Steampunk Jack

James looked at her and tilted his head to the side. He was looking at her with a surprised expression on his face. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but where on Earth would you have learned about such matters?”

“I was an apothecary, James; I know the alchemical properties of the natural world. As you stated I am not unfamiliar with science.” Ann could understand how strange it looked, one didn’t think of a spirit as having a lot of scientific knowledge.

“I would add a pinch of eyebright for truer vision, rowan for protection, oak for strength, salt to bind it together…and three drops of blood; to connect the world of the living and the world of the dead.” She looked at the drawings, “the addition of oak should counteract the issue you are having with the glass shattering.

“How so?”

Anne reached out and tried to pick up a piece of chalk, but her hand passed through it. “Bugger. Stupid spirit body. “She gestured at the drawing of the lens. “A curved lens focuses energy; like a child putting their finger over part of a hose it intensifies the energy that passes through it, by focusing it into a tight beam. Your spirit lens is thinnest at the focal point, which also means it is weakest there. By adding oak, you will reinforce the glass’s alchemical strength so it will be far less likely to break under the strain when you channel power through it.”

“There is no power Anne, it’s a camera. The only thing passing through the lens is light.”

“Light is a form of energy, correct?”

“Yes but light has no substance. There’s no way for simple light to shatter glass.”

“Ahh, but by transforming the glass to have an alchemical property you also opened it to being affected by… call it life energy… which is how it can interact with the dead.”

James looked at the drawing thoughtfully. “That is an interesting hypothesis… Part of me wants to discount it as superstitious, but standing here next to a ghost causes my mind to open to unique possibilities. You didn’t answer my question, however, as to how you know this?”

Anne paused, “My…Mother taught me.” She drifted away from the board, and sat on a carved wooden chair. There was a sad look on her face as she thought of her mother.

“Your mother was a very smart woman, where did she go to school?”

“She didn’t.” Anne looked down at her hands. “Should I tell him?” she thought. “I’m already dead. It’s not like he can easily hurt me. And I don’t really have any family anymore. I was the last of the Campbells, as best I know.” She looked up at James. “You were correct, earlier when you said that I was ‘special in some way.’ I am, or rather was…” Anne shook her head and looked James in the eye. “I am a witch.”

His response was to sit back heavily in his chair. He blinked and stared at her for several minutes.

“James?” James are you alright?”

“I don’t know. I think I may have snapped. You couldn’t blame me really, with the events of the last day.” James muttered, before he looked up at her. “I thought you said you were a witch. I’m sure it was simply my mind playing tricks with me.”

“I…I did. I am...”

“Or perhaps I fell asleep. I often do that when I work long hours.” He muttered, half ignoring her now.

Anne stared at him. “You are not asleep, Mr. St. Cloud!”

He flinched as if she had slapped him. “Maybe I should check into the asylum for a bit…”

“James you are not crazy! How do you think I got here! I used magic. A piece of your ghost lens fell on my stoop. I used a spell based on the Laws of Contagion to use it to bring me to you.

“Spirit lens, not ghost lens… and the law of what?”

“The Law of Contagion is a basic magical principle.” Anne said folding her hands in her lap “Basically it states that anything we leave behind is still part of us, and by affecting that part we can affect the whole.”

James had perked up at the word principle. It smacked of a consistent, testable rule, or in other words, science. “How does that apply to my lens?”

“It was a gamble, I admit, but I had your true-name so the risk was minimal. I figured invoking your true-name while using the lens fragment as a focus would allow me to communicate with you, or even possibly temporarily move from my stoop to your location. I didn’t realize you had crafted the object yourself, that gave it a far stronger connection to you than I had anticipated. Anne blushed. “I put too much energy into the spell, and instead of being able to talk to you, I somehow managed to…bind myself to you, for which I do apologize.”

“This is ridiculous!” James insisted, standing and pacing about. “There’s not any such thing as witches or magic!”

“Really James, you are being haunted by a ghost, and the idea of witches and magic disturbs you?” she paused then shook her head. “Scientists! Alright, how about this, I can prove magic is real.”

“How?”

“Do you have something gold?”

“Gold?” James arched his brow and drawling the word. Anne knew why. Plenty of “licensed spiritualists” claimed they needed gold to contact the dead. Gold they kept after they were done, of course.

“Don’t be an idiot I can’t touch anything I am not going to steal your money. It’s not like I can even use it!”

James flinched, then smiled apologetically. “My apologies, Ms. Campbell. I am a bit off balance at the moment, but the suspicion was unworthy of me.” He went to his desk and pulled out a small box with a pendent in it, which contained a lovely yellow gold disk with a bird flying across it. “It’s a gift for my mother, next time I go out of the city for a time. She’s a bird fancier, you see.”

“Set it on the floor”, Ann directed, smiling at the unsolicited but charming detail about his mother. “Next I need a lit candle. Set it to the west of the pendant.” James followed her directions briefly pausing to think which way was west, going so far as to consult a small compass he carried in his pocket.

