Graveyard Shift (21 page)

With a sudden flutter of feathers, the bird became Mr. October. He wavered a moment between two personalities, the elderly soul in white and the sharp-suited businessman, before settling into the one I knew best. Light from the chandelier crowned his shiny skull, and his face was as grave and rumpled as his worn-out suit.

He sat perfectly still, lost in thought. There were no jokes this time, I knew. No
gotcha
s.

“Please be seated,” he told the gathering. “This shouldn't take long, but it has to be dealt with. Will those of you with no business here please go out?”

All of the Vigilants but two left — the two who had brought me here. At last they let me go and moved to
the door, closing it and standing before it to seal off the meeting.

We took seats near the head of the table. The living portraits stared down, cold and colorless. Seated beside me, Mum opened her mouth to speak, but then said nothing.

Mr. October rapped on the table.

“We're in a state of emergency tonight,” he said. “This, as you know, is the night the enemy are at their strongest, and to make matters worse, a name was taken from here a short time ago. It couldn't have come at a worse time.”

He glanced at me and I looked away, feeling his disapproval.

“It isn't the first time this has happened,” he went on, “and we know from experience how damaging it can be. For one thing, we've had to divert valuable manpower to track what was taken. This at a time when we're already stretched to our limits. When things of this nature occur, it creates a chink in our system. Our defenses are broken. It lets the enemy in.”

I didn't need to look up to know what the portraits thought. I could feel their frowns bearing down on me.

“So we have to shore ourselves up,” Mr. October went on. “If they attack, we must be prepared. To this end we've called in all our part-time staff, and every Vigilant will remain on duty until further notice.”

He paused, hoarse from speaking, and produced a glass of ice water from a pocket. He took a long sip before continuing.

“The other thing we must do,” he said, “is balance the
books. As we sit here, the numbers are out of alignment. One has been called but not accounted for. The sooner we deliver that missing soul, the sooner we can clean up this mess.”

I couldn't look at him. I couldn't look at Mum. I felt for her hand under the table and squeezed.

“Take me instead,” I said weakly.

Mum tugged at my hand in alarm.

“What are you
talking
about?” she said.

“Beg pardon?” said Mr. October.

“It was my fault,” I said. “We all know I'm the one who took it. I didn't think how it would change things and I didn't think how much damage it would cause. But I did it for a good reason, and I'd do the same again.”

“But, Ben,” he said, “that's hardly the point. There's no better reason for breaking the rules than to protect someone you love. But
your
name wasn't called.”

“There has to be a way,” Becky said. “A way to balance the books without taking this innocent woman.”

Mr. October shrugged. “You should know by now, innocence has nothing to do with it. How many innocents have you shed a tear over since you started here? It isn't only the guilty who're called.”

“All the same . . . ,” she said.

He waved her to silence and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then his face cleared and he leaned toward me across the table.

“Before we proceed, Ben, I think I should have the item in question. The item you stole.”

I hesitated. Across the room, the Vigilants stood to attention, hands on rifles. Mum looked at me as if she were beginning to make sense of what was happening.

“Go on,” she said. “It's all right. I know what this man's saying and I'm proud — proud of what you did. But you should give it up now.”

Her words tore a hole in me. I wanted to weep. “But you're going to get well, Mum. It's not . . . it's not your time.”

Her hand held mine tightly.

If I didn't give it back, they would take it regardless. But I wouldn't let her go without a fight.

“Ben, please . . . ,” Mr. October said. “The longer we delay, the better the opportunity the enemy will have.”

Mum nodded, tears in her eyes. With a cry, I dragged the paper ball from my pocket and slammed it on the table in front of Mr. October.

“There! Are you happy now? Take it back! Just take it!”

A silence settled over the room. No one stirred or made a sound. The critical eyes of the living portraits softened. If they were content now, if they were relieved, I was anything but.

Mr. October took another sip of water and unfolded the crushed sheet, flattening it out on the table, then lifting it into focus nearer his face. Something flickered behind his eyes as he read.

“Hmm. Interesting.”

It was the last word I would've chosen. “What's so interesting about it?”

“Sukie —” Mr. October began.

“Yes, he's still there,” she answered before he could finish.

