The Order of the Occasionally Occult or Arcane

Episode 002: Poltergeist at Ravenscroft Manor (Part One)

Yorkshire, England

1888

The halls of Ravenscroft Manor were old and made of stone, laid in the days of ancient and long-forgotten kings. Although the times had changed since the manor had been erected, the walls themselves retained the deep and bloody memories of the Ravenscroft family – or so the legends claimed.

It was a well-known fact in the surrounding villages that Ravenscroft Manor was a deeply haunted place. This had been the state of things for the last century; perhaps longer, although records from that far in the past were nowhere to be found. Hardly a building in that part of the world was not haunted by something  - old buildings, by their very nature, are bound to attract their own host of spirits after any substantial length of time – and it was not this fact that alerted the Order of its presence.

It was not unusual for strange things to appear in the halls of Ravenscroft. Strange sights and smells were also not uncommon, nor the occasional writing on the wall. No – these were not the things that brought the Ford Mustang Mach 1 (out of its time by a hundred years) to hide in the woods on the property. It was the presence of these things altogether, along with the fresh corpse of Lord Jonathan Ravenscroft, laying broken in the foyer.

---

Living in the Gap of Aetheril was not for the faint of heart. It was in a dark crevice of Elathor’s capital city, where the poor and outcast members of the population went to rot.

That was exactly why Jasper chose to live there.

Barty’s allowance might have afforded him a more decent dwelling, but living among High Fae society was something out of Jasper’s nightmares. The Upper City was a place for airs and propriety; for empty flattery and keeping up appearances. Since Jasper made an effort to avoid such frivolities, the Gap was exactly where he wanted to be.

His single-room dwelling was small. Sensible. Self-contained. He was not sentimental. He spent his allowance mostly on his wardrobe, the evidence of which sat in a closet on the far side of the room. Beside the closet was a rarely-used stove and a water pump. There was no bed, but a threadbare sofa with a plaid pattern that had resulted in its extremely discounted cost.

In front of the sofa, there was a three-legged table. This is where Jasper sat that morning, nursing a hangover with whiskey, black coffee, and stale cereal.

Jasper didn’t enjoy eating; at least, not in the way the others of his kind did. The Upper City dwellers were known for their lavish feasts and festivals, sporting fare every color under the sun. Jasper, however, found most food to be completely tasteless. He found no joy in the tedious act of eating, and kept himself alive with the least offensive food he could find: cereal.

There was no concept of cereal in Aetheril. Jasper didn’t think it existed anywhere in Elathor, either – and he hadn’t gone beyond the borders of his country to probe the other neighboring lands. Although Barty discouraged them from taking artifacts from the human world into the Fae realms, Jasper bent the rules for the strange human invention known as the cheery-o. Any time he visited the human realm, if the cheery-o existed at that time, he filled the back of the mustang and smuggled the boxes home.

In the other corner of his dwelling, there were dozens of neatly stacked boxes.

Besides the mustang, which had been sanctioned by the Order for its incredible ability to get through the rift unscathed, Jasper had smuggled over only one other artifact: a small, battery-powered radio, which he’d picked up in New York in 1990. The radio waves it picked up were not utilized in the Fae realms (why should they be, when they had all manner of magic at their disposal?) but Jasper had spelled it ages ago to play a certain number of songs according to his mood. Today, the human composer Beethoven filtered through the speaker, and Jasper focused on the rhythmic sound and not the taste of sawdust in his mouth.

And then came the obnoxious tapping.

The single window in his dwelling let in very little light. Mostly, this was because there was very little light in the Gap. Buried as it was beneath the streets of the Upper City, the scant natural light was muted and a strange blueish color. By this light, Jasper saw the impish face of a postal pixie glaring at him through the window.

Its sickly green color and sour expression told Jasper exactly who had sent the wretched thing. That revelation tempted him to ignore it. The pixie, however, kept pounding its thimble-sized fists on the glass, and it would, forever, until it either died of exhaustion, or Jasper let it inside.

He made his decision when the rapping became unison with the pounding headache inside his skull.

He washed the depressing breakfast down with a swish of his whiskey and stood, skulking over to the window. Jasper threw it open so aggressively that the pixie hurtled into the narrow alley with an ear-piercing screeeee!

Jasper said in a monotone, “sorry about that. Did you want something?”

Not to be deterred, the devilish little thing came flying back, shooting into Jasper’s dwelling with all the rage of an incensed hornet. It fluttered about, spewing vile threats in the pixie language Jasper had never taken the time to learn, until Jasper held out his hand.

The pixie answered by delivering into it a wrinkled note.

It read: Report. Now.

The pixie waited for a response. They were a frustrating species, loyal only to their masters. They would go to the ends of the earth to deliver a message and wouldn’t leave until they had an answer. Efficient, but irritating.

Jasper scowled up at the creature hovering in the air.

“Tell him I’ll be there in an hour,” he said.

The pixie glared back, blinking its orb-like eyes.

“Alright,” Jasper hissed. “Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

This was a satisfactory answer and the pixie accepted it, shooting back out the way it had come in. Jasper snapped the window shut, locked it, and turned the radio off on his way to grab his coat.

He needed to wash. Badly.

It had been three days since their last assignment. Three days since Jasper had encountered the strange Shadow Man in California. Three days, and in that time, Jasper had done nothing but sit in the dark, eat cereal, drink whiskey, and flex his shadows. Something had felt wrong since his encounter with the Shadow Man. Off. Something he couldn’t quite place.

And then there was Delia.

Jasper had met many people on his missions. Many of them had been beautiful. But none of them had remained in his memory very long – certainly not in his dreams.

Many times he closed his eyes and her intense gaze hovered in front of him, as though asking a question he couldn’t yet hear. As though she knew something he didn’t.

