The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(58)

“Sir?”

“I said his gain is my gain!” He leaned across the desk to shout in my face. “Don’t you know I’m the one who’s supposed to be deaf? Well. Good-bye!”

He bver some papers on his desk and shooed me toward the door with a wave of his gnarled hand.

I paused in the doorway. It occurred to me that I might not see him again.

“I enjoyed working for you, Professor Ainesworth,” I said.

He did not look up from his work. “Keep moving, William James Henry. Always keep moving, like the proverbial stone, or you’ll end up an old mossback like Adolphus Ainesworth!”

I started into the hall. He called me back.

“You are a slave,” he said. “Or you must think you are, not to be asking for your pay. Here,” he added gruffly, shoving two crumpled dollar bills across the desk.

“Professor Ainesworth—”

“Take it! Don’t be a fool when it comes to money, Will Henry. Be a fool about everything else—religion, politics, love—but never be a fool about money. That bit of wisdom is your bonus for your long minutes of heavy toil!”

“Thank you, Professor Ainesworth.”

“Shut up. Go. Wait. Why the devil are you going again?”

“To save the doctor.”

“Save him from what?”

“Whatever he needs saving from. I’m his apprentice.”

As I packed my things that evening, Lilly approached me with her request. Oh, very well, I shall admit it: It wasn’t a request.

“I am going with you.”

I did not choose the answer von Helrung had given me. I was tired and anxious, my nerves were shot, and the last thing I wanted was a row.

“Your mother won’t let you.”

“Mother says she won’t let you.”

“The difference is that she isn’t my mother.”

“She’s already been to Uncle, you know. I’ve never seen her so angry. I thought her head might burst—literally burst and roll off her shoulders. I’m very curious to see what happens.”

“I don’t think her head will burst.”

“No, I meant with you. I’ve never known her not to get her way.”

She flopped onto the bed and watched me shove clothing into my little bag. Her frank stare unnerved me. It always did.

“How did you find him?” she asked.

“Another monstrumologist found him.”

“How?”

“I—I am not sure.”

She laughed—spring rain upon the dry earth. “I don’t know why you lie, William James Henry. You’re very bad at it.”

“The doctor says lying is the worst kind of buffoonery.”

“Then, you are the worst kind of buffoon.”

I laughed. It brought me up short. I could not remember the last time I had laughed. It felt good to laugh. And good to see her eyes and smell the jasmine in her hair. I had the impulse to kiss her. I’d never experienced that particular urge before, and the feeling was not unlike standing on the edge of an abyss of an entirely different sort. This was no knot in my chest unwinding; this was the air itself, the whole atmosphere, expanding at speeds unimaginable. I didn’t know quite what to do about it all—except perhaps to kiss her, but actually kissing Lilly Bates entailed… well, kissing her.

“Will you miss me?” she asked.

“I will try.”

She found my answer to be extraordinarily witty. She rolled onto her back and howled with laughter. I blushed, not knowing whether to be flattered or offended.

“Oh!” she cried, sitting up and digging into her purse. “I nearly forgot! Here, I have something for you.”

It was her photograph. Her smile was slightly unnatural, I thought, though I liked her hair. It had been styled into corkscrew ringlets, which more than made up for the smile.

“Well, what do you think? It’s for luck, and for when you get lonely. You’ve never told me, but I think you are lonely a great deal of the time.”

I might have argued; bickering was our normal mode of discourse. But I was leaving, and she had just given me her photograph, and a moment before I’d thought of kissing her, so I thanked her for the present and went on with my packing—that is, rearranging what was already packed. Sometimes, when Lilly was around me, I felt like an actor who did not know what to do with his hands.

“Write me,” she said.

“What?”

“A letter, a postcard, a telegram… write to me while you’re away.”

“All right,” I said.

“Liar.”

“I promise, Lilly. I will write to you.”

“Write me a poem.”

“A poem?”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a poem, I suppose.”

“That’s good.”

“Why is that good? You don’t want to write a poem?” She was pouting.

“I’ve just never written one. The doctor has. The doctor was a poet before he became a monstrumologist. I bet you didn’t know that.”

“I bet you didn’t know I did know that. I’ve even read some of his poems.”

“Now you̵ the liar. The doctor said he burned them all.”