The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1)

by Archer, CJ

  "Maybe Blunt or Finch made a mistake."

  He suddenly looked ill. If his face was capable of turning white it probably would have. "Or maybe the purpose was for my family to be home at the time of the break-in."

  "Wh-what? But why?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't."

  "No." I shook my head firmly. "No, that's ridiculous. Don't think it. It was a simple burglary." Even as I said it, a small doubt formed in my mind where I couldn't dislodge it. But if he was right and someone wanted to harm his family...why? Why go to so much trouble? It didn't make sense. "At least the demon has been returned," I said, trying to reassure him.

  "But how long will it be before another is summoned?" His jaw hardened and he grunted in frustration. "I should have questioned Blunt more. Or Finch."

  "You were fighting a demon! Besides, at the time neither of us thought anyone else was involved." I stepped closer and touched his arm to reassure him. He tensed, his muscles knotting, and I rubbed to alleviate some of the anger simmering inside him.

  "Don't," he whispered and stepped back, out of my reach.

  "No, you don't. Don't leave. Not yet." If he blinked himself off to the Waiting Area without resolving any of the tension between us I was going to scream until the Administrators made him return. "We have something we need to discuss."

  To my surprise he nodded.

  I waited but he said nothing. The tension seemed to have vanished from him, but he certainly didn't appear relaxed. He shifted from foot to foot and looked everywhere except at me.

  Finally, when neither of us spoke to fill the growing silence, his gaze met mine. Shock rippled through me. There was a shine in his eyes that wasn't usually there and a tightness to his lips as if he was pressing them together on purpose.

  "Jacob? Say something." Tell me you won't go, tell me you'll stay forever, tell me you love me.

  He took my hand in his and drew little circles over my knuckles with his thumb. "I want you to know what happened back there, in Belgrave Square."

  Finally. Finally! But now that the time had come I was afraid. Absolutely terrified. A lump clogged my throat and my mouth went dry. I wanted to know the reason—of course I did!—but a feeling of dread swamped me. I was drowning in it. Against every instinct screaming for him not to speak, I nodded at him to go on.

  "I warned you," he said. His voice sounded thick and hoarse. "I tried telling you I was dangerous, that you shouldn't develop feelings for me."

  "I can't help it! Jacob, I love you—."

  He smothered the rest of my words with a light, airy kiss. "Let me finish," he chided gently. "I'm dangerous to you because...because I love you too."

  My heart swelled. I think I saw stars. Those beautiful words were exactly what I'd wanted to hear. Nothing, nothing could ever be wrong again now that he'd admitted it.

  Then the bubble burst. The stars vanished and my heart collapsed in on itself. "What do you mean? Why does that make you dangerous?" But I knew. I knew.

  "Do you remember that day Maree Finch tried to stab you at Culvert's house?" I nodded. "I knew before then that I loved you," he went on. "From the moment we met in fact. It was like...your breath filled my lungs, your heart beat for mine. But it wasn't until the incident at Culvert's that I realized how much I loved you." He watched me with a kind of ferocity, as if he could persuade me of his feelings by a single look. "When Maree ran at you with the knife it was like I was dying all over again. I hated watching you in pain, the fear in your eyes...it was horrible. I was consumed by you in those few terrible minutes...by everything about you. I knew then that I wanted to be with you. Forever." His thumb circled faster. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "Forever," I repeated dully. It was difficult to think straight. Impossible to breathe. "In the Otherworld."

  He nodded and tilted his face to the ceiling rose. He blinked rapidly then looked back at me. "When I thought you could have died...I was...glad." He whispered, as if he was afraid to say it out loud because it would somehow make it more real. "I wanted Maree to stab you."

  He removed his hand from mine but I caught it. I pressed his palm to my lips and kissed the cool flesh. His fingers uncurled against my cheek, his head bent closer to mine. "Ah, Emily, I'm so sorry."

  I heaved in a breath. It was difficult with my chest feeling so tight but I did it. "I won't accept your apology, Jacob. You wouldn't have hurt me. I know that like I know I can see the dead. You worried about my health when I got wet and you even warned me to stay away from Whitechapel. That's not the actions of a man who wanted me to die."

