Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

“I just saw another!” he cried. “Faint as anything, but I definitely picked it out! The Phantasm of a man over by the bridge!”

I grunted. Lockwood lay with his arm over his eyes; he sighed heavily.

“And there!” Kipps rotated slightly, squinting through the goggles. “Two cloaked figures on the green. They’re standing close together, hoods down, huddled like they’re sheltering from the cold. Ghost-fog’s rising from their capes. Now they’re breaking into a run….They’re gone! Oh, this is great . There’s so much to see!”

George looked up from the chessboard. “I’m pleased he’s so happy, but did anyone else prefer the dourer, quieter Kipps? This could be a long night.”

Kipps rotated again. “And oh, that’s horrible. There by the fire! A gaunt, wizened thing with protruding teeth….”

Danny Skinner spoke with dignity. “That would be my grandfather, remember? He’s still alive.”

“Oh, yes. Got a bit carried away there.” Kipps pulled up the goggles, looked at his watch. “Come on, Lockwood, what’s all this shirking? It’s almost ten thirty. Time we were off.”

Lockwood swung his legs around, pulled himself up off the bench. He yawned. “You’re right. We need to get going. We’ll do it as planned. Two teams, two hours in the field; then we rendezvous back here to see how things are going. Kipps and I will take the row of houses next door, where we’ve a couple of Specters to tackle. You others, start on the green. Come on, George; you’re only two moves from being checkmated, anyway. The cursed village awaits us! Let’s begin.”

Out on the road, away from the meager lights of the inn, the immense dark of the countryside opened out above us. There was a moon up, but it was obscured by cloud. As Kipps had described, various patches of other-light drifted on the green. After swift farewells, he and Lockwood slipped silently away along the lane, while George, Holly, and I readied our packs. I moved away from the others for a moment. I had decided not to carry chains, feeling that the mass of iron suppressed my Talent too readily. Now, with a little psychic freedom, I detected a frisson in the air. It was just noticeable, like a battery’s hum, a stirring of energies….I looked up at the sky, at the dark ring of woods. Where did it come from? Impossible to say. This was where the skull might have come in handy. Once again I found myself wishing I had it at my side.

“All right,” George said. “I’ll read the map. That’s my forte. Lucy or Holly—one of you had better be team leader. Give orders, make the snap decisions; you know the kind of thing. I’ll leave that up to you.”

There was a pause. “I don’t mind,” I began. “Holly, why don’t you—?”

“Lucy, why don’t you—?”

We fell silent. “Can’t be me,” George said. “I’m terrible at quick thinking.” Humming gently, he scribbled something inconsequential on his map.

“Tell you what,” Holly said, “why don’t you take the first hour, Lucy? Then, if you want, I can do the next. You’re a more experienced agent than me anyway.”

“Okay,” I said. “Agreed. Thanks, Holly. Sounds like a good plan.” I adjusted my belt. “So, then, George. What’s first on our list?”

“That would be the malevolent black cloud hanging above the grass, just over there.”

Our proposed route would zigzag between reported hauntings: it would be like a cross-country race, basically, with a ghost at every checkpoint. And first up was the entity lurking near the site of the old gallows. If it had once been a peddler, infamous for his rotten pies, it was now a weak Dark Specter, a shapeless, pulsing mass, sending out thin tendrils of darkness in every direction.

We approached with caution. “Well,” I said, “they may have burned the gallows, but they clearly haven’t sealed the place. I think this is a salt-and-iron job. Do you agree?”

Both George and Holly did, and since the site was small and well-defined, it was a relatively straightforward undertaking. Holly volunteered to draw the apparition out. First she stole close, goading it with careful jabs and flurries of her rapier, until, in a sudden rush, it sped for her. As she skipped away, parrying the tendrils with her blade, George and I nipped in with our bags of salt and iron filings, and sowed the burned ground thickly. Almost from the outset, the shape began to lose its inky density; it wore down like a stain being rubbed, writhing and diminishing until it became a shower of black sparks that fell into the grass and melted clean away.

I wiped my sleeve across my brow. “Well done, Holly. Think we can cross that ghost off our list. They’ll be having family picnics here by summer. What’s next?”

Next was the Phantasm Kipps had seen on the bridge, and that proved equally easy to subdue. We followed it up with a Stone Knocker on the green, and a Lurker at a bus stop. Holly and I dealt with them all.

George chuckled. “This tour is turning out to be a piece of cake. Okey-doke, you’ve each had turns at combat. How about I take care of the next one?” He consulted his map and notes. “Looks like there was the Shade of an old woman seen in the backyard of a cottage in The Run. I reckon I could keep some old grandma at bay. Let’s see if she’s around, shall we?”

The Run was the row of cottages on the far side of the green. It didn’t take long to get there. At the edge of the grass, a gate in the boundary fence provided access to a sunken lane, with the cottage lights glimmering up ahead.

It was dark in the lane; the hedges pressed close. Above us, tree branches carved black slices through the sky. We drew together as we walked; it wasn’t a place to linger.

“The house is a bit farther along,” George whispered. “We should see it in a—” He came to a halt. “Uh-oh. Who’s this?”

In the darkness of the lane stood a figure, half-turned away from us, its back lit by the flickering other-light of a nonexistent candle. Long strands of hair curtained the face. Its arms hung limp, the head bowed, the shoulders slumped in an attitude of piteous sorrow, but the hand at its side was balled into a tight white fist.

We stood there. Neither we nor the apparition moved.

“It’s got a nightgown on,” Holly whispered. “That’s never good.”

“Is it a girl, do you think?” George breathed. “The legs don’t seem like a grandma’s legs. Not that I’ve looked at the legs of that many grandmas, obviously. I’ve got other hobbies.”

Who knew what the thing had been? “Hang on,” I said, “it’s moving.”

Bony feet shuffled on the dirt road. With miniscule jerky steps, and the flap of dirty cotton, the figure began to turn. The night’s cold corkscrewed inward, twisting around us like a winding sheet. We pressed closer together.

“Visitors always rotate counterclockwise,” George said in a tight, high voice. “Did you know that? They never turn clockwise. Fact.”

“Fascinating, George,” I said. “Now shut up a minute. Rapiers ready. I’ll try to talk to it. Watch the arms, watch the feet. Watch for changes of expression.”

“It would help if we could actually see the face,” George muttered.

Holly flinched back. “There’s blood on the front of the nightdress.”

This was true: it was an apron of blood, a thick black staining, long and glossy and wet. Still the figure shuffled around, rocking gently from side to side; now it faced us fully, but the head hung low, so only its crown and its dangling lengths of lank black hair could be seen, shimmering in other-light. I heard a sound like the rustling of leaves.

“Who are you?” I said. “Tell us your name. What happened to you here?”