Page 4 of The Prestley Ghost

Charles said, because he couldn’t not answer, “Well, if you insist; we can try to work out what it is you need, along the way,” and started walking.

Alex fell into step beside him, or rather made the motions of steps, edges hazy and indeterminate against the path; and chattered happily about Prestley and the growth of the village over the last fifty years, and the local pride in lace and cider, and the gossip about one of the Academy’s instructors having eloped with a Scottish baron, two years ago: steeped in history, flawlessly delivered storytelling, and not at all personal, nothing given away or revealed.

* * * *

As they came back to the more populated streets of the village, Alex said, “Go in and get warm; I’ll see you later on, perhaps tomorrow,” and became less distinct, more swirled into the wind and twilight. Charles blurted, “Where are you going?” and then winced at himself.

“Oh.” The lines sharpened, came back for an instant; the cold touch against Charles’ hand felt almost like fingers, a quick pressure. “I do sometimes need to…it takes some effort, to hold everything together so coherently. More than it used to; I’m not as young as I was.”

Charles snorted, because Alex was patently young and gorgeous; but then of course Alex had been young and gorgeous for at least fifty years, judging by that coat. “Is that why you come and go? Not just because you sometimes decide to be invisible?”

“Yes and yes. Tell your brother I’ve said hello; he seems like a very kind person.”

“He is.” More so than Charles himself. “Will you—that is, you will be here. If we’re going to try again.”

“To banish me,” Alex murmured, and this time the smile was more sad. “Yes. I’ll find you. Good night, Charles.”

This time he truly did vanish; no faint distortion hung between the edges of the pub and the curve of the lane, and even the air warmed. Not much, because this was still England in the autumn; but Charles knew the feel of a presence, and he was fairly certain Alex had gone.

He wondered where. He wondered whether Alex was, for lack of a better term, well.

Effort. Manifestation. Chilly hand at Charles’s elbow over slippery stones.

The stones had indeed been somewhat perilous; Charles likely would’ve been fine, but his present boots weren’t made for wet country walks, because he’d stormed out of the house earlier, and the care had been nice.

Evidently his ghost liked to know people were safe.

He wondered whether Alex had been that way when alive: caring, laughing, inviting, not shy about interests, kindhearted, vitally real and present and filling up space despite shortness, with that sun-gold hair and gold eyes and tendency to gesture when talking.

Christ. He truly was tired, himself. Alex was not alive and Charles needed to do something about that. Because he’d promised. Because he was one of the few people who genuinely could.

He shut his eyes, opened them.

In the grey-violet coolness of early evening, under a sky full of fraying clouds and tattered stars, he went home.

The rectory loomed like a century-old obligation, neat and tidy and too spacious for the two of them, a refuge that needed upkeep and care.

John must have been standing at the door, because it opened forcefully before Charles had made it up the last short step. “Where’ve you been?”

“Where’s Thomas? Make him open the door for you. And go sit down.”

“He’s checking the stables and then going home for the night. To his wife. And I can open a damned door for you. Where were you?”

“Out finding your ghost and not falling into a river. Did you eat something?”

“What? Are you hurt? What happened?”

Ignoring this, Charles poked his head into the library, found John’s cane propped against a half-empty bookshelf, returned. “Here.”

“At least talk to me.” John did not move to take the cane. “Please.”

“No, I’m not hurt. I said I didn’t fall into the river. You didn’t answer me; did you eat anything?”

“I didn’t know when you’d be back—if you’d be back, since you’re hunting ghosts without me—so Mrs Davies put out cold meat and potatoes and carrots and a pear tart. Charles—”

Both their general man-of-all-work and the housekeeper-cook would’ve gone home for the night, then; neither lived in, though there was room.

They both had families, and Charles and John had each other.

More or less, in any case; certainly he himself wasn’t doing enough, if John had ended up alone and pacing the house.

“I’m sorry I was late. I went for a walk.

I didn’t plan to meet the ghost, but he found me. Food?”

John narrowed both eyes at him. “Food. And you’re going to tell me everything.”

