by Jerico Lenk
Outside the nursery in the dark hall of the haunted Nichols house, Clement put one hand over Quinn’s mouth and gripped his big shoulder with the other. “Hush!” he whispered urgently.
Quinn removed Clement’s hand easily as the light of O’Brien’s lamp spilled further and further forth upon what awaited us in the nursery.
A tower of toys.
Toy upon toy had been carefully stacked. Not propped together as if a pyre or a handful of kindling, but one atop the other with precarious but perfect precision. The longer I looked at it, the more disturbing it appeared to me—unnatural that any of the toys should have been balanced at such orientations at all. A wooden rocker horse, a tin train, a small elastic band pond sailboat and a child-sized stool … a little porcelain-faced clown doll with a pointed velveteen hat, grinning at us from its perch atop the tower like the star of a demented Christmas tree. From its hat dangled a tiny bell, and from the tiny bell came the ringing we’d heard, as though someone had given it a hearty shake.
The dancing of the bell dwindled, slowed to a stop as we watched on in cold, mute shock.
“Poltergeist,” Quinn murmured after a long moment, coarsely and with great detest. “The Germans’ ‘noisy ghost.’”
I hadn’t any clue what to say, or even what to think, as I had never seen anything like it before. The hair rose on the back of my neck and with my breath thick in my throat, my eyes jumped about sharply, in search of something, anything, a figure, that flash of a wide eye again. The ghost was there. I knew it was. Listening, perhaps. Watching us watch it …
Thud! Thud!
Something slammed with great force against the wall of the nursery; and as the bang burst through the eerie silence, not a one of us failed to jump. O’Brien cursed below his breath, tending to the lamp lest he spill any oil.
The bobbing light danced across the face of the clown doll like it danced in Clement’s wide, wild eyes. He turned to me, and then to Quinn, demanding, “Knock on the wall.”
In O’Brien’s free hand, the ambience compass whirred, as if trying to warn us of something in mechanical tongue. I pressed my ear to the paper lining the wall above the wainscoting, powerfully anxious to do so as Quinn reached to give an unenthusiastic knock or two above my head.
“Can you tap back to us?” Clement urged. “Spirit, can you … Quinn, knock again.”
With a sigh, Quinn knocked a second time, more deliberately. Once, twice. I leaned against the wall and listened. The seconds passed in mockery. I counted them to the ticking of the nearby grandfather clock and my heartbeat, not quite sure what to expect.
THUD!
A framed piece of hand stitching fell, narrowly missing my nose as I staggered back with a stunned gasp. I had felt the punch to the wall with my cheek and my fingers and my ear, and the violent vibrations were as if something with actual physical clout had struck it with immense force from the other side.
Everyone flew into diligent discord.
“Did you hear that?” I cried.
“O’Brien, note immediately—”
“Can you make that sound again for us? Mrs. Ollens? Mr. Nichols?”
“Now, that wasn’t very nice at all!” Clement snapped. “Are you angry with us? Do you not want us here?”
A flash of reflected light caught my eye as the pendulum in the grandfather clock swayed to a more violent beat, thrown hard by someone or something unseen.
“Look,” I said, struggling to get everyone’s attention. And they did look, it wasn’t that they didn’t hear, but they looked only in time to watch the old ornate clock go tumbling and crashing to the floor as if shoved in a rage.
Glass shattered. Lacquered details crunched. A thick silence followed, empty except for the shards of our surprise and tense, guarded confusion.
But the Missing thing was gone, as fast as it had come, leaving us with the mess. We all stood rooted in place for a lengthy moment or two. Finally, Clement uttered a tetchy sigh and dragged his hand through his hair.
“Well,” he muttered, “that will be deducted from my cheque.”
***
“I don’t understand,” I said as we took down the bells around the Nichols house. Dawn was upon us, after the last few long, boring hours of silence. “Are we not to see the body snatchers as with the Waterloo wraith?”
“They’re not body snatchers,” Clement spat, rolling his eyes. “They’re the Stygian Society.”
“We aren’t pursuing banishment, so no body snatchers,” Quinn explained.
