Ghostly Echoes (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

We slipped back into Madame Voile's cramped little lobby just as the curtain swept aside and the clairvoyant reappeared. “Greetings, weary travelers,” she said. “I see you have been drawn once more toward my door by the inexorable pull of fate.”

“Something like that,” said Jackaby. “Anyway,
fate
sounds more impressive than
a lack of other options
. Either way, here we are.”

Madame Voile hesitated.

“Pardon me, ma'am,” I said. “We were wondering if we might talk to Little Miss?”

Madame Voile scanned our faces suspiciously. “No one here called Little Miss,” she said. Her accent, I couldn't help but notice, had suddenly lost its theatrical cadence.

“You're quite sure?” I asked.

Jackaby was staring at her intently.

“Am I sure? Of course I'm sure. Now, if you are not here for a reading—”

“You are lying,” Jackaby said, happily. “Marvelous. Who is Little Miss, then? A niece? A sister? A daughter?”

Madame Voile glared at my employer.

“A daughter, then. I understand she has taken to the family trade rather exceptionally. I'm sure you're very proud. We will be happy to offer remuneration for her services, of course. Just a few minutes of her time.”

The curtain behind Madame Voile wiggled, and a wide pair of dark brown eyes peeped out.

“Remuneration?” The woman crossed her arms at Jackaby.

Jackaby answered by plucking a handful of crumpled banknotes out of his satchel. “For her trouble, and for yours,” he said.

Madame Voile's eyes widened as the money tumbled onto the counter in front of her.

“Well,” she said, “I don't know. She's only five, my Little Miss. She's a sweet, precious little thing. What kind of mother would I be if I let strangers harass her for a mere . . . how much was that?”

“Half,” answered Jackaby. “That is half. The rest after we've had our consultation.”

The woman stared at the money hungrily. “Irina!” she called over her shoulder. The girl emerged, her bright eyes barely able to see over the top of the counter. She wore a head scarf, but she was dressed without any of her mother's rich fabrics or ostentatious bangles. “These people want to talk to you, Irina.”

“I'm seven,” she whispered. “I'm not five.”

“Oh, hush up, now. Take them around back, there's a good girl.”

The girl looked up, and then she stared at the window behind us for several seconds. I glanced out to see what she was looking at, but the street was empty. “They won't all fit in the booth,” the girl murmured.

Madame Voile grunted. “Hm. That's true. Well, they're not paying me for the show, anyway. The kitchen table will have to do. Show them the way.”

We filed past the curtain and through a slim, dark room, which held a round table draped in black cloth with a crystal ball in the center. On the other side of the room sat a jarringly ordinary kitchen. There were pots and pans hung on the wall and dirty dishes soaking in the sink. A wide wooden table occupied the center of the room, and we shuffled in and sat around it. Charlie padded in last and lay down against the wall behind my chair.

The door chimes sounded and Madame Voile glanced at the clock. “Oh, that'll be Mrs. Howell. I'll be back to check on you all shortly. Be a good girl, Irina.” She plucked a deck of cards from the mantle and bustled off back through the curtains. We could hear her voice pronouncing a muffled, “Greetings, Mrs. Howell. Oh! I sense fate has much in store for you!”

The girl sat down at the head of the table. She was very small, and she hunched nervously as she looked at us. She seemed to look past Jackaby as though she were staring at the wallpaper behind him rather than at the detective directly.

Jackaby deposited his satchel on the floor with a thud. He smiled reassuringly. “Good afternoon, Irina,” he said.

She nodded, still not quite meeting his gaze. She looked as though she might recede completely into her head scarf at any moment.

“A friend of mine told me you were very clever,” he said. “One of Mama Tilly's girls? She told me that you're a bit like me, actually.”

Irina looked up at him for a moment.

“I also see things that other people can't see,” said Jackaby. “And I know about things that are sometimes hard to explain.”

Irina nodded.

“We're not exactly the same,” he continued. “I can see there's something extra special about you.”

“Can you see her?” the girl asked.

Finstern swiveled in his chair to look around the room, and I felt the hairs on my neck prickle up.
Her?

Jackaby smiled. “Yes. I can see her. Don't worry, she's very nice.” He reached into his heavy satchel and pulled out a familiar cracked brick. He set it on the table. “She's my friend, and she came along just to meet you.”

The air just over his shoulder shimmered, although Jenny did not materialize completely. She had been there all along, I realized, right where the girl had been watching. I shook my head, astonished and proud of Jenny's progress. How long had we been walking around town? This was a far cry from taking a few steps onto the sidewalk.

