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Lockwood had always known, in his youth, that he would be the first to die. A part of him had welcomed it; better to leave than to be left . But he hadn’t died, he’d lived. Grown, gotten married, had children, even grandchildren now. By any standard of measurement, he’d lived a good, full life. How strange, how ironic, that he was the last one of Lockwood & Co. still living.
Kipps was the first to leave them, unexpectedly passing at seventy-five. Good old Kipps, his curls gone a soft, faded gray, still sharp-tongued and irascible after the first stroke. It had been the second that had taken him. Dear Holly passed at seventy-eight, not long after a bout with pneumonia she hadn’t been able to fully recover from. George, his darling George, gone at eighty, an aneurysm that had taken him in his sleep. Flo, his wife in everything but law, had never been the same after George’s passing; she had bidden their children and grandchildren farewell, gotten on the Matilda and sailed down the Thames, never to be seen again. Lockwood had only known she was dead when he awoken in the middle of the night to See her, for the first time in decades, standing by his bedside. Flo had been the young unwashed queen of the river that he remembered from their youth, her eyes dark and calm and fathomless. She raised a hand in farewell and then she was gone. That’s when Lockwood knew.
And Lucy, oh Lucy, first and last and always, passing away in her garden at eighty-nine, simply going to sleep among the forget-me-nots that one of their daughters had planted and never waking up. Her fingers curled around the little diamond necklace he had first given her, so many years ago. That necklace was buried with her; their eldest daughter had Celia Lockwood’s sapphire now.
Lockwood knew his children feared for him, after Lucy’s passing. That he would sink into despondency, lose the will to live entirely, quite simply dying of a broken heart. But he hadn’t. Here he was, ninety-six years old, mostly bedridden these days, and had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. It was almost like having Sight again, turning his head and seeing things that were not there. They were mostly the people he lost—his parents, Jessica, Lucy, George, Kipps, Holly, or Flo. Even Barnes made an appearance once, good old Barnes. They’d be doing the things they’d done in life—Holly a pen and pad in her hand, ready to take notes. George hunched over a book, looking up to glance over Lockwood in bed. Lucy sketching something, her charcoal pencil moving in sure, steady lines across the paper. They’d appear to him in different stages of their lives—children, teenagers, adult, middle-aged. Once he swore he saw a baby version of Lucy sitting with him. But that turned out to be one of his great-granddaughters, and he’d had to make the effort to simply call her “darling” rather than try to remember her name.
He was on hospice care now, after surviving one heart attack and a fall in the shower that had broken his neck while he was in his eighties. He still lived in 35 Portland Row, though the sitting room had been converted to bedroom for him. Some days he felt well enough to make it up the stairs, sleep in the master bedroom he’d shared with Lucy. Other days he did not. He slept a lot, and he didn’t mind. In sleep, he dreamed.
“Dad,” he heard a voice call from the bedside, “Dad?”
Lockwood opened his eyes, blinked. Seemingly a younger version of himself gazed back at him from the side of the bed, only this young man’s eyes were hazel, not brown.
“Hello Jamie,” Lockwood said, smiling at his oldest son, his second child, the only boy among girls for so long, until Lucy had the twins, Amalia and George. The hysteria that had ensued with the nurse showed them two heartbeats! Lucy had laughed until she cried while Lockwood had babbled.
Ah yes, Jamie and his wife Amaya were here, because they always came for Sunday dinner. Jamie smiled down at him and said, “I’ve brought the kids. Do you want to see?”
Lockwood did, and his hospital bed was slowly eased upright so he could see, and a parade of grandchildren went by him. Lockwood kissed whoever he could reach, and touched the faces of those he couldn’t. So many children! His eldest daughter Sara had four children, Jamie had two. Their younger sister Norah had one daughter, Jessamine. Amalia, called Mollie by the family, had four, and George had three. Most of them had grown up and gotten married with even more children of their own. Lockwood could remember all of their names, most days.
Sunday dinner was a roast chicken, because Lockwood couldn’t really handle red meat anymore, though he was proud of maintaining most of his teeth and his hair. Vain to the last Tony, he could hear Kipps laughing at him, and he would’ve replied, Can you blame me? But it made his children nervous when he spoke to people they could not see, so he only answered in his head.
