Chapter 1: Chapter I
Chapter Text
It would never have crossed my mind, I assured myself at that time, to hide anything from Dr. Warthrop unless it was for his own well-being. Of course, I could not bear to lose him. Von Helrung's urgent but vague and introductory - plea for Pellinore to consider the occasional need for redefining the actors of monstrumology in light of new evidence was already a perilous agenda for a healthy Warthrop, but it could be deadly one after a debilitating trip - which always seemed to be our last. This time, though, it nearly severed his head from his torso with the ease of plucking a grape from a cluster.
As long as he was bedridden and I was responsible for his recovery, I would spare him from any possible aggravating news.
That was the only reason I burned the letter.
In the first days after surviving, he looked as out of his element as he sounded, and by that I mean he could neither move nor speak, and that was the only thing keeping him from acting his usual self. Warthrop was now confined to his greatest quality: his mind. How tragic and desperate could that be? Suffocating in one's own thoughts, unable to expel them through reports, essays, vivisections, sermons, poems… Imagine that! The doctor could not, no matter how much he tried, scream at me to snap to it.
When we arrived home, I had to cut his clothes to give him a bath. It felt like feeding a wild dog with fresh meat between exposed fingers - while the dog was trapped behind thick bars and the meat and my fingers wavered in front of his eager nose.
His persistence in life was a miracle, given his distaste for it. He had suffered dozens of wounds, and as I washed the blood and dirt from them, each one seemed more like a thoughtful detail from a humorous God. A deep cut on the neck that would silence him for - depending on the treatment discipline - a few weeks or months. The left clavicle fractured and the right hand broken (the doctor was ambidextrous, what a pity!). Broken ribs (on both sides!). One leg broken and the other superficially wounded by hundreds of shards of glass. Lastly, and as his doctor described, if he obeyed the instructions given to his dear assistant, Warthrop would leave, at least, limping for the rest of his life. At most, in a coffin.
It was a miracle, I told him, removing with tweezers the shards of glass from his leg. Any response he attempted to issue was limited to a trickle of blood running down his throat.
Von Helrung kindly hosted himself and the best New York doctor in New Jerusalem, a few blocks away in case of an emergency (I was expected to rush and notify sudden changes in his condition). But Warthrop was well enough to react to the threat of accommodating a nurse in our home. According to his gurgling, he would kill her in her sleep and then kill himself in front of me. She was in the room with us. Von Helrung blamed his ex-pupil's rudeness on trauma and fever. She never came back.
I did the dirty work, but the doctor was still my master and he did not need any operating limbs to give me orders. One look was enough, that was the extent of our vocabulary. So the long list of medical instructions turned into a brief iteration of optional recommendations, shaped by his mood and willingness. Some days, Warthrop was determined to eat solid food even at the expense of his own neck stitches. On others, the small physiotherapy exercises for his hand, like trying to hold the spoon by himself, were my attempts of murder.
I was finishing his dinner when the doorbell rang. I counted to three, and not a single creak was heard after the first millisecond of my idleness. No shouting throughout the house. No hurried steps. I seized the opportunity of that tranquility to open the door at the standard pace one would expect in any normal household. Who knew when another chance like that would arise? Nonetheless, I refrained from exaggerating; one more minute and I risked encountering a Warthrop crawling down the stairs.
I compelled myself to put aside the tray (his food would cool, but what was the worst offense I could hear, after all?) and proceeded to the living room and the entrance hall. On the other side, I was greeted with a familiar broad smile. It took a few moments for me to recognize its owner and his presence standing before our open door.
John Kearns grinned at me as though he had just received the most delightful news of his life.
“I heard that peace has befallen this residence! Don't tell me our loving Pellinore passed away?"
“Good evening, Dr. Kearns. Dr. Warthrop is recovering well,” I replied, and my gaze fell on his suitcase and its likely unwanted contents, “but I believe he is not in condition to receive you.”
“Well, if he were, I would not have come. Isn't that a doctor’s role?”
He walked past me and I did not dare to stop him.
“He is already under medical care, sir.”
“We all can agree: not as good as mine.”
