by Dima Zales
"What?"
"The house where the footman worked was burgled soon after his death."
"Burgled! You don't think it's simply a coincidence?"
"There doesn't appear to be any broken windows or doors, no sign of forced entry."
It took a few moments for his words to sink in. Then it hit me like a punch to the chest. "The demon took on the form of the footman it killed and someone unwittingly let it in thinking it was the real servant."
Jacob nodded grimly. "It probably wandered up to the service entrance and was let in by one of the staff."
I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.
"You're cold." Jacob was beside me in a heartbeat, my shawl in his hands. He came up behind me and placed it around my shoulders but instead of letting go, he kept a hold of the edges. He was very close. I could feel his strength, his essence, pulsing between us, as alive and real to me as my own. Without thinking, I leaned into him. His body was hard, solid, a comfort despite the lack of a heartbeat or warmth. If I turned around, tilted my head, I could kiss him …
He suddenly stood and moved away.
"I shouldn't have come here," he said. And then he was gone. Just like that. No warning, no discussion, just gone.
"No! Jacob, come back!" I scrambled off the bed and stood on the spot where he'd been. "Come back, I want to talk to you. I have something important I need to ask you. Please, Jacob." My voice was a whine but I didn't care. I just wanted him to return. Partly for me—because I selfishly wanted him there—but partly because I suspect he needed to speak about what had happened. Not to the Administrators or anyone else in the Waiting Area but to me.
"I know you can hear me," I said, knowing nothing of the sort. "Listen. I want to stop this demon from hurting anyone else. Help me decide what to do next." I waited but he didn't reappear. "Talk to me Jacob. Tell me how to proceed." Still no answer. "Very well, I'll tell you what I think I should do. I'll wait for the peddler to come but I have a suspicion she won't." If she'd been the one to curse the amulet then she'd be a fool to show up again. "So I'll simply have to find out more about the two victims, see if there is indeed no link between them."
"You'll do no such thing," Jacob said, reappearing in front of me, hands on his hips. He looked very big, very powerful, and very dangerous.
I smiled. "Good. Now please stop popping out like that. I find it more disturbing than your sudden appearances."
"You will not go into Whitechapel on your own, and you will not ask questions about either victim." He held up his hands, warding me off. "Let me rephrase that. You will not go into Whitechapel at all. Ever. With or without me, and with or without the entire British Army at your disposal. Disregard everything you've ever heard about that place, it's ten times worse. Do you understand?"
I nodded. "Of course."
He eyed me closely. "You won't go venturing into that part of London?"
"I won't."
His eyes narrowed to slits. Clearly he didn't believe me. "You don't strike me as a stupid female."
"Thank you, I think." It was probably unwise to tell him I'd only said I'd follow up on the victims in order to get him to return to my room. I had no intention of investigating on my own. "Now that we've established that, do you think you could stay awhile. Sit." I indicated the stool at my dressing table. "Talk to me."
He crossed his arms and remained standing. "You should go back to sleep. Dawn's still an hour away."
"I won't get any more sleep tonight."
He gave an apologetic grimace. "I shouldn't have woken you and burdened you with the gruesome events of the evening. There's nothing you can do about them."
"I'm glad you did wake me. I'm one link in the chain that led to the demon being summoned and I want to be kept informed of everything it does." I sighed. "At least we now know why the demon was summoned here."
"To kill a servant from a rich household, take their form then burgle the master's house." He scrubbed a hand over his chin. "Unfortunately there are hundreds of houses that could be targeted next and thousands of servants."
Which meant we were no better off than before. We couldn't anticipate where the next attack would be, couldn't alert potential victims.
"Good night, Emily."
"Wait, don't go yet." I searched for something to keep him in my room and said the first thing that popped into my head. It happened to be the most honest thing. "I'm also glad you came here tonight because I … I wanted to see you."
"Why?"
