The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1)

by Archer, CJ

  I wasn't naïve. I knew married men and women had affairs on occasion, and the idea of my existence coming about because of one wasn't new to me. In fact it was the most obvious explanation. For some time I'd thought Mama must have met someone after her husband's death then nine months later I'd been born. But seeing Mr. Postlethwaite sowed a seed of doubt. Just a small one. He had been precisely the sort of person to have a liaison outside of his marriage—handsome in a preening, peacock-ish way, a roaming eye, and a charming manner.

  Mama had been none of those things. She was pretty, I suppose, although it seemed to me she'd always been middle-aged, even when I was little. But she wasn't handsome like some women, or gregarious, and she had certainly never looked at men the way Mr. Postlethwaite looked at ladies.

  Could Mama possibly have fallen deeply in love with one man so soon after her beloved husband's death? A man who'd not loved her enough in return when he got her with child?

  If not, then...what?

  I didn't have any answers by the time we left Widow Postlethwaite's house, nor was there any likelihood of getting any. Mama was possibly the only person who knew my real father's name and I'd not been able to summon her ghost at all since her death. She must have crossed over immediately.

  I pushed the problem aside, telling myself it didn't matter, that I was loved by my sister and had been by my mother and that's all that mattered. Anyway, now I had other things to occupy my mind. I had the demon. And I had Jacob.

  I was eager to return home and speak to him again. Not for any reason, just because I wanted to. Perhaps I could find out more about his death, but if not it didn't matter. I'd enjoy his company regardless of what we talked about.

  "How did your information gathering go this morning?" Celia asked on the way home.

  "Well enough." I told her everything we'd learned, including the interview with Maree the maid, mentioning the school but leaving out the part where she tried to stab me. My sister's constitution is incredibly strong but still it wouldn't do to alarm her. She might never let me go out alone again.

  "I wonder if Lucy knows her," Celia said.

  "Who's Lucy?"

  "Our new maid. I collected her this morning from that North London School for Domestic Service. We'll ask her when we get home. Now, enough of that." We turned into our street and I glanced up at our house. No Jacob standing on the doorstep. I sighed. "Tell me about this George Culvert fellow," Celia said. "What was he like? Is he handsome? Was the house very large and does he have older brothers?"

  "Older brothers? Why, are you interested in meeting them for yourself, Sis?" I looked at her sideways and had to hold onto my hat as the breeze tried to lift it off my head.

  "Of course not," she scoffed. "I simply want to know if an older brother will inherit the house, that's all, or if it all goes to this George."

  "This George," I said sharply, "is a nice enough gentleman but he doesn't interest me in the way you're implying." I stalked off ahead and ran up the front steps.

  "But—."

  "Celia, stop trying to marry me off to every eligible gentleman we meet. I'm seventeen. I want to enjoy my freedom before I settle down with a husband."

  "Being married does not necessarily mean you'll lose your freedom."

  "Then why haven't you settled down with any of the men who've shown interest in you?" Three gentlemen had courted Celia over the years but despite a great deal of speculation on my part, she'd not married any of them.

  She fished in her reticule for the door key. "That's none of your concern," she said, snippy. "Now, come inside and meet Lucy. She seems very sweet."

  Lucy did indeed seem sweet. She was a little younger than me, plumper, shorter and fairer. She had an English rose complexion, the sort that's permanently pink and blushes easily. I'd often wished to have just such a complexion but with my tendency to feel embarrassed a lot of the time, it's probably just as well that I don't.

  "I hope you'll like it here, Lucy," I said to her.

  "Th...thank you, m...miss." She bobbed a careful but wobbly curtsy and stared at me as if I had two heads. If her eyes widened any further they'd pop out of her head.

  I turned an accusing eye on Celia, one hand on my hip.

  "I thought it best we tell her up front," Celia said, setting down her carpet bag. "Get it out in the open, so to speak, to avoid any nasty surprises later on. Particularly since that ghost of yours seems to be coming and going with ill-mannered frequency."

  "I don't think your sister likes me," Jacob said, popping up behind me. Was he watching me and trying to arrive at inopportune moments on purpose?