  He shook his head and pulled his hand free. "I didn’t want to hurt you and I didn't want to see you get hurt. The thought of you being ill or in pain...I couldn't bear it. I wanted the end result without you feeling even a moment's discomfort. Until..." His eyes shuttered closed.

  "Tonight."

  His nod was slight and I would have missed it if I hadn't been watching him so intently. "I can’t explain how I felt," he went on, opening his eyes again. "Perhaps I was drunk from fighting the demon, or frustrated from spending so much time with you and not being able to claim you as I wanted to, or perhaps I was all too aware that our time together was limited."

  I let his words settle before I spoke what had been on my mind for some time. "So the other night when you left my room abruptly, it wasn't because you realized I would grow old and ugly while you stayed young and handsome?"

  He suddenly laughed. "Oh Emily, I do adore you."

  I frowned. It had been a perfectly serious question. "Your exact words were: 'What if I grow weary watching you wait?'." I could never forget them. They were branded on my memory.

  He reached up and touched my hair, curling it around his finger as I had done earlier. His laughter vanished just as rapidly as it had erupted. "I was afraid I would...do something terrible to you if the waiting became unbearable for either of us. It had nothing to do with you aging while I didn't. That's why I left that night, not because I didn't want to stay with you forever but because I didn’t want to encourage your affections any more than I already had. I didn't want you to love me, you see. Knowing how you felt about me only made it harder not to think about you joining me in the Waiting Area, and in the Otherworld when I'm able to cross. I began to justify your death to myself after that." He turned away and buried his head in his hands. "Oh God, Emily, don’t you see?"

  I saw. And I should have been afraid of his admission, of him, but I was not. "You're a good person, Jacob. What you're feeling is perfectly natural." I pressed myself into his back and put my arms around his waist, holding him close. I kissed him through his shirt near his shoulder blade. "You're a wonderful, caring, brave soul and nothing you say will stop me loving you."

  A shudder rippled through him and I held him tighter. But only for a few beats of my trembling heart because he shrugged me off and moved away to stand near the door.

  "You were right when we first met," he said, his voice raw with emotion. "Do you remember? You said I'd forgotten how a gentleman should behave when I insulted your sister." I began to protest but he put up his hand and I stopped. "I am starting to lose a little bit of my humanity each day. I can feel it. I'm slowly losing myself, Emily. I don't want to, just like I don't want to hurt you, but I can't help it."

  "Don't talk like that. You're still very much a gentleman."

  He shook his head. "I can't come to you anymore," he rasped.

  "But I'm going to help you find your killer, your body." It was the only thing I could think of to hold onto, the one thing tying Jacob to this world, to me.

  "I'll do it on my own."

  "But Jacob—."

  "No. I can't risk another hesitation like tonight. Ever. Or I won't be the person you love anymore. Do you understand? Having you despise me for that would be...worse than anything I could bear."

  I understood. And I hated myself for it. The tears poured down my face but I didn't care. I let them flow unchecke
d as I watched him. His nostrils flared and the muscles high in his cheek throbbed.

  "Goodbye," he whispered.

  And then he was gone.

  I sat down on the rug on my bedroom floor, lowered my head to my knees and cried until Celia came in and guided me back to bed.

  ***

  I spent the day in bed. I slept fitfully. Celia and Lucy both came and went on occasion, fussing and trying to get me to eat, but I barely heard anything they said. My sister didn't ask me why I was so upset and I was grateful for that.

  But her sympathy ended the following day and the questions began almost as soon as she hauled me out of bed. She helped me dress then marched me downstairs to the small parlor behind the front drawing room. Lucy set a breakfast of eggs and toast in front of each of us. I pushed mine away.

  "Tell me what happened," Celia said when Lucy left.

  I did. Everything.

  Afterwards, she watched me for a long time over the rim of her teacup. There were no recriminations for leaving in the middle of the night, no lectures, but no gentle or wise words to make me feel better either. I was grateful. I didn't want them. Nothing would make me feel better ever again. I had a hole in my heart the size of England and it was sucking everything out of me, even the tears.

