The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(51)

“What did you cook?”

“Lamb.”

“Lamb?”

“Yes.”

“Chops?”

I nodded. “And some fresh peas and carrots.”

I carried my plate to the sink. I could feel him watching me as I washed up. I put my cup and plate on the rack to dry and turned around. He had not moved from the basement doorway.

“Do you need me for anything?” I asked.

“I don’t… No, I do not,” he replied.

“I’ll be in my room, then.”

He said nothing as I walked past him, until I reached the bottom of the stairs, when he stepped around the corner and called from the end of the hall, “Will Henry!”

“Yes?”

He hesitated, and then said in a resigned tone, “Sleep well, Will Henry.”

Much later, with the same uncanny ability he had demonstrated in the past to disturb me at the very moment when, after hours of tossing and turning, I was just drifting off to sleep, the doctor began to call for me, his voice high-pitched and ethereal as it penetrated my little sanctuary.

“Will Henry! Will Henreeeee!”

Groggy from the brief sip of sleep’s sweet sapor, I slid out of bed with an acquiescent sigh. I knew that tone; I had heard it many times before. I crawled down the ladder to the second floor.

“Will Henry! Will Henreeeee!”

I found him in his room, lying on top of the bedcovers fully clothed. He spied my silhouette in the doorway and bade me enter with an impatient snap of his wrist. Still smarting from our row, I did not come to his bedside; I took a single step into the room and stopped.

“Will Henry, what are you doing?” he demanded.

“You called for me.”

“Not now, Will Henry. What were you doing out there?” He waved his hand toward the hallway to demonstrate out there.

“I was in my room, sir.”

“No, no. I distinctly heard you bumping about in the kitchen.”

“I was in my room,” I repeated. “Perhaps you heard a mouse.”

“A mouse clattering pots and pans? Tell me the truth, Will Henry. You were cooking something.”

“I am telling the truth. I was in my room.”

“You’re suggesting I’m hallucinating.”

“No, sir.”

“I know what I heard.”

“I’ll go downstairs and check, sir.”

“No! No, stay here. It must have been my imagination. I may have been asleep; I don’t know.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Is that all, sir?”

“I am not used to it, as you know.”

He fell silent, waiting for me to ask the obvious question, but I was a tired player in this tired drama: He had fallen into one of his frequent black moods, his psyche borne down in the crush of his peculiar proclivities. My role was well defined, and usually I played it with all the pluck I could muster, but the events of the last few days had sapped my spirits. I simply did not feel up for it.

“Sharing the house with someone,” he offered when I did not ask. “I have been thinking of soundproofing this room. Every little noise…”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and pointedly yawned.

“I might have imagined it,” he conceded. “The mind can play tricks when denied the proper rest. I cannot remember the last time I slept.”

“At least three days,” I said.

“Or eaten a decent meal.”

I said nothing. If he couldn’t come right out and ask, I would make no offer. If he was going to be stubborn, well, so could I.

“Do you know, Will Henry, when I was younger, I could go a whole week with no sleep and a loaf of bread. I once hiked across the Andes with only an apple in my pocket… You’re quite certain, then, you were not downstairs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The noise stopped after I called for you. Perhaps you were walking in your sleep.”

“No, sir. I was in my bed.”

“Of course.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“All?”

“Do you need anything else?”

“Perhaps you don’t wish to tell me because of the scones.”

“The scones, sir?”

“You snuck downstairs for a midnight snack, and you know how much I fancy them.”

“No, sir. We still have the scones.”

“Ah. Well, that’s good.”

There was no escaping it. He was not going to go himself and he was not going to ask me. If I simply returned to bed, he would wait until I was on the brink of sleep again, and then my name would echo throughout the house, Will Henreeee! until my will was broken. Down to the kitchen, then, I trooped, where I set a pot of water on to boil and plated the scones. I prepared his tea, leaning against the sink and yawning incessantly while it steeped. I loaded the tray and carried it back to his room.

The doctor had sat up in my absence. He leaned against the headboard with his arms crossed and head bowed, lost in thought. He looked up when I set the tray on the small table beside him.

“What is this? Tea and scones! How thoughtful of you, Will Henry.”

He waved me toward a chair. With an inward sigh I sat: There was no escaping this, either. If I retreated, in a moment he would call me back to sit with him. If I nodded off, he would raise his voice and snap his fingers and then, with perfect ingenuousness, ask me if I was tired.