Ah. Well. I could tell him I just liked gazing at his handsome face or that I enjoyed his company, but I wasn't a fool. Jacob was used to girls noticing him. George Culvert told me so. Even his mother had admired Jacob. So why would he want yet another girl—and a middle-class oddity of dubious parentage at that—staring at him? I might be the only person who could see him now that he was a ghost but he'd had a lifetime of people staring at him. He must be heartily sick of it. Indeed, that's probably why he'd tuned most people out when he was alive. Too many admirers must make one immune after a while.
So instead of telling him that, I made up something else. "I tried once before to summon my mother's ghost but she never came. I was wondering … if … perhaps you could ask the Administrators in the Waiting Area about her." I had wanted to ask him about Mama ever since he'd arrived in our drawing room, and now seemed like the perfect opportunity. "Perhaps they can tell you if she's already crossed. I've tried to summon her but … she hasn't answered."
He reached out and I thought he was going to touch my face or my hair but instead he fingered the fringe of my shawl. "I'm sorry. She's gone. I already asked the Administrators after I met you the first time and they told me your mother had crossed quickly into her assigned section of the Otherworld."
"But that means she had nothing to tie her here." No outstanding business, nothing to say to anyone. Nothing to say to me. How could she not want to tell me about my father when she knew how important it was to me?
"There is an aunt in the Waiting Area though. Do you want to summon her?"
"An aunt? You mean my aunt?"
He smiled. "Yes, your aunt. Your mother's sister, a Mrs. Catherine Sloane. She died about a month ago and hasn't yet crossed."
"I have an aunt? Had," I corrected myself. Catherine Sloane was dead.
He nodded. "She might know … something about your mother." He was too much of a gentleman to mention the unmentionable—the question of my father's identity. "Do you want to summon her?"
I caught his fingers and squeezed. He stared at our linked hands, a look of alarm on his face. Then he squeezed back. "Yes," I said. "Yes I do."
He separated our hands. "Then I'll leave you alone to talk."
"No! I want you to stay." At his puzzled expression, I added, "Unless you've got something better to do."
He barked a short, harsh laugh. "Not really." He stood by the mantelpiece and held out his hand in a go-on gesture.
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I summon Catherine Sloane from the Waiting Area. Do you hear me, Catherine Sloane? Someone in this realm needs to talk to you." To call a ghost to this world, a medium simply needs to phrase the request and use the ghost's name. The portal to the Waiting Area is always opened for us—or for me. As far as I knew, I was the only legitimate medium in the world.
A woman of about sixty appeared between Jacob and I. She faded in and out two or three times until she finally maintained a presence, albeit a flimsy one. I'd seen gauze curtains with more strength than her.
She was a taller version of my mother. Mama had been short like me with soft brown hair and curves. Aunt Catherine had the same nose, same mouth, same eyes as her older sister but they were somehow more masculine. The nose was a little longer, the eyes set deeper, the mouth firmer. She wore an ankle-length nightgown and her long gray hair hung loose.
Aunt Catherine stared at me for a long time, her gaze assessing. If her lack of a smile was any indication, she didn't approve of what she saw.
"Aunt Catherine?" I asked, just to be sure.
She inclined her head. "I suppose I must be if you are Miss Emily Chambers."
"I am."
"And who is he? Why do you have a dead boy in your bedroom?"
"Jacob Beaufort," Jacob said, bowing slightly. He didn't answer the second question and I saw no reason to either. She may be my aunt but she had no authority over me.
Aunt Catherine expelled a humph. I suspected it was more than just an expression of her displeasure but I didn't particularly care to find out.
"I summoned you here to ask you about my mother," I said. I had a feeling polite chatter wasn't going to be on the cards with this woman.
"I thought as much. You may ask but I cannot guarantee you will receive an answer, particularly one to your liking."
Jacob glanced over her head at me. He raised a brow in question. I shrugged. I'd come this far, I might as well continue. Besides, any answer was better than not knowing.
I took a deep breath. "What can you tell me about my father?"
"Nothing."
