James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

Finn prevented himself from allowing the pain to show on his face.

“Slice that bacon, then – thick-like,” McFee said to him. “Yarely now. There’s men to feed. Stoke up the fire in the stove and fry the rashers on the iron plate. Do you know coffee?”

“Aye, sir,” Finn said.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“No, sir. I do know coffee, sir. I made it regular for Square Davey the oysterman.”

“Then roast them beans and grind them. The bag lies yonder. Don’t stand there like a slow-belly. And if you waste the beans, mark me, I’ll decorate your other hand, same as the first.”

Finn nodded, took off his green velvet jacket and hung it on a hook, and then did as he was told, staying out of the man’s way as best he could. When he had a chance he swabbed his hand with a wet cloth, and although coal dust stained the cloth, the wound remained black, and the flesh of his palm seemed to creep. McFee set him to cutting up a blood pudding next – fresh red blood, thickened with coal dust measured out a palm’s worth at a time until it was more black than red. Time was passing, platters of food carried out by a one-eyed man with a game leg, who said nothing and had the appearance of a halfwit. Now and then Finn slipped a morsel of something into his mouth, but it did little to quell his hunger, and the smell of the fresh coffee nearly made him faint.

“Take this plate of food up to the Doctor’s cottage, boy, along o’ that pot of coffee,” McFee said to him, and he handed Finn a broad, china plate: the blood pudding in a bowl, eggs and rashers of bacon. He sprinkled the pudding with ground coal as a finishing touch.

“George has asked me to find the piss pots and empty them, sir, when I’m done here.”

“You can find your way to Hell for all of me,” McFee said without looking up.

The lie would suffice, but for a limited time. Soon George or McFee would think of him again, and perhaps send someone to search him out. Finn set down the plate and the coffee pot, put on his coat, and descended the tilted wooden steps, looking around him and walking toward the cottage, the corner of which was visible beyond the stable. The sun was well up in the sky now. Men tramped around in the yard, and he saw through the open door that three were at work along the brook, the millwheel turning. It wasn’t corn they were shoveling onto the grinder; it was coal, apparently. Finn had the distinct notion that some particular endeavor was underway, the coal being ground by the shovelful – far too much for the Doctor’s breakfast. He had known a man in Duffy’s Circus who ate ground glass and roofing nails, but that man could do no other useful work that would pay him as much, which perhaps explained it. But what explained the ground coal, which was being bunged up into the kegs and loaded onto a cart?

He looked at his palm, at the coarse black line that bisected it, which seemed to him to be little more than recompense for the blunder that had caused Eddie’s troubles in the first place. It would remind him of more than McFee suspected, and would continue to remind him for the rest of his life if he didn’t save Eddie. But he didn’t need further such lessons, and he vowed not to go back into the kitchen.

He became aware of a buzzing noise now, something like a beehive in a tall tree, but growing louder. He searched the grounds around him curiously, saw nothing, and realized abruptly that the sound was coming from the sky. There, drawing near from out of the west, an airship wafted along over the marsh, flying low. It was turning in a wide curve, perhaps bound for the river or thereabouts, perhaps descending; it was hard to say.

It’s the Professor , Finn thought, his heart leaping. St. Ives had spoken of the airship at every opportunity for weeks now, and surely this must be selfsame ship. Good old Newman , he thought. He had delivered the message. If Newman wasn’t a Christian name, it was something just as good. Finn raised the coffee pot in a sort of salute, then quickly recovered his wits and pretended that he was merely shading his eyes to get a better view, and in that moment he noticed that Narbondo’s head was thrust through the open cottage window, and that he, too, was watching the airship. He disappeared back into the room without looking in Finn’s direction.

Finn walked on now, around the side of the stable, heading boldly toward the cottage door carrying the plate and the coffee pot. He stepped up onto the wooden stoop and casually looked behind him and to either side, seeing no one. It occurred to him that someone might be watching through one of the inn windows, and so he mimicked knocking on the cottage door, listened for a moment, and then laid the plate and pot on the stoop and walked away, around the side of the cottage to where the window stood open, out of sight of the inn. He hazarded a glance over the top of the sill, seeing that the room was empty of people, the piece of carpet on the floor pushed aside and a trapdoor standing open. There was a chair in the room, a lamp on a small deal table, a narrow bed against the wall, and a scattering of books – rough living for a man who possessed such a great deal of power, but then Narbondo’s lodgings in Angel Alley had been much the same. Easy to abandon when there was trouble , Finn thought.

The cottage stood atop a low hill, and Finn crept toward the bottom, moving silently and listening hard. If he were caught his guilt would be obvious. The hill had been cut back and leveled behind the cottage, forming a small landing outside the cellar door, sheltered by willow scrub. There was a barred window beside the door – more a grate than a window, since there was no glass in it. Farther below lay a stand of trees around a small pond, choked with reeds and lilies. A hay bale was set up, with a target for shooting, and nearby stood various pieces of junk furniture, burned to cinders.

Finn peered in at the window, immediately seeing Narbondo, who stood at a high table, perhaps eight feet long and half as wide, built like a butcher’s block and heavily stained. On the table in front of him sat a human skull, although something had been done to it, for the top of it shone silver in the lamplight as if the bone had been removed and the skull had been crowned with metal. Finn was stricken with the same diabolical unease that he had felt when he was first in Narbondo’s presence – something in his face? He had seen many faces more frightful by far. This was something else, something best not considered too particularly, lest he attract some sort of hellish attention. “Naming calls,” his mother used to say, and Finn had no desire to call forth anything.

The room itself intensified the feeling. Ring-bolts had been set into the sides of the table, useful, no doubt, for strapping things down. The room was clearly a surgeon’s cabinet, and held two wooden chairs and another small table with a basin and pitcher atop it. An ochre-stained coat hung on the wall along with dozens of surgical tools – clamps and bone saws and knives and a heavy butcher’s cleaver, and other appalling instruments that Finn couldn’t identify and didn’t care to. Leather-covered chains, both long and short, hung among the rest. A human skeleton dangled from a hook in the low ceiling, its arms outstretched and fixed with slender iron rods as if it were crucified. On shelves stood a variety of human and animal skulls as well as organs floating in liquid-filled jars, one of which was half full of human eyeballs.

Narbondo stepped around behind the table now, blocking Finn’s view. He bent over, evidently fiddling with the skull, from which an intense light shone forth. Finn felt abruptly as if he was being watched, and he looked around him, seeing no one. He recalled the corpse candle near the road two nights ago, how he had felt the living consciousness of the ghost of the hanged boy. This was something similar – not someone watching him , but some entity that had come into the room. He sensed a great sorrow and fear and anger, principally anger, not a child this time.