“The best in New York,” I repeated Von Helrung's words.
Kearns turned as if he realized I would be a bigger nuisance than he had anticipated. He bent a few inches to match my height. And with the tip of his index finger, booped my nose.
“There you forget something important, my dear, young, and no longer so short Will Henry: I am british!”
Even worse, I thought, but bit my tongue.
“I will accompany you to his room then.”
“Oh, do not bother. I know very well how to find it.”
Kearns was already climbing the stairs; I was already chasing him - as that was a second nature of mine.
“It is dinnertime…” I tried to explain, but he cut me off.
“How kind, but I am not hungry. Eat for me."
“Sir, I meant that I need to…”
With a sigh heavier than the previous one, John Kearns stopped in front of the doctor's door, turning again with his hands splayed as if to prevent me from squeezing through a crack.
“Be a good boy and do not interrupt my work, will you? Imagine if you startle me and my scalpel slips and I gouge out both of your master's eyes? He would never forgive you. Never.”
The door slammed inches from my face. It dawned on me that Kearns still addressed me as if my greatest fears were those of my eleven-year-old self. Downstairs, I sat down to eat whatever I had prepared for Warthrop. In a few years, I would find some peace sleeping in my own bed. Yet, at that moment, guilt still nagged at me for relishing the small corner I named my bedroom. So I settled onto the living room couch, curled up, allowing discomfort to keep me partially awake in case I had to complete the task Dr. Warthrop could not bring himself to - nor allowed me to - on that island.
The morning sun acted as my alarm clock, a rare occurrence that always brought forth the most unsettling thoughts.
The doctor called me, and I did not hear, and now he is dead.
The doctor called, I did not hear, and now he is so angry he is going to ignore my presence for the next two weeks.
The doctor did not call.
The suitcase veiled my sleep from the same spot where it had been forgotten. My body, moved by trained diligence, ascended to the doctor's room. The doorknob did not turn.
"Good morning," greeted John Kearns, emerging from behind me. He feigned a moment of realization regarding my intentions. "I secured the door as a precautionary measure. We would not want our Pellinore venturing near corners and steep stairs, now would we?"
"The doctor... broke his leg," I explained, slowly.
"Exactly! Even more dangerous."
He noticed his suitcase hanging from my other hand.
"Oh, there it is! I spent the night looking for my tools and—" he paused, searching for more words "— things. Where did you put it, Will Henry?"
The question did not seem to require an answer, so Kearns simply ripped the strap from my hand and gently guided me by the shoulders. I barely noticed he was sending me away once again.
"I need to see Dr. Warthrop." I stood my ground.
"Why?" Kearns was taken aback, as if my request was absurd.
"Um, because... because Mr. Von Helrung entrusted me with daily updates on his condition," I lied, and added, attempting to conceal my childish threat, "Mr. Von Helrung is staying nearby."
John Kearns took a moment to ponder, then retrieved the key from his pants pocket. I had not noticed how impeccably dressed he was that day, or rather, every day since I remember. Warthrop was reluctant to don a vest and tie for important occasions, whereas I could not picture Kearns wearing pajamas.
"Very well," he conceded, as if the house did not belong to me. "But do not disturb him from his well-deserved rest."
The first thing I did was to ensure he was still alive. And not very subtly, as I stuck my fingers under his nose, waking him up instantly. His face twisted with deep outrage and disgust (perhaps because of the lingering scent of garlic on my fingers from last night's dinner), which oddly put me at ease. At least I realized he did not require rescuing.
"He's quite the gentleman when he is quiet, wouldn't you agree, Will?"
Now the glare of indignation was shared between us. More alive than he was at that moment was simply impossible.
My gaze swept across the room. Everything remained just as I left it. Not even the medicine on the bedside table showed any signs of use. There was, however, a slight sinking on the mattress next to his body, which fourteen-year-old Will Henry attributed to the lingering impressions of Warthrop's restless sleep movements.
"Do you... need anything, sir?" Kearns looming presence disoriented me. My voice, which began to acquire confidence in the few days I had cared for the doctor alone, now faltered in the face of someone with a commanding presence, twice my age, and a skilled hunter who also happened to be a doctor.
