by Jerico Lenk
“The far corner, near the billiards room,” he went on in a murmur, mouth scarcely moving around the words. “I’m unsure whether it’s shadow play or a trick of the mind, but every now and again I swear something moves over there … O’Brien, you remain with Miss Jessica and Winchester here. We’ll reconvene at midnight to survey the servants’ stairs where the Triviat girl died.”
My heart sank. He was separating me from those with whom I was familiar—to spite me for earlier? I tried to catch his eyes, pathetically panicked. Alone, in foreign dark again, and with someone whom I scarcely knew. Not that I knew any of the others very well.
I couldn’t come across ill-equipped for the job, though. I needed to prove myself so as not to let Westwood down—or myself. I lingered at the foot of the grand stairs, watching the others off, leaving me and my assigned partners in the vast, ominous shadows of the vestibule.
Miss Jessica tapped her foot, waiting for O’Brien and me to join her under the central chandelier. Once close enough, she clasped a firm hand on my elbow. There was nothing friendly or helpful about it. Her eyes widened in the dull lamplight as she looked me over in that foxlike way.
“You’re a special case, hmm?” she said.
“Excuse me?” I wanted to ask, but instead I whispered a rather irritated, “Ouch,” and squinted at her distrustfully until she freed my arm from her grip.
“I know they waived your training. Chesley has complained all about it and Westwood’s other recent lapses in judgment. He’s getting old, poor man.” Miss Jessica’s gaze drifted carefully around my face and stature. She softened, but only a bit. “You’re a despondent little thing, aren’t you? Well, apparently, Westwood imagines you’ve got quite the gift hidden somewhere in there, waiting to be finessed.”
She reached out and touched a finger to my temple as if to confirm: quite the gift in there. I pulled away with a narrow, startled glance.
“I do not care what you can do or from whence you’ve come, or how blessedly handsome you are,” she said. “I won’t treat you any differently for it.”
O’Brien looked between us with his usual skittish worry, probably anticipating some heated exchange. There wasn’t to be one. The criticism might have gotten to me if not for that last remark. Blessedly handsome.
“I would never ask you to, Miss Jessica,” I replied, biting back a scoff of a laugh.
“Your voice hasn’t even deepened yet.” She gave a dainty sniff, casting me a sidelong glance. “And you’re surely not of any special family.”
“You’re right to assume as much,” I conceded with an unaffected smile.
A very large painting of Lord Triviat and his wife hung in the hall, beside a smaller but equally magnificent piece of a tiny girl with dark hair and dark eyes and a perfectly puckered mouth. Della, most likely. Together we stood with our lamps lifted to admire it. It was slightly crooked. I reached out to straighten it a bit as Miss Jessica moved off to wander the perimeter of the front hall.
“Miss Jessica is rather … dominating,” O’Brien whispered, so close I could feel his breath on my shoulder.
“Is she?” I said flatly, not in any particular need for more consideration of her character. I’d surely gathered enough by now.
“Her uncle is a Council member at the Society of Psychic Research.”
“The Society for Psychical Research,” I corrected.
“Miss Jessica is young, like you and Kingsley. Don’t call her Jessie. She hates that.”
“Trust me, O’Brien, I haven’t the slightest desire for us to be friendly enough that I should call her anything other than Jessica. O’Brien, what’s the pendulum?”
“Ah!” He bent a little, like a drooping tree, to talk level with me. “It’s quartz and lodestone, as well. Moves in the direction of spiritual aura.”
“Listen, Inspector,” Miss Jessica said from the wide archway leading off to the right of the vestibule. “I would like you to remain here. O’Brien and I shall get a head start on the servants’ stairs. Call for me should anything stir up. If not, just … keep surveying.”
“Should I leave a taper?” O’Brien waved the long unlit wax stick, worried. “You won’t have a lamp when we go.”
“No,” I murmured. Bless little O’Brien. “I’ll be fine.”
They left, taking the light with them. I heaved a sigh and sat down with my back to the wall, struggling not to dwell on how much I despised Miss Jessica for leaving me alone and hated Clement more for leaving me with her in the first place.
