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Dog, the Scottish Terror
See Edwin calls it the “Infamous Puppy Debacle” because that’s all he wants Charles to remember of the incident. Truthfully, that’s all Edwin wants to remember of that horrid night, more wretchedly embarrassing than anything else.
It was December of 1994. They had been hired by the ghosts buried in the churchyard of St. Swithin because they could feel someone, or something, disturbing their graves.
If Edwin had known then what madness would seize him during this case, he would have refused the clients before they stepped through the door, before they even stepped into London. He would have sent them a strongly worded letter via the ghost postman.
Turn back, the letter would read. Get someone else to solve your case. Or, better yet, just suck it up. Your stuffed rabbit is nothing but tatters in your casket and the memory of it you carry around with you is perfectly serviceable. Rupert does not need his kneecaps anymore because he is dead and just because someone had snatched Poppy’s wig right off of her skull does not mean she must be spiritually bald as well. We’re ghosts for Christ’s sake. Tell her to pull herself together and learn how to alter her spectral form as she sees fit.
Kind regards,
Edwin Paine
Dead Boy Detective Agency
Est. 1990
However, Edwin was not gifted with the curse of prophecy so he had no way of knowing how this case and his actions during it would continue to haunt him decades into the future. All that he knew at the time is that they had just finished a string of particularly harrowing cases. Their first demonic possession was followed by a run-in with a vampire colony and the less to be said about the Case of the Unfair Folks the better.
The point is that Edwin and Charles were about to find out their limit. The scant two weeks between the Case of the Unfair Folks and the Great Puppy Debacle were spent not researching the occult or exploring London’s magical underground, but lying about their office listening to Charles’ sports radio.
So when Esme, Rupert, and Poppy appeared at their doorsteps representing the some fifteen ghosts interred at St. Swithin’s graveyard with a seemingly straightforward case regarding graverobbing - something Edwin and Charles continue to deal with at least five times a year - this seemed to be a welcome respite from the more demanding cases they have been taking on and the mind-numbing mundanity of listening someone describe a cricket match to you.
So that was how Edwin and Charles had found themselves in the small civil parish that, before becoming engraved in Edwin’s memory as the site he was overtaken by insanity, housed St. Swithon, its aging groundskeeper, and not much else.
Well, there was the -
“Puppy!” At the sight of the horrible little beast, Charles fell to his knees and opened his arms for the thing to jump into and start licking his face, yipping and barking in delight. For the record, it was the dog that was yipping, but noises that Charles was making were the closest human equivalent. “Aren’t you lovely? Are you watching over the graves? Keeping them safe, yeah? What a good boy!”
“He’s not doing a particularly good job of it.” Edwin said, keeping a safe and respectful distance from the dog. It wasn’t, Edwin believed at the time, a Church grim. Nor did he believe the mutt to be his greatest nemesis. He was later proven wrong on both accounts later that evening. “After all, the residents of this gravesite had to hire us after all.”
“Oi, he’s doing the best he can.” Charles nuzzles his face into the dog’s filthy belly. The dog has this look on its terrible, small face like it has never known such happiness before. “Aren’t you? You are! What a good puppy!”
“Charles, the dog is fully grown.” But Charles wouldn’t hear word of it. He never does. Every dog is a puppy, no matter how geriatric it was, all cats were kitties, and all birds were birdies. Such is the reality of Charles Rowland.
Animals adored Charles, rightfully so, almost supernaturally so. If Charles stood still in an area long enough, invariably the local stray dogs or cats would appear from seemingly nowhere to receive adoring pets from that beloved hand.
On the other hand, there was Edwin, whose relationship with these animals was one of mutually respectful indifference. Edwin was allergic to cats when he was alive and while he wasn’t afraid of dogs, he does not have many memories of good experiences with them. His father’s hunting dog, James, was well-behaved and impeccably trained, but the one thing that his father could never teach his loyal hound was that Edwin was his son and not a skittering rabbit. James would chase Edwin all over the estate, to the endless amusement of his parents and siblings. Their amusement wasn’t even cruel, which somehow made the whole thing worse.
(There were small moments in hell when Edwin would be so delirious from blood and limb loss that he would think that it was all training for this. Then the baby-doll-spider would find him and the horrors would begin again.)
