wanderinghamsa (wanderinghamsa) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-10-07 13:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | bertie eden, zipporah bakst |
Who: Zipporah, Bertie, Jamie(NPC)
What: Jamie is adrift, and ends up at Zipporah's house.
Where: Zipporah's house, the surrounding neighborhood
When: 1 October, 1888, after the events here and here.
Rating: PG
Zipporah hung up the phone with Mr Allen and sighed, tapping the desk thoughtfully, looking out of the corner of her eye at the sleek calling card Archie’d given her, and wondering whether she should call them next.
The information she’d been able to tell Mr Allen was very vague -- that there’d been (according to the word around the neighborhood) a double murder late last night, around the same time she and her auntie had both felt a rather enormous surge of energy and woken up in a cold sweat -- he’d said for her to let him know if there was any evidence of out of the ordinary circumstances, and when she’d called, he’d seemed more resigned than surprised.
She’d been round to call on Arabella Ward, and was planning on sending a letter to Mr Rogers and his witch partner at their boarding house too, and perhaps seeing if Mr Eden had noticed anything off -- whatever it was, the murders seemed intimately tied to the whole lot.
Sighing again, heavily, she picked up the business card, screwing up her nerve -- Archie wasn’t terrible to talk to, but there was a small, terrified part of her who wondered whether this wasn’t Miss Carver’s doing -- the smell of death followed her like a cloud of malevolence, and she’d tasted that self-same energy on her tongue all day long, and if she was involved, the last thing Zipporah wanted was to draw attention to herself...
A small noise, however, gave her pause.
“Hello?” She asked, feeling a small shiver run down her spine despite the fact that she was home, she was safe. “Is anyone there?”
There was a brief silence, possibly either embarrassed or simply thoughtful, and then a disembodied voice replied, “That’s an interesting question.”
The ghost known in life as James Percy was experiencing some disorientation in his present circumstances. In his current state of being, he had always existed in the same physical location--with one exception, the recent trip to Black Park. At least, he believed it was recent; he had very little sense of time passing, with his days and nights a uniform stream of Night Watch officers coming and going at all hours, and time was difficult for a ghost to hold onto to begin with.
He was not within the Night Watch now. Or if he was, it had changed significantly. He tried to make himself more present, more solid, to get a bearing on his surroundings. After a moment, he recognized the person who had spoken, although not the room in which they stood.
“It’s James Percy,” he announced himself as he shivered a little more into existence. “I’m sorry if I’m intruding.”
It took Zipporah a moment to respond, because this was several kinds of impossible -- Mr Percy belonged in the Night Watch headquarters, first of all, and second, her home was a virtual fortress of wards that blinked out No Spirits Allowed in large, clearly illuminated letters.
“Mr Percy?” She exclaimed, standing. “What on earth are you doing here? Have you been sent? Are you quite alright?”
Interesting questions all, this time. "I'm not quite sure," Jamie answered, taking stock in the limited way he was able, reaching for memories and coherent thoughts. "It might help to know where 'here' is. I think..." He paused, checked himself again, and confirmed, "I think I might be back in your locket. Did you call for me?"
He tried to remember where - or rather, when - he had been just before this, but time and memory were both slippery things, and he couldn't quite grasp either of them. "Miss Bakst," he began, and then asked, "Has it been very long since we traveled together last?"
“Nearly two months,” Zipporah replied, after wrinkling her nose in thought. She bit her lip. “You are in my house,” she said, “which should be… well. It should not be possible, but if you came to the locket...” A Trojan Horse was the first thought that slipped into her head. “I did not call for you regardless. Come on, then. Are you…” she sighed as she made her way to her bedroom, concerned about this odd state of affairs on top of everything else that’d happened, and (rather ridiculously) uncertain about how to best be hospitable -- a ghost couldn’t take tea. “Are you very uncomfortable, with the protections here? I can imagine it is all quite disconcerting for you, regardless. I am sorry for it.”