Clement heaved an exasperated sigh to remind us: not body snatchers.
“And we aren’t pursuing banishment because Mr. Nichols explicitly requested we not,” Quinn finished.
I nodded as if to say, I see, though I only half understood.
“It seems to me you have in your home a semi-conscious enigma,” Clement disclosed to the Nichols family upon their return. I hadn’t expected nocturnal investigating to be this rigorous; I was not unaccustomed to late nights, but I was so exhausted suddenly that the chirping of the birds and the hustle and bustle of suburban traffic—and the Nichols children’s solemn staring—really gnawed at my nerves.
“The spirit is slightly aware of its surroundings, and what it’s doing, though it lacks the agency to fully manifest … ”
“But is it my father?” Mr. Nichols urged.
“The communication we made was inconclusive,” Clement said flatly, as if reciting—though not without a deep, apologetic frown. “I’m sorry, sir, but there simply is not enough evidence to presume as much. I’m not saying it’s not your father … but I can’t say that it is, either. With time, the phantom may grow strong enough or clever enough to prove its identity to you. And—here’s my card, again—should you ever wish the spirit be removed, you know where to call.”
As compassionate as he was with poor Mr. Nichols, on the ride back to Portland Place, Clement was once more his fractious self.
“I hate inconclusive cases,” he grumbled, scowling out the small window of the coach. “I absolutely hate them. I’d rather just burn the bones or bottle the spirit and get it over with.”
“If you need help writing up your report … ” O’Brien began as we made our way in the grey of creeping dawn through the main building to the dormitories.
“O’Brien,” I said blearily, “can’t we just meet tomorrow? When I can think straight again? Please.”
“The lounge at elevenses,” he agreed merrily.
I was worn out and worried I might be too naïve. Shaken, but hopelessly romanced by the eerie spectacle of someone else’s haunted home. Yet the whole night had been as amazing as the first. There was no denying that.
A slip of paper waited for me, stuck neatly folded in the door of my room.
My heart lurched to my throat. A note from my father, perhaps? A note from Westwood, or someone else, saying I was to be dismissed due to no formal application, or …
I plucked the page out with cold fingers and slowly smoothed it open. In slanted, scratchy blue ink, it read:
Trunk delivered in your name. Stored in footman’s room, first floor. – Clerk
Zelda and Cook had come with my things. I’d missed them. My belongings were downstairs, and I was too tired to drag the trunk up on my own.
Feeling foolish for how easily my throat tightened and tears burned the backs of my eyes, I entered my room with a stiff creak of the door and just let it fall shut carelessly behind me as I dropped down on the bed. I’d undress in a moment, when I was not so winded by the sharp, sad pinch to my heart.
***
“This is Officer Bartlett,” d’Pelletier said, holding his hands out to the Officer and me as if waiting to guide us through greeting each other. But then he squinted at me in that slightly tactless fashion of his. “You look as though you haven’t had a wink of sleep,” he remarked.
I blushed, peering up at him unenthusiastically from the table in the dining hall, at which I’d settled with black tea and somethin
g to eat.
“My first case was last night,” I mumbled around the last corner of my toast and marmalade.
“Hard on you, hmm?”
“Not particularly,” I lied.
“It’s quite the field, isn’t it?” D’Pelletier’s companion stuck a hand out. “Mr. Pierre Bartlett, Officer, Chief Bookman of the religious files.”
I shook his hand with a pinched smile. “Will Winchester,” I said shyly. “Scouting inspector. Spectral Department.”
“Yes, it’s a pleasure.” Bartlett beamed at me. He was shorter than d’Pelletier—it wasn’t unimaginable that most people were—with a soft, unremarkable but well-kept beard and emotive eyes. Fatherly. He felt so fatherly. “You’re getting along nicely, I hope?”
“Yes, sir,” I murmured.
“You’ve had your first case? Have you been taught the report system?”
“Yes, sir. O’Brien briefed me.”
“And the organisation of research and department files?”
