Beastly Bones (4 page)

Chapter Seven

A
s the morbid atmosphere of the crime scene slid away behind us, I began to process the turn of events the morning had taken. My heart thudded as I considered the reality of a second bloodthirsty killer roaming the streets, but I couldn't help but also consider the prospects blooming before me. We would be visiting the valley after all. Even if the burglary was only a pretext, I had my ticket onto the dig site—and the fact that we would be working closely with Charlie Barker only made the notion more appealing.

Marlowe's driver deposited us in front of Jackaby's building, and I hurried up the walk and through the bright red door. I would have to pack, of course, and I couldn't wait to tell Jenny the news. I bounded up the stairs toward my room, but before I could step out onto the second-floor landing, a quiet sound from above caught my ears. Something about it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I strained to listen and tiptoed up one more flight of the spiral staircase.

Jackaby's house was an eclectic assortment of architectural styles and engineering oddities, full of abstract additions and mystifying modifications. My favorite of these was the third-floor pond. The space opened before me as I stepped off the staircase, the simple wooden landing stretching out a dozen feet before melting into lush green grass and budding clover. There were no interior walls on this floor, only the occasional column supporting a high ceiling above a rolling, living landscape. Sunlight poured in through broad windows on either side, casting a golden glow over moss-carpeted cabinets and desks draped with ivy. A narrow path of floorboards cut through the green, coming to an end near the edge of a broad pond, the waters of which bounced the sunlight up to the ceiling in rippling, ethereal waves. The pond stretched across most of the floor, both wider and deeper than it should have been given the dimensions of the house; the laws of physics were more flexible in the hands of the sort of craftsmen Jackaby contracted for his remodeling. There was something mildly unsettling and yet profoundly comforting about the slight lack of reality in this space.

The wildflowers had begun to blossom, and the air was rich with a blend of sweet perfumes, but there was something else in the atmosphere that I couldn't quite identify. As I stepped along the walkway, a cold chill swept through my dress and I shivered. Something was wrong. Even during the coldest days of winter, the third floor acted as its own greenhouse, keeping the peaceful pond and sweeping green field warmer than the surrounding New England streets, and yet goose bumps were creeping up my arms. I was beginning to see my own breath in wispy clouds. The quiet sound crept over the water, chilling me even more deeply than the cold. Whether male or female I could not tell at first, but a voice across the pond was weeping.

I swallowed hard and considered going back downstairs to fetch Jackaby, but I shook the thought from my head. I did not need him to hold my hand through every little thing. Stepping off the path, I wound my way around the pond. The grass was tall and wet, and it did nothing to help the shivers running over my skin as it tickled my legs. A thick veil of ivy draped from the rafters on this side of the room, and as I pushed it aside, I was met with an explosion of movement.

I flew backward, landing on my backside as a flurry of brown and green and white flapped into the air above my head. The startled drake, nestled inconspicuously in the foliage until I nearly trod on it, now soared over the rippling water and away, beating its wings in a mad dash to the opposite side of the building. I caught my breath. Douglas was the pond's foremost resident, and nothing to be afraid of. The stately waterfowl had once been human, and Jackaby's assistant, until he had been caught off guard on a creepy caper and fell victim to a curse. Jackaby had never turned his back on the stalwart fellow, so Douglas stayed on, tending the archives with remarkable aptitude for a mallard. What my fine-feathered coworker could
not
do was weep in a mournful human voice. The cries continued.

Douglas, typically so composed, had fled the scene in such panic, I was left wary of what might have put him on edge. I steeled my nerves and pulled myself to my feet, inching forward to push the curtain of leafy vines aside. Coming through the ivy was like stepping into an ice chest. The moist air condensed into a thick fog, and the bushes on this side of the pond formed a secluded, shadowy glade. It took me a moment to make out the source of the moaning cries. Veiled in the heart of the fog, in the darkest of the shadows, was Jenny Cavanaugh.

Jenny had only ever appeared to me as a spectral beauty, possessed of a mercurial laugh and effortless grace—the spirit of mirth and elegance. The morbid figure now before me was something else entirely. She sat, crouching in the shadows with her head cupped in her hands, and sobs rippled through her shoulders like steam bubbling from a pot. Her hair was draped in damp, matted strands, clinging to her slate-gray arms like algae to a wet rock. Her dress was decrepit and decayed, torn at the collar and hanging lopsided and loose around her neck.

The invasive cold thudded into my chest, and I froze. Jenny's body faded in and out of clarity with the curls and drifts of mist. Focusing on specific features began to hurt my eyes, like trying to pick out details in a poorly exposed photograph. The dirt and leaves beneath her slipped in and out of view, becoming distorted like the horizon on a hot day as the figure solidified and faded with each heaving breath. All around her the air churned and roiled, ominously volcanic in spite of the icy cold.

The breath I had not taken for several long seconds rushed suddenly into my lungs in a quavering gasp, and Jenny looked up. Her face was like a grim reflection in dark, turbulent waters. She showed no sign of recognition as she rose with shuddering fury to her full height, her expression slipping from misery to wrath. The specter's eyes, peering from beneath the angry shadows of her brow, held none of the cheer and compassion that had come to define the spirit I knew. They were lit instead with a wild, inhuman frenzy. “You shouldn't be here,” she said, her voice raw and hushed. Mist boiled around her, and, like a demon from the pit, she burst across the glade toward me.

“J-J-Jenny?” I stammered at last, my voice barely a whisper.

She was not two feet away, barreling at me like a cannon, when a flicker of familiarity blinked across her eyes. In an instant her face became a wash of pitiful confusion, and just as quickly she was simply gone. Momentum carried the wave of cold fog into me, but without its source, it was nothing more than mist. No sooner had it engulfed me than it began to dissipate, slipping into the mossy floor as it faded.

