Chapter Two
It seemed like only yesterday I had been back home in England, packing for my first term at university. Had someone told me then that I would throw it all away and run off to America to commune with ghosts and answer to ducks and help mad detectives solve impossible murders, I would have said they were either lying or insane. I would have sorted them on the same shelf in my mental library as those who believe in Ouija boards or sea serpents or honest politicians. That sort of foolishness was not for me. I adhered to facts and science; the impossible was for other people.
A lot can change in a few short months.
The pain had ebbed to numbness and the blinding light had faded away. I did not remember moving into the foyer, but it was suddenly all around me. I blinked. How long had I been out? I stood in the front room of Jackaby’s offices at 926 Augur Lane—of that there was no doubt—but the room was barely recognizable. In place of the battered wooden bench sat a soft divan. The paintings of mythical figures had been replaced by tasteful landscapes, and the cluttered shelves full of bizarre masks and occult artifacts stood completely barren—even Ogden’s terrarium was missing. When I had been gassed out of the house by the flatulent little frog on my first day, I would not have expected to be so bothered by his absence, but now I found it most disquieting. The desk stood in its usual place, but it was uncharacteristically clean and empty. Behind it stood a pile of boxes and paper bundles bound in twine. Had Jackaby packed? Were we moving?
The front door swung suddenly open and there stood R. F. Jackaby in his typical motley attire. His coat bulged from its myriad pockets, and his ludicrously long scarf dragged across the threshold as he stepped inside. Atop his head sat his favorite knit mess, a floppy hat of conflicting colors and uneven stitches. I had been secretly pleased to see that particular piece of his wardrobe completely incinerated by an ungodly blaze during our previous caper. I shook my head. It had been destroyed, hadn’t it?
“Mr. Jackaby?”
“Yes. This will serve my purposes nicely,” said Jackaby, walking toward me.
I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, my employer stepped right through me as though I weren’t there. I looked down to find, most distressingly, that I wasn’t.
“I’ll need to make a few modifications, of course.”
I spun and saw that he was talking to Jenny. She hovered by the window, regarding Jackaby with cautious interest. Her translucent hair drifted weightlessly behind her. Her dress was moon-white, its hem rippling gently along the ground beneath her. Her skin was nearly as pale, pearlescent and as immaterial as a sunbeam. “Nothing too drastic, I hope? I understand, of course. You must make the place your own. I had the kitchen remodeled the year I moved in—but it’s so darling as it is.”
“I’m sure you’ll barely notice the changes.” He opened the door to the crooked little hallway and paused. “I will be making this place my own, Miss Cavanaugh,” he said, turning back. “But don’t think that makes it any less yours. You will still have your space. You have my word.”
Jenny smiled, looking bemused and grateful. “You are a singular man, Mr. Jackaby. What have I done to deserve you?”
“I’ve been considering that. There is something you could do.”
She raised an eyebrow. The room was beginning to fill with mist, but neither of them seemed to notice. “What?” she asked.
“Promise me,” said Jackaby, his voice growing faint, “that you will never . . .”
And then, in a rush, the mist was gone and I was in the office again. I was lying on my back and Douglas was standing on my chest craning his head this way and that to regard me with his glossy black eyes. I shooed him off and sat up. My whole body felt tired and numb, with a prickling heat creeping into my extremities. I was back in the present, but I felt like I had spent all day in the snow and then climbed into a warm bath.
Jenny appeared above me. “That was sensational! It worked! Oh, Abigail, are you all right?”
I wiggled my fingers and toes experimentally and felt my face. Aside from the fading numbness, everything seemed to be in working order. “I’m fine. What just happened?”
“Legs! I haven’t had honest to goodness legs to stand on in years! And you’re so warm, Abigail—I had forgotten how blood feels. It’s like being wrapped up in a cozy blanket from the inside.” She spun and sighed happily, drifting up toward the ceiling. I had not seen her so content in weeks.
“It worked?” I pushed myself up, leaning on the desk to steady my swimming head. “You mean I was possessed? You were walking me around and everything?”
“Well, not walking, exactly. I kept us from falling down for the better part of a minute, though. You couldn’t see it?”
“I saw . . . something else,” I said. “I saw you and Jackaby. It must have been the day he moved in. He promised you that you would always have your space in the house.”
“He did say that,” Jenny said, sinking back to my level. She regarded me thoughtfully. “You saw my memories? What else did you see?”
“Nothing much. He asked you to promise him something in return—only then I slipped back here. What was it he never wanted you to do?”
