I screamed, loudly.
Sitting on top of the clean laundry on my bedroom chair was an honest-to-goodness ghost. A boy of about my own age, but in a transparent grey. I kept screaming.
My door banged open and Duncan stood there in a t-shirt and boxer shorts. “What the bloody hell are you screaming about?” he demanded, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “I thought you were being murdered!”
“Ghost!” I whispered pointing at the chair.
The boy in the chair sat up, startled. “You can see me?”
“Yes, I can see you!” I didn’t take my eyes off the ghost as I scrambled off the bed towards the reassuringly solid frame of Duncan. “Go away!”
Duncan looked at me like I was mad. “I guess you were having a nightmare? Don’t worry, I’m going!”
“Not you.” I clung to Duncan.
He looked extremely surprised. Normally I avoid being anywhere near him.
“Can’t you see him?” I asked Duncan, digging my nails into his arm.
“It was a bad dream,” Duncan said in a soothing voice, as though dealing with a child. “Go back to bed.” He shook off my hand and slid out of the door before I could display any more unusual behaviour, shutting it behind him.
I made a move to open it and run after him, but the ghost held up his hands as if surrendering. “Please wait! I promise I won’t hurt you.”
I looked at him suspiciously.
“Please,” he said again, “I’ve been here for years and no one has ever been able to see me.”
“Here?” I was horrified. “In my bedroom?”
“Well, I can go anywhere in the house, but I like it in here best.”
“You’ve been watching me all the time?” I was getting mad. “Like some kind of Peeping Tom?”
He had the audacity to smile. “Nothing else to do. I like watching you.”
I put my hands on my hips. “As in, when I’m getting changed?” I shuddered to think of all the things he might have seen. Somewhere in my anger at being spied on I had lost my fear of him.
“Yes,” he confirmed cheerfully. Then, seeing my expression, he added, “I don’t follow you into the bathroom though. I think you should have some privacy, and some things are best left unseen, don’t you agree?”
“Oh, well, that’s alright then!” I said furiously. “I suppose I should be grateful you have some limits, you bloody pervert!”
“Now, now, Emily. I’m only human. Well, sort of, anyway. You didn’t know I was here; there was no harm in it. Spying on your parents is pretty dull, though sometimes I hang out with Duncan and watch him play computer games, but it’s boring when you don’t get a turn.”
I sat back down on my bed. “How long have you been here? What happened to you? What’s your name?”
“I’m Peter.” He held out one hand as though to shake mine but I leaned back away from him.
“Ah, yes, right, can’t shake anyway,” he said, not in the least offended.
“How long have I been here?” He sat back down on my pile of clothes and tapped his lip thoughtfully. “Quite a while I think. For a long time before you came, anyway.”
“What happened to you? You don’t look very old to be, um, dead.”
He couldn’t have been more than sixteen himself, and actually he would be kind of handsome if he wasn’t all grey and ghosty.
He smiled. “It’s a great story. My whole family were butchered to death right here in this room. It was a bloodbath. We never found out how the killer got in, and they never caught him, he could still be around now. My four brothers are still here too, roaming around the house, spying on any naked girls they can find.”
I put my hands over my mouth in horror, looking round the room for some signs of blood on the carpet or walls. “I feel sick.” I genuinely thought I might throw up.
“I was just joking!” he said, seeing my white face.
“What? You sleaze rat! You scared the spit out of me. What really happened?”
“Well, it was early in the eighteen hundreds, and I was working as a chimney sweep. I was getting a bit big for the job and I got stuck in that chimney there.” He nodded at the chimneybreast that ran from the living room up through the house. “My boss got me from a workhouse and was a cruel man. No one cared that I didn’t come back out, in fact my bones are still just behind that wall.”
I looked at the chimneybreast with concern but I didn’t react quite as badly this time. “Are you serious? It sounds like something from a bad movie.”
“Hmm, you got me, I think it is from a bad movie actually.”
“Peter!” If he’d been solid I would have whacked him.
“OK, OK, well, there was this great white shark…”
I folded my arms and glared at him.
He smiled ruefully. “Sorry, so much time on my own, I think I’ve gone a bit peculiar. The truth is that I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything much about my life at all. I know I’ve here since before television was invented. It totally brightened up my dull existence when I saw my first TV show. I love TV!”
He looked longingly at the small television in my room. “You couldn’t put your ‘Friends’ DVD on for me, could you? The one where Phoebe teaches Joey to speak French? I love that episode, it’s hysterical.”
I groaned, but got up, flicked through the box set and inserted the requested DVD. I put the sound on low and climbed into bed. I was just plumping up the pillows behind my head to watch it better when Peter sidled onto the bed next to me.
I gave him a look, but moved over slightly so he could lie next to me comfortably, though why I cared about the comfort of a ghost was beyond me; surely he could just sort of float?
One of my arms drifted downwards and went through his stomach. It felt cold, but nothing more. I pulled my arm back.
“Emily?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“How come you can see me now? You never could before.”
My eyes snapped open wide. “Because it’s gone midnight,” I said, slowly letting it sink in. “And I’m now a witch.”
“Oh, right.” He seemed to accept that without question. Then he looked excited. “You could help me cross over! I seem to remember that only a priest or a witch can help a stuck spirit to the other side, is that right?”
