Chapter Twelve
In the morning I awoke to a rhythmic pounding in my skull. The spot behind my temples was throbbing, and it felt like someone was hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer. I sat up and blinked into the light. It wasn’t just in my head. Someone was hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer.
I dressed hastily and, as an afterthought, tucked the strange stone and the sketch of the inventor back into my pocket before I made my way down the spiral staircase. We would not be pursuing the villain’s quarry, but somehow I felt better keeping them on hand. The pounding noise had stopped as I descended to the ground floor, but I could hear the sound of frustrated voices coming from the laboratory.
“You can’t just expect me to stay sealed in my room while you do whatever you like whenever you like. This is still my house!”
“Exactly the point!” Jackaby countered.
I pushed open the door and peeked inside. There was plaster dust in the air and Jackaby was leaning on a long-handled hammer. Jenny hovered between him and a crumbling hole in the plaster about a foot in diameter. The bare bricks that now showed were chipped and fracturing, with daylight beginning to shine through their cracks. Another blow or two and we would be looking at the garden.
“You can go anywhere in this whole wide world, you insufferable man. This house is all I have! Are you actually trying to push me over the edge?” Jenny demanded.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, I am. Please step aside. Well, float aside. Drift.”
“Augh!” Jenny spotted me and threw up her hands. “He’s impossible! Abigail, will you please tell this man to stop demolishing my house! At least when I destroy my things it’s not on purpose!”
“Sir?” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I changed my mind, Miss Rook. I had been against Miss Cavanaugh working to expand her sphere of influence, but that may be just the sort of exercise she needs. You and I are going to be increasingly busy, so I thought it might be prudent and practical to provide Miss Cavanaugh with a little homework to keep her mind occupied while we’re away. No sense sitting idle. We never know when she may need to flex those metaphysical muscles. Can’t be too prepared.”
“And just how is punching a hole in the wall meant to flex anything but my patience? Wait. Have you learned something?” Jenny looked at Jackaby, and then at me. My expression must have betrayed that I was withholding something, because she drifted off the wall and toward me.
“No, not really,” I bluffed unconvincingly. “Just chasing shadows.”
She looked skeptical, but Jackaby punctured the moment with an opportunistic swing of the hammer. With a crash, light poured across the dusty carpet, and he dropped the hammer behind him. “There we are!” He knelt and reached through the hole.
“Oh, for the love of—Jackaby, this is my house!” Jenny stamped her foot, which might have had a greater effect if it hadn’t been floating several inches off the floor.
“Every last brick,” my employer agreed, illustrating the point by plucking one from the flower bed into which it had fallen and pulling it back inside the house. He held it up triumphantly.
“What is that supposed to be?” Jenny asked.
“You said it yourself,” said Jackaby. “Your house. The very core of the structure. You can quibble about draperies and wallpaper, but it’s hard to argue with a brick.”
“You have no idea,” said Jenny, shaking her head. “And yet after all these years I keep trying.”
“Hold this,” he said. He passed the brick to Jenny, who managed to catch it with both translucent hands. She looked uncertain for a moment, but her grip held firm. “Why?” he asked her.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Jenny raised an eyebrow.
“Why does it work?” Jackaby asked, more gently. “You’ve never seen that brick, never touched it before, it’s been inside the wall. Why are you able to affect it?”
“Because I’m connected to it, I assume? It’s a part of my house, after all!”
“Your house—the only place on earth you seem able to exist—floating around in the palm of your hand.”
Her eyes suddenly widened. “Do you think?”
Jackaby raised his eyebrows encouragingly. “Do you?”
Jenny held the brick close to her chest and swept out of the room. We followed hurriedly down the crooked hallway and into the foyer. She passed fluidly through the still-closed front door, and the brick, in the manner of most bricks, did not. It thudded hard against the cheery red paint and fell, cracking cleanly in two on the hardwood. In a moment the handle turned and the door opened. Jenny stood on the other side looking sheepish. “Old habits. I got a little excited.”
I set half of the brick on the shelf and handed her the other. “Here,” I said. “Go ahead. Be a little excited.”
Jenny concentrated as she carried the half brick toward the sidewalk. She faded further out of sight with each step, all of her energy focused on the rust red cube. By the time we were halfway to the street, she had vanished completely, and the brick appeared to be hovering under its own power. When she reached the end of the walk, the brick froze in midair. It swiveled, and I could tell that Jenny had turned back.
“I can’t do it,” she said.
Jackaby put a single finger on the chunk of masonry, blocking her before she could retreat back toward the house. “Just look at me,” he said tenderly and took a step forward. The brick drifted forward with him. “This is your brick, Jenny Cavanaugh.” Step. “Your house.” Step. “Your street. Your city. Your whole wide world.” Step. Step. Step.
Jackaby was now in the middle of Augur Lane, talking to a broken brick that hung weightlessly at the end of his finger. A kid in a ragged flat cap and suspenders had stopped to watch the spectacle from across the street, and a carriage whipped around the corner at speed. The driver cursed and shook his fist as he swerved around Jackaby, but Jackaby ignored them all.
He leaned in toward the hollow space I knew was Jenny. He took a deep breath, and then his lips moved ever so slightly as he whispered something to the empty air. A moment later, the brick dropped away from his finger and clattered against the cobblestones. Jackaby’s shoulders fell. He stooped and collected the chunk of masonry.
“That was a pretty good trick, mister!” yelled the ragamuffin on the corner. “But I could see the string the whole time!”
Jackaby nodded unenthusiastically and trudged back toward the house.
“That was marvelous!” I said. “It worked! Jenny hasn’t been that far in a decade!”
“Hurrah.” Jackaby looked underwhelmed.
“What were you saying to her, out there in the street?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Jackaby. “I’ll be going out, Miss Rook.”
“Out?”
“Marlowe has asked that I keep him abreast of our investigation, and I suppose I should pick up some plaster from that shop on Mason Street. Please see to things around the office while I’m gone. Also, please watch for Miss Cavanaugh. With any luck she should reappear soon.”
“Did you tell her?” I asked. “Did you finally tell her how you feel?”
“Make yourself ready, as well.” He started off down the lane. “Busy night ahead. We make for the western woods at dusk.”