Archive of Our Own

✤

It isn’t often that the Dead Boy Detective Agency takes on a living client. It is even rarer that the client is a witch.

Or a witch who also happened to be a real estate agent.  

Holly leans back in her chair, all disdain and flaming red hair, legs and arms crossed. She and Edwin have been competing in something of a staring contest for the better part of the last ten minutes, from the moment she laid her laptop out on the desk. Edwin regards the glowing apple with enough pique to melt a glazier, and Charles hovers in the usual position at Edwin’s left, perched on the desk with his knee to his chest. Picking at an invisible thread on his jeans, his free hand tugs at the cuff of Edwin’s sleeve, out of sight.

“God forbid a woman have interests, right?” says Holly, with a thick Galway accent, and Charles honestly can’t decide if she is referring to the witchcraft or the real estate.

Crystal stifles a yawn, looking very unimpressed with all of this, and Edwin cracks a tight-tipped smile. The glazier crumbles.

“Pardon us, Miss Ross,” he says. “It’s only that our usual clientele is quite unvarying, and we’re not often met with a problem such as yours.”

Holly winks. “You’re very welcome, then.”

Edwin’s smile spasms and his knuckles whiten atop the desk. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

“What he means,” Charles cuts in before any heavy metal objects can start flying, “is this is just a bit left field for us, yeah? Doesn’t mean we’re not interested, though. Right, Edwin?”

He says the last part softer, a little more privately, leaning into Edwin as far as he would dare in front of a client, fingers slipping beneath the cuff of his sleeve to press against the soft inside of his wrist over his non-existent pulse. It’s enough for Edwin to pause his telepathic battle with the laptop and/or Holly. Edwin meets Charles’ raised eyebrows with a quirk of his own, and Charles squeezes his wrist in response. He sees the moment Edwin’s shoulders relax and his eyes soften, however briefly. But it is enough.

When Edwin’s gaze returns to Holly, that well-practiced, professional mask has slipped back in place. Business as usual. 

Crystal clears her throat and Charles almost flinches. “Sorry,” she says, “but can you run through the issue one more time?”

Crystal has been an absolute champion the last couple of months helping out at the agency in between studying for exams and volunteering wherever she can to, quote-un-quote, restore karmic balance, and it’s all starting to catch up with her. Not that Crystal will ever say this to them out loud. So here she is, at gone eleven in the evening, swaying on her feet.

“The issue,” Edwin says before Holly can speak, “is that we do not make ourselves into third-party confrères for the living. Exceptions are made in certain cases, of course,” he adds hurriedly, with a quick side glance at Crystal, “but this is not one of them.”

“There is no third-party anything,” Holly says, puncturing the end of her sentence with an eye roll. “You’re taking me on. My clients will just happen to benefit from it as well.”

Edwin’s expression is porcelain and resolute. “You want us to clear a haunting so they can purchase property,” he says. “It seems all very black and white to me.”

“Okay, let’s all just take a minute,” Charles says, palms raised. He moves to stand directly behind Edwin, gripping his shoulders tight. To Holly, he asks, “How long have you been trying to sell the house?”    

“A great fucking long time,” Holly says and turns the laptop further around so they can see the webpage open to a listing for an impressive gothic mansion. “Five clients she’s driven away so far. Five!”

“She?” Edwin asks, staring down at the webpage. Charles feels his muscles tense.

“The lady of the manor,” Holly says, wiggling her red acrylics. “I call her Lady Thorne. No idea what her actual name is. Listen, I’ve tried to talk reason with her but she’s a massive fucking bitch, okay? Will not listen to a word I say, and when she’s decided it’s time for me to leave she’ll start throwing shit. I walked out of there the other week with a great big bruise on my forehead!”

“Okay,” Crystal says. “Did you think maybe it’s best to leave her be? Obviously, she’s comfortable where she is, and it’s her house. Is it her house?” Holly shrugs. Crystal hums. “Why are you so determined to get her out?”

“Because the house has sat there in the middle of the woods falling to pieces for a hundred years,” Holly says. “It’s tragic. I mean—look at it!”

She stabs at her computer and images of the home start playing in a slideshow. Lush grounds, a whole seven acres of it, stone architecture and trellises up the wazoo. An expanse of garden ready to be given new life, and a small pond sitting at the edge of the grounds. Located in West Sussex—proper posh. Charles whistles.

“Gorgeous right? My new clients will really make something of it. Give it new life! And they won’t gut the place and paint it all white, either. They’ll respect the home and the heritage. Also,” she says, with a sweeping look at Edwin, who keeps his gaze locked on the far wall of the office. “It’ll make me an absolute killing. Which means I’ll be able to pay you boys very handsomely. Word on the street is you’re interested in that sort of thing.”

The concept of payment manages to perk Edwin up a little, as it usually does, and Charles leans back into his earlier position perched at Edwin’s elbow happily.  

A quick clipped We will be in touch from Edwin later (which isn’t a definite yes but it isn’t exactly a no, either) Holly gathers up her things and leaves them with her business card. Charles promises she will hear from them in the morning, and Edwin calms almost immediately once the witch-agent and her MacBook Pro have vacated.

Crystal leaves them to it shortly after with a demand to let her know immediately the next morning if they are taking on the case. Charles ushers her out the door while she attempts to hide a yawn, and they are alone.

Edwin retreats into the back room for a little while, emerging with an armful of an ongoing project that involves a bundle of wolfsbane, some glittery purple powder Charles brought him from the market last week, and a potion.

Charles is content to watch him from the couch and fiddle with his new enchanted yo-yo. When the third layer of clothing is removed Charles stops to watch him closer but does not move off the couch until the tie is ripped off with vigour and flung carelessly over the back of Edwin’s desk chair.

Charles sighs, leaving the yo-yo on the pillow.

Edwin stills when Charles presses into his back and circles his arms around his waist in a tight embrace. He smiles when Edwin leans into Charles’ touch not a moment later, hands coming up to rest over Charles’, thumb caressing the bone at his wrist. Charles presses a small kiss at the base of Edwin’s spine, nose buried into thick black hair, and takes a moment to just breathe.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Charles murmurs, not demanding. Edwin makes a little noise at the back of his throat and reaches again for the wolfsbane. He drops a piece into the mixture and together they watch glittery purple smoke that smells faintly of pine float up towards the ceiling.

“Nothing is wrong,” Edwin responds, sounding far away.

“Edwin.”

“I keep getting the ratio wrong …”      

Charles says, “We don’t have to take on the job.”

Edwin does not answer for a full minute. Charles grips him tighter, palm pressed against his chest. For a moment he almost feels a phantom heartbeat beneath his fingertips.

Finally, Edwin says, “We shall call Miss Ross back in the morning and advise her we will take her on, but require a full day to prepare. She will also be paying for transport and any other fees, if needed, given that mirror travel is out of the question with Crystal accompanying us. Judging by how desperate she is to rid the house of—I very much doubt she will argue much.”  

Charles tugs at Edwin’s hips until he is turning in his arms.

“I don’t know, mate. Them real estate sharks are a different breed. And a witch on top of that!” Charles jokes. Then, more serious, “As long as you’re sure.”

In lieu of answering, Edwin leans in the short distance and captures Charles’ lips. Sometime later when they finally pull away there is a new certainty in Edwin’s eyes that eases Charles’ nerves, and a soft smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“I am sure.”

✤

Holly is thrilled about the news they will be taking her case, not so much about receiving it is at six in the morning.

“Don’t witches rise with the sun anymore?” Edwin mutters under his breath.

Crystal leaves the phone on speaker and conks out on the couch for another couple of hours, during which Charles and Holly talk deadlines and travel and Edwin and Holly talk finance.

“I’d like to bring up the matter of payment,” Edwin says, scribbling away in his journal.

“Thought you might,” Holly’s electronic voice says. “Listen, the place is balls to the wall full of antiques. Once Lady Thorne has daundered over to the sweet hereafter, you get first go at it all. Sound good?”