  The thought of him keeping an eye on me sent a shiver down my spine, and not entirely in a bad way.

  I ignored him and concentrated on Lucy but the poor thing whimpered beneath my gaze. I certainly wouldn't alert her to Jacob's presence. She might faint and then where would we be? Instead, I gave my sister a glare then turned a smile on the maid.

  "He's a nice ghost," I assured her.

  "Thank you," he said, "although nice is a rather bland word."

  "He won't harm you," I went on, doing my best to ignore him. "And he probably won't be here much longer, only until we sort out..." I bit my lip. Finishing the sentence with "our demon issue" probably wasn't a good way to settle her nerves. "Until we sort out a few things."

  The thought of Jacob leaving once we'd returned the demon to the Otherworld filled me with a hollowness I didn't want to explore. I'd only known him a day but he'd somehow managed to fill up my life in a way nothing else had.

  It was all I could do not to look around and see if the thought had struck him too.

  The girl nodded quickly, her eyes still huge and her cheeks paler. I wasn't sure Celia's tactic to tell Lucy about me being a medium was such a good idea. Having someone stare at me like I was a lunatic in my own house wasn't my idea of comfort. Besides, would knowing mean she'd stay around longer, or just leave earlier? At least she was still here—it was a promising start.

  "How is dinner coming along?" Celia asked as Lucy accepted her bonnet and hung it up on the stand. "Good, miss. It'll be ready at six like you said. I set the water boiling for the potatoes and the fish is all ready to go on the gridiron, but I couldn't find it—the gridiron, not the fish—so I'll just use one of the pans instead. Mrs. White our teacher told us to make do with what pots and things are already 'vailable and not worry our mistress 'bout that stuff. She's a smart lady, Mrs. White, but she didn't take no fuss from no one."

  It was my turn to stare wide-eyed at her. It seemed our maid was quite the chatterer when she wasn't frightened.

  I smiled at Celia. Celia smiled at Lucy. "Can you serve tea in the drawing room, please," she said, "I'm parched after that walk."

  Lucy curtseyed again, without wobbling. "As you wish, miss. I'm very good at making tea. Mrs. White always said so. Said I was the best tea-maker in the whole school." She turned to go, stopped, turned back to us, curtseyed again, and only then did she make her way down the hallway to the stairs leading to the kitchen basement.

  "Aren't you going to ask her about the Culvert maid?" Celia asked me as we entered the drawing room.

  "Exactly what I was going to say," Jacob said, following me.

  The room was cool so I stoked the smoldering fire with the irons.

  "I'll do that," Jacob offered.

  I shook my head. I didn't want to alert Celia to his presence—she already thought him ungentlemanly for his ghostly comings and goings—and I definitely didn't want Lucy to see floating fire irons when she entered with the tea.

  "I think Lucy needs a few moments to get used to me before I press her about Maree," I said, poking the coals. "Oh and thank you, Sis, for mentioning the whole spirit medium thing to her. I'm sure she'll be inclined to stay much longer than the other maids now that she knows"

  "Sarcasm will make your face sag," she said.

  "I'm simply saying I don't think it was a good idea." I returned the iron poker to
the stand and sat beside her on the sofa.

  "I disagree," Jacob said from his usual place by the mantelpiece.

  "We had to try something," Celia said, taking up her embroidery.

  I picked up the book I'd begun the day before and left on the round occasional table. "Why does 'something' always have to involve me being on the receiving end of odd or frightened looks?"

  "It's better than being on the end of pitying ones."

  I lowered my book to see her better. Was she referring to herself and her spinster state? But she kept embroidering as if she hadn't a care in the world and it had merely been an off-hand comment.

  "Both are better than not being noticed at all," Jacob muttered.

  My lips parted in a silent "Oh" and I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him. What a horrible, selfish fool I was. Jacob's lot was so much worse than anything Celia or I experienced. That would teach me to be so ungrateful.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "You're right."

  "Your book is upside down," he said.

  I shut it and returned it to the table. He was smiling at me and there wasn't a hint of self-pity in his expression. It shouldn't have surprised me. Jacob didn't strike me as the sort to wallow in his disadvantages, even though being dead was a major one.

