Death of a Ghost Read online

  He cried there for his trespass. Already the world was growing misty with the shades of dead men. He knew they awaited him. The sharp leaves hung down, moist with evening dew. They looked like blades, those leaves, copper-green and wood-hafted. He reached out timidly and touched one. Its edge was keen.

  And there was Cernunnos himself, standing before him!

  “Save me!” Ossian begged, and fell down before him.

  He saw Cernunnos’s great stag face, mocked in his own. His eyes did not blink. Was he angry?

  “What is your name?” came the voice of Cernunnos. “Who are you afraid of?”

  “My name is Ossian!”

  The great stag face did not move, except that it rippled slightly with the breeze, for the face was only a reflection. Ossian had fallen at the edge of a reedy pool, black with sticky mud. It was himself he saw, himself grown mad through fear and poison and, as he stared, those torch-yellow eyes spread along the surface of the pool like fire through summer bracken and engulfed him.

  A stick broke fifty paces to his left and waked him suddenly. Alert at once, he crouched deep where the rock cupped and he could not be stalked from behind. At the far side of the clearing the yellow grass shivered. Someone shook a rattle. Someone sighed.

  “Ah, Cernunnos!”

  One of the bushes had grown a long black snout. Among the yellow flowers two black-veined, cream-yellow eyes could be seen blinking, and nearby crouched a beast whose ears were flat against its skull. A threat, lighter than a bee’s wing, burred in its throat.

  By this Ossian knew that the hour of his death had come. Sulis had sent her hounds to fetch him, as was her right, being a goddess and implacable. The dogs stepped forward. He knew them all, for his father had taught him their names: Saw Tooth, Long Gut, Famine. They walked two-legged and they carried spears. Ossian saw the shadow of his antlers spill forward across the grass to touch their feet. Then he was kneeling and the Serpent Ram would no longer support him. It lay spurned at the far end of the clearing, where a boot had sent it. His fingers pressed down leaves.

  Bright metal slithered from a sheath. Ossian did not wish to look up into that dog-mask, to know its eyes. He knew the eyes of all the village. He did not wish to know what friend had killed him.

  But it was a stranger’s voice that spoke above his head: “I was right, you see?”

  Cheerful, pleased with itself, and intent on explaining how pleased it had a right to be. But it was not talking to him.

  “Had we waited longer his spirit would have slipped away again. We were lucky to find him in time.”

  “He’s a lovely-looking boy,” sighed someone piteously.

  “He is indeed, my lady. And he will make an exquisite corpse.”

  “This is the last? There’ll be no more of these… expeditions?”

  “I stake my reputation on it.”

  “More than your reputation, believe me. Now, don’t chatter on, you magpie. Just slit that handsome throat and have done. I shall avert my gaze.”

  “As you will it, my lady, so shall it be.”

  THE FIRST THING Ossian knew about was his neck. That hurt – not sharply but deeply, unforgivingly. His head had been severed from his body, then stuck back ineptly with horse glue, that was how it felt. The gash – from the seat belt? – ran a long way, from his collarbone up to the far side of his throat. He was curious in a sleepy way, but not enough to care much.

  He lay for a while, eyes shut, sampling the taste of the pain, feeling his heart beat. His mind lay sour and shallow, like a dish of summer milk. Then fearfully, half-reluctantly, he edged his hand towards the hurting place. But his hand would not move, not easily. It was swaddled in something thick that took away all feeling. Bandages, perhaps.

  Just how badly hurt am I?

  At last, it occurred to him to open his eyes. He had clean forgotten about them, silted as he was in pain and silence. He peeped through the mesh of lash and lid. Daylight: natural, not electric. Whiteness too – and cream in places, with a rectangular slice of blue that might be window-framed sky. He discovered that he had already known, from the echo of heeled feet upon the floor, that he was in quite a large and barely-furnished room, with high ceilings. Also, that he was not alone, though it took an age of bleary focusing to distinguish the woman in front of him from the wall and the sky, and the heavy, velveteen beauty of the roses that obscured her. Her face was turned from him to the light and all Ossian could make out clearly was the swirl of her hair where it foamed in bubbling curls about her shoulder. Not that he needed to see more; those curls identified her at once, even if the freckles were hidden.

  “Lizzy? Is it really you?”

  His voice sounded feeble and cracked. Instantly, she was beside him. She had crossed the room as swiftly as a breeze and her eyes were smiling. “Hello, errant boy. I hoped you might join us today.”