“Hello, sweetie,” Jenny said softly. “You don't need to be nervous.” Her voice was gentle and kind. “It's an honor to meet you. You have a marvelous gift. Not many people can see me unless I really want them to. Do you see many other people who are . . . like me?” Jenny asked.

The girl was quiet.

“It's just that we were hoping to find someone,” Jenny's voice continued. “Someone who was dead.”

“I see them.” Irina's voice was barely a whisper. We all leaned in to listen.

“That's fantastic,” Jenny said. “Have you seen anyone recently? Can you describe them?”

The girl took a deep breath. “I see all of them.”

Jackaby cleared his throat gently. “All of them?” he asked.

“Everyone that's dead,” she said. “Your friend is pretty.”

Jackaby nodded. “She is that. You see everyone that's dead? Do you mean
everyone
, or just the ghostly ones, like her, who have stayed around?”

“Everyone. Forever. There are lots and lots. Too many. Lots more of them than there are of us. Most of them are on the other side. I can't see them as well as the ones on this side, like her—but I can still see them. I can always see them.”

Jackaby's eyes were alive with enthusiasm. “My word. She's telling the truth.”

The girl nodded, meekly.

“You are very special indeed, Little Miss,” said Jackaby.

The girl said nothing, but climbed down from her chair and over to a rolltop desk in the corner. She retrieved a map and brought it over to the table, where she unfolded it. It was a street map of New Fiddleham. “Want to see the trick?” she asked.

Jackaby nodded, intrigued, and the girl reached across the table toward him. “Hold my hand. Think of a dead person. I can find them. If they're on this side, I can tell you where.”

Jackaby took the girl's hand and said aloud, “Jenny Cavanaugh.”

Irina shut her eyes tight. Her little pointer finger hovered over the map and landed squarely on the address where we sat.

“Oh! That's you, isn't it?” she said, looking up.

“Very keen,” Jenny's voice replied.

“Do you want to try another?” Irina asked.

“Mayor Philip Spade,” Jackaby suggested.

Her finger hovered for a moment and then she shook her head. “I don't see him.”

“No, you shouldn't,” Jackaby confirmed. “The mayor is very much alive. Well done. Let's try Lawrence Hoole.”

Irina concentrated and shook her head again. “I can see him, but he's on the other side. He passed on.”

“Let's try another,” Jackaby said. “He's undead, but he's not like Jenny. He calls himself Pavel. I don't know his last name.”

“Just hold on to him in your mind,” Irina instructed. She let her hand hover over the map again and closed her eyes. Her finger landed in the Inkling District. “He's there,” she said. “But he's not. He's underneath, I think.”

“The sewers.” Jackaby nodded. “Well, I guess it was too much to hope that he had passed on to the other side as well.”

“What about Julian McCaffery?” I suggested.

“Yes. Julian McCaffery,” Jackaby repeated.

Irina concentrated. “I don't see him.”

“McCaffery's alive? Well, that's interesting, but not much help until we know where they're keeping him. Who else might know about the council?”

“Howard Carson,” Jenny said. The room went quiet.

“Jenny . . .” Jackaby began.

“She can tell me if Pavel was lying. She can tell me if Howard is alive or dead. She can tell me if he's a ghost like me, or if he's gone forever. Show me Howard Carson.”

Jackaby nodded solemnly. “Howard Carson.”

Irina closed her eyes and concentrated. After a few pregnant moments her hands dropped into her lap.

“He's alive?” Jenny's voice trembled, as though speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile hope.

“No,” said Irina. “He's passed on. He's on the other side.”

I could feel the air chill by several degrees, and Irina looked nervous. Finstern, who had been watching all of this with rapt interest, shuddered. Jackaby's eyes were curiously alight.

“Sir?” I said.

“They're beyond the veil, but you can sense them?” Jackaby pressed the young lady. “You sense them the same as you sense Jenny?”

Irina nodded. “They're just farther away.”

“The afterlife,” said Jackaby. “The underworld. Whatever you'd like to call it. The other side. It's a place?”

Irina nodded again. “I guess so.”

“Can you show us how to get there?”

Irina looked startled. “You . . . die.”

“I mean aside from the usual way. There are countless doors or bridges in the old stories. Is there a gate near here, a tunnel, the roots of a massive tree?”

She shook her head. “I don't see places. I don't see doors. I only see the people.”

My employer nodded, thoughtfully. “Let's do it again,” he said.

Irina took his hand. Her finger hovered over the map. “Who would you like to find?” she asked.

“Charon.”

“Charon, sir?” I said. “Really?”

“Who's Charon?” Finstern asked.

