Ghostly Echoes

by William Ritter

  “They saw it as a terrible relapse, of course. Eleanor knew that they were going to send her back, so she hid. She pulled me into the neighbor’s run-down shed and begged me to stay with her. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid. We should have run. We should have run away and never stopped running. I should have kept her safe, but I was a stupid, frightened little boy, and I did nothing. I told her to think how it would look if they found us. She scowled and told me I shouldn’t concern myself with how things look to others. Others are generally wrong.”

  “That’s what you said to me,” I said, “the first day we met.” My interruption seemed to draw him out of his trance, and he blinked up at me.

  “And so you shouldn’t.”

  “What happened next, sir? How did you get away?”

  Jackaby swallowed. “We didn’t. They came. They took her. It was for her own good, they said. Three months passed, and they finally let me see her again. She was bone-thin and shaking. She barely registered that I was there. She was terrified of those red eyes at the end of the hallway. The long, dark hallway—she kept repeating it. Only there was no hallway. Her room opened into a commons. Nobody understood what she meant. She wouldn’t tell me any more, or she couldn’t. During her fourth month in the asylum”—Jackaby cleared his throat—“she died. There was no medical explanation; she was simply gone.” His eyes were glossy as he stared at the tintype.

  “I knew that it had happened before they told me. I knew it before they found her. I didn’t understand it, but I knew. I knew the precise moment her life was snuffed out, because in that same instant a blaze was lit behind my eyes. It was as though I had been stumbling in the darkness my entire life and someone had just flicked on a light. It was precisely as she had described it. All of it. The auras, the images, the fairies, the monsters. I don’t know why the sight chose me. The power has never passed to anyone so close to the previous steward. I like to think it was her will, though—Eleanor’s final gift to a stupid, frightened boy.”

  His eyes were rimmed with red. He pushed back his chair and stared mutely at the dossier for several seconds. “Please put it away, Miss Rook.”

  I slid the tintype delicately back into its envelope and closed the file. I wound the leather strap around the heavy parcel again and tucked the whole thing back inside the safe. The door clanked shut and I spun the lock. The tumblers clicked to a stop, and this time the door did not budge when I tested it.

  “Mr. Jackaby—” I began.

  “It’s irrelevant.” He swallowed his emotions and stood up. “There are more pressing matters at hand. I paid a visit to the Mudlark boys on the way home. Ran into them with a group of their young associates. Daniel is the boy who stumbled across Professor Hoole’s body in the sewage runoff. He and his brother, Benjamin, are enterprising boys. They apparently make a tidy living selling what they find to local jewelers or merchants. Quite a lot of worthwhile things find their way down the drain, for those who are willing to sort through the muck to find them.”

  “That is both intriguing and nauseating.”

  “I think you might have enjoyed meeting them. By the way, I wish you had let me know that you were planning on returning to the house directly rather than following me. I know that you are a capable young woman, but I would prefer you not wander off unescorted.”

  “It wasn’t really my choice, sir.”

  “All is forgiven. Anyway, the Mudlarks are well established among the assembled youngsters of the area, and there’s apparently a lot of talk recently about strange goings-on.”

  “The street gangs are talking about our killer?”

  “They’re talking about rats.”

  “Rats?”

  “And cats and dogs. It seems Hammett is not the only one whose furry friend has gone astray. The city pays for the extermination of rats, did you know? There seems to be a whole sewer-based system of commerce I knew nothing about. They pay by the head, and so several of the young gentlemen in the Mudlark’s company keep traps in convenient, inconspicuous locations. They can count on a fairly regular supply, except the traps keep turning up empty. Nearly started a few heated fights, as I understand, with one rat-catcher accusing the other, but then other animals began disappearing as well, particularly around the fringes of the city. One of the boys lost a spaniel.”

  “Chameleomorphs?” I speculated. The last time cats had gone missing around town, it had been due to the nightly snacking of a little shape-shifting creature posing as a house pet.

