The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) (35 page)

"Forever,"
I repeated dully. It was difficult to think straight. Impossible to breathe. "In
the Otherworld."

He nodded and tilted
his face to the ceiling rose. He blinked rapidly then looked back at me. "When
I thought you could have died...I was...glad." He whispered, as if he was
afraid to say it out loud because it would somehow make it more real. "I
wanted
Maree to stab you."

He removed his
hand from mine but I caught it. I pressed his palm to my lips and kissed the
cool flesh. His fingers uncurled against my cheek, his head bent closer to
mine. "Ah, Emily, I'm so sorry."

I heaved in a
breath. It was difficult with my chest feeling so tight but I did it. "I
won't accept your apology, Jacob. You wouldn't have hurt me. I know that like I
know I can see the dead. You worried about my health when I got wet and you
even warned me to stay away from Whitechapel. That's not the actions of a man
who wanted me to die."

He shook his
head and pulled his hand free. "I didn’t want to hurt you and I didn't
want to see you get hurt. The thought of you being ill or in pain...I couldn't bear
it. I wanted the end result without you feeling even a moment's discomfort. Until..."
His eyes shuttered closed.

"Tonight."

His nod was
slight and I would have missed it if I hadn't been watching him so intently. "I
can’t explain how I felt," he went on, opening his eyes again. "Perhaps
I was drunk from fighting the demon, or frustrated from spending so much time
with you and not being able to claim you as I wanted to, or perhaps I was all
too aware that our time together was limited."

I let his words
settle before I spoke what had been on my mind for some time. "So the
other night when you left my room abruptly, it wasn't because you realized I
would grow old and ugly while you stayed young and handsome?"

He suddenly laughed.
"Oh Emily, I do adore you."

I frowned. It
had been a perfectly serious question. "Your exact words were: 'What if I
grow weary watching you wait?'." I could never forget them. They were
branded on my memory.

He reached up
and touched my hair, curling it around his finger as I had done earlier. His
laughter vanished just as rapidly as it had erupted. "I was afraid I
would...do something terrible to you if the waiting became unbearable for
either of us. It had nothing to do with you aging while I didn't. That's why I
left that night, not because I didn't want to stay with you forever but because
I didn’t want to encourage your affections any more than I already had. I
didn't want you to love me, you see. Knowing how you felt about me only made it
harder not to think about you joining me in the Waiting Area, and in the
Otherworld when I'm able to cross. I began to justify your death to myself
after that." He turned away and buried his head in his hands. "Oh God,
Emily, don’t you see?"

I saw. And I
should have been afraid of his admission, of him, but I was not. "You're a
good person, Jacob. What you're feeling is perfectly natural." I pressed
myself into his back and put my arms around his waist, holding him close. I kissed
him through his shirt near his shoulder blade. "You're a wonderful,
caring, brave soul and nothing you say will stop me loving you."

A shudder
rippled through him and I held him tighter. But only for a few beats of my
trembling heart because he shrugged me off and moved away to stand near the
door. 

"You were
right when we first met," he said, his voice raw with emotion. "Do
you remember? You said I'd forgotten how a gentleman should behave when I
insulted your sister." I began to protest but he put up his hand and I
stopped. "I am starting to lose a little bit of my humanity each day. I
can feel it. I'm slowly losing myself, Emily. I don't want to, just like I
don't want to hurt you, but I can't help it."

"Don't talk
like that. You're still very much a gentleman."

He shook his
head. "I can't come to you anymore," he rasped.

"But I'm
going to help you find your killer, your body." It was the only thing I
could think of to hold onto, the one thing tying Jacob to this world, to me.

"I'll do it
on my own."

"But Jacob—."

"No. I
can't risk another hesitation like tonight. Ever. Or I won't be the person you
love anymore. Do you understand? Having you despise me for that would
be...worse than anything I could bear."

I understood. And
I hated myself for it. The tears poured down my face but I didn't care. I let
them flow unchecked as I watched him. His nostrils flared and the muscles high
in his cheek throbbed.

"Goodbye,"
he whispered.

And then he was
gone.

I sat down on
the rug on my bedroom floor, lowered my head to my knees and cried until Celia
came in and guided me back to bed.

***

I spent the day
in bed. I slept fitfully. Celia and Lucy both came and went on occasion,
fussing and trying to get me to eat, but I barely heard anything they said. My
sister didn't ask me why I was so upset and I was grateful for that.

But her sympathy
ended the following day and the questions began almost as soon as she hauled me
out of bed. She helped me dress then marched me downstairs to the small parlor
behind the front drawing room. Lucy set a breakfast of eggs and toast in front
of each of us. I pushed mine away.

"Tell me
what happened," Celia said when Lucy left.

I did. Everything.

Afterwards, she
watched me for a long time over the rim of her teacup. There were no recriminations
for leaving in the middle of the night, no lectures, but no gentle or wise
words to make me feel better either. I was grateful. I didn't want them. Nothing
would make me feel better ever again. I had a hole in my heart the size of England
and it was sucking everything out of me, even the tears.

"So that's
that then," Celia announced. I wasn't sure if she was referring to the
demon being returned or Jacob leaving. I didn't care.

Later that
morning George visited. We talked over the events of the night. I left out the
part where Jacob had said goodbye.

Celia, however,
did not. "The ghost is gone." She smiled at George and handed him a
large slice of sponge cake. It was his second. "More tea?"

He held out his
cup and returned her smile. While he was studying his cake, no doubt deciding
how best to attack the mountain with his fork, my sister winked at me.

With a huff of
breath, I got up and left. She could flirt with George on my behalf without me.

That afternoon
she knocked on my bedroom door and said we were going to visit Mrs. Wiggam.

