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Despite her impatience, Lucy waited until it was nearly midnight to slip out of bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping form next to her. She had a feeling what she was about to do would work better the later she waited. Upon stepping out onto the landing, she gently closed the door behind her and made her way carefully upstairs, skipping the step that always creaked, to the room where she used to sleep.
After retrieving what she had come for, she crept downstairs to the kitchen, where she placed her charge ceremoniously on the Thinking Cloth– a relatively new one, and still mostly bare– and opened the cupboard for a bottle of wine. After a moment’s deliberation, she chose a relatively nice one. Lockwood would no doubt complain in the morning when he found it opened, lamenting that they’d have to finish it that night with no special occasion to deserve it, but she decided it couldn’t be helped. This occasion called for it, and that was all that mattered.
After pouring herself a glass, she sat down at the table and stared at the object in front of her, waiting for the right words to come. When they didn’t, she sighed and took a sip of wine, briefly closing her eyes.
She opened them feeling slightly emboldened, and resigned herself to being unoriginal. “Hello, Skull.”
The Skull stared blankly back at her, silent as the day after she rescued it from Marissa Fittes’s apartment.
She took another sip, trying not to feel foolish. “I’m not sure why I expect you to respond today. Five years of silence probably should be enough to convince me this is a fruitless exercise.”
A pause, almost out of habit, waiting for a response that didn’t come.
“Perhaps it’s unreasonably optimistic of me to hope you’re still attached to this thing.” She gestured with her wine glass at the skull. “I haven’t seen so much as a flicker around it for ages. Although,” another sigh, “that’s probably because I hardly have any Sight to speak of these days.”
Another pause.
“But I can still Listen, you know. I know that for sure. A few nights ago, Anthony and I were on a job– just the two of us– and neither of us could see the Phantasm, but I could Hear it– its death echo nattering away. That’s what led us to the Source.”
She fell silent again and picked up a stray pen, beginning a rough outline of a rangy youth on the Thinking Cloth.
“Anthony was quite upset afterwards,” she said, her voice dropping low. “He wouldn’t admit it, but I know he was. A year ago, he would’ve been able to See that ghost. Maybe even six months ago. But not now.”
She paused in her sketch, fingering the stem of her wine glass.
“I know that day’s coming for me, too. The day I can’t Hear something I should. It’s a bit strange, waiting for the absence of something, but I’m getting used to the feeling.”
The utter silence in the kitchen felt oppressive, and Lucy suddenly gulped her wine, setting the glass down with a thunk and bracing herself for the hard part.
“I suppose I wanted to give you the chance to say goodbye,” she said, staring intently at the Skull as if that would will her old companion to come back. “While I know for certain I could still Hear you. And I wanted the chance to say goodbye to you, too– and maybe tell you what’s been going on while you’ve been away, in case you haven’t been spying on us without telling me.” She tried not to let a bit of hurt creep into her voice. “George moved out last year,” she began, almost desperately. “His Talents were nearly gone, you see, and he’d gotten into university. Goldsmiths, with a prestigious scholarship. Said Anthony and I would put him off his studies with all our ‘disgusting couple-y behavior,’ as if he and Flo hadn’t been subjecting us to the same.”
The Skull stared at her, impassive.
“Holly’s getting married in a few months,” she said, “to a girl Anthony called her ‘roommate’ for the longest time.” She laughed. “We all had a good chuckle the first time he saw them snogging in the back garden. You would’ve enjoyed it– he looked like his jaw had actually come unhinged.” She tilted her head. “Maybe you did see it. It was in the evening, and I made sure to keep you on the sill in the attic, with your old favorite view.”
Still, nothing.
Lucy drained her wine glass and snorted. “God, what the hell am I doing?” She glared at the ancient (and at this point, somewhat sun-bleached) hunk of bone in front of her. “Talking to an inanimate object in a kitchen at midnight. If anyone happens to stroll by the window they’ll think I’m raving.” She stood, with the intention of putting the wine glass in the sink and returning to bed like a rational person, but found herself instead pouring a second one, and sitting back down at the table.
