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Jenny had not expected her new shop to become a ghostly hangout spot. This was, on reflection, a fucking stupid expectation to have, especially after Crystal started helping out.
That has been unexpected as well, but not entirely unwelcome. It turned out that there was a lot of work to be done before opening, even after Jenny had found a storefront to rent, with an apartment above it (the estate agent had called it a flat . Jenny was still adjusting to British terminology), sourced suppliers, researched what she needed to do to keep within regulations and standards for a butcher's shop in London and all the other stuff that came with moving to a new country. When Crystal had volunteered to help keep things clean while Jenny worked on literally everything else, everyone had been shocked.
“I mean, me choosing you as my landlady kinda got you into this to begin with,” Crystal said. “And if I have somewhere to be between cases instead of pathetically trying to get my parents’ attention, maybe I can stay out of trouble.”
Jenny doubted it, but handed her a mop and bucket anyway. “Wear old clothes, preferably in black,” she advised. “Blood is a bitch to get out of fabric.”
“Duh,” Crystal replied.
That was how it started. A mirror was hung up in the cleaning cupboard of the back room for Edwin and Charles, if they needed to pop in to see Crystal.
“I'm not getting involved in whatever the fuck you two have going on ever. This shit is for emergencies only, you got that?”
Edwin and Charles both swore they understood, but after the first time Charles tripped through the mirror to talk with Crystal about organising a movie night, Jenny knew they definitely had very different ideas of what constituted an emergency.
That said, there were certain advantages to having a pair of ghostly visitors who liked to pop in now and then.
London had its fair share of assholes, and far too frequently, they would find themselves in the new Tongue and Tail, shooting their shot and refusing to take “Fuck off, I'm a lesbian and even if I wasn't, the answer would still be no” for an answer. Something about the American accent seemed to make a certain breed of British men think Jenny should be swooning all over them for their accent. Jenny knew when she was younger, some of her friends in school had liked British accents, but the kind of people her friends admired all had the posh, upper class accents of the rich and famous. Jenny, who had never been one to care about accents, cared even less for the rougher London accents she was being subjected to every time some creep tried to hit on her.
One particularly pushy customer kept coming back, even though Jenny made no attempt at remaining civil by this point. He would try to lean over the counter, making suggestive comments about meat and sausages that made Jenny reconsider her no-murder stance. Crystal was in the back with the dead boys, who had popped in to discuss a case, leaving Jenny up front alone.
“C’mon, lemme show you what a proper English sausage is like,” the creep leered, winking suggestively.
Jenny gave him her most disgusted look and was about to reply when a loud THWACK made both of them jump out of their skins.
“Jesus fuck !”
Behind Jenny, the meat cleaver she had left lying beside the chopping board now stood upright, turning slowly on the tip. As the man watched, pale and wide-eyed, the cleaver slowly began edging toward the edge of the table, scraping softly but threateningly over the wooden surface.
Jenny turned back to her unwanted customer. She shoved his bag of sausages into his arms. “I think you should leave and never ever come back.”
The man gave a shaky nod and backed toward the door, eyes never leaving the cleaver. He jumped out of his skin when he bumped into the door, hardly daring to turn around as he fumbled with the handle and then fled into the drizzly London afternoon.
Somewhere behind her, Charles burst out laughing. “Oh my God, did you see the look on his face!”
Jenny glared at Edwin, who seemed completely unaffected by it. He kept playing with the cleaver, twirling it on the sharp corner of the blade.
“What the fuck!”
“A gentleman should know how to take no for an answer,” Edwin said primly, though the impish upturn on his lips gave away just how much he had enjoyed his little show. “And how to show proper respect for a woman clearly out of his league.”
Jenny threw her hands up and snatched the knife away from him. “If my store starts getting a reputation for being haunted, I am hiring every goddamn witch and wizard and whatever the fuck else to ghost-proof this place, you understand?” She waved the cleaver at both teenage ghosts, who were, irritatingly, not intimidated in the slightest. But why would they be, they were already dead.
“Understood,” Edwin replied with one of his little nods.
Jenny turned back to the counter. “Good.”
“Oh, c'mon, that was pretty brills though, right? I thought he was about to piss himself!” Charles said, laughing as he came to Edwin's side.
Jenny thought back to the way the creep's face had gone white as a sheet, and the way he nearly tripped over himself on his way out of the door. Okay, yes, it was pretty funny but damn it, she was not going to encourage either of them!
“I do not run a fucking haunted butcher's shop,” she said firmly. “But… thanks. At least I didn't have to take his hand off myself.”
“A pleasure to be of service,” Edwin said, and she could hear the smug fucking smirk in his voice.
“Don't you guys have somewhere else to be?”
Things settled into a new kind of normal that was also really fucking weird and Jenny was slowly becoming okay with it. She had to admit, having help in the store wasn't bad. If she got sick of dealing with people, she would put Crystal up front to do the talking bits while she chopped and sliced and cut away at meat in the back. Charles and Edwin learned to knock on the cupboard door when they came through the mirror so there were no heart attacks or thrown knives. Crystal sometimes had to disappear for a case, but Jenny was used to running a store by herself anyway. Slowly, she gained a few regular customers that weren't all that bad. There was one woman she suspected of being a witch but as long as she wasn't looking to harm the dead boys and/or blow up the shop, Jenny was content to sell her the weird off-cuts, blood and offal she asked for without question.
And then that red-haired woman showed up in a burst of fucking fire .
Jenny screamed, nearly losing a few fingers to her own cleaver as she jumped out of her fucking skin.
“What the fucking fuck?!”
Edwin and Charles immediately put themselves between Jenny and the woman, working in tandem to de-escalate the situation (why were they even in the shop right now? Jenny didn't have a clue).
“Jenny, it's fine, she's with our detective agency,” Charles said, while Edwin dealt with the fire witch. Wait, was she a witch?
Crystal came running from the front. “What the hell is going on?!”
“Who the fuck are you?!” Jenny pointed her knife at the intruder. “Where did you fucking come from?!” She paused. “You seem .. familiar?”
“You remember when you told me about a ‘family friend'? She's the one you talked about,” Crystal explained.
Jenny frowned. “I don't remember seeing her,”
“Of course not, I erased your memory,” the mystery woman said, setting off a new round of shouting.