And she had known his name.

Jasper supposed there were many plausible explanations for this. Maybe she’d learned it from Orion and Zephyra while he’d been unconscious. Maybe she’d been spying, and had overheard them talking. Maybe…

He stopped that third thought before it started.

There is no before, he told himself as he left his dwelling. He locked the door behind him. Although he had no memories before becoming a Knight of the Order, he agreed with Barty on that one thing: there was no before.

Not one that mattered, anyway.

His memories were gone, and they could not be restored.

Jasper made his way to the alley. He kept the mustang under a runed tarp, spelled to ward off damage and decay. It did not, however, ward off miscreant little Fae.

The adolescent male had removed the tarp and was sitting on the hood. Jasper bared his teeth at him.

The male took a jagged blade out of his coat pocket. “Hand over the keys, mister,” he said.

Jasper’s last ounce of patience had left him with the pixie.

His fingers flexed, and though it was slightly delayed, though it left him feeling sick and lightheaded, the shadows arrived. They swarmed in from the corners of the alley, draping around Jasper’s shoulders as a cloak. The youth’s face drained of color as Jasper advanced, face darkening as he seethed, “off the car. Now.”

It was useless, however: before the Fae-child could so much as twitch, Jasper moved again and the shadows leapt for him. The Fae-child’s screams were lost in the tangible darkness as he was lifted from the car and then thrown into the alley.

The mustang roared to life as Jasper reached it. He ran his hand over the place the Fae-child had been. Jasper released the child from the shadows, but he remained in the mustang’s headlights, stunned, with skinned hands and knees.

Jasper got into the car and put it into drive.

Only moments before collision, the Fae-child began to move, scrambling out of the way. He ran down the alley and turned a corner, disappearing into the dark without looking back.

The same song he’d been listening to in his dwelling came through the mustang’s radio as he trundled through the narrow streets of the Gap. Jasper hadn’t known until the Fae-child had fled what he was going to do: would he really run him over? Or just get close enough to scare the wretched thing? The rumors about the car were spreading rapidly through the Gap, and Jasper needed a better way to hide it from miscreants like these.

He supposed fear of violence might do.

Jasper drove carefully as he ascended through the streets to the Upper City. Fae didn’t have cars – yet another human invention that was unnecessary in their world – but they’d grown accustomed to seeing the Knights of the Order in theirs. Jasper’s was known in the Gap, just as Orion’s stark-white Charger was known in the Upper Cresent (although it was still in repair after the gorgon incident). The Fae traveled with carriages pulled by elumbrae, four-legged winged creatures that faintly resembled horses if those horses also had the teeth and temperament of cats. The elumbrae were startled by cars, and that made Jasper’s an unwelcome sight in the streets of the Upper City.

So he didn’t look.

The Knights of the Order were not to be touched. Not to be bothered. Since the fall of the royal family, they were some of the only ones maintaining any sense of order in the country of Elathor. Whatever resentment the High Fae had towards them and their strange machines, they couldn’t deny that these Fae were essential in the keeping of the peace.

The drive wasn’t a long one, not with elumbrae carriages leaping aside to let him pass when they saw his approach. While Jasper had never hit anyone intentionally, no one in the Upper City (or in the Gap, for that matter) knew exactly what he might do if given the opportunity. Leaving them in this state of suspense was incredibly useful. Since, unlike Orion, Jasper had no intention of getting the others to like him, he allowed them to say whatever they would about him and his car so long as they didn’t get in his way.

The Upper City of Aetheril was one made of white stone buildings and streets that sparkled in the morning light. The Fae here were well-dressed, well-fed, and went about their days in a slow and steady measure. Unlike in the Gap, where everything was a scramble to find one’s next meal, the Fae of the Upper City worshipped idleness as their god. He’d heard a saying once – Jasper couldn’t remember where – that most of the Fae claimed the Seven Guardians as their patron. Here, however, there was an eighth: the Guardian of Leisure.

It was obvious in their clothes and in their walks and in the way they seemed to have very little purpose in the things they did. As Jasper drove, he passed shop after shop filled with trinkets and oddities that solved very few problems other than an overabundance of time. Endless restaurants serving only one type of food lined the streets, with the intention that customers would go shop to shop, visiting each one of over the course of a day. Then there were clothes, of course – endless designers and tailors and cobblers who would create anything for the right price. It wouldn’t have sickened Jasper so much if he hadn’t seen such extreme poverty in the Gap. The consequences of such idleness were not borne by the High Fae, but those living in the undercity.

Then came the legal district. This part of the Upper City housed the legislative buildings and the stately offices erected after the fall of the royal family. Although the King Regent had taken up his throne in the palace, in the decade or so since the decline of royalty, the bureaucracies that had arisen to maintain that status quo of the country had enmeshed themselves deeply into the city’s infrastructure. Where once had been the rolling lawns of the palace grounds were now towering buildings filled with High Fae bearing political ambitions.

One of these was the Hall of the Order, and the domain of Bartholomew Threeves.

Bartholomew Threeves was a male disliked by everyone who had the misfortune of knowing him. Known as “Barty” by his subordinates (who never dared to call him anything but “sir” in his presence), he was obsessed with appearances and ever seeking the approval of the High Fae.

Jasper didn’t know for certain – but this sort of groveling, he supposed, was how he’d found himself at the head of the Order.

Since the fall of the royal family, Barty’s operatives, known as Knights of the Order, had worked with the King Regent of Elathor to maintain the peace between them and the seven other kingdoms. The fact that Barty’s position was one of high power was not lost on Jasper.

He parked the car where the elumbrae carriages were typically kept, behind the Hall of the Order. The elumbrae keepers gave him exasperated looks but said nothing; they were very well acquainted with the mustang by now, and knew to leave it alone.