"I can't tell," Jamie admitted after another pause. "I might say that I feel...displaced, but you might as easily say that is not a feeling, for I have been. Or transferred, I suppose. It doesn't feel quite as...secure," he hazarded after a moment, "as when you did it before. Am I causing you or your protections any distress?"
He looked around, realizing exactly where he was, and said with an embarrassment that attempted to make the best of a situation, "Finally in a woman's bedroom, and this is how it turns out. Not quite as titillating as my adolescent fantasies."
Zipporah snorted a little. “Mr Percy,” she said, as she rooted around in a dresser drawer, “if I had known I would be having a man in my rooms, I would have picked up my stockings.” She huffed, and opened another drawer. “It is in here somewhere,” she called out, a little muffled, before making a triumphant noise and closing her hand around it.
“Ah! There.” She dangled it from her fingers. “Not only in my bedroom,” she said, grinning a little, “but in the drawer with my unmentionables. Cheeky,” she said, laughing.
She sat on the edge of her bed, holding the body of the locket between her hands. “Apparently, my house does not think you are a danger. I suspect it is because a trace of you might’ve been left behind in the locket, and when I wore it home, it accepted you as a friend.” She made a thoughtful sound as she held it. “I am not calling you here and keeping you -- I had for to work to hold you there last time, to concentrate, but while I can tell you are tethered, this…” she frowned. “This is not my doing.”
"Not as well tethered," Jamie observed, keeping a respectful distance more by means of letting himself drift than by purposefully moving. "Simply anchored, and with the sensation of being a larger boat than the weight of this particular anchor was intended for."
He hoped that made sense to her. Describing the sensation of being encased in a locket for a second time was an odd challenge. "It's not anyone else's doing, is it?" he asked, glancing around as if expecting someone to pop into sight, cackling their success. "Was I just not removed entirely, as you said, and was...drawn back for some reason? Nothing has happened at Black Park, has it? With the tomb?"
“That would be far too much of a coincidence, I am afraid,” Zipporah replied, her shoulders slumping. “There was another two murders today. In Whitechapel. Just round the corner, as a matter of fact. Across from the International Working Men's Educational Club, of all places. And when it happened, there was…” her face twisted. “There was something wrong. Something bad. I am not sure what, but this was to do with that, I am certain of it. It woke me and my Auntie both.”
She looked over at him, gnawing on her lip. “I do not know how or why you are here, exactly,” she said, feeling more than a little frustrated at how large this mess seemed to be, how incapable she was of figuring it out, “and I also do not know how it is linked with the events of last evening, but you are here now. So. Let us sort out how we shall manage it best.”
"Good God," Jamie said, alarmed. "I didn't hear the reports...I must have been removed before they came in." Bertie would be looking for him for information. Unless Jamie's spirit was now somehow divided, Bertie wouldn't find him.
"If you go outside to sort things out," Jamie requested hopefully, "would you take the locket with you? I won't harm you, I'd just like to see the city again. It was such a brief journey, the last time, and we were mostly in the carriage."
“Mr Percy,” Zipporah replied, raising an eyebrow, “of course you wouldn’t.” She paused, pondering. “I see… well. I see a few different possibilities. Depending. This is… there is a great deal I do not know, and for that, I do apologize.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “The first. I take you in your current state back to Night Watch, you find yourself once more tethered there. The second…” she bit her lip. “I try for to keep you bounded more securely to the locket instead. To give more choices. If you are here of your own accord, it may be easier than holding you was last time?”
There were several other options, most of which involved her making some horrific misstep and banishing Jamie’s soul forever, but now was not a particularly useful time to dwell.
“Regardless, I shall most certainly take you outside,” she ended firmly. “Which would you prefer?”
"Forgive me, but you just said you're not sure why I returned to the locket, or what has happened," Jamie said apologetically. "I'm sure you could - you will - figure it out, but it seems more...chancy...to try to return me to the Night Watch, when you're not sure why I've left. Wouldn't it be better to secure me here, where I already am?"
Not to mention, a locket had a great deal more freedom than a patch of ground. Perhaps more risk, as well, but it might be worth it, to travel around. "Would you be willing to keep me with you?" he asked curiously. "If you bind me to the locket?"
