James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

“If you weren’t such a big lad, I’d carry you,” she said. “Can you keep up?”

“I lost Finn,” he told her. “The man chased us, and I ran.”

“Lord protect us,” she said under her breath, and then aloud she asked, “Did you see my Bill, Eddie? A tall, thin man, with hair like in a windstorm?”

“He was shot with a gun,” Eddie said. “In the room where they do bad things.”

She nearly fell, but caught herself and took in a deep breath, resisting the urge simply to sit down on the path. She found herself weeping silently, but she compelled herself to move on. Whatever else might have happened, she could have this small success; she would return Eddie to his mother and put an end to the woman’s travails; her own were apparently endless.

On they went at an even pace, her mind spinning, until she recognized suddenly where they had got to, much more quickly than she would have thought possible. The limekilns lay away to their left. She could see the brick through the trees, but she didn’t pay any of it more than a glance. She hadn’t liked the idea of the tunnel from the start, and now that it was the bane of poor Bill Kraken, the most selfless man she had ever known, a man whom she had scorned, to her everlasting shame and regret…

She kicked something, and a stabbing pain lanced through her toe. She stopped and looked down, seeing that a bloody pistol lay on the path. It had been hidden in a weedy clump, where it had been dropped, but now it was shifted into plain sight, the barrel pointing like a compass needle up the path. She stared at it, unbelieving at first. It was Bill’s pistol. She had seen it clearly at the Chalk Horse when he had gone out. The blood on it was fresh, bright red in the ray of filtered sunlight. Had it been there earlier? She swept it into the brook with the side of her foot, where it sank into a deep pool, glinting in the sunshine atop the dead leaves on the bottom. She grasped Eddie’s hand again and hurried forward, the rectory coming into view far ahead. The way opened up, the lawn with its sheep…

Bob Mayhew was crouched beside his wagon, bent over the body of a man. She began to run in earnest, full of dread and hope, dragging Eddie along, knowing without any doubt that it was Bill who lay there.

“He come this far and pitched over,” Mayhew said, “just this past instant. I had my tools in the cart, and was set to leave, when I heard something behind me and I turned.”

“He’s my Bill,” Mother Laswell said.

Mayhew looked at her, not quite comprehending.

“It wasn’t the truth I told you,” she said hurriedly, her hand to her forehead. “I wasn’t looking for mushrooms. I was looking for two people, and I’ve found them both.” She heaved a great sob now, which had come unbidden into her throat, and then shook her head to clear the emotions out of it. There was no time for sentiment.

“Better found than lost,” Mayhew said. “But he’s bled himself nearly white. We’ll put him in the wagon and be off. There’s a surgeon in the village, a good man. Saved my horse once, which was as good as dead.”

“There’s comfort in that,” she said, and together they lifted Kraken onto the bed of the wagon, dragging and sliding him until he was entirely in. He muttered something, but Mother Laswell didn’t catch what he said, and there was no time for conversation. She rinsed the gore from her hands in the stream water, and then, with Eddie between them on the rough wooden seat, Mayhew tossed the reins, and the horse set out at a trot. Soon they were in the village, the station and the bookman passing on the left and the Chalk Horse on the right. She would have to return Lois the Witch , before they set out, and she realized that she was already thinking of Hereafter Farm, hope having re-entered her being. There was fear in her, too, as she looked at Bill, pale and bloody, lying on his back, but she pushed the fear away, having had enough of it to last her for the rest of her life.

Mayhew drew up before a white cottage with a sign out front of a snake climbing a pole. He leapt down and hurried inside, and moments later he returned followed by a man in a stained white coat who was apparently a doctor. He bent over Kraken, felt his neck and wrist, and bade Mayhew to fetch Johnson from the smithy next door.

“Can you save him, Doctor?” Mother Laswell asked, holding onto Eddie, who was asleep now, and resting heavily against her.

“We’ll see, ma’am,” the doctor said. “He’s bled some, but…”

The blacksmith arrived along with Mayhew, and together the three men plucked Kraken from the bed of the wagon and carried him inside the cottage, leaving Mother Laswell and Eddie alone. She sat for awhile in silence, letting the boy sleep, considering the strange way of things – her defeat yesterday when she had faced down Narbondo, her ignominious capture on the rope bridge in Spitalfields, and the elation she had felt when she realized that it was Bill Kraken who had come out of the night to fight Lord Moorgate and to save her from her otherwise inevitable fate. And now here she sat, having found a lost boy, her journey nearly at an end. She prayed that God would see fit to spare Bill, and anticipated bringing him home. Yes , she thought. They would return to Hereafter Farm as soon as ever they could. Bill would pull through. She was certain of it. Bill Kraken wasn’t meant to die, not now, not after all this.

She saw a wagon rattling toward them from up the street – a wagon she knew. For a moment she was baffled, but then she saw with immense happiness that Simonides was holding the reins, a dark-haired woman sitting tall and straight on the seat beside him: Alice, of course! She had come at last. Simonides saw Mother Laswell and reined in the horses. Alice caught sight of Eddie and let out a small shriek, and then there was a great commotion, and Mother Laswell stood on the walkway that led into the doctor’s quarters and watched the reuniting of mother and son.

* * *

“My race is run,” Mother Laswell said to Alice. They sat in the inn parlor, drinking a glass of port, waiting for word of Bill. Eddie was fast asleep on a settee, dead tired and having consumed the better part of a meat pie with the avidity of a glutton. “I’m bound for Hereafter Farm, with Bill beside me, God willing. What will you do?”

“I’ll take my son home,” Alice said, “and pray for the safe return of my husband. Langdon told me something of your travails, your… search for your own son.”

Mother Laswell nodded. “That’s how I saw it for many and many a year, but this morning my mind changed. I woke up to a revelation. Since my boy died I’ve been searching for I don’t know what – solace, no doubt, answers to questions I couldn’t put into words. We both of us have something in common: we’ve both been searching, and we’ve both come to an end of it. I’m letting go of the past and setting my sights on the future, God willing that I’ve got Bill to spend it with.”

Alice nodded. “I thank you for what you and Bill have done for Eddie. If there’s any way to repay you, I’d do it willingly. I’m in your debt.”

“Let’s not speak of debt, ma’am. I’ll ask this, however: when the Professor wins through, if he brings my Edward’s remains home to Aylesford, you can ask him to undo the foul thing that my husband did so many years ago. That’s all I ask.”

The inn door opened and Mayhew walked in, his cap in his hands. “The doctor’s sewed your Bill up. It was nip and tuck, and he’s still precarious, but the bleeding’s stopped, and the ball, which was beside the lung, is out now.”

Mother Laswell wept, and Alice put her arm around her shoulders and waited her out.