Chapter Eleven
The picture quivered in Jackaby’s hands. He said nothing else for several seconds. Finally his eyes opened, but they were worlds away.
“Eleanor was my only friend,” he said, “and I was hers. I read a lot of books. I scored well in the sciences, but even then I was more enthralled by myths and legends. I had no idea how much I did not know. The sight had not yet come to me. Other children were more interested in . . . well, in whatever it is that schoolchildren are interested in. Teasing bookish boys like me was high on the list, apparently. I kept my interests hidden, kept quiet, and kept to myself.
“Until Eleanor. She came in halfway through the year. Eleanor never said a word in class, and she preferred to play alone. The other children gossiped that she was mad. They said she made up stories and got angry when people didn’t believe her. They said she had been expelled from her last school for attacking another student. They said a lot of things. Eleanor, as a rule, said nothing.
“One day I was in the library and I saw her sketching a little fairy in her notebook. I asked her what sort it was, and she scowled and said what did it matter to me? I told her I was only wondering if it was a brownie or a pixie or what, because it looked a lot like the pixies in one of my favorite books, Mendel’s Magical Menagerie.
“I shared my book with her, and she shared her secret with me, and we shared the day together—growing fonder of each other by the hour. For many months after, we were each other’s sole companions. We collected special charms and wards and hid our artifacts in matching cigar boxes tied shut with twine beneath our beds. They were nothing more than chicken bones and salt and children’s scribbles, but they were our most precious secrets. Eleanor would tell me about the impossible things she could see, and I made a game of finding examples of them in lore to remind her that other people had seen them, too—that she couldn’t be mad—or perhaps just that she didn’t have to be mad alone.
“It was wonderful at first, but her parents grew concerned. Their little girl was hallucinating—and worse, she was hallucinating unrepentantly and without shame. They had Eleanor committed to an institution.”
Jackaby’s tone as he said the word institution could have soured milk.
“After several months she was released, looking very thin and hollow. She told them the visions had stopped—that she was cured. There were no creatures in the leaves or sprites in the sunbeams. The long, dark hallway was just a long, dark hallway. There was no man at the end of it with eyes like glowing embers, always waiting—always watching.
“Her parents were so happy. They took us to the fair and allowed themselves to pretend that everything was better. Eleanor kept up her charade for nearly a month, pretending to be normal for parents who would lock her away for telling them the truth. But then the stranger came.
“He told her that she was in danger, that he was part of a society that was interested in her gifts. He told her there were others who would want to take her away, and that they had found her. He told her that her family was in great peril. Eleanor’s mother returned home and saw the stranger talking to Eleanor. She chased the man away, threatening to call the police.
“When the clouds boiled red the next day, Eleanor saw death in the sky and she let it out, all of it. She traced the house with salt, said every incantation she could find, hung makeshift wards of chicken bones and twine around the property. It was every protection we had collected in our little cigar boxes and more. She was so afraid, my poor, sweet Eleanor. She only wanted to protect them, to keep them safe. She did everything she could.
“They saw it as a terrible relapse, of course. Eleanor knew that they were going to send her back, so she hid. She pulled me into the neighbor’s run-down shed and begged me to stay with her. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid. We should have run. We should have run away and never stopped running. I should have kept her safe, but I was a stupid, frightened little boy, and I did nothing. I told her to think how it would look if they found us. She scowled and told me I shouldn’t concern myself with how things look to others. Others are generally wrong.”
“That’s what you said to me,” I said, “the first day we met.” My interruption seemed to draw him out of his trance, and he blinked up at me.
“And so you shouldn’t.”
“What happened next, sir? How did you get away?”
Jackaby swallowed. “We didn’t. They came. They took her. It was for her own good, they said. Three months passed, and they finally let me see her again. She was bone-thin and shaking. She barely registered that I was there. She was terrified of those red eyes at the end of the hallway. The long, dark hallway—she kept repeating it. Only there was no hallway. Her room opened into a commons. Nobody understood what she meant. She wouldn’t tell me any more, or she couldn’t. During her fourth month in the asylum”—Jackaby cleared his throat—“she died. There was no medical explanation; she was simply gone.” His eyes were glossy as he stared at the tintype.
“I knew that it had happened before they told me. I knew it before they found her. I didn’t understand it, but I knew. I knew the precise moment her life was snuffed out, because in that same instant a blaze was lit behind my eyes. It was as though I had been stumbling in the darkness my entire life and someone had just flicked on a light. It was precisely as she had described it. All of it. The auras, the images, the fairies, the monsters. I don’t know why the sight chose me. The power has never passed to anyone so close to the previous steward. I like to think it was her will, though—Eleanor’s final gift to a stupid, frightened boy.”
His eyes were rimmed with red. He pushed back his chair and stared mutely at the dossier for several seconds. “Please put it away, Miss Rook.”
I slid the tintype delicately back into its envelope and closed the file. I wound the leather strap around the heavy parcel again and tucked the whole thing back inside the safe. The door clanked shut and I spun the lock. The tumblers clicked to a stop, and this time the door did not budge when I tested it.
“Mr. Jackaby—” I began.
“It’s irrelevant.” He swallowed his emotions and stood up. “There are more pressing matters at hand. I paid a visit to the Mudlark boys on the way home. Ran into them with a group of their young associates. Daniel is the boy who stumbled across Professor Hoole’s body in the sewage runoff. He and his brother, Benjamin, are enterprising boys. They apparently make a tidy living selling what they find to local jewelers or merchants. Quite a lot of worthwhile things find their way down the drain, for those who are willing to sort through the muck to find them.”