But the longer I sat alone, the more I decided perhaps I wasn’t as fine as I’d thought.
The manor was so large, and I so small and vulnerable in the dark. I stood, a bit nervous now, brushed off my legs and stepped into the pale squares of moonlight that fell in from the window above the front doors. As though the shadows couldn’t touch me if I weren’t touching them. I tried to just let myself slip further and further in tune with the house. The cobwebs in the corners, the stray moonlight glittering off glass and crystal gas sconces, the creak of the building settling, the dull shuffling of our men moving around upstairs, distant, there if I listened hard enough, the small whisper behind me …
I turned with a scrape of my heel on the floor, eyes wide.
Nothing.
Perhaps it was something outside—the wind in the trees, against the eaves. Leaves rustling on the portico. O’Brien and Miss Jessica, accidentally too loud. Or Clement, up the stairs, wondering why on earth I was alone?
No. I knew better.
My heart thudded hard just below my throat and the silvery tang of nerves rose on the back of my tongue. Just as in the Nichols house, I felt so disadvantaged in dark I did not know. This was not Waterloo; this was not my attic room with Charlie and Colette.
The words were chalky in my mouth as I managed to whisper back, “Who’s there?”
The stillness was heavy like a held breath. I could feel someone—something—looking at me. Dreadful. Unnerving. My chest tightened. I turned, slowly.
There she was.
At the door to the billiards room, opposite where Miss Jessica had taken off with O’Brien. A shadow in the shape of a smaller person. And whichever Missing girl it was, she kept looking at me as I looked at her.
“I see you,” I said, flinching at my own tiny voice. I wanted to run, get somewhere with light and people. But I couldn’t. This was what I was supposed to do. I glanced around, keenly conscious of how very alone I was in the silence.
When I looked back, the shadow was gone.
“Winchester!” Miss Jessica called shrilly.
Shamefully, I wasted not a second in reporting to her.
“We’ve heard movement on the stairs,” O’Brien recounted, eyes wide and quartz pendulum clutched tightly in his wiry fingers.
“Have you?” I husked, then tried to clear the knot in my throat as I ran my hands down the sides of my neck a few times, to calm the shiver of goosebumps still there. “Where on the stairs?”
“Closer to the top.”
“Listen, Winchester,” Miss Jessica still went on, “I don’t care if Westwood thinks you’re a prodigy. You’re just another Black Cross inspector to me, and that’s all there is to it.”
Stunned, I shot her a look. Westwood had called me a prodigy? I’d just assumed derision from her earlier. My jaw tightened. Either way, her chatter was getting very annoying very quickly. “Fine by me, Inspector.”
“The one thing I won’t tolerate—”
“Oh, only one thing?”
“Yes, and it’s mediocrity. So go on, then, Winchester, if you’re such a gifted young man, prove you’re worth going straight to inspection without training.”
Aggravated, I stormed up one small flight of the servants’ stairs to where the slanted ceiling was so low I could feel it at the top of my head, and there where O’Brien’s lamp did not penetrate the shadows, I called, “Della, will you come speak with us?”
Nothing.
Miss J
essica held out a hand. “O’Brien, the pendulum.” He passed it to her. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said, tenderly, to counter my impatience. “Come, spirit, and give us a sign of your presence.”
I stayed vigilant for any sort of response. It was only my second inspection; I didn’t consider myself proficient in antiphonary inquiries yet at all. But I was not exactly comfortable practising in the company of Miss Jessica.
“I swear there was movement,” O’Brien said, a look of failure stamped across his face.
“I believe you,” I whispered. I sat down on a step, lacing my fingers below my chin. “It’s one of the clients’ complaints, anyway.”
Miss Jessica daintily touched the middle of her forehead with the first two fingers of her free hand. “Give me a moment, please.”
“Medium in training,” O’Brien reminded me.
“So I’ve heard,” I reminded him.
“I feel people.” Miss Jessica sighed. “So many people, moving along these stairs … I see them, yes. Two girls, playing … ” Her eyes fluttered open and she crossed her arms, pendulum hanging limply from one fist as she twirled a lock of hair around a slender finger. “I don’t think, presently, there’s much activity in this spot. We should move on.”
