Archive of Our Own

That our mouths filled with the taste of blood as soon as I opened the door to the mansion formerly belonging to the long-dead banker John Dorringe (known for his stupid name as well as a long history of embezzlement) should have been our first clue that the night would not be going according to plan.

Lockwood and I responded by eating mints.

“That’s really fast for miasma to show up, isn’t it?” I said as I walked through the door and looked up at the massive chandelier hanging in the entryway. The whole room was almost ridiculously luxurious. Expensive rugs lay on nearly every inch of the rich mahogany floors, but the grandeur was ruined by the thick layer of dust covering every inch of everything.

“A bit. Seems old John Door Hinge isn’t very happy to see us.” Lockwood eased the large and extremely heavy front door shut and joined me in the center of the entryway, following my gaze up to the chandelier.

“At least we know we’re not dealing with a Poltergeist. He would have dropped that on us if he could, after that remark.” I said.

“I’ve no idea what you mean, Luce. I only said his name.” Lockwood’s cheeky grin seemed to light up the whole room, which was depressingly dark and gloomy, so the effect was much appreciated.

It was always nice to start casework with a little banter. It strengthened us against fear, which was easily felt on the threshold of a haunted house. Spirits feed off of negative emotions, so poking fun could be seen as a legitimate defense if it didn’t also have the effect of pissing off whatever spirit we were searching for. Lockwood, of course, almost always decided that it was worth it.

“I’d say we’ve got about 20 minutes until sundown. According to George’s research, Dorringe’s office will be the most likely location of the Source. Apparently Dorringe was found dead at his desk with a revolver in his hand.” Lockwood read George’s notes off of a small piece of paper he had pulled from his coat pocket.

“Did George say who killed him?” I asked.

“The butler, if you can believe it. A man named Joseph Latch. A journal he kept states that he accidentally uncovered Dorringe’s embezzlement schemes, but rather than expose him, Joseph decided to reap the rewards himself. He’d found a half-charred letter in Dorringe’s fireplace that alluded to a safe hidden somewhere in the house, containing an extraordinary sum of money. So he killed Dorringe and made it look like a suicide, intending to find the safe and make off with the funds.”

“Did he ever find it?”

“From the looks of it, no. He writes about having searched the whole house, but his body was found ghost-locked in the same room as Dorringe’s. He must have returned to the office to search for more clues.”

“And Dorringe must have made quick work of coming back,” I remarked.

“Looks that way. He was, according to the reports of people who knew him, an incredibly greedy and malicious man. Those tend to make very vengeful Visitors. And all this happened very shortly after the Problem first began.” Lockwood folded up the notes and returned them to his pocket.

“Was the safe ever found?” I asked. Lockwood shrugged.

“No one knows. This house has been avoided for decades due to the intense psychical disturbances here. The Historical Society owns it now, but they’ve barely set foot in the door.”

“Enter, Lockwood and Co.”

Lockwood grinned again. “Enter, Lockwood and Co.”

-

According to George’s instructions, Dorringe’s office lay on the second floor in the western wing of the mansion. So we hauled our duffel bags up the extravagant, dusty staircase and set up camp on the landing. Besides the initial taste of blood we experienced upon entering the mansion, there were no other signs that a vengeful spirit was disturbed by our presence.

But by the time the sun set, I had begun to sense that we were being watched.

We checked and re-checked the Greek Fire cannisters and flasks of lavender water clipped to our belts, loaded our pockets with salt bombs, and tested the batteries in our flashlights, all the while casting glances down the long, dark hallway that led to Dorringe’s office. The light had long faded by the time we were ready.

Lockwood and I grabbed a few iron chains and silver nets from our duffel bags and draped them over our shoulders. As we did so, we ran over our plans for the night.

“We’re not here to look for the safe. According to the woman I spoke to from the Historical Society, they’ve had to deal with more than one group of ‘treasure hunters’ posing at legitimate agents, who only ever intended to find the safe and steal the money. Not many of them have survived,” Lockwood said grimly. “After we contain the Source, the Historical Society plans to conduct a search of the place, with careful regard to its historical significance.”

“There’s something bothering me,” I broke in. “Spirits usually come back due to some unfinished business, or for revenge. But if Latch’s body was found ghost-locked in Dorringe’s office, why is Dorringe’s spirit still here? Killing Latch should have satisfied him, shouldn’t it?”

