Ghost Rememberer

Tyrus Buckley

Description

In the summer of 1895, when Brenton Grey rolls into the industrious little town of Carmallow Crown, he knows not the sordid secrets that live there-nor what murderous mysteries fidget restlessly beneath its soil.Haunted by a comical apparition, shocked by a vicious murder, and confounded by puzzles wrapped up in riddles, the unlikely detective finds himself on a hunt for not one, but three different killers. As he questions his own sanity, and wrestles ageless moral dilemmas, he is taken on an emotional journey that will change him forever.In a time of horse carriages, pouffy dresses and class separations-at the dawn of electricity, the bowler hat, and the questioning of gender identity-a tale unfolds of forbidden lusts, dark deeds, and buried bones.Brenton Grey must become a master manipulator, to bring justice, closure and peace, to an entire town-and to a flirty ghost, with a wicked sense of humour.

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839784422
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents Copyright, Disclaimer, Credits Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Part Two Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Dedication About The Author
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Ghost Rememberer
by Tyrus Buckley
Copyright © 2021 Tyrus Buckley
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Image by Enrique Meseguer
https://pixabay.com/users/darksouls1-2189876/
Ghost Rememberer was planned, written and compiled using Novelist
https://www.novelist.app
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Part One
Chapter 1
It was night time, and the year was 1895.
The rhythmic chugging of the steam train had a lulling effect on the young man, who sat alone at the last of the tables-for-two. Across the aisle, ran a row of bigger tables, each with four chairs. But, those were all empty. The other travellers had long ago retired to their compartments, stuffed with fine food, and even finer wine—provided to Welton Rail's first-class passengers only.
Acutely appreciative of the certain intangible romance of roving by rail, Brenton Halithersis Grey immersed himself in the full symphonic experience. The gentle shushing of steam conducted them along iron tracks, with clinks and clunks setting the tempo of a calming mechanical sonata. The beautiful carriages and glimmering fixtures, shining like the brass section of a lively concerto, brought a kind of glamour to the scene—while the delightful smells, of clean upholstery and wood polish, completed the composition, singing soulfully of man's ingenuity and compulsion to advance.
All of it cultivated profound enjoyment, and delight, but the greatest contributor to Brenton's chirpy mood, was the dining car—a relatively recent innovation in train travel, but the most important, by his estimation. No more panicked dashes to buy stale biscuits, or to stock up on dirty water at each stop. Now, for the first time in history, man could truly travel in style.
Of course, if the orchestra of his emotional theatre had any inkling of what loomed ahead for the young man, there might have been a jarring discord played—to invoke suspense, and signal a great impending excitement. But, the train unfortunately had no knowledge of his future, and provided no dissonant warning of what lay farther down his track.
His spectacles slipped down his nose. He pushed them back up, squinting at the intricate pattern woven into the plush carpet, hardly noticing the approaching waiter—who was clad appropriately in black and white, beneath hair slicked to one side.
"Would you like anything else, Sir?"
Brenton pondered for a moment, while the dining car attendant waited patiently. Even as the last remaining diner, the wealthy patron was entirely oblivious to the veiled innuendo that it was time to sod off.
"Actually, yes. I wonder if you have any of that Carmallow tinned meat stuff back there."
"You mean Carmallow's Tinned Pork, Sir?" the waiter said, eyes gradually widening. "We do, but that is usually only given to, er, workers on the train, Sir. I'm sure Sir might prefer something... more to his tastes, perhaps? Another sirloin, perhaps?"
Brenton slid his spectacles up his nose with his index finger, but they slipped back down a moment later.
"Well, you see, it's just that my father has sent me to stay with the Carmallows—for business experience, you understand, business being what my father wants me to do—although, between you and I, I rather wanted to pursue other interests. Anyhow, I just thought, well, if I'm to meet them and live under their roof for a time, and learn from the great Bertrum Carmallow himself, that I should probably, at a minimum, be familiar with the product of their labours, because it would be a bit rude—would it not?—if I didn't even know what it tasted like, you understand."
The waiter opened his mouth, but couldn't wedge a word into the wee conversational gap.
"Especially since I'm on my way to Carmallow Crown right now, which is the very reason I'm on this train, obviously. Well, I suppose it's not obvious, because this line continues on to Epleworth, and beyond."
