The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) (5 page)

"No," Jacob
and I said together.

"You can't
see or talk to Jacob," I said. "And we need his guidance in this."

She lowered her
head and nodded. "Very well." She raised her gaze to where he stood,
holding the frame. "Is it dangerous, this demon?" she asked, voice
barely above a whisper.

"Not
terribly," I said and tried to look like I wasn't lying. If she thought it
was dangerous, she would not agree to my involvement, no matter how important. I
glanced at Jacob but he said nothing, just watched me beneath half-lowered
lids. "Don’t worry, Sis, we'll send it back before anything happens."

Celia breathed
out and settled into the sofa. "That's settled then," she muttered. "Now,"
she said to Jacob, "tell me
exactly
what you mean when you say you
are assigned to my sister? Will you be at her side until the demon is found? Are
you tied to her in some invisible way?"

Jacob went very
still. "Tell your sister not to worry," he said stiffly. "I'll
be the perfect gentleman."

I almost told
him he'd mistaken her and she wasn't suggesting he'd do anything untoward, but
I couldn't be sure if that assessment was correct. Knowing Celia, it was highly
possible she meant exactly that.

As if
understanding my hesitation, she added, "Can he protect you against this
demon—and don't try to tell me it's harmless because I know it's not. It
is
a demon after all. And can he protect you against the person who cursed the
amulet?" Her knuckles had gone white, clasped as they were in her lap. I gently
touched her arm. It didn't seem to help—she remained as taut as a stretched
rope.

Jacob took a
long time to answer and I began to doubt he would when he finally said, "I
will do my best." He held up the picture frame. "I can wield Earthly
weapons as easily as I can hold this, but I'm afraid weapons from this realm
have little effect on demons. They can only be killed with blades forged in the
Otherworld. Unfortunately the Administrators don't have access to one which is
why I prefer to banish it."

I squeezed Celia's
arm again. "He said yes," I lied. "Don't worry, Sis, he looks very
capable."

She stared
straight ahead at the picture frame held by Jacob and gave a small nod. "Very
well," she said in a tired voice. "You may accompany my sister to
find this demon and return it. But if anything should happen to her," she
coughed to cover her cracking voice but I heard it nevertheless, "I'll
find someone who can make sure your soul never crosses over."

I stared at her
open-mouthed. My sister, making threats to a ghost? Remarkable. I loved her for
it.

She released her
grip on the sofa and picked up her teacup. "It would seem nothing can be
done before Thursday, anyway, when the peddler returns. The day after tomorrow.
Until then, Mr. Beaufort." She nodded and sipped her tea. Dismissed.

He looked like
he would argue but thought better of it and returned the daguerreotype to the
mantelpiece. "Don’t worry, I can see myself out." He bowed to us then
vanished like a bubble that's been popped. There one moment, gone the next.

I flopped back
in the sofa in a most unladylike fashion. "Oh Celia, I think we've bitten
off more than we can chew."

She handed me my
teacup. "We'll conquer this demon, don't fret, my dear."

I hadn't been
referring to the demon.

CHAPTER 3

It took me a
long time to fall asleep. It was bad enough knowing there was a demon out there
hiding in the many shadowy lanes of London searching out something—or someone—to
eat, but it was thoughts of Jacob Beaufort that occupied my mind more. Whenever
I closed my eyes I could see his bright blue ones staring back at me with
unnerving intensity. Now that I was alone I could think of a thousand questions
I should have asked him, each one circling my head like a carousel. Finally,
when the longcase clock in the entrance hall downstairs struck three, I'd had
enough. I got up and threw my shawl around my shoulders then lit a candle and
padded barefoot to my writing desk. I sat and pulled a piece of paper and the
inkstand closer and wrote every question down, one after the other. Except one.
I re-read my list and tried to tell myself it wasn't important, I didn't need
to know the answer to it.

I wasn't very
good at lying, even to myself. So I gave up and wrote the question at the
bottom:

Did he meet Mama
in the Waiting Area?

If he answered
yes to that then there were so many other follow-up questions but I put the
quill down without writing them. It was enough for now.

I fell asleep
quickly after that.

Much later, I
awoke to the sound of the brass knocker on our front door banging. It was
daytime because light edged the curtains. It wasn't bright but then the days
never were in London thanks to either the smog or rain or both.

I heard Celia's
voice and listened for another but no one else spoke. Perhaps I'd imagined the
knocking and she was simply reciting poetry in the kitchen.

But that was as
absurd as it sounded. Celia regarded poetry as a useless form of literature
read only by deluded romantics.

Then I heard
footsteps running up the stairs. Only one set. "Emily! Emily, are you
decent?" Celia shouted. "I think he's here."

"She means
me," came Jacob's voice from just outside my bedroom door.

Jacob! Good
lord, I was still in my nightgown! What was he doing here so early? It couldn't
be much past eight o'clock. What was he doing here at all when we'd agreed
nothing could be done until the following day?

"She'll be
out in a few minutes," I heard Celia say in a loud voice. The door opened
a crack and she slipped inside. She was dressed but her hair looked like it had
been hastily shoved under her cap. "My sister is not yet ready to receive
callers," she said as she shut the door.

I heard Jacob's
chuckle and I pictured his handsome features softening with his smile. "It's
nice to know the rules of propriety still apply to the dead," he called
out.

Celia leaned
against the door as if barricading it. "He hasn't zapped his way in here,
has he?"

"No. Help
me dress," I said, climbing out of bed. "How did you know it was him?"

She passed me a
clean chemise from the wardrobe, which I put on over my head after I shucked off
my nightgown. "When I answered the knock there was no one there so I
closed the door. But then I heard a knock on the hallway wall and I realized someone
was inside, alerting me to their presence. The only ghost I know who has turned
up here without being summoned is that Beaufort boy."