  "So that's that then," Celia announced. I wasn't sure if she was referring to the demon being returned or Jacob leaving. I didn't care.

  Later that morning George visited. We talked over the events of the night. I left out the part where Jacob had said goodbye.

  Celia, however, did not. "The ghost is gone." She smiled at George and handed him a large slice of sponge cake. It was his second. "More tea?"

  He held out his cup and returned her smile. While he was studying his cake, no doubt deciding how best to attack the mountain with his fork, my sister winked at me.

  With a huff of breath, I got up and left. She could flirt with George on my behalf without me.

  That afternoon she knocked on my bedroom door and said we were going to visit Mrs. Wiggam.

  "Can't you go alone? I'm very tired." I'd just woken from a nap but I felt like I needed more sleep. I couldn't imagine ever feeling completely awake again. Jacob was gone. What was there to be awake for?

  "No. She sent me a note, pleading our help, blaming us for her husband haunting her. Can you believe it! The nerve of the woman when it was her demands for money that made him so angry."

  "Let them sort out their own problems," I said and rolled over in bed.

  She sat down on the mattress behind my back and placed a hand on my shoulder. "You can't remain in here forever. He's gone and you're needed."

  "I don’t care."

  She hugged me, her face close to mine. Her hair smelled like lavender. "You have a gift, Emily. With that gift comes the responsibility to use it properly. If the events with the demon have taught me something, it's that. We summoned Mr. Wiggam, admittedly on his wife's behalf, but we now must end her suffering. At least we have to try. I...I'm worried about what he might do to her if we don't intervene."

  I sighed and rolled over. Why did she have to be sensible all the time? "Let's go," I muttered.

  She smiled sympathetically and hugged me tighter.

  ***

  I expected the Wiggam household to be in turmoil but it was quiet. Messy but calm. Shreds of newspaper littered the hallway and drawing room floor, muddy footprints spoiled the rugs, and what appeared to be flour was strewn over every piece of furniture. Most of the figurines, candelabras and other objects that had decorated the mantelpiece, walls and tables were either broken or missing although a few had been spared. An oil painting of a lighthouse by the sea, a small black statue of a rearing horse. They had probably been favorites of Barnaby Wiggam. It was truly a terrible scene and I could only imagine what it had been like for his widow living there while her dead husband made his presence known by destroying her house.

  Mrs. Wiggam calmly laid out a cloth on the flour-covered sofa for Celia and I to sit on. She offered no apology for the state of her house, or her person. It had only been a few days since the séance but she looked like she'd not eaten or slept in that time. Her waist seemed to have shrunk, sacks of skin hung loosely under her eyes, and her hair looked more tangled than mine had that morning after my night out. I felt sorry for her but didn't dare show it. Nothing about Mrs. Wiggam's countenance invited pity.

  "I'd have tea brought up but the maids have all left," she said with not a hint of shame.

  Barnaby Wiggam appeared in the vacant chair by the window. He seemed more translucent than the last time. Or perhaps I was used to seeing Jacob, solid and strong, not dim with fuzzy edges like Mr. Wiggam and the other ghosts. It made we wonder, again, why Jacob appeared so real to me. I would probably never find out now.

  Mr. Wiggam crossed his arms and glared at his wife as she exchanged inane pleasantries with Celia. The entire scene struck me as absurd and a bubble of laughter escaped, despite my best intentions to smother it.

  Mrs. Wiggam glanced at me the way her husband looked at her—as if everything was my fault.

  "He's here isn't he?" she said, glaring at the chair in which her husband's ghost sat.

  "Yes," I said.

  She humphed and shrugged, accepting the ghost's presence.

  "Good," Celia said, urging me to speak with a raise of both her eyebrows. "We're here to speak to him."

  "Don't trouble yourselves," Mr. Wiggam said, heaving himself up from his chair. His face was still very red, the purple veins prominent on his cheeks and nose, as they would always be thanks to the manner of his death. "I'm leaving."

  I almost choked on my surprise. "Why?"