He would always let Charles take the lead when they had to deal with animals during the case and in this particular instance, Charles’ lead allowed the dog - just called “dog” by the groundskeeper - to stay at their heels as they investigated the graveyard.
The graves were undisturbed, lush green grass springing from the ground. Tombstones were filthy with decades of dirt and moss. Charles and Edwin phased through the six feet of soil to see that the caskets were untouched by everything save for time.
But, as their clients reported, there were fifteen bodies with various missing trinkets or bones.
The odd thing, however, was the nature of the stolen items. Nothing that was taken was of any notable monetary or magical value. The button eyes of Esme’s rabbit were missing, but the coral rosary she had offered up as payment was untouched. Rupert “don’t got no kneecaps no more, guv” but his gold tooth was still firmly in his skull. Rupert admitted he wasn’t a particularly pious person in life, was “on me knees for, erm, different reasons”, so his kneecaps would hold no value as a spell component. Poppy’s wig was taken, but not the cursed opal necklace that most definitely took her life remained around her neck.
Edwin’s fairly confident that the cursed opal is what protected St. Swithin from graverobbers. That’s what got Rupert in the end, anyway.
Edwin had surfaced from the graves before Charles and was sitting cross-legged on the grave of Theresa Smythe, 1845-1902, with The Book of Oberon open on his lap. He had looked to Charles, who was playing with the awful thing. It was making these terrible whimpering sounds while Charles was out of sight. Edwin swore the creature looked disappointed when Edwin was the first to return from one of the graves.
That disappointment was quickly eradicated the moment Charles’ head poked out from the grave of Sebastian Sinclair, 1914 -1920. If Edwin was capable of looking upon Charles and the horrid creature objectively, he would admit that they made a very sweet and silly image. Charles didn’t even bother to fully exit the grave. Everything below his waist was still underground while he played with the little worm.
In talking back and forth, Edwin and Charles were fairly confident that this was the work of some mischievous spirit. A prank being played by some sprite or perhaps even one of the souls buried here. They had resolved to watch the graveyard on a stakeout tonight and then return to London the next day to question Esme, Rupert, and Poppy further on their ghostly neighbors and see if they could share their locations. It’s not as if ghosts are bound to their burial places.
If Edwin was in possession of the gift of prophecy but somehow still allowed himself to get to this point, this is the where he would have them turn back. Underneath the light of the full moon, seemingly bigger in the countryside than in London where it competed for space in the sky, he would have hit Charles upside the head with his cricket bat while he wasn’t looking and stuffed him into his bag of tricks. Edwin would have slung the bag over his shoulders and mirror-hopped to Greece, which he always hears is lovely this time of year.
Unfortunately, what happened instead was this.
The phrase “mind over matter” defines existence as a ghost. Even after the thread of life is severed, untethering the spirit from the body, the memory of the body remains imprinted onto the spirit. Much like how water will remain - however momentarily - in the shape of a sphere after the balloon has been popped, so does the spirit echo the shape of the body after death.
However, gravity is a fact of life much like death or destiny or dreams. The water will eventually fall and lose its shape to take another that fits more naturally and a ghost, when depleted of energy, will eventually revert to its most basic, fundamental form.
In one minute, Edwin and Charles were discussing the furniture arrangements in the office - Charles wanted to get a couch that they had no need for while Edwin wanted more bookshelves which they had a great and pressing need for - and in an unneeded blink of an eye, Edwin was alone with a palm-sized orb of sunshine where his best friend used to be.
“Oh, you’re fine, were you?” Edwin said without missing a beat. “‘On top of the world’, was it? Is this the state you expect to be able to ‘fight off twenty more vampire colonies’ in, then?”
Either one of them reverting into orbs was not necessarily a cause for panic, unless it happened while they were in the middle of running from a musket-wielding werewolf. Mostly, they took it as a sign that they were not treating themselves properly. At the time, Edwin resolved to take a break from cases for the next month at least and finally take that trip to Italy they were always talking about.
The first time it happened drove Edwin into an utter panic only for Charles to become Charles again a few hours later, stretching like a cat who had just woken up from a nap.
