Ghostly Echoes Page 7

  “Did you have use for Mr. Jackaby’s services when you set him up against a fifty-foot, man-eating dragon?”

  Pavel flinched. “Mistakes were made in Gad’s Valley,” he admitted. “Events escalated further than I intended.”

  “My friend is dead!” I yelled at him. His mistake had murdered the indomitable Nellie Fuller right in front of me.

  “All of my friends are dead,” he spat curtly. “Every last human being who walked this stinking earth when my heart still beat is dead. If it makes you feel any better, though . . .” He drew his chalk white hand gingerly from the pocket of his coat and held it up for me to see, flexing his fingers in the dim light. His pinkie had been severed just above the knuckle, leaving only a short nub. “My superiors were not pleased about the affair, either.”

  I looked away from the disfigured hand and focused on his eyes. They were hung with sickly blue shadows. “If you’re just the big bad attack dog,” I said, “then who’s holding the leash?”

  “Not so big and bad, Miss Rook.” Pavel chuckled. “But I understand you have a special fondness for dogs, don’t you?”

  My hands clenched into fists and I gritted my teeth.

  “Oh yes,” he went on, reading me easily. “I know all about your little beau on the police force. Charlie Cane and I aren’t so different, really. Oh, it’s Charlie Howler or some such nonesense now, isn’t it?”

  My blood was pumping again. Charlie was sweet and noble and good. This cretin had no business knowing his deepest secret. “It’s Barker. And you’re nothing alike.”

  “Barker, right. A dog by any other name would bite as deep. I’m rather fond him, actually. A fellow monster from the old country. You know, I camped with a pack of Om Caini for a while in Bulgaria. Do you think one of them might have been your little pup’s grandfather? We’re practically family!”

  I glared. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m not hunting tonight, if that’s what you’re afraid of—at least not the way you think.”

  “Then what do you want? Why are you doing this? Who are you working for?”

  “My, my—you’re looking for a lot of answers, young lady. Information is expensive in my line of work, but I would be happy to arrange a trade.”

  “Jenny Cavanaugh and Howard Carson. Ten years ago. I want to know what happened.”

  Pavel cocked his head ever so slightly. “I can tell you everything you want to know about Carson and his girl—but it won’t come free.”

  “What do you want from us?”

  “I understand Mr. Jackaby has a talent for finding things. We’re looking for a man. An inventor.” He reached into his waistcoat with his good hand and withdrew a folded slip of paper. “He’s called Owen Finstern. My superiors believe he’s a genius, and I’m inclined to believe whatever my superiors tell me to believe. Genius or not, he is, shall we say, less than stable. He needs a nourishing environment for his special talents to thrive, and regrettably he’s gone astray.”

  “One of the scientists you kidnapped has escaped, and you think Jackaby and I are going to just round him up for you?”

  “Kidnapped? Miss Rook, I’m offended. We have only the man’s best interest at heart. And our own interests, of course. There’s that honesty again. Here.” He held out the paper and, against my better judgment, I took it. “Keep the sketch. Think about our offer.”

  I felt something cold in my hand and looked down to see that, along with the paper, he had passed me a small, round stone. “What is this?” I asked, but I was speaking only to the empty shadows of the alleyway. The pale man was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  I found my way back to the house on Augur Lane, chills crawling up and down my back with every step. Jackaby was not in the library when I arrived, nor in his laboratory or office. Even Jenny was conspicuously absent. By the state of her bedchamber, I could see she had had another echo. They were coming more and more often.

  I climbed the spiral staircase to the third floor. This was, perhaps, my favorite space in all of Jackaby’s property—a magical oasis that defied logic and geometric reality. A quiet pond stretched across most of the floor, both deeper and wider than the house logically should have been able to accommodate. Beside it stretched a mossy indoor hillside speckled with wildflowers and sweet grasses. Usually this was the perfect place to calm my nerves, but in the silent darkness I found little comfort. I called out until my words bounced back at me over the midnight black waters of the pond. My own voice was my sole companion.