“No, sir, I … ”
“Pierre,” d’Pelletier saved me. “His training was waived. He’s learning on the fly.”
I was worried my precarious situation, the matter of my gender ambiguity, might not hold up outside of my father’s house, where all the world’s standards and rules were already topsy-turvy. But to feel so unsuspected, and hear the most comfortable pronouns spoken with such ease the last few days, was absolutely bolstering.
Bartlett raised his brows high in a tender series of creases. “Is that so?” he prompted. “Well, I won’t presume, but if you are still in need of a tour, I’d be happy to oblige.”
I couldn’t contain a bashful smile. “That would be grand.”
Bartlett kept his stride slow so as not to out-walk me as he led me around the big building. I didn’t tell him I’d already explored a bit myself. D’Pelletier tagged along. As Bartlett talked, I couldn’t help but wonder about what it might be like to have someone like him as a father. He seemed so pleasant and gentle, eager to teach—smiling as though he wished to protect anything I might tell him. And when I looked to him while he spoke to me, he looked me back in the eye.
“The Cross was founded by a small club of men in 1599,” he explained, “including a Rosicrucian and a nobleman’s clairvoyant daughter, who all came together in mutual obsession with myth, mystery, and mysticism. ‘Nulli sunt casus’ was their oath. Or … ”
“ ‘There are no accidents,’ ” I murmured.
“Yes.” He softened, warmly.
“Officer Bartlett … ” I waited, not sure it was polite. “What is your gift?”
Bartlett laughed, a rustling little chuckle. “Oh, I am merely a scholar.” His eyes hung on me. “I take it, then, you have extrasensory perceptions?”
I nodded. “Clairvoyant,” I said, and was immediately self-conscious because I had not expected to feel so proud saying it.
“Hmm.” Bartlett said as we stood admiring the hall of notable scholars, a cramped and humble little corridor of a gallery with several portraits and personal donations from significant members of the past. “You’re one of our greatest assets, those of you with mysteries in your blood. Men still scorn and denounce the unknown forces of nature we study, yet revel in modern technology as if it isn’t any more mystical. Why, the Bell Telephone Company helps voice escape time and place, does it not? But sensitives, like yourself, are our proof, aren’t you?”
D’Pelletier sighed. “He did say he was a scholar, didn’t he?”
Bartlett smiled down at me again, issuing a little shrug as if to say, Oh, well. This time, I didn’t even try not to; I just smiled happily back.
***
After Bartlett and d’Pelletier had gone, I lingered outside the fourth-floor libraries, a wing Bartlett had affectionately called Hermes Hall.
This place seemed suddenly so vast and full of unfair mysteries. Rather overwhelming. My chest tightened. Perhaps I wasn’t ready for this. Or even worthy of it. I didn’t know. There was so much to learn …
Voices echoed from a nearby lounge, spilling out with light from open windows. There was a garden of flowers painted on the purple walls inside; I glimpsed as much through the hinges of one of the double doors as I peeked in, secretly.
A number of men and ladies grouped there on the burgundy loveseats and mauve armchairs. Laughter, the light melody of pomp and gossip over the chatter of silver spoons in fine china and sighs of tobacco smoke.
“There are so many rumours about that bloody decadent family,” some man said with a little intonation of doubt.
Another chuckled haughtily. “Yes, but what else keeps a great family around, besides money and mystery?”
“It may be for the better, Mr. Myers.” This man spoke in a thickly conciliatory way. “Never mind inheritance or birth rights, a young lord is still a young lord and deserves some time for himself before resigning to the responsibility of the ‘great family,’ isn’t it so?”
“I just never imagined he’d look so … ” Another of the men dropped his voice to the low and secretive hum of guilty talk. “That eye of his. I didn’t think it was as terrible as they said, and—such a pity!”
I froze. Young lord … that eye … They spoke of Inspector Kingsley, didn’t they?
Kingsley! I’d been wondering where he was; I had yet to see him. Then again, he was a nobleman. Why would he board at Portland Place? I wasn’t sure what I would say to him when I saw him next—perhaps just thank him for that night on Waterloo—hopefully without dissolving into a rambling fool in the presence of someone like him. About my age, I’d guess, a member of the Black Cross, and one of the youngest Earls in present London society, legacy carrier of the prominent Kingsleys.