“You did what?!”
“Oi, that is not on!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?! You can't just do that to someone without their consent!”
The cacophony continued for another minute, before the woman called for silence.
“I did what was necessary in order to do my job, nothing more and nothing less.” She looked at Jenny. “If it helps, it wasn't anything personal.”
“It doesn't.” Jenny put the cleaver down. “You know what? I am done with weirdness for today. Crystal, lock up the shop when you leave. I am done here.” She stripped off her apron and stomped upstairs to her flat.
There was more conversation behind her, but Jenny wasn't interested. It ended soon enough, and she heard Crystal lock up and leave, ghost boys in tow rather than skipping back through the mirror.
Jenny wasn't formally introduced to the Night Nurse Nurse until their next meeting. It seemed the dead boys had convinced her that if she absolutely had to show up in Tongue and Tail, then she should show up in the same cupboard where their mirror hung, and knock like they had agreed to do.
It was clear that the strange, stiff woman regarded the whole thing as a waste of time, but Jenny didn't care. She was in fact trying to think of other ways she could inconvenience her. Never let it be said that Jenny Green did not have a petty side. Though what she could do against a trans-dimensional being (whatever the fuck that meant), she didn't know.
“So… Night Nurse. Is that a name or a title?” Jenny asked, arms folded across her chest.
“I've been trying to get her to let us call her Charlie,” Charles said. “You know, like that show, Charlie's Angels ?”
“Absolutely not!” the Night Nurse snapped. “It's bad enough being part of the Dead Boy Detective Agency without having some other ridiculous moniker forced upon me!”
Charles grinned. “I think I'm wearing her down,” he stage-whispered to Jenny.
Given Edwin's fond eye roll, Crystal's poorly hidden smirk and the Night Nurse's glare, this was something of a running joke among the teens, dead and alive.
“No.”
Jenny couldn't contain her smirk. “It’s nice to meet you, Charlie,” she said. “I think.”
The Night Nurse turned her stern glare on Jenny. “No!”
“Then give me a name to call you, because Night Nurse is almost as dumb as Dead Boy Detectives. At least their's makes sense. They're dead boys who are detectives. You don't even look like a nurse.”
The Night Nurse threw her hands up. “No, no and no!” She turned to Edwin, who was very good at putting on a polite expression when he needed to. “Can we please get back to work now? I have a case from the Lost and Found department that I need you and Charles to look into.”
“And we will, but isn't there something else you're forgetting?” Edwin asked. “We brought you here for a reason.”
“FIne.” The irritation radiating from the Night Nurse was nearly palpable. She turned back to Jenny with a tight, obviously fake smile. “I apologise for erasing your memory of our first encounter.” She looked back to Edwin. “Satisfied?”
Edwin looked at Jenny. “Jenny?”
“I suspect that's the best I'm going to get so… yeah, sure. Apology accepted or whatever. Now, are you lot going to get the fuck back to your work so I can get back to mine?” Jenny picked up the closest meat cleaver pointedly.
“An excellent idea!” The Night Nurse said, smiling triumphantly.
Jenny headed for the front of the shop to open for the day. “It was nice meeting you, Charlie ,” she called behind her.
There was no audible response from the Night Nurse herself, but Charles' sniggering followed Jenny, and that was almost as good.
Jenny didn't do a whole lot to keep up with the cases that the detectives were looking into, but Crystal talked about them a lot. Sometimes she just vented about how dumb the boys were (no arguments there, teenage boys were all fucking stupid, even when they had been dead for decades), and sometimes she came out with some really fucked up shit.
And Jenny knew by now that Crystal's parents were neglectful assholes (how do you not notice your teenage daughter disappearing to America for weeks?!) and that they had truly fucked her up by being neglectful, and that Charles had a fucked up childhood too (Jenny didn't know the details, Crystal just let her know enough) and Edwin's death had also been really fucked up so it wasn't exactly a surprise that none of them were ever normal about anything, but Jenny couldn't really say anything about that, given how fucked up she herself was.
But when a teenage girl comes to you and says something like “The demon I buried under the family tree thing in my head is disrupting my powers so I need him out and we need your help to get rid of him” there were only two responses.
“What the actual fuck, Crystal?” Jenny put her head in her hands, an ‘are you fucking kidding me? I am not getting involved!’ on the tip of her tongue, but then she looked up at Crystal, saw the desperation and fear in her eyes. “What do you need me to do?” she asked instead.
Apparently they mostly needed Jenny to stand around, waiting to call an ambulance in case anything went hideously wrong and Crystal needed medical attention. Two ghosts and a trans-dimensional being weren't going to be able to explain shit to paramedics.
They performed the exorcism in Crystal's flat. It was a hell of a lot nicer than Jenny's, and didn't have that meat and blood smell that came with being above a butcher's shop, which wasn't surprising given that Crystal's parents were actually loaded. Her bed had been stripped down to the mattress, and a sheet with some kind of magic circle painted on it had been placed over it. Crystal lay in the middle, and had insisted on her hands and legs being tied down.
“I don't want him running or hurting you if I can't control him after digging him up,’ she explained.
Charles sat by the bed, holding one of her hands. “It'll be fine, you'll see.”
Edwin had the book with the exorcism ritual, so he would recite the words, while the Night Nurse stood by the door, watching over the whole thing with a stern gaze.
Then came the Latin chanting and screaming and something crawled out of Crystal's mouth and tried to run. It headed for Jenny first, who screamed and dodged, but Charles was there with a bat, smacking the undefined shape until it ran for the door.
The Night Nurse opened it, and for a second Jenny thought she was letting the demon get away but that was definitely not the hallway of Crystal's flat on the other side. Jenny got a glimpse of a circular room, then the demon tripped and fell and screamed, long and loud until it was cut off abruptly by the Night Nurse slamming the door shut.
“What. The fuck.” Jenny gasped.
“We sent it back to Hell. The Night Nurse can open a doorway there if we ask her very, very nicely,” Charles explained, inexplicably out of breath for a ghost that didn't need to breathe.
“Right.” Jenny decided not to ask any more questions around them. Ever.
On the bed, Crystal groaned and squirmed. “I think you can untie me now.”
