Beastly Bones

  “The white ones reminded me of you,” I said, “and I guess I just liked the little purple ones.”

  “A nice choice for an aspiring young investigator. Bittersweets stand for truth. Fitting, I suppose. The truth is often bittersweet.”

  “What do the white ones mean?”

  “Asphodels?” Jenny reached a tender finger toward the drooping white buds, pulling back her hand before it could pass through the flowers. “Oh, never mind about that. I’m sure you don’t want to listen to me drone on about silly flowers, anyway. Tell me about your adventures, Abigail. Any diabolical new cases to investigate?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact—bones and bodies and everything. We’ll be leaving for Gad’s Valley tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t that where that handsome young policeman of yours got stationed? What’s his name?”

  I felt my cheeks flush, which made Jenny smile impishly. “Charlie is hardly my anything,” I said. “But yes, he’ll be involved. Not that there are enough flowers in the world to make that romance a reality.”

  “You don’t need flowers, dear. You need confidence. Next time you see him, you should just go right up to him and plant a kiss on that boy’s pretty face.”

  “Jenny!”

  “Fortune favors the bold, Abigail!”

  “Sure it does. The last time I was bold, I nearly got the man killed, and then he changed his name and moved a hundred miles away. That’s not exactly a strong start to a relationship.”

  “You silly girl. Of course it is—he risked his life for you!”

  “Oh, never mind about it, anyway. I’m not going to the valley looking for romance—there are more important matters at stake. I’m looking for a murderer.”

  “You should definitely have kissed him right after the big fight.” Jenny smiled, willfully ignoring my protests. She let her gaze drift to the window. “My fiancé got in a fight over me, once. He lost terribly, the poor man—he never was much of a pugilist. He looked like an absolute mess afterward, with gauze wadded up in each nostril and one eye all swollen, but it was still just the sweetest thing. And the stupidest. I told him as much . . . right before I kissed him.” She turned her eyes meaningfully back to me. “Because that’s what you do.”

  “What was he like?” I asked. “Your fiancé. You never talk about him.”

  Jenny’s brow furrowed for a moment, and her eyes looked very far away—but then she rallied, giving me a sly grin and shaking her finger. “Oh no you don’t, Abigail. We were talking about you.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about! I’m going on an assignment. Dirt. Bones. Corpses. Villains. I doubt very much Charlie is thinking of anything else, either. If he had wanted a kiss when we last said good-bye, then I might have been happy to surrender it. Now he’s . . . and I’m . . . It’s complicated.” I was getting flustered, and I could feel my cheeks burning red. I wished we could talk about anything else.

  “It couldn’t hurt to try. You can’t live your life without taking any chances.”

  “Well, that’s easy for you to say. It may not matter to you, but I still have a life to ruin, you know.”

  Jenny was quiet. The brightness drained from her eyes, and I knew at once I had crossed a line.

  “Jenny, I didn’t . . . ,” I said, but the spectral lady was already fading. In a moment she had vanished. “I’m sorry,” I said to her empty room.

  Chapter Nine

  Jackaby was in his office when I plodded back down the stairs. His coat was draped over the back of his armchair, and he had plucked off his shirt collar. It was the heavily starched sort meant for fancy dress, although it had become a bit crinkled along the top, and one lapel had a permanent bend to it, reaching up as if it were in the middle of a dramatic soliloquy from Hamlet. It lay on the desk in front of him as he fidgeted with a needle and a spool of coarse metallic thread.

  “Mr. Jackaby?” I said.

  “We’ve had a telegram from Barker,” he said, not looking up from his efforts. At least he didn’t seem to be annoyed with me any longer. “We’ll be on the first train to meet him tomorrow morning. It departs at half past six, so best to prepare everything you need tonight.” The end of his thread finally found its way into the eye of the needle, and he unwound a long stretch before snapping it off.

  “I’ll be ready first thing,” I promised. “What are you doing there?”

  Jackaby had begun working the thread through the collar’s stiff fabric. “Lining my neck with silver. I’ve already taken the liberty of sprinkling your traveling hat with mustard seed. No need to thank me.”

