The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  Glancing in the mirror later, however, I’d thought I looked more pale than usual. It was hard to be sure, just as I couldn’t really tell if the weakness I felt was the normal end-of-case exhaustion. Probably it was. I didn’t have the energy to care either way.

  The one individual who certainly did have plenty of energy that first morning was the skull in the jar. Much to its chagrin, it had been locked up with our equipment in the inn’s storage closet. Holly had refused to let it into our bedroom when we got back, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame her.

  “What’s the point of rescuing me,” it grumbled when I popped my head around the door, “if you lock me away in a damp cubbyhole like this? I haven’t got a nose, but I can tell just by looking that it smells of onions and pee.”

  “It so doesn’t.” I stepped in, and took a hearty sniff. “Well, there’s certainly no trace of onions. And it’s a lot better than being incinerated like all those other Sources back at the facility, so you’d better be thankful.”

  “Oh, I’m doing backflips of gratitude.” The hollow eyes narrowed as it looked at me. “And while we’re on that subject…Is there anything you’d like to say to me?”

  I scratched my nose. “Should there be?”

  “You’re here for a reason.”

  “Actually, I’m here to get potatoes for lunch. George is cooking fries….But I suppose, while I’m with you…”

  “Come on. Spit it out.”

  I took a deep breath. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I said. “On the Other Side. When we were lost and couldn’t find the iron chain. You showed me where it was.”

  The face grinned. “Saving your life? Now does that honestly sound like me?”

  “Well, whoever it was, I am grateful. And I think I understand something else. ‘Death’s in Life and Life’s in Death,’ you keep telling me. And now I know why. Because ghosts have entered the living world, while…while living humans have entered…”

  I broke off. I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. Plus, the face in the jar was doing something off-putting with its tongue.

  There was a short silence. “Finally!” the skull said. “Finally we’re getting somewhere! All these months, and you never figured it out. Yes, last night you were the walking proof of my words. And perhaps now you see why you and I get along so well. Because we both inhabit two worlds. You sense the other one all the time; you’ve always had glimpses of it all your days—and now you’ve actually been there, too. We’re caught between life and death, Lucy, you and I. And that’s what makes us the perfect team.” It gave me a companionable nod. “Hey, remember my suggestion? Carlyle and Skull? The offer of a partnership still stands. I’ll even let you put your name first.”

  “You seem to be forgetting about Lockwood.” I felt the conversation had gone far enough. I located the sack of potatoes and carried it to the door.

  “Oh, Lockwood, Shmockwood. He’s more drawn to death than either of us. You know that. He won’t be lasting long. A partnership with me is a much better bet….Wait, where are you going? Are you insane? We’re on the verge of something special here, and all you’re thinking about is fries?! Come back!”

  But I was out the door. Sometimes fries are the only way to keep you sane.

  The weather that day was unseasonably warm, so we ate our lunch under an awning in the pub garden. From time to time, DEPRAC vehicles sped by. Danny Skinner, roused to a crescendo of excitement by the events of the night, hovered near, asking questions that we couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Eventually he left us to swing like an ape from the gate and stare at the cloud of smoke beyond the trees.

  A big black car drove out of the woods and came to a halt outside the Old Sun Inn. Out stepped Inspector Montagu Barnes, looking wearier and more rumpled than ever. He pushed open the gate, with Danny Skinner still attached to it, and walked over the grass toward us. Here he stood for a while, appraising our bruised and battered faces.

  “Morning, Inspector,” Lockwood said.

  George held out a bowl. “Want a fry?”

  Barnes said nothing. He regarded us for a long time.

  “Had a difficult night?” he said at last.

  “They certainly have.” That was Mr. Skinner, bustling out from the taproom. He, at least, was in good spirits; it had been the busiest day at the inn for many a year. “Mr. Lockwood and his friends have been hard at work ridding Aldbury Castle of its ghosts, sir. Only been at it two nights, and there’s a noticeable improvement everywhere. Cleared my house, and many others. Helping us all sleep soundly in our beds. Young heroes they are, sir, every one.”

