As soon as I woke, I clenched my teeth, waiting to see if the bloody belly pains had returned—if Mr. Amwell’s spirit, no longer fooled, had made its way back to me. But that was not the case. The pains had now stayed away for a full day, the trickle of blood reduced to almost nothing. And though I was grateful for it, I felt sure it was because Mr. Amwell lay in wait for me elsewhere. The idea of it angered me; he may have been master over me in days past, but it was not so any longer. I was not his toy, his plaything in death.

I thought, too, of Lady Clarence’s dinner party last evening. If all went as planned, Miss Berkwell should now be dead. A frightening vision, but I remembered what Nella told me about betrayal, and vengeance as medicine. Perhaps now, without the unwelcome presence of Miss Berkwell, Lady Clarence would find a way to tend her marriage and make a baby.

Unsteady on my feet, I lifted myself from the ground and pressed down my skirts, which were grimy and in need of a wash. My hand brushed the cover of the book inside my gown’s pocket: the book of magick. Locating the address within was my most pressing task, for I had little else in which to hope, and no other way to rid the Amwell house of ghosts.

I began to make my way to the bookshop on Basing Lane. A night of poor sleep had left me feeling wild, like an animal. My hands shook and a headache beat behind my eyes as the people near me moved about in a watery haze. Messenger boys raced their carts against one another, fishmongers waved away the gulls, and an elderly man slapped the rear of his goat with a flimsy reed. As my toes pushed uncomfortably against my tight shoes, I could not ignore the momentary temptation of returning home, or even to the servant’s registry office, where Mrs. Amwell first found me. I was a hundred times more desirable now than I was then. I was literate, for one; I could read and write and had been employed by a wealthy family. Surely my skills would be valued elsewhere, in a home not teeming with unsettled spirits.

I thought on this as I walked to the magick bookshop, but the idea quickly lost its hold as I considered the many reasons that I could not bear to run away—not least of which was my devotion to Mrs. Amwell. She would return from Norwich in a few weeks’ time, and by then I hoped to have rid the house of Mr. Amwell—and Johanna—altogether. Besides, I could not imagine any other girl writing my mistress’s letters. It felt a very special task, reserved only for me.