James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

“Another glass of mild for our two friends here,” St. Ives said to the publican, “and a glass of something for you.” He dropped several shillings on the bar top, snatched up the box of bottled ale, and followed Hasbro out the door, where the stable boy held the horse’s reins. Within moments they were on their way again, double quick, not slowing until they were within hailing distance of Wrotham.

“There it is,” said St. Ives, pointing at the road sign, which looked more than a little like a gravestone. “Pilgrims Road. It’s long odds against running them down unless they’ve thrown a wheel, but we’ve got to try, by God. Stumbling upon Fred and George was a bit of luck. Not the last of our luck, I hope.”

Mother Laswell labored across London Bridge in the pitiless sun, shaded by a silk and bamboo parasol, which, she was certain, was the only thing that kept her from dropping dead from the monumental heat. She wondered whether the press of people on either side of her would buoy her up and carry her along if she fell, or whether she would be trampled underfoot and kicked into the Thames. She had heard that thousands of people crossed the bridge every hour, a human river flowing north to south and south to north, the current ebbing at night but flowing heavily again before dawn. The water of the Thames moved west to east beneath the granite pillars, stodgy and filthy now at the turn of the tide. There was a low roar of human voices roundabout her, ships’ bells clanging, a constant shouting from men on hundreds of busy decks, masts like a forest of leafless trees against the backdrop of waterfront buildings and docks, black smoke rising from the steam packets passing under the bridge, so that the still air was very nearly as murky as the water beneath it.

Mother Laswell had spent the better part of her life at war with the filth and clamor of industry, but she feared that it was merely another tide that couldn’t be turned back or spanned by a bridge. Coming into London felt like a defeat, and so she rarely made the journey from Aylesford, where Hereafter Farm was a sort of ark, riding above the turmoil, and indeed she sometimes felt as old and exhausted as Noah. No wonder the old ark-builder had been a drunkard , she thought.

And then she thought suddenly of poor Bill Kraken, who was a good man, as true and constant as the pole star, but with a mind given over to tolerably strange ideas. She regretted not having left him a note this morning, although it was true that he couldn’t read. Still, the absence of a message must have left him miserable. But her business wasn’t his affair; indeed, it was beyond his understanding. The debacle was hers and hers alone to deal with. It was she who had brought it about, and she who would finish it and fetch the remains of her boy Edward home again. She couldn’t abide the idea of Bill coming to harm trying to lend a hand.

Her discussion with Professor St. Ives had called up fragments of unhappy memory that she had studiously kept buried over the long years. After he had taken his leave, she had lain sleepless atop her bed as the slow hours had passed away, afraid to close her eyes lest sleep conjure long-interred recollections in even more vivid forms. Sometime in the early morning she had fallen asleep, only to be visited by a nightmare.

In her dream she arose from her bed and went outside into the windy night, drawn to the moonlit pasture beyond which lay the deep wood that sheltered her husband’s laboratory. She climbed the stile over the low wall and struck out across the pasture, intent on recovering the severed skull of her beloved Edward, but she saw that her way was hindered by a distant high wall of black stone. As she approached, an arched door in the wall swung open, revealing a room illuminated by a flickering, orange glow. A hooded figure, more a shadow than a thing of substance, moved out through the doorway and was silhouetted for an instant against the orange light. There was the smell of mown grass on the wind, and the sound of chimes as if from a thousand small bells. The figure beckoned to her, and then rose into the night like black smoke and disappeared into the branches of the trees overhead.

Despite a rising terror, she was drawn to the door. She entered the room, where a stairway led downward, the darkness of the passage illuminated by the light of leaping orange flames glowing in nether regions below. The sound of voices reached her, wafted upward from deep pits, voices murmuring and crying out, snatches of mad laughter, the urgent murmuring of unspeakable regret, damnation, and suffering. She descended the stairs despite the black horror that filled her chest. She saw a shadow rising to meet her – something or someone ascending the stairs. She thought of the shadow figure that had opened the door and beckoned to her. But it wasn’t he, at least not in that guise; it was a black goat, ancient as the grave, its eyes glowing, its matted hair smelling of must and decay and brimstone. She had turned and fled, sensing pursuit, hearing the cloven hooves clattering on the stones. She was too terrified to look back, but ran back up the stairs until she emerged again into the night wind blowing across the pasture. The door creaked shut behind her, closing a door on the dream, and she found herself sitting upright on her divan, her heart hammering, the sounds and the sheer terror of the vision filling her mind.

She had arisen and roused out Simonides the scullery boy, who could drive the cart to the station. She would catch the first train into London. Simonides would ask no questions, unlike Bill Kraken, who would both ask and answer them. She couldn’t afford to be hindered, although she realized now, caught up in her trek across the bridge, that she was happy that someone feared for her, that another human being on this vast, crawling planet had Mother Laswell’s interests in his heart.

If somehow she won through and found her way back to Aylesford, she would marry Bill, if he would still have her. The real possibility of it had come into her mind just this past moment, when she had recalled the dream. She had already turned him down twice – she was too old, had always been unlucky in marriage, was used to living alone, and more such excuses – but it had been like trying to reason with Ned Ludd, the mule. Her words went into the man’s ears – God knows they were capacious ears – but they didn’t take hold. They blew through like autumn leaves and out the other side. She smiled at the thought. Bill had become the pilot of Hereafter Farm, as if he were born to it, as if the farm had been waiting these long years for his arrival. If she were called upon to descend into Hell, she thought, there was no one else she would rather have by her side than Bill Kraken. Leaving him in ignorance this morning made her feel shabby and low.

She was jostled hard, two swaggering young men pushing past her and down toward Pudding Lane. She was across the river now, and into the shadows of the buildings, the tremendous flow of people disappearing into the great city as a river into the sea. She stood quite still for a moment, out of the way of foot traffic, and listened carefully to the sounds within her mind – sounds, as it were, of another sort. Edward’s presence had slipped into her consciousness as through an open door, and she knew that she heard his voice now, small and distant, like murmuring from a closed room. She was quite certain he was no great distance away, and that he sensed her presence in return.

She set out again at a determined pace, the Monument coming into view, its gilt summit aflame in the sunlight. She bought a meat pie from a down-at-heel coster-lad dressed in a heavy coat two sizes too large for him, no doubt intolerably hot, and he with no safe place to hang it save around his shoulders. He was just about Edward’s age when Edward had…