The Medium

My separation from the group allowed me to think as I sipped my tea. After wondering why there was a rush of widows summoning their late husbands at our séances, I couldn't stop thinking about Mr. Postlethwaite's extra-marital relationship. He'd been quite an attractive man for his age, which I put to be at mid-forties, and he certainly kept an eye on the prettier ladies in the room, my sister included and his wife, unfortunately, not.

I wasn't naïve. I knew married men and women had affairs on occasion, and the idea of my existence coming about because of one wasn't new to me. In fact it was the most obvious explanation. For some time I'd thought Mama must have met someone after her husband's death then nine months later I'd been born. But seeing Mr. Postlethwaite sowed a seed of doubt. Just a small one. He had been precisely the sort of person to have a liaison outside of his marriage-handsome in a preening, peacock-ish way, a roaming eye, and a charming manner.

Mama had been none of those things. She was pretty, I suppose, although it seemed to me she'd always been middleaged, even when I was little. But she wasn't handsome like some women, or gregarious, and she had certainly never looked at men the way Mr. Postlethwaite looked at ladies.

Could Mama possibly have fallen deeply in love with one man so soon after her beloved husband's death? A man who'd not loved her enough in return when he got her with child?

If not, then...what?

I didn't have any answers by the time we left Widow Postlethwaite's house, nor was there any likelihood of getting any. Mama was possibly the only person who knew my real father's name and I'd not been able to summon her ghost at all since her death. She must have crossed over immediately.

I pushed the problem aside, telling myself it didn't matter, that I was loved by my sister and had been by my mother and that's all that mattered. Anyway, now I had other things to occupy my mind. I had the demon. And I had Jacob.

I was eager to return home and speak to him again. Not for any reason, just because I wanted to. Perhaps I could find out more about his death, but if not it didn't matter. I'd enjoy his company regardless of what we talked about.

"How did your information gathering go this morning?" Celia asked on the way home.

"Well enough." I told her everything we'd learned, including the interview with Maree the maid, mentioning the school but leaving out the part where she tried to stab me. My sister's constitution is incredibly strong but still it wouldn't do to alarm her. She might never let me go out alone again.