Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Louisa walked into the apothecary carrying an overlarge brocade carpetbag on one arm and a long roll of parchment under the other. She plopped everything at her feet and immediately took Agnes into her arms. Now that her friend was here, Agnes realized how much she needed her help, and her comfort.
“Something about you has changed,” Louisa whispered. It was not a question. Just a statement that required no response. Louisa peered into Agnes's eyes seeing past their reflection.
Louisa continued to hold her, as if her embrace was keeping Agnes from fading away.
The agitation drained from Agnes’s body.
She was still furious and wrecked over Harry’s selfishness, but the pain had become less agonizing in the days since their fight.
That, along with her frustration over the spirit’s silence, made it impossible to make peace with the entity.
She wondered if her anger was keeping him away.
But Louisa didn’t interrogate her. That was not why she was here. Louisa released her. “Everything will be all right. Come. Lead me to his bedchamber. We will begin there.”
Agnes picked up the carpetbag that Louisa had dropped on the floor and followed her friend down the stairs. Louisa was the one who led her, ambling through the hall summoned by a voice that Agnes could not hear.
Outside Richard’s door, Louisa stopped and turned to Agnes. Her ice-blue eyes glowed in the moonlight, wide with concern. “There’s a lot of energy here, Agnes. You must be careful.”
Energy was good, was it not? A promising hint that they could make contact with Richard’s spirit again. However, when Louisa pulled Agnes into the room, it felt dead. Silent and still, just like it had been for the past weeks. She couldn’t feel the energy Louisa was talking about.
Louisa rummaged through her carpetbag and pulled out a handful of taper candles and a pile of candlesticks. She darted around the room lighting candles on any flat surface she could find. Soon, multiple flames flickered on Richard’s desk, his nightstand, even the edge of the bed.
“Careful, Louisa. We can’t burn the place down. Charles will have our necks.”
“I’d burn him down too,” she muttered, so hushed that Agnes almost didn’t hear it.
Louisa stepped into the warm glow of the candlelight.
With her light blonde, almost silver hair, she evoked the ethereal appearance of the spirits she called.
A faint bruise, partially disguised by the shadows cast upon her face, darkened her cheekbone.
While she confronted other people’s ghosts, Louisa faced her own demons.
And she did it alone, never accepting help.
“Nora didn’t come with you?” Agnes had expected them both.
“No, she disturbs things.” Louisa finished lighting the candles as she spoke.
“Are you upset with her?”
“No, it’s not like that.” She pulled more supplies from her bag. “Spirits prefer to make contact when the energy in a room is balanced. Nora’s energy is too strong, even compared to mine.”
Agnes nodded with understanding. Edith had once spoke of Nora’s extraordinary potential. She was capable of making more than chocolates, but she chose not to.
Without comment, Louisa began dragging a table from the side of the room, and Agnes rushed over to help.
Louisa unrolled her parchment on the table.
Beside it, she placed a cone that Agnes didn’t recognize and a heart-shaped wooden planchette.
Through the hole, she put a pencil so that the tip rested on the parchment.
“Let’s pull up some chairs and we will merely sit and converse. Let the spirit join us instead of pushing too hard.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Agnes avoided all conversation relevant to Harry, although he was at the forefront of her mind.
If she approached the topic, the dam would break and she would be in no state to commune with the spirits.
Instead, Agnes pulled one of Richard’s journals from his desk and read his poetry aloud.
A breeze rustled the corner of the parchment that lay between them.
Louisa nodded to Agnes, acknowledging that she had felt it too.
“Let’s try the planchette now.” She placed her fingertips on one side and motioned for Agnes to do the same.
“First, let’s just see if the spirit would like to communicate. ”
The women sat in silence. The table vibrated under Agnes’s elbows. The familiar buzz that had filled the room during the spirit’s last visits returned. It was slight, but growing.
“Is someone with us? We welcome you,” Louisa said. Agnes felt the planchette jerk under her fingers. She pressed lightly on the wood to keep hold.
The presence of something else in the room was undeniable. Remembering Louisa’s words of caution, Agnes scanned the room, unsure if she wanted to see something or nothing at all. Her mouth went dry and her skirts scraped against her ankles.
They looked down at the paper. Y
“Does that mean yes?” Louisa spoke politely and with confidence. The planchette circled around the letter.
“Y means yes. Thank you.” Louisa then looked at Agnes and nodded.
