The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden by Emma Trevayne Read Free Book Online Page A

Britain.”
    Mordecai laughed again, colder this time. “Oh, I think not. We must find our own path in this business, and I have found mine. Yours . . . I couldn’t presume.”
    â€œYou are hiding something,” said Jensen, and though Deadnettle couldn’t see his face, the man’s rage seeped through the velvet and brushed Deadnettle’s skin. “If you are doing anything to bring our good works into disrepute, I will discover it. You may have the respect of the others, but you have yet to earn mine.”
    â€œI wish you luck in that, as in all your endeavors. Good evening to you, sir,” Mordecai answered mildly. Heavy footsteps stomped away, up the aisle and out the door at the back of the theater. Mordecai wandered down toward the stage, where the faeries waited, the smoke from his celebratory pipe swirling lazily up to the high, gilded ceiling.
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    In the small hours of the morning, Deadnettle woke Marigold, who complained, but not for long. She followed him out of the cellar and up into the street, their aching bones protesting at the climb.
    â€œWhere are we going?” she asked when they were well away from the building.
    â€œWe have several errands to run. We must check on Thomas, for I fear, as you do, that it was he who took ill last night.” Jensen, the other spiritualist, hadn’t sounded overly concerned, but Deadnettle was. He didn’t know how much of the performance the boy had seen, and thus,how much of the truth he would understand when it was told to him.
    There was nothing that could be done about it now. For the moment, Deadnettle would console himself with the fact that Mordecai obviously hadn’t seen or spoken to Thomas, and that was—as Deadnettle had said in the note left in the grave—essential.
    â€œWe must give something to the boy to help him on his way,” Deadnettle continued, “and we must fetch it first.”
    â€œOh! Do we get to introduce ourselves?”
    â€œNot quite. You will speak to him, but only if you promise— promise , Marigold—that you do not tell him who you are.”
    â€œWhy not? What is the point of all of this, Deadnettle? I don’t understand.”
    Deadnettle sighed and tried to think of the best way to explain it to her. The only one he could come up with sickened him to use. But these were desperate times, for him, at least.
    â€œYou have heard, in your times beneath the table, those who come to the Society but don’t believe, or don’t believe enough, that what is done there is truly happening?”
    â€œYes, of course, but—”
    â€œBut they are drawn in the first time, just a bit. And so they return, and the next time, they believe more. More thetime after that, and so it goes until they tell all their friends what a gifted spiritualist Mordecai is and how everyone should visit him.”
    â€œWhat has this to do with Thomas?”
    â€œWe have shown him that there is something strange in his past. That there existed a boy who looked just as he does. That the people who raised him are not his true family, or not by blood. I wouldn’t question the care they have given him as parents. We have shown him that speaking with the dead is possible. We are making him curious, Marigold. We are opening his mind to possibilities it would never have occurred to him to consider. We are preparing him so that when the truth comes, it is less frightening and more plausible than it would have been otherwise. And most important, we are doing it without risking ourselves, until I know he can be trusted.”
    â€œYou think he’ll run off and tell everyone in London about us?”
    â€œI can’t be certain he won’t. Not yet. If it soothes you, today he will begin to learn what he is.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œYou will see. On Saturdays, he goes to the market with his mother. We’re going to