“It’s really unreasonable of me to miss you,” she said, giving the Skull another dirty look. “You were absolutely horrible most of the time, and I think you rather enjoyed it. Anthony thinks I should’ve left you in the Fittes apartment after it exploded, despite the fact that you saved his life, and mine in the process.” She took a long sip. “But I didn’t think that was right, after everything we’d been through.” She renewed her glare. “Little did I know this was the thanks I’d get. Five years of radio silence for my pains.” Another sip. “Ungrateful git.”
She sat fuming, for a long while, letting her bad temper permeate the room. The Skull always seemed to be attracted to those.
No such luck.
“Perhaps you’d like to hear about me and Anthony,” she said, a sarcastic edge creeping into her voice. “In case you haven’t noticed, I call him Anthony now– he asked me to.” She smirked. “And I’m the only one who gets to do it.” Her fingers drummed on the table, and she sipped her wine again. “I’m sure you’ve also noticed I don’t sleep in the attic anymore. Once Anthony invited me to stay in his room there didn’t seem to be a point.” She found herself grinning a bit evilly. “There are lots of things to tempt me in his bed, after all. You’re lucky he made me leave you upstairs– some of the things we get up to would make any spectator go blind, even one that didn’t have eyes.” She gave an almost giddy laugh. Her face was feeling a bit flushed, but she drained her glass again anyway. “There was this one time, he allowed me to–”
“Stop! Oh, dear God, stop it right there, before my figurative ears start bleeding!”
Lucy choked and nearly dropped her wine glass, catching it just before it rolled onto the ground. “Skull!”
“Yes, yes, please don’t go getting all teary-eyed about it. All that sincerity earlier was already making me nauseous.”
For a long minute, Lucy was stunned speechless. Despite her dogged optimism, a significant part of her had genuinely believed she’d never hear that voice again, and without her Sight the skull still looked as dead as ever. But there it was, that same irritated tone speaking directly in her head, although it now possessed a slightly staticky quality, like she was hearing it through a radio not tuned quite right. She was pretty sure that was on her end, though.
“So, losing your Talents are you?” The Skull said. “Getting old, like the rest of them. Sounds like a real drag, I say. That’s why I always advocate for dying young. Worked wonders for me.”
Lucy stammered, and then suddenly grew angry. “What the hell is wrong with you? Going dark for five years and then turning up at the last second just to act like everything’s fine and dandy? Where’ve you even been, if you didn’t sever your connection to this moldy old thing?” She gestured to the skull on the table.
“Oh, here and there. Or maybe nowhere. Maybe I’ve been right here all along, you just couldn’t see me.”
The place at the table across from her suddenly started glowing, and Lucy squinted, tilting her head to look out of the corner of her eye. Just barely, if she focused, she could make out the faint outline of the young man she remembered– a boy, really. Younger than she was now, slouched carelessly in the chair across from her, his skull on the table between them. For some reason, the effort brought tears of frustration to her eyes and she ground her teeth. She looked down at the sketch she’d started, and found it was a clearer likeness than the one she’d been able to See.
“Alright, alright, I can see you’re still sensitive about it.”
“I’m not–” she let out a breath and tried to moderate her tone. “I’m not sensitive about it.”
“Sure you’re not.”
“I’m not.” She glared down at the sketch on the Thinking Cloth, adding a line here and there, working mostly from memory. “Well, maybe a little bit.”
“Ha.”
“But honestly… in some ways it’s comforting, you know? It’s quite late for us, after all. Quill’s Talents were completely gone by the time he was our age, same for Holly. Anthony didn’t care, of course, but I was starting to worry.”
“Worry you were a little more like our old friend Marissa than you were hoping?”
“…Yeah.” Lucy finished the sketch and tilted her head, squinting again at the green haze in front of her to see if it was accurate.
“Your Sight is dismal. My hair falls much more rakishly than that.”
She glared and tossed the pen aside. “You know, this was meant to be a solemn and heartfelt occasion.”
“Never been good at those.”
“I’m not sorry my Talents are fading, Skull– I truly mean that. When I was a child, I didn’t really want to be an agent, you know. I only came to love it after I got good at it, when it became the only life I knew. But now I get to find out who I am without that, and… I think I’m excited for it.”
“Well, bully for you.”
“The Problem is fading quickly now, anyway. Barnes says all the silver gates on the Other side are removed, and we’re confident there are no more active spirit gates in Britain. It seems like Anthony and I have less work every month.”
“Sounds like a recipe for laziness. Have you gained weight since I last saw you?”
