Jackaby (Jackaby #1)(23)
“Ah,” said the woman, and then tutted in disapproval. “A girl your age really shouldn’t resign herself to working for a living. You should be thinking about your wedding. It’s not too late for a pretty thing like you to find a good, respectable husband to look after you.”
“I prefer to look after myself, ma’am, but thank you. I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but some of us have more pressing matters to attend to than practicing our curtsies and turning foolishly sized bonnets into topiaries.”
The woman harrumphed. “Perhaps you are fit company for that man, after all.” She sneered and bustled out the door. I had been impolite, but I tried not to smile as I watched the pile of colorful blossoms atop her head bouncing away in rhythm down the sidewalk. It would be easy to imagine a domovyk living unnoticed in a hat like that.
“Coming, Miss Rook?” Jackaby was behind me, his task complete. He made for the exit without waiting for an answer, and I bounded after him and onto the sidewalk. A sound caught my ear as I exited, a sort of rattling clank. It might have been anything, a horse’s harness or a loose door latch, but my mind dashed to what Mr. Henderson had said about the noise outside his room the night Bragg was murdered. Clink-clink. Another detail to add to the jumble in my mind. I wished that the woman in the floral bonnet hadn’t distracted me from my thoughts.
“I think I really do need a proper notebook if I’m to be any help as a detective,” I said, matching step with Jackaby.
“You’re not a detective,” said Jackaby. “You are an investigative assistant.”
“All the same, it wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “I met a woman, while you were at the desk, who didn’t seem to think I should be working for you at all.”
“That’s fair. I’m not certain if you should be working for me at all, either. How did you respond?”
“Rather rudely, I must admit.”
“Hmm,” he grunted. “You may find it not worth your trouble to engage in that sort of argument in the future. She is not the first to be put off by who I am and what I do, and she will not be the last.”
“So what are you?” I asked. “A magician? A wizard?”
“I told you, Miss Rook, I don’t go in for that sort of thing. I’m a man of science.”
“Well, what do you call what you do?”
“I call it ratiocination. Deductive reasoning. The logical connection of . . .”
“Not that bit of it. I’m talking about the other side of it. What do you call people like you who can—you know—detect invisible things?”
“Ah.” He nodded. “The term I use is seer. It’s not a perfect title. It’s been used to define all manner of fortune-tellers and prophets over the centuries, but it’s simple and apt. I see. I am a seer. The Seer, in fact, in this usage. The one and only, for the moment. I’ve looked into it a great deal, and there doesn’t appear to be anyone else who can see like I see. There have been others in the past, but never two at the same time. It is as though the ability leaves when one vessel dies and is reborn in another.”
“How could you possibly know that? How do you know there isn’t some fellow in China right now who thinks he’s the only one—and another in Australia, and one in France?”
Jackaby sighed and his pace slowed. “I held out hope for many years that there were. I had questions of my own and wanted answers. There are certain groups, very old groups, that take an interest in these sorts of things. They found me. I was given answers, though not as many as I would have liked, and not without a price. I am the steward of a very old and venerated role, one that will remain long after I am gone.”
“Why you?”
He grunted. “That was one of the answers I would have liked, but did not receive.”
“Did you ever meet the seer before you?”
Jackaby stopped. His face looked gaunt and his storm gray eyes were miles away. He breathed in deeply, and then, slowly, he resumed walking. “The ability can manifest anywhere in anyone. The next seer could as easily be a boy down the road as an old woman on the far side of the globe.”
“You did, though, didn’t you? Who was he?”
Jackaby did not speak for several paces.
“She,” he said at last, quietly. “I prefer not to discuss the matter.” There was a dark finality to his tone, so I swallowed my curiosity for the time being, letting another block of cobblestones pass beneath our feet before I spoke again. “Do you think you could teach me? To see past the illusions?”
“No,” said Jackaby, almost before I had finished speaking. “Probably no. Almost certainly no. It is, as I just explained, an ability unique to me. The sight resides within a single host at any given time.”
“Have you ever tried?” I asked. “Maybe I can’t learn to do it exactly like you do . . . but we could see how much I am able to pick up.”
Jackaby scowled, but I could see the scientist in him was intrigued by the idea. “I suppose we could establish experimental parameters, measure sensitivity under consistent conditions and changing variables, introduce external stimuli . . .” He was beginning to regard me with the same focused attention he directed at his peculiar artifacts and vials of curious chemicals. It was both promising and deeply unsettling. “I shall give the prospect my consideration,” he concluded. “If I decide to keep you on at all, of course.” He turned his eyes back to the sidewalk.