  "What's he saying?" Mrs. Wiggam asked. "What does that good-for-nothing lump want now? My life?" She stood and offered her wrists to him like a platter of biscuits. "Take it! Isn't that what you want to do? Fetch a knife from the kitchen and end it all here. Go on!"

  He laughed, a grating, humorless laugh. "Tell her I don't want to take her with me. Eternity is a long time and I'd prefer to spend as much of it as I can without her."

  "Is that why you're leaving?" I asked.

  Mrs. Wiggam, sensing her blood would not be spilled by the ghost of her dead husband, lowered her arms. She sat back down in her chair, smoothed her skirt over her lap and gave my sister a polite smile as if nothing was untoward. Celia didn't return it.

  "I'm leaving because I'm tired of haunting her," Barnaby Wiggam said. "No, actually I'm just tired of her. This is only fun for so long and I've realized something important these last few days." He picked his way across the messy floor and removed the painting of the lighthouse from the wall. The sea in the picture was calm and the sun shone on the red-brown rocks and the white sail of a ship in the distance. "As much as I wanted to hurt her, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It's not in my nature." He returned the painting to its hook on the wall and stood back to admire it. "It's strange, don't you think, Miss Chambers?"

  "What is?" The painting? It looked lovely to me, peaceful.

  "That the characteristics of who we were during life, our essence if you like, are carried with us to our death. Up there, in the Waiting Area, there are thousands of souls waiting to cross over, each one of them as unique as they were in life. Did you know the Otherworld is segmented?" I nodded. "The segment we're assigned to depends on how good we were when we were alive. A scale of worth if you like." He looked down at the flour-covered rug. "I don't know what the segment where the rotten ones go is like and I don't want to know." He thrust his triple chins at his widow. "I've never committed a mortal sin so I'm quite sure I won't end up in the worst section. However I'm not so good that I'll help her clean up."

  I stared down at my folded hands in my lap. Jacob too had been a good person in his lifetime. Even George thought so and he hadn't been his friend. As Mr. Wiggam said, a good nature in life meant a good nature in death too. That didn't change. Jacob hadn't changed. Everyone told me he'd been kind when he was alive�
�a little unobservant of those around him, but never mean. He'd never harm anyone on purpose. It was the same in death. He wouldn't hurt me. Couldn't. I knew that to the depths of my soul.

  Jacob Beaufort wasn't dangerous.

  Mr. Wiggam gave me a short bow. "Good bye, Miss Chambers."

  "Wait!" I sprang up from the chair. Mrs. Wiggam and Celia watched me, curiosity printed on their faces, but neither interrupted. "There's a spirit in the Waiting Area...I want you to give him a message from me if you see him."

  "But you're a medium, you can summon any ghost you wish at any time. You just called my name and I came."

  "You came when I called because you wanted to. Jacob...probably doesn’t want to."

  "Very well. How will I recognize your ghost? There are many souls up there."

  "He's more solid than others. You can't see through him and—."

  "What do you mean, more solid?" He held up his hands, twisting and turning them as he studied them. "I'm as solid as I ever was when I was alive." He patted his bulging stomach and laughed.

  "Not to me you're not. But Jacob was."

  Mr. Wiggam dismissed my description of Jacob's presence with a shrug. "What's his name?"

  "Jacob Beaufort. Tell him I said he was wrong. Then tell him what you just told me."

  "Very well. I'll see what I can do." He bowed again and winked out of existence.

  I turned to Mrs. Wiggam. "He's gone."

  Her eyes narrowed and her gaze flitted around the drawing room. "Is he coming back?"

  "No. Celia?"

  My sister rose. We said our farewells to Mrs. Wiggam and she promised to employ our services again when the house was set to rights.

  "That would be delightful," Celia said with an ingratiating smile. It wasn't until we were out of the street altogether that she said, "I sincerely hope we never return there."

  I couldn't agree more.

  We walked for a while without speaking until we turned into Druids Way. We held onto our bonnets and bent our heads into the breeze.

  "You asked Mr. Wiggam's ghost to tell Jacob something up there." She nodded at the sky—it was cloudless for once, the constant haze turning it a faded blue—but neither of us knew where the Waiting Area was actually located. It was as good a place as any I suppose. "What was it?"