Lockwood nodded. “I thought that, too. George theorized that maybe Dorringe’s purpose in coming back was to ensure that no one ever found the safe; not just to get revenge on Latch.”

“So he’s stayed here all these years, guarding the safe like a dragon, all for the sake of money he can’t even use?”

“Visitors are created through emotional circumstances, not necessarily logical ones,” Lockwood remarked.

That was true enough.

Lockwood took one more look at the instructions given to him by George, then looked to me. Even in the gloomy dark, I could still see him well enough. He was all calmness and professionalism, but his eyes still held that warm, infectious spark that made it easy to follow him into the darkest of places. I felt that warmth spread to my own expression as I watched him.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” I replied.

We brandished our rapiers, and Lockwood led the way to the door to Dorringe’s office.

When we stood in front of the dark, ornately carved door, I brushed past Lockwood and put my hand on the old brass doorknob. Lockwood had exceptional Sight but no Touch, and I figured that if any psychic residue remained on the door that would give us a warning on what we would find in the office, I might as well look for it.

Lockwood leaned on the doorframe and watched as I closed my eyes and focused in on the door. The usual feeling of being plunged underwater washed over me as I tried to sense any trace of the past. At first, there was nothing.

Then the raging roar of a furious man tore into my mind, sounding as if it were right in front of me. I jerked my hand away from the doorknob with a startled gasp, my focus broken completely.

Lockwood stood straight, still watching me intently. “Heard something?”

“Whatever’s in there is…very, very angry,” I said, trying to calm the shake in my voice. “I heard a man roaring, only it hardly sounded like a man.”

“Right. Well, step back. It’s my turn to open the door, since you opened the front door.” Lockwood gently pushed past me and grabbed the doorknob, gripping his rapier with his other hand. I felt my heart pounding as he turned the knob, still not over the scare I got from the psychic residue. I tried to calm myself, knowing the Visitor would feed off my fear.

Lockwood slowly opened the door and we stepped inside the huge, sprawling room and used our flashlights to get our bearings, but turned them off as soon as possible to avoid compromising our Sight.

Dorringe’s office looked like a whirlwind had torn it apart. It was filled with overturned furniture and once-grand tapestries ripped from the walls and scattered on the floor. Broken décor littered the room. On the wall opposite us was a door to a balcony outside; we could see a few slivers of moonlight shining through the grimy, cracked windows.

And in the center of the room sat the remains of John Dorringe, slumped over his desk.

Halfway to the front of the desk, just as decayed and crumpled on the floor, lay the remains of Joseph Latch.

As soon as I laid eyes on those rotten cadavers, the heavy metallic taste of blood filled my mouth once more, so intensely that I nearly gagged. The hairs on the back of my stood up, and my limbs felt extremely weighty.

“Miasma,” I coughed out. I wanted to spit the blood out of my mouth, but of course there was none. I quickly dug the mints we carried out of my pocket and crammed two in my mouth, holding another two out to Lockwood, who took them immediately.

“He’s in here, that’s certain.” There was a look of steely resolve in Lockwood’s eyes. He took a few steps further into the room. “Drop your chains here.”

We made quick work of creating our iron circle, fighting against the growing fear that nipped at our heels. Once the chains were in place, we stood back to back and kept watch over the room. It was only a matter of time before the Visitor appeared. But several minutes passed, and the longer we waited, the heavier our fears grew.

“Come on, old Door Hinge,” Lockwood called, an edge in his voice. “We don’t have all night.”

That wasn’t strictly true, but I guess he sounded tough saying it. “He’s taunting us, Lockwood. Trying to get us worked up.”

Lockwood nodded, running a hand through his hair. “I know. I was hoping I could goad him into showing up.”

As it turned out, he was successful.

I saw the deathly patch of ghostly light forming in a far corner of the room. The light slowly began to take a grotesque shape; a man, but barely a man, made of rotten flesh and exposed bone, glaring eyes and gaping jaw.

Wraith.

“Lockwood,” I breathed. “He’s here.”

No sooner had I spoken than the Wraith rushed toward us, shrieking and roaring like the sound I had heard from the psychic residue on the door. Lockwood and I both grabbed salt bombs and lobbed them at the ghastly Visitor.