  “Very kind of you, sir. May I ask why?”

  “Apotropaic preparations. I felt it prudent to employ a broad range of protective wards in advance. I’m out of garlic, however. I’ll need to make a run to the market this afternoon.”

  “It’s vampires for certain, then?” Saying the word out loud felt both absurd and dreadful in equal measure.

  “Of course it isn’t certain. We could be up against a South American Chonchon or an Aswang from the Philippines. There’s a cheeky cricket demon in Malaysia known to burrow holes in its victims’ heads, inexplicably causing them to hallucinate about cats. I’d be more concerned about that one if I didn’t know that Mrs. Beaumont had legitimate cat problems, but I’ve copied down the charm to neutralize those little parasites as well, just in case. Can’t be too careful.” He finished stitching a crooked line along the inner circumference of his collar and tied off the thread. “There. Now, what was it you wanted?”

  “Well—I was just hoping to talk to you about Jenny before we left. She seemed . . . distraught earlier. I’m sorry to say I don’t think I improved matters much.”

  “She’s just miffed about her gloves, I imagine,” Jackaby said casually, stuffing the spool away in a drawer.

  “Yes, she did mention that they had gone missing. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”

  “I would, as a matter of fact. I’ve taken them.”

  “Why on earth would you do that? You know how much she needs them.”

  “I am proving a point.”

  “Well, can you prove it some other way? She’s quite upset about them . . . and perhaps also about some things that I may have said accidentally. I’ll take them up for you if you like. It would be nice to be able to improve things a bit. I tried with flowers, but I think I’ll need more than asphodels to make amends.”

  Jackaby winced and breathed in through his teeth. “Rather somber choice of foliage for a cheering up, don’t you think?”

  “Somber? Why?”

  “Asphodels?” He looked at me and then shook his head. “Honestly, what do they teach in those schools of yours? Asphodel is for mourning, loss, and most of all, death. The fields of asphodel were the afterlife for the ancient Greeks. The wicked went to Tartarus, and great heroes went to Elysium—but for everyone else, there were the just the fields of asphodel. Unexceptional spirits were left for all eternity to flit about like shadows among the flowers. I suppose they are rather pretty in their own way, but given Miss Cavanaugh’s current state, perhaps not the most helpful.”

  I sighed. It was a sign of just how badly the day was going that Jackaby was giving me good advice about tact.

  “Just give her some time,” Jackaby said, slipping the collar back on and fastening it clumsily beneath his chin. “Jenny’s a stronger spirit than you might think. She survived her own death, for heaven’s sake—I think she can weather a social faux pas. Help me with the back, would you?”

  Jackaby tossed me a little metal stud, and I attached his collar to the back of his shirt.

  “Right, then. I’m off to the market,” he said, pulling his bulky coat off the chair. “I have a few specialty items to procure, so I may be out late. Try not to go offending any more members of the household in my absence, would you? Douglas puts up a stalwart front, but he’s all soft underneath.”

  After Jackaby had left, I climbed up the stairs to Jenny’s bedroom
, but Jenny was nowhere to be found. The pond was abandoned as well; even Douglas had flapped off to do whatever ducks do in the afternoon. I slouched back behind my desk in the foyer with a sigh. A throaty croak issued from the bookshelf, and I turned to face the drab green frog. “Well, Ogden,” I said, “at least you’ve warmed up to me.”

  My batrachian companion replied by puffing up his throat and venting a sudden burst of noxious gas in my general direction.

  “Oh good Lord!” I gasped, stumbling to open a window. “Was that really necessary?”

  I quickly deserted the first floor, surrendering what was left of my evening and resigning myself to an early night. Tomorrow, I vowed, was going to be a much better day.

  Chapter Ten

  A sudden, deafening clacking inside my room hauled my mind unceremoniously to wakefulness. I clapped my hands over my ears and sat up in bed, bleary eyed and disoriented.

