A Summoning of Souls. Leanna Renee Hieber

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