  Barnes’s mustache curled doubtfully downward. “Really? First I’ve heard of it.” He said nothing further, but stood with his hands in his trench coat pockets until the innkeeper had returned inside.

  “Glad to hear you’re keeping busy,” Barnes went on. “And out of trouble, too.”

  “Yes, Inspector,” Lockwood said. I looked at him. He caught my eye.

  We sat there quietly.

  “Well, if there’s nothing further, I’ll be on my way.” Barnes turned to go.

  “Actually, Inspector,” I said. “There is something.”

  “We urgently need to talk with you, Mr. Barnes,” Lockwood said.

  The inspector gazed at us. He lifted a hand as if something had just occurred to him. “That boy over there,” he said idly. “The one swinging like a maniac on that gate.”

  “What about him?”

  “Think he’d like to earn a little money?”

  Almost before the last word had left his lips, Danny Skinner had crossed the garden and was standing to attention at Barnes’s side. He performed an outlandish salute. “Anything I can do for you, mister? Just say the word.”

  “I need lunch for me and three of my officers. Think you could go in there and rustle up some sandwiches? There’s five pounds in it for you if they’re edible.”

  “Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. They’ll be the best you ever tasted.” He trotted into the house.

  “Your five is safe, Mr. Barnes,” George said. “The wrapper will be the only edible part, take it from me.”

  Barnes nodded grimly. “That’s not the point. I thought he looked like a boy with excessively sharp hearing—leastways, his ears are big enough—and I was right. Tell you what, why don’t you walk with me a minute, Mr. Lockwood, Miss Carlyle? Come out on the green and take some air.”

  Barnes left the garden, crossed the road. He led us across the green to a spot some distance from the inn. “Now,” he said, “it’s quieter here. No one around. What was it you wanted?”

  “It’s about what happened last night,” I said. “About the institute.”

  “The institute?” Barnes rubbed his mustache and stared into the middle distance. “Well, investigations are currently under way at the facility. All I can tell you is there was some kind of accident there last night.”

  “Well, that’s just it,” Lockwood said. “It wasn’t exactly an accident—”

  “Some experiment that went tragically wrong,” the inspector continued. “I hear there’ve even been casualties.”

  “Yes! And Steve Rotwell—”

  “I wish I could tell you more,” Barnes said, interrupting me, “I really wish I could. Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, that’s all I know.”

  We looked at him.

  “And you two, of course, know nothing about it, either.”

  Lockwood frowned. “Well—”

  “You weren’t anywhere near that place,” Barnes said.

  “Erm, well, in fact we—”

  “You were coincidentally dealing with some local ghosts in Aldbury Castle—in a case that was quite separate to whatever was going on out on those fields. You have no interest in Rotwell or his institute, or what they were doing in that building at the heart of it, and if you have any sense, you’ll make that abundantly clear to anyone who asks you. And anyone who doesn’t, for that matter. I’d spread that information loud and qui
ckly, if I were you. Do you understand me? Mr. Lockwood? Miss Carlyle?” Barnes surveyed us with his tired, pouchy eyes. “One of DEPRAC’s jobs, you see, is to prevent bad things from happening to agents, even irritating ones like you. I wouldn’t want to wake up one morning and discover that there’d been four more accidents at Portland Row. It would really put me off my breakfast egg.”

  Lockwood looked at me. He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Inspector,” he said loudly. “You’ve been very clear. I’m sorry you can’t tell us more about what happened up at that institute. We’ll just have to accept that we’ll never know.”

  Barnes nodded peaceably. “Perfect. That’s the idea.”

  We stayed at Aldbury Castle for two more nights, and made halfhearted forays on each to see what supernatural activity remained. But as Mr. Skinner had said, signs of the village ghosts had greatly diminished. With the destruction of the iron circle at the Rotwell facility, and the end of the Creeping Shadow’s mysterious comings and goings, the cluster at once calmed down. Many of the Visitors did not appear at all, while those that did seemed weaker and less vicious. It was easy to claim (as we did) that this change was entirely due to our own zeal. We made lots of noise running about the place, and threw occasional salt-bombs around to make it look like we were doing something. Mostly we just stayed at the inn and played cards.

