Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

I examined it carefully, this creature formed from mud, this being I’d helped create. In the space of a single day and night, it had transformed from a baby to a toddler. It was hard to comprehend the speed of such growth, the stretch of bone and flourishing of vein and sinew and muscle. Already this creature was much larger than our little William.

Most unnerving of all, it was getting more difficult for me to think of this creature as an it when I could now see myself and my brother in its features. Mother had had a portrait of Konrad and me painted when we were three, and the resemblance was striking.

The child gave a belch, spitting up some milk and food, and pushed away the bit of apple Elizabeth was offering. I winced at the sour odor, but Henry showed no distaste as he mopped up the child’s mouth.

“Apple,” said Elizabeth, bobbing one before it. “Apple.”

The mud child’s eyes followed the piece of fruit, but there was a curious blankness to its gaze.

“It’s nothing but appetite and impulse,” I said. “There’s no point trying to teach it anything.”

Elizabeth frowned at me, as though I might have hurt the creature’s feelings. “He has every part a person should have, except a soul. Learning will help him, surely. And I don’t see how it can hurt.”

She sang a silly nursery song to it, and its dark eyes widened slightly.

“This is a rather good one,” said Henry, and recited a nonsense poem I remembered from my own childhood.

The child seemed suddenly restless, and squirmed from Elizabeth’s lap. In a second it had crawled over to Henry and was reaching up for him. Henry laughed with undisguised pleasure.

“He appreciates fine verse,” he said.

“As do many of us,” Elizabeth said, and chuckled.

Henry took hold of the child’s hands, and it pulled itself up to standing.

“Its legs are strong,” I said, though it should have come as no surprise. This same strange child had chased down mice and rats and killed with its tiny fists.

“He’ll be walking soon,” Elizabeth said proudly.

“Very soon,” I agreed, wondering if it would occur to the mud child to try to escape the cottage.

“You still think it humane, or safe, to keep him here?” Elizabeth asked me, with her chin at a challenging tilt.

I looked at the child carefully, at the lack of expression in its eyes, and I truly thought it was an empty vessel. “It seems it wakes only to eat,” I said. “We’ll leave all the food and water beside the hole. If it wakes again, it’ll have more than enough to keep it until we visit tomorrow.”

As if to corroborate my claim, the child’s eyelids were already drooping with fatigue, and it crumpled asleep into Henry’s arms.

“I’ll settle him, then,” said Henry, placing the child’s naked body carefully back in the hole.

Elizabeth was ready with the blanket, and tucked it carefully all around. Then she went back to the hamper and returned with an old doll of Ernest’s, a uniformed man made of soft felt.

“It doesn’t need that,” I said.

She knelt at the edge of the hole and slipped the doll under the blanket, against its chest.

A small crease appeared in the mud child’s forehead as its nostrils twitched, then flared, inhaling deeply. Then it exhaled and slumbered blissfully beneath its blanket.

As we entered our house, our housekeeper Maria was scudding like a storm cloud through the hall.

“Is anything the matter?” I asked.

The corners of her mouth turned down. “It seems they’ve discovered something else beneath the house now. I heard one of the workers muttering something about bones. I don’t know why your father allows this, now of all times.”

“Where’s the professor?” I asked.

“Upstairs talking to your father, I believe,” she said.

We hurried to his study and knocked on the door.

“Ah,” said Father, admitting us, “your timing is uncanny. You’ll have an enthusiastic audience, Professor.”

The professor’s face was blanched with grit, but through the chalky dust I could see a brushstroke of high color in each cheek. He was pacing, and his bearlike chest swelled with barely restrained enthusiasm.

“What’s been discovered?” I asked.

“Something momentous,” he said. “I was just about to escort your father.”

My stomach was knotted with excitement as we made the descent into the caves. It was an altogether different world from our previous visit. The place was lit as brightly as a Geneva street. As we ventured through the wondrous galleries of horses, bulls, and stags, we passed artists at easels, sketching.

“They’re in heaven,” the professor said with a laugh. “They say they’ve never seen images so vital. Their work could fill the Louvre already.”

Farther along one young scholar tapped at the rock with a small hammer, collecting shards, while another stood upon a ladder, examining the soot marks upon the ceiling. We passed the bear and the sly tiger, and when the passage branched, I felt an eerie lack of surprise when the professor chose the same route I had taken in the spirit world. I noticed that a rope had been staked into the wall, guiding us, turning by turning, to the high-domed chamber in which towered the giant brushstroke man.

“Extraordinary!” my father exclaimed, and I made sure to make a gasp of amazement, to conceal the fact that I had visited this chamber before.

“A human figure at last,” the professor said proudly, “and what a colossus he is!”

The chamber was brightly illuminated, and yet when I glanced at Elizabeth, her expression was uneasy, and Henry’s eyes were fixed intently on the passageway that slanted steeply downward.

“Who was this fellow, do you think?” my father asked.

“Clearly someone held in great regard,” the professor replied. “Those markings underneath no doubt have a tale to tell.”

“Have you any better idea of their meaning?” I asked.

“Alas, no word yet from my colleague in France.”

From the slanting passageway echoed a moan, followed by the slow, gritty scrape of heavy footfalls. I swallowed and took a step back.

“Dear God!” Henry said in a choked voice.

All at once an enormous shadow unfolded itself from the passageway, and Elizabeth stifled a scream. A large man stepped out into the chamber, rubbing his head.

“Very sorry to have startled you, miss,” he said apologetically. “Just banged my head on the way up. It’s wickedly steep.” He walked to Neumeyer and handed him a notebook. “The measurements you asked for, Professor.”

“Thank you, Gerard. You left some lanterns burning?”

“I did.”

“What’s down there?” Elizabeth asked hoarsely.

“Ah. Most wondrous of all,” said the professor. “Though, if you’re of a delicate sensibility, perhaps it’s best you wait here.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” said Elizabeth, and I could tell she struggled to keep the annoyance from her voice.

“Very well.” The professor took up his lantern and handed another to Father. “The way’s steep and dark, but there are crude steps cut into the floor. They’re slippery, though, so please be careful.”

In me was a ravenous curiosity. Since hearing that unearthly noise emanate from the passageway in the spirit world, I’d craved more knowledge of it. The way down was indeed perilous, the walls moist with dew, the shallow steps slick. Deeper into the earth the atmosphere grew decidedly more humid and carried an earthy hint of freshly turned soil.

“Are you all right?” I heard Henry ask Elizabeth.

She nodded, and I smiled to myself. I knew she was made of sterner stuff than Henry supposed.

From below I caught a faint flicker of light, but it was several long minutes before the passage leveled out abruptly and we found ourselves in a long narrow chamber.