The pain in his joints and the migraine steadily tightening its grip over his skull did not stop Jasper from walking into the Hall of the Order with a straight spine. He’d had no time to style his hair in its usual fashion, but his clothes were clean and he used all of his energy to summon that pride he knew irritated Barty so much.

From the far end of the Hall, Threeves watched his approach.

Cold, steel-colored eyes stared out from deeply-sunken sockets. Threeves’ hair had long gone gray, as had his short beard. His skin had taken on the sickly look of one frequently overcome by stress. He wore fine robes of cobalt blue, evidence of his esteemed position, and he perched on a throne made of black marble.

Jasper should have knelt – Barty was his superior, after all – but he set his jaw and stared into Barty’s eyes instead.

Barty stared back.

Then, he sighed, flattening that look into one of pure exasperation.

“Where will you go?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

Jasper frowned. “Sir?”

“You have no family,” Barty elaborated, his voice measured. “No inheritance. No connections. You live in a hovel in the Gap. You will lose your infernal car, access to the rifts, and no one will employ you. So think very carefully, Jasper, and answer me this: when you are expelled from the order on account of your behavior, where, pray tell, will you go?”

Jasper struggled to swallow. He hated this male; but, more than that, he hated how badly he feared him.

“Sir – " Jasper began, but Barty cut him off.

“You were given extremely clear instructions. Yet you still somehow managed to misunderstand them. Are you extraordinarily dull-witted, Jasper?”

Ice flowed into Jasper’s stomach. He could no longer feel his fingers and toes. He wanted his anger – it was nearly tangible at times, and made him feel invulnerable – but nothing responded to his call.

Jasper simply said, “I did not misunderstand them, sir.”

Barty’s eyebrow twitched. “So you admit to ignoring my instructions and disobeying a direct order.”

It was not a question. Delia’s face flashed through Jasper’s memory – the terror in her eyes, the way he’d moved, almost without thinking, to save her –

“A situation arose that made more extreme measures necessary,” Jasper rasped.

“A situation that could have been avoided if you have properly done your job.”

Jasper tried to swallow again. His throat was so dry it felt like swallowing glass. There had been no way, in his estimation, to deliver the sirens in complete safety without endangering the humans they sought to protect.

“Sir,” Jasper said, as calmly as he could manage, “the code states that preserving human life takes precedent over maintaining – "

Barty rose, his cobalt robes swirling around his legs. He was a tall male, powerfully built, and towered over Jasper. He stared down at him and said through sparkling, pointed teeth, “I wrote the code. I know what the precedents are.”

Jasper only rolled his shoulders back and returned Barty’s stare. “Sir, I used my best judgement – "

“And yet you still failed.” Barty turned from him and began to pace, circling Jasper like a jungle cat looking for a meal. “And your report failed to mention a certain shadow creature. One which was prominent in the reports filed by your peers. First you disobeyed my directives, then you lie on an official report – have you decided, yet, which bridge you’ll sleep under?”

The ice in Jasper’s veins spread. It was difficult to tell if Barty used magic to keep him in place, or his own vitriol – but Jasper couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe.

It was true. He had intentionally withheld any mention of the Shadow Man in his report. He hadn’t considered that Orion and Zephyra would have seen, let alone remembered, the wretched thing, or he might have chosen differently. The truth was that Jasper didn’t want Barty to know how his power waned in the Shadow Man’s presence. He didn’t want to give Barty any further excuse to expel him.

Barty had, however, clearly made his decision already.

“One last chance,” Barty said. He ended his pacing, returning to his throne and sitting with all the grace of an exhausted gorilla. “I’m sending you to England. There’s a poltergeist that needs banishing.”

Jasper restrained the urge to groan. “A poltergeist? Why are we wasting resources on an exorcism? Let the humans do that – they revel in that sort of thing.”

“Quiet your sniveling and look here.” Barty withdrew something from the folds of his robes and held it out.

Jasper took it. It was a photograph, and when he frowned up at Barty, the miserable male waved him off.

“The humans do occasionally have useful gadgets,” he explained. “I originally sent in Malcolm, but when he brought me this, I knew it was something out of his skillset.”

Malcolm was one of Barty’s low-level grunts – the type of Fae who should have been handling things so tedious as troublesome ghosts.

Jasper inspected the photograph. For a moment, he didn’t understand what was significant about it. There was a corpse – a broken body, sprawled out on a stone floor. Blood pooled around the deceased man, and though it was a grisly scene, it was one Jasper had seen many times.

Then, however, he saw what Barty had seen: there, inscribed faintly around the deceased man’s head, were runes.

Runes identical to the ones he’d drawn on the mustang, to keep it in tact while he drove it through the rift. Or like the ones he’d carved into his radio, to play the human music even in the Fae world.

“No one has been able to tell me what it means,” Barty said, watching Jasper through narrowed eyes.

“It means nothing,” Jasper replied. He could read the runes – a strange artifact left behind in spite of his missing memories. “These are just letters.”

He squinted at them and made out, “E – I – E – V.”

He looked back up at Barty. “’Probably some joke.”

Barty’s brow twitched for a second time. “A joke that happens to be in an ancient Fae alphabet only you can read?”

Jasper saw his point. He stuffed the photograph into his pocket and said, “I see your concern. I’ll get to the bottom of it, sir.”

“Yes, you will. And Jasper,” Barty leaned on an elbow. “No more…indiscretions. Do you understand?”

“I understand sir.”

“Excellent.” Barty clapped his hands together, and one of the other officers emerged from a hallway to the right of the throne. “You’ll leave immediately. Here’s the brief – Orion and Zephyra are already waiting for you.”