Edwin and Charles hurried to untie her, and were immediately pulled into hugs once Crystal's arms were free.
“I knew you could do it, Edwin!”
Edwin, clearly uncomfortable with the embrace, (but not as uncomfortable as he usually was, Jenny noticed), gave Crystal an awkward pat. “I am simply happy to have not let you down.”
Jenny decided to let the teens hug it out amongst themselves and left the room before she could get pulled into it. It seemed the Night Nurse had the same idea, as they both found themselves in Crystal's living room, sitting opposite each other in plush armchairs.
‘Well, that was… something. I'm glad I wasn't needed,” Jenny said.
“Indeed.”
They lapsed into silence, and Jenny couldn't tell if it was an uncomfortable silence or not. She slumped back in the chair, stretching her legs out in front of her, head back to gaze at the ceiling.
The demon, what she could make out of its form, had been terrifying.
“I'm going to have nightmares about this for weeks,” she muttered.
There was a pause. “I could, if you like, remove the memory for you,” the Night Nurse offered. There was no judgement in her tone, but also none of the empathy that had been there when Crystal had made the same offer back in Port Townsend.
“No thanks,” Jenny said. “My fucked up life isn't going to be any less fucked up if I don't remember it.” She lifted her head to look at the Night Nurse. “Not that I don't appreciate the offer.”
“Suit yourself.”
Silence fell between them again, broken only when Edwin emerged from the bedroom.
“How's she doing?” Jenny asked.
“Tired, very tired, but with some rest, I think she'll be back on her feet soon,” Edwin replied. “Charles is helping her to make up her bed again so she can sleep properly.”
“Cool.” Jenny nodded, but otherwise didn't move.
“Excellent. I trust she'll be back to work soon, then?” the Night Nurse said. “She's proven herself very useful in closing cases, and we still have so many to close.”
“Yes, we do,” Edwin said, pointedly. The Night Nurse may bring them cases, but Jenny was well aware that it was Edwin, Charles and Crystal who did all the work when it came to closing them. “Nevertheless, Crystal should take all the time she needs to recover from this ordeal.”
“You can let her know I can do without her at the store as well, at least until she feels up to it,” Jenny said.
“I'll let her know,” Edwin said, turning back to the bedroom. He paused. “Opening up a portal to Hell causes a lot of paperwork, doesn't it? I'd have thought you'd be getting on with that instead of sitting around, Charlie .”
He left before she could respond, taking a shortcut through the walls while the Night Nurse sputtered.
“He's got a point,” Jenny said, looking over at the Night Nurse. “Crystal has been through a lot. She needs time to recover, not get pushed back to work as soon as possible. Nevermind that some of their cases are dangerous and she's still a teenage girl.”
‘...You wouldn't understand,” the Night Nurse muttered after a long pause.
Jenny leaned forward, elbows on her knees and gave the Night Nurse her own stern look. “Try me.”
The Night Nurse opened her mouth as if to reply, but stopped as the muffled sound of Charles talking filtered through the walls.
“I have paperwork to file. If you'll excuse me.” The Night Nurse stood up abruptly and disappeared in a flash of fire.
Jenny sighed, rolled her eyes and flopped back on the chair again.
Crystal made a full recovery, though she was back at Tongue and Tail before Jenny really thought she should be.
“I can't take the fussing anymore,” Crystal said. “Charles is being completely insufferable about it. Edwin isn't letting me back on cases yet. Just …let me clean up or something .”
Jenny, who would never ever admit to missing Crystal's presence over the last few days, sighed. “Fine. But light work only, and if you feel off, either go lie down upstairs or go home.”
Crystal looked way too happy to be put to work mopping up blood in the back of a butcher's shop. “Thank you! And I'll be fine.”
Jenny shook her head, took her latest cuts of beef to the front to stock up the display, and let her get on with it. The shop was never very busy, but business was good enough for Jenny to keep afloat. In between the few customers that came in, she would check in on Crystal, trying not to make it too obvious that that was what she was doing.
Crystal, for her part, did seem to be completely fine.
“I had a headache for a long time but that's gone now,” Crystal said during one of Jenny's trips to the back of the store. “And yeah, I was tired but I slept for days .”
“You seem fine to me,” Jenny said.
“Because I am!” Crystal stopped mopping for a moment. She had been going about it so vigorously that Jenny knew she was working out something on Jenny's floor. “I know I'm human but I'm not made of glass! Haven't I proven I can handle myself? I mean, Edwin let me join the agency after …after Esther. And even before then, I dealt with the giant mushroom thing in the Tall Forest! And all the stuff we've done since coming back to London!” Crystal was gesturing wildly now, arms spread and she vented her frustrations. “I'm the one that found the music box to help that woman on that one case! And I dealt with that creepy porcelain jester thing! The cursed spider thing! That sticky ghost ivy that Charles got stuck in!”
Jenny held her hands up. “Whoa, okay, okay! I get it! You're a valuable member of the team!” She sighed. “Maybe… have you tried talking to the Night Nurse? She seemed to want you back to work pretty much immediately after the exorcism, until Edwin shut that down.”
Crystal shook her head. “I don't think she'll be of any help. Her and the guys butt heads, like, all the time. If she steps in, that will just throw oil on the fire.”
“What if… and just, hear me out here — what if you ask her for a case to handle on your own. Something simple. Something I can tag along on, just to make sure nothing does go wrong, but that you are absolutely capable of handling yourself,” Jenny suggested, hardly believing that she was actually saying the words that were coming out of her mouth.
“It would show the boys that I can handle cases with them again,” Crystal replied thoughtfully. “And the Night Nurse usually has cases that just involve finding missing kids who run from Death and the Lost and Found Department. We have better luck with those ones because Edwin and Charles are ghosts and I'm still alive.”
“So let's go ask her.”
As it turned out, the Night Nurse did have a case that was perfect for Crystal to handle on her own. She was very happy to hand over her case file to Crystal when she asked.
“Don't tell the boys about this yet though, okay?” Crystal said.
The Night Nurse smiled smugly. “No, no, of course not. I knew they were being too cautious about letting you back to work.”
“They're just trying to show they care,” Crystal said defensively.
“And yet you're here, asking me for work behind their back.”
