Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

“Open and pour,” I told Henry.

He yanked out the cork and shook the vial, and the hair and the spirit rolled out and into the mud creature. Instantly I pushed some clay over the top, sealing the cavity. Elizabeth added a little more, smoothing it. Then we pulled back our hands and just stared.

It was only mud, just a sad little mud baby made by children.

“Will this work?” Elizabeth whispered.

“Yes,” I said fervently.

After a few minutes we left the cottage, secured the door with a padlock, and started the walk back to the chateau, all our hopes and fears carried silently within us.

We’d just entered the main hall, our hands still damp from washing them at the stable pump, when Dr. Lesage appeared, coming down the main staircase.

“How’s Mother?” I asked.

“Oh, her spirits seem improved today. She said she had a nice chat with you earlier.”

“May we visit her?” Elizabeth asked.

“She’s taking the rest she needs right now,” said the doctor. “Don’t look so grave, Miss Lavenza. She has no disease of the body. Time will be her cure, I have no doubt.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” said Elizabeth.

The doctor turned to me. “And I’m glad to catch you before I leave, young sir. Your parents wanted me to have a quick look at you.”

“But I’m not ill,” I blurted, and regretted it, for I’d sounded almost guilty.

“I merely want to examine your hand,” the doctor said with a reassuring smile. “Your father said he still sees you wince from time to time. Is it giving you pain?”

Elizabeth and Henry left us. We went into the empty dining room, and I sat by the window while the doctor bent his head to examine the ugly stumps of my severed fingers. His forehead bore liver spots, and there was dandruff among his thinning hair. He seemed older than I remembered. His hands were pleasantly warm, and I felt my shoulders relax.

“The wounds are healing well. There is no sign of infection or disease.”

“It was never the wounds that hurt,” I told him.

“No. You feel the pain where the fingers once were, yes?”

I nodded.

“And the pain, how is it?”

“It comes and goes.”

“It is not so unusual as you might think. I have heard of cases where the severed limb continues to give phantom pain for some time. The body remembers its injury.”

“Time will be my cure too, then,” I said. “Mother hasn’t been worrying about me, has she?”

“No, no,” he said. “How is your sleep?”

I almost smiled. If he only knew how deeply I had lately slept-as deep as death itself.

“Fine,” I said.

His elderly eyes regarded me kindly. “I’m not concerned only about your hand, Victor. Your grief is another matter.”

I looked out the window. I did not want to appear weak. I did not want to give anything away.

“I have no doubt,” he said, “that you will heal. But there are things that might speed it. You appear to me pale and rundown. Your father says you’ve been skulking about the house.”

“I’ve just been out for a long walk,” I protested.

“Excellent. I recommend more of the same. Summer seems not ready to leave us quite yet, and I advise you to take full advantage of it. Daily outings. Plenty of fresh air. Walk. Ride. Row. Sail. Take your meat bloodier. And I will leave you an opiate, with instructions to take it only sparingly, and for no longer than three weeks. It will ease your pain, and help you sleep.”

“My sleep is-” And I stopped myself with a sigh.

“Good,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’ll let your father know we’ve spoken, and remind him to keep you out of doors!”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said with a smile, for he didn’t know how well his prescription would aid my plans.

The next morning, after delivering a brief lesson, Father released Elizabeth, Henry, and me to the outdoors, with firm instructions to exert ourselves and breathe deeply. Cook had packed us an enormous picnic hamper, and we set off on foot in the direction of the far pasture. The day, as the doctor had predicted, was truly beautiful, a return to summer.

Henry and I, the hamper between us, perspired lightly in the early October sun as we hurried to keep up with Elizabeth. Throughout our morning lecture it had taken all my effort to concentrate on Father’s words, and Elizabeth had seemed so agitated, I’d feared Father would notice.

No one spoke, though my own head was noisy with hopes and questions about what awaited us inside the cottage. When we reached it, I pulled the key from my pocket and hoped no one saw the slight tremble in my fingers.

What will I behold on the other side of this door?

I pushed it wide. The place was completely silent, though filled with a strange, expectant humidity. Elizabeth and Henry moved inside, already lighting lanterns. I closed the door behind me, and the serrated shadows of saws and shovels leapt about the walls like goblins.

The huge worktable blocked our view of the hole we’d dug, and as we walked around the table, gooseflesh prickled up my arms. Step by step we drew closer, our lanterns high. In the swinging light I made out a dark lump at the bottom of the hole. We kneeled.

Right away I saw this was no mere lump. It was bigger, unmistakably bigger, and it had changed entirely. What we had fashioned yesterday with our hands-a muddy, plumped-up gingerbread man-had transformed itself into the fully formed shape of a baby.

“It’s working,” I whispered.

“He’s flipped himself over,” said Elizabeth.

Already to her it was he. I was mute with wonder, staring. It had moved. We had formed it and left it on its back, and it had moved on its own. Many times I’d seen William sleep just like this, on his stomach, knees drawn up, rump raised in the air.

“It’s miraculous,” whispered Henry.

Its face was turned from us. Its body was mud-colored, chafed in places. I noticed the straight, knobbed line of its spine, its tiny feet and toes. We hadn’t fashioned those toes. They had developed overnight of their own accord.

Henry and I turned to each other, shaking our heads in awe. I looked now at the hairless head, which seemed large in comparison with the rest of its body.

“Is it normal?” I asked. “The size of the head?”

“Of course,” said Elizabeth. “Babies’ heads always seem larger than the rest of them. But I’m going to turn him over. I’m worried he can’t breathe properly with his face in the dirt like that.”

“What makes you think it needs to breathe?” I asked.

She looked over at me in surprise. “Of course he needs to breathe.”

“I’m not sure it’s properly alive,” I said, recalling the searing torrent of images from the cave writing. Had the mud man breathed, even as it had grown?

Elizabeth reached down with her hands.

“Wait, wait!” I said. “You shouldn’t touch it!”

Elizabeth sighed impatiently. “Why ever not?”

“In the images I saw it was never touched. It…” I couldn’t put it into words, the sense that the mud body was a thing of the earth and neither needed nor wanted human intervention. “I just think…”

But I was too late, for Elizabeth had already reached down and taken gentle hold of the mud creature. I felt myself tense as her skin touched its skin. One hand supported its head and neck as she tenderly turned it onto its back.

“He’s warm,” she breathed. “And the skin feels like real skin.”

I’d expected her only to adjust its position, but she lifted it clear out of the hole and cradled it against her body.

Once more, unaccountably, I tensed. “Elizabeth, you should put him down.”

Blissfully ignoring me, she said, “Look at him, you two. Just look at him.”