by Erin Lindsey
“No way of knowing until we secure the help of a medium. She could have died recently or a very long time ago—though from her attire and obvious inexperience, I rather suspect the former.”
“When you threatened her with the walking stick, you said something about her point of origin.”
“Ah, yes.” He turned the cane over in his hands. It was a handsome thing—pale wood polished to a high shine, bone-white handle carved to resemble a griffin—but I couldn’t see anything truly special about it. “That’s something you should know as a matter of safety. When it comes to spirits, the two most important weapons in your arsenal are salt and ash—by which I mean the wood.” He hefted his stick.
“Why?”
“Science has yet to provide an answer, but the spiritual properties of ash trees have been understood since antiquity. Your Gaelic ancestors, for example, revered it as holy. You’ve heard of the five legendary guardian trees of Ireland? No? Well, in any case, the closest to a genuine explanation comes to us from the Vikings, who believed the World Tree acted as a sort of conduit between various domains of existence. All we know for certain is that when a spirit comes into contact with ash, it is transported instantly back to the otherworld.”
“The otherworld. Do you mean hell?”
“Not in the biblical sense, no.” Sighing, he added, “There’s just so much to cover. For now I think we ought to focus on what you need to know to keep you safe. So—ash and salt.”
Salt. A memory flashed through my mind: Mei Wang kicking salt under the front door of her father’s shop. She knew. The whole time, she knew …
“Ash banishes a spirit, and salt can be used to create a barrier the dead cannot cross. It’s helpful to keep some of both within easy reach.”
“What, I’m just supposed to walk around with salt in my pockets? For that matter, where am I going to get a piece of ash wood?”
“Keeping a pouch full of salt on your person isn’t a bad idea. As to the ash, getting hold of it isn’t the problem—it’s how you’ll carry it. Short of packing a parasol around everywhere you go…” He hummed thoughtfully. “Leave it with me. I’ll think of something.”
I glanced out the window again, squinting this time to protect my oversensitive eye. We were making good time, what with the light evening traffic. Soon, I’d be home with Mam.
Mam who talked to my dead granny. Mam who’d smelled the dead on my dress.
It wasn’t until that moment, gazing out the window with one pupil dilated, that I really stopped to think about that. It can’t be real, can it? If Mam was seeing a ghost, it would have killed her by now. Unless … “What’s the difference between a shade and a ghost?”
“Yes, good, that’s an important distinction. They’re both spirits of the dead, but the shade is damaged. Some fragment of it remains bound to the physical world, preventing it from crossing over. Whereas a ghost is a spirit that has crossed over entirely. What we see is only a projection, not unlike a photograph. The image of a thing rather than the thing itself.”
“So ghosts can’t hurt us.”
“Oh, but they can—just not through physical means. The ghost’s weapon is madness and suggestion, and they can be remarkably effective at both. Most ghosts appear only to relatives, and they’re usually trying to be helpful. Sometimes, though, they have darker designs. Revenge, for example.”
“Relatives, you say?” My voice sounded suddenly thin.
The ghost’s weapon is madness …
“Are you all right, Rose? You’ve gone quite pale.”
“I need your help. I need you to come with me.”
“What, now? I’m sorry, but I—”
“Please.”
“Yes, of course.” He took my hands, meeting my gaze with a worried frown. “Of course, whatever you need.”
I forced myself to draw deep, calming breaths. Don’t panic. She’s been this way for years; she can wait a few more minutes. “It’s my mother,” I said. “She’s … Well, I think you’d better see for yourself.”
* * *
In my anxiety, I hadn’t really thought through what I was asking. It was only now, alighting from the carriage amid the flotsam of Five Points tenements, that it hit me: I was about to drag my wealthy, elegant, oh-so-proper gentleman employer into the tattered rookery at 55 Mott Street.