  “I don’t think so.” Jackaby smiled. “This is where it gets interesting. The boys have seen lights in the forest—nothing constant like a campfire or a torch—strange lights, blue and flickering. I’ve never encountered one in person, but I am prone to suspect we’re dealing with a hinkypunk, or maybe even a will-o’-the-wisp.”

  The gloom had lifted and Jackaby was himself again, enamored with the prospect of pursuing another nefarious fairy tale.

  “Obviously a wisp isn’t solely responsible for Jenny’s murder, but their presence could explain what happened to Mr. Carson and the other kidnapping victims. Wisps are not physically intimidating, per se, but they are known for confounding their victims and leading them astray.”

  “Jackaby,” I said. “I ran into someone on the way home as well.”

  “Speaking of victims,” he rambled on, “I’ve also had a notion about Mrs. Beaumont’s killer.”

  “It was the pale man, Jackaby. Pavel.”

  “Yes, exactly. I believe our pale man may be a creature called a lilu. They’re mentioned in early Akkadian and Sumerian myths. Considered children of Lilith in some Hebrew texts. Gilgamesh was said to be the son of a lilu.”

  “He’s a vampire.”

  “No, I know that was your first inclination,” Jackaby said, “but it’s much too obvious. I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and the obvious answer is never the right one. You see, a lilu, while much more obscure, is actually far more entrenched in—”

  “He’s a vampire. He told me.”

  “—entrenched in the history of . . .” Jackaby’s gears ground to a halt. “Who told you?”

  “Pavel. The pale man. The vampire. We talked. He didn’t murder me horribly, no thanks to you. You were chasing after children at the time.”

  Jackaby opened his mouth, but, failing to find anything to say for once, he closed it again.

  “He’s not what I expected a vampire to be,” I said. “We used to tell stories when I was younger, and vampires were always, I don’t know, sort of elegant and refined in a dark, mysterious way. Pavel was just a shabby man in a black coat. His skin is even more unsettling up close. More than just pale, it’s sort of blue around his chin and eyes.”

  “Suggillation. Not unexpected in the undead. Livor mortis sets in when the heart stops beating. You spoke?”

  “Yes. And he’s our man, no mistake. He’s missing a fang on the left side.”

  “That accounts for the single puncture wounds on his victims.”

  I nodded. “He’s working for someone, and they’re not finished. They’re after another scientist.” I pulled out the sketch of Owen Finstern and handed it to him. The man was as unfamiliar to Jackaby as he was to me. I explained the vampire’s sordid business proposition and his promise to reveal everything that had happened to Jenny and her fiancé if we complied.

  Jackaby absorbed the information with a heavy scowl. “Jenny can’t know about this,” he whispered.

  “What? Sir, you can’t hide her case from her forever,” I said.

  “This is the first solid lead anyone has uncovered in a decade and we cannot follow it. Informing Miss Cavanaugh would be a meaningless torment.”

  I sighed. He wasn’t wrong.

  This was Jenny’s case, at least it was supposed to be—but each thread seemed to burst into more threads, and it was becoming a challenge to keep them all sorted, let alone follow them to their conclusions. Howard Carson and the missing scientists were mystery enough,
but then had come Cordelia Hoole and Miss Wick and her baby—not to mention Hammett’s cat and the sewer rats—and now whomever this Owen Finstern was that Pavel wanted us to find. It didn’t even feel like following threads at all anymore; it felt like tugging at one great tangled knot. “This is not how cases are supposed to go,” I said aloud. I had read enough mysteries by candlelight to have developed a sense of these things. Where were the puzzle pieces, sliding smoothly into place? Where was the hidden narrative gradually becoming clear?

  “Oh?” said Jackaby. “How are cases supposed to go?”

  “I don’t know. Logically. This feels like madness.”

  Jackaby chuckled. “Beautiful madness,” he reminded me with a wink. “We’re still in the middle of our Monet, remember? Just wait. The picture is there around us. We will find our answers for Miss Cavanaugh.” He swallowed.