Jasper’s temper flared, and then – panic. Immediately? He hadn’t washed, hadn’t packed a change of clothes, his flask was nearly empty –

The Fae approached, holding out a leather case containing the details of the assignment. Jasper didn’t take it. He couldn’t make his fingers move.

Barty’s mouth curved into a faint, sardonic smile. “Is there a problem, Jasper?” he drawled.

Jasper set his jaw and took the case. “No, sir,” he growled. “I’ll take care of this.”

He didn’t wait for Barty’s dismissal but turned on his heel, storming out of the hall. He made up his mind – Bartholomew Threeves would not get the better of him. He would solve this case, banish the poltergeist, and start looking for better employment.

---

Jasper returned to the mustang, and as he climbed back inside, the stares of the elumbrae keepers burned into the back of his neck. No doubt rumors had spread throughout the Hall of the Order regarding Barty’s displeasure. They were none of them discreet – and if there was discipline to be had, it crawled on rapid legs into every ear around.

So Jasper turned up Beethoven as loud as he could possibly stand.

A stone tunnel descended beneath the Hall of the Order, and this was the road to the riftgate beneath Aetheril. Heavily guarded by the Order, only those with permission could enter, but the guards knew the mustang and its driver well and swung the gates wide at his approach. He flicked on his lights and began the sloping drive, deep into the earth, where darkness pressed in at all sides.

A darkness that was welcoming. Familiar.

A friend.

Although no one knew exactly how the rifts originally came to be, there was a legend that every Knight of the Order knew by heart. Long ago, when the seven guardians roamed freely between the realms, they created these rifts to make the passage easier. There were thousands of them, spread throughout the Fae realms. The documented rifts were guarded by the Knights of the Order, who operated in all of the Fae countries regardless of borders. There were, however, many yet to be found, and these undocumented rifts were how the monsters Jaspers hunted found their way into other worlds.

Crossing between realms was not only dangerous but illegal. Only excursions sanctioned by the Order were permissible, and violations frequently led to lifetime imprisonment, if not execution, depending on the harm done by the individual. Jasper had not checked on the fate of the seven sirens they’d captured on their last mission. Given that they’d eaten several humans, however, he assumed their punishment would be equally extreme.

Barty was not known for his leniency.

As Jasper drove, Delia’s face flashed before him again. Thinking about Barty always summoned her penetrating gaze, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He tried to think of anyone – anything – but her.

If she hadn’t been there that day, he may not have acted the way he had.

He might still be in good standing with Barty.

As it was…

No. It wasn’t worth the thought. Delia was gone, and he wasn’t going to see her again. He wasn’t going to slip up again.

The tunnel began to level, and sconces burning with blue flames appeared on the walls. At the far end of the tunnel, a different blue light flickered – the light of the rift gate.

In the thousands of years Aetheril had stood, they’d built shrines and monuments around it. Legends had once said that old gods crossed through the rift, and ancient peoples claimed it was a holy site. Evidence of such reverence remained in the stone carvings surrounding the rift, stories cemented into the walls on either side of it. Now, it was hardly more holy than a door – no one but the Order was allowed to even see it – but passing through always filled Jasper with that same primordial dread his ancestors must have had the first time they’d laid eyes on it.

Jasper came to a halt before crossing through the gate. A single, uniformed guard – Mortimer – approached the car, and Jasper rolled down his window.

“Where to, Master of Shadows?” Mortimer drawled, in a way that only confirmed Jasper’s suspicions about the rumors. He must have heard through the grapevine that Barty was displeased.

Jasper reached for the leather brief he’d been given and fished out a thick, paper card. On it were written the details of his assignment, signed by Barty, and it was the only reason Mortimer would let him through.

Mortimer inspected it. When he handed it back to Jasper, his mouth curved up into a smirk. “On you go,” he said, stepping away from the car. “Have fun with the poltergeist.”

Jasper rolled his window up and stepped on the gas.

The mustang gave a gleeful roar as the engine burst into life, hurling him into the rift. The key to getting through intact was to not look, to not hesitate as the gate opened and swallowed one whole. First-timers felt the tug of the riftgate and froze, or fled – and that was a certain way to be torn in two.

Jasper didn’t remember the first time he’d gone through. He could remember, though, how each time he passed through, the riftgate filled him with a joy that went unmatched in every other area of his life. Something about the speed and the sound and the brightness of the colors lifted his spirits, at least for a few moments. While he passed through, it was as though nothing else in his universe mattered; not Barty, not the Order, not the creature he was on his way to hunt.

It had taken hundreds of years to perfect crossing through the rift without getting lost in the land-in-between or getting torn apart while doing it. Barty’s card – the one Mortimer had sneered at – was the result of that experimentation. As long as Jasper had it on his person, it would provide a focus for the rift’s energy and guide him both to his destination and, when he completed his mission, back home. Although one could travel the rift without it, there was the overwhelming likelihood of getting lost in-between.

That thought was the substance of nightmares.

No one knew what lay in between, except what was told in ancient stories. Creatures of legend. Of nightmares. Some said it was the haven of the gods; others said it was a veritable hell. Whatever the truth was, there was not a single person (human or Fae) in recorded history who had gotten lost in the land-in-between and found their way back.

So how did these creatures manage to find their way to the other realms unsanctioned, without the magic of the Order to get them there? Pure accident, Jasper surmised. Returning these creatures to the Order alive was inasmuch a benevolent effort as it was one of reconnaissance. The truth was, even if Barty wouldn’t admit it, these creatures had somehow mastered inter-dimensional time travel without Barty’s help, and no one could figure out how. Finding them, and interrogating them, was one of the only ways they could do that.