I waited for her to say more but she didn't elaborate. "My mother never spoke to you about him? About a man other than her husband?"
She tossed her long hair over her shoulder. "No."
"But you knew about my birth?"
"Yes."
Jacob cleared his throat. "This would go a lot faster if you gave more than one word answers," he said.
Aunt Catherine lifted her chin and gave another humph. "Very well. I'll tell you what I know but it isn't much. About six months after her husband died, my sister wrote to inform us she was expecting a child. She refused to reveal who the father was but gave no reason for the refusal. She simply stated that she would raise the child on her own. Her late husband left her a small annuity for her to live on for some years, you see. Well, seven months after that, she wrote again and said you'd been born."
It all sounded so impersonal as if she were reading a newspaper account of the facts. "You didn't visit her before or after my birth?"
"Of course not!" She may have been somewhat hazy to look at but her eyes still managed to flash at me. "My husband was—is—a very important man in Bristol. We could not afford to have our reputation tarnished by your mother's foolishness."
I stiffened and blood rushed through my veins in a torrent. How dare this dragon speak about my mother like that? "Mama was never a fool, Aunt. As her sister I'd have thought you would know that. But then I'd have thought you'd be more sympathetic too. She was alone in London, without friends, and with one daughter already to care for. You couldn't have found it in your heart to visit her? Send her something? Offer her sympathy at the very least?"
Her nose screwed up the way a dog does just before it snarls. "Your mother never wanted sympathy so I never offered it. As her daughter, you should know that."
I hated admitting it but she was right. Mama had been a proud, independent woman. She would want neither pity nor charity from anyone.
I might agree with Aunt Catherine on that score but I didn't think we'd find common ground on much else, particularly in the area of sisterly compassion. Nevertheless I bit back my opinions and pressed on. "Do you think it possible she fell in love with someone so soon after her husband's death? Perhaps she was lonely or—."
"Love! Bah! You girls talk about it as if it is the answer to all your woes." She clasped her hands in front of her, looking very much like a severe governess, nightgown not withstanding. "Since you are the daughter of my sister, I'll give you some advice as she seems to have failed to do so before she died. There is no such thing as love, not the kind written by poets that is supposed to last forever. There is lust in the beginning naturally, and perhaps companionship for a few years if one is lucky, but not love. Not the all-consuming sort that silly girls spend so much time thinking about.
"Don't throw yourself away to any man who spouts pretty words in your ear. Even if he believes what he says, he'll soon forget that he ever did. The words will stop, as will his high regard, and he'll spend more and more time at his club. Marry for other things, Emily—money or breeding or comfort—but not because you think he loves you or you love him." She finished her lecture with a glance at Jacob. He simply watched her, his elbow on the mantelpiece, the back of his finger rubbing slowly over his lips. He said nothing.
I too said nothing. What could anyone possibly say after a tirade like that? Perhaps if she'd been alive I might have challenged her theory but there was no point now that she was dead. She was unlikely to change her opinion. Besides, I couldn't think of any long-married couples who were still in love as an example. If the evidence from our séances was any indication, then Aunt Catherine was right. Marriage was an endurance and if any of them had begun with love, it had expired years ago.
"So you know nothing of Mama's feelings towards my father then? My real father?"
"Nothing at all. Your mother may have thought she was in love with him but I do not know. She never told me. She never mentioned a thing about him in her letters." She shrugged and her hair rippled. "It was as if he never even existed." Her gaze roamed over my hair, my face, and her lips pinched tighter and tighter together. "If you want my opinion, I'd say he wasn't an Englishman." She waved a thin finger at me. "You certainly didn't get that dirty skin or that ratty hair from your mother. She had been a beauty as a young girl. Pale as a bowl of cream and hair like honey."
In other words, I was certainly no beauty with my 'dirty skin and ratty hair'.
"Not everyone likes cream and honey," Jacob said. No, not said, growled, deep and low in his throat.
Aunt Catherine turned on him. "What are you talking about?"