The attendant opened his mouth once more, but closed it again, when Brenton persisted.
"Did you know, they were the first small town in the country to have electricity? Most other towns that size still don't. I mean Carmallow Crown, of course, not Epleworth. And, I happen to know what the Carmallows paid, to the Manson Illumination Company, to have their little coal electricity generator built—a staggering amount, that would knock your socks off."
"I-"
"Aren't they lucky, to have a whole town named after them? Not that I'm that vain, of course, and obviously I don't mean that they are either , but, I'm sure you know what I mean.
"At any rate, I should like to try a tin, if you can spare one, that is. I certainly wouldn't want to deprive a hard worker, such as yourself, of their dinner."
"Yes, Sir," the attendant said quickly, seizing the moment, "of course, Sir. Just one moment."
When he'd gone off, Brenton looked out the window as the carriage trundled into a tunnel. Nothing to see but pitch black, he waited to emerge once more into moonlight.
A frightfully girlish whimper escaped his manly lips, as he cringed back into his seat. He blinked, and then blinked again.
For just a moment, he had been quite certain that a face stared back at him through the glass. Although only a flicker, he was sure it had been real, but now doubted his faculties.
"I must be more tired than I thought," he said, under his breath.
The silhouettes of forest trees came into view once more, beneath an ensorcelling lunar glow. He lifted his glasses to rub his eyes—promising himself that he would refrain from staying up late to read detective stories, as he was wont to do. Peering out the window again, he saw his own ghostly reflection drifting in front of the trees, and adopted this apparition of glass and light as the likely explanation.
The likeness that stared back at him—donning a fashionably dark dinner jacket, waistcoat and bowtie—was an average person. Not thin, but not chubby. Not handsome, but not ugly either. He had one of those bland faces that was as memorable as a head of cauliflower, set under a mop of curly dark hair that seemed to explode from the top of his skull. He was slightly taller than average, but all in all, Brenton Grey was rather plain on the outside. The inside, though, was an entirely different matter, and—had anyone been able to observe the extent to which his brain tirelessly toiled—the appearance of an exploding top might be seen as merely an omen of the inevitable.
He wasn't naive enough to assume that travelling by rail was a delightful experience for everyone. He was well aware of the lower class carriages, that were anything but comfortable, and he was quite conscious of his family's money buying luxuries that other people couldn't afford—but, he also wasn't going to apologise for it.
Yet, unlike most in his family's circle of socialites, Brenton Grey did not believe that money made a person any better than anyone else. Everyone was created equal. Money only made you a lot more comfortable, while you were being equal.
He watched the dark shapes of the forest rushing by, before they gave way to open fields that spanned out ahead of hills in the distance. A small cloud drifted in front of the bright moon, giving its puffy oval shape a silvery luminescent edge.
It was the kind of evening often described in the detective novels he read religiously. Bright moon, shadowy woods, and spooky clouds. Clouds that took on whatever shape the subliminal mind projected—whether the result of buried memories, hidden desires, or supernatural harbingers of future events. The cloud he stared at now, looked oddly like the silver pot his grandmother had used to make fudge. It could mean there was a pot in his future, but it more likely warned of a broken tooth—if Granny Grey's fudge was anything to go by.
"Here we are, Sir."
The attendant placed a gleaming white plate in front of him on the table. In its centre, was a mass of pinkish matter that resembled meat, in the loosest sense. It was coated with a gelatinous substance, that quivered and danced, in time with the train's mechanical vibrations.
Brenton grinned up at the waiter.
"Delightful," he said, finger pushing his glasses up.
It looked anything but delightful. It didn't even look edible. Yet, Brenton Grey was a young man who somehow brought genuine optimism to every situation in life, and managed to ooze sincerity—even when life looked like a blob of pink, meaty medical waste, that someone somewhere might be very relieved to finally be rid of.
"Enjoy, Sir," the attendant said, turning on his heel and sauntering back to the kitchen, with the utter certainty that the eager young patron would do no such thing.
Brenton poked it with his fork, still smiling beneath his spectacles. He pushed them up his nose again, before stabbing a chunk and lifting it to his face.
After peering closely at the thing for several seconds, he decided it unwise to examine it any further, in case he saw something he recognised.
"You're an adventurer," he said to himself, closing his eyes, and shoving it into his mouth.
He chewed. An eyebrow lifted. The corners of his mouth drooped a little, as he