“Oh, shut up.” Lucy traced her finger over the sketch. “You still haven’t told me what you’ve been doing, all this time you’ve been away.”
“Nothing you’d be interested in, I’m sure.”
“Like that’s ever stopped you.”
“Hey, maybe I’ve learned restraint in the last five years.”
She scoffed. “And maybe I’ve grown wings.”
“Well, you hunch so badly sometimes I’m inclined to think you have.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re avoiding the question.”
The Skull fell silent, and Lucy thought she saw the green haze flicker a bit. Ignoring the way her stomach clenched at the thought that she might be driving it away, she turned back to the Thinking Cloth and started another sketch, this time of the Skull fighting Ezekiel. The last time she’d truly Seen him.
“I really shouldn’t tell you this because it’ll horribly inflate your ego,” she said, “but I draw you all the time. I don’t want to forget what you look like, is the thing, and this is the best way I’ve found to do it. A few months ago, one of Barnes’s DEPRAC officers who’d been to the Other Side saw one of my drawings, and said he recognized you.”
The Skull was quiet, but the green haze was still faintly there.
“He said he’d seen you guiding ghosts that seemed lost to the portals, so that they could move on.”
The green haze flickered, but she felt emboldened anyway.
“I know you’d hate to be accused of doing anything noble, but I still thought I should thank you. Also… that’s what gave me hope that this would work, I guess. Knowing you still haven’t moved on yourself, after all this time.” She finished her sketch, and despite herself her voice grew sad.
“Moving on is for losers.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So you’d rather stay like this forever? Half in this world, half in the next one?”
He didn’t seem to have a response to that.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about the Other Side. If ghosts are ultimately supposed to move beyond it, to whatever was behind those silver gates, what’s the point of its existence?”
Again, nothing.
“It seems to me that it’s meant to be a sort of… transition zone. A place not quite like the mortal world, but not quite like the next one, perhaps meant to ease the passage of spirits between one and the other.”
“A fascinating theory. Ever consider writing an anonymous monograph about it?”
“Ha, ha.” Lucy rolled her eyes. “The point is, I’ve been to the Other Side, and I’ve felt the pull of those portals. As a living person, it’s strong, and it’s clearly stronger for ghosts. So,” she fiddled with the stem of her empty wine glass, “what’s different about you?”
“I believe I’ve told you that I’m just built different. And by different, I mean better.”
She snorted. “Are you? You know what other ghost that refused to move on? He was very normal and sane, as I recall.”
“Don’t you dare compare me to him.”
“Now you know how it feels to be compared to your evil counterpart.”
The green haze suddenly flared. “Alright, no more of this beating around the bush. Let’s not pretend I don’t know what you’re doing here– trying to convince me to ‘move on.’ Well, I’ll save us both a lot of time and tell you that’s not going to happen. I’m not one of those wimpy little Lurkers you still try to talk to on jobs with that pushover Lockwood, like a few kind words are all it takes to convince them to give up and shuffle along this mortal coil.”
“Is that what you think moving on is?” Lucy said. “Giving up?”
“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me, it won’t work.”
“Fine, I won’t.” She sat back easily, satisfied her point had been made. “So you have been spying on us, if you’ve been hearing about my jobs with Anthony.”
“If that surprises you, you’re even duller than I imagined.”
She shrugged. “Not really. Although that makes it even worse that you didn’t talk to me for all that time.”
The Skull went strangely silent, and as Lucy pondered the green haze across the table, something occurred to her.
“This is hard for you, isn’t it?”
The green haze flickered, but didn’t disappear.
She pressed on, “You didn’t want to say goodbye, did you? You thought you’d just stay silent, wait for my Talent to fade, and that would be that?” She smirked at him, although in her chest she felt a surge of fondness. “Well, I’m very sorry for thwarting your plans.”
“I should hope so. It was a very good plan.”
She actually laughed, and couldn’t help but sing-song, “You’re going to miss me.”
“The hell I am! ” The green haze flared in a way that could only be described as indignant. “Especially now that you’ve taken up with that posh twat Lockwood– a real indication of some low standards, by the way– the two of you just about ready to sail off into the sunset for a life of domestic bliss.” He made a rude noise that was quite impressive for someone technically lacking a throat. “What could there possibly be for me to miss about that? The riveting drama of watching you two change nappies on the inevitable results of your disgustingly active sex life?”