“You’ve never seen his eye before joining on here?”
“No, I haven’t … ”
“How the devil have you escaped an encounter with a Kingsley party on the town for so long, friend?”
I didn’t think Kingsley’s eye was so terrible. It hadn’t bothered me at all that night on Waterloo.
One of the ladies uttered a short, derisive laugh. She looked barely of age, but she seemed a gossiping queen already. “Don’t let him fool you! You might call it his ‘badge of honour.’ God knows that whole family’s moral compass has been defective for decades. It’s worse with every generation. Dorland, tell Mr. Samuel about the 1886 All Hallows’. Lady Kingsley was murdered—”
“Now, Jessica,” the man beside her chastised, but it was hardly stern. “She wasn’t murdered.”
“Uncle, you’ve been in that objectionable house, you cannot say there’s not something about that family. They’re witches, I promise you, bordering on the criminal. Their history’s in Hermes Hall and everything, just out of reach unless you’ve got the key. There’s an entire chapter of it on le monsieur noir—their ‘black gentleman.’ Did you know Hyacinth believes it’s a familiar, not just a spirit?”
Witches … Again, there it was. Witchcraft. A strange heaviness crept through me, a cautious breath lingering on my lip.
“The man’s an actor. Hired to keep us spooked. The manor’s an occultist playhouse, and quite fun!”
“We live in that type of world now, Miss Jessica,” someone else added with a smile. “Perhaps you haven’t heard of the Davenport brothers?”
A new man spoke up, his voice thin and slightly monotonous. He was out of my line of sight from the hinges. “Well, Hyacinth also suggests the boy is manic, but I doubt that. Growing up without proper authority will produce a wild child of any class.”
“Can’t have a Kingsley without fine wine, fine dining, fine fashion, and fine love, Dorland—”
“Bordering on the criminal, I’m telling you!” That Miss Jessica’s laughter was an awful, shameless sound. How did such a young lady hold so much sway in conversation without anyone keeping her in check?
With that, the talk in the lounge moved on effortlessly, as if they’d been discussing something as inconsequential as the flooding of
Lord’s Cricket Ground, and from behind the other open door to the lounge, there sounded a small sneeze.
I went rigid, eyes wide. Oh God, someone had caught me listening! I pulled away from the door at once, skittering down the hall like it was all I’d been doing in the first place. But as I passed the opposite door, I caught the sneezer who hid behind it.
Inspector Cain Kingsley himself.
He’d been spying on the little party, same as me, cramped between door and wall and squinting through the hinges with the tension of fury obvious in his hunched shoulders. But when he met my eyes, he first became pale and then turned a bright shade of scarlet. Without a word, he grabbed my arm, and we fled the scene of the crime.
I stumbled after him with no real opposition, though I did slow a bit as I glimpsed a figure standing in the corner at the end of the hall, behind a potted plant. Lithe and pale, a young man in all modest black, not even a dash of color to his old-fashioned cravat. He wasn’t alive; I knew by the placid way he stared at us, the way he seemed to blur into the shadows of the paneled wall behind him. First the girl in my room, now this one. Just how many ghosts haunted the Black Cross itself?
“Oh—” Kingsley sputtered with an embarrassed laugh, as he dragged us both into a nearby library and hurried to shut us in. “Oh, you gave me a start.”
He leaned back against the doors and looked to me with a willful sort of guilt, just daring me to call him out. He was a bit shorter than me, which was something; while I’d inherited a bit of my father’s height, I wasn’t unusually tall.
“Wait.” His brow knotted and he relaxed a bit. “It’s you!”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out at first save for a shy little laugh. “Yes, hello,” I said finally. “I received a calling card from Inspector Clement, and … ”
“Oh, I knew you were here.” Kingsley shrugged. “He told me.”
I bobbed my head, not sure whether I should shake his hand or not. “Will Winchester,” I confirmed.