  On our fifth morning in the country, things had quietened down over on the eastern fields. Many of the DEPRAC cars had left, and the cordons by the village had been lifted. By now our heroic status in the village was assured. There were still a few Type One ghosts kicking around, but nothing that needed to delay us. Kipps in particular was keen to head off—for two nights he’d been forced to choose between sleeping in the bed with George, or in the storage closet with the skull (he’d preferred the skull, for unnamed reasons)—but we were all eager to get home. A farewell committee from the village accompanied us to the station, Danny Skinner marching proudly at the head. We were given gifts of root vegetables. Lockwood took possession of an envelope stuffed with cash—our payment from the grateful villagers. The children threw garlands of flowers. When the train departed, handkerchiefs were waved until we disappeared from view.

  On our way home, I sat opposite Lockwood. He seemed pale and tired. In the days since our visit to the institute, we hadn’t spoken privately of what had happened to us. Occasionally, when our eyes met, we shared something that couldn’t be expressed in words.

  We smiled at each other, and gazed out at the woods and fields. It was a beautiful spring scene. The column of smoke above the eastern hills had long since drifted away on the wind; nevertheless, a hint of it hung in the air. It had entered the train car with us at Aldbury Castle station, and through the opened windows, the smell of distant burning stayed with us all the way to London.

  TERRORIST LINK TO ROTWELL AGENCY!

  FORBIDDEN WEAPONS FOUND AT RUINED INSTITUTE

  STEVE ROTWELL STILL MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD

  FIRST INTERVIEW WITH DEPRAC INVESTIGATOR MONTAGU BARNES INSIDE

  The sensational discoveries made in the rubble of the ruined Rotwell Institute facility in Hampshire continued yesterday, with confirmation that police had uncovered the remains of a large “weapons factory” in one of the outbuildings. Among the items recovered are said to be several unexploded “ghost-bombs” of the kind used in a terrorist attack on the London carnival last November, in which an attempt on Ms. Penelope Fittes’s life was made. Several members of the institute staff, including facility chief Mr. Saul Johnson, have been arrested, amid claims that they and agency head Mr. Steve Rotwell were intimately involved in that attack. Mr. Rotwell’s whereabouts remain unknown, but it is believed that he may have perished in the explosions that destroyed the facility.

  In today’s exclusive interview in the Times, DEPRAC chief investigator Mr. Montagu Barnes gives a detailed account of his team’s dangerous exploration of the ruins. “It was an inferno when we arrived,” he says. “But we managed to discover a store of illicit weapons, including deadly ectoplasm-guns. Ghost-bombs are just the tip of the iceberg, believe me.” He refused to comment on the contents of the central building at the site, which was severely damaged in the incident. “Sadly, the purpose of that building is not yet clear. Rest assured that inquiries are continuing.”

  Police investigations widened yesterday, following reports of forbidden Sources found stored at the institute. Several arrests have been made among staff at the Greater London Metropolitan Furnaces in Clerkenwell, and more are expected in the coming days. However, such developments pale into insignificance next to the crisis surrounding the Rotwell Agency. With its leader missing, and other key executives also implicated in serious crimes, public confidence in the organization has plummeted, and its future hangs in the balance. Latest reports suggest that DEPRAC has invited Fittes Agency head Ms. Penelope Fittes to take temporary charge of the rudderless organization in an effort to stabilize its fortunes. She will run both companies from her offices in the Strand.

  Full Barnes Interview: see page 3

  “Ghost-bombs and Plasm-guns”—True Secrets of the Weapons Factory: see pages 6–7

  “Maimed Lion”: A Pull-out History of the Rotwell Agency: see pages 25–33

  “Well,” Lockwood said, “that’s another investigation successfully swept under the rug.” He tossed the paper onto the breakfast table and reached for the toast. “Old Barnes is a master at this sort of stuff. All that flimflam with the illegal weapons allows him to quietly gloss over the only important thing, which is the iron circle. Still, I suppose we should be happy that he’s glossed over our part in the affair, too.”

