The Medium

Chapter 1, Part 2

"Now, what shall we have for supper?" Celia asked.

I stopped with one foot on the stairs leading up to our front door and suppressed a small squeak of surprise. A man stood on the landing, leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked older than me but not by much, tall, with short dark hair and a face that was a little too square of jaw and sharp of cheek to be fashionable. It wasn't a beautiful face in the classical statue sense but it was certainly handsome.

The odd thing about him wasn't that we'd not noticed him earlier—we'd had our heads bent against the wind after all—but the way he was dressed. He wore black trousers, boots and a white shirt but nothing else. No hat, no necktie, jacket or vest and, scandalously, the top buttons of his shirt were undone so that his bare chest was partially visible.

I couldn't take my eyes off the skin there. It looked smooth and inexplicably warm considering the cool air, and—.

"There you are," he said. I dragged my gaze up to his face and was greeted by a pair of blue eyes that had an endlessness to their depths. As if that wasn't unsettling enough, his curious gaze slowly took in every inch of me, twice. To my utter horror, my face heated. He smiled at that, or I should say he half-smiled, which didn't help soothe my complexion in the least. "Your mouth is open," he said.

I shut it. Swallowed. "Uh, Celia?"

"Yes?" Celia dug through her reticule, searching for the front door key.

"You can't see him, can you?"

She glanced up, her hand still buried in her reticule, the carpet bag at her feet. "See who?"

"That gentleman standing there." I waggled my fingers at him in a wave. He waved back.

She shook her head. "No-o. Are you trying to tell me Mr. Wiggam is here?"

"Not Mr. Wiggam, no."

"But..." She frowned. "Who?"

"Jacob Beaufort," the spirit said without moving from his position. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. I'd shake your sister's hand," he said to me, "but given she can't see me she won't be able to touch me either." I could see him, and therefore touch him, but he didn't offer to shake my hand.

Unlike ordinary people, I could touch the ghosts. Celia and the other guests at our séances simply walked through them as if they were mist but I couldn't, which made sense to me. After all, they could haunt a place by tossing objects about, or upturn tables and knock on wood, why wouldn't they have physical form? At least for the person who could see them.

I wondered what he would feel like. He looked remarkably solid. Indeed, he looked very much alive, more so than any ghost I'd ever seen. Usually they faded in and out and had edges like a smudged charcoal sketch, but Jacob Beaufort was as well defined as Celia.

"Er, pleased to meet you too," I said. "I'm Emily Chambers and this is my sister Miss Celia Chambers."

Celia bobbed a curtsy although she wasn't quite facing Mr. Beaufort, then picked up her bag and approached him. Or rather, approached the door. She walked straight through him and inserted the key into the lock.

"I say!" he said and stepped aside.

"She didn't mean any offense," I said quickly.

"Did I do something wrong?" Celia asked as the door swung open.

"You walked through him."

"Oh dear, I am terribly sorry, Mr..."

"Beaufort," I filled in for her.