The Dead Hamlets: Book Two of the Book of Cross (16 page)

“Now the faerie have brought the ghost to our world,” I said, thinking of the National Theatre production.

“And there are many more
Hamlets
to haunt here,” Marlowe said.

“How do I stop it?” I asked. I tried not to think about what would happen if the hauntings spread throughout the mortal world.

“That’s where I can’t be as helpful,” Marlowe said. “Ghosts were never my specialty.”

“Tell me more about this other play then,” I said. If I could learn its name, or even its author, then I would have something to go on when it came to dealing with the ghost.

“I’ve told you everything that Will let slip over wine,” he said. “The rest you’ll have to get from him, I’m afraid.”

“Even though you’ve been in the grave some time now, I’m sure you know that’s not possible,” I said.

“It’s not a venture I’d care to undertake,” Marlowe admitted. “But there it is.”

I studied him but it’s hard to tell from a skull’s facial expression whether or not it’s being truthful. I was going to have to believe him. I didn’t see any reason why he would lie to me or hold anything back. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t lying or holding something back, of course.

“Have you thought about talking to . . . ?” he began, but I cut him off with a shake of my head.

“I’m not that desperate,” I said. “Not yet.”

“I understand,” he said, and I knew he did.

I needed to leave this place and get on with things. I laid my hand on him, ready to take back the grace if he didn’t need it. “Just so I’m clear, Shakespeare’s ink is enough to give you life?” I asked.

“It’s truly a wondrous thing,” he said. “Now I know how you must feel upon your communion with the angels.”

“You have no idea how I feel,” I told him. I decided to let him keep the grace. After all, I needed a new reserve now that I’d drained the saints.

“No,” he said. “Nor do you know how I feel.”

I nodded. He had a point there. “Until next time,” I said.

“Good fortune,” he said. “You’ll definitely need it.”

I left him there on the throne and went back out into the night. The stars overhead mocked me, but no more than usual.

All right, I’d finally figured out the
what
. Now I just had to understand the
why
. Why was the ghost haunting
Hamlet
? What did it want, or what did it have to gain?

I had an idea how to find out. I was going to talk to another ghost.

I filled the rental car’s gas tank with petrol and I topped myself up with coffee. Then I headed back to London. I was starting to feel like a delivery driver.

I didn’t really want to return to the city because that’s where the Royals would start their search for me. I would have much rather preferred a quiet exit from the country—maybe a boat to Ireland and a flight back to the continent from there, to escape the security and the wardens at Heathrow and Gatwick. But the only ghost I knew how to find these days lived in London. Well, dwelled in London. Or whatever it is that ghosts do.

I abandoned the car on a side street near Hampstead Heath. If I were looking for me and had a nation’s security service at my disposal, I’d have someone check recent stolen credit cards to see if anyone had used them for renting cars. Then I’d start looking for those cars. So farewell, stolen car. I took the Tube into the city. It was too late to buy a hat or anything that disguised my appearance from the security cameras. I was just going to have to take the risk. It was a short ride anyway. By the time it would have taken anyone to respond to an alarm in a security office somewhere, I was already walking out into the street at the Covent Garden station and losing myself in the nighttime crowd.

Still, I walked quickly to my destination, which happened to be another theatre. I was spending more time in theatres in the past few days than I had in the past few years.

But this one was special. The Drury Lane theatre. Known around the world for its ghosts. Many theatres claim to be haunted, because it seems to be good for ticket sales. For some reason, many people appear to be intrigued or even titillated by the idea of a dead person dropping a light on the head of an actor or, better yet, the person sitting next to them. But most ghost stories are just that: stories. The ghosts in Drury Lane, however, are real.

Thankfully, this theatre was even easier to break into than the last one. By the time I arrived at the front doors, they were locked, the ticket booth empty. The last show of the night was finished and the audience had gone home. Perfect.

I used the stolen credit card in my stolen wallet for the only thing it was probably good for now: to open doors. I hunched over the door like I was fumbling with my keys. A couple of seconds and I was inside the lobby. I locked the door behind me again. It wouldn’t do for just anyone to wander in.

I went straight to one of the auditorium doors and listened at it for a moment. There were voices, and the sounds of things being moved around onstage. The stagehands cleaning up after the performance. I sat on a bench in the lobby and thought about my plan while I waited. So far my plan consisted of reminding myself to come up with a plan sometime soon.

When the voices faded away, no doubt heading for the back exit and a nearby pub, I went through the door and into the auditorium. It was empty and dark, the only illumination a single spotlight trained on the stage, which was also empty. I made my way down an aisle and hopped up onto the stage. I didn’t stand in the light though. That’s not the place to look for a ghost.

The best place to look for a ghost is in the shadows, where it’s a little easier to see them. Most ghosts are like that. I think it has something to do with their age, or how much energy they’re willing to expend to appear visible. If they use up too much, they get tired and just drift away entirely for a while. Most don’t bother putting any effort into being seen at all. It generally just causes problems when they are visible anyway.

You’ve probably seen a ghost once or twice in your life. A blur at the edge of your vision, or a glimpse of a person who wasn’t there when you looked again. You likely passed it off to a trick of the light. If you train your eyes properly, you can learn to see them, but that would take most people longer than their entire lives.

You can also see them easier if you’ve ever been dead and brought back to life. Just trust me on that one. Or if you’re a cat. For some reason, cats have no problem seeing ghosts. Hey, I don’t understand the rules, let alone make them.