  “Oh good. You’re awake,” said Jackaby. The noise clicked to a stop.

  “What . . . ?” I pushed my hair out of my face and willed the room into focus. Jackaby had lit the lamp on my dresser, and by its soft glow I could see that he was holding a simple wooden ratchet contraption with a stubby handle.

  “Five o’clock,” he announced. “We should be at the station in an hour. Bright new day, Miss Rook! Well, technically a dark one for the moment, but sunrise is coming.”

  “Right,” I said. My ears were still ringing slightly. “Did you just wake me with a policeman’s rattle? You can hear those things from two blocks away.”

  “A what? No, this is a grogger—it’s an old Judaic instrument. It’s used during Purim to make a deafening racket during special readings. Charming, isn’t it? Marvelously raucous custom.”

  “Knocking gently also works.”

  “You have no appreciation for culture. Hurry up. We have a lot to do.” Jackaby swept out of the room, and I heard his footsteps tripping blithely down the spiral staircase.

  Breathing in deeply, I stood and drew back the curtains to look out onto the city. The stars were just visible, but the sky had already taken on the eager purple flush that precedes the dawn. Quiet though the morning was, it was an anxious quiet, as though the city of New Fiddleham were excited to begin its day. Already I could see a pair of newsboys hauling paper bundles toward Market Street, and an old doorman was unlocking the big financial building across the lane. At the corner of the crossroads, just up the way, a short, stout man stood waiting for someone.

  A tingle wriggled up my spine, and my scanning eyes doubled back to the figure. He wore a dark coat and hat, and his skin was pale, but there was something else disquieting about him. It may have been my imagination—he was difficult to make out from all the way down the block—but he looked as though he were staring directly up at me. My breath had fogged the glass, and when I wiped it clear to get a better look, the stranger had vanished.

  I blinked and glanced up and down the road, but there was no sign of the pale man. Between the murder on Campbell Street and Jackaby’s talk of bloodsucking ghouls, I suddenly felt a lot more thankful to be standing in the only house in town with more superstitious safeguards and holy relics than the Vatican—although they did not erase the eeriness of being watched. I would have to tell Jackaby about the figure before we left.

  Jenny, I discovered, had laid out a handful of her old clothes across the oak chest at the foot of my bed. She had become in many ways like the older sister I had never had, and she was still looking out for me in spite of my thoughtlessness. I was relieved to be past the unsettling events of the previous day, but I felt all the more guilty about my lack of tact in the face of her kindness. I resolved to make amends before leaving. I picked out a simple dress with a nice high hem that looked fit for traveling, and tucked the rest into my suitcase.

  Jenny’s bedroom door hung open just a crack, and it swung inward as I knocked. “Jenny?” The chamber was dim and silent. “If you’re in here, I just wanted to say thank you—and that I’m still very sorry about yesterday.”

  I stood in the doorway, feeling stupid and foolish. I could see that the flowers I had picked were all slumped to one side of the vase, and the asphodels were drooping mournfully. I took a deep breath and tiptoed into the room. As silently as I could, I adjusted the stalks, trying to bring the bright little clusters of bittersweets to the front. It was a meaningless gesture, but my lessons in etiquette had somehow failed to cover what to do when one had been unintentionally unkind to the undead. Perhaps I ought to have simply removed the whole unhappy arrangement before Jenny returned.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  The voice from behind me was forceful but frightened, accompanied by a sudden chill. It was as startling as if someone had poured ice water down my collar. I started and spun, knocking the bouquet off the table as I did. The vase did a quick pirouette in the air, and then shattered against the ground, splashing water and flowers across the floorboards. Jenny’s slate-gray eyes looked lost and confused, fixating on the lopsided pool that was darkening the floor.

  “Oh bother! I’m so sorry!” I dropped to the floor, mortified, and began picking up the shards of porcelain as quickly as I could. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ll have it tidied up in a moment.”

