Leena swallowed down her own bitter coffee just to have something to dampen her frustration. There had been no ghosts to report, and she sensed her employer knew it. Still, Mr. St. Silas seemed to clock her sullen temper and derive pleasure from it. “Anger is a very useless emotion and does not become you, madam.”
“On the contrary, sir, I am not angry.”
“You are,” Mr. St. Silas returned easily. “It is clear that everyone and everythingaffects you.”
Leena could not deny that he was right.
Even in this they were ill matched. While anything could move her, almost nothing seemed to touch him at all.
She ignored his observation, and it took all her best efforts to keep her voice steady, but the toll of the morning had had its impact on her already. Her blood surged with the need to be free of this wretched house and its equally wretched master. “Sir, would my time not be better spent searching for Lord Avon’s ghost? I am sure my presence here is not adding that much to the profit ofthisbusiness.”
Any delay to finding Lord Avon gnawed at her insides.
Mr. St. Silas had lost interest in the conversation, turning back to his ledger. “I regret if I have not made myself clear, Miss Al-Sayer. Your time was given to me the moment you signed that contract. Whether you feel it is better served elsewhere is no longer your concern.”
Leena had expected this answer and, with a final withering look at his bent head, she turned stoically toward the door, waiting for the next confessor to walkin.
At least this customer was the last of a very long morning. It was an elderly Morish man, with liver-spotted skin and eyes a clear blue. He sat on the chair, his weathered hands skimming across his trouser legs with nervous energy. If he noticed Leena, he did not comment, only glanced at her warily once before turning away.
Disinterestedly, Mr. St. Silas introduced her as his secretary before sliding a waiver across the desk toward the confessor, with Leena ironically now acting as the witness to its signing.
Then…the silence.
Mr. St. Silas leaned back in his chair, idly watching the confessor, without once speaking. Leena had begun to notice the way the Saint manipulated silence as a tool, discomforting those who faced him into revealing more than they intended. Still, knowing his tactics didn’t stop her from shifting again in her own chair, so quiet she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. She could see the effect this had on the old man, the way he opened his mouth several times, before finally managing to croak out a whispered, “I have a secret.”
“Clearly,” an unimpressed Mr. St. Silas drawled.
The silence dragged on longer than it had with the others. Leena would’ve gladly revealed another confession just to have something to fill the stark emptiness.
It was the man who spoke first, stilted and low. She could see the hesitation play across his face, the way his fingers twisted a wedding band round and round the knuckle. “I…I used to own a factory that specializes in converting cotton fibers into fabric.”
A tradesman. Leena should’ve noticed the superior quality of his clothes, although worn and a little shabby, the fashion dated from a decade ago. His accent, however, still resembled Leena’s, his words lilting, theRs overemphasized—hallmarks of her own poorer district.
Still, no response from Mr. St. Silas.
Now the utter stillness was unbearable. She saw the way the old man leaned forward to fill it of his own accord. “Ten years ago, the factory went up in flames.”
Baba used to work in a cotton factory. Leena knew the dangers of even the smallest match catching near the filaments. Her nightmares were filled with images of her father trapped in an inferno. With a sinking heart, she knew exactly what this man’s revelation was going tobe.
“I lost everything in the fire; the entire factory was burned to nothing. I could not return on my investments.” The man continued when he saw Mr. St. Silas still did not speak. The rest of it came out in a rush—a sudden expulsion of truth. “I know ten years ago is a long time, but my wife is…She is now very sick, and I can no longer afford the medication to keep her well, therefore I have come to call upon you.”
It was only when he uttered the wordfirethat Leena saw the flicker of movement from behind him, emerging from thin air.
Leena closed her eyes briefly in hopes the image was not real. But no, it remained. A phantom now hovered by the man, the first ghost she had seen in Mr. St. Silas’s confession chamber, and she could not tell how young the woman was beneath the blackened and ashy skin. The smell of burned flesh filled her nose, even though Leena was sure it was only her imagination creating such an acrid scent.
In some odd way, this was one of the few times Leena was glad she could see these beings and bear testament to a suffering that would otherwise go unnoticed. Never once had the old tradesman mentioned the dead factory workers. Only the fire and how it had affected his investments.
The question spilled from Leena’s own now-parched throat before she could stop it, her eyes never leaving the charred phantom. “Were there any casualties from the fire?”
She did not know why it mattered that she asked that question, for she knew that the tradesman’s confirmation that the firehadresulted in death would not be enough to save this woman from her ensnarement to this world. Yet Leena had never shaken off that part of herself that desperately wanted to release these phantoms from whatever kept them here, although she had learned not to give in to it. Very rarely was she successful in freeing these ghosts, and the bitter sting of her failures always made her feel useless.
Rami was right,Leena thought to herself; she was now far more submerged in the emotions of the dead than the living.
She saw Mr. St. Silas half tilt his head toward her, his dark eyes shuttered, his mouth a thin line of irritation at her interruption.
Jerkily, the man nodded.
With one final warning look toward her, Mr. St. Silas shifted his focus back to the man. No longer did he use silence as a weapon. Now the interrogation was callous. “How many dead?”
