The Spectral City. Leanna Renee Hieber

and many places to sit, she would conduct the necessary séance to continue the search for Maggie.

      At sixteen years old, the ghosts had been at their zenith, pressing upon Eve all the time, in constant agitation. It had nearly torn the whole family apart, not to mention wrecked a good number of fine furnishings and objects. It wasn’t because the ghosts plaguing Eve were poltergeists, but often ghosts would startle any number of family members, and teacups in the hand, fine bone china, and any nearby objects easily unsettled were none the safer for a cavalcade of spiritual interruption.

      It was Grandmother Evelyn who’d suggested that since the Denburys had bought the adjoining townhouse as an investment on Jonathon’s instinct, the instinct had actually been preservation of family rather than a real-estate venture. Eve moved into the empty home next door, and the ghosts followed. Within the month, both buildings were more peaceful for the separation and Eve grew accustomed to living alone while never being left alone.

      Ghosts loved Eve. There was something about her soul, her energy, her presence, that drew them to her. While she could always talk to Gran about it, thankfully being a Sensitive and a part-time medium herself, even Gran was baffled by how many spirits kept Eve company. It was Gran’s questions about the spirits that had set the course of her life and made something meaningful out of what could have felt like a curse.

      “What on earth do they all want to talk about?” Gran asked once, just after her sixteenth birthday, when a horde of spirits had swooped in and blown out the candles on her cake.

      Eve shrugged. “Gossip! I told them to go find some high-society medium instead.”

      “Well, your father is a titled Lord—”

      “I mean a high-society girl who cares. I couldn’t care less about the petty goings on of others. What point is there? Heaven forbid I haunt the earth to gossip. They go on and on. About particulars. Details. Clothing, comings and goings. Shouldn’t they be trying to sort out their greatest mortal failure and make peace? If I were a detective, I’d write down all these details, as someone might find them useful at some point.”

      Gran just stared at her, thunderstruck. “Maybe you should.”

      Eve had blinked at her. “What?”

      “Become a . . . sort of detective.” Gran’s compelling gaze twinkled—a sure sign she was in possession of a particularly good idea. “If the restless dead won’t leave you alone, then why not give the busybodies something to do?”

      At this, Eve had snorted. But the idea stuck.

      Within the next years she was asking relevant people in the Spiritualist movement important questions, questions that, thanks to Ambassador Bishop, even caught the ear of the newly elected Governor Roosevelt, and her precinct was born. With stipulations, of course, as her operatives were ‘just young women’ and her department a collection of spirits. For some people in the world, Eve had learned with frustration, there were always qualifiers. Sometimes one could rise above them, but her and her ‘girls’ would have to work twice as hard for the same amount of respect.

      The Precinct mediums and ghosts, every living or dead soul who had sought her out, enjoyed their work. They did seem to know they were a part of something important, working for a greater good. The spirits that bound themselves to the Precinct, serving the city from beyond the veil, clearly shared in a passion for justice that helped ease any injustices during their often too-short lives. Living and dead, Eve’s girls were full of purpose and dogged determination. They knew they were unique and whatever progress they made would break barriers, leaving room for who might come next. Eve hoped future generations of young women would have it a bit easier and would be taken more seriously in roles of leadership.

      Now Eve lived in-house with her three mediums. They had been working together on various cases and clues for nearly a year now, though the Precinct itself was only officially a few months old. The ghosts who had chosen to support the mediums called Eve’s side of “Fort Denbury” their best haunt. The whole lot of them were generally unflappable souls. But in the past year of work, Eve had never seen a ghost as upset as Zofia was while reporting on Margaret’s disappearance. It went beyond a ghost’s inherent interior melancholy. Zofia was despondent. Sad ghosts carried a melancholy with them like a weight in the air. This was like a millstone.

      Just as Eve was about to send out a psychic siren, a call for her mediums to come back home for a meeting, cutting what had been their night off short, there was a knock at the door. Eve knew who it was immediately. Gran didn’t like the doorbell, stating that it was ‘far too jarring’ and why couldn’t she have a door knocker like the rest of civilized society for the past centuries?

      Letting her Grandmother in, still in the same fine gown from the evening’s festivities, Eve left her in the parlor and went to stoke coals under the back stove to brew a pot of tea.

      When Eve returned, Gran asked, “I assume you’ll call back your operatives?”

      Eve nodded. “Because of the event tonight, I had told them to go out and have a nice dinner somewhere. I couldn’t have predicted we’d have a crisis on our hands.”

      Zofia burst through the parlor wall, her phantom hands wringing the edges of her pinafore apron. “I want Maggie back now.”

      “Indeed, Zofia, indeed. We’ll do everything we can,” Eve assured the ghost.

      “I’d like to go freshen up before I sit down to a séance,” Gran said. “Did you get the plumbing fixed in the upstairs water closet?”

      “I did, thankfully.”

      “Good.” Gran turned and held onto the rail tightly as she climbed the stairs to Eve’s floor, moving with deliberate steps. Gran was getting older, and it took a maturing Eve to see that, noticing the barely perceptible change in pace, every movement taking a hair’s breadth more time as the years went on.

      A sense of guilt washed over Eve in a cool inundation. She should be letting this woman rest.

      Turning at the landing, Gran looked down at her. “Well? While you’re waiting for your girls, we could be brainstorming. While I wash my face and put some peppermint oils behind my ears to perk myself up, come and talk to me.”

      Gran was so very wise but didn’t know the first thing about the fine art of rest. Eve had learned every habit from this indomitable woman, who immediately picked up on her granddaughter’s hesitation. “What is it, my dear? You have a look about you.”

      “I worry I’m taxing you too much,” Eve replied sheepishly as she ascended after her to the second floor. Gran entered Eve’s boudoir and sat down at her rosewood vanity inlaid with pearl and floral marquetry, the fanciest item of furniture she’d allowed Gran to procure for her. Eve followed behind, sitting on a nearby settee whose burgundy brocade matched the vanity stool. “Mother and Father are one thing, but you . . . You’ve earned rest and then some. I think the spirits sense that too, perhaps wanting to spare you—”

      Gran swiveled the chair to stare Eve down, a dainty bottle of scented oil that she herself had gifted Eve clutched in her hand. She withdrew the delicate blown glass stopper to dab a drop of lavender mint oil onto her finger. “I’ve nearly died many times,” Gran began, rubbing a finger behind one ear, then the next, breathing in deeply and squaring her shoulders. “I’ve been haunted by the dead as long as you, them coming to me in childhood and never leaving me alone. If I were to truly stop, the silence would be maddening. I wouldn’t be able to think, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

      Gran continued with the routine of the oil, pressing a dab of it on pressure points about her face, continuing in an ardent tone. “I’ve made mistakes in life. I’ve been selfish, short-sighted. If the spirits stop murmuring I’m left only with guilt.” She stared at herself in the mirror, and Eve sensed Gran feeling her age even if she didn’t look it.

      “We all make mistakes,” Eve said to Gran’s reflection, seeing herself in part profile in the mirror. “You can’t keep taking on Maggie’s as your own. It won’t help her peace or yours.”