“We’re not even supposed to be here,” I said just short of patiently. “And anyway, in the front hall, I … ”
A dull ringing struck up in my ear. The sound sharpened to a point then faded out, leaving its pressure behind, and a gentle touch like a rolling raindrop dusted along the side of my neck.
I flinched away, swiping at my shoulder in annoyance, half expecting to find something there. A cobweb, a moth.
Yet there wasn’t a thing.
“Phantom touches,” I murmured, hand lingering at my neck.
“Hmm?” Miss Jessica raised her brows. Suddenly, the pendulum dangling from her fingers veered forth and hung eerily in the air as if someone had taken it in two fingers and pulled it taut.
“Shift in ambient charge!” O’Brien sputtered, hurrying into his knapsack for paper and pencil.
What if … ?
My heart jumped. I twisted around halfway, the words rushing out into the swell of shadows on the stairs: “The pretty girl who was in the upstairs window—is that you?”
Miss Jessica and O’Brien both gave me their own looks of doubt.
Thud, scrape, thud, thud, shuffle—!
Something dashed up the stairs. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a flutter of white, like little doves taking flight. A gown. A gown, and one bare, grey foot.
It was her, the girl from the window, running up the stairs away from us. I knew it. I saw her! So clear but gauzy, nearly see-through like Charlie or Colette often were. I felt her footsteps from where I sat. Up, up the stairs, away from us …
I shot to my feet. “Hello!” I called. My breath caught in my throat with almost irrational excitement. “It’s you, isn’t it? From earlier? I believe I saw you out there in the hall just now, as well!”
Miss Jessica almost pushed me over as she hurried past, two steps at a time, pendulum out and face upturned to the twisting servants’ stairs. I followed; O’Brien trailed after, trying to keep the little lamp steady as we bounded up.
“Della, darling, is that you?”
“No,” I snapped, “it’s Miss Deborah. She’s too old to be Della.”
“Well, we haven’t confirmed that yet, have we?”
“It’s Deborah.”
The three of us stumbled forth from the servants’ stairs onto the mezzanine floor, which overlooked the vestibule where the rest of our team had just reconvened. Nothing awaited us.
Miss Jessica whirled to me. “You saw something in the hall and didn’t say anything?” she hissed. I just brushed past her and hurried down the main stairs again to the others, all out of breath and in a delicious rush.
Quinn stood at that portrait of petite, dark-haired Della Triviat, frowning deeply, with his arms crossed. He reached out and straightened the painting like I had earlier. I slowed to a stop, watching him. It had gone crooked again?
“Why were the lot of you upstairs?” Clement demanded. O’Brien and I both looked to Miss Jessica. She remained silent, mouth in a tart but guilty line. Clement uttered a sound of distaste and sauntered away to hang over the shoulders of O’Brien and Young as they frantically scribbled to catch up with the night’s notes.
Finally, he said, “Well, did anything happen I might like to know?”
“Footsteps, Inspector,” Miss Jessica said, sounding at least a bit repentant. “On the stairs, where the girl died. We followed them up to the balcony then came down to meet with you.”
Clement pointed to Young. “Get out the ambience compass.”
“Men!” Cain half-whispered, looking like a specter himself in the bouncing light as it cast ghastly shadows on his Ganymede face. He gestured subtly up at the grand stairs.
There, at the top, an unusual shadow had swollen up out of the others beside the baluster.
One of the little ghost girls. Outline of a bow in the mass of darkness that was her hair. The end of that white dress, dainty feet …
Two sets of dainty feet. One barefoot, the other even tinier in lace-edged booties.
A chill tingled down my spine. They were both there, and I could see them so clearly. Soft, and colourless, Miss Deborah in a stained nightgown, holding tragic little Della’s hand as Della peered at us all with a head horrifically crooked on her shoulders.
In Assistant Young’s hand, the ambience compass twitched and spun wildly with ghastly clicks and whirs.