Contrary to what I’d thought, Mr. Wiltshire was obviously no stranger to Five Points. That meant he had a clear enough idea of the sorts of conditions I’d grown up in. But knowing something in theory and coming face-to-face with it are two different things. I could have gone with him into any other building on that street without feeling too awkward, but this … I was bringing him into my mother’s home. A home paid for with wages earned under his roof. Three cramped, dark rooms, the entirety of which would have fit easily into Mr. Wiltshire’s kitchen. I wasn’t ashamed, exactly, but it did make the difference in our respective situations painfully apparent, like shining a lantern on something best left in the shadows.
Uncomfortable as it was for me, I sensed it was even more so for him. But he did his best to hide it, following me gamely up the crooked little stairs in the dark, trying discreetly to avoid getting soot from the walls on his overcoat. We creaked our way down the hall to Mam’s door, where I paused. “Would you mind waiting here a moment?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
I opened the door a crack and slithered through, closing it behind me. A lamp glowed in the kitchen, and another in the parlor; there I found Mam in her chair, squinting at the same old novel she’d been reading for months. “Rose,” she said, looking up. “This is a surprise. Is it Sunday already?”
I gave her a quick once-over. She looked respectable enough in a faded housedress and shawl, and aside from the line of washing hanging in the kitchen, the flat looked tidy. “It’s Friday, Mam. I have the evening off, and … well, if you don’t mind, I’ve brought someone to see you. A gentleman.”
“A gentleman?” Mam eyed me over the top of her spectacles. “Have you found yourself a young man, Rose?”
“Er, no, it’s not like that. It’s—”
“You’ve brought him for Mama, then?” Pietro’s head poked out from behind the curtain cordoning off his corner of the room. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
As usual, I couldn’t help smiling back at him. “How are you, Pietro? Sorry to disturb you at this hour.”
He shrugged and peeled back the curtain. “It’s your flat, Fiora. Besides, I’m Italian. For me it’s not even dinnertime. Hey, what happened?” Frowning, he reached for my forehead.
“It’s nothing,” I said, twitching away.
“What’s nothing?” Mam couldn’t see my stitches from her angle. “Rose, did you hurt yourself?”
“It’s fine, Mam, really. As I was saying, there’s a gentleman waiting outside. He’s … well, I suppose you’d call him an expert in your … ah, situation.”
“My situation?” Mam looked genuinely perplexed.
“Look, I’ll just fetch him, shall I?”
By the time I’d returned with my guest, Mam was on her feet, hands folded primly before her. As for Pietro, he must have decided he was an honorary member of the family, because instead of leaving us to our affairs, he’d pulled up a chair of his own.
The next few seconds were really quite mortifying. Mr. Wiltshire scanned the room with a detective’s eye—Pietro’s straw mattress in the corner, copy of Irish American on the table, lithograph of the Virgin Mary above the mantel—drawing what conclusions, I couldn’t say. Meanwhile, the room scanned Mr. Wiltshire. Pietro’s expression went from surprise to wariness to borderline hostility in about five seconds flat. Mam looked more welcoming, but the sight of an obviously wealthy gentleman in her little parlor made her uncomfortable.
All this sizing up took place before I could even make the introductions. “This is Mr. Thomas Wiltshire.” The name registered on both of their faces, if a little differently. For Mam, it was relief; fo
r Pietro, it brought a scowl. His glance cut between Mr. Wiltshire and my stitches, drawing some conclusions of his own. “Mr. Wiltshire, this is my mother, Ellen, and her boarder, Pietro.”
“A pleasure to meet you both,” he said with a courtly nod.
“The pleasure is ours, Mr. Wiltshire,” Mam said. “So nice to put a face to the name after all this time. Please, take a seat.” Her glance shifted to me, and her smile tightened. “Rose, dear.”
“Oh! Of course, pardon me … Tea?”
“Not for me, thank you,” Mr. Wiltshire said, taking the proffered chair.
I hovered beside him, wringing my hands self-consciously. “Right. Well. I asked Mr. Wiltshire here because, as I was saying before, he’s an expert in, ah…” Sweet Mary and Joseph, this was awkward, but there was no turning back now. “He knows about ghosts,” I finished, lobbing the word like a stick of hot dynamite.