Jasper held the pedal down, pushing the engine as fast as it could bear, through the rift. Through the split in the seams of space and time. And then, after a bump in the road that sent made Jasper’s teeth sing with pain, the Ford Mustang Mach 1 burst out of the rift and into the human world on the other side.

The rift opened into a violent storm, and the whirring of the engine was replaced by the thundering of rain on the windshield. The wards, scribbled onto the shimmering black paint in runes, glowed bright in the darkness, controlling the car as it slid down a watery slope into the marshlands below. The wheels spun and whined and the car careened into the darkness, but Jasper took his hands off the wheel and relaxed.

The mustang did what he’d spelled it to do and came to a halt at the base of a hill, unscathed.

Jasper’s heart thundered in his throat, and despite himself, he smirked. His favorite part of these missions always ended too soon.

Once the car had recovered, he took the wheel again and coaxed it into motion. He was on a sort of road – washed out and muddy due to the torrential downpour – and he followed it into a dense grouping of trees. He only had to drive a few miles before he spotted the purple Superbird, parked under a tree.

Glamoured, obviously; Zephyra would follow the instructions of the Order to a point. Jasper parked beside her. He didn’t glamour the mustang – he never did. Whatever ramifications time travel had, no one seemed to notice the car anyway, and wasting any bit of magic, especially this far from home, was dangerous. He didn’t know the extent of the threat, how much power he would need, and for how long. And with an empty flask…

Jasper turned the engine off. A steady thrum of rain on the roof of the mustang helped to regulate his whirring senses, all ignited from the journey through the rift. The minutes after traveling left him elated but also unbalanced, and it took time for him to regain that sense of calm he needed to complete his mission. While he waited, breathing deep and slow, he reached for the leather case on the passenger’s seat.

The brief was simple: a description of the manor, the family, the (presumed) threat. A detailed description of the victim followed, and Jasper fished out the picture Barty had given him, looking only at the runes inscribed around the victim’s head. E-I-E-V.

An acronym, maybe. Or a joke.

One in poor taste, given that a man had been murdered; but Jasper had made his share of enemies over the years. Maybe it was someone they’d arrested, someone who’d somehow escaped the prisons of Aetheril and wanted to get back at him for locking them up. Plenty of their monsters had seen the car, seen the runes inscribed on it – but had they understood it?

Maybe the letters were purely coincidental. Maybe Barty, in his incessant paranoia, saw more to it than there really was.

Or maybe it isn’t.

Jasper’s throat caught as the voice crept up his spine. He looked into the darkened trees and saw nothing but the boughs waving in the torrential rain. An image flickered in his mind: the Shadow Man, in California. In 1971. Almost one hundred years from now. And unless that creature could travel through time, he had almost one hundred years before he would have to see it again.

---

Jasper walked the rest of the way to the manor. The brief included a map, which told him that he’d parked just off the main road. Once again he’d neglected his balmorals; so he sloshed over the muddy, pitted road and, just under half an hour later, found himself on the steps of the great, ancient house.

The main entrance of the manor was marked by an imposing wooden door, heavily carved with intricate patterns. It was flanked by stone columns, cracked and disintegrating with age; and above the door, a pointed arch contained a stained-glass window, depicting the Ravenscroft family crest. It was a shield, divided into four quadrants by a saltire; and in the center, sat a majestic raven, a key in its beak and a wreath in its talons. Jasper couldn’t make out the more intricate details of the crest from the ground, but knew these families inscribed generational stories into them, and could probably make out the generational curses tied to these families as well if he could get close. He tucked that into a corner of his mind to ponder later – any bit of information about this family would be useful when it came time to banish the ghost.

Tall, narrow windows with stone mullions accented the façade, each window adorned with diamond-patterned leaded glass panes. Large bay windows on the ground floor projected outward, designed to flood the inner rooms with light, but they were each covered in heavy curtains, giving the house a look of one in mourning. Jasper supposed that might be appropriate given the circumstances.

The gabled roof was steeply pitched, covered with dark slate tiles, punctured by numerous chimneys – too many to count. The gables were ornately decorated with finials and bargeboards, creating an imposing, gothic look. The house had been built in the 1200s or so, and Jasper saw layer upon layer of reinvention as each generation took the house and added or changed it according to the style of the time. Only adding to this strange amalgamation of preferences and styles were the gargoyles placed upon the roof, staring down at those who approached, daring them to knock.

It was an old, proud home; the type which housed an old, proud family. Jasper kept this, too, in his mind as he raised the iron knocker and brought it down upon the door. Only something terrible, something unbearable, would bring a family of this nature to call upon outside help. Something that Barty would have cause to worry about.

Something that would summon him.

Perhaps his time wouldn’t be wasted here, after all.

He only waited a few moments before the door was answered, swinging open just enough for a small shaft of light to spill onto the front step. A weathered-looking man looked out, dressed in a black tailcoat, white waistcoat, and a starched, white shirt with a high collar. Jasper guessed this must have been Mr. Hawthorne, the butler.

Hawthorne took in Jasper’s ragged-looking appearance, but hesitated only a moment before saying, “are you the exorcist, sir?”

Jasper replied, “of sorts. I assume this is Ravenscroft Manor?”

In response, Hawthorne opened the door wider and said, “please come in, sir. Apologies for keeping you waiting.”

Jasper crossed the threshold of the house, stepping into a dimly lit foyer. Hawthorne closed the door behind him, the sound resounding through the house, and then turned to stare pointedly at the puddle Jasper had forming at his feet.

“May I take your coat, sir?” Hawthorne asked, despite the puddle. Jasper shrugged out if it, and though it made no difference in regards to his soaking status, gave it to Hawthorne, who shuffled away with it.

Jasper waited for his return and took in the deathly silent house.

