A Summoning of Souls Read online

  “Again…” Eve muttered. Another sleepwalking episode, another layer of distrust to add to her roster of recent mishaps.

  “Your precinct colleagues are still resting and relaxing at my home as you left them,” Gran continued, letting Eve step up the train car steps ahead of her. “We’ll go there first. You will prepare them for tonight’s lesson, which should be done at your collective home, to maximize the protective impact.”

  “Yes, Gran, thank you.” Eve accepted her help to the compartment and sunk onto a cushioned bench. Gran slid the wooden doors with etched-glass flourishes closed and took a seat opposite.

  Gran had the gentlest, most sensible way of explaining the next course of action. Eve might be the leader of the recently founded Ghost Precinct, but when Gran decided to give orders, Eve knew better than to disobey. Even if Gran might not have been granted the ability to see and hear spirits in the same constant, consistent way Eve was, her instincts were preternatural, her resources vast, and her experience lifelong.

  As the train began rolling south, Eve stared out the curtained window and closed her eyes, the flash of bright sun through trees making her dizzy. Clara was right; it was prime light for a migraine if she wasn’t careful.

  She wished more than anything that when she got back, Jacob Horowitz would be awaiting her in Gran’s parlor. Just seeing his handsome face, all striking angles until he offered a radiant smile, put her at ease. He was such a comfort. Her mind and heart reached out for him.

  “Would you like me to call for the detective, then, your sweetheart?” Gran asked casually.

  Eve’s eyes shot open to behold Gran staring at her with maternal warmth. That was the trouble with being close to talented psychics: keeping secrets was difficult.

  “Good God, was my mind really that loud about it?”

  “Yes, sorry, I thought you’d actually spoken it.” Gran laughed. “I didn’t mean to be presumptuous—”

  “Actually then, yes.” Eve sighed. “When we return, once I’ve spoken to the girls, I should invite him for the lesson. He should know I sleepwalked again. I will need all my close associates to help me be responsible for my own whereabouts. How embarrassing.”

  “May I ask a question that I believe will affect your protections?”

  “Yes…”

  “Is he still courting you as a ruse to keep your and his parents from arranging unwanted marriages? Or have you indeed stopped fooling yourself that you don’t care for him?” Gran asked. Eve sat back against the cushion of the carriage, frowning. “Again,” Gran continued, “I don’t mean to be presumptuous. What you say will remain confidential between us. But if your heart is tied to his, it may be used against you. We need to be aware of any vulnerability that may be exploited.”

  Eve blinked. Her breath caught in her throat. “He…would be used against me?”

  “Much as I was used against you,” Gran said gravely, referencing the abduction at the beginning of this whole, entwined, and complicated case. “I don’t want to worry you, but I can’t ignore my instincts. He needs to look out for himself as much as for you.”

  Eve sighed. It was almost too much to bear. When she and Gran had first dreamed up the Ghost Precinct, back when a seemingly unrelated sequence of details that several ghosts were fixated on—clothes, appointments, ledgers, property—ended up leading to the resolution of two unsolved murder cases, the spirit world had made their usefulness clear. All she had to do was listen, the spirits said, and their worlds would better balance the scales of justice.

  That she and her loved ones could become embroiled in danger, the target of violence and deception, hadn’t occurred to her. The awesome weight of responsibility fell heavy on shoulders that were too young to feel so weary.

  She let the beauty of the surroundings comfort her, giving the great city ahead some of her worry, letting New York fritter her anxiety away in the course of its waking, bustling pace.

  As they wound further south along the picturesque bend of the Hudson River, the distance between towns closed and the density grew until church spires and beaux arts rafters multiplied and coalesced in a blur of stories and ever-climbing structures testing the limits of architectural technology.

  The city had changed so much in her nineteen years that she could hardly keep up. New buildings were springing up all along the distance between Sleepy Hollow and the northern reaches of what was now New York City, the five-borough consolidation having gone into effect the previous year. Trees were giving way to taller stories, new Bronx housing developments in brick and sandstone, fitted with exterior grandeur even if their interiors were less so.