“That is both intriguing and nauseating.”
“I think you might have enjoyed meeting them. By the way, I wish you had let me know that you were planning on returning to the house directly rather than following me. I know that you are a capable young woman, but I would prefer you not wander off unescorted.”
“It wasn’t really my choice, sir.”
“All is forgiven. Anyway, the Mudlarks are well established among the assembled youngsters of the area, and there’s apparently a lot of talk recently about strange goings-on.”
“The street gangs are talking about our killer?”
“They’re talking about rats.”
“Rats?”
“And cats and dogs. It seems Hammett is not the only one whose furry friend has gone astray. The city pays for the extermination of rats, did you know? There seems to be a whole sewer-based system of commerce I knew nothing about. They pay by the head, and so several of the young gentlemen in the Mudlark’s company keep traps in convenient, inconspicuous locations. They can count on a fairly regular supply, except the traps keep turning up empty. Nearly started a few heated fights, as I understand, with one rat-catcher accusing the other, but then other animals began disappearing as well, particularly around the fringes of the city. One of the boys lost a spaniel.”
“Chameleomorphs?” I speculated. The last time cats had gone missing around town, it had been due to the nightly snacking of a little shape-shifting creature posing as a house pet.
“I don’t think so.” Jackaby smiled. “This is where it gets interesting. The boys have seen lights in the forest—nothing constant like a campfire or a torch—strange lights, blue and flickering. I’ve never encountered one in person, but I am prone to suspect we’re dealing with a hinkypunk, or maybe even a will-o’-the-wisp.”
The gloom had lifted and Jackaby was himself again, enamored with the prospect of pursuing another nefarious fairy tale.
“Obviously a wisp isn’t solely responsible for Jenny’s murder, but their presence could explain what happened to Mr. Carson and the other kidnapping victims. Wisps are not physically intimidating, per se, but they are known for confounding their victims and leading them astray.”
“Jackaby,” I said. “I ran into someone on the way home as well.”
“Speaking of victims,” he rambled on, “I’ve also had a notion about Mrs. Beaumont’s killer.”
“It was the pale man, Jackaby. Pavel.”
“Yes, exactly. I believe our pale man may be a creature called a lilu. They’re mentioned in early Akkadian and Sumerian myths. Considered children of Lilith in some Hebrew texts. Gilgamesh was said to be the son of a lilu.”
“He’s a vampire.”
“No, I know that was your first inclination,” Jackaby said, “but it’s much too obvious. I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and the obvious answer is never the right one. You see, a lilu, while much more obscure, is actually far more entrenched in—”
“He’s a vampire. He told me.”
“—entrenched in the history of . . .” Jackaby’s gears ground to a halt. “Who told you?”
“Pavel. The pale man. The vampire. We talked. He didn’t murder me horribly, no thanks to you. You were chasing after children at the time.”
Jackaby opened his mouth, but, failing to find anything to say for once, he closed it again.
“He’s not what I expected a vampire to be,” I said. “We used to tell stories when I was younger, and vampires were always, I don’t know, sort of elegant and refined in a dark, mysterious way. Pavel was just a shabby man in a black coat. His skin is even more unsettling up close. More than just pale, it’s sort of blue around his chin and eyes.”
“Suggillation. Not unexpected in the undead. Livor mortis sets in when the heart stops beating. You spoke?”
“Yes. And he’s our man, no mistake. He’s missing a fang on the left side.”
“That accounts for the single puncture wounds on his victims.”
I nodded. “He’s working for someone, and they’re not finished. They’re after another scientist.” I pulled out the sketch of Owen Finstern and handed it to him. The man was as unfamiliar to Jackaby as he was to me. I explained the vampire’s sordid business proposition and his promise to reveal everything that had happened to Jenny and her fiancé if we complied.
Jackaby absorbed the information with a heavy scowl. “Jenny can’t know about this,” he whispered.
“What? Sir, you can’t hide her case from her forever,” I said.
“This is the first solid lead anyone has uncovered in a decade and we cannot follow it. Informing Miss Cavanaugh would be a meaningless torment.”
I sighed. He wasn’t wrong.
This was Jenny’s case, at least it was supposed to be—but each thread seemed to burst into more threads, and it was becoming a challenge to keep them all sorted, let alone follow them to their conclusions. Howard Carson and the missing scientists were mystery enough, but then had come Cordelia Hoole and Miss Wick and her baby—not to mention Hammett’s cat and the sewer rats—and now whomever this Owen Finstern was that Pavel wanted us to find. It didn’t even feel like following threads at all anymore; it felt like tugging at one great tangled knot. “This is not how cases are supposed to go,” I said aloud. I had read enough mysteries by candlelight to have developed a sense of these things. Where were the puzzle pieces, sliding smoothly into place? Where was the hidden narrative gradually becoming clear?
“Oh?” said Jackaby. “How are cases supposed to go?”
“I don’t know. Logically. This feels like madness.”
Jackaby chuckled. “Beautiful madness,” he reminded me with a wink. “We’re still in the middle of our Monet, remember? Just wait. The picture is there around us. We will find our answers for Miss Cavanaugh.” He swallowed.
“I know you care about her,” I said.
“Of course I care about her.”
“You really should tell her that once in a while. Or just once, at least. Before it’s too late.” Jackaby glowered at me, and I let the matter drop. “What’s our next move, sir?”
“Get some rest,” said Jackaby. “Tomorrow evening we follow our own clues and investigate the woods to the west. It will have to be after dark if we hope to see the lights.”
Perfect. The city after dark wasn’t eerie enough. Of course our next step would be directly into the deep, dark woods.