  Her kiss was cool satin on his forehead. How could he have forgotten? Wonderful Lizzy. His desire for her returned, fresh as it had been at first. It was more painful than any wound.

  “What are you doing here, Lizzy? Where are we?”

  “In Lychfont, of course,” she smiled. “Don’t upset yourself. I came to find you as soon I heard what had happened. The moment I could get a ticket, I flew. You gave us quite a fright.”

  “I did?” said Ossian, and his mind ran with unexpected comfort and relief. Lizzy had flown so far – at who knew what cost? – to see him! She was his lover after all… The force of his relief was unexpected, and in his weakened state quite overpowered him. His cheek was wet with sudden tears. Then he remembered the bandages and the pain in his throat. “How do I look? Am I a mess? Tell me the truth.”

  She regarded him steadily. The expression of those steady eyes seemed to shift more than once, as the watery light shifted, between love and something more distant, more poised and ironic. The face itself, however, did not change. What was she thinking? Perhaps Lizzy was right after all. He didn’t understand her.

  “You’ll do,” she said at last and pressed her lips upon his forehead as if pressing a seal into wax.

  She had left the room probably. He was lying on his back, watching the light shy across the high white ceiling. It was reflected from some pool or ewer, and rippled by a breeze he could both see and hear, though in the room itself the air was still.

  “I only remember…” he began. Then stopped. She was beside him again, all attention.

  “Yes?”

  “What’s Colin told you?” Ossian asked cautiously.

  “Colin? Why would Colin tell me anything?”

  “But when I ran away from Lychfont, Colin was there.” He looked at Lizzy’s expression of bemused disbelief. “I don’t blame him; it’s not that.”

  Lizzy detached a hair from her sleeve. “No one’s blaming anyone, as far as I’m aware.”

  “I think maybe he was following me through the wood. He’s a bit crazy, I think. It’s all to do with his sister…”

  “Now you’ve lost me,” said Lizzy. “What sister?”

  “Sue Frazer, of course.”

  She looked at him in incomprehension. “Who?”

  “Colin’s sister. His older sister. She’s—well, you couldn’t miss her.”

  “Hmm. I think your mind is playing tricks. There is no Sue Frazer. You didn’t run away. You never even got as far as Lychfont House. You had a car crash on the way from Heathrow. Quite a bad one,” she added solicitously. “Don’t you remember anything about it?”

  “No! Or—” Ossian paused, letting the stirred mud settle. “Yes. Yes, I do. Something. Dad was driving here to Lychfont, too fast. And I think we smashed through a fence on the road. At least…” He tried, feebly, to shake his head. It all seemed to have happened to someone else. “Is Dad all right?”

  Lizzy gave a snort. “Your father? Walked away from it of course, with nothing more than a sprained thumb. His kind always does.”

  Ossian felt relief, mixed with a curious unease. Lizzy was keeping
something from him, he was sure. Some hard truth, perhaps, he was in too fragile a state to be told.

  “I had such strange dreams…” he said.

  “About Colin and his sister, yes. The one you couldn’t miss. Should I be jealous, Ossian?”

  Lizzy did not look at him. She was rearranging the dusty flowers in their urn.

  “She was a lot like you. I was thinking of you probably.”

  “Yeah, right!”

  Ossian found that he wanted to tell her anyway. Not just about Sue, but all of it, while it was still in his memory. The torturer… the priest… He knew what she’d say, of course – that they were all images of his father. His unconscious mind was acting out his true desire to rebel against Jack’s authority. Lizzy knew the Freud game.

  She sat and listened, her freckles wrinkling in unmysterious distaste at the gory parts.

  “Remarkable,” she concluded. “What a murky stream the unconscious is, for sure.”

  “You’re bored. Sorry – and now I’m whacked again.”

  Ossian did feel dreadfully tired.

  “I’m not bored at all, honey. But I think you should stop talking now. You look so sleepy.” She put her fingertips gently on his lids and closed them.

  Ossian did sleep – dreamlessly. And when he woke again nothing had changed. There were the same flowers, perhaps a little dustier, the same pale veins of reflected light on the white ceiling, the bright blue sky beyond the window, and Lizzy.

  “…so long to get you back,” she was saying, and he had the impression she had been talking for some time. That was all right. He liked to hear her voice.

  All the same, he began to ask himself: Why am I here in Lychfont House? How come I’m not in hospital? Perhaps I’m not as bad as I thought.

  “I should never have left Philadelphia,” he said at last. “I should have let Dad come back without me after all. I see that. You tried to tell me, didn’t you?”

  “Every way I could think of,” she agreed. “We were made for each other, you know. I seem to have been telling you that for ever.”