“A promise?” Jenny thought for a moment. “I don’t remember.” She crinkled her brow. “Do you think you could see further if we tried again?”
“I suppose so.” Jenny looked completely in control, invigorated, even—but I could not forget Jackaby’s cautions about pushing her too far or too fast. “It isn’t upsetting to know that I was inside your memories?”
“What’s upsetting is knowing that I might have secrets hidden inside me and I can’t get them out.” Jenny looked at me pleadingly. “Abigail, this could be the answer.”
It really could, I had to admit. With practice, possession could grant her the means to leave the house and pursue secrets that had been hidden from her for so long—and at the same time, it could grant me the means to uncover the secrets hiding within.
“All right,” I said. Douglas was bobbing back and forth, looking more disapproving than a duck has any business to look. I ignored him. “Let’s try again.”
This time I was ready for the pain. I leaned into it, and it passed over me more quickly. The blinding whiteness returned, and when the mist cleared, I found myself not in the foyer of 926 Augur Lane but in a drawing room I did not recognize. The sky outside was black, and the room was dim. I had entered a different memory.
“No. That’s no good. The output will be half what they asked for,” said a man’s voice.
“It’ll be twice what it should be. There’s no way to stabilize at these levels.”
Two figures stood directly ahead of me, their attention fixed on a stack of schematics spread over a wide desk. Something about them was familiar. The first was an energetic, handsome man. I felt uncomfortably drawn to him, although I could not say why. And then he smiled and I knew. This was Howard Carson. This was Jenny’s fiancé—the man who had loved her—the man who had left.
Across from him stood a man with white-blond hair. He wore a scowl and a three-piece suit, tailored impeccably to his slim figure. “They’re not going to be happy about this,” said the slender man.
“They’ll be a lot less happy if the whole thing blows up in their faces,” countered Howard Carson. The thin man grimaced as Carson rattled on about conductivity and tensile strength.
In a chair behind them sat a third man, heavyset with a chubby face and a mustache waxed into thick curls. He said nothing as he fidgeted an unlit cigar from one hand to the other, watching the men work. Beside him stood a prim woman with ink-black hair holding a clipboard and a pen. “Are you getting all of this down?” the big man asked quietly.
“Yes, Mr. Poplin, every word.” She remained expressionless, her pen scratching away.
“Good girl.”
“Don’t forget, boys,” came a soft voice from behind me. Before I could turn to see her face, a woman with brunette locks stepped through me toward the desk. I shuddered, or I would have if I had a body to shudder; I would never get used to the sensation of not physically existing. “The copper fittings in the prototype lost conductivity as they tarnished. Silver will cost more, but it will also increase the output over time.”
The thin man grimaced. “What do you know about it?” he said.
“She knows quite a lot, actually,” interjected Carson. “I told you already that my fiancée has been assisting me with my work. She’s as sharp as they come.”
Jenny Cavanaugh stepped behind the desk and turned to face the room. Had I been in possession of my own jaw at the time, it would have dropped. The Jenny I knew was a beautiful ghost—but the woman before me, with real weight to her steps and a flush in her cheeks, looked like another person entirely, so vibrant and alive. Her hair framed her face rather than hovering in weightless silver waves. She wore a honey yellow dress, practical and pretty, and around her neck hung a little pewter locket.
“She’s quite keen, you know,” Carson was saying. “And she’s right about the fittings.”
“Thank you, Howard.” Jenny Cavanaugh and Howard Carson looked at each other for only a moment, but their affection was obvious.
“We discussed this already,” said the blond man flatly. “We will move forward with copper.” I did not like him. It was more than his sanctimonious sneer. Something within Jenny disliked the man, so I disliked the man.
“If you insist,” Howard said, taking a deep breath. “Copper will do.”
Jenny was not satisfied. “It would save us all a great deal of time and effort if we knew the exact purpose of our efforts.”
The man glared at Jenny. “Our benefactors have provided us with very clear objectives.”
“Objectives are not an ultimate purpose. What exactly are your benefactors building?”
“Jenny—” Howard said.
“The future!” declared a new voice, and all eyes turned to the door. “We’re building the future, young lady. One shiny cog at a time.” The man who stood in the doorway was stout and unshaven. He had coal-black hair and wore a shabby black coat over a black waistcoat. His skin was deathly pale, save for a bluish shadow across his chin and under his eyes.
I knew that face. That was the face we had fruitlessly hunted across the countryside and back into the shadows of New Fiddleham. That was the last face our client poor Mrs. Beaumont had ever seen before she died. I watched as that face spread its pallid lips into a crooked grin. “Doesn’t that sound exciting?”