The brief had described it as one of the most haunted places in the area, perhaps in all of Britain. Jasper could feel the way the roots of the house trembled, as though it had been expecting him, but he saw none of the haunts he’d read about in the brief. No women in white, cascading up and down the stairs. No scullery maids, tossed before their time through balcony windows. Not a single, ghostly face peered out at him, except Hawthorne.

The butler was a living, breathing thing; yet when he returned, he looked haggard and drawn. As though he hadn’t slept in weeks.

Thunder rattled the windowpanes as the butler said, “they’re expecting you, sir. In the study.”

“Very well,” Jasper replied. “Lead the way, Mr. Hawthorne.”

Surprise flashed across the butler’s face but was quickly dismissed. Jasper recognized the intelligence there, the discretion so easily disregarded as stupidity by the members of the household. Perhaps Hawthorne knew the source of the disturbance. It was the third item Jasper tucked away for his future investigation of the house; an old but wise adage: the butler did it.

Jasper followed Hawthorne through the house. His clothes, soaked through, were heavy with rainwater, his hair dripping cold rivulets down the back of his neck. The manor was just as imposing on the inside as it was on the outside, the hallways lined with dark wood paneling and portraits of family ancestors watching from the walls. The sound of their footsteps was muffled by thick carpets, the flickering candlelight casting long shadows around them.

“Mr. Hawthorne,” Jasper said, noting the gaunt faces looking out from the paintings, “I don’t see any other staff around. Are they…”

“On leave, sir,” Hawthorne provided, when Jasper failed to finish his question. “For the duration.”

“Until the haunting is over, you mean,” Jasper replied.

“Until the danger is over,” Hawthorne clarified. “The manor has always been haunted. This is the first time anyone has been…hurt.”

Killed, Jasper corrected silently, but the point remained. The staff was terrified. The family was likely terrified as well, but too proud to leave their ancestral home. Jasper counted generations of Ravenscrofts on the walls, with eyes that seemed to follow him as he dripped rainwater into the expensive carpeting.

The air, tinged with the slightly moldy smell of old books and polished wood, warmed a little as they approached the study. Here, Jasper heard sounds of life: the merry crackling of a fire, and the quiet chatter between Orion and Zephyra. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he knew their pitching tones well. It was both familiar and dreadful to his ears.

Hawthorne opened the door and paused, letting Jasper cross through before him. As he entered, all conversation ceased, and five pairs of eyes turned to stare at what was certainly a ghastly sight.

Hawthorne cleared his throat and announced, “the exorcist, sir.”

A tall man, dark hair streaked with gray, stood by the fireplace, his posture stiff and his expression unreadable. He held a glass of amber liquid in his hand that he swirled absent-mindedly. Cold eyes looked out from thick, dark brows, and he said, “thank you, Hawthorne. That will be all.”

Hawthorne disappeared behind Jasper and the study door shut with a heavy click.

Lord Ravenscroft was a handsome man, although he, too, looked as though he hadn’t slept in quite some time. His eyes swept over Jasper’s appearance and when he spoke, it was with deep disdain.

“Do you make a habit of appearing late, and in such…fashion?” he asked, his mouth twitching into a sneer.

Jasper blinked. He knew this man’s type well.

“When we heard of your…difficulties,” Jasper said, “we assumed that the original crew we sent would be sufficient. Only when we learned that it wasn’t was I notified, and I assure you, sir, I dropped everything and came immediately.”

That much had been true, although Orion and Zephyra certainly didn’t miss the barb hurled in their direction. He didn’t look at them; didn’t want to acknowledge they were even there – but in the corner of his eye, he saw Orion stiffen.

A young woman, the daughter of Lord Ravenscroft, shifted and cleared her throat. “We are certainly glad you came, sir,” she said. Her voice was thin. Worn. Tired.

Jasper shifted his gaze to her, taking in her tired face. And when he did, his heart leapt into his throat.

And he nearly fainted.

Fainted.

Next to her sat another woman, eyes bright and devastatingly familiar. Her dark hair was wound up into an elegant updo in the fashion of Victorian women, and she wore expensive clothing indicating a woman of high-status within English society. But she wasn’t a stranger. She was, of course, Delia, watching him, her mouth quirked into something unreadable but knowing.

She recognized him. He recognized her. And neither of them said a word to each other.

Isabella, the woman beside Delia, registered the silence as something else and said, “forgive us for being so inhospitable. The staff has been dismissed, so there is no tea – and I’m afraid my father – “

“Do not make apologies for me, Isabella,” Lord Ravenscroft snapped. Isabella shrank back into herself, into the sofa, and Jasper did not miss the way Delia covered the girl’s hand with her own.

“This house has had its share of tragedies,” Ravenscroft continued, meeting Jasper’s gaze again, “but we will not be turned into a spectacle. Do you work, and do it quickly, and then get out.”

Jasper opened his mouth to speak – there were far too many questions for that to be the end of their conversation – but it appeared that Lord Ravenscroft was in no mood for conversation. He slammed his glass onto the mantlepiece and turned, clearing the room in only a few, swift strides. The door closed behind him and silence filled the room again.  

Jasper threw a questioning glance to Orion and Zephyra, but Zephyra merely shook her head. They would speak later.

“I should apologize,” Isabella said, when the silence dragged on far longer than it was proper. “My father hasn’t been himself since…”

She stopped, her voice catching. Delia’s hand tightened over the girl’s, her mouth pressing into a thin line. Jasper focused solely on Isabella, forcing his attention away from the beguiling woman who sat next to her, despite the voice in his mind insisting that her presence here was an impossibility.

Perhaps an ancestor. Perhaps a complete fluke, a mechanic of this house, presenting itself in a way bound to disrupt his senses.

Perhaps he was slowly losing his mind. That was always a possibility, too.

