Chapter Text
Months passed, and their world had grown and grown. Now they were being swamped with endless men, builders, craftsmen; the site was alive with the inane sawing of timber, chopping down of wood. The structure was beginning to form, somewhat rotund, surrounding and blocking them in. The noise of so many alive men was absurd, driving them up the wall… Admittedly The Livings were yet to erect any real walls, and it was mostly wooden panels in some vague support-like shape but, even so, ghostly patience was wearing thin.
Even more so when, it had become apparent, that Bill didn’t seem to be running the show.
“However are we supposed to alert the man if he never shows?” Walsingham snapped.
“Couldn’t we just, I don’t know,” Ian shrugged. “The Earl, maybe?”
“No!” Marlowe put his foot down. “It has to be Bill!”
Marlowe cursed himself, wondering why he ever thought the man would be. He was a playwright, a wordsmith. He was no contractor, no builder; his Bill would barely know a hammer from a quill. He huffed.
And then, amongst the Summer of 1598, their prayers appeared to be answered. After many months apart, and a weirdly rotund theatre with no roof whatsoever - the downpours themselves doing more damage to the land than those dastardly Spanish ships on the coast - stood proud. Proudly stood Bill, fond grin tacked to his face, unlike anything Marlowe had seen from him.
The realisation that he would have to wreck that and (hopefully) scare the playwright out of his wits almost saddened him. Though, not really. In all honesty, he couldn’t wait.
“Let us rally the troops,” Walsingham sidled up at his side, startling him in his quiet contemplation.
The Ghosts all gathered, undergoing the spymaster’s orders. Marlowe, for once, was stoked that Walsingham permit he and the other men’s help because espionage could be a very lonesome thing.
“Can do light.”
“I’m sorry?”
They all turned to Robin, who smiled sheepishly.
“Can do light,” He repeated.
“Light? As in…candlelight? The wick?”
He nodded, grinning. “Make light go wishy-washy.” He drew his hands up, made some rather interesting grunts, and waggled his fingers to illustrate.
The other men frowned, glancing at one another.
“I hate to break it to you, Robin,” Marlowe tried. “Think that’s just the wind.”
The caveman slumped, before stalking off.
“…This, above all,” Marlowe continued with a shrug, “Thine own ghostly self, be true.”
“Well written,” Walsingham commented in a flagrant moment of companionship, before again taking the reigns. “And now men, and Jemima, the first rule of spying from the other side: always haunt in plain sight!”
The Ghosts were quick to disperse to their designated stations, all pairs of dead eyes on Bill and Bill only. The playwright was in for the fright of his life.
***
The ghoulish hums were once enough to strike fear in the most heinous of traitors, and Marlowe prayed that this otherworldly intervention would do the same. Walsingham sidled up on Bill’s side, others be damned, bone-chilling sounds echoing onto the plain below.
Several builders had gathered. Walsingham hummed.
“Is that… sounds like… ah, Southampton!” Bill yelled, in total disregard.
“Yes, Love?”
Several builders had scattered. Walsingham hummed louder.
Instantly the heavy sawing and hammering commenced.
“D’you mind?! I can barely hear him and he’s stood right beside me!” Bill yelled at the men banging, narrowed eyes flickering between Walsingham to Southampton, before going back to addressing the means of fixing the woodwork pillars into place.
“You’re telling me.” Walsingham spat, drawing his sword. “You fiends!” Without second thought, he lurched forwards in the hopes of stabbing Bill…only to have the weapon phase straight through him, and the spymaster to violently recoil.
“We cannot give up now!” Marlowe declared, pushing Ian forward.
“He’s right,” Walsingham, out of breath, added. “Our doubts are traitors! Ian, unlike your employer, you are no traitor, are you?”
“No, Sir!”
“Then our hopes of securing the crow—proving our existence fall to you! Do not fail me.”
“Yes, Sir,” Timidly he scurried up towards Bill. Inhaling a deep breath, Ian tried best to steady the buffs, and seem strong. Seem strong, when hurtling his spirit right through that of the living playwright.
Ian screamed out in pure, nauseating pain. His spirit reeked of copper and the unmistakable stench of death.
“Is that…blood?” Bill sniffed, looking around and up into the air, then queried.
Southampton thought nothing of it. “Perhaps a dastardly plague sore.”
“Oh, never mind. There’s a spot of it right on my doublet!” The playwright proceeded to scrub at the fleck, irritated when it wouldn’t budge. “Out damn spot, out I say!… Much better.”
Ian staggered away, blue in the face.
Riled up, “Goodness Gracious! Marlowe, you’re our last hope! For Queen and Country.” Walsingham yelled.
The remaining Ghosts gathered, egging Marlowe on. His power was the most severe, the most likely to provoke fear of the unknown. There wasn’t a chance in whatever this was that they would go on ignored.
“Forgive me, Bill,” He muttered, before darting forwards, the force not strong enough to knock the scroll from Bill’s hands, but enough to startle the playwright.
Instantly, the thunder roared. Bill gazed up at the sky and cursed.
“Now, Marlowe, now!”
Atop the antique stained paper now lay one…two…three…four maliciously placed handprints, slathered a faint crimson.
Instantly, the downpour showered them. Bill yelped, dropping everything. The scroll fluttered to the floor, overcome with rain water, sinking into a puddle.
“Oh, and I just cleaned my hair! This wretched weather will wash the urine dye right out!” Southampton tutted, before sashaying away after Bill, both hurrying for shelter on a building site with no roof. It was fool proof, really.
Fool proof, being a stretch.
“…It works better on metal. Or skin,” Marlowe sighed, defeated. “This is fruitless.”
“Useless!” Ian added.
“A wild goose chase!”
“Wild what?” Robin question Marlowe, who shrugged him off. “Can do light,” Robin again offered, motioning to a small platform where the wooden table and candles lay beside their plans and drawings that Bill had been stood beside.
Walsingham placed a hand to the other Ghost’s furry shoulder. “They’ve all been washed out.”
The caveman sighed, “You more fun when kill people.”
They all gathered, eyes following that of Bill and Southampton, as the thunder roared and the winds blew. They couldn’t feel the extremities, their clothes didn’t stain and stick to them, nor would a hair be blown out of place. The rain intensified, and more and more of The Livings scattered, yelling as they abandoned their soaked posts.
Marlowe sighed heftily, placing a hand on Jemima’s tiny shoulder. “Haunting’s hard.”