  “I know you care about her,” I said.

  “Of course I care about her.”

  “You really should tell her that once in a while. Or just once, at least. Before it’s too late.” Jackaby glowered at me, and I let the matter drop. “What’s our next move, sir?”

  “Get some rest,” said Jackaby. “Tomorrow evening we follow our own clues and investigate the woods to the west. It will have to be after dark if we hope to see the lights.”

  Perfect. The city after dark wasn’t eerie enough. Of course our next step would be directly into the deep, dark woods.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the morning I awoke to a rhythmic pounding in my skull. The spot behind my temples was throbbing, and it felt like someone was hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer. I sat up and blinked into the light. It wasn’t just in my head. Someone was hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer.

  I dressed hastily and, as an afterthought, tucked the strange stone and the sketch of the inventor back into my pocket before I made my way down the spiral staircase. We would not be pursuing the villain’s quarry, but somehow I felt better keeping them on hand. The pounding noise had stopped as I descended to the ground floor, but I could hear the sound of frustrated voices coming from the laboratory.

  “You can’t just expect me to stay sealed in my room while you do whatever you like whenever you like. This is still my house!”

  “Exactly the point!” Jackaby countered.

  I pushed open the door and peeked inside. There was plaster dust in the air and Jackaby was leaning on a long-handled hammer. Jenny hovered between him and a crumbling hole in the plaster about a foot in diameter. The bare bricks that now showed were chipped and fracturing, with daylight beginning to shine through their cracks. Another blow or two and we would be looking at the garden.

  “You can go anywhere in this whole wide world, you insufferable man. This house is all I have! Are you actually trying to push me over the edge?” Jenny demanded.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes, I am. Please step aside. Well, float aside. Drift.”

  “Augh!” Jenny spotted me and threw up her hands. “He’s impossible! Abigail, will you please tell this man to stop demolishing my house! At least when I destroy my things it’s not on purpose!”

  “Sir?” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “I changed my mind, Miss Rook. I had been against Miss Cavanaugh working to expand her sphere of influence, but that may be just the sort of exercise she needs. You and I are going to be increasingly busy, so I thought it might be prudent and practical to provide Miss Cavanaugh with a little homework to keep her mind occupied while we’re away. No sense sitting idle. We never know when she may need to flex those metaphysical muscles. Can’t be too prepared.”

  “And just how is punching a hole in the wall meant to flex anything but my patience? Wait. Have you learned something?” Jenny looked at Jackaby, and then at me. My expression must have betrayed that I was withholding something, because she drifted off the wall and toward me.

  “No, not really,” I bluffed unconvincingly. “Just chasing shadows.”

  She looked skeptical, but Jackaby punctured the moment with an opportunistic swing of the hammer. With a crash, light poured across the dusty carpet, and he dropped the hammer behind him. “There we are!” He knelt and reached through the hole.

  “Oh, for the love of—Jackaby, this is my house!” Jenny stamped her foot, which might have had a greater effect if it hadn’t been floating several inches off the floor.

  “Every last brick,” my employer agreed, illustrating the point by plucking one from the flower bed into which it had fallen and pulling it back inside the house. He held it up triumphantly.

  “What is that supposed to be?” Jenny asked.

  “You said it yourself,” said Jackaby. “Your house. The very core of the structure. You can quibble about draperies and wallpaper, but it’s hard to argue with a brick.”

  “You have no idea,” said Jenny, shaking her head. “And yet after all these years I keep trying.”

  “Hold this,” he said. He passed the brick to Jenny, who managed to catch it with both translucent hands. She looked uncertain for a moment, but her grip held firm. “Why?” he asked her.

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Jenny raised an eyebrow.

  “Why does it work?” Jackaby asked, more gently. “You’ve never seen that brick, never touched it before, it’s been inside the wall. Why are you able to affect it?”

  “Because I’m connected to it, I assume? It’s a part of my house, after all!”