“Would you mind telling me about it?” Jasper asked. He schooled his features into something gentle, although gentleness was not among his most easily accessible virtues.

Isabella said, “of course, if it helps. Please, sit. He should have offered – “

“I’m dripping,” Jasper replied. “I will likely ruin whatever I sit on.”

“It matters very little,” Isabella insisted. She gestured with a shaking hand to a chair on her left, nearest to the fireplace. He sat, now positioned to see both Isabella and Delia, as well as Orion and Zephyra, still watching silently from the corner.

Jasper was keenly aware of his sodden clothes slowly seeping into the cushions and tried to ignore it as well as the others did. Perhaps it truly didn’t matter; not while a loved one had been murdered, and that death had yet to be resolved.

“I hardly know where to start.” Isabella’s voice trembled, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. She was incredibly composed, all things considered.

“Start with why you decided you needed an exorcist,” Jasper said. His voice came out unnaturally soft, soothing. In the corner, Zephyra frowned.

“It was one week ago,” Isabella replied. Delia offered her a handkerchief, and she took it, dabbing at her eyes. “My brother…fell. From the upper floors. He landed in the foyer.”

Jasper had noted the grand foyer upon entering, and indeed the height between the floors was immense. Possibly deadly.

“You and your brother grew up in this house, correct?” Jasper asked. When Isabella nodded, he continued, “I assume you both know the house very well. Possibly enough to walk it in the dark.”

“Very well,” Isabella agreed. “We used to run through the halls as children, tempting the ghosts to find us. They never did, of course. The ghosts keep to themselves. They’re typically a peaceful sort, but – “

She stopped, her voice quavering. Jasper waited, but when it became clear she wasn’t going to continue, he prompted, “how do you know it was a ghost that killed your brother, and not someone pushing him down the stairs?”

It happened more often than anyone realized – an angry servant, a jealous cousin, a drunken mistake – any of these things could have facilitated a fall. But Isabella was already shaking her head.

“Because this ghost isn’t like the others,” Isabella said. She inhaled deeply, and on the exhale, she said, “my father doesn’t understand. None of the others have. But I know each of these ghosts. I know their names. Their faces. They’ve never wanted to hurt us before. Some have even come to care for us – they care for all of the children in the manor.”

Jasper schooled his features into neutrality, although his surprise was shared by the others in the room, as evident by Orion and Zephyra’s faces.

“How do you know this?” he asked Isabella. “Do you talk to them?”

“Not normally,” she answered. “As I said, they usually keep to themselves. But a few months ago…something else came to the manor. He won’t show himself, but I can hear him, walking through the walls. He’s angry. Violent. I don’t think he likes being trapped in the house.”

Jasper’s blood chilled. Immediately, he thought of the Shadow Man – but that couldn’t be. There were plenty of angry spirits between all the realms; who was to say this was the same one?

“And…you believe this spirit pushed your brother down the stairs?” Jasper asked.

Isabella looked up at him again. She nodded, a pleading look spreading over her features, and then one of relief. “You believe me.”

It wasn’t a question, but a realization. She had that same look the spirits had when they realized he could see them; that maybe, possibly, he could help them.

“I believe you,” he said, adding silently, because I can see them too. “But I’ll need to ask more questions, and I’ll need to see the rest of the house. Starting with…I know this might come as a shock to you, but I’ll need to see the place where your brother was killed. Now, if possible.”

Isabella nodded again, and then rose. Delia stood with her, eyes flicking rapidly between Isabella and Jasper. He tried to read that look – was it fear? Amusement? Apprehension? But, once again, he ascertained nothing.

Isabella led them out of the study and back through the bowels of the house. As they walked, Orion and Zephyra fell into step beside him. They were dressed in subdued colors this time, wearing clothing appropriate for the period, although Orion hadn’t tamed his mess of greasy blond hair. He said to Jasper, “you certainly took your time getting here, Jazz.”

Jasper bristled. “I hate that nickname, Orion.”

“Obviously,” Zephyra answered. She smiled at him. “That’s why it’s so adorable. What did take you so long?”

“I was busy being lectured by Barty,” he growled. “Apparently one of you…” but he stopped. How were they to know that the mention of the Shadow Man had gotten him into trouble? And mentioning it now was certain to raise their suspicions.

“Never mind,” he said. “What have you learned about this place?”

“Next to nothing,” Orion said. “When Lord I-wear-my-pants-too-tight found out we weren’t here to banish the ghost, he wouldn’t say a word to us. He wanted to wait until you got here.”

And then he didn’t speak a word to me. “Did he and his son get on well?” Jasper asked. Ahead of him, Isabella walked, supported by Delia. “And what’s that about?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Zephyra whispered. “She was here long before we were. I take it they’re old friends. For a lifetime, maybe. She goes by Catherine.”

Catherine. Maybe she was an ancestor, then – and their resemblance was simply uncanny. It was not the first time something like that had happened, and it was certainly possible. Human genetics were unbelievably predictable.

“Are you worried, Jasper?” Zephyra asked. She gave him a perceptive look.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “For as haunted as this place is supposed to be, I haven’t seen a single ghost.”

He kept looking, too, and nothing seemed amiss. No smells, no sounds, no sights – nothing that would distinguish this house from any other slightly-decaying relic in the English countryside.

“Perhaps they’re afraid,” Zephyra offered. “Perhaps this other ghost – this Man in the Wall, Isabella called him – is frightening them away.”

“Can they do that?” Orion asked.

“No,” Jasper said. Yes, the quiet voice answered. The Shadow Man had frightened the ghosts at the music festival, to the point that they had lost their ability to speak.

“What would a ghost be afraid of, anyway?” Orion continued. Jasper’s answer had no effect on him, apparently. “They’re already dead.”