“They're being a bit… overbearing about it,” Crystal muttered. “Anyway, if they find out about this, tell them Jenny's with me so I'm not alone.”
“Of course, dear.” The Night Nurse seemed almost proud of Crystal at that moment. “Now, this is the boy's last known location…”
“Is this really where you guys end up on cases?” Jenny looked around in disgust at the rotting church around her. There were weeds growing through the walls, the windows were nearly all smashed, the pews were rotting and half-collapsed and there was a pervasive smell of decay and bird shit that made her nauseous.
Going to their target's last known location had turned up a discarded backpack, thrown aside when the boy had had his fatal accident. Crystal's powers had shown her that the boy was running away from something and after he'd died, he had just kept running on instinct, but she knew where he was going, and given that he was recently deceased, would probably still be there..
“Sometimes,” Crystal replied, looking around as though none of this bothered her. “There are nicer places we've been. At least we're not dealing with demons and monsters this time around, just one scared little boy.”
“And what is a scared little boy doing in a creepy abandoned church?” Jenny asked.
“Let's find out.” Crystal strode forward, having spotted their target. She motioned to Jenny to approach from the other side.
At the end of the church, kneeling in front of the dilapidated altar, was a tiny figure. Jenny could hear quiet murmuring interspersed with equally quiet sniffling sounds.
“Hey,” Crystal said softly, tiptoeing forward.
The child flinched, staring up at her with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “I-I'm sorry! Was I too loud? I'll be quiet!”
Jenny raised her brows. The kid was damn near silent, and even pretty much whispered at Crystal and was worried about being too loud?
“No, no, you're fine. We were just wondering what you're doing here,” Crystal said, sitting down on the filthy floor.
The boy looked around until he caught sight of Jenny and shrank back. Jenny took a step back in case he decided to make a run for it.
“Hey, it's fine. We're not here to hurt you. We just want to know why you're here, I promise,” she said, raising her hands. God, she never knew what to do with little kids, or what to say.
“I'm praying,” the boy said. “There was a priest who came to our school and he told me that if I pray really, really hard for forgiveness I won't go to Hell.”
Oh. Crystal and Jenny exchanged wide-eyed looks.
“Why do you think you're going to hell?” Crystal asked.
The boy sniffled. “B-because I'm bad.”
“Bad how?” Crystal asked.
Jenny frowned. “You're, what, five? How bad can you be?”
The boys frowned. “I'm seven! ” he said indignantly, then clapped his hands over his mouth. “‘m sorry!” he whispered.
“Seven, then. Question still stands. I don't think seven year olds go to hell, right?” Jenny looked at Crystal, who shrugged unhelpfully.
“I'm too loud sometimes. Mam gets headaches. Dad said I need to be quiet because she suffered enough.”
“What do you mean?” Crystal asked, placing a gentle hand on the ghost’s small shoulder. “Too loud, like screaming and stuff?”
“Just… loud. So I have to talk quietly, and never ask for anything and stay out of their way, because I'm bad and they don't want to see me when I'm bad,” the boy explained.
A surge of anger washed over Jenny. “Oh, that's bullshit! ” she snapped, voice echoing through the church.
The boy looked at her in shock. “You said a bad word!” he whispered.
“And I'll say worse,” Jenny told him. “Your parents sound like assholes. You've barely spoken above a whisper to us. Unless you were screaming bad words at the top of your lungs-” The boy shook his head, wide-eyed. “-then I bet you were just a normal kid with shitty parents. This priest who told you to pray, did he know your parents? Did he know what they meant by being ‘bad’?”
The boy shook his head again.
“Then he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about,” Jenny went on. She sighed, trying to calm down a bit. “You had a rough life. I don't know anything about the Afterlife, but I bet it will be better than this.”
“She's right,” Crystal said. “I mean, you never hurt anyone intentionally, right? You tried your hardest to be good. That counts, you know.”
The boy sniffled. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Crystal said confidently. “So, what do you say? You ready to move on?”
“...I'm scared,” the boy replied.
“Don't be,” Crystal said. “When the blue light comes, it means Death has come to take you somewhere really nice, okay?”
“Blue light..?” The boy wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I think I saw blue light before, but I didn't want Dad to catch me…”
That was a good sign, at least. Not that Jenny actually understood most of what went on with the dead and dying, and was in no particular hurry to.
“Well, if you're ready now, then-” Crystal was cut off as a calming blue light lit up the church windows from outside.
“I think that's your cue, kid,” Jenny said, gesturing to the door.
The kid stood up, face still tear-stained but with a resolute expression. “O-okay. I'm gonna go.” He hurried to the door, as if afraid to miss his chance, but paused at the threshold. “Thank you!” he called back.
Crystal smiled and gave him a wave. Jenny nodded her acknowledgement. Then the door shut, and the blue light flared and faded with the sound of beating wings.
“So… that's it?” Jenny asked.
Crystal put on her best Charles impression. “Job officially jobbed.” She grinned widely. “Let's go give the Night Nurse the good news.”
Back at the agency, the Night Nurse was the only one present. It seemed the boys were working late on a case, which wasn't unusual really. The Night Nurse seemed unconcerned about it at least.
“All done, then?” she asked as Crystal walked in the door.
“All done. We found his bag, and used it to track him to an abandoned church,” Crystal said. “He was scared, and already running so when he died, he just… got up and kept running.”
“Also, his shitty parents apparently convinced him that he was going to hell or something, which was bullshit,” Jenny added. “Crystal talked him into going with Death when she came for him.”
“I think you convinced him more than me,” Crystal said.
Jenny frowned and held up a hand. “Nope. I take no credit, I am not getting involved in this stupid supernatural shit any more than I already am!”
That was the moment the boys came tumbling through the mirror. Well, Charles tumbled. Edwin, ever graceful, was steady on his feet until Charles bumped into him. The two boys shared a look — fondly exasperated on Edwin's part, just plain fond on Charles’ — before they realised they had a small audience.
“Crystal! What are you doing here?” Charles asked, all smiles as he dropped his backpack on the floor.
“Nothing much,” said Crystal sweetly. “Just reporting to the Night Nurse about the case Jenny and I just solved.”
“No, no, not me ,” Jenny said, holding her hands up. “You found the kid. I just tagged along.”
