𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞┃ Anthony Lockwood┃2┃

Chapter Forty Three - A Hostile, White-Nosed Imp Of Fury

Nola's sleep that morning was as deep as death. It took her a while to fall asleep, considering the attic bedroom seeped darkened memories of Agent Phillips, but once her mind finally fell silent, she was well and truly gone. And, on waking, she experienced complete disorientation. Surfacing like a free diver who had stayed below for too long, Nola found herself staring at the sunlit beams of her sweet old attic bedroom. She sat up and looked about her, and for those few short moments she was still working at Lockwood & Co, and the events of the last months were nothing more than a twisted, fading dream. Then, she noticed some of George's socks draped like weary snakes over the windowsill and piles of his garments rising like sinister megaliths at the bottom of the bed, and the world tipped back again.

She took an awkward shower in the tiny bathroom wedged beneath the eaves, keeping her bandaged arm outside of the curtain. Then, she got dressed. The bright spot there was that she had fresh clothes. On opening her door, she'd found a neat arrangement of folded items waiting on the landing step. They were all hers: things she must have left behind in her rush to leave four months before. Someone – Holly, Nola supposed – had washed and ironed them in the meantime. Nola took them in and sorted through.

The girl's body seemed light, strange and bloodless, as if she was recovering from fever. Moving slowly, she went down to the first floor landing. The walls were still decorated with odd items of bone, shell and feather: the ghost-catchers and other eastern curios brought back to England by Lockwood's vanished parents many years before. And there – closed, as ever – was the door to Lockwood's sister's room, the place where she'd died. In short, everything was as it always had been – but it was as if Nola was seeing it for the first time. Forbidden rooms, unhappy memories ... How close the past was in this house, how tightly it ringed poor Lockwood round.

Voices were coming from the living room below. It was mid-morning. The client meeting they had previously mentioned must be in progress. Nola would not disturb them. She slipped downstairs and sneaked towards the kitchen.

There was a particular creaky floorboard near the foot of the stairs. A man had once died on that spot, and George claimed the noise (which he swore had only started after the death) was an example of an ultra low-level haunting. Nola, she thought it was just a creaky floorboard. Either way, she stepped on it as she went by.

The living room door was slightly ajar. At the sound, the voices stopped.

"Is that you, James?" Lockwood called. "Come on in and join us! We've got cake."

Slightly reluctantly, Nola poked her head into the room. There they were, lit by diagonal shafts of sunlight – Lockwood and George, sitting by the coffee table, plus Holly, plus a kid Nola didn't know. There was a splendid Battenberg cake on the table, frosted with sugar, as pink and yellow as a cubist dawn. They were doing the usual client-welcome thing. Holly was in the process of pouring tea.

George glanced up. "Look, another of our clients! Got them coming out of our ears today. Check under the sofa! There's probably more hiding behind the curtains."

"Sorry." Nola said. "I didn't mean to interrupt you all. Hi, Holly."                

Holly had stopped pouring and was gazing at Nola with evident concern. "James." She said. "I'm so pleased you're all right." She frowned. "What have they done to your poor arm?"

"Oh, don't worry. It's just a graze."

"I'm talking about the bandages. That's simply the most incompetent bit of first aid I've ever seen. Lockwood, George – how much dressing did you use? I'm surprised James could fit it through the door."

Lockwood looked hurt. "It was a pretty decent effort for two am. We thought it was better safe than sorry – we didn't want to find random bits of her lying about the house when we got up this morning. Maybe you can fix it later. James, you're just in time. Come and sit down. This is Danny Skinner. He's come for our advice."