Steampunk Jack

Chapter Nineteen

“I think you neglected to mention something, James.” Anne growled as she looked over the devastation that had been wreaked on the shelves and furniture of her little shop.

James, who had unwisely muttered “Forgot about this,” when he saw the mess, winced. “Yes… well… Your father did say something about having come here to look for the book before visiting myself. I… didn’t realize things would be quiet this bad.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“Hello?” both of them looked up as Elbert’s voice drifted back from the apartment. He soon appeared, hopping over a pile of shattered wood that used to be a shelving unit. “Oh, hello James.” He greeted sourly.

“Hello to you, too Elbert. I take it you got my letter?”

The other man nodded. “I managed to make it out of the hotel just as Uncle Richard was climbing out of a handsome cab. I reckoned it’d be safe to use Anne’s old apartment since he’d already dug around here, and I didn’t wager you’d mind. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see to any of this yet, though.” He glowered at the mess, as did James and the invisible Anne.

James sighed, throwing up his hands. “Nothing for it, but to start cleaning.” He declared. “How bad are the shelves?” He asked, even as he moved deeper into the shop, Anne a frosty presence close on his heels.

“Fortunately, not as bad as Uncle Dick likely intended.” Elbert replied. “I pulled a couple of them up, and except for this one she had in the middle of everything with no back to it, they all seem more or less unbroken.”

James winced as his feet came down on shattered glass. “But all the glassware seems quite shattered.” He observed.

“More than like.” Elbert agreed.

“Damn it, the best herbs were the ones I stored in glass.” Anne cursed. “They’re all likely ruined.”

“It’s probably not as bad as all that.” James commented. “We’ll be able to save some of the stock, I suspect.”

“Um… Sure gov…” Elbert nodded. “But, um… who are you talking to?”

“Sorry… thinking out loud.” James said with a wince.

“Right.”

After the two men managed to push the shelves back up to standing, and began putting the boxes Anne had used for economy to store most of her herbs, they began the task of picking the glass and ceramic’s out of the herbs scattered on the floor. “I take it back, most of this is gone.” James muttered, crouching down in a mixed pile of aromatic dusts that he couldn’t even begin to identify.

“It’s going to take easily two hundred pounds to replace all this stock! There’s no way I can collect it all!” Anne declared the destruction of her shop momentarily distracting her from the fact that she couldn’t collect herbs at all, any longer.

James smiled up at her. “Not a problem. If you tell me who you can buy the goods from, I’ll arrange it.”

“No, don’t bother.” Anne sighed. “It’s not as though I can run my shop any longer. It’s just… I spent my life here, and my mother before me. We’d built it from the ground up, you see…”

“So, we stock it again. I was figuring I’d arrange for a student in the nursing school to take it over as a part time clerk, and perhaps convince Elbert to spend a bit of time tending the till as well.” James commented, turning his attention back to picking out glass and ceramic. Sighing, he finally stopped. “I suppose it’s just going to be easier to use a broom.”

“Aye Jimmy, that’s what I’m thinking too.” Elbert commented from where he was putting the few glass jars that hadn’t shattered back onto their shelf.

Anne sighed and took one last look around. “All things being equal, it could have been worse. Everything we need… James! Look out!”

Her cry came as one of the recently righted shelves, more damaged then the two men had thought, began to topple once more. James looked up and saw the heavy, falling shelves and tried to jump up to catch it, but the coarse herbs under his feet caused him to slip and lose his footing.

Anne gasped, unable to do anything but watch as the tall oaken case plummeted down, heavy enough to kill. Then she squeaked in surprise as it stopped, and Elbert’s grunt of pain drew her attention.

Her cousin had caught the shelves, using both hands and one shoulder to wedge it up before it picked up too much speed. “A bit of help, Jimmy. This thing’s a might bit heavier than it looks.”

James quickly complied, and together they pushed it up. While Elbert held it, James looked along the bottom and found where the wood had cracked, making it unstable. “Do you have a hammer and nails about?” He inquired.

“How would I know?” Elbert replied, not realizing Anne was the one James was asking.

She thought for a second. “Look under the money drawer. I should have a small hammer and a few nails there.”

James quickly hurried and found the items and grabbed a slat from the shattered shelves that the two men had broken up and piled near the front door. “Are you okay holding it for a few minutes longer?”

Elbert waved his free hand. “I’m well enough. It’s easy while it’s pressed against a wall. How’d you find those so fast, though?”

