My town was bitterly cold. I pulled my scarf tight around my neck. There was a little bit of snow on the ground. The streets were empty. I saw a few people walking around, but they looked jumpy, and scared.
"Why is everyone so frightened?" asked George quietly.
"I don't know." I whispered back. I didn't know why we were whispering. We walked about two miles, before I realized we were lost. Then we turned around and headed back in the other direction.
"How do you get lost in your own town?" George wondered.
"I haven't been here in awhile, okay?" I snapped. My nerves were beginning to fray. It was funny, I could go into a haunted house, capture and kill ghosts, escape relic-people. But when confronted with facing my family I got snippy. George was quiet after that. After some time I figured out where we were and led them to the residential street I lived on.
We got to my house, and I climbed up the steps to the door. The door had been painted since I left. It was no longer white, with peeling paint. It was smooth and red. My words rang in my head, 'I hate all of you!' Did they even want to see me anymore? Lockwood put his hand on my shoulder reassuringly. I could his warmth, seeping through my coat. I raised my hand to knock, and,
"Lucy!" I whirled around, surprising Lockwood, and George, who jumped backwards.
"Skull?" I asked tentatively, glancing around. A million questions rang in my head. What was the skull doing here? How did it get here? It's not like it grew legs and walked. Was it really the skull?
"I'm in a room with another ghost!" It said, so it was here, and I wasn't hallucinating."She's inside triple iron chains! Come get me!"
"Okay! I'm coming!" I said and moved to the door. Lockwood's grip on my shoulder tightened,
"The skull's here?" He asked, "What did it say?" Oh, right. I had to relay what it said.
"It said it's in a room with another ghost." I breathed, "The other ghost is inside chains." Lockwood's slender face scrunched up in confusion, he was going to ask me something else, but I knocked on the door before he could get the words out.
"Wait!" George said, "Something's not right here, how did-" He was interrupted when the door swung open, revealing a massive man. I was to busy trying to to worry about what Mary would say when she saw me to process this immediately.
He was taller than Lockwood, and more than twice his width. He had a square jaw, and was dressed in a pair of stained jeans, and an orange sweatshirt. He had small, piggy eyes that glared down at us. His head was shiney and was completely bald. I blinked at him. Who was he? Evidently not our friend, I decided when he stuck a hand out and reached to grab me. I jumped backwards into George, and we both went sprawling along the brick path that led to the door.
"Lucy!" yelled the skull, "Come get me, they keep trying to talk to me!" I didn't know how I could do that. What was this man doing in my old house. Where was my family? What was going on?
"Harold!" shouted the man, "They're here!" Another man appeared. He was short, and had a wild mane of curly red hair. He had gentle brown eyes, and a deceivingly innocent appearance.
The big man began to run at us. Lockwood leaped off the steps towards George and I. I scrambled to my feet and started to run. Lockwood was in front of me, George was behind me. And the big man was behind us, Harold behind him.
I heard voices, and something whizzed past us. I didn't think it was a bullet, I hadn't heard a gun go off, but I wasn't taking any chances. We ran. And ran. And ran. We ignored the stares of the few people who weren't cowering inside. I didn't know what they were shooting, but they didn't have very good aim, they kept missing the three sweaty bodies that was Lockwood, George, and I. We ran until we couldn't anymore, and then we hid together behind a shrub, in front of some poor soul's house.
"I think," Lockwood huffed, "we lost them." George didn't respond, and I was to busy trying to breathe to bother about an answer. It was a little tight in the bush, I was squeezed tightly between Lockwood, and George. I could feel their warmth.
"Who were those people?" George asked me. I shook my head,
"I don't know, but they had the skull."
"And some other ghost." Lockwood added. "Makes me wonder if your mother was never sick at all, Lucy. Maybe they just wanted us to go there." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back. "Why they wanted us there is the question." Neither me, nor George had the answer.
We stayed, crouched behind the bush until the sun began to set. Then we snuck out, avoiding the two people we saw hurrying home. I saw a max total of four ghosts, all weak type ones, floating about without purpose. Lockwood said he had seem a few more, but altogether there weren't more than ten ghosts out.
"Why is everyone hiding inside if there aren't any ghosts?" I asked, quietly.
"I don't know, something fishy is going on here." George said, "I wish I knew what it was." Lockwood didn't answer. He was frowning at his feet, forelock hanging over his eye.
We got to the train station without anything out of the ordinary happening. Unless you count George having three thermoses of hot chocolate. I was glad he did, it was rich, and warm. It tasted how Portland Row smelled at Christmas time. We bought our tickets and waited around for about an hour. Nobody spoke. George was hungry, Lockwood was brooding, and I… I was worried about my family.
You shouldn't be worried about them, one side of me said, they think you enjoy risking your life. Worry about them, said my shoulder angel, they did all they could for you. I ended my internal argument by kicking an iron bench. I spent the rest of the time nursing my sore foot.
When the train arrived we hopped on and stored our duffel bags (which we had somehow managed to keep a hold of during our wild goose chase) in the overhead compartment. We sat down, and began the train ride home. I set my head in my palms and looked out the window, trying not to think about anything. It had started raining, and the water ran in rivulets down the pane, blocking my view. George pulled a notebook out of his bag and began writing something down. Lockwood was asking him about the best way to dry out his socks. We were all soaked from the knees down, and I could tell it was bugging Lockwood. It was a funny thing about him, he hated getting wet. I listened to them for a bit, then, when I grew bored of the conversation spaced out.
"Lucy!" Someone said,
"What?" I asked, jerking out of a daydream in which we solved a huge mystery and I got a raise.
"You said you heard the skull right?" George asked. I nodded,
"Yeah, it was inside my house." He scribbled something in his notebook.
"Did it mention what the other ghost was like?" He said.
"No, just that she was inside triple iron chains." He wrote something else down, shut the notebook and put it up. "Why?" I asked, "What are you doing?"
"He's putting together all the details from this trip." Lockwood said, "From when the skull vanished and-" He looked at me, "and we left. To now." He finished lamely. And when Tia came. I thought. I wished the whole stupid mess would vanish, and we could go back to Portland Row, back to work, back to my home.
"Oh." I said, and resumed my daydream. "What are we going to do now?" I wondered out loud, to worried to see what I would do with all my extra money.
"Go back home." Lockwood said wearily, "Then we're going to sleep."
"And after that?" I questioned. I wanted answers, I didn't want to have to figure out what to do next. Lockwood didn't respond immediately,
"We'll figure out then." He said, when he did answer. He seemed at just as much of a loss as I did. That shook me up a little. Lockwood always knew what to do.
The train pulled into the station, and we got off. We got a night cab back home, dropped our bags in the hallway, and went to the library, where we sat down wearily. George got made us some tea. Mine had a little to much milk, but right then it was the best tea I had ever tasted. I set my tea down, kicked off my boots and slouched down on the couch. As far as physical exhaustion goes, I had gone through far worse. But my mind was so tired, tired of worrying about my family. Tired of worrying about whether I hated them or not.
"Why did I have to say that?" I whispered quietly.
"What did you say Luce?" Lockwood asked, from his perch in his chair.
"Nothing." I said.
"Oh. Okay." He said. I looked at him from my vantage point on the sofa. He was leaning back, with his eyes closed, sitting on one of his slender legs. I closed my eyes, and let myself sink into the sofa. It would all be okay, I thought. Because I have a home here.