“Crystal! You took on a case without us? What if it had been dangerous?” Edwin demanded.
“It wasn't. The Night Nurse gave me something easy, because I asked her for it, and anyway, Jenny was there!”
“But what about your powers? Weren't they still off?” Charles asked.
“I told you, I needed rest and I'd be fine. I've had a rest, now I'm fine!”
The teens argued amongst themselves, ignoring Jenny and the Night Nurse.
“They've been like this since the exorcism,” the Night Nurse commented.
“Really don't envy you putting up with this all the time,” Jenny said.
“Sometimes, I feel like being here, listening to them bicker is punishment for some crime I can't remember,” the Night Nurse replied.
“Do they do the relationship drama here too, or do they save that for my place?” Jenny asked.
“I'm pretty sure they have drama everywhere,” the Night Nurse sighs. “ Teenagers. ”
Jenny found herself nodding along. Goddamn teenagers, dragging her into their weird teenage supernatural bullshit. And not one of them had an actual adult adult to talk to. Crystal's parents were neglectful assholes, Edwin's parents were dead and Charles had let on enough for her to know that his parents were completely out of the question even if they had had the ability to see ghosts. Which somehow left her and the Night Nurse, neither of whom were ideal options.
Jenny suddenly felt the need for a large glass of wine.
“Well, I'd better get back to work,” the Night Nurse said.
Work?
“Wait, seriously? It's the middle of the night! Shouldn't you, like, sleep or something?” Jenny asked.
The Night Nurse shot her a clear ‘are you stupid? ’ look. “I have no need for sleep, and I have far too much work to do to waste time on silly things like sleep!”
“That sounds really…sad,” Jenny said. “But fuck it, I'm not exactly a bundle of fun either so. Whatever.” She sighed. “Well, I'm going home. Enjoy your work or whatever.” Jenny called her goodbyes to the teenagers, who were still arguing but seemed to be settling it somehow.
Things more or less got back to normal after that, whatever the fuck normal even was these days. Crystal was back working cases, helping Jenny at the shop and was even talking about going to college. She'd finished her schooling in England, as it turned out, but going into college and then university wasn't something she'd seriously considered until recently.
“Not that I know where I want to go yet, but I'm looking into it,” Crystal said.
They were once again in the back room, Jenny chopping beef into steaks while Crystal did nothing at all.
“Good for you,” Jenny replied. “Have you told the boys yet?”
“Charles hopes he'll be able to visit. Edwin said I'm a ‘passable detective already but clearly some further education wouldn't go amiss’, which is his way of encouraging me, I guess. Not that there are any courses on supernatural detective work anyway.”
“Any idea what you want to study?”
“Psychology. Maybe it will help me unfuck my own mind a bit,” Crystal replied.
“Just don't try it on me, I've already accepted I'm a lost cause,” Jenny said with a self-deprecating smile.
“Promise.”
They chatted about other things for a while, until Crystal had to go. She and Jenny cleaned up and locked up the shop together, then said their goodbyes.
“You know, I think you're wrong,” Crystal said, just before leaving. “I don't think you're a lost cause, but if you're going to be helped, you have to be ready to accept that help first.”
“Thank you for that excellent piece of wisdom, Professor, but it might sound more convincing if you weren't a teenage girl,” Jenny said, only semi-sarcastic.
Crystal surprised Jenny with a hug. “I'm right, you'll see.”
“You know I'm covered in blood, right?” Jenny said.
“And I'm wearing black,” Crystal replied.
She let go of Jenny and left via the back of the store, calling out her goodbyes as she went. Jenny sighed, shrugged and went upstairs to her flat.
Goddamn it, but she was actually fond of the strange psychic who had turned her life upside down. She would just never admit it.
Crystal's search for the ideal college for her took her out of London from time to time, and since it turned out there were a bunch of haunted schools, colleges and universities across Britain, the boys went with her ‘in case they could help people’ but mostly to spend time supporting Crystal.
It was during one of these trips that the Night Nurse called on Jenny. She even materialised in the alley at the back of the shop and knocked to be let in.
“You know they're all up in, like, York or somewhere, right?” Jenny said, letting her in.
“I know that,” the Night Nurse said sharply. “I came to see you.”
“I'm going to regret asking why, aren't I?” Jenny sighed.
“Nonsense, dear,” the Night Nurse reassured her.
Jenny did not feel reassured.
“I do have a tiny wee favour to ask though.”
‘ Called it, ’ Jenny thought. Aloud, she said, “I thought I said I wasn't going to be making a habit of helping on cases.”
“Twice doesn't make it a habit,” the Night Nurse said. “And really, you won't need to do much. I know who we're looking for and where she is. She's just …being stubborn about crossing over.” The Night Nurse paused for a moment, playing with a ring on her finger. “The others in Lost and Found haven't had any luck, and it's very close by so…”
“So you want me to go in, talk to them and I bet it will look really good for you if you're the one bringing her in,” Jenny finished.
“Any reflection this has on my reputation is merely the icing on the cake after ensuring this poor lost soul goes on to her proper place,” the Night Nurse said, and Jenny actually believed her. One thing she had learned about the Night Nurse was that she was very obsessed with her work.
Jenny sighed. “I still have a shop to run. Do we have to do this now or can it wait until closing?”
“The quicker the better,” the Night Nurse replied. “But I suppose a few more hours won't make much difference. I can do some reconnaissance in the meantime, and come back here once you're done for the day.”
Jenny nodded. “FIne. I'll close as early as I can, so I can be ready as soon as you get back.”
The Night Nurse smiled, exceptionally pleased. “Excellent. I look forward to working with you, Jenny.”
“Uh-huh…”
Jenny threw herself into her work after that, prepping meat for sale in between serving customers. When the shop emptied a little after half past three, Jenny turned the sign to ‘Closed’ and locked the door. When the Night Nurse arrived at four o’clock on the dot, Jenny was ready to go.
“Right, where to?”
Apparently their wayward ghost child was currently haunting a playground. The Night Nurse hung back once they spotted their target, sitting on the swings with her head bowed. Her long, dark hair hung forward and in the dark, Jenny was strongly reminded of the girl from The Ring .
