The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(14)

“The enemy!” I heard him whisper.

We emerged from the trees into a clearing dotted with tombstones, their silky marble gleaming in the starlight. After a half dozen yards Erasmus brought us to a halt. I rose from my crouch and peered at the closest marker, a large stone emblazoned with the name of the family who owned the plot: BUNTON.

“There it is,” the old man said, pointing a gnarled finger at the headstone nearest the path. “That one, Doctor.”

Dr. Warthrop hopped from the cart and strode to the grave site. He made a full circle around the plot, scanning the ground, muttering unintelligibly to himself while Erasmus Gray and I remained rooted to our spots, watching him.

My eye was drawn to the stone about which he paced, and the name etched upon it. ELIZA BUNTON. BORN MAY 7, 1872. DIED APRIL 3, 1888. A month shy of her sixteenth birthday when consumed by the indifferent indignity of death’s cold embrace, in the first gentle flush of her budding womanhood, only to be pulled into a far less indifferent embrace for a consummation more foul than even the ultimate effrontery of death. In the space of a fortnight, Eliza Bunton had transformed from death’s virgin bride to the incubator for a monster’s progeny. I turned my gaze from the cold stone to the cold form beneath the white sheet, and my heart ached, for suddenly she was no longer a nameless corpse, an anonymous victim. She had a name-Eliza-and a family who must have loved her, for they had dressed her in the finest raiment and buried her in a necklace of the purest pearls, even arranging her luxurious curls with the utmost care, when all the while her destiny was not to lie in unbroken rest among her brethren, but to be eaten.

Erasmus Gray must have sensed my distress, for he laid a hand upon my shoulder and said, “There, there, child. There, there.” His tone changed abruptly, from sympathy to indignation. “He shouldn’t have brought you. A dark and dirty business is this; no place for any God-fearing Christian, much less a child.”

I shrugged his hand from my shoulder. I desired no sympathy from a man of his ignominious profession.

“I’m not a child,” I said.

“Not a child, eh? Then these old eyes make a liar of Erasmus Gray! Let me have a closer look…”

He lifted my tattered little hat and squinted down at my face, a smile playing on his lips, and, despite myself, so comical was his expression of earnest study, I caught myself smiling back.

“Ack! You’re right, not a child-a fine young man, then! D’ye know what I think it is that fooled me, William Henry? It’s this hat! It’s much too small for a strapping young man such as yourself. A fully grown man should have a man’s full-grown hat!”

With one hand he held my little hat, and with the other he dropped his large floppy hat onto my head. It fell over my eyes and nose, much to his delight; his chuckles grew louder, and the cart quivered with the aftershocks of his mirth. I pushed back the hat and saw him looming above me, his spectral frame silhouetted against the velvet sky, my own tiny hat now perched upon his balding head. I found myself giggling right along with him.

“What do ye think, Will Henry? Is it true the clothes make the man? For now I do feel fifty years younger-by Jehoshaphat I do!”

The doctor’s impatient call interrupted our revelry.

“Will Henry, fetch the torch and bring the stakes! Snap to, Will Henry!”

“Back to business, Mr. Henry,” the old man said with a touch of sadness in his voice. He switched our hats, giving mine a sharp tug once it was on my head, then gently lifting my chin to look me in the eye.

“You watch my back and I’ll watch yours, Will Henry. Right, then? Do we have a bargain?”

He offered his hand, which I grasped and pumped quickly before hopping to the ground. The doctor had called, and of course I would go. I reached into the cart and pulled a torch and the bundle of stakes from the stack of supplies. When I joined him at the foot of Eliza Bunton’s grave, Warthrop was on his hands and knees, his nose two inches from the freshly turned earth, sniffing like a bloodhound after an elusive quarry. A bit out of breath, I stood before him, unacknowledged, torch in one hand, stakes in the other, awaiting further instruction, while he drew breath to the bottom of his lungs, eyes closed, forehead knotted in concentration.

“I am a fool, Will Henry,” he said at last, without lifting his head or opening his eyes. “For a fool takes for granted what a wise man leaves for fools.”

He cocked his head toward me without rising an inch, and his eye popped open.

“A lighted torch, Will Henry.”

Abashed, I turned on my heel, only to turn again upon his barking, “Leave the stakes, light the torch, and bring it back to me. Snap to, William Henry!”

Old Erasmus Gray had disembarked and was leaning against the side of the cart upon my breathless return, his Winchester rifle cradled in his arms. Expressionlessly he watched as I fumbled through the supply sack for the box of matches. He drew a pipe and pouch from his pocket and commenced to packing his bowl with tobacco as I with rising panic clawed through the contents of the sack, my memory of picking up the box from the fireplace mantel painfully distinct. But did I drop the box into the bag, or did I leave it by the back door?

“What is it you’re after, boy?” inquired Erasmus, fishing a match from his pocket and striking it upon the sole of his old boot. I glanced up at him and shook my head, tears welling in my eyes. Of all things to leave behind-the matches! The old man touched the flame to his bowl, and the sweet aroma of his leaf suffused the air.