Episode 3

El knew she needed to get out of the flat. The air, thick with the phantom scent of burnt toast and the unsettling awareness of an antique ghost’s presence, felt heavy. After the disastrous phone interview – Jasper’s ‘enhancements’ still rankled – she felt a desperate need for solid, undeniable reality. Westminster, with its grand, immutable stone and centuries of recorded history, seemed the perfect antidote to spectral antics.

She left Jasper with strict instructions not to ‘assist’ her in any way, shape, or form, and a stack of her less critical books to ponder. He’d looked mournful but had promised to behave. For now.

The London sun, a pale, watery disc, struggled to break through the perpetual cloud cover as El strode towards Trafalgar Square. The familiar roar of traffic, the babble of countless languages, the crush of tourists – it was all refreshingly, reassuringly normal. She walked purposefully, past the towering Nelson’s Column, the majestic lions, and then turned down Whitehall, making her way towards Parliament Square.

The sheer weight of history here was palpable, even to a pragmatic newcomer like El. Every cobbled street, every ancient building seemed to hum with forgotten stories. Usually, she found it grounding. Today, it felt… restless. A subtle unease prickled at the back of her neck. It wasn't the distinct chill of Jasper, but something more pervasive, like the static electricity before a storm.

She saw fleeting shadows darting in her peripheral vision – just tourists, she told herself. Heard faint, distant murmurs that might have been the wind, or the city’s low thrum. The air, already cool, seemed to drop a few degrees further with each step she took towards Parliament Square, becoming a damp, heavy blanket.

As she entered the vast expanse of Parliament Square, surrounded by the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, the sense of unease solidified. The usual throng of tourists felt less like a crowd and more like a disturbance on a silent stage. The sky above seemed to darken, not with clouds, but with a sudden, unnatural gloom. The air grew still, the distant traffic sounds fading, swallowed by an encroaching, profound quiet.

A whisper started, so faint it could have been her own thoughts, or the rustle of leaves. “…traitor…” it hissed, cold and sharp. Then another, louder, desperate: “…justice! We demand justice!”

El stopped dead, her gaze snapping around. No one else seemed to react. The tourists continued their picture-taking, their chatter. Had she imagined it?

Then, the world warped.

The vibrant colours of modern Westminster seemed to bleed, fading to a muted sepia tone. The familiar faces of the tourists flickered, their clothes dissolving into something coarse and dark. The crisp London air became heavy with the scent of woodsmoke, damp wool, and something acrid – fear? Old sweat?

A chill, far deeper and more insidious than anything Jasper had brought, pierced El to the bone. It wasn’t just physical; it was a cold that settled in her very marrow, a sense of profound, historical dread.

The whispers intensified, becoming a roar. Not a roar of a crowd, but a chorus of furious, desperate voices, echoing from every stone. “To the gallows! For the King! No more tyranny!”

El clutched her head, a sharp, piercing pain lancing through her temples. The scene around her was no longer contemporary London. It was… different. The people were dressed in archaic clothes – rough tunics, patched coats, women in simple bonnets. Their faces were grim, their eyes burning with a fervent, almost dangerous zeal. A large wooden scaffold, crude and terrifying, stood where a modern lamppost had been moments before.

She wasn’t just seeing it; she was in it. The damp chill on her skin, the stench of the crowd, the frantic beat of drums that reverberated in her chest. She felt a surge of collective rage, a righteous fury that wasn’t her own, but seemed to flow through her veins like ice water.

A man, pale and defiant, with long, unkempt hair and dark, haunted eyes, was being dragged towards the scaffold by two grim-faced guards. He looked weary, but his gaze held a flicker of something unbroken. The crowd surged forward, a living, breathing wave of animosity and conviction.

“Regicide!” a voice screamed, so close it felt like it was inside her own skull. “For the blood of the King!”

El gasped, stumbling backward. The details were too vivid, too real. The rough texture of the man’s coat, the spittle flying from the mouths of the enraged crowd, the glint of steel on the guards’ breastplates. This wasn’t a hallucination. This was a memory. A moment frozen in time, somehow replaying around her.

She tried to push through the spectral crowd, but her hands passed through the solid-looking figures as if they were mist. Yet the emotions, the sounds, the smells – they were overwhelmingly real. She was trapped in a historical snapshot, a horrifying, visceral echo.

Fear, cold and sharp, coiled in her gut. She felt utterly alone, isolated in a moment that wasn’t hers, a witness to a tragedy long past. The drumbeats intensified, pounding in her ears, mirroring the frantic pulse in her throat. The man was on the scaffold now, his head forced onto the block. The executioner, a hulking figure in a dark hood, raised his axe.

El squeezed her eyes shut, a choked sob escaping her lips. This was too much. The pure, raw emotion of the crowd, the absolute despair of the condemned man. It was overwhelming.