  And yet, undeveloped swaths lay between, New York ever a patchwork quilt of people, economies, architecture, disparate styles and languages, visible between shop signs, audible in shouts of delivery and connection, the world coming together in one city—not to melt away but to add another layer. New York was a never-static geographic, geomorphic wonder. Eve wondered how the spirits managed to sort it all out and not go mad from the pace of change as they remained distinct products of their ages.

  There they all were: ghosts floating along in their greyscale glory, all in various states of intensity, some in sharp focus, others blurry, deepening the sense of time and change as their appearance and fashion were as varied as the personal stories Eve could only guess at. The dead wafted along their spectral paths, tethered to the living or to a place they loved, or to something still left undone, each with a different movement and motivation.

  Between patches of buildings and population lay the incredible Hudson River Valley beyond: the backdrop of great scope and captivating heart, a magical place that made Washington Irving invent worlds here. But none of Irving’s fanciful Knickerbocker notions or historical revisionism was a lie when it came to the beauty of the winding river or New Jersey’s dramatic cliffs. Nature’s grander scale offered Eve necessary perspective; her enemy was one small man who wanted to make himself far bigger. The whole world, and its spectral echo, was open for her to counter him.

  Encouragingly, ghosts turned as she passed, nodding their heads. She’d set to rest many of late. Her service to spirits that had been silenced and desecrated had earned her a deal of respect in the realm that had once made her feel henpecked and assaulted. Becoming their champion had saved many souls. Finding purpose in this mission had saved Eve from being broken by youthful melancholy during spectral onslaught.

  Elevated rail lines screeched overhead, and the clatter of carriages merging into a widening lane provided a cacophony that had been so absent in the forest glade. The city was pressing, a symphonic assault on all senses, and Eve didn’t blame Mrs. Bishop for moving away from it as her own Sensitivities changed.

  After alighting at the raucous Grand Central Depot and returning via carriage with Gran to her grand Fifth Avenue townhouse, by the light of richly colored Tiffany stained glass, Eve hung her coat in the entrance hall and spoke quietly. “Let me take a moment to collect myself before I speak with the team. I’m afraid they won’t trust me after this, not after a second time,” she said ruefully. “A leader can’t be so unreliable and unpredictable as this.…” She turned toward the stairs.

  “Take your time. They’ll still trust you. No one is perfect. And…”—Gran came close and cupped Eve by the neck, looking into her eyes—“perhaps I didn’t do you any favors as you grew up, telling you that you were the most talented medium I’d ever known. Perhaps I gave you an unrealistic expectation of yourself. The level of your gifts doesn’t mean you’re infallible. Certainly not invincible.”

  Eve nodded, but the sentiment didn’t make her feel better or more confident.

  She turned at the top of the carpeted stairs and down the wood-paneled hall to a boudoir at the end of the upstairs hall designated hers when she was a child: decorated in a calming green spectrum of emerald brocades, ornate, floral, flocked wallpaper, and mint
damask.

  Glancing at the vanity mirror, she noted the grass stains on her dress from her stumbles by the archway. Feeling like a scattered mess didn’t mean she needed to look the part.

  Standing vigil in the corner of the mahogany wardrobe were a few staples Gran kept fresh for her, and she changed into a simple charcoal-grey linen walking dress with black ribbon trim, pausing to sit at the vanity table and adjust her thick black locks. Her generally sickly looking complexion had taken on more color these days since knowing Detective Horowitz. Just being near him brought out a rosy blush, but these fresh events shook her pallid once more.

  Dashing the faintest hint of rosewater behind her ears and over her wrists, she chided herself not to fuss further. She had to prepare her team for tonight’s instruction no matter her shaken confidence.

  Returning to the wood-paneled hall whose upper wall was filled with art purchased from Metropolitan Museum shows, she was glad her grandfather was out yesterday evening at one of his innumerable soirees, all the better so he wasn’t there to witness Prenze’s unsettling visit. Grandpa Stewart had gone in the morning to his Met office, entirely missing the troubling events coming and going. He didn’t worry for her like her mother did, but neither needed any fodder.