Or so I thought, but if it was dynamite, it fizzled out. Pietro frowned and gave me a look that said, What are you up to? As for Mam, she just said, “Does he?”
“Yes, Mrs. Gallagher,” he said, “and I gather you have some experience with that yourself.”
“My Rose doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Mam said, turning her watery gaze on me.
“The thing is, Mam,” I said quietly, “I think I do now.”
Mam frowned, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with that. “I smelled them on you,” she said severely. “I told you I did.”
Mr. Wiltshire narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
“You did tell me, yes.” My voice was barely above a whisper now, choked with guilt. All the times I’d scolded her, patronized her, dismissed her as ill in the head. Dragged her to see the doctor or the priest, or—God forgive me—thought about sending her to Blackwell’s Island. And it had been real all along. “She’s been seeing them for years now,” I told Mr. Wiltshire.
“Not them, Rose. Just her. Just your granny.”
“Your mother, I take it?” Mr. Wiltshire asked.
Mam eyed him guardedly. “You believe in that sort of thing, do you, Mr. Wiltshire?”
“I certainly do, Mrs. Gallagher. Tell me, how often does she come to you?”
“Oh, now and then.”
“Every day.” This from Pietro. He was still giving me that look, as if he didn’t like where this was going but was prepared to play along. “Sorry, Mama, I know it’s hard to remember, but it’s every day.”
“Do you think so?” Mam looked troubled. “I don’t think it’s quite that often, Peter, dear.”
“Is there a particular time of day she favors?” Mr. Wiltshire asked.
Mam shook her head. “Comes and goes as she pleases.”
“And does she look well?”
The question puzzled me at first, but then I thought of the bloody woman. No one who’d laid eyes on that terrible apparition would say she looked well, what with the caved-in skull.
“Well enough, I suppose,” Mam said. “Pale, of course. Thin, like parchment paper.”
“If I may ask, how did she pass?”
“She was very ill. I don’t suppose we ever knew exactly what it was, but she’d always been frail, ever since the famine. Why do you ask?”
“Forgive me, I don’t mean to pry, but details can be very important in such cases. Just a few more questions, if I may. What sorts of things do you speak about? Does she ever ask anything of you, or make any suggestions about things you ought to do?”
Mam’s mouth took a wry turn. “Oh, she gives me plenty of advice, and no mistake. What I should be eating. How I should do my hair. How often I should go to confession. Can’t get a moment’s peace.”
Mr. Wiltshire smiled. “That sounds like a mother.”
“I suppose it does at that,” Mam said, smiling back.
“Are her visits long?”
“All day, sometimes,” Pietro put in.
The reaction was subtle—just a faint compression of the lips—but I could tell Mr. Wiltshire didn’t like that answer. “If I may suggest, when next you see her, try to take a nap afterward.”
“A nap?” Mam echoed, puzzled. “Why, I suppose I do that most of the time anyway.”
“Good. It will help keep your strength up.” Rising, he added, “And now I’m afraid I must be off. I have a pressing engagement down the street. It was very nice meeting you both.”
I showed him out, holding my peace until we were alone again. “That was fast,” I said once we’d reached the street.
He frowned. “I can assure you I covered the necessary. I merely thought to spare your mother a prolonged interrogation.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I don’t know how these things are done, is all. What do you think?”
“On the face of it, I’m inclined to think your mother’s visitations are real.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it meant Mam wasn’t crazy. But was being haunted by her dead mother any better?
“What if it’s not a ghost at all? Could it be a shade?”
“That you needn’t fear. Shades only manifest after sunset, whereas your mother sees the spirit at all times of day. It is certainly a ghost, and most likely a benevolent one.” Sighing, he added, “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”
I swallowed down a flutter of fear. “Dangerous how?”
“Communing with spirits is extremely taxing on the mind and body, especially for those who don’t take appropriate fortifying measures. If the visitations really are a daily occurrence, it will be taking a toll on your mother’s health.”