  I was about to relent and tell Celia that Jacob was in the drawing room with us when Lucy entered carrying the tea tray as if it were made of gold and precious jewels. Her slow, careful shuffle didn't stop the cups from clinking against each other. Her tongue darted out as she eyed her destination—the central table in front of the sofa—and lodged in the corner of her mouth like a bookmark. When she finally set the tray down I let out a long breath and heard Celia do the same.

  "Could you pour, please," Celia asked.

  I wanted to throttle her. The poor girl was nervous enough and now she had to manage the pouring. Despite her shaking hands, Lucy poured the tea and spilled only a little onto the saucers. I reached for my own cup, as did Celia, and thanked her.

  Lucy beamed at us both and blushed as bright as a radish. "I was better at it in school. I'm a bit nervous, see, being my first day and all." She turned to go but I called her back. She stopped and bit her lower lip, the smile and blushes gone. "Yes, miss? Something wrong, miss?" Her hands twisted together in front of her and I was reminded of Maree Finch. Thankfully Lucy wasn't holding a knife.

  "No, no, the tea is fine. I just wanted to ask you something. I met a girl from the North London School for Domestic Service today," I said, trying to sound like this wasn't important and we were having a casual conversation. I didn't want to unsettle her any more than she already was.

  Lucy blinked. "Oh? Who?"

  "Maree Finch. She's recently gone into service for the Culverts."

  "I remember Maree."

  "What was she like?"

  She shrugged. "I didn't know her too well. She was nice, I s'pose. Quiet. Don't really remember much more than that. We weren't good friends or nothing."

  "She has an older brother, doesn't she?"

  She nodded then frowned. "What's his name? Lord, I can't remember. Thomas, Timmy...something like that. He was at the school too for a bit, but got sent away. No good for service, Mrs. White said. A troublemaker. I saw him at school once, after he wasn't s'posed to be there no more."

  "Oh? What was he doing?"

  "Came to see Maree."

  "Ask her if Maree was a thief too," Jacob said.

  "Maree's a good girl though, isn't she." I worded it like a statement rather than a question. I didn't want to give Lucy the idea that we were fishing for information. I wanted her to open up to us on her own.

  "I think so. Mrs. White never said anything bad about her, just that she was a bit...what's the word?"

  "Violent?" Jacob offered.

  "Unpredictable?" I said.

  "No, something that means she gets talked into doing stuff easily. Stuff that's not always good for her to do, if you know what I mean."

  "Impressionable," I said.

  "That's it! Impreshun-able." She frowned. "She hasn't stole nothing from her employer, has she?"

  Jacob and I exchanged glances. He nodded and I nodded back. If we wanted answers, we'd have to at least tell her part of the truth.

  "She might have stolen a book from Mr. Culvert on demonology."

  "Demon-what?"

  "Demonology. It's the study of demons and angels."

  "Oh," she whispered. She glanced at Celia, perhaps because she thought her the normal one of the two of us.

  "Rest assured we have nothing to do with demons," Celia said. "We only deal with good spirits, happy ones."

  Jacob snorted but I admired Celia's ability to lie so convincingly. She was really very good at it. There wasn't a hint of a blush on her fair skin.

  "Mr. Culvert would like his book back," I said. "Indeed, it's quite important that he does get it back. You see..." Oh dear, this was the point at which I should tell her about the demon on the loose. But her face looked so innocent with those big hazel eyes and pale, pale skin, that I didn't want to frighten her anymore than she already was. It was hard enough starting a new job and moving in with two strangers, I didn't want to be responsible for her nightmares too.

  Celia, however, seemed to have no such qualms. "You see Mr. Culvert fights demons and the book is vital to his work."

  "Why doesn't she just tell the girl he's invisible and can move mountains too?" Jacob said with a shake of his head.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing. Jacob, seeing my distress, gave me a self-satisfied smirk.

  "Vital?" Lucy repeated.

