“The matter is settled. Jenny Cavanaugh is in an unstable condition at the best of times, and finding painful answers before she is ready might send her over an internal threshold from which there can be no return.”
I don’t think my employer realized that Jenny had crossed an internal threshold already. Until recently, she had always been reticent about investigating her own death, shying away from solid answers as one who has been burned shies away from the flame. When Jackaby had first moved his practice into her former property, into the home in which she had lived and died, Jenny had not been ready. The truth had been too much for her soul to seek. She had made a decision, however, when she finally enlisted our services to solve her case—and, once made, that decision had become her driving force. She had waited long enough.
Now it was Jackaby who seemed to be dragging his heels to help, but his unavailing attitude only made Jenny more determined to help herself. To her dismay, determination alone could not give her a body, and without one she could do frustratingly little to expedite the case. Which was why she had come to me.
Our first spiritual exercises had been fairly benign, but Jenny still felt more comfortable practicing when Mr. Jackaby was away. We had known each other only six short months, but she had quickly become like a sister to me. She was self-conscious about losing control, and Jackaby only made matters worse by growing increasingly overprotective. We began by attempting to move simple objects one afternoon while he was out.
Jenny remained unable to make physical contact with anything that had not belonged to her in life, but on rare occasions she had managed to break that rule. The key, we found, was not concentration or sheer force of will, but rather perspective.
“I can’t,” she said after we had been at it for an hour. “I can’t move it.”
“Can’t move what?” I asked.
“Your handkerchief.” She waved her hand through the flimsy, crumpled thing on the table. It did not so much as ripple in the breeze.
“No,” I answered. “Not my anything. You can’t move your handkerchief. I gave it to you.”
“My handkerchief, then,” she said. “A lot of good my handkerchief is going to do me when I can’t even stuff it in a pocket!” She gave it a frustrated swat with the back of her hand, and it flopped open on the table.
We both stared at the cloth. Slowly her eyes rose to meet mine, and we were both grinning. It had been the flimsiest of motions, but it was the spark that lit the fire. We scarcely missed a chance to practice after that.
Not every session was as productive as the first, but we made progress over time. Several fragile dishes met their demise in the following weeks, and the frustration of her failures pushed her into spiritual echoes more than once. With each small setback, however, came greater success.
We expanded our tests to leaving the premises, which Jenny had not done since the day she died. This proved an even more daunting task. On our best round, she managed to plant but a single foot on the sidewalk—and it took her most of the afternoon to rematerialize afterward.
When moving outward failed to yield the results we had hoped for, I began to explore moving inward. I knew that this could be even more dangerous territory to tread, but the following day I asked Jenny to think back and tell me what she remembered about that night.
“Oh, Abigail, I’d really rather not . . .” she began.
“Only as much as you feel comfortable,” I said. “The smallest, most inconsequential details. Don’t even think about the big stuff.”
Jenny breathed deeply. Well, she never really breathed; it was more a gesture of comfort, I think. “I was getting dressed,” she said. “Howard was going to take me to the theater.”
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“There was a sound downstairs. The door.”
“Yes?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Jenny.
The shiver rippled up my spine even before I felt the temperature drop. I had come to recognize those words. They came from that dark place inside Jenny.
“I know who you are.” Her gown was elegant and pristine, but at the same time it was suddenly torn at the neck and growing darker. She was already fracturing. Jenny’s echoes were like a horrid version of the party favors my mother used to buy—little cards with a bird on one side and an empty cage on the other with a stick running down the middle. When you twirled the stick, the bird was caught. A trick of the eye. As Jenny fluttered in front of me, graceful and grotesque, the two versions of her became one, but some part of my brain knew they did not belong together. Her brow strained and her eyes grew wild with anger and confusion.
“Jenny,” I said, “it’s me. It’s Abigail. You’re safe. There’s no one—”
“You work with my fiancé.”
“Jenny, come back to me. It’s all right now. You’re safe.”
“No!”
“You’re safe.”
“NO!”
By the time she reappeared, I had tidied up all the broken glass and righted all the furniture. She always returned, but it took Jenny time to recover from an echo. I kept myself from fretting by keeping busy with my chores. I sorted through old receipts and dusty case files compiled by my predecessor, Douglas. Douglas was an odd duck. He had had excellent handwriting when he had been Jackaby’s assistant. Of course, that was when he had still had hands—not that he seemed to miss them now that they were wings.
When I say Douglas was an odd duck, I mean it quite literally. His transformation into water fowl had taken place during his last official case. Working for R. F. Jackaby came with unique occupational hazards.
Douglas perched on the bookshelf now to watch me while I worked, issuing an occasional disapproving quack or ruffling his feathers when I filed something incorrectly. He seemed to enjoy life as a bird, but it made him no less insufferably fastidious than he had been as a human. Jenny materialized slowly; she was just a hint of shimmering light in the corner when I first realized she was there. I gave her time.
“Abigail,” she said at last. She was still translucent, only just visible in the soft light. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.” I set down the stack of case files on the corner of the desk. Jenny’s own file lay open beside them. “Are you?”
She nodded faintly, but heavy thoughts hung over her brow like rain clouds.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have . . . I’ll stop pushing you.”
“No.” She solidified a little. “No, I want to keep practicing.” She bit her lip. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not as strong as you are, Abigail.”
“Oh, nonsense—”
“It’s true. You’re strong, and I’m grateful for your strength. You’ve already given me more of it than I have any right to ask, only . . .”
“Only what?”