“Is the 4837 we brought in still in the waiting room? Then it's time he joined us so we can settle this matter once and for all.”

Sukie was already on her feet. “On my way.”

The Vigilants stood aside as she hurried out. The rest of us stared after her, bewildered.

“Would someone mind explaining what the heck's going on?” Becky said.

“Patience,” Mr. October said. For the first time, the faces of the elders in their portraits were almost approving. Something had changed since he'd read the telegraph, and we were about to find out exactly what.

Everyone looked up at the sound of the door, the wind whispering outside as it opened and closed. And there was Sukie, coming inside with the one from the waiting room, the 4837.

Mum let out a startled cry. She might've screamed if she'd had more strength.

The burned man came forward to stand at Mr. October's side. His features were easier to distinguish now and seemed to be improving even as I watched, as if his appalling injuries were quickly healing.

“It happens all the time,” Mr. October said. “The healing begins soon after the lost become found, and believe me, this man has been lost far too long. You were a difficult case right
up to the end,” he said to the man, “the way you bounced us across town all afternoon.”

The man lowered his head in apology.

“I'm sorry.” Even his voice sounded clearer now that the wounds to his throat were repairing. “I was afraid. I didn't know where to go.”

And now the missing left side of his face was healing, and now the singed hair was growing back, and now I recognized him for who he was and cried out too, a cry from the deepest, darkest part of me.

“Ben Harvester,” Mr. October said, leaning back in his seat. “Stand up and take this man's hand. Say hello to your father.”

T
he room held its breath. No one moved a muscle. Even the elders in the living portraits seemed stunned, their faces becoming ovals of billowing white clouds.

I could have died of shock, like Andy Cale at Belsize Park. Standing up, I felt so far outside myself that I had to check my chair to be sure I wasn't still sitting there. Mum got to her feet too, even more unsteady than me, and I looped an arm around her before her legs could give way.

“I'm seeing things, Ben,” she whispered. “Have I lost my mind, or is that really your father standing there?”

“You're not losing your mind, Mum.”

“I'm so sorry, son,” Dad said.

It was hard to think of this man as Dad, to imagine what he'd been through since I last saw him, walking away up the path with his suitcase, disappearing into the night.

But I knew him. I remembered him from the photo albums
we kept, from discs with his fingerprints all over them and books with his scribbled notes in the margins. Four years lost, but where had he been and where did he go from here?

“Donna,” he said, and Mum stiffened against me. “I wish I could turn back time.”

I looked at Mr. October, demanding an answer. I'd always had so many questions for him, but this was the only one that counted now.

Mr. October looked up at me, a sadness in his eyes. The empathizer.

“I know how hard this is,” he said. “You always dreamed you'd find him again, alive and well and back on your doorstep. But it's better to know the worst than to live in the dark, none the wiser.”

“But I thought . . . I thought we were here for Mum.” I held her tightly against me. It would take every Vigilant in the house to tear her away from me.

“That's an intriguing point,” Mr. October said, pushing the telegraph printout across the table. “Take a look, tell me what you think. It's quite enlightening.”

As I turned the paper around, many-colored lights danced across it under the chandelier. I pulled the page into focus and prepared to read what I'd read before — but now the name, the only name on the list, was
Jim Harvester
.

Everything stopped. The only sound was muted wind in the hall outside the room and another, more distant howling sound I'd heard somewhere else but couldn't place. I was too overloaded.

“You should be in hot water for what you did,” Mr. October said. “Not only did you take Ministry property, but you took the
wrong
name, a blunder if ever I saw one. If you'd filed this right away, we could've dealt with your father much sooner. We would've been spared this pantomime.”

“That can't be right,” I almost shouted. “That's not what it said. That's not the name I saw.”

Was that a hint of a smile on his lips, a mischievous twinkle in his eye?

“See how easily mistakes can be made?” he said. “That's why we always stress careful reading and meticulous typing. Imagine the chaos if the wrong name were filed.”

He leaned back, fingers drumming the table.

“Folks, the family needs private time,” he said. “Time to share a few last words. I'll ask you to show respect and keep your voices low if you must speak at all. Sukie? There's something here for the files.”

Sukie ran to collect the page from him, glanced at it quickly, then at me.