  “I won’t leave you again.”

  “I’ve no intention of letting you go,” she smiled, and placed her cool hand on his. “You lovely fool.”

  He saw himself reflected in her eyes. Two miniature Ossians blinked and shone. His injuries were slight enough not to have disfigured him, he saw with relief. Indeed, since his last sleep the pain of them had ceased to trouble him much. Dear Lizzy, who had come so far to find him. How he loved her!

  He told her so.

  They kissed with no pain, much tenderness. As Ossian slept again she hung over him, inscribing each inch of his sweet face in the tablet of her memory. She sighed as if for pity – then, glancing up, saw her own face reflected in the looking glass.

  The glass stared back.

  Her skin was pale and without blemish.

  The glass watched her move to the window, where the sun was making its western entrance. It saw her smile and splay her white toes against the stored heat of the tiles. On the rafters above her head, a sleek raven stared down sidelong.

  In the courtyard below, the scryer’s horse was bulging with packs and bags. The clerk was scurrying round it, tightening girths and knotting ropes, to little apparent effect. The clerk was no horseman, she surmised. The raven agreed; it fluttered to her shoulder at that moment, with a raucous guffaw. She took a fist of seed from the pocket of her gown and felt his rough, horny beak scratch at her palm.

  The prospect of Lychfont flowed from her. At the hill’s brim a line of mowers raised their scythes in salute. A pretty piece of rusticity. Then came the necessary hedges, the meadows lagged with river weed and the glutting flood. Her statues, their nets and tridents crossed protectively, guarded the lawns. But it was from the spectral fountains with their ghostly rainbow veils that she derived her greatest pleasure. In them, shifting and elusive, dream-like in their beauty, she found the fittest emblem of herself. Sue… Lizzy… Susannah. They had all been parts beneath her dignity – just multicoloured, momentary splendours, twinkling in the light of history. Yet even they implied something of the true Sulis, who was infinite and inexhaustible.

  Lychfont was – yes – very beautiful. Holy too, this place of running water, and she had known it so long. Was it, and so was Ossian. She would plant that healing spring very soon. It would be a wedding present for them both.

  “Is it blessed then?” Sulis asked aloud. “Am I to have him?”

  The great fireplace, lined with the immortals’ busts, looked benign: no more of those frightening, bared, dark teeth.

  “That’s all right then,” she concluded.

  She spoke with satisfaction rather than gratitude. Happiness was no more than her due, after all. She clapped for Alaris, and Alaris, milking ewes several fields away, heard the call and came running.

  What a day! The whole adventure, now that it was so happily concluded, had begun to seem rather amusing. How like Ossian it was to fly into a last-minute panic! And then let himself be brought back in sulky disgrace, and kissed and wooed into good humour. She really could not be cross with him for long. It had been an escapade, that was all, a stag-night adventure. The lovely boy – and soon to be united with her for ever. She licked her lips hungrily. She could hardly wait.

  The sun hung low now, a drop of blood-red fire running through the green veins of the forest. The grounds, she decided, must be dressed in all their finery. The horses must be groomed and their tails plaited, their manes and fetlocks tied gaily with ribbons, wreaths of blossoms woven for their necks.

  “W-what is it, mistress?”

  Alaris was panting in the doorway. Her skin was moist and pink and her dress, charmingly, was still hitched from her flight across the reedy fields.

  “Make my chamber ready, Alaris. You know what to do.”

  “The green robe, mistress, or the pearl white? Turquoise sets your eyes off beautifully too.”

  “Then lay out the pearl white and don’t vex me with questions. I have other matters to concern me.”

  Seeing Ossian in the bed nearby, Alaris said shyly: “Yes, mistress. And may I wish you joy?”

  “Indeed you may, Alaris,” Sulis replied complacently. “I thank you for it.”

  She gave Alaris her instructions and went to bed. After everything that had happened, she was fatigued and it was pleasant to think of all those preparations going on as she slept. Ossian had looked so peaceful too, bless him. And content; he knew he had come home at last. She bent to kiss those truant lips once more – then drew back on impulse, lest he wake. Let him slumber now, let him rest. Tomorrow will be time enough for kissing. Tomorrow there will be amorous games enough, and bridal bells, and marriage garlands too. The hour will not be long. Ah, yes, Ossian, wait until tomorrow. For that, my love, will always be our wedding day.

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  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2006

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Copyright © Charles Butler 2006

  Charles Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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  Source ISBN: 9780007128587

  Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007394838

  Version: 2013-12-09

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