Simply, they put forward a plan of action which is, in summary:

1. Turn up to the cosy countryside town of Hawksbridge, West Sussex.
2. Try and talk to Lady Thorne and hope she’ll have a bar of them.
3. Convince her to pass over into the afterlife.
4. Profit significantly.

Once the plan has been solidified there is a bit of kissing to pass the time until Crystal returns with Chinese takeaway under her arm. She offers one look at them—Charles up on the desk with Edwin leaning comfortably between his thighs –and remarks, “There is a perfectly good storage closet right there.”

“Feel free to leave the way you came,” Edwin replies without heat, tightening his grip on Charles’ hips. Laughing, Charles hides his face in Edwin’s shoulder and Crystal flips both of them off, flopping down onto the couch to eat her dinner.

Much later; the cab drops the three of them off at a classic fork in the road. Trees bracket them in on either side. Stone houses and sun-bleached post boxes at the foot of various winding driveways peek through the gaps in the woods. The headlights shine on a metal sign nailed to a tall oak tree that stands proud between the fork. It reads Thorne Court private grounds. Caution children and animals!  

The cabbie offers a great deal of concern for Crystal being out here alone at such a late hour, and it takes three tries to convince him she is perfectly fine.

“It’s dark as shit out here,” Crystal says, shining her phone’s flashlight into the woods. “Creepy, too.”

“Welcome to Sussex,” Edwin replies, contempt in his voice, and begins down the gravel path past the private property sign. Charles and Crystal are quick to follow.

It’s a good ten-minute walk from where the cabbie deposited them until the group reaches an iron gate. It is tall, old and dilapidated, and Crystal curses three times when the key Holly gave them—a set on a great big loop the size of Charles’ palm—sticks in the lock. Charles whistles as they walk up the winding path to the home, overgrown with bushes and weeds. Rubble from the stone fence creates obstacles they need to climb over.

“I get what Holly was saying, though,” Charles says, turning in a circle as he walks. “This place is pretty impressive. Hey, Edwin?”

Edwin does not reply, staring off into the woods, and phases through two bushes and a bit of stone. Charles slows down to meet him, allowing Crystal to go forward.

“Edwin.”

Edwin startles and blinks in surprise as if he did not expect Charles to be standing so close. There is a particular something swimming in the green of his irises that Charles is unable to place, nor does he have the time to study it before Edwin is offering a tight-lipped grin and is pressing his gloved hand against Charles’. There is no feeling through the leather on leather, and—they have rules when it comes to cases and professionalism, since becoming this—but all that be damned. Charles wants to rip his gloves off and touch his fingertips to Edwin’s skin until he tells him for real why he is acting so strange.

“I believe there are foxes in these woods,” Edwin says, slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat, and creating some distance between them. Charles tries to smother the ridiculous hurt roiling in his chest. “We shouldn’t stray too far from Crystal. For her safety.”

And, okay. They’re on a case. Edwin wants to stay focused, that’s fine. Charles can be focused. Not like during the Disappearing Door case, where they were accidentally locked in a room and they had to puzzle their way out because Edwin looked way too cute in his anthropologist goggles and Charles forgot to keep an eye on the flaky door. Or during the Case of The Midnight Masquerade, where they had to hole-and-corner their way into a vampire’s party by dressing like guests, and Edwin had to drag Charles off into a fancy bathroom by the lapels of his suit and snog him senseless before either of them could get any detectiving done. 

Or some other times, like during a case that led them to a charity shop in Richmond (pre-Niko’s escape from the Underworld) when Edwin found a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses and almost shut down at the sight of them. Or just the other week—before Charles had the chance to toss a cursed squeaky toy at an escaped Hellhound and Edwin finally got his incantation correct, the thing had torn through a supernatural market and destroyed more than a dozen stalls, leaving them to do damage control with a small crowd of witches, ghosts, and one very narked sprite. Edwin had retreated into his books after that one.

So. Focus. Charles can be so focused, and after it’s all done and dusted Charles will take some extra care in pressing Edwin into the sofa and uncoil everything that made him so wound up about this case in the first place. There. Done.

Charles smiles big and beaming at his partner, best mate, boyfriend, and says, “Sure, love. Let’s go meet Lady Throne and see if we can sort her out before morning, yeah?”

✤

None of the keys work for the front door, because why on earth would they. Edwin pokes his head around the side and finds a long tunnel of stone arches that Charles knows would have looked absolutely aces when the house was being looked after, but now just brings on the threat of spiders. Crystal pulls on her hood and rushes down the walkway.

“If I get bitten by a spider and die tonight, tell Niko she can have everything I own,” Crystal says.

“What?” Charles says, affronted, “We don’t get anything?”

“There’s a door here,” Edwin calls from way ahead.

He’s found a skinny wooden door almost invisible behind a fallen trellis and a wall of overgrown roots. Charles claps Edwin on the shoulder. “Good spotting, mate,” he says and with a couple tries the wood gives way, and they are finally inside.

To be perfectly honest, as far as haunted houses go (and Charles has seen enough to fill a catalogue) Thorne Court isn’t too bad. They’ve entered into a small utility room full of old-fashioned wash basins and cupboards filled of moth-eaten cloth. Broken down wicker baskets lie in heaps against the wall and on the benches. It’s dusty, sure, but …

“You reckon Lady Thorne’s been keeping the place tidy?”

“Since the eighteenth century?” Crystal asks.

“You think the place is that old?” Charles asks, following Edwin into a larger, emptier room that looks like somewhere the domestic servants would sit to remain out of sight and mind. Charles is guessing. It looks like the type of place that would be stocked to the brim with butlers and maids, maybe a nanny and—what was that thing Edwin told him about once? A woman who would come and teach the household’s children? A governess. Lady Thorne definitely had a governess in here.

Edwin’s response, when Charles finishes telling him all this, is only a short, “Yes, it does seem the type.”

“Guys, I’m getting a weird feeling from this place,” Crystal announces once they have found the entrance hall.

Edwin pivots and looks at her sharply. “A weird feeling in what sense?” 

“I don’t know, like … like there’s an energy that’s not …” Crystal closes her eyes, and Charles and Edwin wait for a minute or two before they re-open, irises now white. She announces, “There’s a psychic signature in here. I can feel it.”

“A what?” Edwin demands.

“Lady Thorne?” Charles asks.

Crystal nods. “It’s her. She was a psychic when she was alive, I can feel it. God her energy is everywhere—”

“Do not touch anything,” Edwin snaps. Crystal’s hand, two heartbeats away from brushing a small brass vase by the main door, jerks away. She blinks brown eyes at him, startled.  

“Given what Miss Ross has told us about this ghost, I think it best to be careful regarding anything in here,” Edwin says. “Ghosts who had a gift for the arcane during their life are known to be a smidge more volatile in death than regular ghosts.”

Crystal shows him her palms and very slowly backs away from the vase. “Hands to myself. Got it. Jesus, Edwin.”     

Edwin looks between her and Charles quickly, tugging at the hem of his vest.

“Okay,” Charles begins, “let’s just—”

The shrill ringing of a telephone cuts him off.

“What the fuck?” Crystal says. “There’s a working telephone here?”

Rrrring! Rrrring! The sound is coming from deeper into the house and echoes through the silent halls, eerie and very out of place inside the abandoned home.

“Nah,” Charles says. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Rrrring! Rrrring!

Slowly, like flicking a switch on a generator, lights in the hallway flicker to life. The clinking of plates and glassware and footsteps are heard, and oh. Oh no. This is all starting to look too familiar.

Like moths to flames, the three follow the sound of the ringing telephone into a sitting room the size of their office in London, maybe a little bit bigger. Everything is clean and vibrant and looked after. Bookshelves stocked to the rafters with hundreds of volumes encase three walls of the room, and in the far right in front of a wide window is a busy desk covered in parchment and trinkets, reminding Charles a little of theirs.

The phone is the very old kind, the one that resembles a candlestick with a round dial and a coned speaker, sitting on its own table beside an armchair.

A woman in a long blue dress and dark hair pulled up high on her head walks into the room and Charles holds his breath. He senses Edwin and Crystal do the same.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Charles begins, softly, but Lady Thorne gives no impression of having heard him. Instead, she sits in the chair by the phone and stares at it for some time until it eventually stops ringing.

