Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

glow showed on the landing.
    ‘Take it from me, it’s out there,’ I said.
    ‘OK. We’re making for the door. As you pass my bed, pick up a boot.’
    We stole towards the door, with the mobile held in front of us, and peered cautiously out. There was no sign of the apparition on the landing or the stairs.
    ‘Got the boot?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Chuck it at George’s door.’
    With as much strength as I could muster I hurled it across the landing. It struck the door opposite with a dramatic thump. We waited, watching darkness.
    ‘It followed me down the stairs,’ I said.
    ‘I know. You said. Hurry it up, George . . .’
    ‘You’d have thought he’d be awake already, the noise I made.’
    ‘Well, he’s a heavy sleeper. In more ways than one. Ah, here he is.’
    At last George had stumbled from his room, blinking and peering like a myopic vole. He wore an enormous pair of saggy blue pyjamas that were at least three sizes too big for him, and decorated with garish and ill-conceived spaceships and planes.
    ‘George,’ Lockwood called, ‘Lucy says she’s seen a Visitor, here in the house.’
    ‘I have seen it,’ I said tersely.
    ‘Got any iron to hand?’ Lockwood said. ‘We need to check this out.’
    George rubbed his eyes; he fumbled at his belt-cord in a vain effort to keep his trousers from sagging dangerously low. ‘Not sure. Maybe. Hold on.’
    He turned and trudged inside. There was a pause, followed by various rummaging sounds. A few moments later George returned, wearing a gaucho-style shoulder-belt bristling with magnesium flares, salt bombs and canisters of iron. An empty silver-glass box hung beneath it on a string. He carried a coil of chain, a long, ornate-handled rapier, and had a torch poking nonchalantly from the waist-band of hispyjamas. His feet were encased in enormous boots. Lockwood and I gazed at him.
    ‘What?’ George said. ‘Few little bits and pieces I keep by my bedside. Always good to be prepared. You can borrow a salt bomb if you want to, Lockwood.’
    Lockwood hefted his tinkling mobile resignedly. ‘No, no, I’ll be all right with this.’
    ‘If you’re sure. So where’s this apparition, then?’
    With a few terse words I filled them in. Lockwood gave the order. We began to climb the stairs.
    To my surprise, the way was clear. Every few steps we stopped to look and listen, but with no result. The sense of fearsome cold had gone; the ghost-fog too had faded, and I heard nothing with my inner ear. Lockwood and George drew a blank as well. The only obvious peril was provided by George’s pyjama bottoms, which with the weight of his equipment were in perpetual danger of falling down.
    We rounded the corner at last. George plucked the torch from his pyjamas and flashed it around my room. Everything was dark and quiet. My rumpled duvet lay where I’d cast it, beside my disarranged bed. The clothes from my chair, which I must have knocked over in my flight, lay scattered on the floor.
    ‘Nothing here,’ George said. ‘Are you sure about this, Lucy?’
    ‘Of course I am,’ I snapped. I crossed swiftly to thewindow, looked down onto the distant street. ‘Though I admit I can’t feel it now.’
    Lockwood was kneeling, squinting under the bed. ‘From what you say, it must’ve been a weak one – slow-moving, only faintly aware of its surroundings, otherwise it would have caught you, surely. Maybe it’s used up its energy, gone back into its Source.’
    ‘Which would be what , precisely?’ George said. ‘Where’s this new Source that’s just mysteriously sprung from nowhere in Lucy’s room? The house is well-defended. Nothing can get in.’ He peered into my wardrobe, rapier at the ready. ‘Well, there’s nothing in here but some charming tops and skirts and . . . Ooh, Lucy – I’ve never seen you wearing that .’
    I slammed the door closed, narrowly missing his podgy hand. ‘I tell you, I saw a ghost, George. You think I’m going blind?’
    ‘No, I just think you’re deluded.’
    ‘Now look —’
    ‘This makes no sense at all,’ Lockwood interrupted, ‘unless Lucy’s brought one of our psychic artefacts up here. You haven’t, have you, Luce? You haven’t brought that pirate’s hand up for a closer inspection, for instance, and forgotten to put it back in its case?’
    I gave a little cry of anger. ‘Don’t be stupid. Of course I haven’t. I wouldn’t dream of taking anything that wasn’t properly . . . that wasn’t properly secured .