Banished

by C. J. Archer

  "The portal," I muttered.

  "Was it? Well. I knew instantly that something wasn't right. Souls that have crossed over shouldn't come back. Anyway, as I gathered my scrambled wits, I noticed someone inspecting the storm. He couldn't see us. As I watched, he climbed into it. He, and the storm, disappeared."

  "My God. Someone willingly entered the portal? Can you describe him?"

  "I can do better than that. I recognized him. It was Everett Myer."

  "Myer!"

  "Cara?" Quin asked without taking his gaze off the bale of hay.

  Harrington chuckled. "I'd wager he loathes not being able to see and hear me while you can. Men like that hate feeling inferior, particularly to women."

  It was my turn to chuckle. "You're wrong, Harrington. Men like you are the ones who feel inferior. Isn't that why you spent a lifetime hurting them? To make yourself feel stronger, smarter?"

  His nostrils flared and his razor-sharp gaze shredded me. There were more things I wanted to say to taunt him, but I refrained. Angering him further might make him change his mind and decide to stay and haunt us.

  I quickly told Quin what Harrington had said.

  "Why are you telling us about Myer?" Quin asked when I finished. "What do you gain from it?"

  He shrugged. "I don't like him. I'm happy to cause him problems."

  I relayed his answer to Quin, then said, "How do we know you're not making it up?"

  "You have to trust me." He shot me a dazzling smile that turned him from cruel to handsome. It was easy to see how Charity had been duped in the beginning, if he used that smile on her.

  "So you're leaving now?" I asked him. "You'll return to Hell?"

  "I will. I won't risk having my chest ripped open and my soul crushed to dust. I rather like it, black thing that it is." His smile turned wolfish. "Goodbye, Miss Moreau. Be sure you don't grow too attached to your creature."

  "Wait!" I stepped forward, but Quin grabbed my arm, holding me back. "How many of you are there?" I asked Harrington.

  "Dozens," he said cheerfully. "Enough to keep you busy for some time. But I suspect if you destroy their strongest, the Scot with the red beard, they'll all return to Hell. He's keeping them roused and entertained. Remove him and they'll simply grow bored."

  "Are they at the Tudor house now?"

  "No. You frightened many of them this last night. They've dispersed."

  "Damn."

  He clicked his tongue. "If you were mine, I would put you over my knee and thrash you for your foul language."

  "Go!" I growled. "Go back to where you belong."

  He laughed. And then he was gone.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face and blew out a long breath. "He left," I told Quin.

  The hand he placed on my back was reassuring. "Did he say anything else?"

  "Only that the ghosts have fled the Tudor house. He didn't say where they went."

  "Do you believe him about Myer?"

  "It seems plausible that he would have found the book, opened the portal and gone through. He's certainly curious enough."

  "And foolhardy."

  We prepared our horses in silence. I knew few details of Charity's life with the master, and now that I'd met him, I was relieved not to know more. She was the bravest person I knew to have walked away from his clutches and kept her sanity. If I hadn't thought it before I did now.

  We rode out of the village, not toward Frakingham House but in the direction of the Tudor house. It was silent, inside and out. The only sounds came from the birds and our horses' hooves. Redbeard and his men had indeed gone.

  ***

  I slept all morning and awoke in the early afternoon when Inspector Weeks called at the house. He told us that the Butterworths had reported an intruder, but nobody had seen who it was and the family were unharmed.

  "I'm sure it had nothing to do with the wild dogs at the Tudor house," he said with a twitch of his nose. "Do you agree, Mr. Langley?"

  "I'm sure you're right," Jack said.

  "Fortunately the police station incurred no further damage last night. It would seem your patrolling of the vicinity worked, Mr. St. Clair. I hope you didn't keep Miss Moreau out too late."

  "It wasn't really patrolling," I told him. "More of a leisurely stroll on a pleasant evening."

  Weeks's gaze slid from Quin to me then back again. "Indeed. What modern sensibilities you young people have. Walking about in the dark alone would never have been allowed when I courted Mrs. Weeks. Of course, she wasn't Mrs. Weeks then."