“We need to get to Dorringe’s body,” Lockwood shouted over the horrid noise as the salt bombs tore into the spirit. “Find the Source!”

“Cover me!” I shouted back. Hefting a silver net over my shoulder and holding my rapier ready, I ran from the iron circle and across the great room, toward the old desk.

The Visitor gave a cry of rage and flew after me, but Lockwood charged after it.

“Lucy! Duck!” I heard Lockwood cry from behind me as I jumped over a broken ottoman. I fell to my knees and ducked down, hearing the sparks from a salt bomb scatter over me and the shriek of the enraged Dorringe. I scrambled back up to my feet and ran without looking back, knowing the spirit was still on my heels.

As I neared Dorringe’s decayed corpse, I took the silver net I carried in both hands and flung it over the pile of bones, covering it completely.

I whirled around to find Lockwood. But our battle was not over.

The Visitor hadn’t vanished.

“Lucy!”

I saw an unhinged jaw of sickly blue light racing toward me, twisted arms flung out to grab me. I dashed around the desk and barely avoided the spirit’s grasp.

Suddenly, a horrible, rasping voice roared into my ears.

“Mine! It was meant to be MINE!”

Another salt bomb exploded into the ghost’s wretched body, thrown by Lockwood as he reached me.

“MINE!!”

And in a flash, I understood.

“Lockwood!” I shouted. “It’s not Dorringe! It’s Latch!”

Lockwood raced around the desk and tore the silver net off of Dorringe’s corpse, tossing it to me. “Go, Lucy!”

I caught the net and ran, hearing the Visitor roaring in my ears. The salt bombs and rapier slashes had not slowed him in any significant way. I heard Lockwood giving chase to the spirit as it flew after me. But he sounded so far behind…

Still running, I cast a glance over my shoulder. I regretted it instantly.

My foot struck the leg of an overturned table and I fell hard, only feet from Latch’s body.

His ghost came flying at me, reaching out and shrieking.

I scrabbled for the silver net and twisted around, throwing it as best as I could. I heard Lockwood cry out and I tried to bring my rapier around to slash at the Visitor.

I was too late.

I felt a burning cold in the fingers of my right hand as the spirit reached me, and I dropped my rapier. I gave a cry of pain and terror and grabbed my hand, knowing that in another half-second I would be dead.

Then the Visitor vanished in a sickly whisp of light.

I had been right. The vengeful Wraith was Latch. Somehow, I had thrown the net over his body well enough to contain the Source.

But not fast enough.

“Lucy!” Lockwood reached me a second later, dropping down to his knees and grabbing my shoulder. “Lucy! He’s gone. Latch is gone. Are you alright?”

I slowly uncurled from my fetal position, still clutching my hand. A biting numbness was slowly spreading from my fingers.

I held the hand out for Lockwood to see. His face went pale.

“Ghost-touch,” I said, my voice shaking. The flesh had already started to lose its color.

Lockwood stared at me for one horrible moment. I had never seen his eyes so full of fear.

“Adrenaline,” he said hoarsely. He gripped my arms and pulled me up from the floor, draping my good arm over his shoulder. “We need adrenaline.”

But I knew we had none.

There had been a shortage of adrenaline in our part of town for nearly two weeks, due to a severe outbreak in the nearby countryside. And we had forgotten to restock.

“Lockwood,” I gasped as we hobbled toward the office door. “We don’t have—”

“Maybe there’s some we forgot about, tucked in the duffel bags.” His voice was hard and brittle, like glass about to break. I felt a brief wave of dizziness as the numbness in my hand spread further, nearing my wrist. My whole body would soon begin to shut down.

We made it to the landing and Lockwood, after gently lowering me to the floor, tore into the duffel bags, searching every pocket for one precious adrenaline shot.

He was unsuccessful, as we both knew he would be.

“You could hold me out over the edge of that balcony in the office and pretend to drop me,” I suggested.

“I will have to laugh about that one later, Lucy.” His voice was strained.

“The cab driver should be back around any minute, shouldn’t he?” I asked. We had arranged for the driver who dropped us off to return an hour and a half later, to take us home after we had successfully contained the Source of the Visitor.

Lockwood looked at his watch and shook his head. “Not unless he’s 20 minutes early…”

“Well, maybe he will be.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Let’s go out to the driveway, see if we can meet him.”

