1867, Early August

“Don’t you understand? You are in danger!”

The big one, Dr. Joseph Morton, banged his fist on the table to accentuate his point. When he first came into the tavern Emma was intimidated. Alone, by himself, Joseph Morton would have been intimidating, massive as he was, but there were also his two colleagues Emma recognized from issues of Illustrated Phantom Stories. The one with short blonde hair and piercingly blue eyes had to be Dr. Martin Glass, the ex-student of thaumaturgy, and the nondescript one with the black hair and eyes had to be Dr. Matthew Ernst, who wrote some scientific article in some manesological journal about how one part of a ghost interacted with another part. It supposedly made him famous among manesologists, but Emma didn’t really understand such things. She only knew enough about ghosts and hauntings to fake them.

Ernst, Morton, and Glass had surrounded her at her table, and when they had first entered the tavern, Emma was afraid of them because there were rumors of manesologists punishing charlatans that made claims to metaphysical power by sicing their ghost friends on them. It was whispered in rumors that the great stage illusionist Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin was punished by manesologists for his famous disappearing act. Supposedly, ghosts visited Robert-Houdin one night and performed his disappearing act with him as the subject, but they didn’t perform the part where the subject reappeared. Robert-Houdin remained wherever things go to when they vanish, if such things even go anywhere.

Emma was afraid at first, because she feared becoming a new Robert-Houdin, but she relaxed when the three manesologists assured her that they weren’t here to punish her for claiming to see the dead claimed by Fairy. They weren’t even going to report her to the authorities like what happened with Mary Doheny back in 1864. They were here to warn her about retaliation from a group she was certain had more important things to deal with than a little trickster like herself.

Emma smiled at the large man and shook her head. “Dr. Morton, I’m not in any danger.”

“Damn it girl, you are!” Joseph shouted. “Faeries are real, or haven’t you heard?”

She chuckled. “Oh of course I’ve heard! Everyone’s heard! I saw the Seelie Court’s procession through the early morning sky back in 1866, and then I saw the Unseelie Court march across the moon at midnight, same as everyone else. I read how the Courts met with the Queen, and the President of the United States, and all the other dignitaries that stand atop our little world. I know that faeries are real. But certainly they have better things to do than go after me for bringing a little comfort to grieving mothers in their name?”

“And to live quite comfortably off gifts from those grieving mothers.” Martin said. “You forgot to mention that.”

“I am a lesser Mary Doheny.” Emma said. “That’s all that I am. I do what she did, but I don’t ask nearly as much from my clients as she did. If the little people were content to let the law handle her and for her to live out the rest of her days hex and jinx free, I see no reason why they would want to “fix my wagon” as you put it, Dr. Morton.”

“Mary Doheny practiced her trickery back in 1864.” Martin said. “It was before the Great Procession. It was before the Fair Folk made it very clear to one and all that they were real. They are capable of mercy, Ms. Quinn, but they are also capable of terrible vengeance. They weighed Mary’s transgressions against her ignorance and chose Mercy. But you, you’ve done your crime in an entirely new age of metaphysical enlightenment. Do not presume that you would be judged the same as Mrs. Doheny.”

Emma sighed. They were so easy to figure out. “Dr. Glass, I see what this is about, what this is really about. You want to shut me down, just as you’ve shut down several ghost-callers and mediums around the country, but you don’t want to deal with the messy legalities of filing a suit. I read in Illustrated Phantom Stories how annoyed the three of you were when you were subpoenaed to give testimony concerning the purported ghost ship Mary Celeste last year. You told the journalists all about how you hated having to make the time to go to court because it pulled you away from your work. Well, I’m sorry gentlemen, but if you want to stop me, you’re going to have to file the paperwork and do all that long, tedious, unpleasant business.”

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“You ungrateful little strumpet!” Joseph exclaimed. “We’re trying to save you from death, possibly something worse than death!”

