The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(38)

Too much time had passed. I’d been too long with him. For two years he had bound me to him, a mote of dust caught in his Jovian gravity. I didn’t even know what the world looked like without the Warthropian lenses through which to view it. Now they were gone, and I was blind.

“We shall see how Mr. Arkwright likes it,” I told myself with bitter satisfaction. “‘Snap to, Mr. Arkwright! Snap to!’ Let’s see how he likes being laughed at and scolded and mocked and ordered around like a coolie. Have at it, Mr. Arkwright, and welcome to it!”

I refused to eat. I could not sleep. All of von Helrung’s efforts to coax me out of the room failed. I sat in the chair by the fireplace and sulked like Achilles in his tent, while the war of day-to-day life raged on without me. On the evening of the third day von Helrung shuffled in bearing a tray of hot chocolate and pastries and a chessboard.

“We will have a nice game of chess, ja? Now, do not tell me Pellinore failed to teach you. I know him better.”

He had. Chess was one of the monstrumologist’s favorite diversions. And, like many who excelled at the game, he never seemed to tire of utterly humiliating his opponent—that is, me. In the first year of our tenancy together, he wasted more than a few hours trying to instruct me in the finer aspects of strategy, attack, counterattack, and defense. I never bested him, not once. He might have chosen generosity over ruthlessness and allowed me to win a game or two, to build up my confidence, but the doctor never had much interest in building up anything in me other than a strong stomach. Besides, destroying an eleven-year-old boy in six moves—in a game he had been playing longer than the boy had been alive—lifted his spirits, like a fine wine at dinner.

“I don’t feel like playing.”

He was setting up the board. It was a set made from jade, the pieces carved into the shapes of dragons. The dragon king and queen wore crowns. The dragon bishops clutched shepherd crooks in their talons.

“Oh, no, no. We shall play. I shall teach you as I taught Pellinore. Better, so you can beat him when he comes back.” He was humming happily under his breath.

I hurled the board against the wall. Von Helrung gave a soft cry, mewling as he picked up the dragon king, who had lost his crown; it had broken off when the piece had hit the floor.

“Dr. von Helrung… I’m sorry…”

“No, no,” he said. “It is nothing. A gift from my dear wife, may her sleep go undisturbed.” He snuffled. Not knowing how to comfort him, and feeling mortified by my childishness, I awkwardly dropped my hand upon his shoulder.

“I worry too, Will,” he confessed. “The days ahead will be dangerous for him, and dark. Remember that when the tide of self-pity threatens to overwhelm you.”

“I know that,” I replied. “It’s why I should be with him. He doesn’t need me to cook or clean or take his dictation or care for his horse or any of that. Those things anyone can do, Dr. von Helrung. He needs me for the dark places.”

On the morning of the seventh day, a telegramrived from London:

ARRIVED SAFE. WILL ADVISE. PXW.

“Four words?” von Helrung moaned. “That is all he has to say?”

“An overseas cable costs a dollar a word,” I told him. “The doctor is very stingy.”

Von Helrung, who was not nearly as wealthy as my master, or as penny-pinching, returned this reply:

REPORT AT ONCE ANY FINDINGS.

HAVE YOU MET WITH WALKER?

ANXIOUSLY AWAITING YOUR REPLY.

That reply was long—very long—in coming.

After two weeks had passed with no discernible improvement in my condition, von Helrung summoned his personal physician, a Dr. John Seward, to have a look at me. For an hour I was poked and prodded, thumped and pinched. I had no fever. My heart and lungs sounded good. My eyes were clear.

“Well, he’s underweight, but he is small for his age,” Seward told von Helrung. “He could also use a good dentist. I’ve seen cleaner teeth on a goat.”

“I worry, John. He’s eaten little and slept less since he came.”

“Can’t sleep, hmmm? I’ll mix up something to help.” He was staring at my left hand. “What happened to your finger?”

“Doctor Pellinore Warthrop chopped it off with a butcher knife,” I replied.

“Really? And why would he do that?”

“The risk was unacceptable.”

“Gangrene?”

“Pwdre ser.”

Baffled, Seward looked at von Helrung, who laughed nervously and waved his hand in a vague circle.

“Oh, the children, ja? So robust, their imaginations!”

“He cut it off and put it in a jar,” I said, as von Helrung, standing slightly behind Seward, violently shook his head.

“Did he? And why did he do that?” Seward asked.

“He wants to study it.”

“Couldn’t he have done that when it was still attached to your hand?”

“My father was a farmer,” von Helrung announced loudly. “And one day a cow would get sick, she would lie down, and no coaxing would bring her back up. ‘There is nothing to be done, Abram,’ my father would tell me. ‘When an animal gives up like that, it has lost its will to live.’”

“Is that it?” Seward asked me. “Have you lost your will to live?”