Lockwood nodded and bore me up again, taking his place under my arm and wrapping his arm around my waist.

Abandoning our gear, we made it down the staircase, through the front door, down the sprawling concrete steps of the front porch, and onto the driveway. There was nothing else to do but slowly make our way down the long drive, out to the main road.

“I still think you should have hung me out over the balcony,” I said.

“I promise I will laugh about that later, Luce.”

We were still walking while basically wrapped around each other, my arm over his shoulders and his arm around my waist. Besides the occasional small waves of dizziness that washed over me, I really wasn’t in need of the physical support. But as the numbing cold creeped up past my wrist, I felt that nothing could have convinced me to let go of him.

By the time we reached the end of the driveway, we were both panting. And we could go no further; we didn’t know which direction the cab driver would come from.

There was nothing to do but sit and wait.

Lockwood gently lowered me to the soft grass beside the dilapidated gates to the property, where I could lean against the old stone structure that supported the gates. But I chose to lean on him instead. He sat next to me, hiking up my sleeve to see how far the ghost-touch had spread.

It had nearly reached my elbow.

Lockwood cursed and ran a hand through his hair. “We need some bloody adrenaline…”

Even in my deepening dread, I was transfixed for a moment by the way the moon lit up his hair like a halo and kissed the darkness of his eyes, giving him an almost otherworldly glow.

I credit my next thoughts to the delirium caused by the ghost-touch.

“Lockwood,” I started. He looked back at me, and I felt an odd stutter in my chest. For a moment I thought I’d die to the ghost-touch before I’d be able to get my next words out of my mouth.

“Yes?” he asked hopefully. I think he sensed that I’d had an idea, but I doubted he’d guess in a million years what it was.

“Kiss me.” The two words spilled out of me in a rush.

It was an odd sensation, feeling the cold spreading up my arm and a burning heat rising up my neck and my face.

Lockwood stared at me, fully taken aback. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

I had hoped that the darkness would disguise the new shade of red I was sure I had turned, but I could clearly see Lockwood’s face darken in color and I lost all hope.

“What?” He looked as though he were certain he hadn’t heard right. Which, of course, meant that I had to repeat myself.

“Kiss me,” I said, hardly able to hold eye contact. “It’s just . . . adrenaline…”

At this point, succumbing to the ghost-touch was starting to look better and better.

Then, hilariously, the light clicked in Lockwood’s brain.

“Oh!” He went a shade redder, but at least now he understood. “Would that—do you really think—”

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” I burst out, far too loudly.

“Yes! Of course, if that’s what—if you really want me to, that is—though really, I—” He was tripping over himself every other word. I’d never seen him so flustered.

I stared at him in disbelief. “You have never kissed a girl, have you?”

“What does that—I have never kissed you, Lucy!” he exclaimed, far too loudly. He was thoroughly exasperated. “And this certainly isn’t how I—” He broke off very abruptly, turning yet another shade darker.

“How you . . .” A realization threatened to dawn on me, but I brushed it away with a flustered shake of my head. “Nevermind. Lockwood, please, I need you to—”

I was cut off by a hand quickly cupping my jawline, and Lockwood’s lips pressing into mine.

Even under mortifying pressure, Lockwood was exceedingly gentle. My heart hammered against my chest so loudly I was sure he could hear it. I quickly forgot the cold of the ghost-touch, so intense was the burning of my face and neck. My hand instinctively reached up and gripped his shoulder, both to steady myself and because some part of me needed to hold him.

It was over far too quickly, though by the time we broke apart I had begun to feel quite dizzy. And judging by the look in Lockwood’s eyes, he wasn’t too far away from blacking out himself.

We could only stare at each other for a few moments, both trying to steady our breathing (and for me, the tremor in my hands). I realized that Lockwood had reached his other hand around and placed it on my back, giving me support.

Lockwood was the first to speak. “Do you think that—”

Suddenly a bright light beamed down the road from up ahead, catching us squarely. They were headlights of a vehicle.

Lockwood, carefully unwrapping his arm from around me, jumped up and waved wildly at the car as it approached rapidly, nearly skidding to a stop. The passenger door flew open, and George burst out shouting, “It’s not Dorringe! It’s Latch! Latch is the Visitor—”

“We know!” Lockwood shouted back. “Help me, George! Lucy needs—”

“Lucy! What the bloody hell have you done to your arm?” George cried, racing to my side. “Oh God, she’s been ghost-touched!”