“He's not a real person,” I said. “Charon is the mythical Greek ferryman to Hades, he's not—”

I swallowed my words as Irina's finger jabbed down on the map. Every head around the table leaned in.

“Charon,” said Jackaby quietly, “is on the other side of Rosemary's Green.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Rosemary's Green was on the opposite side of town. Augur Lane was on the way, so Jackaby opted to take a detour to collect a few things at the house before we visited the rolling fields.

“You mean to say there's something you haven't already packed in that big bag of yours?” I asked as we rounded the corner. Number 926 Augur Lane was just ahead.

“Good things come to those who bring them along in the first place,” said Jackaby. “I prefer to be prepared.”

“Prepared for what, though?” I said. “Do we have any idea what we're getting ourselves into?”

“I have many ideas. The afterlife is a popular subject in every major religion around the world. Countless descriptions have been written chronicling the descent into the hereafter, from Hades to Heaven to the Happy Hunting Ground. Yes, Miss Rook, I have a limitless supply of—” He froze. We had just reached 926 Augur Lane. Charlie began to growl, low and menacing.

“What is it?” Finstern asked before I could.

“Someone has been here,” Jackaby said. “Fae. Unseelie. Very strong. Something else, too. Something large . . .”

Charlie padded past the gate, sniffing the path. “Oh my word. Sir,” I said. “Take a look.” Several of the flagstones leading up to the bright red front door were cracked, and in the grass to either side were massive footprints. It looked as though an elephant had come calling in our absence.

“Trolls?” said Jackaby. “No. Elementals! This makes no sense—elementals can be brutes, but they're neutral. They don't cavort with fairies. There's no reason for this—it's all wrong!”

The beautiful red door was now riddled with cracks and hanging open, the frame splintered to bits. It was senselessly violent—it wasn't as though Jackaby ever locked the thing, anyway. The center of the door was bare, and I realized the horseshoe doorknocker had been torn off entirely.

The wind whipped through the trees and the skies darkened. “Wait here,” said Jackaby, pushing the abused door open the rest of the way with a creak.

“No.” Jenny's voice was a low boil. “My house. You wait here.”

Jackaby, uncharacteristically, did what he was told. A few anxious minutes later the winds died down and Jenny reappeared in the entryway. “They're gone,” she said. “But they've been all through the house.”

My skin crawled as I stepped inside. The drawers of my desk had been pulled out and emptied on the floor. Papers were everywhere. A swampy stink lingered in the air, and I could tell that Ogden had defended the place as only he knew how. The pungent little frog's terrarium lay shattered on the floor. There was no sign of its amphibian occupant. I felt sick and angry.

“Was this room different when we left?” Finstern asked. “Something seems different.” I glared at him. Jackaby continued on through the hallway, and I followed. The bust of Shakespeare had been knocked roughly aside, leaving a hole in the plaster of the wall and cracking the bard's cranium in two.

Jackaby stalked straight out the back door as I paused to survey the damage in each room. Jackaby's office was in no better shape than the front room. The heavy safe appeared to have been thrown directly through the standing blackboard, leaving the former upside-down on the floor and reducing the latter to shards of chalky slate and broken wood. The laboratory across the hall was strewn with bits of broken beakers and bottles, and steam whistled steadily from two or three bent pipes no longer connected to their big brass boiler.

The back door slammed shut so violently it rattled the broken glassware at my feet. I stepped out in the hallway to intercept Jackaby as he stormed back inside. “She's gone!”

“Mrs. Hoole? No!” I felt dizzy. We had promised the widow our protection and we had failed her. “But I thought the cellar was safeguarded! How did they—”

“They didn't,” Jackaby snarled. “The wards are still active. There's not a jam jar out of place. The cellar wasn't breached.
They
didn't do anything—she did. The bolts were thrown from the inside.”

“She opened it herself? But why?”

Jackaby was fuming. “This,” he said through gritted teeth, “is why I don't like secrets!”

I followed him as he tramped up the stairs. We emerged on the second floor. A cabinet toward the far end of the hall had toppled. It stood wedged diagonally against the opposite wall, its doors hanging open and its contents spilled on the floor.

“Argh. Stay on this side of the house,” Jackaby warned as he trod forward angrily. “Some of those artifacts are highly unstable. I'll set it right myself.” His fists were clenched as he went to see to it.

My room was first on the right. It had been ransacked as well. The chest of drawers had been emptied and my dresses and shirtwaists lay all over. Directly in the center of my bed lay the sketch of Owen Finstern with the little carved stone resting on top of it. It was hard not to take their placement as a sign. They had sent Pavel to collect, and he had come back worse for wear and without their quarry.

