The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(44)

“Never!”

“Maintain the files—”

“Won’t happen!”

“Take down dictation—”

“I have nothing to say!”

“Sort the mail—”

“Absolutely not!”

“Well,” I said wearily. “I’m handy with a broom.”

Spring. Blooms break forth from the startled earth. The sky laughs. The trees, abashed, dress themselves in verdant green. And the heavens are lush with stars. Redeem the time, the stars sing down. Redeem the dream.

And the boy waking in the land of broken rocks, the dry land wet with spring rain, waking in the place where two dreams cross—the dream where seeds grow into trees of gold and the dream of the box that he cannot open.

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” Lilly said. “I really shouldn’t tell you.”

I shall be the ship of a thousand sails.

“Last night I heard them talking about you.”

Go on, open it! He wanted you to see.

“And Father did not say yes, but he did not say no.”

I want to go, Father. I want to go.

“I say no,” she said. “I’ve kissed you now, three times.” And the stars sing down, Redeem the time, redeem the dream, in the land of broken rocks where two dreams cross.

“And that’s a horrid thought, kissing my own brother!”

I don’t want you to take me home. My place is with him.

“Well, William, what do you think?” asked Mrs. Bates.

“I think the doctor will be very displeased when he comes back.”

“Dr. Warthrop, if he comes back, will not have a say in the matter. He has no legal claim to you.”

“Dr. Warthrop, when he comes back, wonÙt care about legal claims.”

“Humf!” grunted Mr. Bates. “Cheeky.”

“I’ve no doubt of that, William. But he would acquiesce to your wishes, I think. What is your wish?”

My prey was in sight. I had but to stretch forth my hand and seize it. The boy with the tall glass of milk in the kitchen that smelled like apples and no darkness, no darkness anywhere, no bodies in ash barrels, no blood caked on the soles of his shoes, no screaming of his name in the deadest hours of the night, no unwinding thing that compelled and repulsed, that whispered like the thunder, I AM. Just the laughing sky, and trees adorned in gold and the abundance of stars that sing down and the boy with his milk and the smell of the earth, the undiminished whole of it, like apples.

Chapter Fifteen: “What You See, My God Sees”

The curator of the Monstrumarium tapped my chest with the sneering head of his cane and said, “You are to touch nothing. Ask first. Always ask first!”

I followed him through the snarl of dimly-lit passageways crammed floor-to-ceiling with unopened yet-to-be catalogued crates, walls festooned with cobwebs and coated in fifty years’ worth of grime, his cane going click, click, click on the dusty floor, the smell of preserving solution, the tartness of death upon the tongue, deep pools of shadow, feeble haloes of yellow gaslight, and the awful loneliness of being just one small person in a vast space.

“It may not look it, but there’s a place for everything, and everything is in its place. If a member should happen to ask you for help in finding something, do not help. Find me. I am not hard to find. I am usually at my desk. If I am not at my desk, tell them to come back another time. Tell them, ‘Adolphus is not at his desk. That means he is somewhere in the Monstrumarium, has gone home for the day, or is dead.’”

We paused by an unlabeled door—the Kodesh Hakodashim. He was absently shaking his key ring. It was my dream, down to the jangling of the keys.

“No one is to go in here,” he said. “Off-limits!”

“I know that.”

“Don’t talk back! Better, don’t talk! I do not like chattering children.”

Or quiet children, I thought.

“It’s the nidus, isn’t it?” Adolphus Ainesworth asked suddenly. “The ‘urgent business.’ Hah! Warthrop’s gone after the magnificum. Well, well. Doesn’t surprise me. Always the tilter at windmills. But what about you, Sancho Panza? Why didn’t you go with him?”

“He took another in my place.”

“Another what?”

“Dr. von Helrungnew pupil, Thomas Arkwright.”

“Arse wipe?”

“Arkwright!” I shouted.

“Never met the man. His pupil, did you say?”

“He must have introduced you to him.”

“Why must he? Yesterday was the first time I’ve seen the old fart in six months. He never comes down here. Anyway, what do I care about von Helrung’s pupil or anybody else’s for that matter? Here is the thing, Master Henry. You should never get friendly with a monstrumologist, and I can tell you why. Would you like to know why?”

I nodded. “Yes, I would.”

“Because they aren’t around for very long. They die!”

“Everyone dies, Professor Ainesworth.”

“Not like monstrumologists, they don’t. Now, look at me. I could have been one. Was asked more than once when I was younger to apprentice for one. Always said no, and I shall tell you why. Because they die. They die in droves! They die like turkeys on Thanksgiving Day! And their demise is not the usual untimely type. You know what I mean. A man falls off a boat and drowns. Or a horse kicks him in the head. That’s an accident; that’s natural. Being torn limb from limb by something you went looking for, that’s un natural; that’s monstrumological.”