“If you should want me to,” Zipporah replied, carefully. “If you were bound proper, you would not require my help for to stay, but I would keep you with me should you wish it.” She paused. “Would you wish another to be the bearer, like your friend, Mr Eden,” she added, “he should be able for to keep you as well. Which is not to say I wouldn’t, should you ask me,” she added.
"Bertie would look very strange, wearing a locket," Jamie said cheerfully. "I suppose he could wear it under his shirt collar, but I would still know it was there, and you would as well, and we'd be obligated to poke fun of him for it, as his friends.
The prospect of being bound anywhere at the moment, even with the advantage of safety to accompany it, was not terribly appealing. Jamie found he would rather not dwell on being tied down, when they had this marvelous opportunity to investigate together. All Jamie did at the Night Watch was to listen and watch others go out to investigate, and return with new information and conclusions. Bertie talked cases over with him, but lately he'd been sad-eyed and apologetic, unable to talk about what he was working on within the Night Watch's walls. And even if Jamie put together information and solved a case, no one besides Bertie could ever hear him, so it often did no good at all.
"Let's find out what's happening," he suggested with enthusiasm. "We can make a decision later on, when we're better informed."
Zipporah snorted. “You seem awfully cheery,” she said, putting the locket round her neck. “I can see why he likes you. Mr Eden, I mean.”
She put her coat and hat on, and turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “Presentable?” She asked, a little cheekily, before tipping her head towards Ach to come along. “I suppose nestling between a woman’s bosoms is another fantasy fulfilled,” she added, laughing a little.
Last time around, she’d been quite fearful of having him slip away -- she’d had to spend most of her time mentally praying, and keeping a tight grip on things. This time around, the locket had a little extra weight to it, as it had before, but she didn’t have to force it shut, force the contents to stay (while moving through space, which had been no easy feat).
"Bertie likes everyone," Jamie announced, peering briefly after the locket before looking away, without any trace of prurient interest or satisfaction. It was difficult to be aroused when you were incorporeal--and, more to the point, deceased. "It's hard for him to not like someone. He likes you as well, I'm sure."
He tried floating around a little, testing his limits. "I can't really feel it," he remarked. "The locket, I mean. Or its current residence." He smiled at her, suddenly cheeky. "I'm sure it's very warm and well-cushioned. I thank you for the comfortable carriage. The view must be far better than the last one."
“Hm,” Zipporah replied with an amused snort.
“I am concerned,” she said, smoothing down her jacket, “that when we step outside, the absence of wards will change things. I shall keep my eye, but you shall let me know should things feel different, yes? And talk as we go, so I can tell if you are… drifting? Or not there?”
She patted the place where the locket rested, nodding her head in Jamie’s direction.
"So the...wards, you said? meant to keep me out might instead be keeping me in? Or might be giving me a boost, as it were?" The red of Zipporah's coat was almost startling in the well-kept but shabby confines of her room, and Jamie smiled. "I quite like your coat. What will happen to me, do you think, if I do end up...drifting?"
“Thank you,” Zipporah replied, preening a bit and grinning despite herself.
His question brought her firmly back to the task at hand, and she nodded. “I am not sure,” she said, “but should you, I should do my best for to hold you, as I did before. Or, barring that, follow you, if I can.” She bit her lip. “We shall just have to be careful, is all, and you keeping talking about what you are feeling may help. I am sorry,” she added, “for not being more certain. I realize there is a great deal at stake for you, in all this.”
Jamie nodded. "If I do go on," he observed, "it would probably be best if you didn't try to follow me. It's not your time for death, and I wouldn't want to lead you to the afterlife prematurely."
He was silent for a moment, gazing at the front door, and then offered, "Bertie tells me stories, sometimes. He doesn't like to, he doesn't want to frighten me, but I can tell when he's been upset by something. He says that ghosts fade away, eventually. That they lose themselves, and become only echoes. There's one in his office who is nothing but a face. She's lost her voice. she mouths words, sometimes, but they're never her own."