“I’m… talented.” James muttered, using the slat of wood and nails to temporarily repair the shelves. “We’ll have to replace them, but this will let them be of use for a few days until I can get to it.” He finally said, dusting off his knees.

“Thank goodness.” Elbert sighed dramatically. “That was a bit more like work then I am accustomed too.”

“No, Elbert, thank you.” James offered the man his hand. “If you hadn’t have turned around, I would have been seriously injured if not worse.”

Elbert shook the man's hand, shrugging as if embarrassed by the praise. “T’was nothing. To be fair, it was the oddest thing but… I swear I heard Anne call out just as it was happening. That’s what caused me to turn, to be honest.”

“What?” Both the scientist and the witch cried out.

“See! There it is again!” Elbert sighed. “I think I’m going a bit daft, to be honest. Who knew losing the last family that cared a fig about me would be so devastating, eh?”

“Um… you aren’t going daft.” James said. “You… I think you are hearing her.”

Elbert snorted. “Bah… there’s no way I’m hearing her. What, you think she’s haunted the place?” The man waved it off. “I’m here to assure you that isn’t possible.”

“Why not?” James asked, patting his pocket and with a smile of success pulling out the second spirit monocle. He had pocketed it on the way out without being certain why. It seems providence provided an answer.

“Well… don’t think to poorly of me, gov…” The shifty man begged, looking around as if they’d be over heard. “I’m a licensed spiritualist, you know.”

“What!”

Elbert looked to his left, right where Anne, who had been the one to yell, was standing. Shaking his head and shrugging, he turned to James. “I got it for a bit of a job I was doing a few months back. I can say, with some certainty, that all those spiritualist blokes say about hauntings and ghosts is pure poppy cock.”

James couldn’t help but smirk. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Put this on and look to your left.”

Elbert looked askance at James but did as he was bid. He turned and stared at Anne for a moment before jumping back. “Bugger me! What the bloody hell is that!” He demanded, pulling the monocle off and peering around. “Where’d she go?”

“Put it back on and look again.” James instructed.

Hesitantly, the con artist did, and Anne waved at him as he looked at her. “Hello cousin.” She greeted with a smile.

“She’s smiling, and I think she was saying something… but I didn’t hear a wit of it.”

“You didn’t?” James asked. Anne had been quite clear.

“No.”

“Can you hear this?” Anne asked, speaking a bit louder.

Elbert frowned. “She spoke again. Looks kinda confused, she does. I think I heard a little buzz.” He looked at James. “Is that really her or are you having a game on me.”

“Damn it, Elbert, can’t you be happy I’m here?” Anne yelled, walking up and poking the man in the chest, literally.

“Oi! That’s cold Anne!” He yelled. “And I’m happy to see ya, sure, but why you whispering?”

“What?”

James frowned, and then chuckled. “Oh! I see what it is…”

“Would you mind bloody well telling me?” Elbert asked. Seeing Anne glaring at him he corrected himself. “Us, I mean.”

“Ghost legends all talk about how the voice of ghosts are soft, and only heard by the most sensitive… ignoring Bane Sidhe of course, which might be a fairy and not a ghost depending on what source you ask.” James explained. “You’re sensitive, for some reason, but she has to yell to be heard.”

“That’s not exactly a change.” Anne observed, looking her cousin up and down with an arched eyebrow.

Elbert, seeing this, frowned. “She just made a disparaging comment on my character, didn’t she?”

“Of course not. Don’t be paranoid.” James said with a grin. “This is good, though! I’m the only person who can see her, still, but at least you can hear her!”

“You can see her?” The rogue asked, before he chuckled. “So, she’s who you was talking to all this time. I thought you were just a nutter. She must have really liked you, to have stuck about you.”

“I’ve been getting that a lot.” James admitted. “And actually, I didn’t meet her till after her… death. She accidently bound herself to me with a spell of some sort.”

“And her mum lectured me about jumping into lakes without looking first.” Elbert shrugged. “Well, seeing as my cousin is now not quite as dead as she had been, and all, why don’t I take you out to a pub. Then we can come back here and rest the night. I dare say that the weather looks frightful again tonight, so you don’t want to walk all the way to your cobblers den.”

James, glancing out the window, agreed. “Looks like another thunder storm like yesterday eve. I suggest getting the food take away. Anne becomes more… noticeable when lightning is in the sky.”

“Fair enough.”