"Can't you
go alone? I'm very tired." I'd just woken from a nap but I felt like I
needed more sleep. I couldn't imagine ever feeling completely awake again. Jacob
was gone. What was there to be awake for?

"No. She sent
me a note, pleading our help, blaming us for her husband haunting her. Can you
believe it! The nerve of the woman when it was her demands for money that made
him so angry."

"Let them
sort out their own problems," I said and rolled over in bed.

She sat down on
the mattress behind my back and placed a hand on my shoulder. "You can't
remain in here forever. He's gone and you're needed."

"I don’t
care."

She hugged me,
her face close to mine. Her hair smelled like lavender. "You have a gift,
Emily. With that gift comes the responsibility to use it properly. If the
events with the demon have taught me something, it's that. We summoned Mr. Wiggam,
admittedly on his wife's behalf, but we now must end her suffering. At least we
have to try. I...I'm worried about what he might do to her if we don't
intervene."

I sighed and
rolled over. Why did she have to be sensible all the time? "Let's go,"
I muttered.

She smiled
sympathetically and hugged me tighter.

***

I expected the Wiggam
household to be in turmoil but it was quiet. Messy but calm. Shreds of
newspaper littered the hallway and drawing room floor, muddy footprints spoiled
the rugs, and what appeared to be flour was strewn over every piece of
furniture. Most of the figurines, candelabras and other objects that had
decorated the mantelpiece, walls and tables were either broken or missing
although a few had been spared. An oil painting of a lighthouse by the sea, a
small black statue of a rearing horse. They had probably been favorites of Barnaby
Wiggam. It was truly a terrible scene and I could only imagine what it had been
like for his widow living there while her dead husband made his presence known
by destroying her house.

Mrs. Wiggam
calmly laid out a cloth on the flour-covered sofa for Celia and I to sit on. She
offered no apology for the state of her house, or her person. It had only been a
few days since the séance but she looked like she'd not eaten or slept in that
time. Her waist seemed to have shrunk, sacks of skin hung loosely under her
eyes, and her hair looked more tangled than mine had that morning after my
night out. I felt sorry for her but didn't dare show it. Nothing about Mrs. Wiggam's
countenance invited pity.

"I'd have
tea brought up but the maids have all left," she said with not a hint of shame.

Barnaby Wiggam
appeared in the vacant chair by the window. He seemed more translucent than the
last time. Or perhaps I was used to seeing Jacob, solid and strong, not dim
with fuzzy edges like Mr. Wiggam and the other ghosts. It made we wonder, again,
why Jacob appeared so real to me. I would probably never find out now.

Mr. Wiggam
crossed his arms and glared at his wife as she exchanged inane pleasantries
with Celia. The entire scene struck me as absurd and a bubble of laughter
escaped, despite my best intentions to smother it.

Mrs. Wiggam
glanced at me the way her husband looked at her—as if everything was my fault.

"He's here
isn't he?" she said, glaring at the chair in which her husband's ghost
sat.

"Yes,"
I said.

She
humphed
and shrugged, accepting the ghost's presence.

"Good,"
Celia said, urging me to speak with a raise of both her eyebrows. "We're
here to speak to him."

"Don't trouble
yourselves," Mr. Wiggam said, heaving himself up from his chair. His face
was still very red, the purple veins prominent on his cheeks and nose, as they
would always be thanks to the manner of his death. "I'm leaving."

I almost choked
on my surprise. "Why?"

"What's he
saying?" Mrs. Wiggam asked. "What does that good-for-nothing lump
want now? My life?" She stood and offered her wrists to him like a platter
of biscuits. "Take it! Isn't that what you want to do? Fetch a knife from
the kitchen and end it all here. Go on!"

He laughed, a
grating, humorless laugh. "Tell her I don't want to take her with me. Eternity
is a long time and I'd prefer to spend as much of it as I can without her."

"Is that
why you're leaving?" I asked.

Mrs. Wiggam,
sensing her blood would not be spilled by the ghost of her dead husband,
lowered her arms. She sat back down in her chair, smoothed her skirt over her
lap and gave my sister a polite smile as if nothing was untoward. Celia didn't
return it.

"I'm
leaving because I'm tired of haunting her," Barnaby Wiggam said. "No,
actually I'm just tired of
her
. This is only fun for so long and I've realized
something important these last few days." He picked his way across the
messy floor and removed the painting of the lighthouse from the wall. The sea
in the picture was calm and the sun shone on the red-brown rocks and the white sail
of a ship in the distance. "As much as I wanted to hurt her, I couldn't
bring myself to do it. It's not in my nature." He returned the painting to
its hook on the wall and stood back to admire it. "It's strange, don't you
think, Miss Chambers?"

"What is?"
The painting? It looked lovely to me, peaceful.

"That the
characteristics of who we were during life, our essence if you like, are carried
with us to our death. Up there, in the Waiting Area, there are thousands of
souls waiting to cross over, each one of them as unique as they were in life. Did
you know the Otherworld is segmented?" I nodded. "The segment we're
assigned to depends on how good we were when we were alive. A scale of worth if
you like." He looked down at the flour-covered rug. "I don't know what
the segment where the rotten ones go is like and I don't want to know." He
thrust his triple chins at his widow. "I've never committed a mortal sin
so I'm quite sure I won't end up in the worst section. However I'm not so good
that I'll help
her
clean up."

I stared down at
my folded hands in my lap. Jacob too had been a good person in his lifetime. Even
George thought so and he hadn't been his friend. As Mr. Wiggam said, a good
nature in life meant a good nature in death too. That didn't change. Jacob
hadn't changed. Everyone told me he'd been kind when he was alive—a little
unobservant of those around him, but never mean. He'd never harm anyone on
purpose. It was the same in death. He wouldn't hurt me. Couldn't. I knew that
to the depths of my soul.