  “I’m very happy about that,” Holly said.

  We all were. We were happy about many things that morning. And because of this, we’d decided to enjoy an official celebratory breakfast at 35 Portland Row.

  It was the day after our return from Aldbury Castle, and the sun was shining bright. Holly had thrown open the kitchen door. Birds sang, new leaves sparkled; cool spring air flooded the room, almost driving out the smell of George’s smoked kippers. Best of all, the team was there to share the occasion.

  The whole team, that is. Including me.

  Part of my happiness stemmed from the fact that I’d spent the previous night back in my old attic room. Back for real, I mean. In a symbolic gesture, George had even taken away most of his clothes. I still had to be careful what I stepped on—the floor was likely to remain a minefield of eerie socks and hankies for a while yet—but it was my place again now.

  Well, mine…and the skull’s. While I slept it had occupied its old position on the windowsill, from where it could (it claimed) enjoy looking out at the quiet night, and (more probably) try to scare the toddlers in the house opposite by glowing an unholy green. This morning it was down in the kitchen, too, since its retrieval was another thing we were celebrating that day. Within thirty seconds of arriving, however, it had disgraced itself by leering at Holly in such a knowing way that she’d dropped her plate of whole wheat waffles into her lap. It had then been removed from the table and placed in a dark corner by the sink, its jar half shrouded by a dishcloth.

  The skull wasn’t the only morally dubious guest that morning. Quill Kipps was there, too. While not himself a member of Lockwood & Co. (which would, in his words, be a fate worse “than being whipped naked across Wimbledon Common”), there was talk of him being a consultant who might be called in from time to time. He was with us that morning to discuss this, and also to celebrate our return to London. Eggs were being poached, bacon was fried, and even Holly’s super-healthy waffles glistened temptingly under oodles of honey and fresh butter. We all ate contentedly and well.

  Lockwood sat at the head of the table, passing laden plates, making sure everyone had their fill. I was relieved to see that he looked like his normal self. His color had returned, and he moved with his customary ease. Physically it was taking both of us a long time to recover from our walk through the ir
on circle. I still felt weary, and had been troubled by obscure nightmares—but these seemed to be lessening. On a morning such as this it was easy to imagine that the effects of our ordeal would soon fade.

  At last Lockwood banged a fork against a milk jug. “Time for some toasts,” he said. “I’d like to thank you all for your efforts in Aldbury Castle. George, Holly, and Quill—you did great things at the institute. Without you, Lucy and I wouldn’t have survived.”

  Glasses were raised and orange juice drunk. Then Lockwood turned to me.

  “Lucy,” he said, “you deserve a special toast. First, for coming back to us. Lockwood and Company was incomplete without you. And second, for intervening when Rotwell had me beaten. You saved my life that night. Thank you.”

  His eyes fixed on mine. I did my best to look super-casual, but I could feel a bit of blushing going on. Then I realized that everyone was watching us.

  “Ooh, awkward,” George said.

  Lockwood grinned and tossed a crust of bread at him. “The truth is, we all rely on each other. Take any one of us away, and we’re all weakened. Together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

  “Hear, hear,” Holly said.

  “And that brings me to my last toast,” Lockwood finished. “To new horizons. Because after the Creeping Shadow and the iron circle and what Lucy and I found on the Other Side, I believe everything has changed. Between us, we’ve discovered things we never imagined. Barnes wants us to keep quiet about it, but we all know that’s impossible. From now on, the scope of our inquiries will be wider. There are many new questions to answer, and our investigations have only just begun.”

  We drank and put our glasses down. For a short space everyone was silent; we listened to the birdsong through the open door.

  “What I want to know,” Holly said, “is what the Creeping Shadow guy was doing on the Other Side. Steve Rotwell alluded to some kind of purpose. He wasn’t wandering around out there just for the fun of it. What was he after? Why would anyone take such risks? I can’t imagine anything important enough to justify it.”