  Sylvia cleared her throat. "Would you like to stay for tea, Mr. Weeks?"

  "I'm sure the inspector is a very busy man," Hannah said with a hard glare at her cousin-in-law.

  Jack steered Weeks to the drawing room door with a hand at his back. "We wouldn't want to keep you, Inspector."

  "Quite right," Weeks said as Bradford appeared to show him out. "I'd best get back. It was a pleasure to meet with you all. Mrs. Weeks will be thrilled when I describe the ladies' outfits to her and tell her I was invited to stay for tea."

  "Another time," Sylvia said with a smile.

  "Please let us know if you hear of any other strange goings on in the village," I said. "Anything at all."

  Weeks nodded and made his exit. I sighed and slumped back against the sofa. Hannah smothered a laugh. "I see he hasn't changed."

  "Still the sycophant," Jack agreed.

  "I don't mind him," Sylvia said. "He's well mannered. Quin, you're very quiet."

  "I'm thinking about Myer." He stood by the window, staring out at the front lawn and beyond, to the abbey ruins and lake. "And whether Harrington told the truth."

  I'd been thinking about him too. We'd reported back to Jack as soon as we'd arrived at the house, and he must have informed the others while we slept.

  "I think we need to go to London and speak to Mr. Myer," I announced.

  "You can't," Jack said. "You're needed here to round up the ghosts. Quin too. I'll go. I need to make some business calls anyway."

  "We will both go," Hannah corrected him.

  It was settled that they would leave in three days, after Jack had introduced Tommy to the tenant farmers and shown him what to do. He already knew the gamekeeper and Frakingham farm staff.

  Quin and I patrolled Harborough again that night, but there were no spirits in the village or at the Tudor house. The next day we asked Weeks to telegram the neighboring village constabularies and ask if more crimes than usual had been reported. By that evening, when we returned for our third nighttime patrol, he reported that there'd been none.

  "I think Harrington was right when he claimed the ghosts have vacated the area," I said after we'd done an entire lap of the village and found nothing out of sorts.

  "Aye, but where did they go?"

  I yawned and pulled the collar of my coat up to protect my neck from the wind. It whipped up High Street, rattling the glass lamps and tugging at my skirt. The air smelled of pending rain.

  "I'm taking you inside," Quin said. "You're going to fall ill if you spend the night out in this."

  "And you won't?"

  "I'm hardier, remember?" He took my elbow and steered me back the way we'd come. "We'll see if we can get rooms at The Red Lion."

  ***

  The following day, we checked in with Inspector Weeks. The village had slumbered peacefully during the night. We detoured via the Tudor house, but it too was empty. Nothing had been disturbed there in three days.

  We were on our way back to Frakingham when Constable Jeffries met us on the road. "Miss Moreau!" he called as he reined his horse to a stop alongside ours. He handed me a folded piece of paper. "I was at the post office when a telegram arrived for you. I knew you'd just left so I offered to deliver it. I'm glad I caught up with you. Saves me some time."

  "Thank you, Constable."

  He touched the brim of his hat then rode off back the way he'd come.

  I read the telegram. "It's from Samuel. He wants us to come to London
if we can be spared here. 'I have news on Faraday' it says." I showed it to Quin. "I wonder if he's turned up."

  "Faraday might be able to tell us what Myer was doing climbing into the portal." He pretended to read the telegram, but I knew he watched me from beneath lowered lashes. "I'm sure you're relieved."

  "Of course I am. I thought something might have happened to him, or that he took the book." I plucked the telegram from his fingers and tucked it into my coat pocket. "That's as far as my interest stretches. Indeed, call it curiosity more than interest. He could answer some burning questions we have. That's all."

  "You're rambling, Cara."

  I made a miffed sound through my nose and urged my horse forward. I didn't know why he was teasing me about Nathaniel. I thought I'd made it clear I had no interest in him.

  Quin caught up to me and we rode in silence for a while. "I do want to go to London, more than ever," I said. "But Jack doesn't think we should go."

  "He'll change his mind when we tell him there are no spirits here."

  "I wonder where they went."

  "Mayhap Faraday can tell us that too."