He looked back to Zipporah, and wondered if his skin would be prickling, if he still had it. It was so difficult to tell what had been lost with his physical form, and what he was still losing, sensation and memory and identity, without being aware of it slipping away.
"I think I would rather go on as I am, to wherever we go, than wait for that to happen," Jamie told Zipporah. "We might as well take a risk while we may. What else is life for but to live it?"
He smiled then. "Bertie would be writing a poem about that, if he heard it. Scribbling about living in the afterlife and muttering about metaphors. I'm lucky to have a more practical guide. I trust you won't be distracted by rhyme schemes and allegory."
Zipporah snorted again with a “hmph,” and she very nearly remarked on the irony of a ghost talking about living his life, but the sentiment was clear enough, and she was worried enough that it’d go sideways to not wish to jinx it.
“I shall do my best for to keep my head,” she said, nodding. “And if you do go, I will not follow, and will wish you well.”
She wondered whether she ought to ask him whether he wished to pass along any parting messages to Mr Eden, or whether that’d likewise put too much of a pall over things. Instead, she nodded her head, squared her shoulders, and made her way out the door.
If there were wards affecting him that ceased to do so at some point, Jamie couldn't tell. He glanced back over his shoulder once, but they were out the door, now slightly down the street, and he continued drifting along in Zipporah's wake with no harm done.
"I feel something like a balloon on a string," he told her, adding cheerfully, "Still here, if you were wondering. Do you have any more trouble seeing or hearing me, when we're out of your...sanctum? Is there a name for a witch's house? A den? A cauldron? A mortar? I quite like that one, actually. Would that make you the pestle? Dear Lord," Jamie interrupted himself in some alarm. "I'm beginning to sound like Bertie. It's nice to have someone else to talk to. It's been a while."
“What do you mean, beginning,” Zipporah shot back, and despite the weariness, uncertainty, and general oddness of the day she’d had (and the entirely disconcerting evening the night before), she laughed, and felt light-footed as they walked -- well, as she walked and Jamie floated.
“I do like calling it a den,” she said, two spots of pleased color in her cheeks. “It sounds warm and safe. Or Baba Yaga has a hut that walks on chicken feets, so perhaps a coop? A houseful of biddies, clucking away.” She cackled at that. “You look different, with the sunlight, she said, “and with the variety in the backgrounds -- it is easier for to see you against wallpaper than against a tree or a building. But your voice, it is still strong. This is alright? It is not… uncomfortable, for to be a balloon? You sound well enough.”
"No, it's fine. I like being able to look around." Jamie was, indeed, looking around at that moment, drinking in the sights and sounds of the street. "That's not you alone, either--Bertie says he can see us - ghosts - better in dim lighting, in the evening or indoors. There are witches at the Night Watch who can't see me, or don't acknowledge it if they do," Jamie observed. "Are you a different kind of chicken? Or just trained differently than they are?"
He looked up at where a wall was receiving a coat of glue for a paper sign. "Bertie isn't trained at all--the witches say he isn't one of them, he just has a quirk of talent. He doesn't tell many people; he's worried someone will kill him to keep him quiet one day. Or Orwell is, anyway. Criminals might not appreciate an inspector who can speak to the witness they thought they'd silenced. I'm not putting you at any greater risk, am I?"
Zipporah shrugged. “I am told there are many different ways for to be trained, and disciplines for to specialize in. My grandmother knew of spirits, and how to protect against the malicious, and my auntie knows how to heal, and I learned both, although I am better at the former. And in learning of malicious spirits, spirits of the devil, one learns to pay attention to the energies around one, which includes spirits such as yourself, but it requires focus -- I do not see ghosts unless I am looking for them.” She shrugged. “I am not certain if it is simply a matter of training, or nature, or both, but Mr Eden’s experience would… would suggest it is part nature, I suppose.”
She laughed. “I suppose my type of chicken would be the sort wandering loose in a yard, eating up all sorts of bugs and chasing off rats, instead of the kind in nice, warm pens with the good corn. But I am a hardy bird. And my skills, they are the practical kind. I would not trade places. And as for risk, eh,” she shrugged. “I have a golem, I have all sorts of dangerous peoples as my friends, Let them come. They shan’t make it far.”