The returning warmth of the third-floor oasis was slow to chase the shivers out of my bones. I trod unsteadily back around the pond and staggered to a stop on the lush green. Douglas flapped over beside me, and we sat together quietly, looking over the pond's bank for several minutes.

“That was unexpected,” I said at last.

Douglas bobbed his head from side to side in a noncommittal sort of way.

“Has that happened before?” I asked. “I mean—does she get like that often?”

Douglas ruffled his feathers and looked up at me. His eyes glistened like beads of ebony. He was a marvelous listener, but still frustratingly avian.

I sighed. “Well, I don't like it.” As the raw terror of the experience ebbed, my insides were left with the subtler ache of seeing my friend in such torment. Jenny was always effortlessly confident and self-possessed, not at all like that frenzied ghoul. “We should talk to her,” I said.

Douglas cocked his head to one side.

“You know what I mean.
I
should talk to her. She looks as though she might need a friend just now. Come with me?”

The prim little mallard shook out his wings and flapped into a rapid launch, gliding away across the pond to the little island in the center, settling onto a plum-colored armchair in the middle of the shrubbery.

“A simple
no
would have sufficed.” I pushed myself up. I couldn't blame the cowardly duck. A vision of the phantom's eyes, ice-cold and mad with primal intensity, swelled in my mind. I swallowed hard and willed the image away. Jenny was not that feral creature. She was my friend, and—girl or ghoul—she needed me to be hers.

Chapter Eight

B
efore descending the spiral staircase, I glanced back over the field of wildflowers. “The smallest gestures can have the biggest impact,” Mother always used to say. I retrieved a porcelain vase from a cabinet on the far wall and looked for the right flowers to fill it, trying to remember which ones were Jenny's favorites. There were so many varieties, from common daisies to rare exotic blooms. Jenny could name every bulb and blossom. On quieter days, she had walked me up and down the slope, telling me what each plant was good for and its special meaning. All I could seem to remember was that a remarkable number of pretty little herbs had names that ended in
wort
.

I paused at an elegant plant. Its long stem stretched past a cluster of drooping leaves to burst at the top into a broad cone of bright white blossoms. It reminded me of Jenny, pale and pretty, but also fragile. I picked a few, arranging them in the vase. The collection looked lonely, so I added a cluster of purple, star-shaped flowers that hung in a shady corner from creeping vines.

I carried the vase down the stairs and onto the second-floor landing. My own room stood open to the left, still cluttered with the excess bric-a-brac from the days when it served as Jackaby's storage closet. Across the hall lay Jenny's bedroom. I hastened to her closed door and knocked lightly.

“Jenny?” I called. “Jenny, it's me, Abigail. Are you in there?” There came no response. Timidly I tried the handle, and the door opened a crack. “Jenny? I brought you some flowers—I just wanted to . . .”

The door swung suddenly inward, and I had to catch myself from dropping the vase. Jenny stood in the doorway, her hair sweeping along her soft cheekbones in elegant silvery curls. Her dress was pristine, and her expression bright and sweet, without a trace of distress. “Abigail, are those for me? You're an absolute sweetheart!”

“I . . . I just . . .” I blinked and started again. “Are you . . . all right?”

“Of course, dear. I'm always all right.”

I stood in the hallway feeling thoroughly discombobulated and increasingly awkward. “I just . . . I thought you might like . . . these,” I said, “for your bedside table.”

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?”

I felt my cheeks flush, which made Jenny smile impishly. “Charlie is hardly
my
anything,” I said. “But yes, he'll be involved. Not that there are enough flowers in the world to make that romance a reality.”

“You don't need flowers, dear. You need confidence. Next time you see him, you should just go right up to him and plant a kiss on that boy's pretty face.”

“Jenny!”

“Fortune favors the bold, Abigail!”

“Sure it does. The last time I was bold, I nearly got the man killed, and then he changed his name and moved a hundred miles away. That's not exactly a strong start to a relationship.”

“You silly girl. Of course it is—he risked his life for you!”

“Oh, never mind about it, anyway. I'm not going to the valley looking for romance—there are more important matters at stake. I'm looking for a murderer.”

“You should definitely have kissed him right after the big fight.” Jenny smiled, willfully ignoring my protests. She let her gaze drift to the window. “My fiancé got in a fight over me, once. He lost terribly, the poor man—he never was much of a pugilist. He looked like an absolute mess afterward, with gauze wadded up in each nostril and one eye all swollen, but it was still just the sweetest thing. And the stupidest. I told him as much . . . right before
I kissed him.
” She turned her eyes meaningfully back to me. “Because
that's what you do.
”

“What was he like?” I asked. “Your fiancé. You never talk about him.”

Jenny's brow furrowed for a moment, and her eyes looked very far away—but then she rallied, giving me a sly grin and shaking her finger. “Oh no you don't, Abigail. We were talking about you.”

“There's nothing to talk about! I'm going on an assignment. Dirt. Bones. Corpses. Villains. I doubt very much Charlie is thinking of anything else, either. If he had wanted a kiss when we last said good-bye, then I might have been happy to surrender it. Now he's . . . and I'm . . . It's complicated.” I was getting flustered, and I could feel my cheeks burning red. I wished we could talk about anything else.

“It couldn't hurt to try. You can't live your life without taking any chances.”

“Well, that's easy for you to say. It may not matter to you, but I still have a life to ruin, you know.”

Jenny was quiet. The brightness drained from her eyes, and I knew at once I had crossed a line.

“Jenny, I didn't . . . ,” I said, but the spectral lady was already fading. In a moment she had vanished. “I'm sorry,” I said to her empty room.