Free Ghostly Echoes by William Ritter

O’Connor’s last patient had been only mostly human. “I gave Mama Tilly Mona’s information and advised her to charge the services to me.”
    I nodded. “That was kind of you.” We walked on for a few more paces. “Was Miss Lee really . . .” I hesitated.
    â€œWhat?” Jackaby looked back at me.
    â€œMiss Lee was really a boy, wasn’t she? Underneath?”
    He slowed and then came to a stop and looked me square in the eyes. “That’s up to her to decide, I suppose, but it’s not what I saw. Underneath, she was herself—as are we all. Lydia Lee is as much a lady as you or Jenny or anyone. I imagine the midwife or attending doctor probably had another opinion on the matter, but it only goes to show what doctors really know.”
    â€œShouldn’t a doctor be able to tell at least that much?”
    Jackaby’s expression clouded darkly. “I have great respect for the medical profession, Miss Rook,” he said soberly, “but it is not for doctors to tell us who we are.”

Chapter Eight
    The sun slipped down to meet the horizon as we pressed on through New Fiddleham, the sky darkening like a dying ember. A lamplighter was making his way from streetlight to streetlight as we passed. My feet were beginning to ache and I had a stitch in my side, but Jackaby’s inner fires seemed only to have been stoked by our encounter with the thugs. He marched forward briskly and I began to lag behind.
    A hansom cab rolled past with rubber wheels that glided smoothly along the cobblestones behind its horse. The couple seated within looked impossibly, almost arrogantly comfortable. “Have you ever considered hiring a driver, sir?” I called ahead breathlessly. “It’s just that we do seem to do quite a bit of traveling.”
    â€œThere is a great deal to be experienced in this city,” he answered, not looking back. “No reason to limit the scope of our vision.”
    â€œThe scope of my vision,” I said, panting, “is not quite the same as the scope of yours, Mr. Jackaby. And I have experienced blisters before.”
    He paused at the end of the street and waited for me to catch up. I half expected him to be cross with me, but he looked sympathetic. “There is quite a lot to miss,” he said. “Do you know that long before it was ever called New Fiddleham, this area was already inhabited?”
    â€œYou mean by Indians?” I said.
    He leaned against a wrought iron hitching post and nodded. “Do you see that?” He pointed at the empty road. At midday, this stretch of Mason Street would be a blur of carriages and pedestrians clamoring to and fro, but in the dwindling light of dusk it was abandoned. “Just there,” Jackaby prompted, “in the middle of the lane.”
    Between the worn path of countless carriage wheels, a single weed had pushed up through the paving stones. “I see a little green plant, if that’s what you mean” I said.
    â€œAnd I see the spirit watching over it,” he said. “The Algonquian peoples would call it a manitou. It is older than any of these buildings, older than the city, older even than the tribes who named it. I would wager it will be here long after all of these bricks have crumbled to dust.”
    He began to walk again, but slowly. “There is something humbling about knowing that an entity capable of moving mountains and reshaping continents still takes the time to tend to the smallest patch of dirt. Little things matter. Footsteps matter.” He stepped a little farther down the block and I followed. “There,” he said. “The flower shop. Do you see the little alcove in the wall?”
    â€œYes,” I answered. It was an inconspicuous break in the masonry, an indentation only a foot deep, topped by a simple awning of red stone. I might have taken it for a bricked-up window.
    â€œThis whole block had become home