Jarvis Street Chapter 18
As he walked through the doorway, it was like he was going through a cloud, the freezing cold seeping into his bones and filling his every cell. But just as quickly as it was there, it was gone. James found himself standing in the doorway of a bright, cheery classroom. Sunlight streamed in the windows, shining on brightly painted flower pots filled with green, living plants. Books filled the shelves, and the chalkboard had some writing on it that he couldn’t read. He knew whatever was written there was simple, but his eyes seemed to slide right off of the bold, round letters.
This classroom was in use. The students could have just gone home for the day seconds before he walked inside. But it was old, not a computer in sight, and the posters weren’t nearly as glossy as the ones he’d seen in his own classrooms over the past couple decades. Despite its apparent age, it was bright and clean, sunlight gleaming on the teacher’s desk by the door.
“Are you looking for me?”
James jumped and turned to see a young woman standing by the chalkboard. “Am I?” he asked.
She motioned for him to sit at one of the desks and he sat down, his knees scraping the bottom. His eyes never left her. The teacher was probably about his age, with dark hair that was gently curled by her chin and thick glasses on a chain around her neck. She wore a green tartan dress that went to her knees. She wasn’t translucent, he couldn’t see the chalkboard behind her. But James had no doubt that she was dead.
“Are you the ghost who’s been haunting this place?” James asked her.
“I’m the ghost that has been trapped here, if that’s what you mean.”
“You hurt people. You threw a bookshelf at my cousin.”
The ghost grimaced. “It was an accident,” she said. “I need to keep my students safe.”
“What’s your name?” James asked.
“Penny.”
“Penny, what’s going on?”
The facade of authority faded and he could see her painted red lips tremble a little. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ve been here and I don’t know how long. I used to be able to leave with my students, but now I can’t. That man, Frederick, he sealed me here.”
“Why did he do that?” James asked.
“I don’t know,” the ghost – Penny – said. “He came in with books and unholy rituals, and he sealed me in here. I wasn’t doing anything to harm anyone. My students and I, we liked to come back and visit, to see the places where we were happy in life. But now I have no choice but to be here.”
“And you’re angry about that.”
“I am. But I can’t control it.”
“What do you mean?”
In the back of his mind, James knew it wasn’t a good thing that he hadn’t heard from Gabriella in a little while. And this classroom definitely shouldn’t be as cheerful as it was. When he got here, the building was empty and… it was raining? It had been raining, right? Yet, right now he had to squint in the sunlight as he towered over this desk he’d been assigned.
Penny was crying now. “I’m losing time,” she said. “I get angry and I just…it’s like I go away and something else replaces me. It wasn’t like this before. I wasn’t haunting the school, I was just visiting. I loved it here. But they trapped me here and I’m so angry. And when I get angry, I disappear and come back later.”
“Were you angry the other night?” James asked.
“What was the other night?”
“My team was trying to cleanse this building for the new owners,” James said.
“Oh.”
Penny thought for a second as she sat at the teacher’s desk. “I must have been,” she said.
“Penny,” James said. “If you were unsealed from here, would you want to leave?”
“Of course.”
“The school has been closed for decades now,” he said. “I don’t know what this-” he gestured around the classroom “is, but it’s not what it looks like in reality.”
Penny laughed a little, the sound light and clear and comforting like James was one of her students. “What is reality, anyway?”
He certainly wasn’t qualified to answer that. So instead, he carried on. “Listen,” he said. “I can give you a chance to leave. No exorcism, no cleansing until you’re gone. We’ll unseal the building, but you cannot get angry. You’ve already hurt a few people and I can’t put my team in danger again. If anything happens, if you lose control, I’m going to have no choice but to bring in a priest for a full exorcism. And I don’t know what will happen to you then.”
He braced himself for her anger, but Penny looked hopeful. “Do you think I can go?” she asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“And will my students be okay?”
She must have been from the 1950s, so her students were senior citizens by this point. “They will,” James said. “Your students have graduated, you’ve done your job.”
“Please let me go, then,” Penny said. “I won’t get angry again.”
“I’ll get the equipment as soon as I get back to our headquarters,” James said. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You didn’t deserve to be locked up here, no wonder you’re angry. But I promise I’m here to help you move on.”
Penny said something, but her voice was far away and he struggled to catch it. The sunlight in the classroom was getting brighter now and she was fading away, the whole classroom was fading away.
“James…”
A sharp pain on his cheek. “McManus!”