“We know!” Lockwood and I shouted in unison.

-

By the time we made it to the hospital, the ghost-touch had nearly reached my shoulder. I told George to give the cab driver a hefty tip for how fast he’d gotten us there, and the three of us raced inside.

“We need adrenaline!” George shouted as soon we entered. “Now!”

The receptionist took one look at my arm and pressed a button on her intercom system, calling for a nurse with an adrenaline shot.

I had begun to feel terrifically woozy by this point, and was leaning my whole weight on Lockwood. He was gripping my hand almost painfully as he supported me, saying things under his breath like “Almost there, Luce,” and “Stay with me.”

“Follow me!” George called to us, having spotted the nurse who was meant to lead us to a room. My mind was swimming as I felt Lockwood tighten his grip around me and pull me along down the fluorescent hallway. The edges of my vision were turning black and fuzzy, and I felt myself begin to fall.

“Lucy!”

-

“. . . five minutes, it would have been irreversible.”

I heard a woman’s voice talking in a hazy, far-off manner, as well as a lot of assorted beeps and hums. My vision was bathed in a soft yellowish-red, and it took me a few moments to realize that my eyes were closed and light was getting through them.

I was so tired. I just wanted to slip back into a peaceful sleep . . .

“I’ve got to find that cab driver and pay him double again. He really saved her life.”

George?
“I agree. At least enough to fix that bumper of his. I wonder if he went back and got it?”

Lockwood!

My eyes flew open as I remembered where I was, and why I was there. I jerked up from the hospital bed, looking frantically at my arm.

It was completely back to normal. No hint of that deathly, creeping ghost-touch.

“Lucy!” I heard George and Lockwood say my name in unison. They were sitting in two miserable-looking chairs near the side of my bed.

“There she is.” A middle-aged woman in scrubs stood near my bed and smiled at me. Her nametag read ‘Nora Fartham’. “Welcome back, Ms. Carlyle.”

I shook my head slightly, trying to dispel the last of my drowsiness. “How long was I out?”

“Not long at all, only about half an hour. As I was telling your friends here, you’re an extremely lucky girl. Five more minutes and the ghost-lock would have spread to your neck and throat, which, by that point, would have been very difficult to reverse.” The nurse was flipping through a few sheets of paper on a clipboard as she spoke. “Mr. Lockwood here tells me that you three are agents?”

I nodded.

“Casework, then? What sort of Visitor did you encounter?”

“A Wraith,” I informed her. “We were up at the old Dorringe mansion.”

The nurse blinked. “Well, that’s a far piece from here. What time would you say you were inflicted with the ghost-touch?”

My memories were too foggy to recall, but Lockwood looked thoughtful. “I believe it would have been around nine.”

Frowning, the nurse looked at her clipboard. “Based on the rapid spread of the ghost-touch, it should have been far more progressed by the time you arrived here.”

“That cab driver really was mad,” George offered helpfully. “Nearly killed us all more than once, but he did get us here in record time.”

The nurse still looked extremely puzzled. “And you’re sure you administered no adrenaline between the moment of infection and your arrival here? Because, if you’ll pardon my gravity, there is no possible way Ms. Carlyle would have survived such a long period of infection without something inhibiting the spread.”

I frowned. Perhaps Lockwood was wrong about the time. I looked up at him, about to ask if he was sure, and was puzzled to find him flushed bright red and looking at me with the oddest expression on his face. He looked mortifyingly caught out.

And then I remembered.

Everything.

My mouth dropped open and my face went up in flames. George, of course, noticed my change in expression and looked from me to Lockwood, who had very quickly looked away from me and was now worrying the ring on his finger and looking anywhere but me.

A frown slowly creased George’s forehead. “What’s going on with you two? What happened?”

“Ms. Fartham,” Lockwood began, ignoring George completely. “I’m not . . . overly familiar with exactly how adrenaline works to combat ghost-touch. Would you say—in your professional opinion, that is—medically speaking, erm . . .” He coughed and cleared his throat. I fiddled roughly with the bedsheets on my bed as he continued. “Would you say that the human body is naturally capable of producing enough adrenaline to . . . significantly stall the progress of the ghost-touch? Even for a short while?” His discomfort was nearly palpable. I could hardly believe that this conversation was taking place at all.