As expected, Kearns took a step forward. "Don't worry about it. I will take care of him."
"I will take care of him," I retorted, a bit possessive but unable to find a compelling argument.
I looked at Warthrop as if expecting a decision from him. There he lay, eyes shut, that mischievous rascal. I wagered he was finding amusement in all of this.
"Why not take a break?" Kearns tried another approach, smiling. "Think of it as a vacation from your indispensable role as Pellinore's assistant. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! And I assure you, he will not hold it against you when he's back on his feet. If he does, I will take care of him myself."
Kearns chuckled; I did not.
A vacation from the doctor's indispensable assistant role? In my mind, that man was evicting me from the house. Worse yet, he was issuing a threat. A sense of despair welled up within me, seemingly out of nowhere. I knew that if I did not set some boundaries or assert control right there... well, I could not fathom the consequences.
"All right. I will go visit Lilly, then."
"And who is Lilly?" Kearns inquired, a bit too eagerly. He softened his tone, "I need to know if it is safe to let you go."
"Mr. Von Helrung's niece," I replied. "She came along, but the doctor does not approve of me spending time with her. He says she is bad company."
This time, Kearns turned to Warthrop, his eyes searching for confirmation: he can not go, can he? Warthrop's unexpected response came with a nonchalant glint: "I do not care a single bit."
Of course, Warthrop was aware that Lilly was not in town. In fact, he even knew that Von Helrung returned to New York a week ago. He stayed for only two days, perhaps out of a sense of duty in case the doctor's luck truly ran out this time.
Kearns found himself in a predicament: he could not contradict Warthrop, yet, for some reason, he seemed to look forward to.
"I have a better idea," the doctor proposed. "Why don't you go fetch us some breakfast? I can hear Pellinore's stomach growling from here."
Abandoning my pretense of visiting the doctor's mentor would leave me with nothing to do anyways. At best, I would spend the meager sum Warthrop provided me on sweets, with no assurance — despite Kearns' reassurance — that this antic was truly free of repercussions once the doctor recovered. Moreover, I would still, in a sense, be serving Warthrop, escaping the idea of vacation as though I narrowly avoided ultimate death.
I came back to his room rehearsing the most convincing phrase to persuade Kearns to leave us be and head downstairs to enjoy my — affectionately prepared — stale bread with vegetable soup. But I was not quick enough; Kearns rose and took it from me with a wide smile.
"Allow me to assist you with that... Could you also bring my tray over here, Master Will?"
Kearns would surely bolt the door as soon as I stepped out of the room. I could have objected, or simply given in, gone downstairs to dine in peace, and left the doctor's morning demeanor as a little surprise for Kearns. But the truth is, I was intrigued. I wanted to understand what held his interest in that activity — boring for me, uncomfortably intimate for most. My mind was brimming with thoughts of foul play, so, seated on a wooden chair beside the bed, I made sure he did not retrieve any suspicious vial from his jacket.
I delightfully anticipated all the inevitable complaints. Will Henry, are you attempting to scorch my taste buds? Will Henry, did you prepare this in your chamber pot? Will Henry, are you trying to feed me through my nostrils, or are you just holding that spoon with your eyes shut? Among other constructive criticisms.
It was with a slight queasiness that I watched the doctor part his lips without any sign of imminent tantrum. Was he particularly pleased? Well, never. Yet, he made no attempt to resist the spoon or reject the soup. Kearns maneuvered the utensil from the plate and back, his hand supporting it from below like one would do to a baby.
"Do you feel ready to chew now?" the man asked, his tone oddly neutral. It struck me as comical due to its unusualness, although I suppose, given his profession, it should not have surprised me so.
Warthrop simply nodded. That, however, did surprise me. Typically, any suggestion of mine, even when aligned with the doctor's wishes, would take hours to be acknowledged and days to be accepted. It appeared to me that making my life difficult was some sort of amusement for my master.
However, the ease with which he accepted the bread soaked in broth, served without a spoon and nothing but bare fingers... I stood up, dizzy and seething.