  At length, I trudged back down the stairs alone to my employer’s office. My fingers were shaking as I lit the lamp at Jackaby’s desk and took the stone and paper out of my pocket to inspect them properly.

  The stone was smooth on one side, but the other was etched with a series of concentric ovals, like a crude carving of an eye. A warning, perhaps? Pavel’s calling card? I unfolded the paper to find a man with wild hair staring back at me. His eyes were unsettling. The left was set a bit wider and a fraction higher than the right, and together they gave him a frantic, manic expression. He did not look like any of the men on Mayor Spade’s mantle, nor like any from the photograph with Howard Carson.

  I refolded the paper and slid both artifacts back into my pocket. The sketch would have to wait until morning. Jackaby was still not home, and my brief history in his service had taught me that when he latched on to something of interest, I might not see him until a late tea the following day. I stood up from the desk and stepped toward the door when the blood all rushed from my head. I shook the sensation away, blinking. My head was suddenly aching.

  The day must have taken more out of me than I realized. I leaned against the heavy office safe until the dizziness subsided. As I shifted my weight, the thick iron door squeaked open a crack.

  Of all the doors, cabinets, and cupboards in the entire house, I had only ever found one that Jackaby kept locked at all times. He stored a fat old jar plainly labeled “Bail Money” with hundreds of dollars on the shelf right across from me. Every spare nook and cranny in the building housed lavish payments and mementos from past adventures, opulent heirlooms and eldritch artifacts so unique they made the London Museum’s Cabinet of Curiosities look like a collection of knickknacks. I had often wondered what a man such as Jackaby—a man who regarded gold candelabras and strangely luminescent gemstones with as little care as I might afford an incomplete deck of playing cards—saw fit to keep under lock and key behind a solid inch of iron. Blinking back my disbelief, I gave the safe another nudge and the door swung open.

  A worn leather file lay within, several inches thick with papers. I glanced over my shoulder, but the house was still and silent. Quietly I lifted the hefty dossier and set it on the desk. A thin leather strap was wrapped loosely around the bundle, and this I unwound tenderly. Only a peek, I told myself, and then I would put it back.

  The collection was subdivided into smaller files, and I recognized the one at the top as the same sort Jackaby often used for his general records. I had organized enough case files to know. Farther down, the papers were yellowed and much older than any stationery we kept about the house.

  When I flipped open the first file, newspaper clippings and lithographs stared up at me. Among them I was startled to find my own face. My cheek was not yet marred by the little scar, but the images were recent. In one photograph, torn from a newspaper, I marched sullenly through the lobby of a building. My hands were locked in handcuffs, and Jackaby was at my side looking unperturbed by the matching pair around his own wrists. I remembered the scene. It was the Emerald Arch Apartments. Our first case together.

  I picked up the next photograph. A fire-damaged cabinet card showed Jackaby and me on either side of a tree in a forest clearing. Hank Hudson, the burly trapper, stood just behind me, and a fourth figure hung upside down above us, his legs wrapped awkwardly around a tree branch and his face shrouded and blurred by his flopping coat. I smiled. Beneath that coat was Charlie Barker. The moment seemed funny ou
t of context, cast in sepia hues, without the grisly red of a slaughtered animal painting the forest around us. It had not been such an amusing sight in person. The woman behind the camera, Nellie Fuller, had lost her life reaching the bottom of that mystery. Our second case.

  Not a single portrait hung on Jackaby’s walls. Unlike the mayor, who adorned his study with images of his wife and dear friends, Jackaby had no one. The closest he came were busts of Shakespeare and paintings of old folktales. I was oddly touched. These were not the most flattering pictures, but they were pictures of me—pictures of us—and hidden away or not, he had saved them.