Jenny approached quietly and casually. She didn't look at the girl as she took a seat on the swing next to her. She could feel the girl's curious gaze on her though.
“Bit late to be out on the swings, isn't it?” As conversation starters went, it wasn't Jenny's best.
“Bit old to be playing on the swings, aren't you?” the girl answered.
“Touché,” Jenny said. “Look, I just saw you sitting alone and wanted to check that you're okay.”
“I'm fine ,” the girl said.
“So …why are you out here alone?” Jenny asked.
“You know you look like a lunatic, right? Nobody else can see me. Anyone walking past is going to think you're talking to yourself.”
“Let them,” Jenny said, shrugging. “Their opinions aren't worth a damn anyway.” She looked over at the girl, taking in her pale face and wide, round eyes.
“I thought no one could see me,” the girl said. “I tried so hard to get his attention but he just looks straight through me every time.”
“Only psychics and people who have experienced the supernatural can see ghosts,” said Jenny. “At least, that's what Crystal told me.”
“Crystal?”
“She's a psychic I know, explained everything to me after… well, after I got possessed by a demon. That's why I can see you now,” Jenny explained.
“Demons are real ?” the girl asked, shocked.
“Yep. So are a lot of other nasty things. There's plenty good things, I assume, but all I hear about is the bad.”
“And your friend, Crystal, she tells you all this stuff?”
“Not just her. There's a couple ghost boys she helps out — call themselves the Dead Boy Detectives .”
The girl snorted. “What a name.”
“I know, but they're pretty proud of it. Got too into detective stories or something and decided to give it a go themselves,” Jenny said. “They do good work though.”
“What, they solve ghost crimes? Catch ghost robbers?” The girl laughed.
Jenny shrugged. “If that's what a client wants, I guess. Mostly, they help other ghosts finish their unfinished business so they can move on to their afterlives,” she said. “Some people have mysteries attached to their deaths, and they can't move on until it's solved. Which brings me to ask — why are you still here? Why didn't you move on when you died?”
The girl's face crumpled. “I… he said… I dunno, it's stupid, I feel so stupid!”
Jenny regretted everything the moment she opened her mouth to reply. “...Tell me everything.”
“So I was seeing this boy, right? And he was really nice and sweet and kind and he always used to say that he couldn't live without me and all that kind of stuff, right?”
Jenny nodded and made appropriate “Uh-huh” noises.
“But then we had an argument and I broke up with him and he said that he was going to kill himself if I didn't take him back and I didn't want to be the reason he did that so we got back together but he was so clingy and I got frustrated and he kept saying that he'd die without me!” The girl said, crying her eyes out now. “And now I'm dead and I thought he would… like, he said if he didn't have me, he'd die but he won't do it and now he's… he's…” She broke off, sobbing.
“And now I'm guessing he's moved on,” Jenny said. “Found some other girl to manipulate.”
“He didn't manipulate me!” the girl snapped.
Jenny snorted. “Yeah, he did. Most people who threaten to kill themselves over a relationship ending the way he did are emotionally abusive assholes, and would never actually go through with it anyway, and the few that do go through with it, do it to punish the one who left. One last shitty piece of revenge against the one who was smart enough to get away.”
‘You don't know him!”
“Anyone who threatens to kill themselves over a relationship ending is an asshole,” Jenny snapped.
“Not him! He said… he said he'd die without me…” The girl sobbed into her hands.
“But he's not dead, is he?” Jenny said. She took a calming breath. “Look, what happened to you was tragic, okay? But hanging around, waiting for him isn't going to make things better. I mean, are you just going to follow him around, watching him live his life from now on? Because honestly, that seems… pretty pathetic.”
The girl sniffed. “I don't think I have a choice anymore though, do I? Death came for me, and when I refused to go, she just. Left.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Jenny said. “You can wander around, being a sad, lonely little ghost girl, or you can realise that waiting around for a boy to join you who might never come isn't for you and cross over to find out what kind of afterlife you have waiting for you.”
“You're kind of a bitch, you know that, right?”
“Yep.”
The girl had at least stopped crying. Jenny was grateful. Crying people made her all kinds of uncomfortable, and she really wasn't made for doing the sympathy thing.
The girl sighed. “So, what do I need to do to move on?”
Jenny shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. This is my second time helping someone out like this and I have no idea what I'm doing or how it works.”
A blue light flared behind them. Jenny smiled.
“I think that's your cue, though,” she said, jerking her thumb behind her.
The girl turned, awestruck. “Oh. Wow. Uh, yeah, I-I'm ready now,” she said to someone behind them. “Sorry about before.”
Then she was off the swing and walking into the light. Jenny wasn't sure if she could turn around or not, but she didn't miss the warm, gentle voice that said, “Thanks for your help, Jenny,” moments before the sound of wings flared and faded with the light.
The Night Nurse hurried over, beaming.
“Well done!” she said, delighted.
“Uh. Thanks, I guess,” Jenny said. She glanced at the empty park around them. “At least one teenager let me talk sense into them.”
The Night Nurse sighed. “I know what you mean,” she said. “Nothing I say gets through to those boys or Crystal either.” She paused, considering. “Although you and I have… very different approaches.”
“Yeah,” Jenny said. “Well, I should probably get home.”
“Oh, of course,” the Night Nurse replied. “I have paperwork to be getting on with as well.”
Jenny narrowed her eyes. “You really don't ever take breaks, do you?”
The Night Nurse waved her off. “Too busy for that, dear!”
“And what happens if you don't file the paperwork tonight?” Jenny asked.
The Night Nurse paused, as if the thought of not filling out the paperwork immediately had never crossed her mind. “Well, it will be late and that just won't do!” she said.
“Is that all?”
“I mean… it needs to be done, and there's no time like the present.” The Night Nurse twisted the ring on her finger, looking uncertain. “But that said… there is a backlog. There's always a backlog. Too much work, not enough staff and nowhere to put extra staff even if we did have them…”
“So no one will notice if you take a break for, say, an hour, and then file it. You could even say you filled it in on time but it's their fault if they got to it late…” Jenny suggested slyly.
The Night Nurse looked offended for a moment. “I couldn't lie to them!”