"The toilet is down the hall. Call me if you need help, Doctor Kearns."
Without waiting for a reply, I exited the room. I settled, somewhat childishly, on top of the stairs. John Kearns never summoned me to fulfill the duty that was rightfully mine. I felt, above all, disregarded, ridiculed even, for my inability to tend to my merciless master's physiological needs. I sought retribution by enjoying my breakfast uninterrupted, chewing each morsel with deliberate drag. As the hours ticked by, I pondered not only the lack of purpose in my newfound free time (should I read? should I play? I had no desire for either); but also the realization that while I had daily tasks, I relied on Pellinore Warthrop yelling them at me.
A familiar knock interrupted my thoughts around noon. I hurried to the door to retrieve the letter, but instead found myself opening my eyes. John Kearns stood before the envelope, and I had just awoken from a nap on the carpet, where an old encrusted blood stain lulled me to sleep. His leather shoes glistened in the daylight seeping through the cracks under the door. The house, with its scant windows, remained stuck in a perpetual dusty gloom, chilly all year around.
John Kearns regarded the letter on the floor with the intensity of a murderer eyeing the body of his victim. Even with his back turned to me, my silent movement jolted him out of his immobility. He bent down and retrieved the paper, speaking over his shoulder so that I could hear.
"I believe you've received a letter," he whistled, uninterested.
"I can add it to doctor Wa..."
The seal was torn. My shoulders tensed.
"Oh. Apologies for opening it," Kearns spoke casually. "It says here the sender is Mr. Abram Von Helrung. I did not realize the mail delivered over such short distances... the modernity of this country is impressive."
"The doctor will not be pleased to have his privacy invaded, sir."
I attempted to snatch the letter from his hand, but Kearns continued reading it with his arm held high.
"I doubt he will mind if it's me..."
I tried to jump, scratching his arm and rumpling his vest. When I finally managed to take it — or when Kearns allowed me to — it was too late. There was that mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"Look at this... Here we have Pellinore Warthrop’s worst enemy: a liar."
"Lying and temporarily hiding the truth are two very different things, sir," I retorted.
I then noticed John Kearns merely hinted that I lied about something — and I was the one who confirmed and provided further details. Anger and shame flushed my face.
"Very well then, you are not a liar, you are a little mail-intercepting thief."
The letter, after a brief skim, reinforced Von Helrung's enigmatic request and assumed the delay in response was due to a conscious decision by the doctor to ignore the issue, whatever that was. I had handed myself on a silver platter, but scraped the bottom of the pan looking for what was left of my integrity.
"Now you know doctor Warthrop’s life is not in danger. You can leave."
"That is precisely why I can not!" Kearns lowered himself to my eye level. "Pellinore Warthrop will never be safe.
No one is. Not near you.
"What do you want, Jack Kearns?" I demanded, not breaking his gaze.
He pouted. "You were more polite when you were eleven, little Willy. From what I recall, there was no single encounter between us where I did not save your life. If we tally it up, I might have saved you more times than Pellinore himself... So why, if I am such a more pleasant companion, do I receive all this heartbreaking distrust?"
"Because when he wants something from someone, I immediately know what it is."
His eyes weren't those empty sockets I had become accustomed to seeing on hunting nights. They were ablaze, lit by some beam coming from a crack that our house could not contain outside. For some reason, I preferred the empty sockets.
"Allow me to return your question then..." Kearns purred. "What do you want, Will Henry?"
Chapter Text
I allowed him to stay for a few more days, or at least convinced myself that I had the authority and authorship over that decision. The truth was, if Warthrop truly disliked someone's presence in his home, he would rise from the dead to chase them away.
There were, however, moments when Kearns, the doctor, and I formed a silent and strange triangle in the room, and in those moments, I saw the first flicker of doubt in Warthrop's eyes. Specifically, at the end of the third night — the second since the guest room I had arranged for Kearns remained untouched.