The first time Edwin had turned into “Orbwin” in front of Charles, Charles had stuck him in the pocket of his jacket and carried him around all day. Then he returned to the library they were haunting, placed him on a beanbag chair meant for small children to sit in for storytime, and played an audiobook of the novel they were working on together while Charles rummaged around for some construction paper and glue. Edwin “woke up” a day later with a construction paper bow tie taped to his cheek.
“Yeah,” Charles said unapologetically, crumpling a tiny suit made out of felt between his hands, “the orbs are a little bit solid. Put that in the ghost rules notebook, yeah? ”
If Edwin had the gift of you-know-the-rest and still allowed them to get to this point, he would have caught Charles in the enchanted butterfly net designed to scoop ghost orbs out of swimming pools and run as far as he could from that wretched graveyard and would not have looked back. He also probably would have spit on the graves before he left.
At the very least, he would have yelled at himself to Look a foot to your left, you fool!
But he didn’t. Instead of doing that, he was gearing up for a proper lecture. Charles wouldn’t have been able to hear it, but it was good (COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY, YOU IDIOT) rehearsal for when Charles returns to himself in a day or two.
So Edwin completely missed the look in the nuisance’s eyes, the way its tail wagged and the way it crouched down in preparation to pounce before it was too late. Until Charles was no longer floating sedately before Edwin’s eyes and was instead halfway across the field in the mouth of Edwin’s greatest foe.
Edwin stood still, staring at the space his best friend used to occupy for one, two, three seconds before his brain processed what just happened.
“Charles!”
Edwin did not get to see if anyone had come to rob the graves of St. Swithin’s. He couldn’t be arsed to give a single, solitary shit about the case. He chased after that bloody beast until the sun came up. If Edwin was still alive, surely he would have broken some bones with how forcefully he had thrown himself to the ground in an attempt to seize the mutt and retrieve the precious thing it was using as a dog toy.
Around 4 AM, Edwin remembered that he was able to use magic, which proved to be fruitless because the dog was a Church grim. To this day, he doesn’t understand how he didn’t realize. Church grims can be Scottish terriers. Who knew?
About 10 minutes after 4AM, Edwin realized he was going to need more specialized spells if he was going to contain this guardian spirit and then 30 seconds after that he remembered that all of Edwin’s books were in Charles’ bag of tricks.
So Edwin returned to chasing that awful giant rat and by the time the sun was directly overhead the next day, Edwin had Charles clutched safely in his hands.
If Edwin had been cursed with the gift of prophecy -
DON’T YOU FUCKING DO IT, YOU MORON!
(To be clear, while Edwin will insist to - well, not his dying day seeing as he’s already dead - the end of his existence that whatever it is that happened that day - which is nothing, Charles! - was the dog’s fault.
This is not fair to the dog. What Edwin did was his choice and his choice alone.)
Edwin is the brains and Charles is the brawn. Charles speaks these words as if they were fact, as if they had drawn up a contract that day they decided to become the Dead Boy Detectives. Edwin is the one who is allowed to think and Charles is the one who is allowed to do. For the most part, they are the most comfortable in these roles.
But sometimes, Charles has these flashes of brilliance so bright that Edwin can’t help but let himself be blinded like it.
And sometimes Edwin acts on hell-honed instinct, knee-jerk responses refined towards the single-point - to run and never let go. To do what he needed to do to solve the case protect himself and survive.
Still, to this day he does not understand why these instincts led him to do what he did.
Edwin took in the fuzzy, little urchin gearing up to pounce again, Charles in his most vulnerable state moments from being taken from him again, and he did not think at all.
Instead, what he did was hold Charles’ orb - his soul, his light - up to his lips and swallow it whole.
WHY WHY WHY
A few years before the Puppy Debacle, Edwin and Charles encountered an evil ghost who was trying to become more powerful by consuming the energies of other ghosts. Some things happened which were then followed by events and subsequently the matter was resolved when the evil ghost was sent back to hell by an afterlife bureaucrat. Even Death Herself could not be bothered to come for him.
After that incident, Edwin took meticulous notes on the entities that were capable of consuming ghosts for power and energy and found that pretty much all supernatural creatures had that ability. Go figure. The body served a purpose after all.