“Sorry for your loss, Ben, I really am. It's awful you had to find out like this. But the —”

“The telegraph never lies,” I said.

She blinked, surprised, then started to the door.

 

So now the three of us stood at the far end of the room under the stained-glass triptych, forming a close circle, not quite touching. My gaze flitted between Mum, pale with shock,
and Dad's still-healing face with its strong cheekbones and Roman nose.

Behind us, the great table and those seated around it looked miles distant and very faint, as if a veil had fallen between us.

“You've come a long way, son,” Dad said, then looked dotingly at Mum. “We all have. And you have to learn to let go now. You've held on long enough.”

She wiped her streaming nose. “This can't be happening. I don't even believe in ghosts.”

“But you believe in me,” he said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then that's all that matters. That's something to take with me when I go.”

“We always hoped you'd come back, but not like this,” Mum said. “I'd rather know you were living another life without us than see you this way.”

“What happened, Dad?” I had to ask. It didn't feel so strange now, calling him that, but my chest felt as heavy as stone. “Why didn't you come back?”

“I tried to,” he said. “The night I left, I knew that was all I wanted: to make things right, the way they used to be. But I also knew we needed time, your mum and I, so I made myself wait a month before calling to see if she was ready.”

“But you never called,” Mum said. “That was the hardest part. The not knowing.”

He smiled a broken smile. “But I did call, you see. I called I don't know how many times. It must've been rotten timing,
because you were always out or away when I rang. After leaving my friends in Newcastle, I moved to a B&B in Edinburgh. But the farther away I got, the bigger the pull I felt to come back. So I bought a ticket home. I thought if I could just see you up close, it would be easier.

“So I
was
coming back. I was on my way home when the accident happened, and everything I'd dreamt of went flying out the window.”

“The train crash,” I said, the heaviness increasing in my chest as I thought of Becky huddling down in the wreckage, playing hide-and-seek.
That
train crash.

Mum looked at me, aghast.

Dad nodded and lowered his gaze. “You may have heard of it, Donna — the crash on the East Coast line that killed so many passengers. But you wouldn't have known I was one of them.”

“Oh God . . .” Mum's cry trailed off into space. I held on, keeping her upright.

The Overseers averted their eyes.

“It came without warning,” Dad said. “One second I was watching the countryside go by, the next there was debris and glass everywhere, an inferno running through the carriage, panic and screaming. Then there was some kind of explosion. The impact threw me against the window headfirst, and I never left my seat after that. I was one of the few who never made it out in any kind of shape. No one could've identified us. I remember looking down through the furnace, seeing myself in the seat, everything turning black around
me. I knew what the fire had done to me, but I didn't feel any pain, not physical pain. Only the pain of missing you and not being able to find a way back.”

I looked at him, the burned man, the horror-film and comic-book fan. He looked as he used to, his features almost fully restored.

“We've missed you too, Dad. Missed you like crazy.”

Mum nodded, speechless.

“I'm sorry for everything,” he said. “For my stupid mistake, for leaving you without a clue. I tried to contact you so many times, I ranted and raved, but you never heard . . . not until that day in the classroom, Ben, when you saw me for the first time. I know I messed everything up, but you need to know I never loved anyone but you two. If I could take it all back, I would.”

He paused, and I sensed an electricity in the air that told me our time was nearly over.

“I'm glad we had this chance,” Dad finished. “I'm glad I could finally say what had to be said. But now we have to let go and move on. Can you do that, Donna?”

She shook her head in protest. “I don't want to.”

“You'll learn how.”

He touched her face, and a shudder ran through her as he wiped away her tears. He rested a hand on her bandaged arm a moment, looking into her eyes. Then he took my hand, and tiny sparks of lightning surrounded our fingers as we touched.

“Only thing is, I don't know what happens now,” Dad said. “They didn't explain that. They said you'd know.”

I looked at the conference table. No one reacted, least of all Mr. October, who sat with his head bowed and his back turned to us.

But suddenly I realized I didn't need his help for this. I knew, or thought I knew, without being told.

Inside the stained-glass windows, the warring figures seemed to be subtly moving, as if the aftershocks of their battles were still vibrating. But the pictures didn't show what I wanted. They gave no sign of a way out, a place where the departed were supposed to go.