  “No!” Jenny’s voice was urgent and somehow distant. I stopped and looked up. She was staring at me and at the broken vase, visibly agitated, but somehow at the same time she was also facing away, toward the doorway. I blinked as my mind tried to process the double image. “No!” she repeated. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Jenny?” I set down the broken pieces and stood up slowly. “Jenny, it’s all right.”

  “I know who you are.” Jenny’s voice was cold and quavering, and it hurt my eyes to try to focus on both of her.

  “That’s right, it’s me . . . ,” I began, but Jenny continued as though she hadn’t heard me.

  “You work with my fiancé.”

  “I—what? No I don’t. I work here with . . .”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  The little puddle of water at my feet began to crystalize as the room grew colder, and a stalk of asphodel slid along the floor as an icy gust of wind whipped through the small room.

  “Jenny, you’re frightening me,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t be here!”

  The gust became a torrent, and the curtains began to flap madly in the rapidly building maelstrom. The duvet flipped off Jenny’s always impeccably made bed, and the doors to the armoire rattled and then whipped open and closed with a violent slap. The sound snapped something primal inside of me, and I found myself out of the room and in the hallway before I realized I was moving. When I turned back, the bedroom had fallen completely still and silent, and Jenny had sunk to the floor. Some part of her was looking up in terrible distress, and another part was crouching over the broken vase, her delicate fingers reaching toward a fallen sprig of bittersweets. Her silvery hand passed through the little purple buds like vapor, and at the same moment she screamed, “No!” once more, and the door slammed shut like a gunshot.

  Chapter Eleven

  I knocked and called out, but Jenny’s room was as silent as the grave, and her door would not budge. I felt like I had just been punched in the gut, and I wanted to cry. With a deep breath, I plucked up my suitcase and what little fortitude I had left, and trod wretchedly down the spiral staircase.

  I heard the sound of movement and found Jackaby in his office. He was unloading a basket of odds and ends, tucking the occasional object into his traveling satchel and leaving the rest in a heap on his desk. The wooden noisemaker lay beside the pile, and the scent of fresh garlic hung in the air.

  “Nearly ready,” he said. “Just reorganizing a few items I picked up yesterday.”

  “Sir,” I began, not entirely sure how to proceed. “Jenny is—that is, I think that she . . .” I took a breath. “Sir, there’s something very wrong.”

  “Is there, now?” He pulled a gnarled root and
a gold-rimmed teacup from the basket, setting them on his desk. There was a tea service on the end table already, and the new cup clashed with the soft pastels of the original set.

  “Yes, sir. I don’t know if it was the gloves or the flowers or what I said.” I sighed. “Or just everything. She’s getting worse.”

  Jackaby tossed the root into his satchel and turned toward me. “It isn’t you, Miss Rook,” he said. “Our immaterial associate has trapped herself in a sort of purgatory here. She cannot leave the house because she can only exist where she feels she belongs, just as she can only physically touch items that she feels belong to her. It is for this reason that progress on her own case stalled. She could not accompany me in my investigations.”

  “Her own case? You mean her death?”

  Jackaby nodded. “Her murder, yes—and a bit more than that.”

  “Do you need her alongside you to solve it?”

  “I could certainly pursue it on my own—and I have, to a degree. Douglas helped me compile an extensive file of relevant information.” He rummaged in a drawer for a moment and produced a file. He set it on the desk, and I could see Jenny’s name printed neatly on the front. “It is incomplete, but this is everything we know about Miss Cavanaugh and her fiancé—newspaper clippings, evidence, persons of interest. Deep down, our dear Jenny does not believe the truth is hers to find. Until she does, I do not know if providing it to her would be a kindness. Perhaps she fears the answers might be more painful than the questions, and I cannot say that they will not be. When she is ready, though, I think she will find herself able to go wherever she must.”

  “You think . . .” Jenny’s voice came from behind the desk, and gradually the gentle lines of the specter’s face coalesced. She looked bitter and annoyed, but at least the confusion and panic had vanished, and she appeared to be in control of herself. “But you don’t know. You could simply believe me when I say that I want to know, instead of talking about me in secret and stuffing me away in your desk like an abandoned project.”