We sat in apprehensive silence for a while. Finally, Jaxon breathed in deeply, stood, and took the stairs to the top floor. Nick and Eliza swapped worried glances.

I cleared my throat.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but who’s Sarah Metyard?’

Nick chuckled. ‘I keep forgetting you’ve only been here five minutes, Paige. You must have questions upon questions.’

He motioned for me to join them. Eliza nodded her encouragement, though she looked wary. I had always suspected she hadn’t wanted there to be any more members of this tight-knit family. I perched on the chaise longue beside Nick, trying not to notice his proximity.

‘You know what a poltergeist is, don’t you?’ Eliza said to me.

‘A violent kind of breacher – a spirit that can make contact with the physical world.’

‘That’s it. Poltergeists are extremely dangerous, as they can cause physical harm – but they’re also rare in comparison to other spirits, and hard to catch, so they sell for a lot of money.’

Nick caught my eye. He knew how familiar I was with poltergeists, even if Eliza didn’t. He took a file marked M from her, which she had drawn from a bookshelf beside the desk.

‘The spirit of Sarah Metyard has been around for a few centuries,’ Nick said. ‘Metyard was hanged for the murder of a young girl named Anne Naylor – one of her apprentices – in 1758.’

I steeled myself to hear more. ‘Why would she murder her own apprentice?’

‘Naylor’s death was an accident, but it was the result of extreme neglect and cruelty.’ With a puckered brow, he opened the file. Inside were witness accounts, yellowed eighteenth-century maps of London, death records, transcripts. I scanned them. ‘Metyard and her daughter, who was also called Sarah—’

‘But went by Sally,’ Eliza chipped in. ‘She was also a victim of her mother’s brutality. Didn’t stop her meting out cruelty on the girls in their care, though. Anyway, Sarah and Sally—’

‘—were either milliners or haberdashers, or both. Several girls from local workhouses were apprenticed to their business. One of them was called Anne Naylor, or Nanny.’

I listened closely, trying to remember every detail.

‘The girls were all treated badly, but Anne had a weak constitution,’ Eliza said. ‘She couldn’t work as fast as the other apprentices, so she became the focus of the Metyards’ contempt. Sarah never fed her enough, worked her to exhaustion, neglected her – the poor girl even had to have a finger removed after an abscess went bad, presumably because they didn’t get it treated.’ Eliza licked her own finger and turned a page in the folder. ‘She escaped twice, but they caught her. As punishment for her second escape, they beat her, tied her to a door, and left her there without anything to eat or drink. After a few days of this, the other apprentices called Sally in a panic.’