“This look familiar to you?” Charles asks.

At the same time, Edwin and Crystal answer, “The Devlin house.”

The second time the phone rings she answers it almost immediately. There is a muffled voice over the receiver impossible to make out. The woman speaks in a soft, delicate voice, and says, “Yes. This is Eleanor. When?” There is a pause, then, “How?”

They watch as she listens for a very long time. Eleanor. There are no tears in her eyes, but there is the deepest timbre of emotion in her voice when she asks, “How am I supposed to tell my son his father has died? Like that?” 

Crystal makes a noise, and Charles turns to see her clutching her stomach, face faintly green. Edwin has been watching the scene play in stony silence, but blinks and turns to Crystal, questioning, “What is it?”

“It’s like I can feel what she was feeling,” Crystal says.

“What is she feeling?” Edwin asks.

“I think—I think she already knew. That her husband died. She felt it when he—and they’re giving her the news now. Just like that?” Crystal looks appalled. “Over the phone? That’s fucked.”

“That’s …” Edwin starts, looking back over at Eleanor, who has now hung up the phone and sits with her face in her hands. He stutters, regains himself, and continues, “That is how it was done.” 

Charles starts forward, “Hey, uh. Madam?” but is stopped quickly by Edwin’s hand on his elbow, pulling him back. Eleanor stands and walks out of the room, the lights flickering and growing dim again once she has left. The room’s contents are no longer alive but defeated by time—torn, ripped and bug-eaten. The books litter the floor, and the phone is missing completely. The desk sits at an odd angle.

Charles waits for the moment when it will all start again, like that terrible night at Port Townsend, but the room remains dark.

“Why is she not coming back?”

“There is something different happening here than what we witnessed last time,” Edwin says, running a gloved hand over a small coffee table and leaving behind a streak in the dust. “I don’t believe this is a loop so much as a reply of memories. We saw something similar back in ’06, Charles, do you remember?”

Charles nods. The Case of the Whispering Walls, October 2006. Locals called for a disturbance in a house kept up on the very top of a hill that was seemingly “alive”. It all turned out to be the ghost of an old man stuck watching his life play out in front of him on a constant loop for years, falling further into his own memories. It took them complete fucking ages to break poor Reggie out of the hazy fog and get him to accept the blue light. But they’d managed it, in the end.

“We’re going to have to break her out of her memories,” Charles says. “Somehow.”

“Let’s start by finding where she went,” Crystal says, looking into the hallway. “Ah. Through here.”

Charles and Edwin follow her to the back of the house and through a wide-open sunroom leading into a garden. A sensation of stepping into another world, it is a bit disorienting to walk through a doorway from the darkened house at midnight out into a bright yard in the middle of the day.

Eleanor is crouched by a bed of yellow and orange flowers, snipping at some and depositing them carefully into a wicket basket by her hip. She wears gardening gloves and a large hat, and bits of her dark hair have fallen loose around her delicate face. She is quite beautiful, Charles notices—a bit younger here than she was in the other memory, and far happier—in that timeless, breath-catching sort of way.

Edwin is scanning the garden for clues, and Charles, because it is hard to resist being a pest sometimes, especially when Edwin is so sweet to react to it, says, “She’s a bit fit, yeah?”

Crystal sighs (Charles, please) but instead of the usual disappointed-but-fond expression he expects, Edwin looks like at him like he’s grown an extra head.

Okay. Maybe now isn’t the time.

Like before, Eleanor does not let on that she is aware of their existence in her garden. Charles remembers it was like this with the old man, too; whole family dead except his daughter and granddaughter. It took showing him a photo of them to break him out of his memory daze. Charles doubts it will be any different with Eleanor. They will need to observe for a little while before they can start looking for something that will break her out of her loops.

He says as much to Edwin and Crystal. “Flowers?” Charles suggests. “Hey, Edwin, what kind are those?”

Edwin stares at the flowers, and begins, “Marigolds and hydrangeas. They—”

“Mother!”

Edwin makes a noise, and they all turn to watch a little boy around the age of seven or eight, with a shock of dark hair and absolutely soaked head to toe, run up the hill towards Eleanor.

“Mother! Mother look what I found!” he says, not stopping until he is directly behind her, small hands on her back, almost knocking her forward into the flowers.

Eleanor gasps, catching herself before she ends up face-first in the hydrangeas. “Darling, please be careful—Oh! Why are you all wet?” she demands, twisting around. Droplets of water turn the ends of her son’s hair into little spikes, trickling down his pink cheeks and nose. He looks absolutely delighted as he holds out his fist to his mother. Charles can’t help but grin at the scene, and ignores the niggling in his chest.

“I found something. I think it’s for you. Look, it has your initials!”

Eleanor’s son drops a pendant into her lap—calcified and tarnished gold on a long chain—and Eleanor gasps.

“Tell me you were not just in the pond.”

“Yes, mother, but—!”

The scene changes without warning. The sun disappears behind the clouds and the brightness of the world dims. The flowers whiter and turn to dust as Eleanor stands and begins to scold the boy, whose face crumbles. Eventually, she grabs her son and ushers him into the house. The door shuts and it is the middle of the night again.

“Well, that was fuckin’ sad,” Crystal remarks, eyeing the spot where Eleanor knelt tending to her garden. The area surrounding is nothing but weeds and stone, now.

The memories only get more depressing from there. Mundane tasks shift into bouts of time where Eleanor sits alone in a room, reading or writing letters or, sometimes, staring out the window while rocking a newborn baby in her arms. They can’t always hear the memories, either. Most of the time there is a tall man with light brown hair and a nice suit, who Charles deduces is her husband. They argue when they are young and don’t when they are older. Almost all of the memories of the two of them end with him walking out the door in a huff.

Edwin watches his movements closely, following him out the room until the man disappears into a fizzle of smoke and dust.

They see the little boy a handful of times but not for very long. Mostly he is young, an infant curled up on the floor quietly playing with a block toy, and other times he is eight or nine and curled up in the corner of the room—Edwin is always fast to steer them into a new room when he is about.

They shift away from the lady of the house every now and then to search rooms independently. Charles is alone in a parlour when she walks in, heart launching into his throat when for a split-second it looks as if she sees him, only to walk over to the shelf, pick up a book, and leave the room again.

“Did either of you have any luck communicating?” Charles asks an equally dejected Edwin and Crystal, and the look on both of their faces is answer enough.

They leave quickly from a room where Eleanor is sitting crying with her knees pulled to her chest, while a baby wails from somewhere deeper in the house. And another when she is the youngest they’ve seen her, not much older than Charles, he would guess, sitting in front of an older man with greying hair and an awful expression. She clutches her stomach and cries.

In another memory, she is reading from a letter. Charles is able to get close enough to read over her shoulder, signed by someone named Alex—Dear sister, father has gone to madness in his grief following the news of Randall’s death. I’ve been hearing strange things from down in the cellar. He keeps it guarded all day and night and I am not allowed in the East wing anymore. I am frightened. Won’t you come visit? Or, do you think it would be possible if I were to come stay with you and E—

Eleanor folds the letter away before Charles is able to read any more of it. 

In the master bedroom, Eleanor and her husband talk in hush whispers. Crystal has wandered down the hall on the promise not to go too far, and Edwin blanches at the sight of the current memory. They’re in a little too deep into the voyeurism aspect of the case at this point, but Charles admits memories that take place inside a bedroom are taking it a step too far.

They are about to move on when he hears Eleanor say, “I don’t want him at that school. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Christ, Ellie, if we lived our lives based on your bad feelings, we’ll all be shut ins. Listen. It’s all been sorted, alright? St. Hilarion's is the best school for him. Besides, your father has organised it all, and we don’t want to offend him.”

A cold dread runs through Charles at the mention of that school. Geographically, and given the size and grandeur of the home feeding the More Money Than God theory Charles has gathered about Eleanor and her family, it fits the narrative.

“Fuck me,” he mutters as they quickly vacate. “Been a while since we’ve heard that name. It was a nice run while it lasted, huh, Edwin?”

