The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 11 by Stephen Jones

Author:Stephen Jones [Jones, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780337142
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
Published: 2000-11-29T07:00:00+00:00

Like the Librarian, I find the late twentieth century tiresome. Because of my dress and the furnishing of my house, most people assume that I affect a late Victorian style to express this distaste, but that is not the case. It is simply a style I have never outgrown. And it was the time in which my family first gained influence over the dead.

We had a long and honourable history as sin-eaters and scriers, but it was grandfather who began the trade in what is now known, inaccurately, as the paranormal. It was he who codified a systematic approach to the matter of the dead. I am the last of my line. My mother and father died when our house was destroyed by an ill-advised experiment, and when I had recovered I moved from Edinburgh to London, and bought a house in Spitalfields.

It was a Georgian house in poor repair, and I have done nothing since to modernize it, or, like some of my neighbours, to restore it to its original state. (I have several times resisted visits from well-meaning members of the self-styled historical society, who give conducted tours of their restored houses dressed in Georgian costume; but my black suit, paisley waistcoat, Homburg, walking stick and fob watch are not a costume.) There is no electricity, and no telephone, but those things are not necessary. As light attracts moths, so electricity attracts too many partial ghosts, and I do not need the distraction. I have gas mantles, and coal fires in the winter. And anyone who wants to find me will eventually do so, or they will discover in the process of trying to find me that they do not, after all, need my help.

But the most important thing is that it is a quiet house, a quiet place, and well protected. How difficult that is to find in any large city! All who died here died natural deaths; they led content and happy lives. When I found it, there were no ghosts thrown off by hate or fear, by ecstasy or enlightenment. Ghosts of the original owners, a Huguenot silkmaker and his wife, sometimes drift through the rooms, and the ghost of the cobbler who lived and worked in the basement for more than fifty years can sometimes be heard, but they are all weak and harmless fragments, no more of a nuisance than the mice which rustle behind the walnut panelling. A few imps of delirium left by the hippies who squatted there in the early seventies were easy to disperse, and other ghosts are kept at bay by soul catchers at doors and windows, and regular asperging with rosemary, moly, and rue.

Such places are increasingly rare as ghosts multiply. Fewer people seem inclined to a quiet death, and the jostle of the city’s population fills its streets with malevolent ghosts cast off in moments of intense anger or fear. Traffic intersections are crowded with the remnants of motorists’ frustrations; I am unable to visit hospitals,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.