“It is. She seems well enough tonight, but…”
“But she’s not always so lucid.” He nodded grimly. “The ghost isn’t giving her enough time to recover between visitations.”
“What should I do?”
“The first step would be to reason with the ghost, impress upon her the harm she’s doing. Ask her to visit less often, and then only in dreams. If that fails, there are more drastic measures we might try, but I’m afraid none of them are very pleasant. Better to reason with her first. Do you think your mother will be willing?”
“All I can do is ask.”
He touched my arm briefly in a gesture of support. “Try not to worry too much. She doesn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. We have time.”
We. Until that moment, I’d had no idea one little word could be so much comfort.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m afraid I really must go. If it were anything less urgent…”
“I know.” I recalled well enough Mr. Burrows’s reaction when he’d mentioned the portal, though I still didn’t know what that meant. “Is it … Should I be afraid?”
“Not at all.”
Yesterday, I would have believed him. Today, I understood that Thomas Wiltshire was capable of hiding just about anything. He was hiding something now, I was sure of it.
But I had more immediate concerns.
I drifted back up the crooked little staircase as if in a dream. All this time … For years, my mother had been wasting away right under my nose. If only I’d believed her, I might have been able to help. Instead I’d stood by and watched it happen, let it eat away at her body and mind.
I found Mam and Pietro just as I’d left them, exchanging bemused expressions in the parlor. She looked so thin and frail under that blanket …
Sinking to my knees beside her chair, I threw my arms around my mother. “I’m sorry, Mam. I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER 16
PLAYING ALONG—ROUGH BUSINESS—THE BROTHERHOOD OF SEEKERS
“Do you think you can ask her that, Mam? For me?”
My mother gave me an exasperated look. “I don’t understand you, child. For years now, all I’ve heard from you—”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but this is important. Granny can still visit, just in dreams, all right? Please, will you tell her?”
“All right, if it matters that much to you. Can’t p
romise anything, mind. She never listened to a word I said when she was alive. Don’t see why she’d go changing now.”
Forcing a smile, I said, “One step at a time.”
“Can I go to bed now, or have you more orders for me?”
“Oh, Mam.” I helped her tidy up before escorting her to her room. “I’ll most likely be gone by the time you wake up, but I’ll try to come by tomorrow, all right?”
With Mam safely tucked into bed, I went back to the kitchen to fix myself some tea. I wasn’t surprised to find Pietro there waiting for me. He leaned against the table, arms folded, looking unhappy. “So, Fiora, where should we begin?”
I flopped into a chair, exhausted. “I don’t know if I can, Pietro.”
“No? Va bene, I’ll start. Your boss came back, obviously. He’s a doctor, I suppose?”
I hesitated. It was one thing explaining Mr. Wiltshire’s presence to Mam. Her dementia, if that was still the word for it, left her all too prone to suggestion. Pietro was another matter. I wasn’t sure what I should tell him—or what he would believe. “Not a doctor, exactly, but he knows about these things.”
“Rich men think they know about everything.”
A typical Five Pointer’s sentiment; I left it alone. “It sounded like good advice to me.”
“Maybe. Sleep never hurt nobody. But I don’t know if playing along with this ghost business is such a good idea, even if you are very convincing.”
He thinks you’re just humoring her. I couldn’t help feeling relieved, even though it meant deceiving him. That sounds awful, I suppose, but how could I tell him the truth? He’d think I was as crazy as my mother. “Whatever it takes to get her to spend less time with Granny.”
“I don’t like tricking her,” he said, as if she were his own mother.
“It’s not tricking her, it’s … using the power of her mind to help her.”
“Is that what he says? Your boss?”
“There’s that look again. You glared at him like that the entire time he was here.”
“Why shouldn’t I? He disappears on account of some shady business, and then you go off chasing chickens all over town and end up with an egg on your head for your trouble.” He gestured at my stitches. “What happened?”