Embassy of the Dead: Hangman’s Crossing

STAYING ALIVEPresent DayJake Green was still alive. At first, it had been easy being alive, a simple case of not doing deadly things. Not crossing the road without looking. Not putting your finger in the toaster. Not choosing the mystery-meat lasagna in the school cafeteria. Then, for a few short days a couple of months ago, it had suddenly been a lot more difficult. He had accidentally discovered he could see ghosts and had subsequently been sucked into the world of the Embassy of the Dead. From that point on, staying alive needed a more proactive approach, like stealing a camper van and going on the run with a spectral undertaker to try to prevent Fenris the fallen reaper from rising from the grave to bring forth an Age of Evil. That kind of thing.   He didn’t like to think about Fenris. With the help of a few new friends, he’d pretty much condemned Fenris’s spirit to an eternity trapped in a severed finger. Jake hadn’t had any choice—his life had been at stake and any sort of Age of Evil had seemed best avoided, if possible. So the world had been saved and Jake Green was still alive. But weirdly, as a side effect, the Embassy of the Dead had made him an Undoer—someone who helps ghosts resolve their unfinished business on the Earthly Plane so they can continue with their journey to the Afterworld. It wasn’t a profession he’d ever considered before and so far, despite a mysterious postcard summoning him to the Embassy of the Dead, it wasn’t one he planned on following. It seemed safer to just stay at home, play video games, and push the postcard to the back of his mind.   Given that Jake had recently saved the world, you would think, in the grand scheme of life and death, being late for Thursday morning homeroom wouldn’t be that important. Sadly, though, this wasn’t the case. Life on the Earthly Plane went on. And that’s why he was sitting at his mom’s breakfast table, shoveling cornflakes into his mouth as fast as physically possible.   His best friend, Sab, sitting across from him, was tilting his phone to control a game he was playing. Sab was less concerned with lateness.   Jake drank the last of the cereal milk straight from the bowl. A girl’s voice sounded from behind him.   “I am appalled by your complete lack of table manners.”   There was a pause. Jake placed the bowl back on the table.   “Appalled but not at all surprised,” the voice added flatly.   To those with the ability to see ghosts, Cora appeared to be an everyday schoolkid—albeit a slightly transparent one from an exceedingly fancy school, with a hockey stick in one hand and a straw hat on her head. Cora was a ghost—one of those new friends who had helped Jake take down Fenris and stay alive. Jake had freed her from the all-girls’ boarding school she’d been forced to haunt since the 1990s. Now she lived in the spare bedroom of his mom’s house. As a Possessor—a rare type of ghost—Cora was bound forever to a small silver trophy from which she could venture no more than thirty or so yards. It meant she was never far away, demanding that Jake take the trophy everywhere with him, hidden in his backpack. His only escape from her was to shut the lid. Then she was trapped inside. To be honest, he never did that, no matter how tempting it was. For one thing, he’d never hear the end of it when he opened it again. But he also liked having her around, even if she was annoying. It got a bit lonely sometimes at home. He’d come to terms with the fact that his mom and dad weren’t ever going to get back together. It wasn’t a perfect situation, but then again it hadn’t been perfect when they were together either.   Cora had promised she’d stay in her room this morning while Sab was here, but clearly she was already bored.   She leaned to one side and her hockey stick rematerialized under her to support her weight.   “I don’t know why your parents don’t send you to boarding school. Then you would never be late. You might actually learn table manners, too . . .”   Jake pushed away his bowl and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.   “You’ve come to talk about the postcard again, haven’t you?” he asked.   Sab looked up. “Huh?”   “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”   Sab went back to his game. “Freak,” he muttered.   It was a sign of affection.   Unlike Jake, Sab was completely insensitive to the presence of ghosts. He couldn’t hear or see Cora. To be honest, when he was playing a game on his phone, he was pretty much insensitive to the presence of the living, too. Jake was quite surprised Sab had even heard him speak.   Jake stood up and walked to the hall to get his coat.   Cora was waiting for him.     “Of course I want to talk about the postcard. It’s been almost a month since we were summoned back to the Embassy of the Dead . . . It might be something important . . . It might be something fun.”   Jake made a face. Something dangerous, more like.   He was glad to have left the Embassy of the Dead behind him. Literally everything that had happened since he’d met Stiffkey had been dangerous. And although he missed the grouchy old ghost, he was happy he’d been able to Undo the troubled undertaker and let him pass on to the Afterworld at last. Since then, he’d been enjoying getting back to his life of relative normality on the Earthly Plane. Well, as normal as it could ever be when you were being nagged by a ghost girl every day.   “Oh, please can we go . . .”   Jake looked up at her eager face in disbelief.   It was like she’d forgotten about Fenris. It was like she’d forgotten about Mawkins, the other reaper who, despite not being fallen and in fact being on their side in the end, had nearly sent them to the Eternal Void. And she’d definitely forgotten about the Ambassador of the Embassy of the Dead, who had been very clear in stating that, although Jake was now officially an Undoer—a member of the living blessed with the ability to help trapped spirits pass on to the Afterworld—and there was nothing she could do to prevent that, she did not like Jake and hoped not to see him again until he was dead.   Jake couldn’t even understand why the Embassy had asked them back.   It couldn’t be a good thing. And, like most of his problems, Jake felt the best way to approach it was not to approach it. Instead he had decided to ignore it. Ignore the Embassy, ignore the postcard. Ignore it all for as long as possible.   His mind was made up.  No, he mouthed at Cora, looking down to fasten the zipper on his coat. It was time to go to school. As far as he was concerned, the matter was closed.   If he’d looked up, he would’ve seen from the look in Cora’s eyes that it clearly wasn’t.