Silence.

Charles turns to find that Edwin has wandered into a smaller bedroom. His shoulders are stiff and he refuses to look at Charles directly until Charles sighs, pulls off his gloves, and cups Edwin’s face just as he wanted to do earlier. Case be damned—sometimes a five-minute time out is necessary.

“Eds, please look at me,” he pleads, thumb caressing the underneath of Edwin’s jaw, just below his ear in the way he likes. The trick works, and Edwin very slowly lifts his head to meet his gaze. Charles leans forward until their noses are brushing, foreheads pressed together, feeling the spectre of Edwin’s breath and the tickle of his eyelashes on his skin.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Please,” he says, trying and failing not to sound like he is begging.

Edwin’s hands reach forward to clutch at Charles’ waist, grip almost bruising. “This case,” Edwin begins, “is proving to be quite difficult.”

“We’ve dealt with trickier things before, love, and blown them to pieces,” Charles says.

Edwin’s laugh is fragile and humourless. “I’m afraid this one is different.”

Charles frowns, leaning back enough that he can look at Edwin again.

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s not what I think, it’s—Charles. Please don’t be angry with me, but I haven’t been completely honest with you about this case.”

The distress in Edwin’s eyes is making Charles anxious by proxy. “Okay, listen to me. Crystal will call Holly and tell her we’ll have to try again another day, yeah? Re-group and re-assess. Now that we’ve seen what’s happening in here, we can, like, figure out a plan away from all of this.”

Edwin had begun shaking his head halfway through Charles’ speech. “No, Charles, it isn’t—” he cuts himself off, eyes widening and mouth falling open. “Do you hear that?”

To be completely honest Charles doesn’t hear a damn thing. The memories had run their course almost immediately after he and Edwin entered the room, and they wait in the interlude between. Whatever Edwin is hearing Charles is deaf to, which instantly raises red flags for him.

“Hear what?”

“It sounds like …”

“Edwin?”

He slips from Charles’ grip—no, through Charles’ grip. Panic rises in Charles’ throat and he calls out just as Edwin phases through the wall and out of sight.

“Edwin!”

Charles follows him out of the room through the wall as Edwin had done, and is met with nothing but a darkened, empty hallway full of mildew and cobwebs. Crystal hears his shocked cry from the next room and rushes to meet him in the hallway, curls bouncing with each step.

“What happened?”

Charles knows it isn’t possible—incorporeal disposition and all—but Charles dove head first into Hell and managed to blow up a demon with a Molotov cocktail less than a year ago, so with that logic it could very well be possible that Charles’ long dead heart starts to beat again. It certainly feels like it is racing out of his chest, slowly crawling up the column of his throat. The wrongness of the haunted look in Edwin’s eyes swims in the forefront of his mind as he fills Crystal in, and something in him already knows.

It can’t be, he thinks. He would have said something. He tried to say something, a small voice says, he didn’t want to take the case. He was petrified. You should have noticed. You shouldn’t have taken the case. You should have been a better best mate, a better boyfriend—

“Fuck,” Charles spits vehemently, and feels like he will be sick. Edwin would tell him that’s silly, and for the hundredth time, Charles, ghosts cannot get sick, but Edwin is—

“Edwin!”

Charles’ voice only echoes through the cold, empty house. Everything has gone quiet, not a single memory in sight. Nothing but the peeling wallpaper and the picture frames stained by age and dust covering a too-familiar face.

 ✤

The night goes on and Charles begins to wonder if it is possible to go insane, and makes a mental note to ask Edwin about it later. When they find him.

Eleanor evades them as well. Silence descended on the house the moment Edwin blinked away. Nothing, not even so much as a squeak of the floorboards, has sounded in the interim. Crystal is beginning to look as ragged as Charles feels the longer that they wander from room to room with no success. There has been a memory or two but they are anaemic and scattered, slightly confused.

“What’s happening?” Charles finally asks when they’ve had to watch Eleanor’s husband march out of a room for the fifth time.

Erring on the side of caution and obeying Edwin’s earlier hands to yourself rule has been fucked all the way off, and Crystal runs her hands over everything and anything she can find. “It all feels very confused,” she says. “It’s honestly making my head hurt a little.”

“We’ve never met a psychic ghost before,” Charles says. “At least not while you’ve been with us. Do you think she’s doing this on purpose?”

They’ve wandered into a sitting room larger than their office, and Crystal picks up a small oval-shaped frame fallen flat on the mantle. “Edwin’s mo—?”

Charles cuts her off, sharp. “Don’t.”

An unimpressed look shadows over Crystal’s face, but Charles can’t find it in him to care. The house is too big and too empty, and Edwin has been lost in it for over an hour. The little boy with a shock of dark hair and a necklace clutched in his little fist rushes to the forefront of his mind, and Charles wants to tear the walls down piece by piece.

“Strong emotional response,” Crystal mutters, almost to herself, and hands Charles the picture.

He is still beautiful, likeness stained with age. Gloved fingertips just barely trace the scalloped frame before they hear it—footsteps. Then a flash of dark hair, pale skin and a white shirt skirts past the doorway so fast it just about gives Charles whiplash, and he is following.

Edwin is storming through the hallways with purpose, tense shoulders and ruler-sharp posture. Charles calls after him but the relief of seeing him again hasn’t quite settled right in his chest. It floats just above the surface of his would-be flesh, tapping at his ribcage with the eight pin-prick legs of a spider.

Edwin is not responding to him.

Edwin is stripped down to a thin, unfamiliar shirt and black trousers not dissimilar to the kind he usually favours, but definitely not what he started off the night with. His hair is also a right mess, dark curls falling over his forehead and curling around the tops of his ears. It’s the style that is usually concealed from anyone but Charles. Regularly he will slip his fingers into the stiff side part to ruffle it up just to watch that miffed twitch of his nose that is way too fucking endearing, and Edwin will leave it as Charles left it because he likes seeing him like that; gorgeous and relaxed and a little bit messy, just for Charles.

Seeing it now only further churns the dread inside him.

There is also, strangest of all, a half-empty bottle of sherry in his hand.

“Edwin? Hey. Edwin.”

Crystal’s fingers curl into the sleeve of his coat. “Charles, hang on a second,” she says. “I don’t think that’s Edwin.”

“What? Of course it’s Edwin, it’s—”

With a clang! that echoes off to walls, the bottle of sherry is deposited on a nearby table. It shudders on the wooden surface but does not tip over, and Edwin sniffs and moves along. Charles and Crystal trail behind him like a shadow that can only watch, helpless and confused, as Edwin steals a chair from a formal dining room and drags it without ceremony through the house.

Gone are the little yellow and orange flowers and the lush green lawn. The world outside is cold and stale, with a light dusting of early winter frost coating the wide expanse of grass. Edwin drags the chair so that it screeches across the stone porch, thuds down the stairs, and rips up the grass.

That isn’t Edwin, is what Crystal had said. Charles disagrees. This is Edwin.

But this Edwin is alive. This Edwin is a memory. This Edwin has been crying, cheeks flushed pink, eyes watery and bloodshot, a little drunk, and dragging a chair out to a much larger pile of other chairs in the middle of the lawn. 

“Uh,” Crystal begins, voice low as if she’s afraid to spook him, “what the fuck is he doing?”     

And—

“Oh.” Charles breathes.

A conversation in the early years comes flooding back all at once. It was on one of the very few occasions they discussed their human lives, and Charles, not too sure why, had asked Edwin what was the weirdest thing he’d done when he was alive.

It took him a minute but eventually Edwin responded with, “After my father passed, I threw all the chairs in the house out onto the back lawn.”

Charles had laughed at the randomness of it, not at all what he was expecting, and asked, “Why?”

Edwin wrinkled his nose, embarrassed. “I was quite upset. And a little inebriated.” 

It’s a specific kind of unsettling to watch that scene play out right in front of their eyes, exactly as Edwin had described.