As I scooped them up angrily, the door to my armoire rattled. I tensed, holding my breath. It rattled again, this time accompanied by a bark and a muffled quack. “Oh! Douglas!” I relaxed and stuffed Pavel's little mementos in my pocket as I opened the door. Douglas burst out, flapping across the room and squawking. He perched on my headboard and shook out his feathers. Toby was cowering in the back of the armoire, and I patted his head. “It's all right, boy,” I said.

Across the hall, Jenny's door hung open, as well. I tiptoed over. Her room looked untouched at first glance, and I almost dared to imagine the perpetrators had spared her the indignity of trespassing there. Then my eyes fell to the floor.

A shape had been carved into the wood. It was just a silhouette etched in crude, jagged lines, but the image was clear. The rough cuts outlined the body of a woman in a flowing dress, lying sprawled in the center of the room. There, in the center, where the woman's heart should be, lay a tarnished pewter locket. I did not need to open it to know it was the locket from the photograph, the locket
from Howard with love
.

“Abigail?” Jenny said behind me. “What are you looking at?”

I spun around. “Oh, Jenny—don't . . .” but she was already past me.

Jenny stooped, and her fingers traced the rough gashes in the wood. With trembling slowness she reached out and took hold of the locket. She clutched it so tightly her fist shook, and she pulled it to her chest. Her whole body fluttered like a moving picture in a broken penny arcade machine. Her hair whipped behind her and the windows shook. The wind stole my breath and sent shivers down my neck.

“Jenny, she's gone. It's over. She can't hurt you anymore. She's just trying to—”

Without warning the windows exploded. I held an arm in front of my face as tiny bits of glass spun around the room

“Jenny!”

Jackaby was behind me at once. The wind was deafening, but he stepped past me and spoke quietly, earnestly. “You're not alone, Miss Cavanaugh. Not this time. Not now. Not ever, ever again.”

The wind died down as quickly as it had started, glass skittering along the ground and coming to a rest with a million little tinkles. Jenny blinked into view in front of Jackaby, fluttering in and out of sight. Her eyes were sad and desperate as she reached a hand toward him. Her lip quivered. Her translucent fingers brushed his stubbled jaw and then she flickered again. In the same instant, her body lay motionless in the center of the room, a perfect fit within the lines of the grisly silhouette. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, and the darkness that saturated her dress was beginning to spread like a grim shadow on the floor.

And then the room was silent and Jenny was gone.

“Too far.” Jackaby's eyes were steel as he slid a long bronze knife and a little red pouch into the inner pockets of his coat. He had blown into his laboratory like a savage gale, and I knew his moods well enough to know I should stay out of his way. A broken test tube crunched under his shoes. He ignored it, picking over what was left of his work space as he stocked up for the journey ahead. I watched from the doorway as he pulled drawers out of a damaged storage rack, throwing them on the floor one after another as they failed to produce whatever artifact he was looking for. “Too far.”

Charlie came around the corner. He was dressed again, and standing on his own two human feet. Toby stuck close to him, leaning into Charlie's legs for comfort. Charlie put a hand on my shoulder, and I leaned into him, too.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “I don't even know what they were looking for. I haven't found anything actually missing, as far as I can tell. It all just seems malicious. It was her—the woman—Pavel's accomplice. It had to be. She came back just to taunt Jenny.”

“Mrs. Hoole,” Charlie said. “She's been taken.”

“Not taken,” I said. “She left. I don't know what to think about the widow Hoole anymore! I have a hard time believing she's a part of this madness, but frankly I'm having a hard time believing any of this madness is happening at all!”

Owen Finstern pushed his head in the doorway. “My machine is what's missing,” he said. He pressed past us and paced an uneven circle around the ravaged laboratory. “They took my machine!”

“They don't have your machine,” said Jackaby, his back to the inventor.

“And you know that for certain?” He squinted at Jackaby.

Jackaby turned and glared. “They don't have your machine,” he repeated.

“Where were you during all this?” Finstern asked, turning back to Charlie. “Hiding from them?” He narrowed his eyes. “Helping them?”

Charlie kept his composure. “I was out.”

“You're a wanted man. I saw the posters. Where did you—?”

“Shut up.” Jackaby pushed past the inventor and out toward the front of the house. “We're leaving. All of us. Now.”

“Sir?” I said. “What's the plan?”

“Lawrence Hoole is the plan. He's our freshest corpse and the most likely to know who made him into one. We are getting answers for Miss Cavanaugh if we have to drag them back from the depths of Hell to do it.”