The Medium

Chapter 3, Part 1

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."