Movement to the left alerts Charles and Crystal to Eleanor’s presence. She is dressed, as she is in most of the memories, in her long white nightgown. Her arms are crossed and she is watching Edwin pile chairs. Charles sees her differently, now; sees that her long black hair, tumbling loose over her shoulders and down her back is the same colour and texture as Edwin’s. She is tall, slim and straight-postured with a face you could cut yourself on, just like Edwin.

Edwin turns, breath turning to frost, and staggers to a halt.

Eleanor shifts to lean her shoulder against the post, and very slowly asks, “What are you doing?”

Memory-Edwin looks up to meet her gaze, and haughtily replies, “Redecorating.”

Eleanor arches an eyebrow, the sight of it so familiar it makes Charles dizzy. “For what purpose?” she asks.

“Father is dead,” Edwin says, all matter-of-fact, “so we shan’t be needing this many chairs. Not anymore. So I’m—” he stumbles. Catches himself. “Removing them.”

“Edwin.” Eleanor starts, voice sharp as a knife. “This is absurd. Come inside this instant.”

Edwin shakes his head, disturbing the curls at his temples. “No, I cannot. There are simply too many—”

Eleanor gasps. “Are you drunk?”

Crystal shifts her weight, and the snow crunches under her boot. She is holding her stomach again and looking nauseous. “This is—this is … Charles.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Charles watches, helpless, as a tear rolls down Edwin’s cheek. Holding the back of a chair for support, head bowed, Edwin says, “I suppose they came in handy for the wake. But that is over now.”

Eleanor says, “Come inside or you will catch your death, Edwin. Edwin? Let me call for Cecil.”

“He’s gone home,” Edwin slurs. “I sent everyone home.”

The house staff, Charles realises. Eleanor has shifted away from the post and is hugging herself for warmth. “For what possible means?”

“For what purpose do we need them? What would have them do!” Edwin demands with a shout. “What, mother? To clean? To cook? Do you eat anymore? I haven’t seen you eat in months. I’m elsewhere or you are, and—Well, we haven’t anywhere to fucking sit anymore, of course!”   

With a hard kick, a chair flies across the yard in a surprising show of strength that gives Charles pause, reeling back in shock, and enough is enough.

Edwin is within arm’s reach made of thin air and an illusion of a body, and Charles is convinced when he reaches out to touch him, gloves ripped off with a pinch of his canine teeth, that he will feel the familiar spectral warmth of Edwin’s skin.

This does not happen, of course, and memory-Edwin turns away with tears swimming in his eyes, bloodshot and so green, and Charles follows him around the garden like a lost puppy.

They are shouting at each other now—Edwin and Eleanor—and Charles almost wishes this were one of the memories that sounds muffled and underwater. Instead, Edwin is real but not, alive and distressed and Charles can’t do anything but watch.

Crystal lowers herself shakily to the ground and Charles begs.

“Edwin, please. I’m here. Crystal’s here. We’re all here for you.”    

With a nauseous tremor in her voice; “He can’t hear you, Charles.”

“He will! I just have to—” Oh fuck it all. Eleanor has her hands in the air and Edwin has stopped, one hand trembling in a white-knuckled grip on a chair leg, the other is in his hair. Charles reaches up to almost touch his face, hands hovering an inch over his skin because he can’t bear to be met with nothing again, and whispers, “Edwin, please. I love you. Come back to me, yeah? I’m right here. I’m not leaving you.”

“Charles?”

It isn’t the memory that says his name. The memory disappears into smoke and dust, and Charles jumps away in shock to see that his Edwin has reappeared, helping a significantly less green Crystal off the ground. Charles is at their side instantly, hand curling around Crystal’s elbow to keep her upright as Edwin’s grip is slipping. He blinks at the scene dazed, with a distorted sort of weariness in his eyes.

“What happened?”

Charles brings his hand to Edwin’s neck, gently coaxing his attention to him and away from the small mountain of chairs.

“You got pulled into the memories,” Crystal answers. Charles is grateful for it, feeling doubtful his tongue would play nice at the moment. The woman at his back is like oil in water, hovering separately from everything else.

The memory of Eleanor Payne walks back into the house, and her ghost remains where she stood. She is all sharp edges and elegance, impeccably dressed with her long hair pinned and styled perfectly, not a single strand out of place.

In a low, gravelly voice, Edwin says, “Hello, mother.”

Eleanor only continues to stare, expression blank, before she turns to follow her memory back inside.

✤

They walk straight into a new memory that directly follows the last. Eleanor sits in the centre of a loveseat that barely sinks under her weight, leaving Charles to wonder how often this room had been used. Fingertips pressed to her lips, her eyes flick to the memory of Edwin walking slowly into the room. He sits just as slowly, falling backwards onto the couch opposite his mother in a slouch.

Charles’ Edwin makes a noise, and Charles, on instinct, reaches out to curl his fingers around his wrist. Edwin grows so still for a moment Charles thinks he will pull away.

The insubordinate way Memory-Edwin is slouching into the couch is knocking Charles off kilter. It’s almost like he is looking at someone else’s impression of Edwin which is completely opposite.

The ghost version of Eleanor stands in the corner, arms crossed and eyes trained on the memory of her son. She says, “You will catch a cold.”

The memory of herself says nothing.

Fingernails tapping at the empty top of the bottle he collected from the foyer, Edwin, very conversationally, asks, “Do you love me?”

“Fuck, no,” Crystal begins, reaching up to grab Edwin’s shoulder. “We don’t need to be here for this.”

“It is alright,” Edwin mumbles, far away.

“It is not alright, Edwin,” she says in a low hiss, voice wavering.  

Charles tugs at his wrist but Edwin won’t budge. “She’s right, mate. We can leave right now.”

“We are not leaving,” Edwin says. Eleanor is carefully watching her son. “I don’t mind. You’ve already seen everything else.”

The Eleanor on the couch blinks in surprise. Memory-Edwin repeats, “Do you love me?”

Eleanor shifts on the seat. Her nails scratch at the embroidered cushion that looks far more expensive than anything Charles’ family owned in their lives. “Why are you asking me this?”

“It’s a simple question. With a very simple answer, I should think.”

“You’re being absurd.”

Unrelenting and cold in his nonchalance, Edwin leans over his knees and says, “Yes or no.”

“You are behaving unseemly, Edwin, and I will not entertain—”

“Yes or no, mother.” 

“You are my son!”

“But I do not believe you ever wanted this!”

The bottle is tossed across the couch. It bounces off the arm and lands with a hollow sound on the floor. The room falls into tense silence.

Charles hates this. He hates this so much. This is the most uncut version of Edwin that exists. It is a version Edwin would never wish for anyone to see, and it’s wrong that Charles and Crystal are here witnessing it all. He wants desperately to hold him. Both of them. Tuck them into his side and tell them it’s all okay. Edwin reaches blindly out for Charles’ hand as memory-Eleanor stutters, mouth half-forming words that never make it past her lips, until eventually, “Wanted what?”

“To be a mother.” After a pause, “To be my mother. Did you love father, at least?”

Charles grips Edwin’s wrist harder as Eleanor laughs. It is a low, humourless thing.

“Do you think he loved me?” she says. “I was very young. Your father was handsome and kind, and he made me feel special. I suppose that’s all that mattered at the time.”

After a deep breath, she continues, “Did he love me? He liked my father’s money, that much I know for certain. He liked how I made him look. Powerful, you see. The Burgess fortune. That was very attractive.” 

Edwin is silent on the couch. He is beginning to dissolve at the edges, dust particles floating off the strong curve of his shoulders.  

“I never had a mother, Edwin. My father—” an ugly laugh. “My father sent me away the moment I began to resemble her. I never witnessed firsthand for myself what it was like, and you came a lot faster than I ever anticipated and I fear I was seldom prepared for it all.”

A long pause. Neither one of them looks away.

In a low whisper, Eleanor asks, “Do you truly need to hear me say it so badly?”

The memory fizzles away at once, taking with it whatever it was Edwin said next. The now ghost mother and son stare at each other from across the room, desolate mirrors of their former selves. 

Crystal is sniffling and trying to hide it, quickly wiping tears from her chin. Charles clenches his fists.  

Eleanor’s gloved fingers trail across the back of the couch where the memory of Edwin sat. “That was the last time we spoke. Do you remember?”