She grinned in Jamie’s general direction. “Zipporah does mean ‘bird,’ you know,” she added, tilting her head. “She was a wife of Moses.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jamie replied. “And nonsense, you have a sturdy coop, and a flock around you, as you’ve said. I think you’re a very capable bird.”
He looked around, as if malicious spirits of the devil should appear at the sound of their name. “Are there really angels and devils, then? I have to say, I was disappointed in the offerings of the afterlife, but perhaps I just haven’t fully experienced it yet. You’ve met them, though? Only devils, or angels as well?”
“I have encountered poltergeists,” Zipporah replied, “evil, shadowy things that smell of sulphur, full of malice and rage, but I cannot say whether they are devils, or spirits of peoples that have gone bad, somehow. Likewise with the spirits that possess, that take hold of a body and force them for to do its bidding. We have stories of demons -- creatures that suck up one’s life force -- but I have yet to meet one. I have met an alushka, a vampire, but she was a person, not a devil. And as far as angels are concerned…” she shrugged, and looked behind her at her steady Ach. “I like for to say that he is my guardian angel,” she said, fondly, “but I have not seen a spirit like that.”
She shrugged again. “When I pray, I feel the presence of God,” she said, simply, “and He listens to me. The rest, I cannot say.”
"You are blessed, then," Jamie replied. "I can't recall feeling that, even in life, in the church. Not the way you describe it. But then, I was never a priest."
He paused, a new thought striking him. "You're a sort of priest-ess, aren't you? Channeling the grace and power of God into miracles? That seems the work of priests. And saints. I'm allowed to blaspheme, I'm already dead. I think that's how it should work, anyway. This seems the proper time to exorcise doubts and speak against the church, while in purgatory."
Zipporah laughed merrily at that. “I am no hasidim,” she said, grinning. “I am a woman, for one, and I enjoy the fleshly pleasures far too much, and play far too liberally with the law. And I am no rabbi, neither, for all those reasons. But God does not seem to care over much. I have a feeling in His great wisdom, He knows we are all human, and loves us even better for it. He does not expect perfection, He expects us for to try to do our best to put more good into the world.”
She looked up at him, tipping her head. “Questioning the world and our place in it is a part of being human. And that you are still capable of such questions, and are still putting good into the world even now... that tells me your soul is a good one. And perhaps you have a purpose yet for being here.”
"So you're telling me that to get to Heaven, I need to stop being so bloody inquisitive," Jamie teased. He started to say more - to apologize for cursing in the presence of a lady - but something teased at his awareness, a magnet that wanted to pull him like a filing toward its center.
"There's something to our left," Jamie told Zipporah, still looking off in that direction, half-frowning. "Perhaps a street over? Can you feel it?"
It was almost comforting, and definitely a presence, brushing at the edge of his attention. "Going that way, I think," Jamie observed, beginning to drift in spite of himself toward the sense of familiarity. "Oh, God," he groaned a moment later, though his heart wasn't in it, still distracted by the unusual feeling. "Have we done it? Am I really going to meet God right now, in the middle of Whitechapel?"
“I doubt it,” Zipporah replied, absently, but she followed where he indicated, her forehead wrinkling in worry and thought, her feet moving more quickly than their earlier, leisurely pace. She wasn’t sure what she was about to encounter, but she felt none of the earlier buzzing and itching that’d made her hair and skin feel out of sorts, and whatever it was, Jamie was being pulled towards it regardless. She knew he’d told her not to follow should he start drifting, but she was curious, and it seemed that he was suggesting they go together rather than not.
She turned the corner, and saw a familiar form, and her heart leaped in relief and recognition.
“Mr Eden!” She called out. “It’s Mr Eden!”