"Or a bitter tongue."
"You speak out of turn, young man." Her face contorted into an uglier version of itself and suddenly her presence brightened. "Is that the reason you died before your time? Someone found you disrespectful?"
"Aunt Catherine!" I couldn't believe it. My sweet mother and this nasty, vindictive woman had been sisters? No wonder they'd rarely kept in touch. "I think you should go now. I'm very sorry I summoned you."
"Not yet." Jacob came up behind my aunt and gripped her shoulders. She yelped and tried to shake him off but he wouldn't budge. I thought I heard him chuckle but I must have been wrong because there was a dangerous spark in his eyes, and not a hint of humor. "Look at her," he snarled. "Look at Emily." My aunt's gaze flicked to me then away. He shook her. "Look!"
"Let go," she ordered.
"Not until you look properly and tell me what you see."
My aunt's gaze settled once more on me, grudgingly. "I see a girl who has brought shame on her family."
I bit back the welling tears. I would not let them spill. Not in front of her. I did, however, lower my head. I couldn't bear to let her see the effect her words had on me.
Jacob snarled in my aunt's ear. "No. You're not looking properly. I want you to see her. See her flawless skin, her dark chocolate eyes and her mouth with its thousand different expressions." I lifted my head and his fierce gaze locked with mine. My heart skidded to a halt in my chest. When Jacob looked at me like that I felt beautiful, not at all abnormal, and I could believe that the stares and cruel words would never hurt me again. "Emily is as unique as every sunrise." He spoke quietly to my aunt but I could just hear him. "She has more beauty in her than you've ever had in your lifetime." He let go of her shoulders. "Leave us."
With a sniff, my aunt vanished.
I sat on the edge of the bed and began to shake. I couldn't stop. It wasn't from the cold, or even from learning that my aunt wasn't the person I'd hoped her to be. I shook because of Jacob and what he'd said. His words were like a soothing balm on burnt skin, a lighthouse beacon in the darkness. And yet … had he truly meant them? Or was it merely a retaliation to put a bleak-hearted woman back in her place?
I opened my mouth to ask but realized he too had left.
With a sigh, I flopped back on the bed and wondered if I
really wanted to know the answer anyway.
7
I'd been wrong about the peddler. She did show up at a little after ten o'clock that morning, except …
"That's not her," Celia said, staring at the woman standing on our doorstep.
"Who am I then?" the woman asked, thrusting out one hip. She was dressed in a gown that could once have been deep red but had faded to a dull rust-brown. The shawl draped over her shoulders looked more like a rag than a garment and the bonnet sitting lopsided on her head had frayed at the edges and lost all of its ribbons, if it ever had any.
She pulled back the cover on her basket to reveal her goods but did not take any out. Usually she began her sales spiel before the door had fully opened but this time she seemed to sense our disinterest in her wares from the start.
"She's the previous peddler," Celia explained. "The one before the one who sold me the amulet." She glanced up and down the street. "Are you alone?"
"Alone as any soul can be in this Godforsaken city." The woman smiled, revealing a top layer of teeth worn almost to the gums.
Celia recoiled. "Yes, quite."
I shifted my sister aside gently and smiled at the peddler. "Who worked your area last week?"
The woman shrugged. Her shawl fell off her shoulder and she didn’t bother to pull it back up. "No one."
"Somebody must have," Celia said. "You are not the woman I bought an amulet from on Thursday."
"You like pretty jewelry?" The woman sifted through the pieces of cutlery, trinkets, and rags—some clean—and other odds and ends in her basket.
"I don't want to buy any jewelry," Celia said tartly. "I want to know who took over this area last week."
The woman held out a thin bracelet covered in grime. It was as black as my hair. When Celia didn't move to take it, the peddler shook it, all the while smiling that gummy smile.
"How much?" I asked her.
"Three shillings."
"Three!" Celia clicked her tongue. "What's it made of?"
The woman rubbed it with her shawl. "Could be silver."
"I highly doubt it."