In all of his research, no author ever actually described the process of digestion or absorbing that energy. They referred to the act as “eating” or “consuming” or “feasting” but magical scholars often couched their findings in many layers of metaphor with no indication of when they were speaking literally. This has gotten them into trouble more than once.
(“What do you mean we needed to actually melt down gold for this ritual? The last spell that listed ‘liquid gold’ as an ingredient was talking about goat piss! ”)
So Edwin was not sure if the process of absorbing spectral energy was automatic like actual digestion or if it was something that required focused intention.
On the other hand, the mind is the matter when you are a ghost. Edwin thought, surely, if he just thought about it hard enough, he could stop the process from happening. Edwin does not have an esophagus, stomach, and he most certainly does not have a large or small intestine. Edwin, if he really thought about what it is that exists below the appearance of his skin, is made of glowing energy and Charles’ sphere of glowing energy is floating somewhere underneath the facsimile of his sternum.
Unfortunately, Edwin is intimately aware of what all of his internal organs look like and smell like and taste like (he had more important things to worry about at the time to concern himself with avoiding getting little bits of his lungs and stomach into his mouth) so the internal structure of his ghost form might be a tad more…anatomically correct than other ghosts’.
It does not matter how Edwin returned to London, just that he did and all the while he repeated “My insides are completely hollow. Charles is nested inside me like a matryoshka doll. I do not feel more powerful from absorbing Charles’ spiritual energy. Everything is fine” like a prayer the entire way.
Of course Edwin tried to… reach inside himself and pull Charles out. He tried going straight through his chest and he did try…going through his mouth but he was met with overwhelming resistance when he tried both avenues. He attempted throwing Charles up but he couldn’t force himself to do it and ghosts don’t have gag reflexes because why would they?
Edwin is just too aware of his body. In life, it was because he was too self-conscious. After death, it is because of the whole “I know what color my bones are” situation. It is why Charles is the one in charge of creating their disguises and why he has an easier time experimenting with his look. It is easier to imagine that which you do not have a concrete understanding of.
Edwin did not immediately return to the office because he was worried that Esme, Rupert, and Poppy would be there and that they would ask things like “So is our case solved yet?” or “Where’s the smiley one?” or “Did you eat your partner? Like some kind of fruit?”
During their time as detectives and certainly moving their office to London, Edwin and Charles (mostly Charles) have devoted time making connections and contacts with the magical underground who they could consult when outside knowledge became necessary to solve a case.
Edwin ran through his list of people who could potentially help him with this particular problem AND with whom he was willing to speak.
His first thought was Ms. Constantine, but she was abrasive, her services prohibitively expensive, and she preferred to interface with Charles rather than Edwin. He quickly crossed her name off the list.
(Also, she would laugh at him.)
His next thought was Lennox, the proprietor of the local apothecary who was also an accomplished spirit medium, but she was in the middle of an ongoing flirtation with Charles and Edwin had no interest in admitting to her what he had done to her crush. She already didn’t like him for some reason so he crossed her off the list soon after Ms. Constantine.
That is what brought him to his final resort - Jiang & Sons Funeral Directors.
He walked through the front doors, past the receptionist who greeted him with a lackluster “Welcome to Jiang and Sons. Do you have an appointment?” before turning back to flipping through his magazine.
Edwin found who he was looking for in one of the back rooms, chiseling something into a tombstone.
Holly Jiang turned to look at Edwin over her shoulder to greet him with her ever-present, ever-unnerving smile before returning to the tombstone. “Hello, lads, it’s been a while. Bollocks!” In the middle of carving the letter “E” in the name “Horace”, Holly’s chisel slipped and the whole stone split in half. With a sigh, she snaps her fingers and the stone becomes whole once more. “This is the third time this has happened today. I think the stone just refuses to become ‘Horace’, not that I blame it. Horrid name, but the customer is always right in matters of taste so who am I to judge?”
She set down the hammer and chisel to look at Edwin head on, hands on her hips. Holly looked at him up and down and said “ You’re looking cozy. “
“Hello, Holly. Hypothetically speaking…”
“Oh goody!”
“If a ghost were to be swallowed by another…supernatural entity, what would happen?”