  “Your house—the only place on earth you seem able to exist—floating around in the palm of your hand.”

  Her eyes suddenly widened. “Do you think?”

  Jackaby raised his eyebrows encouragingly. “Do you?”

  Jenny held the brick close to her chest and swept out of the room. We followed hurriedly down the crooked hallway and into the foyer. She passed fluidly through the still-closed front door, and the brick, in the manner of most bricks, did not. It thudded hard against the cheery red paint and fell, cracking cleanly in two on the hardwood. In a moment the handle turned and the door opened. Jenny stood on the other side looking sheepish. “Old habits. I got a little excited.”

  I set half of the brick on the shelf and handed her the other. “Here,” I said. “Go ahead. Be a little excited.”

  Jenny concentrated as she carried the half brick toward the sidewalk. She faded further out of sight with each step, all of her energy focused on the rust red cube. By the time we were halfway to the street, she had vanished completely, and the brick appeared to be hovering under its own power. When she reached the end of the walk, the brick froze in midair. It swiveled, and I could tell that Jenny had turned back.

  “I can’t do it,” she said.

  Jackaby put a single finger on the chunk of masonry, blocking her before she could retreat back toward the house. “Just look at me,” he said tenderly and took a step forward. The brick drifted forward with him. “This is your brick, Jenny Cavanaugh.” Step. “Your house.” Step. “Your street. Your city. Your whole wide world.” Step. Step. Step.

  Jackaby was now in the middle of Augur Lane, talking to a broken brick that hung weightlessly at the end of his finger. A kid in a ragged flat cap and suspenders had stopped to watch the spectacle from across the street, and a carriage whipped around the corner at speed. The driver cursed and shook his fist as he swerved around Jackaby, but Jackaby ignored them all.

  He leaned in toward the hollow space I knew was Jenny. He took a deep breath, and then his lips moved ever so slightly as he whispered something to the empty air. A moment later, the brick dropped away from his finger and clattered against the cobblestones. Jackaby’s shoulders fell. He stooped and collected the chunk of masonry.

  “That was a pretty good trick, mister!” yelled the ragamuffin on the corner. “But I could see the string the whole time!”

  Jackaby nodded unenthusiastically and trudged back toward the house.

  “That was marvelous!” I said. “It worked! Jenny hasn’t been that far in a decad
e!”

  “Hurrah.” Jackaby looked underwhelmed.

  “What were you saying to her, out there in the street?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Jackaby. “I’ll be going out, Miss Rook.”

  “Out?”

  “Marlowe has asked that I keep him abreast of our investigation, and I suppose I should pick up some plaster from that shop on Mason Street. Please see to things around the office while I’m gone. Also, please watch for Miss Cavanaugh. With any luck she should reappear soon.”

  “Did you tell her?” I asked. “Did you finally tell her how you feel?”

  “Make yourself ready, as well.” He started off down the lane. “Busy night ahead. We make for the western woods at dusk.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The contents of Chapter Thirteen have been omitted by the request of my employer.

  Relevant and related notes are now filed in the Seer’s private dossier.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The western woods looked even more ominous than I remembered. The horizon had warmed to a dull orange as we reached the outskirts of New Fiddleham’s old industrial district, and faint stars were already beginning to sparkle above us. The darkness of the forest ahead was profound, but in the glow of the factory lights and the crescent moon, the landscape was not entirely foreign. A half a mile north or so, Hammett’s bridge climbed over a trickling creek. This was the forest in which I had squared off against a bloodthirsty redcap only a few short months ago. I had been armed then with only a handful of books. This time I had come better prepared.

  A ring of rosary beads hung around my neck, and my pockets were stuffed with fresh garlic. Jackaby had lent me a tin flask of holy water and a silver knife with an ivory handle. He had also sprinkled mustard seed in my hair before we left the house, a timeless safeguard I suspected he had just made up, but I wasn’t about to decline any help I could get.