Chapter Ten
I found my way back to the house on Augur Lane, chills crawling up and down my back with every step. Jackaby was not in the library when I arrived, nor in his laboratory or office. Even Jenny was conspicuously absent. By the state of her bedchamber, I could see she had had another echo. They were coming more and more often.
I climbed the spiral staircase to the third floor. This was, perhaps, my favorite space in all of Jackaby’s property—a magical oasis that defied logic and geometric reality. A quiet pond stretched across most of the floor, both deeper and wider than the house logically should have been able to accommodate. Beside it stretched a mossy indoor hillside speckled with wildflowers and sweet grasses. Usually this was the perfect place to calm my nerves, but in the silent darkness I found little comfort. I called out until my words bounced back at me over the midnight black waters of the pond. My own voice was my sole companion.
At length, I trudged back down the stairs alone to my employer’s office. My fingers were shaking as I lit the lamp at Jackaby’s desk and took the stone and paper out of my pocket to inspect them properly.
The stone was smooth on one side, but the other was etched with a series of concentric ovals, like a crude carving of an eye. A warning, perhaps? Pavel’s calling card? I unfolded the paper to find a man with wild hair staring back at me. His eyes were unsettling. The left was set a bit wider and a fraction higher than the right, and together they gave him a frantic, manic expression. He did not look like any of the men on Mayor Spade’s mantle, nor like any from the photograph with Howard Carson.
I refolded the paper and slid both artifacts back into my pocket. The sketch would have to wait until morning. Jackaby was still not home, and my brief history in his service had taught me that when he latched on to something of interest, I might not see him until a late tea the following day. I stood up from the desk and stepped toward the door when the blood all rushed from my head. I shook the sensation away, blinking. My head was suddenly aching.
The day must have taken more out of me than I realized. I leaned against the heavy office safe until the dizziness subsided. As I shifted my weight, the thick iron door squeaked open a crack.
Of all the doors, cabinets, and cupboards in the entire house, I had only ever found one that Jackaby kept locked at all times. He stored a fat old jar plainly labeled “Bail Money” with hundreds of dollars on the shelf right across from me. Every spare nook and cranny in the building housed lavish payments and mementos from past adventures, opulent heirlooms and eldritch artifacts so unique they made the London Museum’s Cabinet of Curiosities look like a collection of knickknacks. I had often wondered what a man such as Jackaby—a man who regarded gold candelabras and strangely luminescent gemstones with as little care as I might afford an incomplete deck of playing cards—saw fit to keep under lock and key behind a solid inch of iron. Blinking back my disbelief, I gave the safe another nudge and the door swung open.
A worn leather file lay within, several inches thick with papers. I glanced over my shoulder, but the house was still and silent. Quietly I lifted the hefty dossier and set it on the desk. A thin leather strap was wrapped loosely around the bundle, and this I unwound tenderly. Only a peek, I told myself, and then I would put it back.
The collection was subdivided into smaller files, and I recognized the one at the top as the same sort Jackaby often used for his general records. I had organized enough case files to know. Farther down, the papers were yellowed and much older than any stationery we kept about the house.
When I flipped open the first file, newspaper clippings and lithographs stared up at me. Among them I was startled to find my own face. My cheek was not yet marred by the little scar, but the images were recent. In one photograph, torn from a newspaper, I marched sullenly through the lobby of a building. My hands were locked in handcuffs, and Jackaby was at my side looking unperturbed by the matching pair around his own wrists. I remembered the scene. It was the Emerald Arch Apartments. Our first case together.
I picked up the next photograph. A fire-damaged cabinet card showed Jackaby and me on either side of a tree in a forest clearing. Hank Hudson, the burly trapper, stood just behind me, and a fourth figure hung upside down above us, his legs wrapped awkwardly around a tree branch and his face shrouded and blurred by his flopping coat. I smiled. Beneath that coat was Charlie Barker. The moment seemed funny out of context, cast in sepia hues, without the grisly red of a slaughtered animal painting the forest around us. It had not been such an amusing sight in person. The woman behind the camera, Nellie Fuller, had lost her life reaching the bottom of that mystery. Our second case.
Not a single portrait hung on Jackaby’s walls. Unlike the mayor, who adorned his study with images of his wife and dear friends, Jackaby had no one. The closest he came were busts of Shakespeare and paintings of old folktales. I was oddly touched. These were not the most flattering pictures, but they were pictures of me—pictures of us—and hidden away or not, he had saved them.
I dug further. There were newspaper articles detailing other grim cases Jackaby had worked on, a blurry photograph of the house in which we sat, and a tattered wanted poster featuring Jackaby’s smiling face. One of the images was of a pleasant if somewhat stuffy-looking man in a prim waistcoat standing proudly beside Jackaby. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place the face. An unnerving sensation that I was not alone tickled across my brain.