  ***

  We got rooms at Claridge’s Hotel on Brook Street, London, since I didn't want to stay in Emily and Jacob's house while they weren't there. It was closer to the Myers' house than Samuel's so Quin and I decided to walk to Berkeley Square after depositing our belongings at the hotel. Jack and Hannah had other matters to attend to.

  "Mr. Myer is not at home," intoned the butler. "Would you like to leave a card?"

  "Is Mrs. Myer here?" I asked on impulse.

  "She's indisposed at the present time."

  So she was in, but didn't want to receive visitors. "Please inform her that Miss Moreau and Mr. St. Clair have news about her husband. We'll wait here while you do so."

  He hesitated, clearly unsure whether it was worth disturbing his cantankerous mistress or not. He was saved by the woman herself.

  "It's all right, Adamson," she said from the top of the stairs. "I can spare a few minutes for Miss Moreau and Mr. St. Clair."

  Adamson bowed and retreated from sight. Mrs. Myer descended the stairs, her brown skirts skimming the carpet. She did not offer to take us through to the drawing room. Indeed, she didn't even smile in greeting, but then again, she rarely did. The few smiles I'd seen her bestow always seemed somewhat sinister to me. She regarded first me then Quin with eyes that were deceptively lackluster, hiding the shrewdness I knew lurked there.

  "You mentioned having news of my husband."

  "We do," I said. "Of sorts. We had hoped it wasn't true and that we'd find him here."

  "He's been gone for some time."

  I exchanged a glance with Quin. "Have you searched for him?" he asked.

  "Not as yet."

  I frowned. That was an odd response. "Have you reported him missing?"

  "Phhhttt. The police are useless. Besides, I'm sure Everett will turn up."

  "He goes missing often?"

  She glanced at the clock as it chimed four. "Would you mind getting to the point of your visit, Miss Moreau? I haven't got time for this."

  Even when discussing such a worrying topic, she could still be as blunt as an axe. "We've been told that your husband was seen entering the portal at Frakingham Abbey."

  Shock rippled across her face, draining it of color. Her tongue darted out, licking her bottom lip, and her hand fluttered at her throat. For someone who always seemed so bland, it was a lot of movement. "I told you to destroy that portal," she spat. "You should have listened to me." Her vehement response surprised me. Did she worry about her husband only because she knew, or suspected, he'd entered the portal?

  "Why should we listen to you on the matter of the portal?"

  Quin's question brought the color back to her cheeks. She swallowed. "Who saw him enter it? Perhaps there's been a mistake."

  "We're not at liberty to say."

  "Mr. St. Clair, I am simply trying to establish whether your source is a reliable one."

  I tugged on my jacket hem, a nervous habit of mine. I hated that this woman made me anxious. There was really no reason for it. She'd never harmed me. "It was a spirit, as it happens. When Mr. Myer opened the portal, some ghosts were wrenched from…from the afterlife and brought here."

  I thought she might mock me, or disparage me. She hadn't always been accepting of the supernatural and those who believed in it, particularly her husband. She'd made it quite clear that she thought his obsession with the paranormal a waste of time. But she accepted my answer with a cool nod.

  "And this particular ghost described my husband to you?"

  "He knew him. It was Percy Harrington."

  She linked her hands in front of her, twining her fingers together. "He's here?"

  "Not anymore. He left this realm three days ago."

  Her eyes briefly flared, but soon returned to their usual dullness. "How intriguing. And Mr. Harrington saw my husband enter the portal?"

  "So he says."

  "And what else did he say?"

  "Nothing."

  "When did your husband go missing?" Quin asked.

  "Just after Miss Moreau's previous visit, several days ago," she said.

  Around the time the ghosts first appeared in Harborough. The timing fit together neatly.

  "Is there anything else?" Mrs. Myer asked, once again glancing at the clock.

  "Thank you for seeing us," I said. "I hope the next time we call upon you there is good news about your husband."

  She humphed.

  "Try not to worry," I added, simply to see her response.

  "I never worry about him. If he insists on dabbling with forces he doesn't understand, he deserves whatever fate befalls him."