Jamie couldn't say he'd ever felt disappointed to see Bertie - considering that Bertie was usually the only one who could see him in turn - but it did seem anticlimactic after the brief hope that eternal rest might be around the corner, perhaps with accompanying pearly gates. The only gates here were wrought-iron and worn down, which wasn't a surprise considering the neighborhood.
Still, the feeling passed quickly, likely because the naked relief and gratitude on Bertie's pointy face at the sight of them made it hard to hold onto disappointment. "Jamie?" he called back, and hastened to meet them at an inadvisable pace, nearly colliding with several other pedestrians in his haste and tripping once over a lamp post.
"Not God," Jamie sighed quietly, before Bertie came close enough to hear, and then he was on them in a rush and babble of motion, shaking Zipporah's hand vigorously despite the impropriety of it and drinking in the sight of Jamie as though he were the fountain of youth.
"Thank you," Bertie rambled earnestly. "How did you find him? Jamie, where have you been? I went to the Night Watch office and you weren't there, and no one could tell me where you'd gone."
"Obviously," Jamie broke in, smiling gently now. "They can't tell you when I'm there, either."
"But you're here, in...Whitechapel? And with Miss Bakst? Hello, Miss Bakst," Bertie redirected, seeming to remember his manners at last. "Thank you for looking after him. Do you know what's happened? The whole city feels...it feels..."
Bertie looked around him, suddenly seeming distracted by their surroundings. "It's here," he murmured, attention wandering again. "Can you feel it, too?"
“I can,” Zipporah replied. “Less so than this morning, but yes, it is here. I walked part of the perimeter this morning.” She took the locket out from under her coat, patting it a little. “It was the locket, I think,” she said looking up at Jamie, “although we are not certain as to why. This day has been quite odd,” she added. “We were on our way to the Night Watch, for to see what we could sort out.”
She looked over at Bertie, the relief plain on his face, and couldn’t help but smile. “I am glad we found you,” she said, simply.
"Perimeter?" Bertie asked, somewhere between alarmed and intrigued. It was his 'you've given me a clue to a case' voice, which Jamie was fond of because he was often the one causing it. "Is this a fixed-location event, then? Is it...do you know...?"
He hesitated, chewing on his lower lip, and then admitted, "I didn't come to Whitechapel because I felt it would be stronger here. I came because of the...you know. The murders. I wanted to look around. It's not coincidence, is it?"
He sounded terribly unhappy about that, not at all like he'd been given a clue. Jamie decided to be the bearer of bad news, to spare Zipporah. "What do we always say about coincidences in crimes?"
Bertie nodded and heaved a sigh. He rubbed his head, both knocking his hat slightly askew and mussing his hair beneath it. "Everything has been unsettled, all day," he said. "The witches and the fae all feel it, and some of the werewolves, too. And you went missing...back to the locket? I wonder why." He didn't wonder too hard, however, because he was already going on. "Ghosts are moving, all around, shifting and disappearing. I think a few followed me, for a while, before they lost interest."
Jamie considered that, and his own impulse of a moment before. "You...glow," he said slowly, frowning because that wasn't the right word at all. "You exist. I can't tell if Miss Bakst would be the same--it's more difficult to separate her from the locket. And I did show up in her home, under her wards."
"Did you?" Bertie flashed a quick, bright smile. "Jamie, you hound."
“I did not call him,” Zipporah replied, “nor am I making effort for to hold him there. Last time around, I had to concentrate, to wrestle, like… like holding liquid metal in my hands. But not this time.” She was reminded just then of Arabella’s bubble of glass encasing the metal that would melt in the palm of one’s hand, and the memory was a calming one.
“And yes, I think it is all connected. The Forest folk and wolf peoples could feel it as well? And not just Jamie -- but the other ghosts too?” She gnawed on her lip thoughtfully. “It is a big thing, then.”
She’d felt out of sorts all day, but this brought it home, made it feel weightier, somehow, and she felt a slow twist of dread in her stomach.
"Yes." Bertie looked sobered. Jamie wished, not for the first time, for the physical ability to touch him, to comfort and reassure. For someone whose life revolved around incorporeal spirits, Bertie was a tactile sort.
