Liverpudlian Traps

"Where's Daddy?"

The girl, who had probably been seven or eight when she died, clutched a doll to her chest. I know from past experience how difficult it is to obtain phantom projections of toys and surmised the doll must have been with her when she died and been invested with some considerable emotion from the child. She stepped forward slightly, as if she expected us to furnish her with answers.

"Who's your daddy?" said Meinwen, gently. "Is he here?"

"He's gone, all right?" The boy clutched at her free arm and dragged her away from us. "He told us we'd be together for ever and then he just went away."

"Yeah, man, he upped and left you in this shithole." Winston said. "I bet that makes you feel loved all right."

Spectral tears sprang from the corner of the boys eyes. "He's coming back for us! He said so!"

"What's your name, lad?" I asked. "And your sisters?"

"Billy," he said. "And she's Lucy."

I had a momentary shiver of comparison. We were here because of Harold's Lucy and here was another Lucy who had died before her prime. Such a waste. I took out my bloodberry and connected to the missing spirits database. William Thorburn was supposed to die in a motorcycle accident in 1984, aged 19, yet here he was having died at around ten or eleven. There was no mention of a Lucy Thorburn. She would still have been alive.

I took a long sigh and opened a portal. "Step inside, love," I said. "Let me find you a place where cares of the day will be carried away by the smile on your face."

Billy frowned and clutched his sister's arm. "We are together," he said. "Now and forever."

I nodded. "Come my way."