Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“Well, yeah. He knows I can see him. He knows I have it. This thing. That we do. Because he had it too.”

“He had the sight ?”

Something on Stephen beeped. He slapped his pockets until he found his phone, then read a message. He grabbed the remote and switched on the television. The familiar red BBC logo lit up the room.

The newscaster was standing outside on the street bathed in the glow coming from dozens of cameras and their lighting equipment.

“. . . a very strange evening here at the Ten Bells, where the international Ripper conference was held this evening. Conference organizer Richard Eakles had just started his presentation when witnesses say there was a power cut. Eakles claims that while the room was in darkness, someone pushed him up against the board and wrote a message . . .”

The image cut to a picture of the whiteboard, the words written in all caps, in a firm hand. THE NAME OF THE STAR IS WHAT YOU FEAR .

“The meaning of the message is unclear,” the newscaster went on, “but some people have noted that the quote is similar to one from the Bible . . .”

“That’s from the book of Revelation,” I said. “Our local seafood place puts up quotes from the book of Revelation every week. That’s why we call it Scary Seafood. It’s a quote about the third angel that comes at the end of the world. Something about the star being Wormwood.”

There were piles of books along the walls. Stephen scanned through these for a moment, finally finding one he wanted in a large pile. He managed to extract it, but five or six books on top of it came tumbling down. He ignored this and started flipping through the onionskin pages.

“Where, where, where . . . here. ‘And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as if it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.’”

On the news, they were back in the studio, and the newscaster was talking to a guest.

“. . . most people here feel that this incident was some kind of stunt, but some concerns have been raised that the real Ripper did somehow manage to leave this message. And if he did, it could have some serious implications. Sir Guy, what do you make of this?”

“Well,” the guest said, “I don’t think we can rule this out as a threat of terrorism. The Bible quote clearly indicates poisoned water. I think we would be remiss if we didn’t consider the possibility that this entire incident has been a form of terrorist attack, designed to cause London to . . .”

Stephen turned off the television, and the room went quiet.

“Right,” he said, after a moment. He left the room and went down the hall. He returned with some clothes and a rough red towel. “You can change into these. They’ll be more comfortable.”

Their bathroom was a pretty no-frills place, just two toothbrushes, two towels, two razors. I scrubbed my skin with a bar of hand soap, turning the makeup to a gray runny mess that stung my eyes and took ten minutes to rinse off. I left big gray streaks all over the towels. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my skin was pale and raw, my eyes were red, and my hair was wet and streaked with makeup and soap. The sight of my reflection almost brought me to tears for some reason. I had to sit on the edge of the bathtub and take a few deep breaths. Then I stripped off the costume and picked up the things Stephen had given me. One turned out to be a pair of sweatpants that said ETON down the leg. The lettering had been broken up from lots of washings and wearings; the words were cracked. Eton was a name I knew. There was also an oversized and overwashed polo-neck shirt from some event called the Wallingford Regatta. Stephen was well over six foot, and I just about made it to five foot four, so I had to roll up the cuffs of the sweats in order to walk.

As I picked up my clothes, I felt my phone in my pocket. I removed it and found that I had several messages from Jazza and Jerome, wanting to know if I was all right. I would answer them later. When I emerged, Stephen was in the kitchen, staring at the kettle as it boiled. He was staring at it so intently, in fact, I wondered if he wasn’t controlling the boil with his mind.

“I’m making tea,” he said, keeping his gaze on the kettle.

The kitchen was as plain as everything else in the apartment, but the appliances that were built in were high quality—all stainless steel and sleek. The counters were made of a sparkling granite, and the cabinets were smoked glass. The surroundings didn’t match the small card table that served as a dining table, or the plastic folding chairs, or the mismatched mugs.

“I spoke to someone at the hospital,” he said. “She’s awake. They’re x-raying her now. She seems to have several broken bones. They’re not sure of the extent of it, but she’s awake. That’s something.”

I took a seat at the table and pulled my feet up onto the chair. The kettle rumbled and clicked off. He dropped two tea bags into mugs.

“This is a nice place,” I said, just to make it less quiet.

“We got it at a steep discount.” He brought the mugs over to the table. Mine had a chip on the rim. “We could never afford to live around here, but . . . there was another inhabitant who was giving all the other tenants trouble. No one wanted to live here. We sorted it out.”

“A ghost?”

He nodded.

I wrapped my arms around my legs and placed my forehead on my knees.

“You’re the only police looking for the real Ripper, right?” I asked. “Because the regular police can’t see him. What if you can’t stop him?”

“We can,” he said. He set a box of shelf-stable milk in front of me, punctuating his remark. He had said all he was going to say about that. We sat in silence for a few moments, looking at our tea but neither of us drinking it. We just let it steep, darker and darker, like our thoughts. The kitchen wasn’t very well lit, so there was a closeness—a gloom around us.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “To make you like this?”

He tapped his mug with his spoon, considering his answer.

“Boating accident. At school.”

“Eton,” I said, pointing at the leg of the pants. “That’s where you went?”

“Yes.”

“And how long have you been . . . this? A policeman, or whatever you are?”

“Two years.”

Stephen removed the tea bag and set it on a lid from a takeout container. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind. He took a long breath and exhaled loudly.

“Everyone’s always known that London is full of ghosts,” he said. “It’s a particularly haunted city. And in that spirit of organizing things and controlling the empire, it was decided—very quietly—that something needed to be done, some kind of watch needed to be kept. But belief in ghosts, and science, and law and order, these things didn’t really go together. Back in 1882, a group of prominent scientists founded the Society for Psychical Research, probably the most respectable and serious attempt to study the subject of the afterlife. This was right in the middle of the development of the police force and the security service. The police system itself isn’t that old. The London Metropolitan Police was founded in 1829, and the Security Services—which is MI5 and things like that—in 1909. So in 1919, with the help of the Society for Psychical Research, the Shades were born.”

“The Shades?”

“It’s another word for ghosts. MI5 are called the spooks, and we were a lot smaller and stranger. A shady little branch. I think they used to call us Scotland Graveyard as well. Anyway, we were around for years. Very secret. Never very large. But in the Thatcher years . . . someone got wind of the group and didn’t like it. I don’t know what happened . . . something political. But they shut it down in the early nineties. Two years ago, they decided to start it up again. They found me. I was the first one.”