Nurse Fartham furrowed her brow as she considered. “It has been speculated to have happened before, though it’s difficult to prove. And it would have to have been an extremely powerful adrenaline rush to have had any . . .” A light suddenly switched on in her eyes. “Oh.” She quickly put a hand up to her mouth, trying to suppress a grin as she studied Lockwood and I.

“What am I missing here? What did you two do?” George asked in exasperation.

“It was nothing untoward!” Lockwood blurted out, his face a burning red. “It was . . .”

“It was my idea,” I offered, unable to watch him suffer, and intending to say more. But any other words I could have said got caught in my throat.

“Yes, and it was really a good idea—I mean, logically speaking—”

“What the bloody hell did you two do?!” George shouted.

“I kissed her!” Lockwood shouted back, having reached his breaking point. “At Lucy’s request, I kissed her!”

An unbearable silence fell over the room, made worse by George’s openmouthed stare darting between Lockwood and I. The silence was broken in a few long moments by Nurse Fartham, who had turned her face away from us and was failing quite spectacularly to cover her laughter.

“You kids are bloody brilliant,” she said at last, turning back to us and wiping tears from her eyes. “I can’t tell you for certain if that’s what saved Ms. Carlyle’s life, but it really was some quick thinking.”

Not wanting to look at a single person in the room, I kept my eyes firmly fixed to the sheets where I’d stretched them out from my aggressive worrying. “When can we go home, Nurse Fartham?”

She was still clearly having immense trouble keeping her voice steady as she replied. “You are free to go any time you feel ready, Ms. Carlyle. You’re no longer in any danger.” With a pat on my hand and a badly suppressed grin on her face, she bid us farewell and left the room. I was sure she went immediately to relay our conversation to every single other nurse on the ward, but I didn’t care too much. All I wanted was to go home and shut myself in my attic for the rest of my life.

-

If I’d thought that our conversation in the hospital room was uncomfortable, I was thoroughly unprepared for the cab ride home.

George still hadn’t said a single word since Lockwood’s confession. He sat in between Lockwood and I in the back of the cab, staring straight ahead with a completely blank expression. I’d begun to think that he was extremely upset with us, though I couldn’t fathom why.

It wasn’t until we crossed the threshold of our home and closed the door behind us that he lost it.

“I cannot believe that it took Lucy getting ghost-touched, being twenty minutes away from certain death, for you two to finally—” George could barely speak through his raucous laughter.

Lockwood firmly cut him off, the redness rising up his neck once more. “George, I hardly think that this is an appropriate—”

“And it was your idea, Lucy!” George cackled. “Honestly, that Nurse Fartham was entirely right. Some bloody brilliant thinking, there. Flo is going to—”

“Please do not tell Flo!” Lockwood nearly shouted.

“No, not ‘please’! George, if you breathe a word of this to Flo, I will personally tie bricks to your shoes and throw everyone in this house into the bloody Thames!” I roared. It only served to make George laugh harder.

I was entirely finished. I shouldered past the howling George, ignored Lockwood’s “Lucy, wait—!” and pounded up the stairs to my room, slamming the door behind me.

At first, I flung myself onto my bed and screamed into my pillow, which only helped a little. Then I rolled over onto my back and stared up the ceiling. This had been, by far, the most humiliating experience of my entire life.

Lockwood had kissed me.

Despite the sheer mortification of the evening, I felt a flutter in my stomach at that thought.

So, naturally, I rolled over and screamed into my pillow again.

-

I lay awake in bed for several hours, trying and utterly failing to sleep. I felt tired, but my mind refused to shut off. Not to mention, I hadn’t had anything to eat in hours, and the stress of the evening as well as the ghost-touch treatment had left my stomach feeling completely hollow.

I got up, pulled a cardigan over my pajama top, and crept silently down the stairs. I planned to raid the fridge and sneak back up to my room with my spoils in hand. I considered smuggling enough food up so that I wouldn’t have to go down for breakfast in the morning . . . but it would have been for naught.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the kitchen, and there was Lockwood.

Sitting at the table in his pajamas with a chunk of buttered bread and a bowl of soup George had made the previous day.

