Ghostcatcher

by Sophie Green

  ‘It looks better from up here. Do you reckon we could see our house?’

  Nedly squinted into the darkness ‘Maybe, if you had binoculars.’

  ‘If only Abe were here …’ Lil grinned. ‘Anyway, it would probably just look like all the others.’

  ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘I had a hunch.’ Lil raised her eyebrow cryptically.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, I’ve been looking all night. It was just luck – and maybe a bit of a hunch too.’

  They both stopped speaking and looked out at the city. Beyond the centre the rooftops flattened out, with just the odd car prowling the streets, and then further out they could see the snaking trains, the lit metros and the hulking freight wagons that tramped along the city lines on their way to the docks. Slow-moving clouds billowed from the industrial chimneys, rolling out like foam and then growing soft as they dispersed and then … Who knew what lay beyond, but the blue-grey light of dawn was already at the horizon, a horizon Lil had never seen before – but then she had never been this high above the city.

  ‘So …’ she said, glancing sidelong at Nedly.

  ‘So?’ he replied.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I was thinking maybe I’d skip town for a while.’ He looked across at the horizon line.

  ‘You can’t leave, not now!’

  He gave her a dark look. ‘Can’t I?’

  Lil looked mortified. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said quickly. ‘You know it isn’t. I would never mean it like that. Never.’ She shook her head. ‘What I meant was, please don’t go.’

  Nedly took a deep breath and frowned. ‘Then everyone could just forget about me. It would be like I never existed and you wouldn’t have to keep trying to convince everyone that I’m not real.’ Lil’s jaw dropped in protest but Nedly continued, ‘I heard you talking to your mum that night.’

  Lil felt her ears burning red. ‘I – I just thought it would be safer, not better. I wanted people to leave you alone. I didn’t think –’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, his gaze bent on his scuffed old trainers. ‘You didn’t think. Not about how that would feel for me.’

  Lil looked down at her own boots. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I wish that people could see the real me; not just a spook that gives everyone the creeps. I only wanted the chance to be someone good, like everyone else has. That’s all I ever wanted.’ Nedly shrugged, his pale skin had taken on the shadows of night. ‘But look at all the trouble I’ve caused. Peligan City would be better off without me.’ A ghostly tear dropped from his eye and vanished.

  Lil snorted. ‘Trouble! Are you serious? Peligan City would be haunted by the most terrifying band of spooks if not for you! Lots of people would actually be dead, not to mention we would have Cornelius Gallows as mayor. When I think about what might have been …’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to think about it.

  ‘Just stick around, things will change,’ Lil pleaded. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Not for me,’ Nedly said quietly, and then an edge crept into his voice. ‘Things will never change for me. This is me now. For ever.’

  ‘Not for ever,’ Lil reminded him quietly. ‘Just as long as I’m around.’

  Nedly flickered, his eyelids dipped as his head hung down.

  ‘Yossarian said you’d never be free of me.’

  ‘When did I ever say that I wanted to be free of you? They were his words not mine. You’re my best friend! You know he was telling you that stuff because he wanted to make trouble. He wanted us to split so he could bind you to himself and make you do what he wanted.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So why were you listening? He was trying to make you feel down on yourself so you’d make a bad decision. You can’t let people get to you like that.’

  ‘But he was right: I do give people the creeps.’

  ‘So what?’

  He shrugged. ‘So it’s not a good feeling.’

  Lil gripped the lion’s leg tighter and swivelled perilously to face him. ‘Nedly, you can’t let other people decide who you are, that’s something you have to work out for yourself. If you do decide to go, go because you want to, but not because of me, or anyone else in this town, because for the record I want you to stay, and what the people who don’t know you think doesn’t matter.’

  She dug her heels into the ledge for balance then reached her spare hand out and laid it over Nedly’s, letting it sink slightly through. It felt like freshly fallen snow. But Nedly didn’t react or say anything.

  ‘What about Peligan City – don’t you want to stay and fight for it?’ Lil asked desperately.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m not sure it’s worth fighting for any more.’