  I dug further. There were newspaper articles detailing other grim cases Jackaby had worked on, a blurry photograph of the house in which we sat, and a tattered wanted poster featuring Jackaby’s smiling face. One of the images was of a pleasant if somewhat stuffy-looking man in a prim waistcoat standing proudly beside Jackaby. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place the face. An unnerving sensation that I was not alone tickled across my brain.

  I closed the file and glanced guiltily behind me. Douglas had waddled into the doorway. He acknowledged me with a bob of his feathered head and then flapped up into the armchair across the room, where he settled to rest with his bill under one wing.

  Taking a deep breath, I picked up the next file. This one contained comparatively little—a slim notebook and a few creased papers. I held them up to read the writing at the top. They were formal documents. PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION was printed in large face across the top, but the patient’s name was not Jackaby’s. “ ‘Eleanor Clark,’ ” I read aloud. As if in answer to my whisper, a little brown envelope slid out from behind the documents and off the desk. I made a futile grab for it, but it swooped through my fingers and came to land on the carpet.

  “Miss Rook?”

  Jackaby dropped his satchel in the doorway with a thump. I froze. He looked at the dossier on the desk. He looked at me. His face grew cold. Without another word, he knelt and retrieved the envelope, holding it as gingerly as if it were made of fine glass. He placed it back into the file very deliberately.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Jackaby. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Then put it back.”

  I nodded and closed the dossier.

  “I have given you free rein to my home and offices with very few exceptions, Miss Rook.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I—”

  “I could, perhaps, have been more explicit, but I felt that several inches of solid metal and a rotary combination lock implied my intentions clearly enough.”

  “Of course, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”

  “How did you open it?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t mean to. It was unlocked. I just—”

  “It is never unlocked! I have taken great pains to ensure—” His eyes sunk into dark shadows beneath a sober brow. “You are not lying,” he said at last. “I don’t know if I find that more troubling or less so.” He stepped forward and took the bundle out of my hands. “How much did you see?”

  “I only just picked it up when you came in, really.”

  He walked slowly around his desk. I held my breath. He placed the dossier back onto the desktop and settled into his chair to lean heavily on his elbows. “You should have left it alone.”

  “What is this, sir? Is it a case? I recognized the photograph from Gad’s Valley. I didn’t know any of those survived the fire. If they’re connected . . .”

  “It’s not a case,” he breathed, and I could see that he was deciding how much more to explain. He placed a hand gently on the leather. “I am a steward to something much older than myself, Miss Rook, and that role comes with responsibilities.”

  “You mean your sight?”

  “I do.” He brushed the dossier with his fingertips. “This collection is a perpetual record of the Seer.”

  “A record of—of you? Why would you need a massive file about yourself?”

  “My own addition is very small, Miss Rook. I’ve told you before that there is only ever a single Seer alive in the world at any given time. That’s me right now, but I am not the first and I will not be the last. The power is like a living thing. It transfers to a new vessel every time the Seer passes away. There are certain organizations—exceedingly ancient groups—who take an interest in my unique lineage. One of these organizations came to me many years ago. I was just a boy, confused and alone and beset by questions. They had very few answers to give me”—he tapped the pile—“but what they did have to offer was this.”

  He opened the folder again and flipped through the top file. “This is me. All of me that the future need know. I have included a few of my fondest memories and defining moments. It is my humble addition to an immeasurable legacy.”

  He closed the first file, then opened the next, the one with the psychiatric papers, and tenderly ran his hand along the cover of the slim notebook. With an unsteady hand, he once more retrieved the envelope I had dropped. He passed it to me. As I reached for it, he pulled back—just an involuntary flinch, as if caught by instinct, and then he shook his head and released it to my grasp. “Do be careful, Miss Rook.”

  I nodded, more curious than ever, and opened the envelope. Inside was a tintype. A man and woman in shades of gray occupied the foreground of the picture, well dressed and smiling. Beneath them stood a girl and boy, neither more than ten years old, and behind them were tents and banners. The girl looked very much like her mother, fair-haired with a heart-shaped face, but even in the grainy tintype her eyes were wrong—wide and wild, and much too old for a girl in grammar school. The boy looked out of place, as well. His hair was messy and much darker than the adults’. He wore scuffed knee-length knickers, and one sock had slid down to his ankle. Although the child was youthful, his cheekbones were already hard, and he looked thin and wiry.

