The Medium

Celia hissed out an impatient breath. "Go on."

"A lady comes up to me last week, she did. Just round the corner there. She gives me twenty shillings to do me job on this here street. Twenty! That's more than what I got in 'ere." She shook the basket. "Course I gave 'er me value-bulls. Why wouldn' I for twenty? Bit later she gave 'em back to me and never asked for her money back neever. Job well done, I say." She laughed and wiped her nose on the back of her dirty glove.

"And you didn't find that suspicious?" Celia asked.

"Course I did but didn't you 'ear me? She gave me twenty shillings!"

"Did she tell you her name?" I asked. "Nope."

"And you'd never seen her before?" Celia asked.

"Nope. Like I said, she came up to me round that corner and gave me the money. Twenty shillings!" She chuckled so hard it turned into a racking cough.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

She nodded then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Twenty shillings! Still can't believe it. Course she could prob'ly 'ford it and more." "Afford it?" I echoed.

"But she was as poor as dirt," Celia said, waving her hand at the woman as if to say "like you".

The peddler didn't seem to notice the slight. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"But her clothes were a motley collection of rags," Celia persisted. "Nothing matched and most of it had holes in one place or another. Even her boots were odd and worn out."

The woman tapped her nose again. "Aye, but she spoke like you two. A toff, she was, I'll bet ya."

Celia tilted her head to the side. "Nonsense. She dropped her aitches and savaged her vowels. She most certainly was not a toff as you put it. Or like us."

"She most cert'ly was!"

Before the disagreement heated up, I thanked the peddler for her time and gave her the coins. She relinquished the bracelet with a smile.

Celia shut the door on her rasping chuckle. "She doesn't know what she's talking about. The woman who sold me the amulet had the most atrocious East End accent."

"Perhaps it was part of her disguise," I said. "Perhaps she wanted you to think she was from the East End. Or at least didn't want you to know she was a lady."

Lucy entered the hallway from the front drawing room, a rag and bowl of paste in hand for polishing the fireplace. She kept close to the wall, as far away from me as possible.

Although she now spoke to me without her voice shaking, she was still wary. Her eyes never left me when we were in the same room, as if she didn't dare look elsewhere in case I summoned a ghost while she wasn't looking.