James’s eyes flew open. He was flat on his back on a dirty linoleum floor, the smell of dust and rain strong in his nostrils. Bradley and Gabriella were both kneeling over him.
He sat up, looking around the empty classroom. It was the same one he’d just been in, he was sure of it. But the books and sunlight were gone.
Penny was gone.
“You know,” he said, sitting up and wincing. “I didn’t slap you when you passed out on the job.”
“You gave the order to shoot me in the first place,” Bradley retorted.
Gabriella helped James to his feet. “Are you okay?” she demanded. “What the hell happened?”
“I…I saw her. The spirit.”
“You saw her?”
“Yeah, she was a teacher here. The Foundation trapped her when they sealed it up and she was…the rage was causing her to do those things.”
James’s head hurt, but his thoughts were clear. That hadn’t been a dream. Penny and her story, they’d been real.
Whatever reality was.
“I told her we’d unseal the space and release her,” James continued as they walked down the dim hallway toward the staircase.
“And you’re sure it’s not a trick?”
Bradley had a point. James couldn’t explain it, but he knew it was real. He’d felt her emotions nearly as strong as his own. She was a spirit caught in a bad situation, nothing more.
“I’m sure,” he said. “Let’s go get the supplies we need and come back and be done with this.”
“We brought the van,” Gabriella said. “I think everything we need is in there.”
It suddenly occurred to James how odd it was that the two of them were working together. And why the hell had they come here? He’d told Gabriella to stay at Headquarters.
Something must have shown on his face, because Gabriella sighed. “James,” she said. “Your camera went dead. I couldn’t reach you, your phone wasn’t working. The last thing I heard was you telling me it was okay. Then everything shut off at the same time. We couldn’t not come.”
He nodded, exhaustion finally catching up with him as they walked out of the building. Their rickety old van was parked behind his car and Gabriella walked ahead a little bit to get the supplies out of the back.
“You don’t need to work Thursdays,” James said, remembering suddenly as he turned to Bradley.
“Thanks.”
James didn’t expect anything else. And if he went any further, he risked revealing that Amelia had accidentally told Bradley’s secret. Not that going to college in his thirties needed to be a secret, but he didn’t want to deal with Bradley’s mood if he found out James knew his private life. So instead, James shut up and watched as Gabriella came back with the bag.
“I’ll take the ritual book,” he said as Gabriella pulled out a few supplies.
She handed him the tiny leather book and he opened it, squinting at the small print in the cloudy morning light. An unsealing was simple enough, like unlocking a mental door. He turned back to the front door and began reading out loud as Gabriella drew the sigils at the top of the short staircase and Bradley treated the doorway with holy water.
It was quick work and James could feel the sensation of something loosening as he spoke the last words, letting them roll off his tongue without too much thought. He sighed, closing his eyes.
Penny was there. He couldn’t see her, but he could sense her next to him on the steps, her skirt making a slight shushing noise as she stepped out the door.
“Are you all set?” he asked her.
“What?” Gabriella asked.
“I’m out,” Penny said softly. “I can leave now.”
“Good,” James said, eyes still closed. “Where are you going to go?”
Penny’s laugh was like wind chimes and he felt that sensation of safety again. “Somewhere far away,” she said. “I need a vacation.”
James laughed too. “That sounds wonderful,” he said. “Have fun.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and he shivered at the icy touch. And then she was gone.
He opened his eyes to see Gabriella and Bradley staring at him. “What?” James asked.
“Were you just talking to the ghost?” Bradley asked.
He must have been, but the conversation was already fading from his mind. Even so, he knew she was safe and out.
“I guess I was,” he said, gazing up at the building in front of them.
After a second, James shook his head. “Alright,” he said. “Amelia’s in in a few hours and Madelyn is off today. Let’s head back. I want to do a last walk-through of the building later today, cleanse it for any negative residue, and make sure everything is done before we close the case.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Gabriella said. “Hey, give me your keys.”
James didn’t bother fighting her, he was far too tired. So he handed them over, then followed Bradley back to the van as she made her way to his car. He’d tell Bradley about the classroom before the memories faded away. Then they could tell the rest of the team and wrap this up before the next case arrived.
James buckled his seatbelt and rested his head back against the headrest as the van coughed to life. The words were on his tongue, but for some reason, he didn’t say them as Bradley pulled away from the sidewalk and started driving. Instead, he closed his eyes and drifted out for a moment, coming back what felt like seconds later as they were pulling into the driveway at headquarters.
