A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(39)

“Oh it might be easier than that,” Sarah replied after a moment. “Something like this is going to upset the spirits. All I have to do, really, is ask them if there are rumors of something matching that description. Tonight would be a good night for that.”

“And meanwhile. . . .” Nan looked at the bookshelf she had taken the Earth Elemental book from. “This might be a good time for some more research.”



Suki emerged for tea and supper, but otherwise she had found something very engrossing in her room. Nan didn’t enquire as to what it was. Suki would tell them later, probably. At this point, she was a very self-sufficient little person; she washed up by herself, and appeared in her nightdress to hug and kiss them goodnight, but no longer required tucking in, nor wanted to be told a bedtime story, as she preferred to read one on her own. Nan did check on her when silence had reigned over the flat for about an hour, and she was sound asleep, book on the bedside table, all lamps extinguished.

She came back out to find Sarah already disposed on the sofa, Robin’s talisman in one hand, Grey at her shoulder. “Should we warn the hobs?” she wondered aloud. “They should probably know that I am about to try to call in a ghost.”

“A ghost is it, then?” said Durwin, softly, peeking through the door to the bird room. “Lummy! I’ve never seen no Big Folk spirits! OW!”

Oh dear. I think Roan must have stamped on his foot this time. Nan and Sarah both politely ignored the questioner, though not the question. “Time to extinguish all the lights,” Sarah said. “Just leave the one burning on the table.”

Nan went around turning off the gaslights and blowing out the candles on the mantelpiece. Sarah made herself very comfortable on the couch in front of the fire, while Nan took her usual chair.

Under most circumstances, Sarah maintained something rather like Nan’s mental shield. Nan’s shield was meant to protect her from intrusive thoughts—and from having her own thoughts read by another telepath. Sarah’s shield, however, was meant to keep the fact that she could communicate with spirits hidden. If she didn’t do that, it was entirely possible that she’d never get a wink of sleep some nights.

They had long since cleared the immediate vicinity of Mrs. Horace’s house of any restless ghosts, but, well, people were always dying, and if there were any new spirits about, Sarah would be like a lighthouse beacon to them.

Nan knew that there were generally reasons why spirits lingered and did not pass on to whatever came next for them. The very wicked were afraid, as well they should be, and would resist being sent on their way to the last of their strength. Those would avoid Sarah like the poison she was to them, for she could force them on. Some who were not necessarily wicked, but also afraid, might very well come to her, because they would have come to understand how dreadful and empty the “life” of a spirit still bound to earth was. Some simply did not know they were dead, and they would also come to her as the only person they could communicate with in what was to them a nightmare existence. And some had unfinished business; they would flock to her, in order to find someone living who could help them finish it.

Nan was hoping for one of the last of these. They tended to have the most motivation to help in exchange for being helped.

The hardest part of this is the waiting, Nan thought. This wasn’t the sort of thing where you could just sit down with a nice book until a ghost showed up. They didn’t like light; it “interfered” with them, Sarah said.

Nan was prepared for a long, boring night, at least until Sarah got tired of waiting and went to bed.

She was not prepared for an immediate answer.

Or one she could see.

She heard Sarah’s swift intake of breath. She saw—well it could have been a cloud of steam, or a wisp of fog, but it condensed somehow, and grew brighter, and then, well, it was something like one of those “fake ghosts” made with a magic lantern, a kind of sketch of white-on-black hanging in midair.

Except this one was moving slightly, and it was someone she knew.

Not well, but it was an elderly lady a few houses down the street, who had been fading this last six months. Mrs. Horace had sent them with soup several times; the old lady was being well tended by one of over a dozen granddaughters.

“Well, if it isn’t little Sarah!” the voice was as much in Nan’s mind as it was in her ears. “I had no idea you were mediumistic, my dear!” She chuckled. “Still waters do run deep! I heard your call as I was on my way, so I thought, Maudie, they were so kind about visiting you, well you should return the favor. What can I do for you?”

Sarah explained as best she could, keeping her explanation to Amelia’s visions and not going into what Puck had said.

Maud listened intently. “I don’t know of anything myself, but I’ll ask that word be spread. I hope that will help you?”

“It will, Mrs. Maud,” Sarah said gratefully. “And thank you for taking the time to talk to me.”

The spirit smiled. “My guide is getting a tiny bit impatient, so I’ll be on my way. I hope this is all just something that will blow over, my dear.” Her smile faltered. “But . . . I fear it is not.”





8





ALEXANDRE had not done more than peek into the basement from the door during the three days between Christmas Eve and when the entity had told him to return. Each time he did, he saw that nothing had changed. The bottomless pool of shadow was still in the middle of the floor. It had not gotten larger, or smaller—but it was still there, so what had happened to him that night was no dream, and no hallucination.