“Well, darling, that depends entirely on the entity and the intent. What happened?”
Edwin licked his lips. He came to Holly because she was a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge relating to ghosts and the afterlife, but also she was the contact most likely to laugh at him the least. Laughing at Edwin the least does not mean he was not going to be laughed at at all so he still felt some trepidation in admitting what he had done.
Because if he did that, she would ask him why, which would cause him to think about why and he still does not have an answer.
“Charles and I were investigating a grave robbing case” Holly made a noise in distaste at that. “When Charles reverted to his…orb form. There was a Church grim…”
“Dearest, are you saying that Charles was eaten by a Church grim?”
“...yes.”
“Oh, well, in that case, it’s too late now.” Holly cheerfully picked up the hammer and chisel and returned to carving the design onto the tombstone. “Charles has already been digested in the grim’s ghost stomach. You know, it is fascinating how there are certain creatures that exist simultaneously on the spectral plane and the physical one. Grims are such creatures. I’d love to take one apart one day to see how spiritual energies are processed in physical organs and Charles hasn’t been eaten by a grim because you haven’t interrupted me to demand elaboration on what I meant by ‘digested’.” Holly rested her elbows on top of the tombstone to hold her chin in her hands. “So what really happened?”
Taken aback, though he really ought to be used to her by now, Edwin just went “I-”
“Also, my dear, if a grim did eat Charles, you either would have killed it already or at least brought it with you so I could open up its stomach and get Charles out.”
The thought did occur to him around 5AM this morning.
Holly leans closer, close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. She was feet away from him a blink ago. He should not be able to feel…anything.
“Darling, did you know that most of the time, I don’t really see ghosts in their chosen forms. Rude of me, I know, I should be better about that, but it is kind of my default way of looking at the world. I can see Charles right here,” she poked at the center of Edwin’s sternum. “Cozy, like I said.”
“And you just let me go on with my story?”
Holly shrugs, back at the tombstone in another blink. “I didn’t realize that there was a problem, did I? It just seemed to me like you and Charles were a touch closer than normal. His ball of light is just hanging about next to your ball of light. Well, ‘next to’ is perhaps misrepresenting it. The Venn diagram of the two of you is currently,” she made a shape with her hands “a circle.”
“Okay, well, how do I get him out of me? Is he in danger there? In the past, we’ve encountered ghosts who had absorbed other spirits to augment their magical ability. If he stays,” he gestured vaguely to his chest, “ there, will he be absorbed into my soul?”
Holly tilted her head. “Do you want him to be absorbed into your soul?”
Ye “No, of course not.”
“Alright, then he won’t be.” Holly shrugged. In the time Edwin had been speaking, Holly had finished carving her client’s name into the tombstone and was now chiseling in more detailed designs around the border. “Your mind is your spirit is your body. If you want it to do something, it will. If you don’t want it to do something, it won’t.”
The tension that had been putting pressure on the memory of his spine released and he sighed in relief, putting his hand on his chest where he imagined Charles to be and so he was. “So how do I get him out of me?”
“He’ll pop out naturally once he recovers from his little orb nap in a day or so. It’s really nothing to worry about.”
“He can’t just stay in there!”
“Why not?” There was genuine confusion in Holly’s eyes. “Where are you going to put him once he’s out?”
“I was going to carry him back to the office.” Edwin said stiffly. “We have a pillow -”
“And you think that’s better than where he is now? Safer? Beloved, I would have expected you both to be more careful with something so precious.”
The pillow was silk and was acquired from one of the clients Holly had referred to them, but that’s besides the point.
Holly did have a point about where they kept their orbs when one of them needed to recover. Charles had lost Edwin for 12 hours once when he had stowed him away in his bag of tricks. Edwin was in a near constant state of anxiety whenever Charles’ orb existed outside of their office.
He didn’t feel that anxiety then. He just felt warm. Like Charles was right where he was always supposed to be.
Holly stared at him for a long moment while he considered this. Holly always had this uncomfortable stare. She would look directly at you but her eyes would be focused on something through you or beyond you. When she shifts her attention to look directly at you, or what you think is you, it’s even more unnerving.
Edwin understood in that moment that what Holly was looking at, at least during that conversation, was Edwin’s and Charles' soul orbs making almost a perfect circle.
