Page 17 of Hot Ghost Summer

Theo

Despite the late hour, I slow my pace to lightly touch my fingertips to the roughened texture of the wooden security fence that surrounds Bowen’s Plaza. At least, that’s what this fourteen-foot-long artwork calls it. Walking alongside it, I take in how the planners imagine the development will look when it’s complete: a collection of tall office buildings surrounding an open square with seating and greenery. Some cafés and restaurants are pitched off to one side, and just like Hollis said there would be, large family homes are visible in the background.

Visually, it’s pleasing, but it also looks like any of the hundred other business parks across the country—nothing special. Definitely not a patch on the beauty of the fields that would have been here before. I chuckle to myself. It seems you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.

The chain on the entrance gate dangles uselessly from a small square hole cut into the wood. I raise my hand to push it open, then pause. Hollis hadn’t been pleased earlier, when I’d barged through it without checking. Although what I’m supposed to check for, I’ve no idea.

There are no streetlights and the sun has long since bled out from the bruised sky, shrouding everything in tones of purple and grey. I scan the shadows that pool under the trees in the narrow park behind me and strain to catch any footsteps or even a stray cough, but there’s only the distant rattle of car engines. Somehow, that makes the silence feel louder.

It’d been quiet on the walk up here too. Only a handful of joggers and a few dog walkers were making use of the towpath, and I guess everyone else headed to the Tube after work, so there’s no reason for anyone to be this far east of the station.

Releasing the breath I’d been holding, I push through the gate, eager to be less exposed. I don’t look like any site worker might, in gym shorts, a cow T-shirt, and damp sneakers with no socks. Just like earlier, it swings open on soundless hinges, and I let it fall closed behind me.

My gaze latches onto Plot 47. It looks different in the dark. The single towering wall blocks the stars, and the shadows cast along its partially constructed shell by the parked cranes and diggers seem to move on their own. In the fading light, everything presents in a moody violet hue.

This building didn’t exist before the summer, and already its presence is absolute. It beckons me closer, and although there is exactly where I intend to go, I’m suddenly filled with contradictory feelings that plant my feet firmly in place.

On the one hand, I hope when I climb my way back up there, Hollis is gone because that might mean he’s fine and just… walked it off. But on the other hand, I spent all afternoon processing his death, and I’m here because I’m determined to put his soul back in his body. I can’t do that if he isn’t there.

Unsure which outcome I might prefer, I take a deep breath, shuffle my grip on the equipment bag slung over my shoulder, and peel my heavy feet from the ground. Each step carries with it more than my bodyweight, and my eyes search every darkened crevice for anything that might… for anything.

The crunch of my shoes is the only sound. No whistling, not even a quiet hum passes my lips. Disrespectful, Hollis had called it. Was that why the ghost came? Did I insult them in some afterlife language I didn’t know exists?

My nose wrinkles as I turn that thought over in my mind.

When I reach the raised concrete platform at the foot of the building, I pause. Earlier today, I’d noticed that Hollis did the same thing. He’d been like a hawk in a tree—waiting. Sensing. I’d noticed lots of things about the Austrian prince, like his neatly slicked-back blond hair that I’d so badly wanted to dishevel.

With no other clue what to do in this situation, I imitate him. Setting the bag down by my feet, I strain to listen, but the site is eerily silent. There’s not a bird nor an urban fox to be heard.

Squatting, I unzip the holdall and use the neon-pink high-vis vest to lift out the LPA Synchrotron—carefully, because it might contain Hollis’s soul.

I still don’t really know how to put a soul back in a body. I’d used my phone to search it up when I’d been with Brigid, but the answers were all wildly different.

Annoyingly, the top results all described the practice as fantasy, as opposed to reality. More helpful resources suggested I should enter the spirit realm to find his soul, but I’m neither a shaman nor Constantine. Other links, though, had said that wasn’t necessary at all, as long as I have an item with a strong emotional connection to the recently deceased. My grip on the wrapped plasma ray that fried my colleague during a haunting tightens.

Still, my lack of knowledge on this subject is no reason not to try.

Threading the Synchrotron through the armholes of the high-vis vest, I create a makeshift sling to strap it to my back before making my way over to the ladder in the far corner of Plot 47. Nervous that it might still carry a latent charge, I tentatively bring my arm near to see if the hairs rise. When they don’t, I tap the ladder once, twice, three times, and then exhale. Safe.

With a final look around, I whisper, “Please, wee ghostie, if you can hear me, I just want t’ help my friend.”

Although I’m not a Catholic, I make the sign of the cross and ascend the ladder. Each rung higher that I climb feeds a giddiness that flits through my chest, worse than that time I mixed whisky with my pre-workout drink on a dare.

I stop before I crest the top, before I’m high enough to see onto the first floor, and take a shaky breath. Scrunching my eyes shut, I reach out with my other senses. That metallic, staticky taste that had been in the air earlier is gone, and so too are the rumbling vibrations that had all but deafened me.

Summoning the energy to breach that final rung, I push up and open my eyes to discover those things are not all that has vanished. Hollis’s body is nowhere to be seen.

“Hollis?” I call, my voice brittle and tinny. My mouth, suddenly dry, makes a slight wheezing noise as I breathe in. “Hollis? It’s Theo. From work.”

But there’s no one here. No wee ghostie, and no Hollis.

Heart striking hard against my ribs, palms sweaty, I drag myself the rest of the way through the hole and crawl the few meters distance to where I’m sure I last saw him. There, on the concrete floor, is a blackened scorch mark in the shape of a man. Bold and clear.

An all-consuming fuzziness sweeps through my body, making my skin feel two sizes too small. The resemblance between that mark and those chalk outlines they use in forensics to show the location of a victim is striking. Except this one is black and looks as if a really bright light shone down and burnt everything away—including Hollis.

Nothing remains.

Shallow, rasped breaths glide over my throat as if it’s made of glass.