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.