“I bet your subordinates lie to you all the time. I bet your managers lie to you all the time.” Jenny stepped back. “And I bet none of them will care if you take an hour to fill in some forms.”
The Night Nurse looked flustered. “But I— what would I even do for an hour if I'm not working?”
“The really sad part of that question is that you really have no idea,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “Come back to mine. We can have drinks, and bitch about dumb teenagers who won't do what we know they should be doing.”
Jenny could tell that the Night Nurse was tempted. There was just one last piece of token resistance.
“I'm a trans-dimensional being, I don't need to drink.”
“But I bet you have a lot to say about annoying teenagers who disrupt your life and won't do what you want them to, exactly how you want them to.” Jenny smirked.
“I just want them to listen for a change!” the Night Nurse said, throwing her hands up. “Is that really so hard?!”
Jenny put an arm around her shoulders. “My place. You can drink or not, but I definitely am.”
Back at the flat, Jenny fetched a bottle of red wine from the cupboard and two glasses.
“I said I don't need to drink,” the Night Nurse said.
“Just giving you the option to change your mind,” Jenny replied. “Now, sit.” She waved the Night Nurse over to her sofa.
The Night Nurse sat on the plush sofa, back ramrod straight, hands resting on her knees. “Don't talk to me like I'm some kind of dog!”
“You still sat,” Jenny pointed out, putting the wine and glasses on the coffee table. She made herself comfortable on the sofa, then poured herself a glass of cabernet sauvignon. She hadn't been able to touch a malbec since… well, since Maxine.
Settling back, with her knees drawn up to her chest, Jenny gestured at the Night Nurse. “Well, I just had to listen to a teenager whine about how her teenage boyfriend didn't immediately kill himself to be with her in the Afterlife. How was your day?”
The Night Nurse gave her a flat look. “I spent my day tracking down said teenager. My goodness, is that really why she refused her Afterlife?”
Jenny nodded. “Teenagers are dumb and melodramatic.”
The Night Nurse sighed. “Don't I know it. But I just don't understand why waiting is better than just going to your appointed place. Her time on Earth was done. She should have just accepted it and moved on!”
Jenny took a sip of her wine. “Not everyone can deal with change, and going from being alive to dead is a pretty massive change.” She paused. “Sometimes it can take a while to accept changes. Like you. This is a big change for you, right?” She didn't just mean taking a break, but the other things she had gleaned from her minimal interactions with the Night Nurse and from what had been said by the detectives.
“I suppose.” The Night Nurse fidgeted with her ring. “I am… trying to be more… understanding?” The light caught the orange gemstone and it flashed. Or maybe it was glowing? It was hard for Jenny to tell from her current angle.
“I spent so long in one place, doing one job with the same people, and I had a method that I thought worked and. Well. If it works, why change it? But after so long… I found someone it didn't work on, and I didn't know why.”
The Night Nurse was lost in some recollection that Jenny was hesitant to interrupt.
“It took someone else to point out that… maybe problems have more than one solution. It's just… When one method has worked for so long, it's hard to think of another.”
“And what method do you usually use?” Jenny asked. “Because I just talk. Maybe point out when someone is being stupid or an asshole or both.”
“I have the ability to see people's memories. In the past, I have often looked to… to the worst memories, to show them that staying on earth cannot possibly be worth it, when they would have a much better time in their appointed Afterlife,” the Night Nurse answered.
Jenny paused, took a sip of her wine, and then another. “When you say the worst memories…”
“I delved into their trauma.”
“Jesus, that is fucked up. That is incredibly fucked up. Do you even realise that?” Jenny asked. “ Jesus. Tell me you've not done that to the boys?”
The Night Nurse didn't say anything, and wouldn't look at her. That was confirmation enough.
“Fuck. Do I want to know?” Jenny said. “Actually… no, I probably don't.”
“If it makes things any better, Charles did throw me off a cliff and feed me to a fish in retaliation!”
“ What?! ” Jenny paused, pressed a hand to her forehead and took a breath. “I really need to stop asked questions but… what the fuck? ”
“It worked in the past!” the Night Nurse snapped defensively. “Showed all those naughty children that it would just be so much better if they just moved on instead of running from Death!”
Jenny just stared at her. “Are you fucking serious? ”
The Night Nurse finally looked back at her, and only the fact that there was something regretful in her gaze stopped Jenny from lashing out. Instead, the butcher took a bracing gulp of wine, topped up her glass, and sat back on the sofa.
“Dragging up trauma unwillingly doesn't help anyone. You probably just retraumatized all those kids. And Charles? I have no idea what he's been through — don't tell me, it's his story to tell — but I'm honestly not surprised he lashed out at you.”
The Night Nurse sat in silence for a moment. “I… have come to regret my actions. In my defence… I didn’t know why he stayed. I didn't think to look. I just saw two naughty boys avoiding their fates!” The Night Nurse buried her face in her hands.
Jenny poured her a glass of wine and pushed it toward her. The Night Nurse looked at it from between her fingers for a long moment, then picked it up and drained half of it.
“So you were, what, trying to punish them as well, by dragging up whatever shitty memories Charles has of his life?” Jenny said. “He was murdered, right?”
“By boys he called friends, because he defended one of their victims,” the Night Nurse confirmed. “I didn't know why he didn't go with Death that night, or what he and Edwin were doing together. I knew Edwin had escaped Hell and just… assumed that meant he was bad. That he deserved whatever punishment he was running from, and that he had tainted Charles. Or that Charles was also meant for Hell. Or. Or something. ”
Jenny, who knew little beyond the barest of basics about the boys’ deaths and that Edwin had been in Hell twice, and wouldn't pry because it was obviously a delicate subject, couldn't imagine looking at Charles and Edwin and seeing bad kids. She pictured Charles’ smile, the way he cracked jokes and was so determined to be both comic relief and protector. She pictured Edwin, all stiff and restrained until Charles made him smile, the way he bickered with Crystal like they were siblings, the love in his gaze when he looked at Charles and thought no one was watching. She thought of the work they put into helping people.
No, neither of those boys were bad people.
She thought as well of the two children she herself had helped.
“So, you think all kids who remain as ghosts are bad?”