Conversations flowed around him, and he let it like he was a stone in a stream. It was enough to hear the rise and fall of so many different voices, Lockwoods all, keeping the house full of laughter and talk—after being so quiet for so long. Sometimes George’s children came by too, to hang out with their Lockwood cousins. It had been a source of never-ending delight to Lockwood that Jamie had married George’s only daughter. George had only pretended to be furious about it. “Practically incest, ” he’d said over and over again, until Lucy threatened to brain him with a book.
At one point, when meal was cleared away and Lockwood half dozed in his bed, he felt the mattress dip at the side under a slight weight. “Granddad?” a girl’s voice said and he opened his eyes.
Jessamine, Norah’s daughter, looked the most like his Lucy. The auburn hair, soft mouth and stubborn jaw. Sara and Norah looked like their mother, mostly, with a bit of their grandmother and aunt thrown in, but Jessamine could’ve been Lucy at age seventeen. Yes, she had just turned twenty-five now, hadn’t she? She’d sang at Lucy’s funeral, her aunt’s voice lifting out of her, as clear and pure as silver. Jessica had a beautiful singing voice.
“Granddad,” said Jessamine again, “it’s getting late. Are you tired? Do you want to head to bed?”
“I am in bed, darling,” Lockwood replied and she rolled her eyes at him. “And I’m mostly tired these days. But tell me, when am I going to meet that young man of yours?”
Jessamine flushed prettily, and tried to scowl at him. “If you’re referring to Iwan…”
“I am,” Lockwood said.
“He isn’t my young anything,” Jessamine sniffed. “He’s just an associate.”
“Ahh,” Lockwood couldn’t help but sigh reminiscently. “I was just an associate, once.”
“Technically, you were her boss,” Jessamine retorted. “And her landlord.”
“I was a very good boss,” Lockwood protested mildly. “And a pretty reliable landlord, or so I hope.”
“Granny seemed to think so,” Jessamine teased and then her smiled flexed and faded slightly. “...Granddad?”
“Yes my darling?”
“Do you…do you miss Granny?” Jessamine spoke softly, under the cover of conversations flowing around them. Perhaps she didn’t want to be scolded by her parents or aunts and uncles if they overheard her. “You always sound so…so calm when you talk about her. Or any of them.”
It wasn’t first time he’d been asked this question. Jamie had broached it, hesitantly, after Lucy passed. Sara and Norah had both hissed at him, while Mollie and George had held their breath, as if fearing his reaction.
“No,” Lockwood said simply, the same answer he had given his children. “I don’t miss them.”
Jessamine sucked in a breath, confusion and hurt chasing themselves across her features. “What? But Granddad—”
Lockwood gently covered one of her hands with his. His callouses from swordfighting had long since faded and gone soft, but he still recognized the shape of his fingers from his father’s pictures—long fingered hands, square nails. His left pinky is slightly crooked after being broken when he was twenty five. He’d liked to tell people it was a dueling accident. The reality is he smashed it with a hammer trying to build Sara’s cot before she was born. Lucy, enormously pregnant, had to call a cab to take them to the hospital.
“I don’t miss them,” he repeated gently. “Why should I? I know I’m going to see them again. When I go, they’ll be there, waiting for me.”
Jessamine blinked rapidly, a sheen to her eyes. Lucy’s eyes, Jamie’s eyes. That clear, changeable hazel. Lockwood squeezed her hand. “You should not be sorry either, when I go. You’ll see me again, someday. It’s only a matter of waiting. I insist on it being a very long wait, though. I’ll be cross otherwise.”
“But that would be so long, Granddad,” said Jessamine, the slightest wobble in her voice.
“Well, if you insist upon it, you can miss me a little,” Lockwood said, teasing her.
Jessamine managed a shaky laugh, before quickly dashing her sleeve across her eyes. Lockwood smiled and gave her hand another squeeze. “I go to prepare a place for you,” he murmured, “That where I am, there you may be also.”