“There,” Dad said suddenly, looking past me. “Could that be the place?”

In the darkest corner of our side of the room, a fine-line crack of light had appeared, as fine as the crack between the walls in the alley. That had to be it. We looked at each other and knew. We started toward it.

Mum held herself back, as if she understood she couldn't play a part in this now. She could only look on as I walked Dad away, and as I did he half turned to look at her, and the look that passed between them seemed to speak volumes, saying everything they'd left unsaid.

We were nearly there. Even at close range the crack wasn't easy to see. But when I put out my hand, I felt something solid and cold, something very much like a doorknob. My fingers closed around it.

“Love you, Dad.”

“I know,” he said. The look in his eyes took me back years to the times when he sang me to sleep and read me bedtime
stories. “Love you too, Ben. Wish I could say I'll be seeing ya, but you know this is where it ends. Take care of Mum.”

“I will,” I said, and then I opened the door.

The bright burning rectangle that loomed against the wall gave off a comforting warmth, so comforting I almost wanted to step inside it myself. But instead I moved aside, letting Dad pass. His last look seemed to say,
It's all right now. Everything's fine now.

He didn't speak, though. He didn't hesitate. He walked into the golden-yellow beyond, just as Mitch and Molly had before him. The warmth engulfed him, and as he moved farther inside I began to lose sight of him. Then he was a part of the welcoming flames, and I closed the door and leaned against it, sobbing.

Slowly the room came back into focus. Mum watched me with tear-filled eyes, not knowing which question to ask first. I took her hand and the veil seemed to lift midway across the room as I steadied her back to the conference table.

Mr. October was already on his feet. The elders looked down on us, nodding their heads.

“Now do you believe me?” Mr. October asked the portraits. “A first-rate show, young man. Astonishing. If my superiors still had any doubts about you, you wiped them away with what you just did. So . . . how do you feel?”

“Dunno,” I said. “Shaky. Empty.”

“Understood. Still, it's good to have the chance to lay our own ghosts to rest. In time you'll be glad of your part in this.”

Mum could only sniffle, still reeling with shock.

Mr. October turned to her now. “Our deepest sympathies, Mrs. Harvester. I know you're still recovering from one loss in the family and this must be hard to bear. These things have a way of coming all at once — it seems so cruel and unfair. But there's a new day waiting for you now, a very bright day.”

Mum muttered something I couldn't quite hear. I gave her hand a squeeze.

“We should get you home,” Mr. October said. “If you don't mind waiting while I speak with this young prodigy of ours, we'll have you on your way in no time. Lu? Becky?”

The girls snapped to attention.

I was reluctant to let Mum go, but I knew she'd be safe with them. The Vigilants stood aside until they'd passed, then followed them from the room. The wind sighed past the open door, and again I heard something else inside it: a mournful wailing.

Now that we were alone, Mr. October became serious and agitated, morphing back and forth between three different personas.

“There's something else you should know,” he said. “I couldn't explain in front of your mother — she has too much on her plate already. But there's another task facing us now. Do you recognize that sound in the wind?”

It was louder now, a chilling howl from the depths.

“You heard it the night we saved the Willow children,” he said. “It's the enemy mourning losses of their own. Your father may have slipped through their fingers, but they won't
go away empty-handed. There's been an incursion. They're already inside the building.”

Above us, the elders let out a collective groan. Something stirred in the pool of shade under the windows.

“What should we do?” I asked.

“Whatever we can.” He reached out a hand, collecting his walking stick out of thin air.

A spider-shaped shadow crept out of the darkness across the room, shot up to the highest point of the wall, and spread itself out in a corner. The weave it threw across the ceiling seemed to suck light from the air.

As its web closed around the chandelier, the conference room fell into semidarkness. Other shadows appeared, stretching around corners, spilling out of the stone walls, sweeping across the living portraits to blot them out.

“Security!” Mr. October called.

The door was thrown open. Two Vigilants looked in, awaiting instructions.

“The enemy are here,” Mr. October said.

And I was the one who'd let them in. I'd punched a hole in the Ministry's defenses when I'd taken that name. Somehow I had to make up for what I'd done, but for the moment all I could do was look on, helpless, as the demons tumbled out of their cover of darkness and into the room.