WILLIAM DAVEY
A young woman, no more than twenty years of age, answered the door and inclined her head.
“Good afternoon, Reverend,” she said. “May I help you, sir?”
A voice called from within the house. “Who is it, Elizabeth?”
“It’s a parson, ma’am,” she said. “Do you have a calling card, Reverend—”
But before she could complete the sentence, she turned to see a woman striding toward the door.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” she said. “Please return to your duties. I will deal with this myself.”
The young servant offered a slight curtsy and left quickly. The lady of the house did not turn her head to see the order executed, but focused on the guest at the door.
“I told you I did not have any interest in receiving you,” Eliza Esdaile said. “I cannot imagine I could be more clear.”
“You were very clear, madam,” I answered. “The situation has changed.”
“I do not care.”
“I feel that you must care. Your life is in danger,” I said quietly.
Eliza glanced back and forth; there were no neighbors in earshot. She was no longer in full mourning, but rather half-mourning. This was before the death of Prince Albert—so the matter was not as formalized as it became later in the century.
Eliza Esdaile had changed a great deal in a year; she carried an air of self-confidence and self-reliance that I had not seen when last in Sydenham.
She turned her attention back to me. Clearly, she was torn between admitting me to her house and shutting the door in my face; ultimately, perhaps, the utterance of those five words—your life is in danger—tipped the balance in favor of the former choice. She stepped back and let me enter, then closed the door behind me.
“I do not have any interest in Committee politics,” she said. “I acknowledge your kind assistance in keeping your—colleagues—from my door, but I refuse to be drawn into your world again.”
I removed my hat. “I understand. I would not wish to do so. But there is a new threat, one I cannot easily control. I need your help—and your memories.”
“You presume on my good will.”
“Yes, I most certainly do. I admit that. I fear it cannot be otherwise.”
She looked at me once more; for a moment, it seemed that she would open the door and dismiss me: but instead she turned and walked into the parlor, indicating that I should follow.
As soon as Elizabeth had brought tea and departed, Eliza fixed me with a stern gaze.
“Pray tell what has brought you back into my home, sir.”
“One of our number has reached beyond nightfall and summoned a large number of chthonic and possibly other elemental spirits. She used them to kill a prominent surgeon who was an active critic of our practices.”
I let this statement sink in for a moment, then continued: “She seems to have survived the experience, though I perceive that she has—changed.”
“Is she possessed?”
“I cannot tell. I do not think so, but she is certainly attended.”
“I do not know how this affects me.”
“First, it is clear to me that while I am largely ignorant of the world of these creatures, the woman of whom I speak is scarcely less so. She is fool enough to have done this, but intelligent enough to realize that she must know more.
“Second, she is aware—as are most in the Committee—that you are the only person who might have that knowledge, and she might undertake extreme measures to obtain it.”
“So you have come to warn me.”
“I have come to learn more about the creatures, Mrs. Esdaile.”
“Or else—”
I sighed. “There is no ‘or else.’ I am not your enemy, and I do not have any intention of threatening you. To be honest, I have no coercive power over you at all. If Ann Braid had not summoned these creatures and committed this murder, I would not have troubled you again.”
“Braid. That name seems familiar.”
“It should be, madam. The man Miss Braid killed was her father: the surgeon James Braid.”
Eliza seemed genuinely shocked by this revelation. She had been affecting an air of affront and hauteur during the conversation, but the façade was broken by the disturbing statement.
She took a moment to regain her composure, while I waited patiently.
“She killed her father with the aid of chthonic spirits.”
“So I understand. I had some interactions with them.”
“Reverend Davey,” Eliza said, folding her hands in her lap. “You are either a superb actor, or your demeanor has genuinely changed in the months since we last visited. I think, sir, that you are genuinely frightened.”
“I am willing to admit that I am.”
“And the rest of your Committee. Are they frightened, as well?”
“I suspect that they have no sense of what confronts us, madam. They do not know what I know and might not believe it even if I told them.”
“And what do you know?”
“I know that the creatures who are bound to Ann Braid have their own agenda. They are not merely interested in satisfying their hunger: they want to open the Glass Door itself. They are imprisoned and they want to be free—and they believe that there is a key to unlock that door—and they may assume that you know where that key is.
“And I think they are right.”
Eliza leaned forward and carefully poured a cup of tea, then added milk and sugar. She took the saucer in her hand, lifted the cup to her lips and drank, then set it back in place.
“Did they tell you the nature of this key?”
“No.”
“I suspect that what they desire is the very thing that has caused so much anguish—to James, to me, and to many others. The key to the Glass Door, Reverend Davey, is almost certainly the statue.”
“Of course,” I said. “It keeps coming back to that.”
“It has never been anything but that, sir.”
“Do you think that they have reached the same conclusion?”
“There is no way to know. But I fear that you are right—they will come here for answers. But I do not have the statue, and do not know where it is.”
“I need you to help me, Mrs. Esdaile. Eliza.”
“Help you find the statue for yourself? I truly have no interest, Reverend. There is nothing that they can do—that you can do—to threaten me. The worst they can do is kill me, and I have already had years of my life taken by a sort of waking death. I am not afraid.”
“I believe you. But you can help me understand the world of the spirits. This is an honest entreaty: if I am to oppose them, I must know more.”
“You want me to return to that terrible time?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot imagine why you think I would subject myself to that. You are here in my sitting room at sufferance—why should I permit you to further invade my privacy?”
“To be honest, you have permitted me in your sitting room after you told me I should not come. It is because I genuinely need your help, and refuse to force you to give it to me. It is because—whatever you think of me, and I am sure that in large part you are justified to think so—what I oppose is far, far worse.”
Eliza set her teacup back on the tray and stood; I stood as well. She walked to a rolltop desk and opened it, withdrawing a letter.
There was a framed certificate hanging on the wall reading: Mrs. James Esdaile MD—Annuitant, Bengal Military Fund. At least he had provided well for her; the house seemed well-furnished and comfortable.
“I received this in the mail last week.” She showed me the envelope, which was return addressed Rescobie, Forfarshire, Scotland. “My brother-in-law told me that you visited him. His initial reaction was similar to mine.”
“He threatened to set the dogs on me.”
“David Esdaile is a Scotsman. But he is also a kind and generous man. He asked me to come and visit—Mary wanted to meet me, and he told me that he had something of James’s to show me. I confess that I am not yet ready.”
I was fairly certain what it might be.
Eliza tucked the envelope back in the desk. “In any case,” she said, pulling the rolltop down again, “he said that he expected you to call upon me again and suggested that I might be moved to help you.”
“Yet your letter told me not to come.”
“But you came, Reverend Davey. You came despite my letter.”
“Because—”
She held up her hand: not a mesmeric gesture, but it made me stop, all the same.
“You have explained yourself. Very well: it contradicts my best judgment to allow you this intimacy, sir, but I shall permit it nonetheless.”