Edwin’s tone is carefully neutral. “Of course I remember.” 

She nods. Still avoiding eye contact, still yet to acknowledge Charles or Crystal’s presence. “You went off to school shortly after. I wrote. You never returned any of my letters.”

“I was … angry,” Edwin says, shifting on his feet and pressing his fists together. “Father often spoke about your ‘feelings’. I never understood what it meant.”

“Family gift,” Eleanor says with disdain in her voice.

Crystal is looking at Edwin like she’s seeing him in a completely new light.   

“I felt it when you—went away, you know. I saw it in a dream.”

Edwin’s eyes widen. “They called it an—”

“Act of god, yes.” Her mouth twists. “I met with your headmaster. Absolute jolterhead.”

“Did you not try and tell someone?” Edwin sounds very small and Charles’ patience is beginning to wear thin. 

Eleanor looks baffled. “Tell them what? My son has been taken by a demonic entity? They would have had me in bedlam by supper, darling.” She shakes her head, hands on hips. “I tried to tell your father that school was no good.” 

The sound that escapes Charles’ throat is involuntary and very rude.

Finally—finally—she looks at him. The strangeness of the situation is almost smothering the rumbling anger Charles feels rising up in his chest. This is Edwin’s mother. His Edwin. Charles has never had to meet anyone’s parents before, and definitely not under these circumstances. He’d been comforted in the thought that he and Edwin would never have to do all of that.

Edwin has been shown, on many occasions, Charles’ mother and father in his childhood home. He’d sat and held Charles’ hand as they watched television, drank tea and ate biscuits. He would say hello to them always as if they could hear him. He would ask Charles’ mum how her day is, and call his father Mr Rowland in that stiff tone akin to addressing a teacher you didn’t like very much. And a little while ago when it turned into Charles’ mum sitting alone on their couch dressed in white, he held Charles tight while he struggled to breathe through the difficult emotions running through him all at once.

I love you, Edwin whispered, his fingers in Charles’ curls a soothing pressure on his scalp, and gave him permission to grieve. I’m right here. You can cry.

Charles loves him more than he ever imagined loving anyone. I felt it when you went away, Eleanor said. So did Charles, and he went and ran after him without even half a thought.

Eleanor is watching Charles far too closely. He refuses to blush.

“No good,” he says, “is one way to put it.”

Edwin hisses, “Charles.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” Eleanor’s eyes flick from Edwin to Charles to Crystal. She regards Crystal as simply another presence in her home but when her attention flicks to Charles there is something too knowing in the grey of her irises, the only feature she doesn’t seem to share with her son.

He worries he’s overstepped—that he should have kept his distance more from Edwin, especially in front of her and double especially considering the times both remaining members of the Payne family grew up in. The panic of losing Edwin in the many halls and finding him again in pain, unable to be reached, was too much and Charles lost all sense.

Edwin pushes his shoulders back and Charles sees it; the switch flick. It’s the straight back, hands interlocked on the desk, eyes forward and attentive posture reserved for clients.

“Mother,” Edwin says, “this is my friend Crystal, and this is—” a momentary, blink and you’ll miss it pause. Then Edwin finishes with, simply and elucidatory, “This is Charles.”

When Eleanor’s full attention swings to Charles he feels his cheeks burning, a prickling under his skin over being seen so fully by this woman, who regards him with something indescribable. It isn’t revulsion, at least, or outrage, and it isn’t a surprise either. Charles’ face burns hotter.  

Edwin clears his throat again and adjusts his coat lapels.

When Crystal sways and almost falls into Edwin, Eleanor asks, “Are you quite alright, dear?”

“Not really,” Crystal begins, wobbly. “I don’t know if you know this, uh, Mrs—you have an iron-thick ward surrounding the place, and it’s kind of making me see shrimp colours.”

Eleanor frowns. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that means, but …” A wave of her hand leaves Crystal gasping, and Charles’ heart launches into his throat for a moment, before they watch the colour return to Crystal’s face and the bloodshot, glassy look leave her eyes.

“Wow. Yeah, that’s better. Thank you.”

“My apologies,” she says. “I must confess when I felt your energy in my home I mistook you for the one with the orange hair that shouts a lot.”

Oh, that’s right. Shit.

“Holly,” Charles says, groaning. “I forgot all about her. She’s the reason we’re here,” he explains. “She hired us to come here and try and get you to move on because she wants to sell the house, you see.”

“She … hired you?”

“Ah.” Edwin fidgets a little more—pulling at his waistcoat and adjusting his cuffs—and starts, “You see, mother—and I know you may have a few choice things to say about this, but I would first like to make it clear that I do not particularly care—we are detectives. Charles and I. Crystal has recently come on board.”  

There is a long, pregnant pause in the room that almost has Charles wishing another memory would manifest itself just to break the awkward silence while Eleanor processes this information.

But eventually all she says is, “Alright, then.”

“Alright?”

“Darling, I am a ghost,” she explains. “I’ve found that death gives one a certain clarity they might not have possessed when they were alive.”

For the sake of maintaining his dignity, Charles is going to ignore the glance sent in his and Edwin’s direction punctuating the end of that sentence.

“Also,” she continues, “I might have been stuck in here for the past century, but oftentimes a ghost or two will wander onto the grounds. I assure you, I have heard all about the Dead Boy Detective Agency. I did not know it was you, however … Your reputation precedes you, Edwin. Well done.”

Edwin’s eyes widen. “Oh, I—”

“But I’m afraid I am not leaving,” Eleanor finishes.

“What?” Crystal says. “You just said you’ve been stuck here for a hundred years.”

Eleanor waves a hand. “Figure of speech.”

Edwin bristles, “Mother.”  

“Yeah, um,” Charles begins, awkwardly, “Mrs Payne—”

Lips pursing, she says, “I prefer Eleanor.”

Edwin mutters something that might have been Do you now under his breath, and Charles continues, “With respect, we’ve seen this kind of thing before. These ghosts were trapped in their own loop for decades, and it nearly destroyed them.”

Charles feels Edwin’s fingers slip under the cuff of his sleeve.

“Yes, but do I appear to be trapped in a loop, as you say?”

“Well, not right now, but—”

“Follow me.” Without another word or warning, Eleanor phases right through the wall. Edwin swears.

Crystal groans something that sounds like I see where you get it all from and Charles asks, “Where did she just go?”

With disdain punching his face, Edwin says, “I can only guess to the family cemetery.”  

✤

There are a lot of things Charles knows about his best-mate-slash-boyfriend. A catalogue of information collected over nearly forty years, whether given over easily or coaxed slowly over a period of time. There was an allergy to strawberries when he was alive, and a fear of spiders that carried over into the afterlife. He enjoys collecting bits and pieces that, once upon a time, Charles would have discarded as rubbish, and has an affinity for poetry and playbooks (it took Charles a little longer to crack this one). Everything is written down in his little journal, and Edwin is the smartest person Charles knows, but he still sometimes struggles to spell the word bureaucracy right the first time.

Apparently, there is also a fair amount Charles didn’t know about Edwin, this being that not only was he rich enough to live on a 7-acreage land smack in the middle of one of the poshest suburbs in London, in a house that honest to God looks carved out of the shell of a castle. But his family was also the kind of posh rich folks that buried each other within the grounds.

That’s not even mentioning the lake or the hedge maze.

The walk down to the cemetery is steep and odd, and they both have to reach out and steady Crystal multiple times when her boot snags on a root, pebble, or vine.

“Jesus fuck, Edwin,” she says with passion. “Why didn’t you tell me you lived at fucking Saltburn?”

Edwin squints in the hazy pre-dawn darkness. “Is that some kind of euphemism?”

Crystal turns her face up to the sky as if asking for strength. “We’re watching it later.”

The hem of Eleanor’s long dress flutters gently around her ankles, soft wind disturbing some hairs at the nape of her neck and pulling them free from her severely perfect hairstyle. She stands before a gravestone taller than Charles, carved into a rectangle that tapered off into an elaborate, bowed top that reminded Charles of the roof of the church that can be seen from the office.   