I like to think that at no point did the excuses the man gave to justify his presence had the professional and personal connotations he claimed. Firstly, because he was a surgeon, not a caretaker. Secondly, because all previous attempts to make it seem like the two were the great old friends Kearns implied were disdainfully dismissed by my master. But then, if the doctor obviously saw through those lies from the beginning, why did he only now begin to suspect them? Did he really think John Kearns was concerned about his health? I refused to believe it.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the doctor's voice returned much sooner than expected. Weak, hoarse, but sharp and powerful in its simplicity.
"You both watch me like crows waiting," were his first words.
"We missed your joyful noises around the house!" John Kearns celebrated.
"Leave..." he grunted, "or say what you really came for."
Kearns, who was sitting in an armchair at the back, stood up and practically pushed me out of the way to the doctor's bed. He stopped a step away from it.
"I already did..." he whispered hurriedly.
I was inside the room, but, behind the two, I felt like an intruder listening to a private conversation. One, however, that the doctor did not continue. The look my master gave him was now as cold as the one he always gave me.
"Pack Dr. Kearns' bags, Will Henry."
"He... brought none, sir."
Warthrop narrowed his eyes and, if he had the full mobility of his arm back, he would have pointed a finger at Kearns.
"Where is this clothing from?"
Again, that whispered and informal tone:
"I thought... you would not mind."
"Immediately escort this man to the door," ordered my master, as angry as the tear in his neck allowed him to express.
"I am taking these moldy pieces of fabric you call clothes for a walk; you should thank me."
"Out!"
If all else failed, I could cling to Kearns' legs, kick, and roll down the stairs with him to the front door, but I confess I hoped they would resolve the issue without involving me.
"Oh, stop it, Pellinore. I am being honest."
"Ha! You, honest? Tell me once and for all, what is it? Did you bring the thing in a bag? Is it a corpse? A living person? Jack, you're not hiding a living person in some box in my house, are you? Of course there is an ulterior motive for your presence; you never show up without bringing some monster with you."
My mind was still too stuck on the fact that the doctor had called Kearns Jack, but I forced myself to intervene to avoid escalating the argument.
"Sir, I..."
"Shut your mouth, Will Henry, I did not ask you anything. Could you not lock the door? What if it was a thief? A homeless person? Would you let them in too and offer to fluff their pillows? Can't you take care of anything without my direct instruction? What would you do, huh, if Dr. Kearns had something to do with my accident and came to finish the job? Would you let him into my room like this and have access to the kitchen knives and the water glasses on my nightstand? What if I finally died because of your stupidity?"
Somehow, I had become his main target. While none of his words surprised me, considering I was accustomed to enduring his verbal assaults whenever I was close enough to hear them, that day and in the preceding days, restraining my response — shaped by years of silently bearing his insults — was proving to be increasingly challenging.
"With all due respect, Dr. Warthrop," I began, swallowing the thoughts that told me to stop, "you did not seem too bothered by Dr. Kearns's presence in your room."
Warthrop stared at me with eyes filled with fury and disbelief.
And I did not flinch.
Somehow, though unable to lift a finger, the doctor put us both on the street, but, lacking the means to enforce his ultimatum, we simply moved out of his line of sight and his curses dwindled.
Nightfall came in the blink of an eye, and my source of comfort, much like a housewife and mother of five, was to distract myself with the predictability of the dozens of tasks I still needed to perform before rewarding myself with a short and troubled sleep.
Kearns lit a cigarette as soon as he left the room, leaning against the railing of the second-floor hallway. A sudden urge to make the doctor's wishes come true struck me. If I left, abandoned the stage that John Kearns needed to perform on, would our guest notice the open windows whistling with the wind of the blizzard outside? Would he light the fire in the fireplace to warm the walls of the doctor's house? Or would he light another cigarette, smoke in silence, and extinguish the butt on the balustrade? Those weren't doubts, they were non-doubts; I did not want to be there to find out what would become of two people who did not care for a home.
I sat on the first step and hugged my knees. Kearns hovered across the floor until he stood beside me.
"You may consider yourself the most loyal friend of the king," he began with gravity, " but I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that a corrupt leader deserves the conspiracies that bring him down."
I sighed, too exhausted to take offense.