  Crossing the upstairs hall, Eve found their youngest member Jenny at the other end, tucked into a small bed, recovering from illness brought on by psychic backlash from Albert Prenze, his energy and presence a contagion for the nine-year-old orphan. A cold compress lay on her forehead, a bowl of soup cupped in her small hands. A tray of china and a silver tureen indicated the girls had been taking care and dining in these rooms since last evening.

  This small, sickly girl in a large fancy room reminded Eve of the moment Jenny arrived on Eve’s doorstep a year prior, dead parents floating just behind the sudden orphan’s shaking form. The ghosts asked Eve if she could take in their daughter “gifted with the Sight” whose cheeks were stained with tears. Eve did.

  Feeling any better? Eve asked Jenny in American Sign Language.

  A little, Jenny signed back and returned to her soup.

  When Jenny lost her parents, Selective Mutism crept in to steal her voice. She could whisper on occasion if she worked hard to overcome the panic, but considering Eve’s mother, Natalie, once suffered from the same condition also related to a childhood trauma, Natalie had raised Eve with sign as a second language and tutored Jenny until she was proficient as well. No one pressured the child to try to speak unless she wanted to, and the ghosts that involved themselves with the precinct interacted with her just the same. She would speak when she would and when she could. Everything in due time.

  Jenny lay on one side of an adjoining suite with open pocket doors, Antonia and Cora having shared the other side during the night. Everyone must have slept fitfully as both women were now napping, one on a divan and the other on a settee. Eve looked at her team, and her heart swelled that she should be so fortunate to have such gifted mediums as these as colleagues.

  Cora Dupris, leaning her kerchiefed head back on a velvet-covered divan, was the first member of the Ghost Precinct to find Eve, after a vision told her to leave her Creole family behind in New Orleans and join Eve in New York. Two years younger than Eve, Cora was focused, steeled, impressively mature, and kept Eve on her toes. Her psychometric powers of touching an object and seeing its past had grown exponentially, and the talent was critical in their cases. At the moment, Cora rested with her gloves on, a trick to keep her powers dormant when they weren’t being used. All of them had been overtaxed of late.

  Across the room, Antonia Morelli’s tall, lithe form was draped over a settee with more grace than Eve could ever manage, her long, dark hair unpinned and hanging in a braid down her side. She, too, had come to Eve’s doorstep, with her own circumstances in tow, having fled a family that could not accept her for who she truly was; a woman. As gifted a Sensitive as the rest of them, ghosts that were looking after Antonia’s well-being suggested she seek out Eve in hopes of employment. The moment Eve greeted that feminine soul at the door, Antonia admitted that spirits guided her there. She proved herself in an immediate séance, seamlessly becoming part of their team. She was their resident scholar, always researching the latest trends in divination.

  Their living precinct thereafter was fully formed. Gran remained the core asset that had suggested the entire Ghost Precinct idea to begin with, making the constant, incessant chatter of the dead into something useful. The shift had made a certain lasting peace with the spirit world as one of the primary yearnings of a ghost was to be seen and heard.

  Little Zofia wafted into the room and floated beside Eve. “It happened again, didn’t it?” the child asked. “Wandering off?” The child had an uncanny read on all of them.

  “Yes,” Eve said. “It’s very worrying.”

  “You’re not the only one.” Zofia floated up to look Eve directly in the eye, her transparent form wavering slightly as a breeze from one open window at the end of the hall rustled the lace curtain behind her. “I couldn’t find Maggie so I floated to where she’d gone before she disappeared.”

  “The Prenze mansion?”

  “Yes. There are ghosts trapped on the ground floor. In the basement.”

  “Why did she return?” Eve asked, worried. “Did she know there were trapped ghosts?”

  “No, that’s new to us. She stopped me from going in to help.”

