Oh and if anyone notices something slightly similar between this and Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, it's because I wrote this after reading about the book (though I haven't actually read it).
The Ghostmaster
I watched Mortimer as he sat outside. He looked across the road, at the open gate that led to the graveyard. Now obviously this is not normal behaviour, for a child to be looking upon a graveyard. A five year-old at that, and in the middle of the night. But Mortimer was not normal.
He got up and walked across the road, into the graveyard. He walked past the tombstones, appraising them all silently, before discovering and sitting down on a bench. He stared at a tombstone to his right. It read,
R.I.P.
Martin Dodgers
Well, he hadn’t dodged Death. Mortimer looked straight ahead, and he noticed that an old man now sat to his left. The Old Man stared at him through thick round glasses, his head was covered with a pure white top hat, and he had an incredibly bushy moustache. He wore a black suit that looked particularly uncomfortable, and he held a white cane in his left hand. His skin was the black of the night sky, and his eyes shone white. He was a strange creature.
“I expect that you can see me,” he said in a quiet yet powerful voice. Mortimer nodded.
“So you are a Ghostmaster, then.” Mortimer blinked. “Because only Ghostmasters can see us. The Dead, I mean. What was your name again?” Mortimer said nothing.
“Yes, I thought it was Mortimer. I think I’ll call you Morty. For short.
“Well Morty, being a Ghostmaster is awfully important and difficult. Yes. You have to learn a great many skills, like Spooking, Floating, Second Seeing, even Realm Shifting. That last one is perhaps the most important. Yes. And when something is wrong with the Other Realm, you have to go and fix it. Yes.” Mortimer made no reaction to this whatsoever.
The Old Man frowned. “Say, you’re not Dead yourself, are you Morty? Good.
“There is no trouble in the Other Realm now. None at all. So you can be off until there is.” Mortimer stared at the Old Man, and then he went home.
But he returned the next night. The Old Man was there, and he began to teach Mortimer how to Spook. It involved plenty of apparition and dis-apparition, and Mortimer mastered it within three weeks; he became very fond of Spooking his younger brothers, Charles, Mason and Adam.
Next he was taught Floating, which consisted of plenty of ‘keeping a space of ten centimetres between the ground and your feet at all times.’
After Floating, the Old Man taught him Second Seeing, and he soon began to see Ghosts wandering around. According to the Old Man, Ghosts were the Dead who had escaped the herding of the Dead into the Other Realm by the Gatekeepers. They usually only ran because they had something they still had to do in the Living Realm, something they had forgotten to do or put off doing, or something they were looking or waiting for.
Through Second Seeing, Mortimer befriended many Ghosts, including a boy called Israel. In escaping the Herding, he had lost his memory. Mortimer called him Israel, after the man in the Bible, and Israel took to following him around ever after. He touched his arm once, and Mortimer’s black hair turned pure white forevermore.
One night after Mortimer’s twelfth birthday, he and Israel travelled to the Graveyard to visit the Old Man. The Old Man was Floating up and down before the bench, muttering curses under his breath. He looked up as they approached.
“Boys! There you are!” he cried. “There is trouble! Great Trouble!” He said something in a language that neither understood.
“What’s going on Old Man?” Israel asked. Israel, because he could not remember himself, took to both Mortimer and Old Man like fire to a house. He thought of the first as a brother, and the second as a father.
Old Man looked at him, his face was creased with worry, and so was his suit. “It’s the Dead! And the Whistlers! The Whistlers have stirred the Dead up; they’ve made them believe that it is their right to live again. They want to break free of the Underworld, and they want to come here, to the Mid-World! It’s unthinkable!”
“Why?”
“Why?!” Old Man cried, his eyes nearly jumping from their sockets, and smacking his cane into the ground. “Why?! Because then the Worlds will turn upside-down! Everything will go topsy-turvy! People will walk on their heads, and babies would talk, and you won’t live to die but die to live, and glass will never shatter!” Old Man’s chest was heaving heavily up and down by the time he had finished his rant, but neither boys could understand how anything he had said related to the Dead wanting to Live. But neither said anything about it.
“You see,” Old Man said, his eyes turning even whiter than they had been a minute ago, “now I must look for a hero. Someone must right things, must make the Dead see properly again. Their new philosophy is not how things were meant to be. They are going against everything, no, they are going against the foundation of everything.”
