Lady of the Shades Read Free

that I’m not scowling like Rasputin.
    I try my best Geordie. ‘Norra bit’ve it.’
    Joe winces. ‘Do that again and I’m off.’
    ‘You don’t think I could pass for a native?’
    ‘In Australia, perhaps.’
    We settle down in a pair of busted chairs to wait for the ghost. The chairs had been dumped in the yard out back. We dragged them in during our first night on watch, when we grew tired of
standing.
    We’ve spent the last three nights waiting for the ghost to show. (My first night in London was devoted to a traditional pub crawl, which wasn’t as rowdy as it sounds, since Joe only
drinks non-alcoholic beer and I rarely allow myself more than four pints.) The restless spirit is meant to put in regular appearances – once or twice a week, according to the lady who owns
the place – but so far it’s been elusive.
    I’m a writer. All of my books have been about ghosts. It’s not because I can’t think of anything else to write about, or because I have scores of fans hungering for my next
supernatural tome. Each book has approached the nature of poltergeists in a different way. Each has been an attempt to explain how ghosts can exist. Or, more accurately, how
my
ghosts
exist.
    I’m not stupid. I know they’re probably the workings of a deluded mind. I accept that I’m most likely hovering over the abyss of an insane pit, and that the spirits are nothing
more than the projections of a deeply troubled psyche. But I don’t
want
to be crazy. I refuse to accept that I’m a loon. I want to fight this thing and find my way back to
normality.
    Most people would seek psychiatric help, but that’s not an option in my case. So I’ve gone a different route. I’m trying to prove that ghosts are real. If I can do that, I can
hopefully come to terms with my own retinue, maybe even find a way to banish them.
    The ghosts terrified me when they first began to appear. My world turned on its head. I had screaming fits. I sought escape through alcohol and drugs, but the ghosts followed me everywhere. I
almost blew my brains out, just to get away from them. I’m sure I would have, except that one night, in the middle of my mental anguish, I had the (probably crazy) idea that I might not be
imagining the shades, that they might be real. That slim possibility gave me the strength to pull body and soul together, and my life since then has been a quest to prove to myself that we live in
a world of wonders.
    When I first started looking for proof, I read lots of ghost stories, hoping to find something that might set me on the path of true understanding. I found myself having ideas for stories of my
own, based on what I had read and my experiences in the field. Having a lot of dead time to fill (pun intended), I began tinkering with the ideas, fleshing them out. The writing helped me blank out
the ghosts. It served as an anchor to reality, gave me the sense that I was doing something meaningful, let me believe I wasn’t the raving lunatic that I fear I am.
    Short stories led to longer stories, then a rough draft of a novel. Out of curiosity, I submitted samples of my work to a few agents, to see what they’d make of my ghostly ramblings. To my
surprise, a couple reacted positively and I signed with one of them. Thus Edward Sieveking the author was born, though I wasn’t known as that back then.
    Joe is one of my more avid fans. He’s read all three of my books several times and remembers more about them than I do. In the pub that first night, he was talking about characters and
events that I only dimly recalled. It’s been six years since my first book saw print. I throw myself completely into a novel while I’m working on it, but when it fails to produce any
answers to the riddles that plague me, I publish it, put it behind me and move on.
    Joe thought that writers carried each and every book around with them for life. He doesn’t understand how I can spend two or three years working on a story, then