“If you really want to get rid of him,” she said, knowing exactly what Edwin wanted. “I can take him out no problem, but…”
“No,” Edwin’s hand pressed against his heart. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
1 DAY, 4 HOURS, 37 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS
In the following years, Edwin would dust off the memory of the day or so after he had swallowed eaten taken in Charles’ soul orb to see if he could finally figure out why he did what he had done with a few more years of experience to be able to look at that choice from a new angle. Decades later, he is still unsuccessful.
Storing each other’s soul orbs within themselves became standard operating procedure when one of them reverted back to that state while they were in the field. Charles has an easier time slipping his hand into his chest to pull Edwin’s sphere out of him and glue silly hats directly onto his soul.
It was safe. Comforting, even, for both the orb and the guardian. But still, Edwin cannot rest until he traces the origin of that initial impulse.
Edwin returned to the office with Esme, Rupert, and Poppy nowhere in sight and sighed in relief. They gave them no deadline for solving their case and it wasn’t exactly an urgent situation. He was sure they would not mind them taking a day or two to recuperate.
Prior to the incident, when one of them became the orb, they would return to the office. Charles would put on some music for Edwin and Edwin would read aloud for Charles. Neither of them remembered this when they woke up, but Edwin at the very least liked knowing Charles was doing what he could to make Edwin feel comfortable.
With this unexpected break, Edwin took this time to work on the Christmas village slowly but surely growing to take up an entire quarter of this office around this time of the year. Charles had gifted him a lava lamp and Edwin was trying to decide if he wanted it to represent a nearby active volcano or if the village was opening up a pathway to the stars.
Charles returned to himself the following day and immediately received the lecture that Edwin had started before that wretched beast ran away with Charles and Edwin’s good sense.
“I’m sorry for leaving you, yeah?” Charles had a contrite look on his face. Edwin resisted the urge to massage away the furrow in his brow. Charles always thought Edwin was mad about the wrong thing and no amount of explaining what he was actually upset about would be enough to overturn that initial instinct. “But we have had a run of crazy cases. How about after we wrap this one up, we go to Italy like we’ve been talking about? I bet there’s some pretty aces ghosts hanging about the Colosseum.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Edwin could not help the fond smile as he gazed down at Charles. Charles returned it with his own beaming grin.
“And,well, not that I’m complaining or anything, but why am I on top of you?”
Ah, right.
Edwin had been reclining on the couch, reading aloud from We Have Always Lived in the Castle, when Charles popped back into existence. Edwin didn’t even have the chance to feel cold without him because Charles appeared sprawled on top of him.
Edwin explained all of this, more or less, and his discovery about where they can store their soul orbs in case of emergencies in the future. Charles seemed very excited about the idea and asked no further questions.
At no point in the conversation did either of them attempt to move.
With Charles back, they were free to resume the case and Charles’ rest seemed to have given him some clarity.
“It’s probably the old old dog, the ghost of it, at least,” Charles looked up at Edwin through his lashes from where his head rested on Edwin’s chest. Edwin was suddenly grateful that he didn’t need to breathe. “That groundskeeper was bloody old and the dog was fully grown, but he was still kind of young. Lots of energy. There’s no way the groundskeeper didn’t have a dog before him. He was probably just messing about, looking for someone to play with now that his old master couldn’t see him anymore.”
Charles’ hypothesis was confirmed when they returned to the graveyard the next day. The old dog was an absolutely massive Saint Bernard that dwarfed Charles when he fell to his knees to hug the creature. The horrible little insect gazed upon them jealously and Edwin resisted urge to kick the thing.
“Oh, it was just Dog?” Esme said. The groundskeeper wasn’t the creative sort then. Shocker. “Well, that’s alright then. None of us realized that he had died. He was just a baby last I remembered.”
Poppy held out a hand to Dog, who sniffed at her spectral fingers before walking to settle at her feet. With her wig returned to her body, Poppy now had a luscious mane of red hair. “I guess we can’t be too mad at him then.”
“I can.” Rupert said, spitting spectral phlegm - which Edwin supposes is just ectoplasm - on the ground. “What was he doin’ with me kneecaps?”