Paranormology

As the Professor's assistant, it was my duty to perform whatever tasks he laid out for me. It was a simple enough arrangement, until he took me on my first investigation at a run-down house in South Entrance. The house at Grosvenor Lane showed me a brief glimpse of the world beyond, a world that exists with or without my blessing. But my investigations also revealed that the application of science to an ethereal plane is anything but straightforward.

The path of science is convoluted, as I discovered during the first winter of my tenure with the Professor. There are people, upon whom we must rely, that would prefer to see our research into the paranormal abandoned. Politics and preconceptions are subtle barriers to the truth, more so than the elusive spirits we chase. The investigation at the Beaumaris House revealed to me a secret; the biggest threat to our scientific endeavours did not lie in old, creaky houses but in old, creaky minds.

Necessity forces us all to make uncomfortable choices. The Professor, operating in such a fringe discipline as Paranormology, bore a greater burden than most. Every decision held the potential to bring his work, and the budding field, into disrepute. Our investigation at Hampton Court taught me that there is more to ghost hunting than simply recording and observing; a proper grasp of politics is just as necessary as the ability to read a thermometer.

From the events this past autumn, I am compelled to relate my perilous trial. The supposition that darkness is merely the absence of light is both popular and false, as those who practise the occult can affirm. In the dark cellar of number 13 Jolimont Street, a house the Professor had assumed benign, I unwittingly brought forth an ancient evil that first threatened our reputations, then our souls.

What we cannot see can, indeed, hurt us. Neither forgotten foes nor latent fears lose potency if ignored. A haunting, so perfectly reliable and unwavering, fed the Professor's obsession to his detriment. His health deteriorated. So did our relationship. During the darkest time of our investigations and from the most unexpected quarter, an old friend appears to leave her mark on our lives.

The out-of-doors haunting at Devon Cove presented its own unique problems, yet the cliff-tops, the wind and rain and lightning, and even the hostile townsfolk all posed less of a problem than the conflict of the tormented ghost we hunted. Her anguish reminded us - the professor, Milena, Felix, and I - of the sobering reality that ghosts were once people.

The case at Nadderwater Rise Boilermakers left an enduring impression upon me. The Professor and I witnessed firsthand how machines can turn on their masters. When directed by a malevolent force, the results were utterly brutal. As if horrid conditions are not enough, the culture of harassment ingrained into the workers only make it worse. Their daily lives are already drenched in danger, subject to severe injury without notice, yet they persist in tormenting each other, to their peril.

We are all of us, without exception, innately capable of sin. This truth was thrust upon me by a cantankerous ghost when we investigated the haunting of the Saunders house on Livermead Hill. The house itself was a grim construction, steeped in sorrow borne from secrets, anger fueled by lies and the bitter taint of betrayal.