The Medium

Why didn't I know this? Why hadn't Jacob told me? "And what happens if a ghost's soul is removed?"

"You don't know?" I shook my head and he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well it ceases to exist at all, in any realm," he said. "It has no energy, no cognitive abilities. It becomes...nothing."

Oh. No. To become nothing would be, well, a fate worse than death to use a cliché.

"So your friend Jacob must be careful," he added.

"Yes," I said weakly. "Extremely." This information put Jacob's involvement into an entirely different context-this assignment could destroy him.

"Now, that's all I know. Shall we each find a book and begin?"

We spent the next three hours looking through books, making notes and cross-checking facts. Jacob didn't return but I didn't mind. I suspect I would have found it difficult to concentrate with him in the room. He was rather distracting. George and I worked quietly until a footman interrupted us with lunch, which George had requested to be served in the library.

"What's he like?" George asked, in between bites of warm ham. "Jacob Beaufort's ghost, I mean."

I paused, the fork half way to my mouth. Jacob was handsome, magnificent, intriguing and compelling. I found it hard not to look at him when he was in my presence, and hard not to think about him when he wasn't. "He seems nice," was all I said. Gushing about a ghost, particularly to a man, seemed foolish. It was times like this I wish I had a female friend of my own age to talk to. Celia wasn't quite the understanding type when it came to discussing men, dead or alive, unless it was with a view to matrimony and even then she would want me to temper my descriptions. "I was surprised when you said Jacob didn't really notice people at school though," I said. "He seems very aware of others." He'd definitely noticed me. My face still burned just thinking about his intense stares.

George shrugged. "Perhaps he's changed since his death. I hardly knew him but I do know that his awareness of others did not extend to those outside his circle. How did he die, by the way?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. We haven't discussed it and I don't want to ask...just in case." I put my fork down, no longer hungry. It had just struck me that I'd hit on the reason why Jacob was so solid, so real to me-perhaps he'd taken his own life. I'd never met a ghost who had, so maybe solidness was a characteristic of those spirits. I swallowed past the lump lodged in my throat. The thought was so awful I didn't want to think about it let alone voice it.