Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(4)

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.