  “Good. Whatever Prenze is doing there is dangerous to ghosts.”

  Zofia looked down at the luxurious floral carpeting. “You know how I am, if I see someone who needs help… If I see someone who needs to get out… Eve, they can’t get out, you know…” The child trailed off.

  “I know you’d do anything, I know, my little hero,” Eve said, reaching out to the cold air. “I don’t know how you do it, face your trauma so bravely.”

  The ghost shrugged. “You choose not to think about the things you fear in order to do the things you must. I have to pretend a fire isn’t a fire, even if I rush into them to help other children. Even though I know the blaze can’t hurt me anymore, every time, I have to pretend the flames are instead feathers.”

  Eve put a hand to her mouth, eyes watering at this. “You are an inspiration, my dear.”

  Zofia smiled broadly, her greyscale cheeks dimpling, and Eve wished for a yearning moment she could have known the happy glow that must have brightened her once olive-toned skin. The thought that this girl could have ever been in the agony of death gutted Eve every time she thought about it.

  As if intuiting her melancholy, Zofia patted her hand, which translated to little puffs of cold air. “Remember, I was lost to the smoke before anything took my body,” she offered. “It’s as if you sense pain and suffering, even if there wasn’t any. I see it on your face every time. Don’t let your empathy get away with you.”

  “My wise little hero.”

  Zofia smiled again before lifting a finger in the air. “Oh, I forgot! Maggie got an idea while she was looking at the cellar and wanted me to tell you not to worry if she’s gone awhile, experimenting.”

  Eve raised an eyebrow. “Experimenting?”

  “She wouldn’t say on what.”

  “Probably because I’d tell her no,” Eve muttered. “She never did commit to our procedures, especially not Preventative Protocol. I’ve had to give up on it. I like the idea of stopping things before they begin, but it creates quite the moral quandary.”

  “Maggie lets the mystery of spirit guide her,” Zofia said, sounding so much older than her years, but then again, she was older than she appeared. “We can’t always follow the rules of the living. Sometimes we must follow the wind.”

  And with that, the spirit vanished and Eve immediately wanted her back, to feel her, see her, try to take her hand. Privately, Eve hoped if she spent enough time with spirits she loved, perhaps she could easily step into their p
lane and give them a hug now and again. She’d keep trying.

  Having gotten out of bed, Jenny put her soup on the cart stocked with provisions. Prepared for any eventuality, Gran kept her guest rooms filled with anything anyone would need, as if manning a grandly appointed fort during times of siege.

  I bet Maggie’s trying to find a different way in, Jenny signed, returning to the bed as Eve went to her side to tuck her back in. Putting a hand to her forehead, Eve noticed Jenny was warm but not dangerously so.

  Eve nodded. I hope she does it safely, she replied in sign. While Jenny could hear just fine, Eve liked to keep up the practice of signing.

  I was trying to read Prenze’s aura when he came in to call on Gran, Jenny explained. Everything was sickly grey. It wasn’t Dr. Font’s fault. His spirit didn’t make me sick when he appeared. He’s nice. When Albert showed back up alive, Font feared he’d accidentally covered up a murder.

  The doctor who had signed off on Albert Prenze’s death certificate had visited Jenny in words and visions. Dr. Font’s mysterious death in the Dakota building was a case Detective Horowitz had been working, and it seemed the doctor had gotten wrapped up in the darker side of the Prenze practice. Whatever Alfred Prenze had proudly built in restorative tonics, his twin brother Albert Prenze was now steeped in dark edges and cult dealings.

  “We must call a séance for Font in the office,” Eve said. “Until New York allows ghosts on the witness stand, he needs to give us something tactile.”

  As Eve was speaking quietly, she heard the rustling of fabric to the side of the room.

  “Apologies for the late morning,” Antonia said, her voice breathy and gentle. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn. “We all slept terribly. And if I’m not mistaken, so did you. I thought I heard pacing out in the hall.”

  “Yes.” Eve gulped. “I didn’t have a good night or morning either.”