Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“That’s a diamond,” he said.

“You have phones full of diamonds ?”

“One diamond each. These wires run a current through it. When we press the one and the nine at the same time, the current runs through the diamond and it emits a pulse that we can’t hear or feel, but it . . .”

“Explodes ghosts.”

“I prefer to think that it disperses the vestigial energy that an individual leaves behind after death.”

“Or that,” I said. “But diamonds?”

“Not as strange as it sounds,” Stephen replied. “Diamonds make excellent semiconductors. They have many practical uses. These particular three diamonds are highly flawed, so they aren’t really valuable to most people. But to us, they’re priceless.”

He carefully snapped the cover back onto the phone. Once he had made sure the phone was closed correctly, he handed it to me.

“They have names,” he went on. “This one is Persephone.”

“The queen of the underworld,” I said. I used to have a book about myths when I was little.

“Described by Homer as the queen of the shades,” Stephen said, nodding. “The one Callum carries is Hypnos, and the one I carry is Thanatos. Hypnos is the personification of sleep, and Thanatos is his brother, death. They get the poetic names for a reason. All secret weapons have code names for the files. What I’ve just given you is an official secret, so please be careful with it.”

I looked at the phone in my hand. I could still smell that smell from the Tube tunnel. I could still feel that wind, see the light . . .

“Does it hurt them?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “That question has bothered me in the past, but not now. You need to take that, and if the time comes, you need to use it. Do you understand?”

“I’m never going to understand this,” I replied.

“One and nine,” he said. “That’s all you have to remember.”

I swallowed hard. There was still a burning in my throat from the vomiting.

“Go on,” he said. “Try to get some rest. I’ll be right here. Just keep that with you.”

I got out of the car, gripping the phone. I tried to remember what Jo said about young people defending the country as I looked at Stephen. He looked tired and there was just a hint of five o’clock shadow along his chin. I had him. I had Callum. I had an old phone.

“Night,” I said, my voice dry.

29

AGAIN, I WOKE UP AROUND FIVE IN THE MORNING. I’d gone to sleep with the terminus in my hand, but I’d let it go in my sleep. I had to look for it for a few seconds. It was under the duvet, down by my feet. I don’t know what I’d been doing in my sleep to kick it down there. I dug it out and held it tightly, pressing my fingers on the one and nine. I practiced this several times, setting it down and grabbing it back up again as fast as I could, putting my fingers on the buttons. Now I understood why they used old phones—no smart buttons. When the time came, you had to find them and feel them under the pads of your fingers.

I got up and leaned against the heater under the window. Stephen’s police car was parked just outside. It was the only thing I could see very clearly, since the sun wasn’t up—it had yellow reflective squares all over the sides, alternating with blue, and orange and neon yellow on the back. English police cars were serious about being seen.

For everyone else at Wexford, this was just a normal Thursday—mostly. As on the last Ripper day, we would be on lockdown starting after an early dinner. A few police cars were now parked along the side of the building, and some news vans were joining them.

That afternoon, I went to the library. The carrels were all full—people seemed to be going on as usual, working away, cramming down the material for when classes started up again next week. I went directly upstairs, to the stacks. Alistair was in his usual position, draped all over the floor, book in front of him. Today, it was poetry. I could tell from the wide white margins on the page and his particularly languid pose.

I sat down nearby and put an open book on my lap, so I at least had the pretense of reading if anyone found me. We said nothing to each other, but he seemed fine with my presence. A few minutes later, though, a library assistant came by with the cart. He pointed to the book on the ground in front of Alistair.

“Is that yours?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

I should have realized why he was asking, because he reached down and took it away, dropping it on the cart. Alistair looked sour as his reading material rolled off.

“What’s your problem?” he asked. “You look miserable.”

When Alistair said it, it almost sounded like a compliment.

“Is it bad?” I asked. “Dying?”

“Oh, please don’t,” he said, flopping flat on the floor.

“I’m afraid of dying,” I said.

“Well, you probably won’t for a while.”

“The Ripper wants to kill me.”

That made him pause. He lifted his head from the ground to look at me.

“What makes you say that?” he said.

“Because he said so.”

“You serious?” he asked. “The Ripper?”

“Yup,” I said. “Any advice? In case it happens?”

I tried to smile, but I know it didn’t look like a smile—and there was no hiding the quake in my voice.

Alistair sat up slowly and tapped his fingers on the floor.

“I don’t even remember dying. I just went to sleep.”

“You don’t remember it at all?”

He shook his head.

“I thought I was having a really strange dream,” he said. “In my dream, the IRA had put a bomb in my chest, and I could feel it ticking, and I was trying to tell people it was going to explode. Then it went off. I saw the explosion come out of my chest. Then that part of the dream faded, and I was in my room, and it was morning. I was looking down at myself in bed. For all I know, this is all part of that dream. Maybe I’m still having it.”

“Why do you think you came back?”

“I didn’t come back,” he said. “I just never left.”

“But why? I mean, don’t they say that ghosts come ba—stay around—because they have unfinished business or something?”

“Who says that?”

That was a good question. The answer was television shows, movies, and Cousin Diane. Not exactly the most reliable places to get information.

“I hated this place,” he said. “All I wanted was to get out. Death should have taken care of that, and yet here I am. Over twenty-five sodding years at this sodding school. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know why I’m like this or what happens to other people. I just know I’m still here.”

“Would you go, if you could?”

“In a second,” he said, lying back down. “But that doesn’t seem to be happening. I don’t even think about that anymore.”

I squeezed the terminus in my pocket. I could make Alistair’s dream come true, right now. In a second. The enormity of it just made it funny. Don’t want to exist anymore? Okay! Zap. Done. Puff of smoke and you’re gone, like a magic trick. I ran my finger over the buttons. Maybe this was how I was meant to spend this day—setting someone free.

But this was Alistair, whom I’d come to think of as someone who went to my school—not just some shadow in a tunnel. Or what did they call it? A shade.

I took the terminus all the way out of my pocket and put it on my lap. I’m not actually sure what I would have done if Jerome hadn’t appeared and sat down next to me. Luckily, he took my opposite side, or he would have ended up right on top of Alistair.

“What’s that?” Jerome asked, nodding at the phone.

“Oh . . . Boo’s phone.”