"I am not conspiring against Dr. Warthrop. I am conspiring for him. "
There was a long moment of silence that, the longer it stretched, the more it seemed to erode and dilute the truth of my defense — extremely reasonable in my mind — under Kearns' gaze over the top of my head.
"Will," he said softly, squatting down. "You deserve a better life."
I turned my gaze back, upwards, challenging him with his own genius. The only light came from the small window at the end of the hallway, casting a bluish circle of night over the two of us.
"Dr. Kearns, if these were the first words of condolence I ever heard about my miserable life, I would think you were offering to adopt me. And if I wanted to be adopted, I would have been living with Mrs. Bates a long time ago."
John Kearns hesitated for a second, then returned to his position like a retreating soldier. Like a snake, slithering back along its own trail.
"Go to your master's room tomorrow morning and ask for whatever you want," he said. "I give you my word that Pellinore Warthrop will wake up in a good mood. Just don't waste this chance. After I am gone, there may not be another."
Before the first rooster crowed, I had a feast ready to serve. I entered the room prepared to defend myself against the grave accusation — according to Warthrop — of involving myself with lies (as if I hadn't killed and destroyed and ruined things by his side and with his blessing). But I also entered prepared to believe in what John Kearns had promised, with the trust of an adulterer in his wife, with the trust of a thief in another.
The doctor's eyes were half-closed. That expression could be interpreted as sleep, weakness, or disdain. I did not waste my time deciphering it; instead, I assessed the nearest surroundings. He was covered up to his shoulders like a baby, his head supported, comically, by three pillows against which his disheveled black hair contrasted, like well-fed leeches. The room had a pleasant smell, which I soon realized was nothing more than the result of good ventilation and the slightest tidying up. At some point during the night, I suppose, Kearns had cleared away the mess that usually covered the floor of the doctor's room. So, armed with evidence, I dared.
But I could not sit on his bed, not even on the edge, not even near his feet. I felt that Warthrop's gaze, now focused on following me, could strip my intentions bare. I placed the tray on the bedside table, and he observed its contents for a while.
"Did Dr. Kearns prepare this?"
"No, sir. I did," I replied, then hesitated. "Why, sir?"
"Because it made me hungry."
I ignored the jab and pointed to his favorite dessert, feeling somewhat foolish. He clearly noticed, so much so that he did not take his eyes off it.
"Just out of the oven. I believe I was the baker's first customer."
"I can see," he said, and nothing more.
I deemed a victory that he exhibited no aversion for unnecessary spending. The doctor effortlessly raised his torso and reached out a hand to seize the plate. He typically spent an entire day resisting the allure of receiving any form of kindness, as if acquiescing equated to defeat. Perhaps it did, perhaps Warthrop lost something each time I anticipated whatever desire he had not yet bluntly vocalized.
"Go ahead and eat your share already," he finally said, nodding toward the remaining raspberry scone. "I do not want your greedy gaze causing me indigestion later."
That small and reluctant act of gratitude gave me a renewed sense of encouragement.
"Thank you, sir. But I always take my share before offering you the bakery bag," I replied.
Warthrop chuckled. Just a rough grunt, lips perfectly sealed, unaccompanied by any trace of a smile, but still… a chuckle. I sensed satisfaction emanating from a shadowy corner of the room and could not help but wonder — as I watched my master devour the breakfast I had prepared, offering occasional constructive criticism — what was the recipe behind that state of mind.
"Don't forget the medicine, Pellinore. Will, help him with that. I shall leave you two alone. Only call me in case of complications!" he laughed. "Actually, don't call me."
I made a move toward the medicine — already measured in its dispenser, a beige liquid next to a label-less glass bottle — but Warthrop, again, showed no difficulty in reaching for it and bringing it to his mouth.
The first rays of sunlight were already rising on the horizon.
"Did you sleep well, sir?" I asked, not knowing where to begin.
"Recount to me everything I missed during these unfortunate weeks of uselessness. Correspondences, news, newspapers, publications, crimes, novelties; I want to know even if a leaf fell out of season… How are your assistant duties going? I need the report on the updated catalogs for the essay I plan to draft soon. We could start today, but I don't know if my motor control is… No matter, I can dictate. No, actually not, I would spend an eternity spelling out jargon. Answering your question, I slept wonderfully well. Where are my shoes, by the way?"