Then, a sudden, blinding flash of light, followed by an explosion of sound – the familiar roar of a London bus, the blare of a taxi horn. The sepia faded, replaced by the full, vibrant colours of the present day. The scent of coal smoke vanished, replaced by exhaust fumes. The angry shouts of the historical crowd dissipated into the mundane chatter of tourists.

El opened her eyes slowly, her head still throbbing. She was standing in Parliament Square, exactly where she had been. The scaffold was gone, replaced by a flowerbed. The grim, historical figures were gone, replaced by modern-day tourists.

But the cold, deep-seated dread lingered, a chilling residue in her stomach. And her hands were shaking violently.

“El! Are you quite alright?”

Jasper’s voice, clear and concerned, cut through the lingering disorientation. He stood beside her, perfectly solid, his brows furrowed with worry. He was dressed in his usual Victorian attire, an anomaly in the modern square, yet somehow less jarring than the spectral figures she’d just witnessed.

“Jasper?” El stammered, her voice thin and reedy. “You… you’re here.”

“I sensed your distress,” he said, reaching out a hand, then seeming to hesitate, unsure if he should touch her. “A powerful surge of… emotional energy. Was it… an Echo?”

El nodded, still trembling. “It wasn’t like… like your toast. Or the socks. This was… real. Horrible. I saw… everything. A man, an execution. The crowd. The… the fear.” She shuddered, trying to banish the image of the axe.

Jasper’s face grew grave. “I see. A strong one, then. A deeply imprinted moment in London’s history. This particular spot… it has seen much sorrow and passion. The execution of King Charles I, for instance. Or perhaps, one of the many traitors or rebels who met their end here.” He looked around the square, his eyes taking on a distant, knowing quality. “These are the Echoes I spoke of. The reverberations. They are not merely faint sensations, El. They are glimpses into moments of intense human experience, trapped in the fabric of the city.”

“Trapped?” El whispered, the word chilling her. “Like a… like a loop? That just plays over and over?”

“Precisely,” Jasper confirmed, his voice low. “Usually, they are too faint for living eyes or ears. Mere whispers on the wind. But recently… they have been growing stronger. More vivid. And more frequent. I feel them too, though not with the same… immediacy as you just experienced. My own nature is already steeped in the past, so perhaps I am more accustomed to their presence.”

He looked at her, his gaze holding genuine concern. “This is why my own manifestation has become so unpredictable, El. The veil between our worlds is thinning. Something is stirring, something that amplifies these Echoes, drawing them closer to the living.”

El wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shake off the lingering coldness. “But why? Why now? And what does it mean?”

Jasper sighed, a weary sound. “That, El, is the question I have been trying to answer for… well, for a considerable time. My own fragmented memories tell me it is connected. Connected to my being here, connected to these escalating events. But the details remain elusive, locked behind a fog I cannot penetrate.” He gestured vaguely at his head.

El looked at the grand, silent buildings of Westminster, then at Jasper, a solid figure from a bygone era standing beside her. Her pragmatic world, already shaken by his living presence, had now been utterly shattered by a historical ghost. She wasn’t just living with a peculiar phantom; she was caught in a supernatural phenomenon that was changing London itself.

“So,” she said slowly, trying to re-centre herself. “This isn’t just about you making my toast burnt. This is… bigger. London is… haunted. Actively haunted.”

“Indeed,” Jasper agreed, a grim set to his lips. “And if my premonitions are correct, these Echoes are merely the beginning. We need to understand them, El. Before London truly becomes a city of the past.”

El looked at the Big Ben tower, then back at Jasper. Her fresh start had just become a terrifying, exhilarating, and utterly bewildering quest. She hadn’t signed up for this. But then again, she hadn’t signed up for a ghostly flatmate either. And here they were.

“Alright, Jasper,” she said, her voice gaining a surprising hint of determination. “So, London’s got a ghost problem. And you’re the expert, apparently. What do we do now?”

Jasper offered a small, almost hopeful smile. “Perhaps we begin by investigating the unusual. The strange occurrences that others dismiss. Small disturbances that might lead to larger truths. I have been sensing a particular… persistent chill, not of my own making, emanating from a certain establishment not far from here.”

El raised an eyebrow. “A cold spot? You mean, like, a haunted fridge?”

Jasper chuckled, a low, pleasant sound. “Perhaps. Or perhaps something more significant. A localized lingering, a clue. It is a peculiar little coffee house, renowned for its excellent blends, but equally for its inexplicably frigid corner. The proprietor, a rather stout gentleman, complains incessantly about his heating bills.”

El considered this. A cold spot. A strange anomaly. It sounded like a manageable mystery, a baby step after the terrifying plunge into a historical execution. And perhaps, a strong coffee wouldn’t go amiss either.

“Lead the way, Jasper,” she said, feeling a flicker of something new within her – not just fear, but a strange, unsettling curiosity. “Let’s go find this chilly coffee house.”

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