My hands began to shake; it felt like I’d just learned about his affair all over again. I hovered my finger over Reply, prepared to tell James, No, don’t you dare come here. But I’d known him long enough; tell him he couldn’t have something, and he would work twice as hard to get it. Besides, he knew the name of the hotel, and even if I refused to meet with him, I had no doubt he would wait in the lobby for as long as it took. And I couldn’t stay holed up in my room forever.

Sleep would now be impossible. If James meant to arrive at eleven o’clock, there were just a few hours left without the burden of his presence, his excuses. A few hours left to avoid dealing with our damaged marriage. A few hours left to venture over to Bear Alley.

I stood from the bed and began to pace by the window, checking the sky every few minutes, searching desperately for the first early rays of light.

The sun could not rise soon enough.

9

Eliza

February 5, 1791

As a minute passed, then another, with no change in Mr. Amwell’s demeanor at the breakfast table, my bravery began to wane. I wished badly for another warm cup of Nella’s valerian hot brew, which had left me so relaxed at her little shop with the secret room.

The deed itself had not been so bad—the cracking of the eggs, dropping them into the sizzling pan. I did not even fear the angry words Mr. Amwell might spout at me as the poisoned eggs churned in his belly, nor the rigid, bent form that his body might take, which Nella warned might cause a lifetime of nightmares.

But while I was brave about some things, I was not brave about all things. What I feared was his ghost, his unharnessed spirit after death. The unseen movement of it through walls, through skin.

My fear of spirits was recent, beginning a few months ago when Sally pulled me into the cold, dark cellar and told me a story about a girl named Johanna.

I was not so brave after that day, knowing that magick could sour and go bad.

According to Sally, Johanna worked at the Amwell estate just a short time before I arrived. Only a year or two older than me, Johanna had fallen ill—so ill that she could not leave her room. And during her isolation, whispers flew through the corridors: rumors that she was not ill at all, but carrying a little baby and soon to give birth.

Sally said that on a cold morning in November, one of the upstairs maids sat with Johanna while she strained a whole day with the baby. Pushing and pushing, all of that effort but never a cry. The baby never did come out, and Johanna fell into a sleep from which she never woke.