I closed the file and glanced guiltily behind me. Douglas had waddled into the doorway. He acknowledged me with a bob of his feathered head and then flapped up into the armchair across the room, where he settled to rest with his bill under one wing.
Taking a deep breath, I picked up the next file. This one contained comparatively little—a slim notebook and a few creased papers. I held them up to read the writing at the top. They were formal documents. PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION was printed in large face across the top, but the patient’s name was not Jackaby’s. “ ‘Eleanor Clark,’ ” I read aloud. As if in answer to my whisper, a little brown envelope slid out from behind the documents and off the desk. I made a futile grab for it, but it swooped through my fingers and came to land on the carpet.
“Miss Rook?”
Jackaby dropped his satchel in the doorway with a thump. I froze. He looked at the dossier on the desk. He looked at me. His face grew cold. Without another word, he knelt and retrieved the envelope, holding it as gingerly as if it were made of fine glass. He placed it back into the file very deliberately.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Jackaby. I didn’t mean to—”
“Then put it back.”
I nodded and closed the dossier.
“I have given you free rein to my home and offices with very few exceptions, Miss Rook.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I—”
“I could, perhaps, have been more explicit, but I felt that several inches of solid metal and a rotary combination lock implied my intentions clearly enough.”
“Of course, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“How did you open it?” he demanded.
“I didn’t mean to. It was unlocked. I just—”
“It is never unlocked! I have taken great pains to ensure—” His eyes sunk into dark shadows beneath a sober brow. “You are not lying,” he said at last. “I don’t know if I find that more troubling or less so.” He stepped forward and took the bundle out of my hands. “How much did you see?”
“I only just picked it up when you came in, really.”
He walked slowly around his desk. I held my breath. He placed the dossier back onto the desktop and settled into his chair to lean heavily on his elbows. “You should have left it alone.”
“What is this, sir? Is it a case? I recognized the photograph from Gad’s Valley. I didn’t know any of those survived the fire. If they’re connected . . .”
“It’s not a case,” he breathed, and I could see that he was deciding how much more to explain. He placed a hand gently on the leather. “I am a steward to something much older than myself, Miss Rook, and that role comes with responsibilities.”
“You mean your sight?”
“I do.” He brushed the dossier with his fingertips. “This collection is a perpetual record of the Seer.”
“A record of—of you? Why would you need a massive file about yourself?”
“My own addition is very small, Miss Rook. I’ve told you before that there is only ever a single Seer alive in the world at any given time. That’s me right now, but I am not the first and I will not be the last. The power is like a living thing. It transfers to a new vessel every time the Seer passes away. There are certain organizations—exceedingly ancient groups—who take an interest in my unique lineage. One of these organizations came to me many years ago. I was just a boy, confused and alone and beset by questions. They had very few answers to give me”—he tapped the pile—“but what they did have to offer was this.”
He opened the folder again and flipped through the top file. “This is me. All of me that the future need know. I have included a few of my fondest memories and defining moments. It is my humble addition to an immeasurable legacy.”
He closed the first file, then opened the next, the one with the psychiatric papers, and tenderly ran his hand along the cover of the slim notebook. With an unsteady hand, he once more retrieved the envelope I had dropped. He passed it to me. As I reached for it, he pulled back—just an involuntary flinch, as if caught by instinct, and then he shook his head and released it to my grasp. “Do be careful, Miss Rook.”
I nodded, more curious than ever, and opened the envelope. Inside was a tintype. A man and woman in shades of gray occupied the foreground of the picture, well dressed and smiling. Beneath them stood a girl and boy, neither more than ten years old, and behind them were tents and banners. The girl looked very much like her mother, fair-haired with a heart-shaped face, but even in the grainy tintype her eyes were wrong—wide and wild, and much too old for a girl in grammar school. The boy looked out of place, as well. His hair was messy and much darker than the adults’. He wore scuffed knee-length knickers, and one sock had slid down to his ankle. Although the child was youthful, his cheekbones were already hard, and he looked thin and wiry.
“Wait a moment. Is this . . .” I looked between my employer and the picture. “Is this you?”
Jackaby nodded.
“You’re so young! Oh my goodness, you’re adorable. You’ve never told me anything about your life before New Fiddleham. Are those your parents?”
“No.” Jackaby leaned in and reached a finger very delicately toward the girl. It quavered slightly. “They are hers, but they were kind enough to bring me with them to the fair that day.” His voice cracked as he spoke. “She didn’t have many friends.”
“Please, sir,” I said. “Tell me about her.”
“It is not a happy story.”
“Who is she?”
My employer closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Eleanor.”