Chapter 15

My door open, I was sitting and reading, hoping Dickens could get my mind off everything, when Bessie came into my room. “You’ve a visitor, Natalie. Miss Horowitz.”

“Rachel!”

I tore down the stairs to see a dark-haired girl who had grown taller and even more waifish than I remembered, as if she’d become one with the spirits who spoke to her. She didn’t turn at the sound of me on the stair, but she did jump as I threw my arms around her from behind.

I sat down beside her, and she took one look at me, her lovely face drawn, dark circles under her eyes, and tears flowed down her cheeks. She fell into my arms and wept there a while.

Stroking her hair, I just let her cry, small sounds and sniffles muffled by the handkerchief she put to her mouth. After a long moment, she pulled back.

“I’m sorry,” she signed to me.

“For what?” I signed back. “For reaching out to me? Everyone else would have thought you were crazy.” I finished signing. She looked at me sheepishly. Then I grinned. Her face broke into a wide smile. “Guess what?” I signed. She raised her eyebrows in response. “I am speaking now,” I said aloud, making sure she was watching my lips. “It’s a long story, but I regained my voice. Just like you always thought I would.”

This pleased her, and she clasped my hands in hers.

“Should I sign or speak?” I signed. She shrugged. I continued to sign. “Mrs. Northe wants you to stay with her. Not your house. For safety.”

“No trouble?” Rachel signed. I shook my head. She shifted to pin me with a gaze that said she was desperate to be believed as she signed, “I promise I’m stronger than this. I will do the right thing. I’m just tired—”

“I know,” I said and squeezed her white-gloved hand. I’d worked so hard to break this girl out of her shell in school, but I couldn’t blame her now if she wanted nothing more than to retreat back into it.

Father entered with some light lunch he’d procured for us both. Living so near to the Metropolitan, we had lunch together at home if I wasn’t with him at the acquisitions board, which had yet to give me any real responsibilities. Considering my more pressing duties, that was for the best.

Father welcomed Rachel like another daughter. Then I remembered they’d all had quite an experience, communing with my mother in a séance. Without me. I shoved that sting aside.

Rachel held out a note to my father. It read: “I’m so sorry for bringing any trouble upon your house. I’ll try to make it up to you.”

My father blinked back tears. He looked at her directly so she could more easily read his lips. “You gave me a chance to talk to Helen one last time. And that gift can never be repaid.” He cleared his throat, kissed Rachel on the forehead, and walked out the door to work. Tears were in my eyes too, before I knew it.

“About that,” I said, rubbing my face. “I want to know everything that was said. I’ve been desperate to talk to Mother. I wish I could’ve been there.”

“She’s always watching over you,” Rachel signed.

Damn. There went the tears again. “Well, she could at least give me a sign of it.”

“She does. Sometimes you’re not paying attention.”

I opened my mouth to protest but then shut it. I’d have to pay attention. “I want to know everything about what’s been going on, Rachel, but let’s get you to Mrs. Northe.” I took Jonathon’s letter with me.

Mrs. Northe was as welcoming as ever, looking fresh and summery in a lavender silk dress with a white lace modesty panel. There were no undue pleasantries. It wasn’t as though we were beginning as strangers, and by the look of Rachel, haggard and weary, she couldn’t have kept up the pretense of anything other than emergency. I handed Mrs. Northe Jonathon’s letter.

“Read it, please. I don’t know the strength or membership of the Master’s Society, but it’s something to work with. My poor, brave Jonathon.”

“Mary, will you give Rachel a tour and show her to her rooms?” Mrs. Northe asked, taking the letter and reading it immediately.

Mary nodded and took Rachel by the arm. Just as I had done, Rachel looked around in amazement at the finery of the Fifth Avenue town house that was in the same city and yet a world away from the manner in which she and I lived.

Once Rachel felt safe and strong enough, we tried to find out how things had gone terribly wrong. It took a while to get the account out of her, about Preston’s darkening days and the progression of the boxes tethering spirits to objects. Or, later, parts.

“What are the parts being used for?” Mrs. Northe asked. Rachel shook her head and shrugged. She signed that she had tried to get answers out of the spirits, but all she could glean was that they were angry, that they weren’t meant to be alive anymore, that they wanted her to let them go or to put them back where they belonged. That the natural order of things was being overturned.

“Preston’s chief interest seemed to be in reversing death,” I mentioned. “Reanimation, the Majesty said.”

Rachel’s pale, hollowed face turned pleading. “Please. Not evil,” she signed. “He didn’t start evil. Laura—”

“We understand,” Mrs. Northe said. “Hardly anyone drawn to dark depths begins that way.”

I thought of Samuel, and I was scared for him. If we could get him to New York, perhaps we could all help break the allure…

“The spirits,” Rachel signed. “They don’t stop. They have so much to say, so much wrong, but it’s all jumbled. I don’t know what I’m hearing, or who. A floodgate. It’s all just a sea of pain.”

And then she sank in her chair exhausted, her head dropping. I wondered if the spirits had been allowing her any sleep. Likely not. If they had no rest, neither would she.

“Well, then.” Mrs. Northe looked at me. “We need her to untie those spirits, but she has to be able to survive trying to reach them, to have the presence of mind to separate one voice from the pack. Poor girl,” she murmured. “Those with gifts so easily become targets. That Society likes to prey upon the most vulnerable and cut to the quick those who would fight against them.” The words hit me strongly, making sense out of what might have appeared to be a random pattern.

Mrs. Northe gazed at Rachel a moment and then took her up in her arms, showing a surprising strength. “Natalie, do me a favor. Gather my skirts and hand them to me.” She shifted Rachel’s weight, a large, tall child in her arms, and held out an open hand. I gathered the doubled layers of fine silk, handed them up to Mrs. Northe, and pressed the folds into her open palm while her forearm was tucked under Rachel’s legs.

“One of these days, women will be able to wear clothing that allows them to move properly and do something productive,” she muttered.

“Oh, but it’s such a beautiful dress,” I said longingly. Mrs. Northe laughed.

“And that is what we must do in these coming days, my dove. Hold tight to the positive.”