Lucy couldn’t even find it in her to be offended. “You’re still going to miss me. Right now you’re thinking of all the nasty comments I won’t be able to Hear.”
“I am not.”
“It’s okay, Skull. I understand that this is difficult.”
“What, did you learn that line in therapy or something?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” she said. “It’s a new initiative from DEPRAC. Therapy provided for current and former agents.”
“There aren’t enough therapists in the world.”
“Well, no, probably not,” she admitted. “It’s a pilot program, and Anthony and I were lucky enough to participate. I actually learned a lot.”
The green haze shuddered. “I just feel sorry for whatever poor shrink had the displeasure of poking around the depths of your psyche, not to mention your boyfriend’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if the combination drove him into retirement. Or off of a cliff.”
“Oh, I’m sure whatever she dredged up was no worse than whatever’s lying in your twisted mind,” she retorted. “I barely know anything about you, really, and I can tell that much. You never even bothered to tell me how you died, or how you ended up in the Lambeth sewers. What happened between your employment with Bickerstaff in Hampstead and then? Not too much, I’d imagine, considering, as you so proudly declared, you died young.”
The Skull huffed. “Nice try, but I don’t believe this conversation is about me. It’s about you, and your insistence on some sort of sentimental send-off.”
“Maybe.” She supposed he had her there. “But would you believe me if I said I just wanted to help you? Is there a reason you haven’t moved on that I can take care of? Unfinished business? Solving your murder– although I’ve no doubt you deserved it.”
“You must know my murderer is long dead.”
“So you know who it is!”
“Of course I know! I did catch a glimpse before he shoved my head into a trough of rainwater.”
“And why did he do that?”
“No! No more questions, I refuse to be baited like this.”
“Alright, fine.” Lucy sat back, frustrated. “Excuse me for wanting to help you.”
“Who says talking me into moving on is at all helpful?”
“Because everyone’s got to move on eventually,” she snapped. “It’s not natural to go on forever– the last person to try that was Marissa Fittes, and you saw how that turned out.”
“Um, big difference– she was alive. I’m dead.”
“It applies to you, too. You know why I think Ezekiel was so mad? Because he hung around for hundreds– maybe thousands– of years all alone, with no one to Listen to him. It’d be enough to drive anyone off their rocker. Who knows the next time you’ll meet someone who’ll be able to Hear you like I can?” She looked down at her sketches on the table, thin, fuzzy line drawings of a boy who’d come to a grisly end. “I just don’t want you to be lonely, is all.”
The Skull snorted. “No one Listened to me for the first hundred years after my death. I could do a hundred more.” But he didn’t sound that confident.
Lucy traced her finger over the line drawings, considering. “You once called the Clerkenwell Furnaces ‘hell on earth.’”
“And so they are. What’s your point?”
“But why?” she mused. “I think there’s an idea that incinerating Sources releases the dead, or frees them somehow, by severing their connection to this world. But it’s not really like that, is it? It must be more like… ripping it away. Violently expelling the dead from our world rather than convincing them to go on their own terms.”
“Hence your ridiculous habit of trying to talk wraiths out of murderous rampages.”
She cracked a smile. “But you see what I’m trying to do, don’t you? It just feels more… humane.”
Another snort. “Like we’re flea-ridden mutts lined up at the pound.”
She ignored him. “I don’t want to force you to move on if you’re not ready. But if there’s anything at all I can do to help you get there, I want to do it while I still can.”
“How very noble.” The voice, as always, was caustic, but the green haze flickered, seeming almost subdued.
“Please,” she tried, lowering her voice. “Anything at all.”
He was silent for so long she might’ve been afraid he’d departed again if it weren’t for the green haze still hovering before her, pale and shifting back and forth over its chair as if uncomfortable, uncertain.
“What about a proper burial?”
“What? Tossing me into a hole and leaving me there? I believe you used to threaten me with that when you were feeling particularly cross.”
She rolled her eyes. “This would be different, obviously. For one, you’re not trapped in the silver-glass jar anymore, and I wouldn’t go putting you in an iron coffin or anything like that. By ‘proper burial’ I just mean I’d lay you to rest, with some small ceremony, in a cemetery, with a headstone. So people could visit you, so you could be mourned. That’s what we’re all afraid of, isn’t it? Being forgotten? Leaving this world with no sign we’d ever been here?”