Agnes tried to mimic Louisa’s casual, pleasant tone. “Is this Richard?”
The planchette didn’t move. As the seconds passed, disappointment sprouted in Agnes. Louisa sighed and opened her mouth to speak.
Thud. The familiar sound caused Agnes to look over at the desk. The paperweight came to a stop on the floor. She called out again. “Richard?”
The planchette moved under her fingers again, circling the Y. Tears welled in Agnes’s eyes, her throat catching with relief. He hadn’t left her.
“Go on.” Louisa placed her hand gently on Agnes’s wrist. Her fingers were ice cold, and she noticed Louisa’s breath turning into a white mist. Agnes started to remove her shawl to wrap around her friend, but Louisa shook her head. “It happens. Don’t fret.”
Agnes placed her fingers back on the planchette. “Richard, did you really leave me this home in your will?” Again, it circled the letter Y. “Then what happened?”
The planchette slid over to the empty space on the parchment. Louisa gasped. “He’s angry,” she said. “I can feel it.”
The planchette scratched letters into the parchment.
C-H-A-R-L-E-S.
The doorknob to her chamber rotated and unlatched. Bram ran in through the crack and hopped onto the table. He hunched down in the middle of the parchment.
“Move, Bram.” Agnes tried to push him off, but he wouldn’t budge.
Louisa’s eyes widened as she looked down at the cone-shaped object she had placed on the table. “The spirit horn. Listen.”
Leaning forward, Agnes heard the familiar sound of Richard summoning Bram, a quiet snapping of his fingers.
Bram stood up and sniffed the horn, tail in the air.
By now, tears were streaming down Agnes’s cheeks.
She loved Richard, still loved him despite the mess she was in.
It hadn’t been his fault. He hadn’t meant for this to happen.
Louisa came around the table to lay her arms around Agnes’s shoulders. She pulled Agnes’s head into her chest and patted her back. Suddenly Louisa stilled. “Did you hear that?”
“Yes. Richard.”
“No. The tapping on the window.”
Agnes held her breath, listening for what Louisa heard, unsure of why her friend seemed cautious. The loud thud of the paperweight hadn’t bothered her. Why this?
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Louisa released Agnes and placed her hands back on the planchette. “Goodbye, Richard.”
“No, wait.” Agnes still had questions. She wanted to apologize for doubting him.
“Sorry, Agnes.” Louisa moved quickly around the room, blowing out the candles. The tapping on the window became louder, angrier. The air in the room was no longer just cold, but stabbing.
Louisa blew out the last candle, and the tapping stopped. There was a sudden stillness.
“What happened?”
“When Richard makes contact with you, he opens a passage for other spirits too. There’s a lot of angry souls here. One was trying to enter this realm, so we had to end the connection before it would make its way through.”
Agnes should have felt afraid, but Louisa’s words only brought her relief. Maybe Richard’s spirit hadn’t left her. Maybe he was protecting her, hiding when it wasn’t safe, and hopefully, he would return to help her again.
Harry was queasy—sick to his stomach, tormented by insomnia and heartbreak.
Harry had sent a runner boy to the offices this morning instructing Parker to reschedule his meetings.
He couldn’t do anything but wallow, wallow and look at his moths under the pretense of productivity.
But his mind was incapable of grasping any worthwhile thoughts.
In the dim room, Harry slumped over his desk. He stared at his specimens, trying to feel anything besides the suffocating gloom. The moths had not eclosed from their cocoons. How fitting. The creatures he’d expected to transform and enter their next stage of life hadn’t survived the process.
A cry escaped his throat, and he slammed his fists on the table.
It didn’t matter that Agnes had run away if she couldn’t see that their connection had changed him.
He was a different man than he had been when he met her.
He had finally come to believe that Harold Evans was worthy of someone like her.
Agnes had spoken the words he always wanted to hear—You are enough—but then she accused him of thinking only of himself.
There was a knock on the door. It was probably the housekeeper arriving to clean the room and prepare him a daily meal, as she had done the past five years.
“Coming.” Instead of Mrs. Abbot, it was his father. “Papa. What are you doing here?”
“You think I don’t have ears and eyes on my sons at all times?
A father’s work is never done. Parker told Bert, who told me.
You haven’t been to work in three days. You’re either on your deathbed or kidnapped, but now that I’m here, I can see that it’s neither.
So tell me what’s going on. Is it something with the widow? ”