“Why else would they not go on to their appointed place?” the Night Nurse asked. “At least… that was what I thought. Now, I don't know what I think. I mean. I'm trying to heed the advice I received from a man who lives inside a fish!” The Night Nurse's tone was starting to border on hysterical. “I've gone insane…”
“What?” Jenny choked on her wine a little. “No, actually. Don't tell me. This whole thing is weird enough as it is.”
“I don't understand it either!” The Night Nurse looked almost distraught now. She drank some more wine and then filled her glass up again - with a lot more wine than Jenny had originally given her.
She was going to have to get another bottle out. Maybe two.
“My entire world view has been turned utterly upside down since I met those boys!” the Night Nurse continued. “I don't know what I should be doing anymore, except trying to find all these lost children as I was before but I can't use my normal methods because what if I've been going about it all the wrong way?”
“If you've only been dragging up trauma, then yes, you have been going about it the wrong way,” Jenny said. “Jesus, have you never tried talking to those kids?”
“But they just argue! Or run away!”
“Because, and don't take this the wrong way,” Jenny began. “But you're kind of fucking scary when you show up in a burst of flame, and you also don't seem to have any idea how to actually talk to children.”
The Night Nurse, to Jenny's horror, began crying.
“Shit…” Jenny muttered. She did not do the whole ‘comfort the crying’ thing well, and it was always worse when she had caused it.
Thankfully, the Night Nurse seemed to pull herself together pretty quickly.
“I must apologise for that… unseemly outburst of emotion,” she said. She lifted her glass with a shaky hand and drank.
“No, no, I should probably be the one saying sorry,” Jenny said. “Look, I get it. Sort of. My life was perfectly normal until Crystal moved in. Not perfect , but normal, and she was… odd, somehow, and I kept telling myself that her and Niko were just tenants but… they were two teenage girls — I didn't know about the boys until later — and they were all alone in the world and when Crystal went after her toxic ex on her own, I couldn't just let her go by herself, and then I got possessed by the toxic ex who turned out to be a fucking demon for a little while and after all that, I could see the boys too.
“And maybe that could have been all of it, except a witch I'd known as a regular customer came and blew up my shop looking for them and …that was it. My life as I knew it was just. Over. And then Niko died and I'd been the one to hand the girl's my cleavers and send them off to save their friends. I didn't think that… that Esther would actually kill anyone. She was just an asshole. But… she'd been killing people — killing little girls — for years and I never knew!”
Jenny hadn't even realised she was crying, until a hand holding a handkerchief appeared in front of her face. The Night Nurse smiled gently.
“It seems.that we both needed to get some things off our chests,” she said.
Jenny nodded, wiping her eyes.
“Niko was… I didn't know her well, but she asked a lot of questions. She was curious and, and intelligent, which I didn't appreciate at the time, given that she used her knowledge from reading my handbook to find a loophole to prevent me from taking the boys to the Lost and Found department,” the Night Nurse said.
“Do you know…where she ended up?” Jenny asked.
The Night Nurse paused before answering. “You know, you are the first to ask me that. I think the others must assume she's ended up somewhere good, somewhere peaceful. Perhaps our relationship isn't at a point where they feel comfortable to ask, and I have been hesitant to bring it up myself, given the tenuous truce between us these days.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
The Night Nurse took another drink of her wine.
“I don't know where she is,” she said. “I looked, and there is no record of her anywhere. I even had to fill out paperwork for access to records from other departments and there's just… nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing ?” Jenny asked, sitting forwards now.
“I can't explain it. It's as though she never died. Or perhaps never existed,” the Night Nurse said. “I've tried to look into this on my own, but I've only been able to get so far.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don't know. I've never seen this happen before! But then, I've never seen an error on anyone's paperwork until Edwin either!” Despite the glass still having a considerable amount of wine, the Night Nurse drained it. “I have no idea what to do. What I'm doing. These boys…”
Jenny put her own glass down on the coffee table and edged closer. She wasn't sure if hugs would be welcome, but she didn't know what else to do. The Night Nurse allowed herself to be pulled into an awkward sideways hug.
“Tell them. They're smart, maybe they can help. Maybe they know something you don't,” Jenny said.
The Night Nurse nodded. “When they get back,” she agreed.
She pulled away from Jenny and set her glass down, a little unsteadily. Now that Jenny was closer, she could see the slightly glazed look in the Night Nurse's eyes.
“You know, I thought a trans-dimensional being would be able to hold her alcohol better.
“I handle my alcohol just fine, thank you,” the Night Nurse replied, though the drink had taken a little bit of the snippy attitude out of her voice.
“Do you normally drink wine like it's water?” Jenny asked.
“I don't drink water,” the Night Nurse replied. “Or wine.”
“The empty glass says otherwise.”
“Except when I want to,” the Night Nurse added.
Jenny found herself smiling. “Do you want more?”
The Night Nurse nodded. “I suppose a little more couldn't hurt.”
Jenny kept any comments about that to herself. She emptied the last of the current bottle into the Night Nurse’s glass and went to fetch a couple more bottles from the cupboard.
“Right. Now we've talked about the emotional shit, we need some lighter topics,” Jenny said, settling back on the sofa in her corner again.
“Lighter?”
“Yeah. Like… how do you feel about murder documentaries?” Jenny asked, reaching for the TV remote.
As it turned out, watching murder documentaries with the Night Nurse was very informative. She knew how it would have felt for every victim to die, and Jenny didn't know if she should be scared or impressed.
She went with both.
But she wasn't scared enough to stop watching or pouring more wine. Now that they weren't discussing anything emotional or personal, the Night Nurse slowed her drinking and Jenny was able to match her glass for glass.
Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Jenny must have fallen asleep. When she awoke the next day, she was still on the sofa, no Night Nurse in sight but a blanket had been draped over her. A glass of water sat on the coffee table, and the empty wine bottles were gone. Beside the water was a note.
Jenny,
Thank you for a very interesting and enjoyable evening. You've given me much to think about.
Perhaps we can do this again sometime. I cannot take many breaks, but perhaps now and then will be alright.
Until next time,
Asa
P.S. Do NOT give my name to anyone. Especially Charles.
Jenny read the note slowly twice more as she took it in. Then she smiled, folded it carefully and resolved to put it in her lock box.
And she definitely wouldn't be telling Charles she had the Night Nurse's name.