“I don’t know, sorry. I’m kind of new to all this. I’ll ask my aunt tomorrow.” I yawned and tried to focus on the show as my eyelids drifted closed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
My eyes snapped open. It was daylight and I was in bed alone. I wondered if it had all been a dream after all, and then the tapping noise started again.
I glanced at the clock, feeling disorientated; it was already half past ten in the morning. I guess my father let me sleep in because it was Saturday.
I looked around for the source of the noise. A huge crow was standing on the sill right outside my window.
“Come on, witch, open up!” Surely the bird didn’t just say that?
I approached the window tentatively. “Hello?” I said, feeling stupid.
The bird tipped his head to one side. “Hello,” he answered quite distinctly, “any chance of opening the window – its bleeding freezing acorns out here.”
I must be going mad, I thought. I considered shouting for my father. Aren’t crows supposed to be evil? But this one could talk. Maybe it was some kind of rare parrot?
“Look, lady,” the crow said, “I ain’t got all day whilst you dither, I’m here on a matter of business.”
I opened the window an inch. “What kind of business?” I said suspiciously.
“I’m ’ere as your new Familiar.” He ducked his head to me, in what I guessed was a respectful gesture.
“My Familiar?” The word itself sounded, well, familiar. “Is this a witch thing?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’ve just come into your powers; I figure you don’t have a Familiar yet?”
“Well, no.” I cracked the window open a little more, still suspicious. “Who sent you?”
“No one sent me. I heard the gossip, of course. There’s lots of gossip when a new witch gets her powers, and you’re radiating power; all the animals can sense it.” His beady eyes were fixed on mine.
“So let me get this straight,” I tried to get my sleep-addled brain working; “you heard I needed a Familiar, and so you flew over here to offer your services?”
He bobbed his head. “The early bird catches the worm, if you’ll excuse the pun.”
“I see,” I said thoughtfully, but I wasn’t sure about it at all.
“You’ll get a lot of cats applying for the position,” he went on, “but I can be much more useful, take messages for you, spy without being noticed. I know owls are popular right now, but honest, gov, owls are useless, they sleep all day and keep you up all night asking for dead mice. I fend for myself and I’m house-trained too, I don’t poop indoors.”
“Um, good,” I said, wondering if perhaps I was still dreaming. “So what’s in it for you? Why would you want to be a Familiar? Wouldn’t you rather just do what you like?”
“It’s worth it, especially for a bird.” He answered. “Gets me higher up the ‘pecking order’ if you’ll excuse another pun. I’d be under a witch’s protection. No one messes with a Familiar; I could even taunt the foxes.”
If a bird could smile then I’d swear he was smiling at that idea.
I shook my head, trying to clear my brain. “How come I can hear you talking?” I narrowed my eyes on him.
“Because you’re a witch now.” He gave me a look that said “Duh!”
I mulled that over for a minute. “Why do I need a Familiar?”
“All witches have a Familiar!” He seemed shocked by the question, so I didn’t pursue it. I figured I had a lot more reading to do if I wasn’t going to look as thick as two short planks in this new world.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Bob.”
“Bob?”
“What’s wrong with Bob?” He looked offended.
I felt bad for insulting him. “I guess I was expecting something more otherworldly,” I said lamely.
“What, like Rumplestiltskin?” If a bird’s eyes could roll, this one’s did. He grumbled quietly for a bit, then clarified, “It’s short for Blackbobhead. But I prefer Bob.”
“Yes, I can see why. Bob, thanks for stopping by and all that…”
“Listen, lady…”
That was the second time he’d referred to me as lady. “Don’t call me that, it makes me sound old – I’m only fifteen. No, hang on, it’s my birthday today, I’m sixteen!” I felt all giddy and happy to finally be sixteen.
“If you take me on then I would call you Mistress,” Bob said.
“Really?” I sort of liked the sound of that.
He cocked his head, “Wanna give it a trial run? Just call when you need me. I’ve memorised the timbre of your voice now and we birds have an amazing sense of hearing.”
“OK, Bob, you’re on. Come in. Come and meet Casper, I mean Peter, he’s my ghost.” I had totally lost my grip on reality now.
“Peter?” I called, unable to see him anywhere.
His head appeared through the wall. “Oh, good, you’re up. I got bored when the DVD finished, and I can’t put on a new one. Could you put the next series in for me?” His body followed his head into the room.
“This isn’t the time for watching TV,” I said. “It’s my birthday and it looks like I’m definitely a witch.”
“A very powerful witch,” Bob said proudly, “and born on Halloween too? A very powerful witch indeed.”
“Yeah, but all that Halloween stuff is just nonsense, isn’t it?” I said, suddenly not sure if it was or not.
Both Bob and Peter gasped at my ignorance. “It’s All Hallows Eve!” Bob chided me. “The veil between this world and the next becomes very thin – a lot of spirits creep through, especially those that are invited, and they bring a lot of magic with them. The air literally hums with it. Everything you do on Halloween is more powerful, and being born on the 31st of October makes you doubly powerful. The planets line up in the same place they were at when you were born; don’t you think that would have some effect? Not to mention that this particular Halloween is also a full moon. It’s like a cosmic overload out there today.”
“So, I’m like the witch version of ‘The Omen’?” I felt really out of my depth.
“I don’t know ‘The Omen’, Mistress, but I do know you need to be careful, today of all days, not to do anything stupid.”
I sighed, “Why do people keep telling me that?” I had a feeling that maybe I should just spend the day in bed with the duvet over my head.