  "Yes," Celia said. She set down the embroidery in her lap, all seriousness. Perhaps she even believed her own lie, or part of it. "Unless Mr. Culvert gets the book back, the people of London could be in grave danger from demons. So you see, if you know anything that could help us, we'd very much appreciate it if you would let us know. Your role is terribly important, Lucy. In fact, you could save London."

  Jacob groaned and rolled his eyes. Since I was used to Celia's fondness for melodrama, I simply looked on, somewhat stunned because her method seemed to be getting results. Lucy's forehead crinkled, her brows knitted and her mouth twisted to the side. She was thinking hard.

  "Well, let me see now," she said. "Maree might have taken the book if her brother asked her to. I told you I saw him, didn't I, after he was s'posed to have left school. He sneaked into the room all us girls shared to talk to Maree. Caused a right stir but no one told Mrs. White. She'd have blamed Maree and it weren't her fault. She can't control her brother any more than I can control the clouds."

  Celia and I sat forward. Even Jacob focused all his attention on the girl.

  "Do you know what Maree and her brother spoke about?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "No. They whispered."

  "Would she have confided in anyone afterwards? A friend perhaps?"

  "She didn't have any friends. She was so quiet, see, and a bit...you know." She drew little circles at her temple with her finger. "Maree kept to herself and did what she was told mostly. She looked up to Mrs. White I s'pose, we all did. She's a right good teacher is Mrs. White and she cared 'bout us all too. If Mr. Blunt tried to skimp on our meals, she was onto him right away. Told him it was 'gainst school reg'lations and she'd report him to the board. The board's the gentlemen who run the school, see. There's some right toffs on the board, there is. One's a lord and all."

  Her chatter had veered a little off the topic but Celia and I let her go. I wanted her to just talk and see what she said in the hope there was something useful among all the gossip. Unfortunately I'd not detected any so far.

  "So you can't think of anyone else, other than her brother, who Maree might steal a book for?" Celia asked.

  Lucy shook her head.

  "Have you ever overheard anyone talking about demons at the school?" I asked.

  "No! It's a Christian place, it is. Mr. Blunt sees we always say o
ur prayers before dinner. The devil, now that's diff'rent. Mr. Blunt's always talkin' 'bout the devil comin' to get us in our beds if we don't behave. Course it's never the devil but Mr. Blunt hisself who comes."

  "What?" I blurted out before I could reign in my shock. "Into your beds?"

  I expected Celia to admonish me for my outburst but she simply stared at Lucy open-mouthed. Lucy had managed to do the impossible and render my sister speechless.

  "Bloody hell," Jacob said, rubbing his chin.

  "Oh yes," Lucy said, oblivious to the heavy blanket of horror she'd thrown over us. "Mostly only the pretty girls. Tried it once with me, he did, but I was so scared I couldn't move and he said he didn't like that so he never bovvered me again." She said it as if it were an every day part of life, like dressing or eating. Is that how it was in the workhouses and ragged schools? The children simply accepted their plight because they didn't know any better?

  I felt sick to my stomach. And then I felt angry. A hot, gut wrenching anger. Lucy was such a sweet girl, how could anyone take advantage of her like this Mr. Blunt had?

  But I didn't want to show my anger in front of her. She didn't seem too upset by what had befallen her, so why make her feel degraded? Hadn't she already endured enough?

  Fortunately Celia remained silent although she'd gone very white and still. The only movement she made came from her throat as she swallowed.

  Since Celia didn't look like she would begin talking any time soon, I dismissed Lucy. "Thank you for your help. You may go. Oh, and make sure you enjoy a cup of tea yourself."

  Lucy beamed. "Thank you, Miss Chambers. You're not all that scary really, are you?"

  I couldn't help laughing, despite my heavy heart. Lucy left and as if she'd been wound up, Celia moved once more. She reached for her teacup. "Such a sweet girl," she said and sipped, as if she'd not heard a thing Lucy had said about Blunt's late night visits.

  I stared at her in disbelief. Did she think if she ignored the situation it would go away? Or was she avoiding the topic for my sake? Sometimes I suspect my sister thinks I know as little about what happens between couples as I did when I was ten. I may be a virgin but I wasn't naïve.