18
" Anything . . . supernatural?” I asked.
“No. Yes.” Jackaby rubbed his eyes. “Everything. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling . . .”
“What?” I said.
“Ha!” He shook his head and spun in place, marveling at the dark, dusty cobwebs hanging over us. “It’s been scrubbed clean, every inch.”
I looked around. “This might be why you and Jenny rarely see eye to eye about housekeeping,” I said.
“Not scrubbed clean of dust or droppings,” he said. “There are plenty of those, of course.” I decided not to look too closely for confirmation about the droppings. “Scrubbed clean of magical residue. I can’t pick out any unique otherworldly auras in this space.”
“Couldn’t that just mean that this place doesn’t have any?”
“Hardly. When you were young, did you ever spill red wine on your parents’ carpet?”
I blinked. “Er—yes? I knocked a bottle of merlot off of the table once.”
“And what did your mother do to clean it up?”
“Nothing. My mother never did the cleaning. She always had a maid handle that sort of thing.”
“Precisely—white vinegar! Nothing better for a stain. Except that the carpet is never quite like it used to be, is it? Even if you can’t see the red anymore, there’s always something about that spot. It’s a little too clean for the rest of the rug, and it keeps that lingering vinegar smell, right? Now a healthy suspension of sodium bicarbonate might help with that, but there’s always something left behind.”
“You know a lot about cleaning carpets for someone whose floor looks like a topical map of the East Indies.”
“I know the Viennese waltz, too, but I don’t waste my time doing it every day. Focus, Rook. "
― William Ritter , Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby, #3)