I stopped in the doorway, wishing I could race back up to my room without looking like an absolute child. He looked up at me as soon as I entered, and for a second we both stared at each other in silence, unsure of what to say. His face flushed crimson for what must have been the hundredth time that day. I felt a little sorry for disturbing him; as uncomfortable as I was, his day hadn’t gone any smoother than mine.

I was half a second away from saying that I just needed a drink of water and that I’d go back up to my room, when he quickly pushed his chair back from the table and stood. He pulled out the chair next to his and gestured to it with a quiet “Here,” then turned around and grabbed a bowl from the cupboard.

I gave in. While Lockwood lit the stove and began reheating more soup, I filled the kettle with water and placed it on the next burner for tea. Then I sat down in the chair he had pulled out for me and we both waited in silence. Waited for the kettle to whistle, for the soup to heat up, and for one of us to say something.

The first two things happened in not much time. I got up and retrieved our two favorite mugs from the cupboard and poured the tea while Lockwood ladled a generous helping of hot soup into my bowl (and added a little more to his, which was nearly empty), and cut off a chunk of bread and buttered it for me.

When we sat down at the table, I finally dared to look up at him and found him looking up at me. He gave me an apologetic smile, and I had to smile back.

Then I started laughing.

Remembering the sheer absurdity of the night, I covered my face in my hands and laughed, trying desperately not to laugh so loud that it would disturb George. Lockwood, too, started chuckling when I did, and in a few moments we were both doubled over in our chairs and red-faced from laughing. At one point I snorted loudly, which set us off even worse than before. Then Lockwood knocked his spoon to the floor while trying to grab his mug and smacked his head on the table after ducking down to pick it up, and somehow both of us ended up on the floor in a badly smothered fit of hysterics.

When we finally made it back up into our chairs, both dizzy and laughingly shushing each other, I took in a deep breath. “I really don’t think this evening could have been any more miserable for the both of us.”

“I feel I should remind you that you nearly died,” Lockwood chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Believe me, there were more than a few times I wished I had. You really could have saved us a lot of trouble if you’d just dangled me out over the balcony like I said,” I joked. As he promised earlier, he did laugh at that.

We ate in peaceful silence for a little while, both too hungry and exhausted to feel awkward.

“How’s your head?” I asked after we had devoured our helpings of soup and bread.

Lockwood snorted. “It’s fine, I didn’t really hit it that hard. How’s your arm?”

“A little sore, but not too bad.” I looked down and studied my hand, which had returned to a healthy shade. I remembered, for a moment, the feeling of terror that had struck me when I first saw the ghost-touch on my fingers. I really had almost died. If it weren’t for Lockwood . . .

“Thank you, by the way,” I murmured. I suddenly found it difficult to look up at him.

“What for?”

“…saving my life.” I felt the shyness returning, but I forced myself to look up at him.

Looking quite embarrassed, he gave a little laugh and ducked his head. “There’s not really any way to know if that really . . . helped.”

Feeling bold, I shrugged and said, “Well, I felt better.”

He laughed then, a real laugh. “I did too, I think.”

“And now we know what to do in the future—”

“What if it’s George that gets ghost-touched next?”

“We flip a coin. Winner gets to kiss him.”

We were dangerously close to another laughing fit after that.

-

After washing up and putting everything away, we turned the kitchen light off and crept silently back upstairs, nearly dead on our feet from the exhaustion of the day.

When we reached the landing and stood in front of Lockwood’s bedroom, I suddenly felt a stab of nervousness. I felt like something needed to be said before we parted ways, but I didn’t know what to say.

“Lockwood, I . . .”

He turned to me then, and my heart caught in my throat. In the near-darkness of the landing, I could see him just well enough to catch a glimpse of the Lockwood I’d seen right before I’d asked him to kiss me. All softness and warmth and light.

The words wouldn’t come. Still not knowing what to say, I placed my hand on his arm, went up on my tiptoes and gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek. I will admit, I would have liked to have kissed him properly, but we were standing very close to George’s door and it felt weird.

Lockwood seemed almost startled at this mortifying show of affection, and for one awful, terrifying moment I thought I’d misread . . . everything. But when I turned to escape to the attic, he caught my arm and kissed my cheek soundly, smiling all the while.

I lay awake in bed for at least another hour that night, smiling at the ceiling.

I liked to think that Lockwood did, too.