James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

She gave the boy two crowns and felt guilty for not giving him more and at the same time foolish to be so completely at the mercy of sentiment. She walked on, eating the miserable, gristly pie, leaving the boy happily stupefied on the footpath. The bells of St. Clement’s Church chimed out the story of the oranges and lemons, and she recalled from her childhood that St. Clement himself had been pitched into the sea with an anchor knotted around his neck. Well , she thought, there’s worse things than being Harriet Laswell abroad in London , and she reminded herself that it was better to look outward than inward. “It’s a poor heart that never rejoices,” she said out loud, and set her sights on Lime Street now, where her old friend Mabel Morningstar lived near the Ship Tavern. The thought of the tavern reminded her that she would want something refreshing before long, a pint, perhaps, in order to restore her blood to its natural fluidity, now that the sun had thickened it.

When she turned the corner, her destination in sight at last, she saw Mabel herself on the pavement beyond the door of the tavern, dressed in the Robe of the Starry Firmament, which Mother Laswell had given her these many years past. It was Mabel’s summoning robe, scarcely the sort of thing to wear abroad. Three centuries back and she’d have been burnt as a witch at Smithfield for appearing in daylight in a summoning robe.

Mabel knows I’ve come , Mother Laswell thought suddenly, and a chill of relief came upon her. She needed Mabel’s powers, and her need was so great that Mabel had sensed her approach, and had caparisoned herself in anticipation.

“You look done up, Harriet,” Mabel said to her. “Like a banger in a hot pan. I’ve got a high window that’s catching the breeze just now, and something to wet your whistle – a nice shandy, if you’ve a mind for it. We’ll go up.”

“I’d be most grateful,” Mother Laswell told her. “I’m parched as a desert.” She followed her friend through the street door, past a small sign that read, “Fortunes Told, Clairvoyance, Necromancy, Lost Objects Found.” They exchanged pleasantries, catching each other up as they climbed the dim, narrow stairs, one flight after another, around a corner into a long hallway lit with gaslight, with doors on either side. There was another set of stairs beyond that, the last, but Mother Laswell stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “I’m fairly knackered,” she said. “The tramp from Tooley Street just about finished me. I took heart just now, though, because it came to me that you knew I was coming; I can see that, Mabel. You’ve put on your robe.”

“I felt you a way off, Harriet. I had the sure presentiment of a sail billowing overhead, carrying you toward me like a boat on a river, so I made ready. I knew this wasn’t a pleasure call. Your mind is full of dread and hope in equal measure. That much is plain. I came down to the street when you drew near, and there you were, your umbrella unfurled on the mast.”

Her tone was cheery but there was deep concern in her smile. She had the homely appearance of a solidly built innkeeper or cook, hearty rather than dumpy, with a frazzle of brown hair, not yet showing any gray despite her sixty-odd years. Mother Laswell found that her mind was growing easier now that she wasn’t alone, her step more sure as they climbed the last flight of stairs and entered Mabel’s quarters. The two of them, both with considerable powers, would see to this together, and would prevail.

A long row of windows in the surprisingly large room looked down onto Fenchurch Street, the casements standing open, letting in air and sunlight both, just as Mabel had promised. There were books in age-darkened bookcases against the walls and more books and manuscripts heaped on the floor. A long, low cabinet stood against one wall, with turned legs and a medieval scene painted in the arts-and-crafts style on the four hinged doors. A pitcher and basin sat atop it.

As she sipped her shandy Mother Laswell studied a framed photograph of Mabel’s dead husband. He wore a morning coat and looked quite young and distinguished, despite his eyes being crossed on account of holding still for the photograph. He had been dead these ten years past. Mother Laswell had always been a little jealous of Mabel and the luck she’d had finding a husband who wasn’t some variety of husk. Now he was simply another memory hung on the wall, all things having the sad habit of passing away.

She thought of Bill Kraken again and realized that she wanted his company badly. She had been a fool to come into London alone. It was a sin to be always doing for others but not letting others do for her – a kind of betrayal, a pig-headed pride dressed up like a saint, useful for self-deception but not much else.

Mabel pulled open a curtain, revealing a dim, closeted space in one corner of the room, its opposite walls affixed with long mirrors in plain, dark frames. The third wall of the small room had a candle sconce hung above a small, oak wardrobe cabinet, the doors carved with the image of a face peering out from a cluster of leaves. On top of the cabinet sat a crystal ball on a copper ring, and next to that a barometer. There were two chairs at a square table, one covered in satin that was woven with stars and symbols, the other plain. Small spring-clamps were affixed to the four corners of the tabletop. The room was otherwise unadorned, no frippery at all. Mabel Morningstar was a purely practical woman when it came to the magical arts.

She opened the wardrobe and drew out a roll of heavy vellum from among other rolls, which she spread out on the tabletop, clamping the corners into place. Painted on it was a detailed street-map of London, stretching from Notting Hill Gate to the East India Dock, the more outlying streets and neighborhoods being slightly too distant for her inner sight to penetrate. Objects in the river, corpses included, had always been hidden from Mabel unless she possessed some fragment of the missing thing – a lock of hair, say, if the lost object were a human being. Sometimes a kerchief or a cap would do. Although she could easily have swindled anxious customers by overstating the distance that her mind could range over the city, she despised the idea of giving people false hopes.

There seemed to Mother Laswell to be an almost frightening intensity in the atmosphere of the room, generated by something that was akin to hope, although not quite hope – something related to it: heartache perhaps, the dwindling of hope. She was aware of a heavy vibration that seemed to jostle the air, felt rather than heard, and the quicksilver in the barometer glowed distinctly, as if the heavy liquid was agitated, although not by anything observable.

Mabel took a planchette from among several on the shelves within the cabinet, laid it atop the map, and closed the cabinet. “Let’s begin, Harriet,” she said, sitting down in the decorated chair. “If you’ll just draw the curtain across beside you…” She adjusted the needle in the planchette – not a pencil, but a pointer with a sharp, conical tip the color of iron. Mabel sat bolt upright, summoning her particular powers, her eyes unfocused and staring. A single candle burned in the sconce, the quicksilver in the barometer equally bright. The small room was warm – warmer, it seemed to Mother Laswell, than the larger room without.

From the chair opposite, Mother Laswell could see her own face in the mirror, as well as Mabel’s back, the images repeated until they bent away into infinity. She became slowly aware of a continuous musical note as if someone were dragging a bow across a violin in a distant room. Although she couldn’t have said just how, she knew that it originated from within the air roundabout them and not from outside. She breathed rhythmically and gently closed her eyes, thus closing her mind to the turmoil of the world without. She pictured a brazier alight with a small flame, and she held the image in her mind, the flame flickering and flaring and then dying away for a moment before darting upward again. The musical note remained constant, lying beneath the sound of the blood moving through her veins.