The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(73)
The ghost sniffed dubiously. ‘Some are psychically dangerous,’ it said, ‘but you’ve got a lot of junk there too. Particularly that pierced gourd Holly Munro is putting her head in – but that’s an issue of hygiene more than anything.’
‘That pointy one? I thought it was a shaman’s mask.’
‘It’s worn in tribal rituals, yeah. But those guys didn’t put it on their faces, I’ll tell you that.’
‘Er, Holly …’
Her voice was muffled from inside the gourd. ‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing. I like the mask! You look good. Keep it on!’ I turned back to the skull. ‘Exact function aside, you’re saying it’s useless?’
‘There’s no trapped spirit in there. Those sealed pots, though – they’re more interesting. They’ve got the whiff of the grave about them. And that dream-catcher with the bamboo handle too …’ The face in the jar grinned evilly. ‘Why not break them all and see what’s inside?’
‘Not until we’re ready.’ I looked into Jessica’s room, at the black plasm burn that had eaten away the centre of the abandoned bed. That had been caused by a ghost unleashed at the wrong moment. Lockwood had his back to the bed; he was calmly unwrapping another bundle from the crate. He still radiated the implacable determination that carried everyone along with it, the fierce serenity that he’d had all day.
The morning went on. We emptied out the crate and cleared the mess away. A great pile of Sources lay in the abandoned bedroom. Holly and I began to go around the house, taking the ornaments off the walls, stripping the shelves of all the psychic curios brought back by Celia and Donald Lockwood so long ago. All this was taken to the landing. Without the decorations, the hall and living room had that odd, cold, slightly echoing quality you usually get in a haunted empty house. It was dark too: Kipps had been working on the barricades, and most of the windows were covered. Thirty-five Portland Row no longer looked itself. It made us all feel sad.
Towards lunch time Flo Bones left us. She had offered to stay and help, but it was clear that she found it uncomfortable remaining so long with a roof over her head. I guessed the possibility of an impending attack might have influenced her too. Before her departure, however, Lockwood took her to the library. They spoke for a long time, alone. Then Flo slipped away, leaving only a few dirty footprints to remember her by.
Midday passed; the sun reached its zenith and began to decline towards the west. Shadows slowly lengthened in Portland Row.
We began to build the iron circle that would surround our spirit-gate. George was in charge of this. An easy chair had been brought up from the library and positioned on the landing. From here, surrounded by crumb-strewn plates, he supervised our efforts as we brought great coils of iron chain up from the basement. The Mullet’s van had delivered most of these the previous day; now we wound them over each other to form a single iron barrier – a hoop or circle of enormous thickness – that went right around the outside of the old bed and sealed its death-glow within.
It wasn’t pleasant work, exactly. The bedroom was a difficult place to spend time in. Cold energy pulsed from the death-glow, freezing your skin and setting your teeth on edge. But it had to be done. We cleared everything inessential out of the room to make space for the circle. Lockwood emptied out the chest of drawers at the back, throwing its contents – old photographs, boxes of forgotten jewellery – into plastic bags and taking them away. Meanwhile, under George’s blackened but watchful eye, Kipps started constructing the trickiest part of the gate: the single chain that would provide our entry path, cutting across the circle from our world to the next.
‘We need two metal posts,’ George said, ‘hammered into the floor on either side of the circle. Then we suspend a thick iron chain between them so that it runs right over the top of the bed. It mustn’t touch the bed, or the death-glow. It’s got to be hanging in mid-air, so that we can hold onto it. The iron in the chain will keep the spirits at bay, give us a safe route when we go through the gate.’
‘If we go through,’ Kipps said. ‘I’m devoutly hoping we won’t have to. Uh-oh—’ He broke off as Lockwood and I arrived on the landing. ‘I don’t like the look of these.’
We were carrying the spirit-capes. We had our original feathered cloak, as beautiful and iridescent as ever, which had already proved itself on the Other Side. We had a second feathered one too, this of resplendent pink and orange plumage, and a third cape covered with patchy fur. All these came from Lockwood’s parents’ crates. From the storeroom of the Orpheus Society we had two modern silver capes as well.
‘I’m going to allocate cloaks now,’ Lockwood said. ‘There may not be time later. Lucy, I want you to have our faithful old spirit-cape. Kipps, you take this other feathered one. Holly: this one with the fur is about your size. George and I will try the Orpheus outfits. We stole enough Orpheus gloves to go round too. Let’s check that they fit. Everyone give them a go.’
I already knew the feel of my spirit-cape – its warmth and lightness, the soft protection of its plumage – and I had it on in no time. The others were more hesitant. George was stiff and needed help getting his on. He and Lockwood both shimmered with silver; their scaly cloaks had a smooth, reptilian feel. Meanwhile Kipps’s eyes boggled at the multicoloured splendour of his feathered ensemble, while Holly cringed at the texture of her pelts.