Jessamine leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Granddad.”
“I love you too, Jessa-mine,” Lockwood murmured, separating the two parts of her name in the pet name he used when she was a baby.
It was nighttime now, the meal cleared and the dishes put away, and the sitting room was awash in silver. Lockwood dozed again, half in dreams, his children’s voices quietly rising and falling in the kitchen. The night nurse would come in soon, and then Sara would be by tomorrow afternoon after work to give him the newspaper and latest magazines, George would come in on Tuesday to play chess with his son as Lockwood offered advice, and on Wednesday—
“So it finally happened,” said a voice so loud and sardonic it made Lockwood’s eyes snap open. “You took your own sweet time didn’t you, Anthony? ”
Lockwood looked around, blinking. How much time had passed? It must be the middle of the night now. Who on earth was—
A lean, ragged figure stood at the foot of the bed. It took a moment for Lockwood’s eyes to adjust, but soon he could make out spiky, disheveled hair, a mocking grin. Ragged clothing and bare feet, pants that didn’t even touch the youth’s bony ankles.
Lockwood stared, not sure if he was actually seeing the figure or not, but he decided there was no point in not making sure. “...Skull?”
The ragged youth threw his hands up in the air in mock amazement. “Finally! He gets it! He comprehends! He grasps the most basic question—”
“Okay, yes, thank you,” Lockwood snapped. “Why are you here? Out of all the hallucinations I could have, you’re the one I want to see the least.”
The youth sneered back. “ Lovely to see you too, Anthony. Why do you think I’m here, hmm? Go on, guess. Apply that incredible deductive reasoning you used to be so famous for. Or has that left you, along with most of your wits?”
“Of all the ungrateful—we gave you a proper funeral!” Lockwood snapped. “All the rites, a grave and a stone of your own, in my own family’s plot no less, not that you deserved it—”
“The least you could do for me, eh?” the youth retorted. “After I, oh I don’t know, saved your ungrateful life—”
“You did that for Lucy,” said Lockwood and the youth’s mouth abruptly snapped shut.
“Well, so what if I did,” he said sulkily. “For all the good it did me.”
“...You never moved on?” Lockwood asked, more gently than he had ever spoken to a ghost before. “Never found rest?”
“Rest? Rest?” the youth scoffed. “Oh sure, rest. After spending practically an eternity watching you lot bumble around like the lackwits you are, I think I deserved a proper vacation! I knew I should’ve ghost-touched Karim when I had the chance.” The youth fell silent again, brooding. “But I didn’t,” he said finally. “And nor should I,” the youth flared. “After all, it’s not like I’m practically the last of my kind. Type Threes are thin on the ground, you know! Your little Mollie could’ve heard me, if she’d tried hard enough—”
“Skull,” said Lockwood, addressing him directly for the first time in decades, “Why are you here? Assuming you are, and I’m not having another auditory hallucination again.”
“You don’t have the imagination to hallucinate me,” the youth sneered. “No, why do you think I’m here? Go on, Lockwood. Take a wild guess.”
Lockwood looked down at himself and around the quiet room, still silvered in moonlight. “Oh bloody buggering hell,” he said. “Am I dead?”
It was a little disconcerting to watch the youth roll his eyes so hard they were in danger of falling out of his head when previously Lockwood had only seen a skull do it. “What did Lucy ever see in you?”
“Don’t tell me you’re here to lead me to…the Other Side,” said Lockwood. “I thought I could make my way over there without any problems. I’m not leaving behind any unfinished business.”
“I’m not a ferryman,” the youth snapped. “If you can’t make it the great thereafter, then that’s your problem. I only came to see if you were really about to kick the bucket or if it was just another false alarm. You got my hopes up when you broke your neck, but you are, as ever, a monster of inconsideration.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Lockwood said. “Why are you here?”
The youth rolled his eyes elaborately. “Maybe I just came by to get a good laugh. Look at you, the great Anthony Lockwood, old and sad and gray and decrepit! Can’t deny a bloke a little well-deserved schadenfreude.”
“According to George’s research, you died at seventeen,” Lockwood recalled. “You never got a chance to grow old.”
