have no idea what it means.

  And then there are puzzles; for example, why do some ghosts lapse into an inactive state, going dormant for years, decades, even centuries? One line of thinking says that these are ghosts who shun preying on people for one reason or another. Rather than continue their existence at the cost of pain and suffering, they just sort of go to sleep. Another bunch of eggheads say these ghosts haven’t been able to leach enough energy from people and as a last-ditch effort at self-preservation go into a sort of hibernation. Yet another group of boffins have gone right out on a limb and insist that these inactive ghosts are in deliberate hiding, although from what no one knows. Other ghosts? Ghost hunters? Something else really ghastly? And that’s a scary thought. What would make a ghost frightened?

  And then there’s the Big Question of Recent Times – why are there so many ghosts nowadays? Reports from Europe and the Americas suggest that the rate of ghost spawning is increasing. As usual, there are lots of opinions, ranging from the obvious (‘More people now, more people dying, therefore more ghosts’) to the thoughtful (‘Perhaps death is becoming more traumatic as religion declines and people lack its comfort, thus spawning more ghosts’) to the lunatic (‘Maybe Death is getting grumpy at so many deaths and he’s throwing some back at us’) and everything in between.