She wanted the money first, then. “How much is it?” I asked as I reached into my satchel for some coin.
“As I said, I’m done in for the day, miss.”
“You only just opened your door,” I reminded her. “Why won’t you see for me?” Something occurred to me. “Do you know a witch named Gert?”
She flicked her eyes over me, as if she were afraid to look at me too long. “No. And I never seen the likes of you.” She made a funny gesture and whispered, “Hope never to see again.”
“Spells are nonsense,” I informed her, in the event she was about to cast one. “Might as well save your breath.”
She gave me a frightened look and the next thing she said came out in a hill country accent. “Ev doan nowhat to ye, elshy. Lave oof m’now.”
Something buzzed in my ears. “
She didn’t utter another word but spun and ran back into a storeroom, slamming the door and locking it behind her.
I dropped my coin tuck back in my reticule and resisted the urge to give it a swing and smash a few candleglasses. That was when I noticed the dozens of smoke wisps rising around me, and how dark it had become inside the shop.
Something had blown out the teller’s candles. All of them.
At home I ran a bath, but while I was undressing something snapped and slithered down between my breasts. I didn’t realize it was my pendant until I pulled it out of my bodice and stared at the broken links.
“Damn me.” The chain was older than me, and thanks to my tussle with Dredmore in the carriage it had finally snapped. I left the pendant on my vanity and went to the little cashsafe I kept behind a painting of New Yorkshire. I had another chain I’d taken in lieu of payment from a silversmith with a fireplace he thought haunted but that I’d found occupied by a nesting owl.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I whirled around to see a strange old man standing in my bedchamber. “Who are you?” I yanked up my bodice to cover my chest and glanced at the door and the windows, all of which were still closed. “How did you get in here?”
He held up hands that looked too long and narrow for his short, thin frame. “I’m not going to hurt you, lass. In fact, if you’ll give a moment to explain, I may be of some considerable assistance to you.”
“Stuff that.” I grabbed a prodder from the hearth and brandished it. Wrecker had once shown me the best spots to cripple a man and I remembered all of them. “Get out of here or I’ll cosh in your skull.”
He shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“I’m not jesting with you, old man.” Was he a burglar or a rapist? “I don’t know what you want, but I’ve nothing worth nicking.”
“You’ve everything I gave you, Charm, as well as a few things I didn’t.” He began wandering around the room, touching things that were not his. “Don’t the maids ever dust in here?”
“I don’t have maids. What the devil are you doing? Don’t touch that.” I went after him as he peered at my pendant. When I tried to grab him, my hand passed straight through him, as if he wasn’t even there. My fingers came away stiff with cold, as if I’d held my hand to a block of ice.
“Bloody hell.” He was a ghost, and he was talking to me. “Who are you?”
“I’m free, love. After twenty years of waiting and watching.” He drew back from my vanity. “Though I imagine your da is spinning like a top in his grave. He never did like me, you know. And your mother . . .” He gave a shudder that made his form shimmer.
He was a ghost
“That, my gel, is a very long story.” He eyed the window. “I’d leave you in peace, but it’s still daylight. My sort can only go about freely after dark.”
“Well, you are not staying here all day,” I told him.
“I’m not inclined to. You’ve a green stone in your left pocket,” he told me. “Give it to me.”
Here was a chance to find out more about the real nature of ghosts versus the nonsense the magic trade always spouted about them. I took out the pebble and tossed it to him. Instead of passing through him as my hand had, it landed in his open palm. He closed his fingers over it and frowned.
“Nasty bit of spell put on this.” He made a fist, relaxed it, and bits of green gravel fell to the floor. “Whoever gave this to you wants you dead, Charm.”
“It’s not mine.” The magical nickname made me glower. “And I’m called Kit.”
His white hair ruffled as he shook his head. “Your name is Charmian Constance. Your mother called you that after your grandmother.”
“You have the wrong Charmian,” I told him through my teeth.
“Your father’s name was Christopher Kittredge, wasn’t it? Your mother would have taken his name. She could never use mine.” His expression turned thoughtful. “I’m not certain she even knew it.”
My jaw dropped. “You were married to my mother?”
“No, I was her father. I’m your grandfather, Charm.” He sketched a bow. “Harry White, at your service.”
Talking to this mirage was giving me a headache. “Go haunt someone else, Harry White.”
“The daylight problem, as I mentioned, prevents my departure.” He started toward me. “Then there’s the fact that you’re in grave danger. Dark forces are gathering.”
It was almost exactly what Dredmore had said. “What dark forces?”
He gestured at the vanity. “You’ll need to wear that at all times, my dear.”
Is that what he was after? My pendant? I went over and picked it up. “I do already,” I said, turning around to face him. “Now what—”
I discovered I was talking to myself, as it seemed that Harry White had done the same as every ghost I’d ever encountered: vanished without a word.
Chapter Five
Being the only female tenant in my office building had some advantages, like the use of a lavatory I had to share only with the occasional female client (rare) and my own chutes for rubbish, post, and meal drops (none of the other tenants wanted the contents of their tubes mixed in with a woman’s). The only significant drawback to being the sole woman on the premises was my lack of staff; I had to deal with anyone and everyone who came to call—even some of the other tenants who wandered past my door.
Tonight it was Horace Eduwin Gremley the Fourth, a clerk from the second-floor title office. Horace the Second, a semirespectable land broker, had arranged the job for his grandson when Horace the Third had deserted his wife and son for the lure of gold. I knew the lad’s father had been swept off and drowned while unwisely panning during an early thaw, so I tried to be tolerant.
“Miss Kittredge”—the lad’s grandfather had beaten some manners into the fourth bearer of his esteemed name, and he folded himself over in a generous bow—“I’d hoped to run into you before I left for home.”
“Mr. Gremley.” I gave him a tiny bob and held on to my key rather than unlock the door. “How may I be of assistance?”
His eyes skipped up and down the length of my gown. “Oh, it’s nothing so important. Simply a small matter I wished to discuss with you.”
We’d have to discuss it out in the hall, because the last thing I would ever do on this earth would be to closet myself alone in a room with Fourth. “Do go on.”
His beady eyes darted to the knob. “It is something of a delicate nature.”
Blast it, he was going to ask me out again. I glanced around him. “I don’t think anyone on the other floors will hear.”