Bertie rubbed at his forehead again, as if he had a headache. "I don't know what's happened, but it's put everyone...magical...on edge. And me, of course, but I think that's to do with the ghosts. There are some others I haven't asked," Bertie admitted. "Other kinds of people, to see what they've noticed. I should be sure to make some calls this week. But why now, when there have been murders before this? Does this mean there's a new killer, a sort of...supernatural copycat? Or was it some sort of ritual, only completed with the two murders last night? Why two in one night? That's never happened before."
He was rambling again, thinking through his case by talking it all out aloud, and Jamie smiled again before asking, "Have you found any ghosts of the victims?" Bertie hadn't at the past crime scenes, he knew, but things had changed now.
Bertie shook his head. "None. There's a Scotland Yard officer who works for the Night Watch as well, he's on the case. He says they haven't found anything supernatural about it. And no witnesses from the spirit world. They've sent me out to every crime scene, just in case." He glanced around again. "And you'd think, with ghosts...or with me, glowing, or whatever...that they'd have found me by now."
The notion of a ritual completed (to what end?) that required such horrible fodder made Zipporah shiver a bit, but she made herself straighten her shoulders and set her chin. “Well, then,” she said, “it seems as if we have work to do.”
This was her home -- her neighborhood -- and she wasn’t going to take this lying down.
“For now, though,” she said, reaching out to touch Bertie’s elbow, to center him a bit, “what shall we do about the locket? Jamie, would you want for to go back to the Night Watch? Should we see if Bertie could wear it? Or would you rather stay with me?”
The forlorn, hopeful look on Bertie's face, as if Jamie's rejection would crush him with its betrayal, decided the answer for him. "I'll join the investigation, if you won't miss me too terribly," he teased Zipporah. "As you say, it looks as though there's work to do. And for once I'm not stuck in the office while everyone goes out and does it," he said, pleased at the realization. "Bertie, you won't mind wearing me for a while, will you?"
He already knew the answer, but it was still nice to have Bertie insist, "No, not at all. You're certain he'll be...safe...with me?" This last was directed at Zipporah, as were all anxious inquiries after Jamie's health and well-being. It was reassuring to know that Bertie worried over him so.
“We shall see,” Zipporah replied, hoping that a firm tone would mitigate the uncertainty of it all. “I am not holding him, so it appears he is here because of the locket, not me.” She looked over at Jamie. “My dresser drawer shall be quite forlorn,” she said, lightly, and, with a slightly softer tone, she added, “I may take you out for a walk from time to time, if you’d like it.”
She took the locket off and held it carefully in her hand for a moment, saying a silent prayer before passing it over to Bertie. “You will take care?” She said. The locket itself had a certain degree of sentimental value, but it was serving a far more important role at the moment, so it wasn’t too much of a hardship to part with it.
"I will take care," Bertie replied gravely. Jamie always thought it was slightly comical, when Bertie attempted to be grave and serious--he was too small and flighty to really pull it off, though he did try. "Thank you, Miss Bakst."
"Yes, thank you," Jamie echoed, watching as Bertie settled the locket around his neck before returning his attention to Zipporah with a smile. "I would like that very much."
Zipporah nodded to Jamie. “I wish you all the best, both here, and when you are ready for to not be here any more,” she said, “and I am glad that you came to me. I shall see you again soon, Mr Percy.” She looked back to Bertie. “I have work for to do,” she said, “and we must see whether he shall stay with you, but I shall see you again soon as well, yes?”
"Most certainly," Bertie agreed. "I have the feeling...well. It might be nice to have someone else to discuss the situation with, who has a different perspective."
Jamie was still troubled by Zipporah's when you are ready for to not be here any more--or perhaps, troubled by the fact that he wasn't precisely troubled at the saying of it--but he shrugged it off and nodded to her. "Until we meet again, then. Hopefully it will be less of a surprise for all of us."
Zipporah nodded, and took a deep breath. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said, and then turned and walked away, forcing herself to keep her eyes forward despite her curiosity and worry and the sudden unexpected sting she felt in the corners.