  “Wait a moment. Is this . . .” I looked between my employer and the picture. “Is this you?”

  Jackaby nodded.

  “You’re so young! Oh my goodness, you’re adorable. You’ve never told me anything about your life before New Fiddleham. Are those your parents?”

  “No.” Jackaby leaned in and reached a finger very delicately toward the girl. It quavered slightly. “They are hers, but they were kind enough to bring me with them to the fair that day.” His voice cracked as he spoke. “She didn’t have many friends.”

  “Please, sir,” I said. “Tell me about her.”

  “It is not a happy story.”

  “Who is she?”

  My employer closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Eleanor.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The picture quivered in Jackaby’s hands. He said nothing else for several seconds. Finally his eyes opened, but they were worlds away.

  “Eleanor was my only friend,” he said, “and I was hers. I read a lot of books. I scored well in the sciences, but even then I was more enthralled by myths and legends. I had no idea how much I did not know. The sight had not yet come to me. Other children were more interested in . . . well, in whatever it is that schoolchildren are interested in. Teasing bookish boys like me was high on the list, apparently. I kept my interests hidden, kept quiet, and kept to myself.

  “Until Eleanor. She came in halfway through the year. Eleanor never said a word in class, and she preferred to play alone. The other children gossiped that she was mad. They said she made up stories and got angry when people didn’t believe her. They said she had been expelled from her last school for attacking another student. They said a lot of things. Eleanor, as a rule, said nothing.

  “One day I was in the library and I saw her sketching a little fairy in her notebook. I asked her what sort it was, and she scowled and said what did it matter to me? I told her I was only wondering if it was a brownie or a pixie or what, because it looked a lot like the pixies in one of my favorite books, Mendel’s Magical Menagerie.

  “I shared my book with her, and she shared her secret with me, and we sh
ared the day together—growing fonder of each other by the hour. For many months after, we were each other’s sole companions. We collected special charms and wards and hid our artifacts in matching cigar boxes tied shut with twine beneath our beds. They were nothing more than chicken bones and salt and children’s scribbles, but they were our most precious secrets. Eleanor would tell me about the impossible things she could see, and I made a game of finding examples of them in lore to remind her that other people had seen them, too—that she couldn’t be mad—or perhaps just that she didn’t have to be mad alone.

  “It was wonderful at first, but her parents grew concerned. Their little girl was hallucinating—and worse, she was hallucinating unrepentantly and without shame. They had Eleanor committed to an institution.”

  Jackaby’s tone as he said the word institution could have soured milk.

  “After several months she was released, looking very thin and hollow. She told them the visions had stopped—that she was cured. There were no creatures in the leaves or sprites in the sunbeams. The long, dark hallway was just a long, dark hallway. There was no man at the end of it with eyes like glowing embers, always waiting—always watching.

  “Her parents were so happy. They took us to the fair and allowed themselves to pretend that everything was better. Eleanor kept up her charade for nearly a month, pretending to be normal for parents who would lock her away for telling them the truth. But then the stranger came.

  “He told her that she was in danger, that he was part of a society that was interested in her gifts. He told her there were others who would want to take her away, and that they had found her. He told her that her family was in great peril. Eleanor’s mother returned home and saw the stranger talking to Eleanor. She chased the man away, threatening to call the police.

  “When the clouds boiled red the next day, Eleanor saw death in the sky and she let it out, all of it. She traced the house with salt, said every incantation she could find, hung makeshift wards of chicken bones and twine around the property. It was every protection we had collected in our little cigar boxes and more. She was so afraid, my poor, sweet Eleanor. She only wanted to protect them, to keep them safe. She did everything she could.