Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

“Well …” Lindsome started, but Chaswick shot her a dangerous look. Lindsome fell silent.

“Yes?” asked Dr. Dandridge, focused on teasing apart a gravy-smothered nodule.

“I was wondering …” dared Lindsome, but Chaswick’s face sharpened into a scowl. “… about your work.”

“Oh!” said Dr. Dandridge. His efforts on the nodule of stew redoubled. “My work. My great work! You are right to ask, young lady. It is always pleasing to hear that the youth of today have an interest in science. Young people are our future, you know.”

“I—”

“The work, of course, builds on the fundamentals of Wittard and Blacke from the ’30s, going beyond the Skin Stitch and into the essential vital nodes. But unlike Havarttgartt and his school (and here’s the key, now), we don’t hold that the heart, brain, and genitals, aka the Life Triad, are the necessary fulcrums. We hold — that is, I hold — that is, Chaswick agrees, and he’s a very smart lad— we hold that a diversified architecture of fulcrums is key to extending the ambulatory period of a vivified, and we have extensive data to back this hypothesis, to the extent where we’ve produced a curve — a Dandridge curve, I call it, if I may be so modest, ha-ha — that illustrates the correlation between the number of fulcrums and hours of ambulatory function, and clearly demonstrates that while quality of fulcrums does indeed play a role, it is not nearly so prominent as the role of quantity . Or, in layman’s terms, if you stitch a soul silly to a corpse at every major mechanical joint — ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists — you’ll still get a far better outcome than you would had you used a Butterfly Stitch to the heart itself! Can you imagine?”

Lost, Lindsome stared at her plate. She could feel Chaswick’s smug gaze upon her, the awful look that grown-ups use when they want to say, Not so smart now, are you?

“And furthermore,” Dr. Dandridge went on gaily, setting down his fork and withdrawing a different utensil from his pocket with which to attack his clump of stew, “we have discovered a hitherto unknown role of the Life Triad in host plasticity, which also beautifully solves the mystery of how a very small soul, like that of a mouse, can successfully be stitched to a very large flesh mass, like that of a cow, and vice-versa. Did Chaswick explain to you about our chimeras? The dogs with souls of finches, and the blackbirds with the souls of chipmunks, and in one exceptional case, the little red fox with the soul of a prize-winning hog? Goodness, was I proud of that one!” The old man laughed.

Lindsome smiled weakly.

“It is upon the brain, you see, not the heart,” Dr. Dandrige went on, “that the configuration, amount, and type of stitches are key, because — and this is already well known in the higher animals — a great deal of soul is enfleshed in the brain. You may think of the brain as a tiny little seed that floats in the center of every skull, but not so! When an animal is alive, the brain takes up the entire skull cavity. Can you imagine? Of course, the higher the animal, the more the overall corpse shrinks at the moment of death, aka soul separation, due to the soul composing a greater percentage of the creature. This is why Humankind (with its large and complex souls) leaves no deathhusk, or corpse, at all — nothing but a film of ghostgrease. Which, incidentally, popular doggerel will tell you is absent from the deathbeds of holy people, being that they are so very above their animal natures and are 100 percent ethereal, but goodness, don’t get me started about all that ugsome rot.”

Dr. Dandridge stopped. He frowned at his plate. “Good grief. What am I doing?”

“A Clatham Stitch, looks like,” said Chaswick gently. “On your beef stew.”

“Heavens!” Dr. Dandridge put down his utensil, which Lindsome could now see was an aetherhook. He removed what looked like a monocle made of cobalt glass from a breast pocket, then peered through it at his plate. “There weren’t any souls passing by just now, were there? The leycurrents are strong here in the early winter, dear Lindsome, and sometimes the departed souls of lesser creatures will blow into the house if we have the windows open. And when that happens—”

The lump of beef quivered. Lindsome dropped her fork and clapped a hand to her mouth.

From beneath the stew crawled a beetle, looking very put out.

Dr. Dandridge and Chaswick burst into guffaws. “A beetle!” cried the old man. “A beetle in the stew! Oh, that is precious, too precious for words! Oh, how funny!”

Chaswick, laughing, looked to Lindsome, her eyes saucer-wide. “Oh, come now,” he said. “Surely you see the humor.”

Dr. Dandridge wiped his eyes. The beetle, tracking tiny spots of stew, crawled off across the tablecloth at speed. “A beetle! Oh, mercy. Mercy me. Excuse us — that’s not a joke for a young lady at all. Forgive me, child — we’ve grown uncivilized out here, isolated as we are. A Clatham Stitch upon my stew, as if to vivify it! And then came a beetle—”

Lindsome couldn’t take it anymore. She stood. “May I be excused?”

“Already?” said Chaswick, still chuckling. “No more questions for your great-uncle, demonstrating your very thorough interest in and understanding of his work?”

Lindsome colored beneath the increasing heat of her discomfort. This remark, on top of all else, was too much. “Oh, I understand a great deal. I understand that you can stitch a soul to an embalmed deathhusk instead of an unpreserved one—”

Chaswick stopped laughing immediately.

“—even though everybody knows that’s impossible,” said Lindsome.

Chaswick’s eyes tightened in suspicion. Dr. Dandridge, unaware of the ferocity between their interlocked stares, sat as erect as his ancient bones would permit. “Why, that’s right! That’s absolutely right! You must have understood the implications of Bainbridge’s supplemental index in her report last spring!”

“Yes,” said Chaswick coldly. “She must have.”

Lindsome colored further and looked away. She focused on her great-uncle, who, in his excitement, had picked up the aetherhook once again and was attempting to cut a bit of potato with it. “Your mama was right to send you here. I never imagined — a blossoming, fine young scientific mind in the family! Why, the conversations we can have, you and I! Great Apocrypha, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” The old man put the aetherhook, with no further comment or explanation, tip-down in his water glass. “We shall have a chat in my study after dinner. Truth be told, you arrived at the perfect time. Chaswick and I are at the cusp of an astounding attempt, a true milestone in—”

Chaswick arose sharply from his chair. “A moment, Doctor! I need a word with your niece first.” He rounded the table and grabbed Lindsome’s arm before anyone could protest. “She’ll await you in your study. Excuse us.”

Chaswick dragged her toward the small, forbidden hallway, but rather than entering the door at the end into the mysterious yellow room, he dragged Lindsome into one of the rooms that flanked the corridor. Lind-some did not have an opportunity to observe the interior, for Chaswick slammed the door behind them.

“What have you seen?”

A match flared to life with a pop and Lindsome shielded her eyes. Chaswick lit a single candle, tossed the match aside, and lifted the candle to chest level. Its flicker turned his expression eerie and demonic. “I said, what have you seen?”

“Nothing!” Lindsome kept her free hand over her eyes, pretending the shock of the light hurt worse than it did, so that Chaswick could not see the lie upon her face.