The hallway let out back into the grand foyer, where Hawthorne waited for them. Jasper trailed behind the group as they filled the foyer, watching all of them, even Orion and Zephyra, carefully. They all held themselves tightly, fear present in the stiff movements they made. When Hawthorne pulled back the rug in the center of the foyer, he realized why.

A dark stain, splattered against the flagstones, lay underneath.

“The rug is a recent addition to the house, sir,” Hawthorne explained, assessing Jasper’s expression correctly. “When Lord Ravenscroft could not get the stain out of the floor, he asked us to cover it.”

No guess as to why – it was unsightly and disturbing as all hell. Blood-stained carpet, however – and it made no sense that it would stain the flagstones so easily, unless it had been left there for some time. Jasper approached the stain, moving when the others wouldn’t. He saw the faint outline of a body in the blood, and where the head had been, he saw the runes, scratched deeply into the stone.

Barty’s picture had been incomplete. There were more runes than had been shown in the photograph, and as Jasper read them, his brows knit together.

Have I ever told you the story of the man who fell in love with the moon?

“What is it, Jasper?” Zephyra asked, when the silence dragged on.

Jasper touched the cold stone, and his fingers came away dry, if a little chilled. Someone, or something, had taken the time to carve each ancient rune deeply into the stone. It must have taken hours, if not days. Yet the body had only lain here overnight and had been swiftly moved.

He looked back up at the party gathered around. Even Delia, it seemed, was startled by the marks in the floor.

“It’s…not English,” Jasper said. He wanted to say, it’s in a Fae language meant to be dead for hundreds of years, but in present company, that was best kept to himself. Orion and Zephyra, however, seemed to understand, their eyes widening.

He stood. “I’ll need to see the body, if you have it,” he said to Isabella. She had somehow gone even paler.

“He’s in the cellar,” Isabella said, swallowing with difficulty. “With the storm, the roads have been washed out, and the undertaker hasn't yet arrived. I’ll take you.”

“Misa Isabella," Hawthorne began, but she dismissed his protest with the wave of her hand.

“If he needs to see Jonathan, he needs to see him,” she snapped. “Grab a lamp, Mr. Hawthorne. Don’t be a hindrance.”

Hawthorne didn’t argue, although his expression was stern as he disappeared. When he returned several minutes later, he had a lamp. Lightning briefly lit the foyer, and then thunder rumbled through the house. When the moment passed, Isabella steeled herself and said, “right-o. To the cellar, shall we?”

No one spoke as Isabella led them through the house again. It was a winding, confusing place – easy to lose one's way in the dark. The mood had shifted into something more somber, and Jasper, usually one so desperate for the darkness, for once in his life wished they had a little more light.

As they walked, the storm raged outside, the house rattling every few minutes with the oppressive thunder. Isabella took them to the kitchen, cold and empty of staff. The entrance to the cellar was located in a discreet corner of the kitchen, behind a heavy wooden door. 

Hawthorne dragged it open. The resounding creaaaaak echoed into the depths of the house.

After a brief pause to peer into the murky darkness, they began their descent down a narrow, steep staircase made of cold stone, the steps uneven and worn from centuries of use. There were sconces on the walls, but they were unlit; and with each step the air grew colder, the smell of damp earth mixing with a faint mustiness and overwhelming Jasper’s senses. He could smell it here – the death. The slow decay. The age of this deeply haunted place.

And still no ghosts.

The cellar was a cavernous space, stone walls supporting the low, arched ceiling. The floor, made of firmly packed dirt, was uneven, dotted with puddles forming from the storm. The flickering light of Isabella’s lantern plunged the space in deep shadows. Dusty bottles of wine and jars of preserves glittered in the austere light. Old, cobweb-covered crates and barrels were stacked in the corners, and in the center of the room, there was a single table, covered in a white sheet.

Jasper knew the shape of a corpse when he saw one. When the others stayed behind, he approached. Isabella followed behind, clutching the lantern and standing beside Jasper, her breath trembling.

Jasper pulled back the sheet.

Beneath it lay the corpse of the late Jonathan Ravenscroft. He lay on his back, but Jasper made out the headwound that had killed him, crushing two-thirds of his skull. He would have been handsome in life, built like his father; but now, his skin was waxen, his lips blue, the edges of decay taking hold, even in the frigid cellar.

Jasper looked for other marks – signs that it had been a poltergeist and not simply a bad step on the stairs. There were no bruises, however, beyond those one could attribute to the fall. No strangulation marks. No bites or scratches. As he searched, delicately lifting corners of the dead man’s clothes and peering into the orifaces of the corpse, he found nothing to indicate anything of a supernatural nature. It didn’t explain the runes, or course, but the murder, if it had been –

Jasper froze. He’d found, in one of the pockets, a watch.

He drew it out. The face had completely shattered, likely in the fall. The hands were frozen at 3:00.

The witching hour.

A question formed on his mouth as he regarded the watch, but when he looked back to Isabella, all thoughts fled his mind. He turned to her just as her eyes rolled back into her head, her grip loosening on the lantern.

Isabella fainted.

Jasper didn’t think as he moved to catch her. It was that ghastly part of him again – the part that, for better or for worse, cared – and it compelled him forward, scooping her out of the air before she collapsed to the floor. For a moment all was well; he caught the lamp and the girl, and all he felt was relief –

And then pain. So much pain. Nausea flooded in at the contact with human skin. Lights danced before his eyes and Jasper had no sense of where he was, what he was doing there. Suddenly, the room was a furnace, and he was trapped in dirty, sodden clothes, with eyes staring at him from all angles. Jasper didn’t think, didn’t pause. He lowered Isabella to the floor, still clutching the pocket watch, and ran.

Click Here to Continue to Part Two

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