An identical version of it sits to the right of it. Charles leans in closer to read the engraving on the front.

Anthony Edward Payne

1876 – 1915

Eleanor Ada Payne née Burgess

1883 – 1918

Edwin kneels in front of the gravestone and presses his hand to the engraving, passing briefly over his father’s name but lingering on the date under Eleanor’s. The pad of his index finger traces the loops of the 8 and he asks, “How did it happen?”

“The same illness that took my mother,” Eleanor says, with a conversant disconnect. “And my grandmother and Aunt Elizabeth. Yet another thing that ran in the family, it seems. Would you like to see yours?”

Edwin blinks up at his mother, face twisting. “Would I like to see my what?”

“Your grave,” Eleanor says.

“I don’t have a grave.”

“Is that so?”

Then she points to a much smaller piece of stone, probably the least covered in vines and touched by age in the entire cemetery. Edwin gasps and staggers to stand, falling backwards into Charles.

“Oh wow,” Crystal breathes, reaching out to brush grey leaves off the sloped top.

Edwin Payne

1900 – 1916

“I had it made,” Eleanor says. “I suppose I needed something, for my own piece of mind if not for anything else. Robert thought I was mad, of course. Everyone tried to tell me you’d enlisted. Do you remember that time your father took you hunting?” She asks. The order of events she is listing at rapid fire is giving Charles whiplash. Edwin nods stiffly. “He handed you the rifle and told you to shoot the deer. You refused.”

“She was minding her own business,” Edwin says, lifting his chin, and Charles loves him so fucking much.

Eleanor waves her hand as if to say, You see my point.

“Alright,” Charles begins, deciding a long overdue time out is needed. “Edwin? You want to—?”

Edwin is already dragging Charles off through the graves by his wrist. “Yes.”

Crystal stays behind with Eleanor (maybe they can compare notes on being psychic) and Edwin doesn’t stop until they have passed the metal fencing. The sun is beginning to rise, painting the world in blues and greens. They end up at a tree by the pond. Edwin presses back against the thick trunk and pulls Charles in close, wasting no time in getting his arms around him, and nose in his hair. Charles squeezes back harder and presses his mouth to the underside of Edwin’s jaw.

“You alright?” he asks, lips brushing the faint impression of stubble on Edwin’s skin.

Edwin hums. Charles feels the reverberation of it. “I’m dreadfully sorry about all of this.”

“No—”

“Yes. I should have told you where we were going.”

“Look, don’t worry about that, okay?” Charles says. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s focus on what we do next.”

“Which is what?”

“Well, first off, I’m going to do this.” Charles cups the edges of Edwin’s face and pulls him in for a short, sweet kiss. “Then I’m gonna do it again.” Another kiss. “And again.” Another. Edwin is grinning against his mouth. “And then some more.”

Edwin tugs him in closer and deepens the kiss with a small noise that Charles feels in the base of his spine. He thinks, this is definitely breaking the case rules, but can’t really find it in him to care. Edwin is soft against him. The tension in his body is unravelling slowly under Charles’ hands, sighing into each kiss.

He can picture Edwin growing up on these grounds. Edwin once mentioned an uncle he got along with and was fond of. Did he visit often? Did he take Edwin out when his parents were too absorbed to pay him any attention?

Edwin’s porcelain complexion speaks volumes. Charles doubts he would have been the type to lounge out in the sun, but he could picture him curled under a tree with a book in his lap. Maybe this exact tree, watching the ducks float across the pond and fish jump in the water.

Breaking the kiss but unwilling to move too far away, Charles says, “You were sweet.”

Edwin’s blinks, dazed. “Hm?”

“From the memory when you were a kid. When you ran out of the lake, all excited to show your mum what you found.”

“Was sweet?”

Charles kisses the spot below his ear. “Still are.”

“Must be slipping. I have a reputation to uphold, Charles.”

They kiss for a few more moments before Edwin whispers, “I wish I could have had you back then,” so softly Charles believes he imagined it at first, and his heart breaks a little.

Imagination surging, Charles entertains a brief fantasy of life in Edwardian England. It never seemed particularly appealing to him, for various reasons, but he thinks he might have been able to tolerate it if he had Edwin in his life. 

They would sneak away like they have now and steal private moments with each other in the sunshine. Edwin’s skin would be warm from the sun and the breeze would flutter his hair. 

Charles would kiss him for as long as they were allowed. He would whisper You’re so beautiful with their lips still pressed together and Edwin would sigh and his eyelashes would flutter the way they always do, blush high on his cheeks, and—

Charles covers his face and groans. “Oh my god.”

“What is it?” Edwin asks, concerned.

“I called your mum fit!” 

After a surprised warning laugh, Edwin bursts into giggles. 

“It’s not funny!”  

“Gah. No, it isn’t.” Edwin makes a face. “Oh, blast. My mother.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat startles them out of their bubble. Charles peeks around the tree to see Crystal stopped some paces away, looking somewhere between awkward and miffed.

“Sorry to, uh, interrupt,” she says, “but Eleanor is—I mean, your mom is getting a little antsy.” 

Edwin smooths down her hair. There is absolutely no change. “How so?”

Crystal says, “Well, it’s like as soon as you stepped away she became scattered, almost? One minute she was talking and then the next she went quiet and walked away. Now she’s fallen into another memory again. Edwin, I think seeing you is what brought her out of it in the first place.”

“But it hasn’t completely fixed the loop,” Charles says. 

“There must still be something keeping her trapped,” Crystal says. “Like the Devlin house. We need a more permanent solution.” 

“Why would I be what pulls her out of her loop, even if temporarily?” Edwin asks, staring out over the grounds like he might be able to spot his mother. 

“Well … you’re her child,” Crystal says. “And it looks like you two might not have had the best relationship, but seeing you—real you—I think it tethered her to the present.”  

“That is not a permanent solution,” Edwin says with a little twist in his nose. “I am absolutely not moving back home.” 

“No, love,” Charles says. Thorne Court is nice and all (if decrepit, haunted castle is your vibe) but Charles would sooner perform a tap dance routine for the Night Nurse than let Edwin leave their office.

Charles asks, “Did your mum have a family heirloom, or—fuck, I don’t know. Can you think of anything at all that could help?”

Edwin fidgets. “Everything belonging to our family is either buried here or at Fawney Rig, I don’t …”

“What?” Charles asks. “What did you think of?”

“I might be off,” he says. “I might be very off.”

“Can’t hurt to try,” Crystal says. “Lead the way.”

✤

Cobwebs decorating the corners of gabled ceilings catch the dawn sun and sparkle. The room Edwin leads them into is not one they’d found before, and Charles was under the impression they traipsed every inch of the house.

“My mother’s reading room,” Edwin explains. “No one was allowed in here, not even my father.”

It is cluttered with the same artful purpose as the rest of the place, and like all the other rooms, it has fallen to age and time. A small settee and a reading chair, with a table and a wall of books, and half a dozen pots that would have once upon a time held thriving plants.

“Mother enjoyed plants,” Edwin says. “And gardening. And Reading. And generally being away from everything and everyone,” he says, slightly bitter, “especially me and father. Uncle Robert—not my real uncle—often joked it was because she could only complete her metamorphosis in private—anyway.”

Without ceremony, Edwin shoves a whole stack of books to the ground, revealing a small bronze box that was hiding beneath the pile.

Charles and Crystal crowd around.

“What is it?” Charles asks.

“A music box. Sent on one of my birthdays by an elderly aunt who thought my parents had a daughter, not a son. Father said it was inappropriate for boys to own such things and ordered mother to get rid of it.” He brushes his fingers lightly over the delicate embellishments that might have been blue or green once upon a time. Maybe with some polishing, it might be again. “I knew she wouldn’t, of course. It was very nice, and my mother liked pretty things. Do you see the floral lavishes? Hyacinths. Her favourite.”   

Charles reaches up and brushes his thumb over the nape of Edwin’s spine.

“So,” Crystal says. “The music box?”

Edwin shakes his head. “Not the music box itself. But maybe—”

With a cracking pop, the music box opens. A small figurine of a deer balances in the centre. It doesn’t dance like it should, nor does any music play, but that is not the purpose of opening it.