  Lil looked up into the stone lion’s grave face; standing on its plinth it looked weary, as though it had been watching for a long time. She wondered if it was tired too.

  ‘You don’t mean that.’ She squeezed her eyes shut to push out the tears and let the rain wash them away and then she took a deep breath. ‘You know, back when we had McNair, people had someone to get behind. That’s what Peligan City needs more than anything now, someone to believe in. Why shouldn’t that be you?’

  Nedly almost laughed. ‘Because I’m dead, OK? I’M DEAD!’ He shouted this so loudly that a spectral wind gusted around Lil, whipping her hair into her eyes and dislodging the pencil she was keeping there. It bounced through Nedly and rolled over the edge.

  ‘I know,’ Lil yelled back. ‘I know you’re dead. I mean, you’re a ghost – I don’t think it’s the same thing and anyway.’ She crooked her arm over her face to shield it from the wind; the rain turned into sleet as it neared them. ‘That’s just one of your … qualities. It’s not what defines you; it’s what you do that makes you who you are.’

  But Nedly was on a roll. ‘What do you think I’m going to do? If you’re thinking of all these things that you’re going to do, like grow up and find a job and live in a house of your own – that’s not going to happen for me!’

  The stone leg of the lion had turned bone-achingly cold but Lil clung on fiercely as the creeps hammered in her chest.

  ‘I know … I know!’ she shouted into the gale. You’re right!’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Everything you just said. I’m agreeing with you.’

  The wind dropped. Nedly glared at Lil with tear-filled eyes, and then wiped them angrily away with the back of his hand and stared out across the city.

  Lil’s teeth were chattering and her fingers were numb so she took a deep sigh to try to slow her breathing down and then said: ‘So, what now?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Because that’s the only question that matters – you can’t do anything about the things that have already happened. It’s what you do next that counts.’

  ‘What can I do?’ He shrugged helplessly.

  Lil shook her head in disbelief. ‘Things no one else can. Nedly, you can walk through walls, move things without touching them. You’re invisible, you can generate electricity and use it … and above all, you’re the bravest and kindest person I know. So, if you ask me – which you did, actually – you could be the thing that this city needs. Something it has needed for a really long time. You could be a real hero.’

  Nedly smirked humourlessly. ‘Yeah, one that everyone was terrified of.’ He looked down at the scratch on the back of his hand, the one that had never healed, the one he had got the night he died. ‘Some things you can’t change, no matter how much you try.’

  Below in the city the street lights started to go out, one by one, and there on the horizon they saw a pale glow, as though the fabric of night had faded there, and then a thin, bright line, a seam of precious metal spilled into a luminous pool, the edge of the sunrise.

  ‘So that’s what it looks like.’ Nedly stared at it.

  ‘It’s really something.’ Lil rubbed the tears out of her eyes.

  They watched the sun a
s it alighted on the city, glinting off the edges of the buildings, like gold leaf. The light danced over Lil’s cheeks, and she closed her eyes and let the soft glow warm her skin before she spoke.

  ‘I’m not giving up on you, Nedly.’

  He looked at her, tears still haunting his eyes. Lil’s own eyes filled again too when she looked back at him. ‘Whatever it takes, we’re going to fix this so you can stay. I promise.’

  Nedly grinned lopsidedly and then his face became serious again. ‘If anyone can, then it’s you.’

  ‘Ha!’ Lil gulped noisily. A tear had escaped and was hanging below her nose. She snorted and then a thought occurred to her; she wiped the tear away absent-mindedly and a gleam came to her eye. Lil’s dangling legs began to tap at the thin air. She pulled her spare pencil out from a pocket and started chewing on it. After a moment she got to her feet and said, ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Now?’ Nedly looked crestfallen.

  ‘There’s something I need to do.’ There was a silence in which Lil did not say, Do you want to come too? ‘Will you be OK?’

  Nedly grinned but his eyes didn’t catch it. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll probably just sit up here for a bit longer.’