There was another long silence. “And I suppose in exchange for this I’d be expected to move on? Rather than terrorize any idiot foolish enough to visit my grave?”
Lucy shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not going to force you to do anything. I hope you eventually move on because you want to, because you feel ready. I suppose I thought a proper burial would help with that. I don’t expect anything in exchange.”
“And where do you imagine this ‘proper burial’ taking place? In some dusty old cemetery cordoned off with iron fencing?”
“Of course not.” She sat up straighter. “You know, with the Problem diminishing Anthony’s been trying to get cemeteries reopened, cared for, made suitable for the public again, as soon as they’re determined to be safe. He started with the one here in Marylebone, of course, but he’s got projects in Queen’s Park and Chiswick as well. The Marylebone Cemetery actually looks quite nice now.”
“Of course it does. It’s got to be all neatened up for when he meets his untimely end. No wonder he made sure to get to it first. Could happen any day now.”
Lucy felt herself growing irritated again. “Fine, you don’t want my help. Have fun spending eternity bitter and lonely.” She stood up suddenly, chair scraping across the floor, to put her wine glass in the sink and re-cork the bottle.
She had nearly stalked out of the kitchen when he spoke again. “Wait.”
When she turned, the green haze was almost gone– impossible to see unless she went a bit cross-eyed– but the staticky voice was still unmistakable. “Yes?”
“Okay. ”
“Okay, what?”
A beleaguered sigh. “You’re not going to make me say it, are you?”
She crossed her arms.
“Fine! A ‘proper burial’ with all associated trappings and ridiculous little rituals might be nice, and might make me think about moving on for good.”
She felt a rush of satisfaction, combined with no small amount of relief, but only allowed one corner of her mouth to twitch up. “Well, in that case I’ll need one more thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“Your name.”
“Augh! I’ve told you I don’t remember.”
She shrugged. “Fine, don’t tell me. I suppose you’d prefer to be remembered for eternity as Anonymous Sycophant of the mad Doctor Bickerstaff, or Shithead Skull formerly of Lockwood and Co.”
“Oh, don’t you dare include Lockwood’s name on my gravestone! If you do, I swear I’ll never move on. I’d stick around for the rest of time just to haunt you and all your snot-nosed descendants.”
“I’m waiting.”
What followed was an extended stare-off. Well, as much as a stare-off could happen between a human and an amorphous green haze. But Lucy planted her feet, refusing to back down.
“Alright, alright, you win! I’ll tell you.”
And he did.
“I think it rather suits him.” Lockwood cocked his head, contemplating the name on the granite headstone in front of them, under which was inscribed, dear friend and brother-in-arms.
“I think so, too,” Lucy said, rocking back on her heels, surveying the area– a quiet corner of a Hampstead cemetery, not too far from the heath. It had been nearly ten months since her final conversation with the Skull, and six weeks since she’d heard even a whisper from any sort of Visitor. Two weeks ago, Lockwood had removed the shiny brass sign from the railing outside 35 Portland Row, and filed the paperwork with DEPRAC to dissolve the agency.
Since then, he’d thrown all his energy into the latest cemetery restoration project here in Hampstead. Lucy thought he’d done an admirable job. There were still some overgrown patches here and there, excavator tracks that had yet to be re-seeded, but all signs of barbed wire were gone, and the bird-cherry tree above their heads was in full bloom. It was actually quite beautiful.
“D’you think he’s really moved on?” Lockwood said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hope so. There’s no way for us to tell, anyway.” While she and the Skull never spoke again after that night in the kitchen, she’d put off this occasion until she was certain her Talent was completely gone. She still wasn’t sure exactly why. Maybe this was the only way she could bear their final good-bye.
Lockwood huffed. “If anyone gets ghost-touched within a ten-kilometer radius I’m digging that thing up and incinerating it personally.”
“Fair enough.”
He regarded her carefully. “You really trust him, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “He saved our lives when I released him. We have an understanding.”
He shook his head. “Whatever you say.”
“Trust me. We’re moving forward, and so will he.” She took his hand in hers, fourth finger newly adorned with a glittering ring. “Come on, let’s go home.”