“There’s no need for such coarse language, Dr. Morton.” Emma said. “You’re a learned man, or so they say. You can act like one.”

“Emma Quinn, my friends and I have had many dealings with the Fair Folk over the years.” Martin said. “One of them, the psychopomp John-a-Doors, is even something of a friend to us. We’ve worked with and against faeries. We have even gone past the Archon Walls into the universe of Fairy. Please believe us when we say that they are not to be trifled with.”

“They can swirl the stars and toss the moon like a ball, is that it?” Emma asked.

“They are all-powerful.” Martin replied. “They are older than the Dyeus who ruled Pangea. When our sun was young and blue, they were holding court with the Four Dragons of Tiendi, the angels of Monad, the Kingspeaker of Nazarth…”

“And?” Emma smirked. “Go on, sing their praises some more. Tell me all about how the four corners of the world are bound to the directions of their compass and how they’re so much bigger than me, and England, and the whole world. You know what’s also bigger than the world? The sun. They say it’s thousands of times larger than the world.”

“Hundreds of thousands.” Martin corrected.

“Fine. Hundreds of thousands. Make it millions of thousands. The point is, the sun is up there, and I’m down here. What does the sun care for a little spec in its wreath of rays? And what does Fairy care for a little scammer when they have the machinery of creation to play with? Do you really expect me to believe such all-powerful beings would concern themselves with a girl from Tipperary swindling some biscuits and jam from her neighbors? What, do they want to raid my larder? Do the all-mighty beings want my tea?”

“Listen and listen closely to me, Emma Quinn.” Martin said. “They are powerful. They are so powerful that their primary concerns are abstractions. They do not fight over resources as men do, for they are beyond such physical concerns. They fight over honor. They fight over pride. They began fighting countless aeons ago over a philosophical debate and haven’t stopped since. They are a fighting people, before they are anything else. They love to fight. And you, by claiming powers that you do not have, strike at what they care most about above all other things--their reputation.”

“If reputation is of such pressing concern to them, then why haven’t they done anything to old Biddy Early?” Emma asked. “Everyone called her a fairy woman. Everyone said that the ghost of her son Tom went to the faeries when he died and brought her back a little blue glass bottle. They said her could look inside that bottle of hers and see the solutions to problems and the future and who would marry who and what not. Now if that’s not laying claim to fairy powers, I don’t know what is!”

“Don’t compare yourself to her.” Joseph said testily. “Don’t you even start.”

“Why can’t I compare myself to Biddy Early? You talk about me besmirching the reputation of the little people because I claim to be able to see the dead in their custody, but I never went to trial for it! Biddy Early did. She became a national spectacle and don’t you tell me it was before people started believing in faeries. Her trial was before the procession, I’ll grant you that, but it was in 1865, the same year Samuel Mathers founded the Ror Raas. People knew magic was real even if they didn’t know faeries were.”

“Thaumaturgy is as much magic as chemistry.” Martin corrected. He hated when people called thaumaturgy magic. “It’s philosophical principles are rooted in traditions that may be called occult, but the physical workings of the Operations are simply technological extrapolations of--”

Joseph touched Martin on the shoulder. “That’s neither here nor there, Martin.” he said.

“Biddy Early was put on trial for witchcraft--of all things, witchcraft! And in 1865, everyone could see that magic or thaumaturgy or however you want to call it wasn’t performed by old crones in league with Satan. Wasn’t that embarrassing for you lot? I remember hearing about how the thaumaturgists of the Ror Raas had to step in and give testimony to the courts that Biddy Early had no thaumaturgical power let alone power granted to her by the little people. Her little bottle was found to be made out of quartz or something like that.”

“Cobalt, actually.” Martin said.

“Oh, like that makes a difference! The whole thing was a circus! It was an embarrassment! It had to be embarrassing for all of you in the magic community, right?”

Martin nearly said something, but decided against doing so at the very last moment.