“Then Morty can do it,” Israel announced. “He is the Ghostmaster, after all. Although I don’t know what a whistler is, and I don’t think he does either.” Mortimer nodded.
The Old Man looked at them both. “Firstly,” he said quietly,” it is not a whistler but a Whistler. And they are strange beasts. They were the first Gatekeepers. They were sent from the Overworld, that they may herd the Dead into the Underworld. But they tired of their job after a few millennia, and sought their homes in the Overworld. For this change of heart they were punished, for they had signed an oath to be Gatekeepers for all eternity. They were stripped of their honours, and became withered ghosts of their former selves, neither dead nor alive. They were locked in the heart of the Underworld, that they might never escape. But it seems that they now have, and seek revenge.”
“How did they convince the Dead? Surely it can’t be so easy.”
“This is the origin of their name. If you see a Whistler, do not run but cover your ears. For their singing is beyond resistance, and you will fall into whatever trap they seek. The Whistlers sung to the Dead, they sung sweet songs of their memories of the Overworld, and now the Dead have fallen in love with it. They wish to go there. But only the Spirits and the Ephemerals go there. None else.” Mortimer looked, silent. Old Man turned to him.
“Do you wish to go, Morty? I would go, I would put a stop to this nonsense, yes I would, but as a Gatekeeper I must stay at my post. Anyhow, you are the Ghostmaster, the Whistlers cannot harm you, nor can the Dead. And you can pass through the Worlds and Realms freely. You wish to go, yes?” Mortimer nodded in earnest. He would, somehow, put a stop to the Whistlers plan.
Old Man nodded in satisfaction, and turned back to Israel. “You can follow him, because there are certain things that he cannot do which you can. When you enter the Underworld, you must seek the path to the King of the Dead. He is missing, and you must find his whereabouts, so that he can stop this nonsense. As you travel to find him, try and lock the Doors, yes?”
“The Doors?” Israel asked.
“Yes, the Doors. There are many dead, and they all are kept in different cities. You might find the Underworld similar to this one. Each city has a door, and you must lock it, to stop the Dead from getting out and the Whistlers from getting in. This might be difficult, however.”
“How so?”
“Because Flame-Throwers usually guard the Doors. Either they have joined the rioting, yes, or they are trying to stop it, yes, or they may try and hinder your entering a city and locking the Door, yes. I have not been to the Underworld in sometime; I do not know what happens there anymore.
“And you must look out for Witches, and Vampires, yes? Some may have been visiting the Underworld, they may have been passing through on their way to their World. Either they have also joined the riots, or if not you must help them leave the Underworld. Is that clear?” Mortimer and Israel nodded, and the latter asked:
“But how do we lock the Doors? And how do we open doorways to other Worlds?” Old Man smiled, this was depicted on his face by a curve of whiteness forming on his strange face. Then it disappeared, and he slammed his cane into the ground. With a green flash it turned into a long sword, which he handed to Mortimer. The blade was blue, and embedded with a white crystal. Or so he thought.
“Crystal?” Old Man said. “No, that is no crystal; it is not anything that you may find in this World. That staff, it will turn to whatever it is that you need it to be. I found it one day a long time ago, atop a hill. I have a vague idea of whom it belonged to, but I am not sure.
“Slash at the air with it, and it will make doors to other worlds. But you must be thinking of the specific world you wish to go, otherwise you may open a door to anywhere, and then anything may be at the other side. The only place it will not take one to is the Overworld.
“Use it also as a key to lock the Doors, and as a weapon against the Whistlers, or any who attempt to harm you both. Good luck, yes?” Old Man bowed, and stepped to the side. Mortimer held the staff-sword awkwardly, and slashed clumsily at the air before him. There was a whistling sound, and a gash of light appeared before him. Through it, he saw a long dusty path in the midst of a plain. He looked back.
Old Man smiled again, it was disconcerting. “Good luck, yes? Good luck!” Mortimer turned around again and stepped through the door, Israel right behind him.
I'll correct it now.
Mind you, I was the weirdest kid ever. You can't blame me though; I used to live right next door to a graveyard. Sorry, back to topic! The problem I have is that this beginning as a whole is lacking description and depth. What does the graveyard look like? Create the atmosphere for us. It's a kid going into a graveyard in, what I assume is, the dead of night. This could seriously have the potential of an epic, shocking opening.
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