“I’m not really sure how it happened,” I muse as I lean down to pick up Crawshanks Guide and settle back on my worn sofa. “Best guess, when you fainted you were technically unconscious, and when you fell backward, I was standing in the way. I mean, that’s kind of what Evangeline said, wasn’t it? That if someone’s unconscious, then a spirit could theoretically take possession of the body, which is how you ended up in me in the first place.”
Dusty sniggers. “That still sounds so dirty.”
“Focus,” I sigh. “Honestly, you have the sense of humour of a pubescent child.”
“Okay, sorry,” Dusty says and rolls my eyes. “I get the whole unconscious possession thing, but what I don’t get is, when I fell backwards and you ended up back in your body, why wasn’t I just pushed out of the other side. What did Evangeline call it? Special dismemberment.”
“Spectral displacement,” I correct absently. “That’s a good point. I can’t say for certain, maybe it was just bad timing. Like a glitch, the moment I pushed inside–”
There’s another snigger in my head.
“Dusty…”
“Sorry.”
“Maybe at the exact moment I ended up back in my body, you also started to wake up, and we somehow both got squished together. Like Jeff Goldblum inThe Fly.”
“First of all… ewww, and secondly, that makes no sense.” She shakes my head.
“Nothing about this entire situation makes any sense, but it’s the best I’ve got. Only right now I’m less concerned with how this happened and more concerned with how the hell we fix it.”
“What if you knock me out?”
“How am I supposed to do that?” I say, exasperated. “We’re both stuck in here. All that would happen is we’d end up knocking both of us out, and quite frankly, I think my poor body has taken enough punishment.”
“Alright, fair point,” Dusty concedes, and my hands lift the book. “What does Corny Crawshanks have to say?”
“Alright, let me see.” I skim through the pages until the name Bertram pops out at me. “Hang on, I think this is it,” I mutter as my gaze skims across the paragraph.
On concerning the afternoon of the 4th, it was then I happened, quite perchance, upon a sorry fellow by the name of Bertram Phineas, a stout, swarthy chap, very much enamoured of more than the odd pint, and well known by the patrons of The Drunken Duck. A rather affable drunkard who on more than one occasion became so inebriated, he was unable to find his way to the doss house he frequented on Limehouse Street and would oftentimes sleep it off in the local graveyard amongst the moss and bones.
For most, this would present as a rather unseemly pastime and nothing more, but for one such as myself this presented a much darker invitation. I believe it was during one such time of overindulgence that Mr Phineas fell asleep and was happened upon during this time of deepest slumber by an errant earthbound spirit.
Seizing upon such an opportunity presented, the malcontent creature did then impose itself upon poor dear Mr Phineas and take up an uninvited residence in his physical form. Mr Phineas himself was summarily put out as one might shoo out a stray cat that has wandered over one's threshold.
Being neither a stray nor a feline, Mr Phineas found himself suddenly as insubstantial as the wind but still quite firmly anchored to his body. The spirit found this all to be a great amusement and was in no way inclined to return Mr Phineas’ form to him.
Now, unfortunately, the spritely creature began to behave in a very unseemly manner, sparking the attention of those who were quite used to Mr Phineas’ usual antics. The doctor was called for and declared Mr Phineas to be of unsound mind and summarily dismissed him to the tender mercies of the orderlies of Bedlam.
During his protracted stay at this stalwart institution, Mr Phineas, that is to say, the spirit who had infested Mr Phineas’ body, found himself to be the recipient of a rather new and exciting medical breakthrough, whereas the staff would introduce electricity through the patient’s brain via two conductors attached to either side of the skull.
The resulting shock pushed the spirit from Mr Phineas’ body, at which instance he was able to regain possession. The aftereffects did linger, and Mr Phineas found himself to be suffering with frequent headaches to which I offered him cocaine to ease his discomfiture.
The staff, believing Mr Phineas to be cured of his ailment, released him with fourpence for the night’s lodging. He went immediately to The Drunken Duck and proceeded to become intoxicated, whereupon he then passed out in the very same graveyard. As one might imagine, the threads of fate are fickle, and Mr Phineas once again found his body infested with another spirit, one who was quite obsessed with seeing the world. Using Mr Phineas’ physical form, he signed up with the captain of a merchant trading vessel and was last seen sailing for the West Indies, and so thus ends the cautionary tale of poor Bertram Phineas.
“Oh.” My brows draw together.
“Oh what?” Dusty says in a bored tone of voice.
“Didn’t you pay attention to any of that?” I reply.
“Hmm.” She rolls my eyes. “Something about a boat and cocaine. If I’d wanted to know about that, I would’ve watched Love Island. Honestly, I got to the part about graveyards and tuned out.”
“Then you missed the part when Cornelius said it took a shock to get the spirit out of Bertram’s body so he could get back in?”
“A shock? Seriously, that’s it? What? We’re just supposed to have someone jump out on us and shout ‘Boo’?”
“Um, not that kind of shock.”