Not everything, no. Not about laughter and searching teasing glances at Charles’s body and unexpected brightness like waking up. “Fine. After you.” He hovered, just in case the walk to the dining room was difficult. The floor was not new, and not entirely even.

John listened in silence to the first encounter, right up until Charles admitted to attempting a quick on-the-spot banishment, and then nearly knocked over the wineglass he’d reached for.

“You what? By yourself? Without any research, without knowing exactly what he wanted—without me there, if you’d got lost or opened yourself up to possession or collapsed and fallen into the river—”

“None of that happened, and if it’d worked, I could’ve solved your problem on the spot and been done with it. And he said he’d’ve tried to pull me out.” He hadn’t meant to say that last part.

“He said…” John’s face was tight: with fear, with concern, with dismay. “Charles, you can’t trust a spirit. They always need something. They can be harmful. You—”

“I know that.” Charles set his own fork down. With precision, because it was that or throw the utensil. “As you should know. Better than anyone. How many times do you want me to apologize?”

“I didn’t mean that!”

“Well, you should have meant it.” He got up. “I’ll be in the library. Unless you want the room.”

“I meant,” John retorted, “I was worried about you. I am worried about you. You’re talking to the ghosts now, you trusted this one—you take more and more risks, every time, and I thought settling here would help, it’s so quiet, a country village—but I don’t know how to help you—”

“That’s not your job.” The straight solid line of John’s cane, propped against the table, underlined the bitterness in Charles’s mouth.

“You’re the respectable one of us. Responsible.

Worry about charity collections and marriage licenses.

You wanted to accept this position, when Uncle Owen offered it. ”

“I thought it would be good for us. Having a home.” John actually got to his feet.

They were almost the same height, standing.

Charles wanted to flee, even more so when his brother said quietly, “I’m a Hayward, the same as you, even if I don’t have your gifts, and I still want to do what we can to help people.

It’s who we are. It’s who I want to be.”

“I know that,” Charles muttered. “I know. I just…all right. I’m sorry.” Again. Never enough.

“And I’m still your brother. And I’m afraid that you’re throwing yourself into deep water, possibly literally, without me.” John sighed. “You’re not listening.”

“I’m listening,” Charles said, eventually.

That had hurt, in a way he couldn’t explain.

“I do listen to you. Even when you worry too much. I know what I’m doing.

And if something had gone terribly wrong, at least Prestley would’ve had a more recent and fashionable ghost to lure visitors, as an attraction. ”

“Don’t even joke about that.” John’s face was more pale. “Charles…”

“I’m sorry.” At this rate he’d be apologizing for the next thousand years, not that he didn’t deserve it. He glanced at the cane, which said nothing, accusatorily. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Yes, well…not like that.” John essayed a step, found the cane.

“Speaking of the library, I was doing some research while waiting for you. Unexplained or violent deaths, missing persons, in the parish records, that sort of thing. From around the right time period, assuming fifty years ago is correct. I found a few candidates, and you won’t like any of them. ”

“He told me his name,” Charles said, though for some reason the admission felt oddly like a betrayal: information to be used to make Alex move on. “Though not the date.”

“Good,” John said, “that’ll help.”

* * * *

In the library, surrounded by stacks of books and records—the rectory’s, and their own, what they’d boxed up and brought from the rented townhouse in London, what had been salvaged from the traveling carriage after the disaster—Charles and John got to work, together.

This part had always been easy. They knew each other’s strengths, John’s reading speed and Charles’s medium’s gifts.

They’d both been trained by the best and most celebrated folklorists and occultists in the country; they knew about ghosts and spirits and black dogs and White Ladies, about revenants and poltergeists and residual hauntings and vortices.

Of course Eliza and James Hayward had only documented, chased, obsessed over, the legends, and never had proof.

Never, until their youngest son had proudly told them that he could indeed see ghosts, and speak to them.

And the line led directly from that moment to a vicious manifestation in a churning river, and a collapsed bridge, and two bodies, and John’s terribly broken leg, so badly the doctors had considered removal, though they’d escaped that, at least.