The youth snorted. “You think I wanted to end up like this? ” he gestured broadly to the sitting room, the bed set up for him, the pill cases on the end table. “You think I wanted to get old and feeble and wretched, barely able to get out of bed, relying on some stranger to help me use a bedpan? Christ! I’d rather be dead than old.
"Look at you," said the youth. "Lying here in bed, useless. Can you tell me honestly, if it was worth it?"
Lockwood tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling. Thinking back, on the long arc of his life. The near misses, the close calls, the late nights. First on the jobs, dealing with ghosts, then again, trying to get a business off the ground so he could support a family, and then once with a newborn, again, a third time, and then a fourth time, this one with twins. Birthday parties, weddings, funerals, fights and making up. Children coming and going; voices rising in the house, then fading away into echoes.
“Yes,” he said, a great calm washing over him, the peace that surpasses all understanding. “It was worth it. A thousand times.”
That’s the thing about getting older. One lost all track of time. One minute he was a young man, full of life and love and energy. The next moment he opened his eyes, he was no longer young, not quite so full of energy, but still so full of love. Oh, how full of love he was! For his children, his grandchildren, his wife and his friends, his parents and sister, now gone, but never, ever forgotten. The love didn’t go anywhere. It stayed.
The youth stared fixedly out the window out onto the darkened street. The ghost lamps had long since been extinguished and dismantled. “Was she happy?”
This time Lockwood didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “She was.”
“Well,” the youth muttered, “I guess that’s alright then.” He snuck a glance at Lockwood, his eyes glinting. “Time’s nearly up.”
Lockwood blinked, and looked down at himself. When he had gotten out of bed? And with no help or any pain?
A voice came from behind him, familiar enough to make his heart stop. “Anthony?”
He turned and there she was, Lucy standing in the doorway. She was at once just as she was the last time he’d seen her, an old woman with a wicked smile and lines around her eyes, then she was the young woman he married, shining and radiant, then she was the teenager he first met, brave and unflinching, somehow all at the same time. She was young and old and new and familiar all at once. “Hello, Luce,” he said, stepping towards her. Suddenly they were sixteen and fourteen again, rapiers in hand, standing before a threshold. “When did you get here?”
“I was just waiting for you to show up,” said Lucy, her eyes sparkling in the dark. “Though I see Skull has been keeping you company.”
“So he has,” Lockwood agreed, even as the youth objected strenuously, “Don’t lump me in with this wreck! I just happened to be stopping by, in case he was actually about stop wasting everybody’s time and finally shuffle off this mortal coil.”
Lucy spared the youth a glance; she kept holding out her hand to Lockwood. “Are you ready, Anthony?”
Lockwood took a deep breath, pulling in air that sparkled like sharpened metal in his lungs. The sight of her was like a great weight being lifted off of him. Shedding a heavy, wet coat and stepping into a warm, cozy dressing gown, sinking down into a bath after a hard day’s labor.
“Yes,” he said, taking her hand in his. “I’m ready.”
They made no move to step over the threshold yet. There was still some unfinished business.
“Skull,” said Lockwood casually over his shoulder, Lucy’s hand in his, “are you sure you don’t want to come with us? To whatever’s waiting?”
“What, the shining London? That’s not meant for me,” said the youth flatly. “And besides, being stuck with you two for all eternity? Can’t imagine anything worse.”
He did not meet their gazes as he said it, though. Not even when Lucy addressed him directly, “Thank you for keeping him company. Until I could come and get him.”
The youth muttered something unrepeatable, fading back into the shadows, until there was nothing left of him but a slight flash of green in the dark. His barely there “ you’re welcome,” was already a fading echo as Lockwood turned to Lucy and said, “Well, Luce, shall we go?”
She smiled at him, their hands linked against the dark, just like it should be. “Come on, then. Everyone’s waiting.”
He could hear them even now, as he stepped over the threshold. George, Holly, Flo, Kipps, and then three voices rising above the rest, wrapping around him like an embrace, “ Welcome home—”
“It was only a shadow or a copy… And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream.”
—C.S. Lewis