  A more callous response I couldn't have imagined. She didn't even like her husband, let alone love him.

  Quin and I left and walked back to Claridge’s, where we hired a hansom cab and drove to Samuel's house. The townhouse was too large for a bachelor, and I suspected it had once belonged to his father and been a family home. The footman showed us into Samuel's study, where he received us warmly.

  "I'm relieved that you could return to London so quickly," he said. "Has the ghost problem been fixed at Frakingham?"

  "Not quite," I told him. "They've made themselves scarce. There's nothing to do in Harborough or Frakingham for the moment, so we thought we'd respond to your telegram personally."

  "I'm glad. I think you need to speak to Faraday yourself, Cara. He might be more trusting of someone he knows."

  "Did he contact you?" Quin asked.

  "He did. After Cara left for Frakingham I decided to check his lodgings myself. I spoke to his landlady and looked around his rooms. It was as Myer described. Faraday had simply vanished, packing nothing, and not informing his landlady where he was going. I left my card and asked her to give it to him if he turned up. Yesterday, he came to visit me."

  "Did he tell you where he'd been?" Quin asked.

  "He said he couldn't remember."

  "Couldn't remember!" I echoed. "Is he ill?"

  "He looked in fair health to me."

  Quin leaned forward and flattened his palms on the desk. "Did you ask him if he took the book from your lawyer?"

  "I did and he claimed to know nothing about a book."

  I blanched. "Nothing at all? But that's absurd. Why would he lie to your face like that?"

  "Unless he's not lying," Quin said. "Myer may have hypnotized him into forgetting."

  Samuel nodded. "That's what I think. I quizzed him on several events that happened before his disappearance, and he claimed to know nothing about any of them. He told me he couldn't recall much since arriving back in London from Melbourne."

  "And you believe him?"

  "He seemed genuine. Poor fellow was downright confused, actually. It's not the sort of thing that can be easily faked."

  "Poor Nathaniel. Did you explain about hypnotism?"

  Samuel shook his head. "I thought
it best not to add to his troubles. Perhaps you could mention it and ask if he remembers Myer talking to him. He might feel more comfortable opening up to you than a stranger."

  "I will. Speaking of Myer." I told him about Myer's disappearance and Harrington's ghost's claim that he'd seen him enter the portal.

  Samuel's jaw hardened and his gaze turned flinty at the mention of the master. "You think he spoke the truth?"

  "I have no reason to doubt him, particularly since Myer went missing at about the time the spirits emerged through the opened portal."

  "But why would he tell you?"

  "He told us he despises Myer. He does seem like the sort of fellow who would gladly cause problems for someone he disliked."

  Samuel smoothed a finger over his lip in thought. "He's gone, you say? Returned to…Hell."

  "I cannot be entirely certain, but I believe so."

  He suddenly stood. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go and check on Charity, just to be sure."

  "Of course." I caught his arm as we walked out of the study together. "Samuel, have you seen or heard from Lord Alwyn?"

  "Nothing. It would seem he's still under my hypnosis."

  "And now with Myer gone, there's no one to break it for him." I stood on my toes and kissed his cheek. "Give Charity our warmest regards."

  ***

  Nathaniel Faraday's rooms were located in a modest Chelsea house with a clean porch. Smoke billowed from a large chimney, and the smell of roasting meat wafted out to us when a white-haired woman opened the door and ushered us inside. Mrs. Curtin introduced herself as the owner of the establishment, then asked us to wait in the small sitting room at the front of the house while she fetched Nathaniel from his rooms upstairs.

  He arrived a few short moments later, frowning. "Cara?" He spluttered a surprised laugh. "It is you!" He took my hand with great enthusiasm and squeezed a little too hard. "I'm so very pleased to see you again. Thank you for calling on me. Please, sit."

  The landlady left the three of us and we sat. Nathaniel continued to grin at me for an uncomfortably long moment, until Quin cleared his throat. Nathaniel's smile slipped and he seemed to be waiting for something.

  Another moment later he stretched out his hand to Quin. "Nathaniel Faraday. Pleased to meet you, sir."