  ‘OK.’ She started towards the fire escape and then stopped. ‘Just don’t give up. Not yet. Promise me you won’t leave, not for a couple of days at least.’

  Lil didn’t wait for an answer. She had a job to do.

  Chapter 24

  The Whole Truth

  An hour later Lil walked into the Nite Jar Cafe. The early breakfast crowd were on their way out, leaving behind them the smell of hot coffee and toasted bread.

  Velma was standing at the counter, wearing her hair curled up under a mint-green headscarf with a poodle fringe. She raised her eyebrows expectantly. ‘Did we do all right?’

  Lil gave her a heartfelt smile. ‘You were ace.’

  Velma nodded over at a corner booth. Naomi Potkin was waiting there with two cups of hot chocolate. Like Lil, she had dark shadows under her eyes and looked pale and tired.

  Lil peeled off her mac and slid into her seat looking contrite. ‘I’m sorry I worried you.’ She stirred her hot chocolate, closing her heavy eyes for a moment to let the sweet warm steam drift over her face.

  ‘According to Abe you were out looking for a friend, is that right?’

  Lil nodded. ‘I found them.’

  ‘Good.’ Naomi leant in and lowered her voice. ‘Marsha Quake has been looking for you all night; there was a big development in the Ghostcatcher story.’ She continued whispering at speed, her gaze fixed on Lil. ‘Coincidentally last night, while you were off looking for a friend, Ghostcatcher were called out to a suspected haunting here at the Nite Jar; meanwhile, back on Bun Hill, an unidentified group of burglars incapacitated the alarm system and broke into Rorschach Laboratories, sabotaging an extremely expensive piece of pioneering scientific equipment.

  ‘Only, Quake has heard from a source in the P.D. that the lead scientist there, Professor Virgil, isn’t seeking to press charges against the perpetrators. Instead, she has resigned from her post, but not without tipping us off that City Hall Waste Disposal Services have been dumping the toxic by-product of some mineral called black tourmaline, which Ghostcatcher had been using, on the outskirts of Peligan, contaminating the soil and killing all the vegetables in the orphanage allotments – which solves my story. And she has vowed to use her considerable intellect and scientific knowledge to prove it and is petitioning City Hall to pay for the clean-up operation.’

  She paused to take a breath. ‘So it looks like someone had a busy night.’

  Lil nodded sagely. ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘And nothing I just said made you raise so much as an eyebrow.’

  Lil quickly raised an eyebrow, but it was too late. ‘I didn’t know about the contaminated soil,’ she said quietly.

  Naomi sighed. ‘I thought we were on the same team now?’

  Lil buried her eyes in the hot chocolate. ‘We are. I just couldn’t explain what was going on before. I wanted to.’

  Naomi creased up her forehead. ‘Whatever it was, you could have trusted me.’

  ‘I know.’ Lil took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to start now. Did you bring it?’

  Naomi nodded to the seat beside her where, wrapped up in an old pillowcase, was Lil’s Olympia SM-3 typewriter. ‘Are you going to tell me what all this is about?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lil earnestly. She gulped a big swig of chocolate and swallowed it nosily. ‘I need your help, with a story.’

  Naomi smiled and her tired eyes crinkled. ‘OK.’

  ‘But I’m worried you won’t believe me.’

  ‘I’ll believe you. But if this is something you want to put into print it’s not me you’ll need to convince. Tell me everything, from the beginning.’

  And so Lil Potkin ordered a plate of raisin whirls and another two hot chocolates and her mother sat in silence while Lil told her the truth; the whole story from beginning to end, which started at the Paradise Street All-Night Bus Station, and ended on the rooftop of City Hall.

  When she had finished, Lil picked up of one of the untouched pastries and took a big bite. While she chewed it her mother just stared at her, with a slight frown pinching her eyebrows together. Lil swallowed half her mouthful and spoke through the rest of it. ‘What do you think?’

  Naomi’s hot chocolate had grown cold and a skin had formed on the surface. She pushed it to one side. ‘It’s a great story. Is it really true?’

