South London Forever // George Karim

-ginger nut biscuits and fighter jets and 'got you theres'-

"I didn't know it was the source," Lucy said quietly. She was looking at the ring in its little glass container where it sat next to the salt and pepper shakers. "I just took it because... it's like I can feel what she feels. What she wants.... It's hard to explain."

George swallowed the last of his gingernut biscuit and raised an eyebrow. "A psychic connection?"

"Yes!" she said, with an eager grin.

Lockwood ignored that last part, of course. He tended to ignore a lot of things, much to George's annoyance. Like the fact their next four cases had been cancelled and the hot water had run out and the electricity would soon too. And Freddie was hurt. And Lucy was absolutely losing it. 

Instead he turned to Freddie, who looked like she was trying to sleep instead of argue around the kitchen table like everyone else was. "You knew it was a source."

Freddie didn't say anything.

"Fred," Lockwood hissed. "You knew it was a source, and you let her bring it into the house and then, what, just leave it laying around while we all slept? You of all people should know how dangerous that-"

"She's been missing," Freddie started, still not sitting up or opening her eyes. "For more than thirty years."

"What?"

"Anabel Ward. She was missing for so long, and no one even bothered to find her."

George stapled the two sheets together and put them back into the plastic folder. They were no use anyway, too much was redacted to figure out anything about the test flight gone wrong. Stupid government files.

He cleaned his glasses and put them back on, taking out the next report and glaring at the chunky black rectangles put over the important information.

"Morning."

Freddie stood by the door in her pyjamas, rubbing her eyes. Chai raced down the hallway behind her and crashed through the extra, extra large cat flap on the backdoor.

He smiled. "Morning."

"What're you doing?" she asked, shuffling up behind him.

Her hand was on his shoulder.

George gulped. He tapped on the edge of the desk. "Case reports for tomorrow. It's not every day you get asked to check out a military base. Thought I'd have a look, but it's just annoying me now. Everything's redacted. Anyway, they were running some experiment on new interior or fuel or something during the nineties. Few planes went down."

"Oh yeah?"

He nodded, picking up the first file he'd pulled out hours ago. "Then a few years later the captain for that squad that went down was dispatched and died overseas, but his husband stayed at the base, so the body was sent back there. If the Source for the captain was something like his body, then the ghost might be back at the base with the rest too. And there's always the odd accidents after that, but nothing as unexplainable as what we're being sent to investigate."

Freddie nodded, staring at the paintings above the desk he was at with a frown. One of them was of a meadow full of flowers. There were some rabbits in it. He wondered if she knew it was of a meadow full of flowers. She said she wanted to see one in real life.

"And, uh...?"

"You don't know what they called about, do you?" George asked with a low chuckle, putting the lids on his highlighters so they didn't dry out.