So I stood there and waited, and eventually I spotted the ghost I wanted standing up in the flies, the walkways high over the stage where the curtains and scrims and ropes and all that are stored, out of sight. The ghost was dressed in a grey dress jacket, cloak, and an old-fashioned tricorne hat. He smiled when he saw me looking at him and mouthed a few words of greeting.

This is the other problem with ghosts. You generally can’t hear them when they’re spectral, which is how they are most of the time. Ghosts can take on corporeal form and carry on conversations, like a certain art dealer I’d once known, but they generally don’t like to, because it expends all their energy and they spend the next few years drifting in and out of existence. And ghosts don’t like fading out any more than the living.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t communicate with ghosts at all. You just have to be more creative. After all, they’re creative with the living. This ghost, for instance, liked to shift the lights to the best spots on stage for actors to deliver their lines. Actors, being what they are, always go to the lights. I guess the ghost knew the right places from watching lifetimes of performances.

I went over into the wings and checked the stagehands’ station until I found a folding knife hidden under a wine-stained copy of a script. A knife is one of the essential tools backstage, used for everything from cutting ropes that get tangled in set pieces to encouraging drunken actors to go onstage for their parts.

And for communicating with ghosts.

I went back out into the spotlight and unfolded the knife. The ghost watched with interest. I sliced open the palm of my left hand and let a good amount of blood drip onto the stage. Then I bent down and dipped my finger into it like an inkwell and wrote a few words on the wooden floor.

I hope you’ve been well
.

That got his attention. He climbed over the side of the walkway and shimmied down the proscenium arch. He probably could have just floated down, but I guess old habits die hard, even for ghosts. He landed in silence. He adjusted his jacket and coat, then walked over to my side and studied the words. He smiled. He bent down to write his own words with my blood.

I have been
, he wrote,
and that is well enough
.

I nodded and squeezed out some more blood.

A question,
I wrote.
Why are you here?

He raised his eyebrows, then shrugged before answering.
Where else
would I be?

“In the grave?” I suggested, not bothering to write the words now that we were in conversation.

The ghost studied the empty seats in the audience for a moment, then stained his fingers in more of my blood.

All the world’s a stage
, he wrote,
and the stage is my world
.

I considered his words while he licked the blood from his fingers. I cut my hand again to make more ink for him.

“Are you trapped here?” I asked.

He chuckled silently.
No more than you
, he wrote.
No more than any actor
.

“So you can leave?” I asked.

Where would I go?
he wrote.
I have been here since the first theatre was built on this site. I will be here until the last one burns down.

“Who were you before?” I asked.

The same as I am now
, he said.

“Then why do you haunt the theatre?” I asked.

He was quick in his answer.
I haunt nothing
, he wrote.
The show goes on. I play my role.

“You’re not seeking vengeance for your death?” I wrote. I didn’t know why else a ghost would haunt something if it had a choice in the matter.

He looked around at the stage before answering.

As long as I have my role, I am no more dead than you,
he wrote.

I rubbed my face and stared at my blood. I had a feeling his answer changed the way I needed to think about things. I just wasn’t sure how yet.

He bent down and wrote some more.

W
hat of you?
he asked.
What part do you play?

I shook my head. “I’m still not sure about that,” I said.

To know your role, you must first know the play,
he wrote.

I thought that over. He was right, in his own spectral, mysterious way. I was trying to stop the
Hamlet
ghost from killing Amelia when I didn’t know anything about the ghost because I
couldn’t
know anything about it. Not when I was little more than an audience member, watching and waiting to see what happened next. I had to learn more about the ghost, and the only way I could do that was by understanding the play it was from. I had to go back to the Forgotten Library and find the play Will had ransacked.

“Do you know
Hamlet?
” I asked.

The ghost chuckled in silence again.

I know every play that has ever been staged
, he wrote.
And many that have not.

I nodded and straightened up. I looked out into the empty audience and took a deep breath. Then I started into the play.

“Where wilt thou lead me?” I asked. “Speak; I’ll go no further.”

The ghost studied me for several seconds, then smiled.

“Mark me,” he said, and now I could hear him for the first time. I guess the play was still the thing with him.

“I will,” I said.

He moved down the stage, closer to the empty seats. He turned to face the audience that wasn’t there.

“My hour is almost come,” he said. “When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself.” His voice was deeper and richer than I had expected. He spoke the lines like they were meant to be spoken.

“Alas, poor ghost,” I said. I looked around the stage but nothing happened. No one came to investigate the sounds of our performance. No other ghost showed up to watch.

“Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold,” the ghost said.

“Speak,” I said, the lines coming naturally to me now, like I was recalling an old conversation I’d actually had. “I am bound to hear.”

“So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear,” the ghost said.

“What?” I asked. I wondered if I needed to overact a little and throw in some big gestures. Maybe I should swoon a little. Hamlet was a bit of the swooning type, after all.

Now the ghost turned back to me.

“I am thy father’s spirit,” he said. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Well, I guess he didn’t have the opportunity to exchange too many lines with the other actors that usually walked this stage. “Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,” he went on. “And for the day confined to fast in fires, til the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part, and each particular hair to stand on end. Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”

I did like that bit. It’s stood up well over the ages. Except for the part about the porpentine.

“But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood,” he went on. “List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—”

“O God,” I said, trying for wryness but hitting world weariness instead.

“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” the ghost finished.

“Murder,” I said, and thought that would be a good line for the
Hamlet
ghost to strike on.

And that’s when the spotlight fell from the darkness and killed me.