“Now take a piece of the white chalk and draw a circle around the two objects.” Anne nodded as she watched, having to admire the engineers precision. “Perfect.”

She knelt on the floor and held her hands over the circle. “Little candle in the East, child of the sun’s own flame, seek the gold that hides in the west, and three times lend it the power of thy name.”

The candle snuffed out and Anne stood shakily. She blinked “Oh my…that took. A little more….than I expected.”

“I can tell. Please, sit.” James insisted, trying to take her arm to help her settle, only to have it pass through the chill nothingness of her presence. Though she couldn’t see it she was now almost invisible to James, she had become so transparent

“Take the pendant somewhere dark and say the words Candle Flame.”

James gave her a worried look but walked to one of the storage cabinets he kept his various tools and supplies in. He climbed clumsily into one of the largest, and closed the door which left him in complete black.

“I feel like a fool.” He muttered, shaking his head. “‘Candle light.’” The pendant began glowing with an internal, golden light that illuminated about three feet of space around him, not unlike a candle would have.

He stepped out of the closet and looked at Ann wonder on his face, “It worked!”

“Yes, and it has two more charges. I’d guess that each use will last about four hours, judging on the size of the candle.”

“The spells duration is based on the candle?” James asked, sounding almost pleased by that.

“Yes, I couldn’t exceed the potential of the item I used for the spells creation. You will want to put that candle away though.”

“Why?” he asked, even as he followed her instructions.

Since the spell is tuned to that candle, if it is burned you will use up the light stored in the medallion, and if the candle is destroyed the charm will not work at all.

“Fascinating. So the law of conservation of energy applies even in Magic…” He spoke with a thoughtful tone, rushing over to a stack of notebooks that had lain previously ignored, fishing one out. Anne was surprised to find that the small book had been empty of any text.

“Magic is energy.” Anne replied, watching him write as she finally gave in to her exhaustion and slowly drifted back to the chair. “Like fire, steam, or light. It is just another type of energy.”

James nodded, and while most would have called it an absent gesture, Anne realized there was an intensity behind it. “Why did you ask for gold specifically?”

“Because gold is sun colored, so it is better for light magic’s than other metals.” She replied, speaking slowly as she realized he was scribing everything she said down. “Had I wanted to capture the candles flame, the heat of the thing, instead of its light, I would have used copper which is better for transferring heat.”

“Like a cooking pot or a boiler.” He observed, nodding.

“I suppose so, yes.” She agreed, having not thought about it. “If we were using moonlight, silver would work best. And before you ask, yes the candle was in the east to symbolize and invoke the rising sun, the pendent to the west, because the sun naturally travels that way.”

“Hmmm. Perhaps magic follows the earth’s magnetic field…” He muttered, tapping his pen against the page as he thought. He grabbed another blank notebook and scrawled a note, then tossed it aside.

Anne stared at her hands as an unpleasant thought came to her mind. For a selfish moment she considered saying nothing, but as an honest woman who had already caused the handsome professor more than enough trouble she felt obligated. “If…If I had my mother’s book, well…I know she had rituals for banishing spirits, and laying people to rest.”

“What would that do to you?”

“I don’t know…I only ever saw her use the banishing spell once, when one of her older students summoned a small demon. The creature didn’t seem to enjoy the experience.”

He froze, pen hovering above his notebook and his eyes turning sharply to her. “Your mother was instructing a young girl, and she summoned a demon?” Anne could see the horror on his face.

“It was only a small demon,” Anne said softly, wincing at the arched eyebrow of disbelief James gave her. “It was not very powerful at all, and my mother threw the girl out afterwards and refused to teach her any more. She even burned the girl’s notebooks, so the girl couldn’t replicate the formula’s she’d learned already. My mother was a white witch, and she would only train other white witches.”

“Let us hope that was enough. Knowledge, once given, is difficult to take back.” James stated, the tone sounding as though it had been a lesson hard learned.

“James…I do not know if this is normal, but I am exhausted. It is getting very hard to keep talking. If I was alive I would be begging your pardon and heading to my rest. I don’t know what it means as a ghost.”

“It means very much the same thing, I would suspect.” James observed, setting his notebook down. “The shop is a smallish building, so you should be within your thirteen paces just about anywhere within it. Use my bed, and take your rest.”

“What about you? It is growing late.” Indeed, the ghostly woman realized the sun had set as they talked.

“To much work to do to sleep.” He smiled when she looked at him doubtfully. “Also, I have a cot down here which is quite serviceable. I use it frequently when I am in the throws of a creative storm. Being a proper English gentleman, I can do no less then offer you the more comfortable bed.”

“I don’t really feel things, like comfort, anymore.” Anne observed.

“And yet, you still get the more comfortable bed.” James chuckled. “Call it chivalry, and have a good night.”

Anne nodded, and began scaling the stairs. She paused. “Anne.”

“Pardon?”

“You said I should call you James, but you are still calling me Ms. Campbell.” She observed. “Call me Anne.”

“Of course. Good night… Anne.”