Jessie Johnson is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in London, and who inherited the rare gene that later gave her the Sight. Jessie is a Shade, which is a person who has triggered their Sight and who is capable of seeing ghosts. However, Jessie is so far unaware that she has this ability. She is therefore not affiliated with the Shades government division. She has also never met Rory or any of the other main characters.
Biography[]
Gaining the Sight[]
Jessie is allergic to peanuts. On November 6, she accidentally ate a product containing the nut and her reaction was so severe that Jessie went into anaphylactic shock. This near-death experience gave her the Sight.
Victims' Vigil[]
Three days after this incident, Jessie noticed a ghost. During the time of the Copy-Cat Ripper murders, she was one of 5000 to attend an all-night vigil that was held in London's East End to honour all of the murder victims. Opposite the site was a multi-storey carpark. At around 2:45am, hundreds of flyers were tossed from one of the carpark levels and onto the crowd below. The flyers read:
THE EYES WILL COME TO YOU
TERMINUS TERIMNUS
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
—Alexander Pope, “Essay on Man”
Due to the ongoing nature of the Ripper investigation, the vigil site (which was also the site of one of the original Jack the Ripper murders at Room Thirteen) was heavily guarded by police. The surrounding officers immediately responded by closing off the car park and searching for the flyer thrower. They searched every floor, but did not find the culprit.
Meanwhile, from down below, Jessie saw an unknown woman in old-fashioned military attire (Josephine Bell) leaning over the barrier and unceremoniously tossing handfuls upon handfuls of flyers. Jessie began to point out the woman to the people around her, but no-one acknowledged her. Jessie witnessed Jo throw the last of the flyers and disappear back into the car park. Minutes later, Jessie then saw Jo reemerge on the ground floor and walk right past three uniformed officers unnoticed. Jessie was confused and tried to make sense of what she had seen by going over the incident in her head.