Hardly a boy. I
made up my mind to ask him his age. Or his age at the time of his death. It was
the first question on my list, still sitting on my desk.

"I told him
I'd fetch you," she said, helping me into my corset. "But as I walked
up the stairs I felt a coolness sweep past me and I knew he was going on ahead."

"At least
he still possesses a sense of honor and hasn't entered." I gasped as she
pulled hard on the corset's laces. "Careful, Sis, I might need to breathe
at some point."

"Why bother
breathing if you look fat?" We both knew she was being ridiculous—I was
washboard flat in stomach and, alas, in chest—but she was in an odd temper so I
let her comment go. "The green gown, I think."

"Really? What's
the occasion?" The green dress was my newest and favorite. The color complemented
my complexion and dark brown eyes. The bodice was shaped in the latest cuirass style,
which hugged my frame all the way down to my thighs, emphasizing my small waist
and the curve of my hip. It would have looked better on a taller girl, as did all
dresses, but with heeled boots it looked quite good on me too. Although the satin
had been recycled from one of Mama's old gowns, it nevertheless cost a great
deal to have made. Celia had insisted on using the last of our savings for it. I
suspected it was her weapon of choice in the battle to find me a husband. I supposed
I looked quite good in it. Indeed, the dress never failed to turn heads, which
was always a pleasant feeling when the heads were turned for the right reasons.
Being singled out because I could see ghosts or because I wasn't fashionably
pale, however, made me feel like the bearded lady in a sideshow.

So, considering
it was a dress Celia made me wear whenever she thought eligible men would see
me, it was a little disconcerting that she was making me wear it now when I was
only seeing a ghost.

"I think Jacob
will take you somewhere today," she said, fastening the hooks and eyes at
the back of the dress. "He has a sense of urgency about him. Hopefully he
wishes to communicate with his family after all, and if he has a brother or
cousin..." She let the sentence drift, full of potential and possibility.

"It's more
likely Jacob is concerned about the demon," I said.

She guided me to
my dressing table and forced me to sit at the stool. "It can't hurt to be
prepared," she said, undoing my braid. "You never know whose path
you'll be thrown into."

I couldn't fault
her logic although I didn't like to think about eligible gentlemen, or marriage
or any of those things. Some girls of my acquaintance may be married by seventeen,
but I wasn't sure wedlock was for me. What would happen to Celia? And why would
I want to live with a man, by his rules, in his house, when I could live here
with my sister and do as I pleased?

Besides, what
sort of husband would want a fatherless bastard for a wife? And if my parentage
didn't concern him, surely the fact I had conversations with the dead would.

A knock at my
bedroom door made me turn around, yanking the hair out of Celia's hands. "Be
still," she snapped, "or I'll have to start over."

"I can
appreciate that a lady needs time to prepare herself to face the day," Jacob
said through the door, "but do you think you could go faster?"

"He wants
us to hurry up," I told Celia.

"Hurry!"
she scoffed. "A lady cannot rush her morning toilette."

"I won't be
long," I called out.

"Good
because we need to get going," he said.

"We're
definitely going somewhere," I said to my sister's reflection in the dressing
table's oval mirror. "And where are we going to?" I shouted to Jacob.

He suddenly
appeared in the room at my right shoulder, his back to me. I jumped and Celia tugged
my hair. "Be still."

"Sorry,"
he said, "but I don't like shouting through doors. Can I turn around?"

"Yes,"
I said and hoped Celia thought I was speaking to her. I didn't want her to know
he was in the room. She was already wary of him and for some reason I didn't
want to turn that into outright distrust.

"It's like
hundreds of little springs," he said in wonder, watching Celia's nimble
fingers work my black curls into a manageable style on top of my head.

"Little
springs turn into little knots very easily," I said.

Celia paused. "Pardon?"

"I, uh, was
just thinking about my hair and how I wish the curls were softer like yours."
My gaze met Jacob's in the mirror's reflection.

He quickly
glanced away, down at the dressing table, up at the ceiling, at the wall,
anywhere but at me. "Just tell her to put it up as best she can," he
said.

"He's
growing impatient," I told her.

"He's no
gentleman, that one," she said and put two hairpins between her lips.

I cringed and caught
Jacob's sharp glance in Celia's direction. He seemed...alarmed, and then
embarrassed by her off-handed comment.

She removed the
pins from her mouth and threaded them through my hair. "I wonder if he
ever was one," she said, admiring her handiwork." Perhaps he lost all
sense of honor when he died."

"Dying
tends to cause one to misplace a great many things," Jacob said, voice
dark and distant.

"Can you go
out and tell him I'll be there in a moment," I asked Celia.  

Her hand hovered
near the hair above my temple as if she wanted to touch it but didn't want to
mess up her work. "Be careful, Em." She kissed my forehead. "You
do look lovely. Let's hope it's worth it."

She left and I
heard her telling the empty air outside that I'd be there soon. Her footsteps
retreated down the stairs and I turned to Jacob.

"You
deserved to hear that if you come and go uninvited," I said.

"I'm not
concerned about other people's opinions of me." He gave me a crooked smile.
"It's a bad habit carried over from when I was alive."

It was the first
time he'd referred to his life and what he'd been like. It wasn't what I'd
expected to hear. Instead of giving me a clearer picture of him it just threw
up more questions. Why hadn't he cared what people thought? "I'm sure people
cared what
you
thought of
them
." I don't know why I said it
but it seemed appropriate somehow.

He didn't
comment but he was no longer smiling, crookedly or otherwise. Indeed, he'd
turned all his attention to my hairbrush sitting on the dressing table as if it
was the most interesting object in the world. Its tortoiseshell back and handle
certainly weren't worthy of such scrutiny.