Inside is a gold oval necklace, beaten with age and water damage. The same one that the memory of young Edwin fished out of the lake. Edwin carefully lifts the necklace out by its chain and holds it up to the light.

The metal is dull and lost its shine, but Charles can just make out the letters E.P engraved in the centre. Eleanor Payne.  

“I could be wrong.”

“Or you could be right,” Charles says, unable to stop the grin from spreading across his face. For the first time tonight, he feels hopeful. “As per usual. Mate.”

Edwin’s eyes shine.

“Less flirting more interventioning,” Crystal says. “Stick your tongues down each other’s throats later. Come on.”

A cry from a member of the domestic staff alerts the three of them to Eleanor’s location.

“Mrs Payne!” calls a short woman with grey hair spun into a frizzy bun. She is half running down the hall with a blanket in her hands, nearly tripping on the ends of it in her haste. “Mrs Payne, please wait!”

Edwin begins to run, too, necklace clutched in his fist and Charles and Crystal hot on his heels. Eleanor is a spot of tumbling black hair and white night dress kneeling on the lawn.

“Mrs Payne, it is too cold!” the woman says when she finally catches up. Charles quickly moves out of the way, forgetting she is not really there. She throws the blanket over Eleanor’s back. “You will catch your death!”

Eleanor doesn’t appear to be hearing her, eyes glassy and far away. She mutters something under her breath.

The maid says, “What was that? Eleanor, what did you say?”

Eleanor’s fingers curl into the earth. Her nails pull up grass and dirt. “I said my son is gone.”

“Well yes, dear, Edwin is off at school. You know that.”

“No,” she whispers, low and broken, nails scratching at more dirt. “No.”

Cold dread falls down the length of Charles’ spine. This is when it happened, he thinks. When those gits—

Edwin is shaking. Not obviously, but there is a tremor in his hands when he moves to stand in front of his mother. Crystal squeezes his shoulder when he passes her, and Charles presses a quick kiss to the back of his hand. Somehow, he manages to let go.

Edwin gets down on one knee in front of Eleanor, whose head is still bowed. Tears spot the backs of her hands. Holding out the necklace, Edwin speaks gently.

“Look, mother. I found this in the pond,” he says. “I think it’s yours. It has your initials on it.” 

Eleanor looks at the necklace slowly, blinking between it and Edwin confused. Finally, she lifts a trembling hand and reaches out to take it.

It is like a curtain being pulled, or a bubble popped. The made fizzles away, and the garden shimmers into dust and memory as reality sets back in, completely. The loop finally breaks.

Crystal gasps for breath. “He did it.”  

Edwin takes her hands and helps her to her feet, a strange look on his face as he stares down at their joint fingers, two different shades of porcelain. Somewhere a memory of Edwin telling him he rarely saw his mother without her velvet gloves dances to the forefront of his mind.

She is only an inch or two shorter than her son. When Edwin reaches up to loop the necklace around her neck, the white dress is replaced instantly with the dark blue traditional wear she’d worn before, her hair remaining loose. She looks younger this way, somehow.

Curiously, Eleanor strokes the pad of her thumb over the delicate engraving of E.P. and whispers, “Not my initials.”   

Edwin’s eyes widen, mouth falling open. Crystal is tugging at Charles’ sleeve.

“What?”

“Let’s give them a minute,” she says, and she pulls Charles over to a crumbled stone fence. “I think some privacy is deserved, don’t you?”

Making a show of pointedly not watching and listening probably wasn’t strictly necessary, given the distance away Crystal made them stand, but the look on Edwin’s face, when they return, tells Charles it is appreciated all the same.

Charles turns away from fake admiring a pine tree while Crystal over-shared about the latest Facetime date with Niko (her return in September can’t come fast enough) and Eleanor is saying, “I’m still not leaving.”

Edwin tucks himself against Charles’ side in a way that doesn’t leave much room for speculation and groans.

“Mother. You cannot stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Because the place is a fucking—”

“Language, darling.”

“—den built of both of our worst nightmares. And I have been to Hell, mother, so I say that with confidence.”

Eleanor looks conflicted, a worried crease between her eyebrows.

“I think it’s time we both let this place go,” Edwin continues. “Let Miss Ross clear it out and sell it off to someone new. Perhaps they’ll put in a swimming pool.”   

Both Eleanor and Edwin’s noses scrunch at the thought. Charles feels a warm fondness fizzle in his chest.

“What is left for me?” she asks. “I’m not quite ready to go to the Other Place. How can I exist, simply as I am?”

A light switch flicks in Charles’ mind, and he asks, “What did you want to do when you were alive?”

Eleanor blinks, taken aback. “Pardon?”

“Like, I mean. If you could have done anything in the world if you had the chance, what would you have done?”

Eleanor takes a minute to think. Then: “I suppose … open a floristry.”

Charles beams. “Well, why don’t you do that now?”

“Do it now?”

“Why not?” Charles says, “Not like there’s anything holding you back.”

“My dear boy,” Eleanor begins, “while I do appreciate your encouragement, there is the matter of my being dead.”

“Do you know how many ghosts run businesses in London? There’s a whole subterranean market catered to people like us.”

“And how does a ghost go about purchasing a shop?”

Edwin says, “Well first there is the traditional method—money, which you have plenty of. Second is by trading magical objects, which you also have plenty of.”

Eleanor regards them with a blank expression. Edwin’s responding sigh is filled with such teenage contempt it almost knocks Charles sideways.

“Mother,” he says, “You are psychic, it turns out. Over the last hundred years, you have been inhabiting a house full to the rafters with items absorbing both your psychic and spectral energy. You are quite literally sitting on a supernatural goldmine. That said, I did spot some items I would like to take another look at. There was a book in the den and some things in my old bedroom—”

Edwin stops, cheeks turning faintly pink. A particular sort of thrill rushes up Charles’ spine at the thought of accompanying Edwin while he looks around his childhood bedroom. He wonders which one it was, and can’t wait to find out.

✤

It is very quickly agreed that Holly has been waiting long enough to get her hands on the house, so she can wait a couple extra days. At least until Eleanor sorts out her affairs and finds other accommodation. Charles thinks he might know a couple of witches in town who are looking to sell their shops. He and Edwin will take a stroll into town tomorrow and ask around.

Seeing as the deal for payment was to take anything they wanted from the house, which turned out to be Edwin’s childhood home, the case itself ended up being more of a charity event than anything. Edwin mutters under his breath how Holly better be grateful while making plans to return to Thorne Court via mirror tomorrow and collect some personal items. There is hope and vulnerability on his face when he asks if Charles would like to accompany him. Charles would love nothing more.

Crystal orders an Uber back to London. As soon as they are moving, she puts her headphones her ears in and promptly falls asleep with her head against the glass. Charles watches the trees blur past with his fingers laced between Edwin’s, who after a few minutes gently tugs at his hand to bring his attention around.

“It’s odd,” Edwin begins. The cabbie can’t hear them, but they talk low anyway. “But I feel a sense of comfort knowing there was least one person who knew what truly happened to be in that basement. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to be my own mother,” he says. “Psychic. Good lord.”

Charles lifts their joint hands and kisses the back of Edwin’s. 

“I’m happy for you, love,” he says. Then, “Hey.”

“Yes?”

Charles beams. “I met your mum, didn’t I?” 

Edwin laughs. “You did. What a strange thought.”

“I think she likes me,” he says, with a wide grin. Edwin rolls his eyes, but Charles doesn’t miss the pink tint of his cheeks, and the pleased smile tugging at the corners of his lips.  

In the end, the case worked out pretty well according to their original plans:

1. Turn up to the countryside town of Hawksbridge, West Sussex. ✔
2. Make contact with the Lady of the house and pull her out of her memory loop. ✔
3. Convince her that despite being dead, there is a whole non-life out there. Leave behind Thorne Court for the living. ✔
4. New: Kiss Edwin Payne within an inch of his own non-life. Love him a hellova lot. ✔✔
5. Profit significantly. ✔

✤