The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(55)
‘Lockwood,’ I said, ‘shouldn’t we—?’
‘I’m going to make some calls. Wait here.’
He was gone. A moment later, we heard his footsteps clattering down the iron stairs.
Holly and I were left in the hall. We looked at one another, but it wasn’t easy to meet each other’s gaze. Hugging was better. That way we could be close, while staring out at nothing. There wasn’t anything else we could do.
Even now, when so much else has happened, the events of that dreadful night remain mostly a blur to me. Their sequence is unclear. Time did strange things. I have no idea how long I spent anywhere or in what order – in the hospital; in the hall with Holly; later (it must have been later, after our return from a fruitless visit to St Thomas’s, with no word on George’s condition), sitting with her under a blanket on the sofa, sleepless and silent, waiting for Lockwood to return. For some reason it’s the lights I remember most: the crystal-skull lamp in the hall; the tasselled lantern on the living-room cabinet; most of all the strip-lights crossing the ceiling in the hospital waiting room like a row of minus signs, like centre markings on a road to nowhere, with the iron ghost-wards dangling beside them, moving in the air-conditioned breeze. Lights, always lights; strong, weak, harsh or warm, but always indifferent and always on. It was a night without darkness; you couldn’t switch off or look away.
How did I get to the hospital? How did I get back? I don’t remember. Lockwood was there with me, at least at first. I have a snapshot of him in a car, the white glow of the ghost-lamps (those lights again) flashing across his pale blank face. We didn’t talk, not then, nor during the endless waiting. We weren’t permitted to see George. We weren’t told how he was, or where he was. I have a memory of someone (Lockwood? Me?) kicking a chair across the reception room, but I have no memory of the lead-up to it, nor of the consequences, if there were any. At some point Inspector Barnes was there, and also Quill Kipps, though neither of them stayed long. Then – somehow – I was back at Portland Row with Holly, a bowl of popcorn wedged between us, and the white dawn showing through the messy crack in the half-drawn curtains.
Night fed into morning and Lockwood did not return. He didn’t come back from the hospital all that day. He sent word through Kipps, who showed up periodically, gallows-eyed and unshaven, with brief accounts of what was going on. What was going on was nothing. Nothing to stop the high, thin noise (too high, too thin to technically be a scream) that rang continuously in my head. George remained unconscious. He had suffered head injuries, and multiple contusions on his back and limbs. Lockwood had been allowed to see him, but only briefly. There was no point in going to the hospital. We would only be turned away.
Holly and I stumbled through what chores we could, focusing on insignificant details in an effort to pummel our existence into some semblance of rightness. I cancelled a number of appointments we had for the evening. Holly tried doing some paperwork but quickly gave up. Instead we roamed the house. We sorted salt bombs and refilled iron canisters. Holly went shopping. She bought a stack of doughnuts and cream buns, but somehow neither of us could bear to look at them. We put them in a cupboard. The day drifted on and on like this, and neither of us could sleep.
Whether through some quirk of empathy or (more likely) an acute sense of self-preservation, the skull in the jar didn’t try speaking to me. My head was empty of its psychic interference, which was a relief. In truth, though, it was empty of everything. I was scoured out, waiting.
Towards evening a final message from Lockwood came via Kipps. It brought news that I interpreted as hopeful, in the same way that a drowning man looks favourably on an outstretched twig. For the first time George was showing signs of responsiveness. He hadn’t yet woken properly, but there was movement now. Lockwood would remain for a second night.
Even then, it took me a long while to fall asleep. You might have thought that after thirty-six hours without rest I’d find dropping off a doddle. But I was wired into a grid that refused to cut the power. I lay on the bed, staring at nothing, thinking of nothing, and when I did doze, I almost as quickly woke again. Sometime in the early hours I got up and drove my rapier deep into the bedroom wall.
Eventually, while it was still dark, oblivion must have come, because I was surprised when I opened my eyes and saw sunlight streaming in through my window. The face in the ghost-jar watched me silently. My sword stuck out from a jagged crack in the plaster just beside my chest of drawers. It was almost noon. I was still wearing my clothes.
I washed and dressed mechanically and went downstairs. The house was quiet as a church. It looked very clean and tidy. Yesterday Holly had even dusted the ghost-wards hanging on the staircase and landing walls. As I approached the kitchen, I could hear her moving around inside. Little cosy domestic noises of cutlery and crockery, like messages from a happier time.
‘Hey, Holly …’
I pushed open the door and saw Lockwood standing at the window. He wore his usual dark trousers and white shirt, tie-less, the collar unbuttoned. His sleeves were rolled up, showing his slim arms. His hair had not been combed, and it was not clear to me that he’d slept at all. Certainly he was as pale as I’d ever seen him, and his eyes shone with a strange, unhealthy brightness. But he smiled as he turned and saw me.
‘Hi, Lucy.’
It was a moment that probably lasted less than a second, but it felt as if we were standing there for a lifetime. A lifetime of me waiting for Lockwood, waiting for him to say the necessary words.