The best ghost stories begin at night. Or at least, they're told at night. In the darkness, around campfires, in tents, without the comfort of four walls around us, without the comfort of blankets to dive under, we forget our rationality. We forget that we know things about the world; there are no such thing as ghosts. A branch brushes the back of our neck, and no matter what we know, when we've been thinking about ghosts, we scream. It's exhilarating.
Near wouldn't know. Near has never been camping. Near has never been outside the antiseptic world of white walls and foam computer chairs, whirring electronics and fluorescent lights. Near has never watched a horror movie, or read anything by Misters King, Cortázar or Lovecraft. He has certainly never had someone whisper anything frightening in his ear, in a hushed voice, clutching a flashlight or a stick for holding marshmallows.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
A year ago, they'd moved the SPK headquarters back to Winchester. With funds depleted after the Kira case, Near had required himself to work steadily at cases with financial benefits and rewards. In the mean time, there was property to be sold, in a number of countries around the globe. Enough to finance Near's trip home and the continued running of the orphanage, as well of the salaries of the SPK- now simply assistants to the detective N. Not to mention healthy Christmas bonuses, on account of having destroyed the single greatest threat to the freedom of humankind in the history of the world.
Halle and Gevanni had celebratory sexual intercourse in the conference room. Near took the cost of the disinfecting of the room out of their wages; not because he had to, but in hopes of encouraging them never to do so again. The measure was successful. In the heat of the moment, the couple had forgotten the omnipresent surveillance cameras, or perhaps hoped that Near wouldn't be reviewing the footage, and wouldn't know that biological fluids had been dribbled all over his table. He also provides pamphlets about government policy on maternity and paternity leave. Never did he pretend not to be slightly sadistic.
The new house isn't wired for surveillance yet. He considers the delay unpardonable. It would be possible to use N's reputation to cut through the red tape of work permits and safety codes, but to do so without revealing the position of his new headquarters would be needlessly complicated. He pads through the halls in his socks, along next to the plastic wrap the builders had left, the strings of wires and sawdust. The floorboards creak under his feet; he'll need to fix that too. At this rate, the mansion will be ready by the time he's ready to retire. He takes a sip of his milk carefully, one hand on the banister as he climbs the curved stair up to his bedroom.
Near doesn't know this either, but the new headquarters are the perfect setting for a ghost story. It creaks, and moans in the wind. It has banisters and hardwood, plaster walls and tall windows, French doors and bells to ring maids that no longer live just outside a set of baize doors. All the cleaning is outsourced, as it were, to the company that handles the running of the orphanage. Melinda is the one who vacuums Near's room. He's explained to her hot to do it in a way that doesn't leave troublesome lines all over the carpet. Near suspects she hates him almost as much as he hates carpet lines. The servants quarters have been converted to a storage room; super computers and filing cabinets both.
The shutters bang open and closed. It's because of the drafts. Air pressure shifts in the house give Halle chronic nosebleeds the first three weeks they live there. She complains constantly, and Near looks green at the sight of every wastepaper basket full of bloody tissue. Gevanni starts to mutter about the bitch of a house, and no one takes him seriously. Near murmurs about carpet lines, and no one listens to him, either. Tension is rising, tempers are starting to flare. Gevanni and Halle have a lovers' quarrel that nearly prompts Near to dismiss them both. The brief relationship ends, and Gevanni goes out and drinks. Rester talks Near out of firing the wayward agents, on the grounds that training replacements would be troublesome. He is forced to agree.
Emotions are plainly a waste of time. Near settles down to his power ranger action figures, and begins to work on cases. He starts at three am that morning and continues solidly until midnight, pausing only to take bites of food between flipping pages. He stops once, at six forty eight precisely, to allow himself to think;
'Mello would never have been able to work like this.'
Then he continues with the cases.
oooooooooooooo
The highlight of Near's first year as the new L is his domino castle. It comprises of over ten thousand pieces, employs enough tricks and careful calculations to make an engineering student drool. It keeps him rational and calm through the unprofessional melodrama, through the countless frustrations and humiliations of having to pick up the title he'd so coveted, only to find it in ruins. It's an easy distraction while he solves the matter of the financial destitution.
It reminds him that there are more important things to work on, that he will have a chance to select the cases he wants. It will be soon. It has to be, or he may very well start going crazy.
oooooooooooooo
If he had been raised by his parents, his father would have delighted in reciting, as they were told to him, various tales and exaggerations about family members and history; the grandfather who vanished and returned years later, without memory of anything that had happened. The strange lights in the windows the night of his mother's birth. The green hand that lived in the lake and only came out to hunt for little children once a year! Then Near would have shrieked and laughed, as his father grabbed his ankle to demonstrate and started to tickle him, and his mother would have made soft comments about not getting him riled up before bed.
In the middle of the night, he would probably have crawled into bed with them. Neither would have minded that at all. Snug as a bug in a rug, he'd have gone to sleep, hair twirled around one finger, head tucked lovingly under his mother's chin. He would have been normal; brilliant, vivacious, gifted, and shy, but socially graceful and prone to laughter.
His parents were killed when he was very young. Near has never been told a ghost story. So when he slides his feet off the edge of the bed and sets them on the floor, only to have something grip his ankle from under the bed, his reaction is to feel faintly perplexed. After a moment, he looks down. There's nothing there. He stands, then kneels, and peeks underneath. There's nothing there. He would suspect himself of imagining it, except that he's fairly sure he didn't. It's possible the fabric of his pyjama pants snagged and pulled, giving him the illusion of having his foot held. That's an unlikely explanation, so Near goes to the doctor for a complete health check and neurological work up, just in case it means something is wrong.