Lockwood & Co.: The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online Page B

of the Christmas Corpse. So he still had that, still liked to wear it….
    I blinked, and stopped thinking about his clothes.
    Lockwood
was standing at my door.
    All this ran through my mind in the first split second. “Hello, Lucy,” he said.
    I just managed to avoid the worst-case scenario, in which my mouth would simply have stayed wide open while emitting a gassy whining sound. But I didn’t get close to the cool, calm reaction I’d dreamed about during those four long months apart.
    “Hi,” I said. I withdrew my hand from my pajamas. I rubbed hair out of my eyes. “Hi.”
    “Sorry it’s a bit early,” Lockwood said. “I see you haven’t been up long.”
    Funny, when I’d lived with him at Portland Row, I’d puttered around in nightclothes all the time. Now that we worked apart, I was suddenly wildly embarrassed. I looked down. No, they weren’t even my best pajamas. They were an old gray pair I was using while my laundry was being done.
    My laundry…My blood went cold. The laundry package! If it was outside the door…
    I craned my head out, surveyed the landing to either side. No. No sign of it. Good.
    “Are you all right?” Lockwood asked. “Something wrong?”
    “No, no. Everything’s fine.” I took a deep breath.
Be calm.
The pajamas weren’t a biggie. I could deal with this. It was all going to be great. I put one hand nonchalantly on my hip, tried for an expression of airy unconcern. “Yes. Everything’s fine.”
    “Good. Oh, there was this package on your step,” Lockwood said. He produced a see-through plastic bag from behind his back. “Looks like it’s got a
lot
of…nicely ironed items in it. Don’t know if they’re…”
    I gazed at it. “Yeah, those are…those are my neighbor’s. I’ll look after it for him. For
her.
” I snatched the bag and tossed it out of sight behind my door.
    “You look after your neighbor’s underwear?” Lockwood glanced back across the landing. “What kind of an apartment building
is
this?”
    “It’s—Well, actually I—” I ran harassed fingers through my uncombed hair. “Lockwood,” I said, “what are you
doing
here?”
    His smile broadened, carrying me with it. It became a sunnier place, that little landing; the smell of my neighbor’s lavender plantation receded; I no longer noticed the peeling wallpaper in the stairwell. How I
wished
I was properly dressed. “I wanted to check in, see that you were doing okay,” Lockwood said. “And,” he added, before I could challenge him, “I’ve got something to ask you, too.” His gaze flicked past me for an instant, into the room. “If you’ve got the time, that is.”
    “Oh. Yes. Yes, of course I have. Um, why don’t you come in?”
    “Thanks.”
    He stepped inside, and I closed the door. Lockwood looked around.
    “So this is your place,” he said.
    My place. Oh, God. With the shock of seeing him, I hadn’t stopped to think about the condition of my room. I glanced around, and with an instant awful clarity I saw everything: the sorry hump of bedspread in the center of the mattress; my pillow, laced with ancient stains; the various mugs and chips bags and plates with toast crusts stacked to the left of the sink; the dirty bags of iron and salt, the rusty chains, the ghost-jar with its horrid skull (now mercifully quiet); the colorful scraps of clothing scattered on the floor. Then there was the carpet. I hadn’t vacuumed the place in months.
Why
hadn’t I? Why hadn’t I actually
bought
a vacuum cleaner? Oh, God.
    “It’s…nice,” Lockwood said.
    His voice, so calm and measured, had an immediate effect on me. I took hold of my thoughts and quieted them. Yes. Actually it
was
nice. It was mine, after all. I was paying for it; I was making it work. It was my place. It was fine.
    “Thanks,” I said. “Look, do you want to sit down? No—! Not there!” Lockwood had made a move toward the hideous tangle of my bed. “There’s this chair here….No, wait!” I’d spotted