Jenny glanced behind her, her smile faltering for just a moment.
“It’s okay,” I said, remembering too late. “I know you don’t like anyone in your room. You can just take them from here.” The entire house had once been Jenny’s. She seemed largely unperturbed by Jackaby’s inhabiting every other corner of it, but her room was her room. Why she needed one at all, I didn’t know—to the best of my knowledge she never slept—but I had never pressed the matter and had no intention of doing so today. I kept to my side of the threshold and held out the vase.
“No. I’m afraid I can’t.” She sighed softly, holding up her translucent hands. “My gloves have gone missing.”
Since her mortal demise, Jenny could only directly interact with things that had once been hers—and even then, only with great focus and concentration. To skirt this limitation of her afterlife, she frequently wore a pair of her old, lace gloves to gain a little traction on the material world. She was so rarely without them, I had nearly forgotten that she needed them at all.
“Haven’t you got a spare set?” I asked.
“Several. All of them gone.”
“Jackaby?” I asked.
“I assume so. The two of you were out all morning, though, so I haven’t had a chance to ask him. It has been tremendously frustrating, but what day isn’t with that man?” She tossed her head in a show of exasperation, but the wretched turmoil I had seen overwhelming her had completely vanished. “Well, you needn’t stand out in the hallway, dear,” she said. “Go ahead and set that bouquet on the nightstand and tell me all about your latest escapades.”
She drifted gracefully back into the room, drawing back the curtain to let in the sunlight. I stepped inside hesitantly. The twists and turns of life on Augur Lane were enough to give a girl whiplash. Jenny’s room was always pristine, the bed neatly tucked and the floor polished. Dust did not dare settle atop the wide rosewood armoire, although its contents had rested untouched for the better part of the decade. Had Jenny not begun lending me her things with ever-increasing enthusiasm, her impressive wardrobe might have been left to its fate forever.
I set the vase on the little table and adjusted the flowers.
“Asphodels and bittersweets.” Jenny’s voice was just over my shoulder as I straightened up. “They make for an interesting arrangement. Of course, in any other garden they would never grow together—they need completely different climates. Jackaby calls it something big and impressive. Transtemporal seasonal augmentation or something like that. I think it makes him feel better to explain impossible things as though they’re science, even when the explanations don’t really explain anything at all. Asphodel doesn’t belong up this far north at all—but then again”—she gave me a wink—“neither do I.”
I smiled, the knot in my chest finally starting to relax. It was a great relief to see that she seemed to have returned to her usual cheeky self.
“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?”