  ‘Every word.’

  Naomi picked up a raisin whirl and pointed it at Lil. ‘Can you prove it?’

  Lil exhaled and her shoulders drooped uncertainly. ‘I don’t know.’

  Naomi studied her daughter’s pale face, her worse-for-wear yellow mac and the stub of a chewed pencil she had stuck in her hair, and then she took hold of her hand across the table and squeezed it. ‘We better make some calls. We’ll need someone to go on the record, someone solid. And if we can get it past Logan, there are some practical delivery details we’ll need to take care of.’

  She held her hand up to Velma for a pot of strong coffee. ‘It’s going to be a long day.’

  They wrote the story right there in the Nite Jar. Naomi scoured the Peligan City phone directory and made the calls from the phone by the counter; interviews were held in the corner booth. Lil made two runs to the library for further fact-checking, then took her turn phoning round, twiddling her pencil expertly like a baton and snapping it into action against her reporter’s notebook when she needed to.

  Velma and Yoshi came back and forth with coffee and sandwiches, the windows of the Nite Jar grew steamier, interviews took place back to back and a small queue formed along the counter of people waiting to take their seat in the booth.

  By mid-afternoon, Lil’s notebook was full and she had chewed her way through six pencils. She typed up what they had so far and handed it to Naomi to read.

  As Naomi turned over the last page she laid her palm on top of the pile and smiled. ‘We’ve done it, Lil. It’s a good piece. Possibly the best.’

  With the pages stuffed safely under her camelhair coat they left the Nite Jar and stepped out into the rain.

  At the library they stood side by side and knocked on the door of the librarian’s office. When Lil presented Logan with the manuscript she received no more than a quizzical look in return.

  Lil started to explain what they were trying to do as they followed her to the desk but the librarian and editor of the Klaxon raised a finger to silence her.

  ‘The story has to stand on its own two feet now,’ Naomi explained.

  Logan flipped the switch on the Anglepoise lamp that hung over her desk, sat down in her cane office chair, which creaked as she leant back, and stuck her feet on the table, legs crossed at the ankle. As she read the first line her eyebrows went up behind the green-framed spectacles. Her gaze ping-ponged between Lil and Naomi for a couple of passes and then dipped back to the manuscri
pt.

  At the bottom of the page she licked her finger and thumb and sent the top sheet to the back of the pile and then continued until she had read them all. Lil and Naomi watched her anxiously.

  When Logan had finished, she took a deep breath, looked at them in turn, sighed, shook her head and took her feet off the desk. Then she scooted her chair in, took a pencil out of her shirt pocket, licked the end and began to annotate the text with her bizarre alphabet of correction marks. Lil felt Naomi’s hand squeeze hers.

  Naomi took the edited document from Logan and showed it to Lil with a grin. ‘Do you want to type this up or shall I?’

  Lil typed as Naomi dictated. Once they had their final copy Naomi pulled the last page out of the typewriter roll and added it to the others. ‘Read it through carefully,’ she advised Lil, handing the pages back to her in a neat pile. ‘We only have one shot at this.’

  Lil read through the article with a mixture of feelings, most notably thrill and dread. At the end her eyes went back to the title and to the names below it.

  A report by Stellar Darke and Randall Collar

  It was what she had always hoped for, there in black and white. She jigged her knee, tapping her foot restlessly against the floor, took a breath and then fed the newsprint and carbon paper back through typewriter roller and wound it to the top of the page. She nudged it until it was in place and then stamped hyphens right through names. She rolled down a line and then began typing again.

  When she had finished she showed it to her mother who looked gravely at Lil over the top of her spectacles.

  ‘There will be no coming back from this.’

  ‘I know,’ said Lil. ‘But I think it’s time.’

  When Lil fell asleep at long last, tucked up in a bundle of coats on a line of chairs in a quiet corner of the library, the press was already at work on the bumper print run ready for the morning delivery. She was woken gently long before the sun came up, handed her mac and a parcel of papers, and along with everyone else she took to the streets of Old Town to make her round.