The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(25)

A pair of spectacles. A velvet purse containing a man’s watch and wedding ring. A weathered pipe, the wood of its bowl rubbed to the color of cream by decades of use. A small wooden box containing a collection of ivory figurines, which the doctor turned over and over, the objects clicking together within his partially closed hand, as he rifled through the few remaining items at the bottom of the trunk.

“There is no university that offers instruction in the science of monstrumology, Will Henry,” he said. “The Society regularly hosts seminars, by invitation only, in which the preeminent practitioners of our profession lecture on the finer points of their field of particular expertise. Most, if not all, of us apprentice in the art under the tutelage of a master officially recognized by the Society. Ah, here it is!”

Triumphantly he held aloft a leather-bound book, wrapped in fraying twine, its cover and spine worn to a shiny finish from years of handling.

“Here, Will Henry, take these for a moment,” he said, dropping the ivory figures into my hand. He tore the twine from the book as I examined the figurines I now held, still warm from his hand. There were six in total, intricately carved and skeletal in representation, with disproportionally large, grimacing skulls, arms crossed over their rib cages, which were not cylindrical like cigars but flat on the front and back like dominoes. Though he was absorbed in the old book-which appeared to be a diary or daybook of sorts, written in elegant script with an occasional sketch filling in the margins-the doctor must have noted my curiosity, for he said, “Divining bones, from New Guinea. In his later years my father was fascinated by the occult practices of certain shamanistic tribes. Those were fashioned by a priest from the bones of a rival.”

Not whale bone, then. Human. The doctor continued, “Though ‘fascinated’ is too mild a word for it. ‘Obsessed’ is more accurate. He was terrified of his own mortality; like many, he saw his impending death as an affront to his dignity, the ultimate insult, and his last few years were consumed by his desire to cheat the natural order, or at least wrest from death’s icy embrace a scant moment or two beyond his due. The bones in your hand supposedly can predict the future of the one who casts them, like the proverbial roll of the cosmic dice. Interpreting the meaning of how they fall-the various combinations of skull up or skull down-is a complicated business that he never fully mastered, but he spent hours at it; he was anything but negligent in his struggle to do so. I can’t recall much of the formulae, though I do remember that rolling six faceup skulls has dire import, imminent death or everlasting damnation or some such nonsense.”

He rose suddenly with a celebratory shout. Startled, I fell back a step or two, and the bones slipped from my hand, cascading to the carpet with a rattle and a pop. With trepidation I bent to gather them up, for I feared seeing six grinning skeletons leering up at me. Four up. Two down. I did not know, of course, how to interpret my inadvertent roll, but I was relieved nevertheless. Without thinking, I dropped the bones into my pocket.

“ Dedham!” cried the monstrumologist. “I knew I had seen it before! Here it is, Will Henry, in the entry dated November 19, 1871: ‘ Dedham. I have been to Motley Hill for the last time. I simply cannot bring myself to go there again, to look upon his tortured visage and see in his face perfectly reflected the perfidy of my sin. Upon my arrival he became quite agitated, demanding that I once and for all corroborate his tale of suffering and woe, thus winning him full pardon and possible release, but, by the bitter necessity of the interests of science and of self, I was forced to decline. To relent and make such a confession might have the opposite effect. It might, in all likelihood, ensure his imprisonment for the rest of his days-as well as the rest of my own. This I could not risk, and tried to explain, at which point he threatened me bodily and I was forced to take my leave… Poor tormented creature! Forgive me, V, forgive me! Thou art not the first to pay for the sins of another! Forgive me for my transgression, neither the first nor the last of many, I fear. I shall see thee again upon the Judgment Day. I shall answer for what I have done to thee…

“‘I cannot continue… The witching hour approaches, “When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out / Contagion.” Though I am sickened to the depths of my marrow, I must answer the dreaded summons. The bell rings, the hour comes, and Christ himself is mocked…’”

Warthrop stopped reading and closed the book upon his finger. Something dark passed over his lean face. He sighed, raised his eyes toward the ceiling, and gently scratched beneath his chin.

“It goes on. More tiresome drivel, more gnawing upon the bone of self-recrimination and blame. In his prime my father had few equals, Will Henry. His intellect was exceeded only by his restless curiosity, his relentless quest for knowledge and truth. Our discipline owes much to the work of his younger years, but as he grew older and the fear of his own mortality began to overwhelm him, he fell farther and farther into the pit of silly superstition and useless guilt. He died a frightened and foolish man, a stranger to the brilliant scientist he once was, consumed by fear, maddened by guilt, borne to his reward upon an ark of fabricated shame.”

He sighed again, a much longer, sadder exhalation. “And he died quite alone. My mother had succumbed to consumption twenty years before; I was in Prague; and one by one his colleagues had abandoned him over the years, as he’d slipped into doddering senility and religious mania. I returned to America to settle his affairs, in the course of which I discovered this”-he held up the old journal-“a startling record of my father’s slow descent into madness, evidently merely one of many volumes, though this is the only one he did not, for reasons I still do not fathom, choose to destroy. I’ve long puzzled over the meaning of this particular entry, and until now I was not entirely convinced that it, like many that precede and follow it, might not be the ravings of a once-fine mind crumbling from the onslaught of regret and the debilitating disease called doubt.