“Adelaide?” Cain called, using Della’s full name as it read in the file. “Adelaide, is that you?”
“Shadow figure,” Quinn dictated for the Assistants. “Wholly opaque. In the open. Un-retreating … twenty past midnight.”
Opaque? Could they not see the girls in detail, clear as day?
His eyes wide and cold in the weak light, Clement spoke in a vigilant whisper so low I could barely hear him. “We must achieve as much communication as possible to determine its identity and … ”
He turned suddenly, pointing at me.
“Winchester,” he said. “I want you to approach it.”
Aghast, I gave him a look as if to say, Why me? Clairvoyant, they were all calling me. And Clement had said himself he’d never seen a passerby so susceptible to possession. But …
Dumbly, I started forth.
The Missing girls didn’t move an inch as I climbed the stairs towards them. For a moment, they began to fade out—and then they steadied again, just standing there, watching as I drew near. They reminded me so much of Charlie and Colette. The way Della’s head hung at a terrible broken angle made my skin crawl. Did she know? Did she feel pain?
Very faint, as if spoken through some sort of barrier, Deborah called, “Hello!”
I paused, blinking fast in a flutter of lashes as if to clear my vision of my own thoughts.
“Yes, hello there,” I said breathlessly. “You’re finally speaking with me. Miss Deborah, is it? And Miss Della.”
Of course I’d engaged with Charlie and Colette, back at home. Out of necessity, or boredom, or confused curiosity. But I’d certainly never desired as much with the occasional unfamiliar spirit on the street, or in a conjuring crowd. Whoever would have wished to?
Right now … I did.
“Della, don’t be afraid,” I whispered, echoing Cain. “Deborah, you and I have met already, haven’t we? Listen, we don’t mean any trouble. We only wish to let your Daddy know—your brother—that you’re here. Which one of you opens the attic windows? And who touched my neck earlier?”
I was just a step or two away. Della began to flicker out again, shrinking half behind Deborah. Her little wraith’s voice struggled to pierce the scrim between us, living and dead. High-pitched murmuring, faster, faster, until finally she shot away in a blur, dissolving from sight before
she even made it to the shadows. In the blink of an eye, Deborah was gone, too, off with her niece.
“Winchester?” Clement called from the bottom of the stairs.
“Come up here with me!” I spun about in exhilaration, winding an arm around the top of the banister. Miss Jessica and the others be damned; the Nichols case be damned. Like a chill fever, a delicious rush tingled under my skin, and I was perfectly thrilled—
A wave of cold rolled up against my right leg, shuddering from knee to ankle. Startled, I glanced down, and found myself looking right at Della Triviat.
Shimmering bow, tiny hands, the dreadful twist of her head. She inched closer without seeming to really move any limb. I staggered back a step or two, hoping she could not see how her broken neck and bottomless eyes so deeply disconcerted me. Dark, abysmal eyes, like holes cut into her moon-white face.
“Shadow figure!” Young hissed, down below.
Apparently, they really could not see the girls as vividly as I. Della gawked up at me as though she knew very well, as Charlie and Colette also did, the difference between us. That she was dead, and I was not.
“Not scared anymore, hmm?” I whispered, mouth dry.
With a fragile, hollow giggle, she reached for my hand. Her little fingers slipped into mine, cold and not quite material. And then every point of reference swirled towards her, like breathing in steam from a new cup of tea.
The manor, bursting at the seams with daylight! Piano drifted from some faraway room. And the world was like a dream, swimming around me, waxing and waning as if I saw it and heard it and felt it from a distance. Cain was gone. Clement, Quinn, and O’Brien were gone. Everyone I knew, gone.
Because … just as with Kitty on Waterloo, I was little Della Triviat, wasn’t I?
The cold rooms of a plaintive house were filled with warmth and sunshine now, lace curtains fluttering about the painted sills, a bird chirping in a gilded cage in the corner. A voice. Found you!
Laughing. Chasing. Hide and seek. There was a girl, flash of white and gently tangled hair. Always just out of reach, flitting by like a butterfly. Wait for me! Hiding behind a door. Next to a cabinet. Around the corner.
