Excerpt
[From 'The God of Lost Things Or Ethel, Dragonslayer' by Danie Ware]
The pier's planks are rotting, but they hold.
Trying not to look between them at the seethe of grey below, I walk carefully, staying tight to the once-white buildings so I can't be seen from the shore. There are old stalls here, faded signs that offer churros or tarot readings, something else that might once have been a shooting gallery. But I bypass all of that, stopping only to peer though the grimy window of the main arcade.
Here, the junk is piled—Aubrey's pictures hadn't quite captured the scale of this apparent dragon's hoard. The light is poor, but I can see that the stuff at the bottom is older, crumbling almost to nothing. It's rust and verdigris, and…
…and it's bones, some yellow with age.
I stop dead, caught like a fish on a hook, staring to double- check. Those are bones, all right. A spread hand, tarsals and meta-tarsals; the unmistakable curve of a skull, its eyesocket empty.
Was this what had happened to Eva? To Aubrey? Are they here, somewhere?
And who—or what—has brought them here? Like so much junk?
And was that same something now calling me?
Invading my dreams?
It seems highly likely. A flare of adrenaline brings focus, tight and strong. Corrupted spirits do happen, damaged by trauma and cruelty, by sick memories—you might call them 'ghosts'—and I have seen them before. I am no hero, but a long and full life has given me weapons of my own.
And now, I think I'll need them. I raise the little crystal, the same one I'd shone from my window, and I let it glitter in the cloud-slants of sunlight. I remember my husband, the most magical times of our long, long marriage and I call to them once more.
Come.
This time, though, it's not casual. This time, I offer them wonders, fragments of sparkling light. My wedding day, the home we built together. Laughing as we stood in the garden.
And I say, Come to me.
I think of little Eva, of the sheer ferocity of her need to run away. Of Aubrey, and his wedding ring, and his camera. Of all the times when I have been the happiest, or the most broken-hearted. Not only the day of my wedding, but the night I finally lost my dear Stanley.
The recollections are strong. The spirits are noticing me, now, stirring and turning and drifting past my shoulders. They're curious, touching me with unseen fingers, with thoughts that drift and whisper. They can feel me, and it's making them responsive.
What is it? I ask them. What's here?
But that brings sparkles of fear, and they shy away. Despite my offerings, they are suddenly smaller, almost like a seaside's children, playing at the penny arcades. They part, and for a moment I see, just as I had done the previous evening, that there is something else behind them, something darker and older, and far, far bigger.
Something twisted.
Gooseflesh flashes down my arms, my back.
This was what I had been dreaming about, and now, I remember. Past the derelict funfair, at the pier's very end, there's an observation point. There's a telescope there, the kind you could once pay a pound to use.
And there's something else, something that says to me, as I have said to its underlings:
Come.