I was stunned but glad to be questioned about so many different subjects at once. I could leave the one that required more delicacy for last.
"So?" the doctor insisted. "Bring me my correspondences, Will Henry."
Well… not anymore.
I realized that my approach needed to be vulnerable from the beginning.
"Promise me you will not risk so much anymore," I confided, in a low voice.
"Oh. I have always risked everything. What you ask of me is impossible."
"If I lose you, I will truly be alone this time."
"So your fear is driven by selfishness, not concern," he explained, categorical, but paused to repeat my statement: "This time? What changed?"
I swallowed hard.
"I believe… I am too old to be adopted again, sir. Don't you think so?"
"I did not adopt you," he corrected.
"I know, sir."
"And you don't want to be adopted."
"I don't."
Warthrop sighed.
"Will Henry, you know that I will never let you rot in an orphanage. Meister Abram would ensured that, even though he'd be quite dissatisfied about having a new pupil at this age."
"I don't want to be his pupil," I asserted, firmly.
The doctor rolled his eyes.
"Yes, yes, I know that. You understand me. I meant he would be dissatisfied with, let's say, a dependent, someone who relies on him."
"I don't want to depend on him if you die. I don't want to depend on anyone!"
The doctor stared at me, and this time, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Very well, Will Henry. Add another task to my list : Pellinore Warthrop's posthumous plans regarding Will Henry's morbid apprehensions. What else? Should I prepare my will? My inheritance? What do you know that I don't?"
It would not take long for this subject, as it seemed to be happening already, to lead to Warthrop's paranoid delusions. Unless, of course, I soon clarified them. Perhaps he realized, from my nervousness, that that was not the matter, as his voice softened a fraction:
"Will Henry."
"Sir, it's just… something I have been thinking about since… well, for some time now. For a few years already. But especially when you left me in New York. And now again…"
He did not press, and for that, I was thankful, because a direct, poorly formulated question would make me abandon the subject altogether. Or worse: lie.
"It's about Malachi," I whispered, bracing myself. For what? I don't know. Something.
"Yes?"
Warthrop simply encouraged me to continue. Obviously, I had not said enough.
"Sir, I wonder, from time to time, if he is doing well."
"We must hope so," was his reply.
"Unlike me, who still had you —" I continued — "he lost everyone."
The doctor nodded, thoughtful.
"The Stinnet boy went through a lot indeed, but he was also brave enough to take revenge that night. You know what I think about revenge, Will Henry, but it's undeniable that it can have a medicinal effect on human morality. So I don't doubt that he is strong enough to avenge his fate this time again, living the best life possible. Anyway, we did what we could. Don't let guilt gnaw at you."
"I don't feel guilty, sir," I retorted. "What would I feel guilty for?"
The doctor shrugged.
"For not being able to save him in the anthropophagi nest, for not being more useful, for not being able to prevent his family from being decimated, for not convincing him to accept our help. There are so many reasons for self-flagellation; I am just saying not to let yourself be dominated by them, as they are irrational and unproductive."
I bit the inside of my cheek and did not stop when I tasted blood. I ran the risk, as the words choked me, of not only ruining the doctor's mood that morning but also ruining our relationship for an indefinite period. If I wasn't careful, unlike him, I feared being cruel. So, I shortened the point I was trying to make, a confession in one breath.
"I would like to see him again, sir."
The doctor blinked and furrowed his brow slightly.
"For what purpose?"
"As I said: to know if he is doing well."
"I heard he was taken far away from New Jerusalem, which is completely understandable, of course," Warthrop reflected.
"Taken by whom?"
"Well, that I don't know, Will Henry. Maybe a distant relative, a social worker."
"Can you find out?"
"I suppose I can ask if Morgan has any news to pass on, although I highly doubt it."
"But can you find out where he was taken and by whom?"
"For what? Do you want to interrogate him?"
I was losing patience.
"I want to see him again."
"For what purpose?"
"I've already said, sir, to…"
"No. I asked for what reason you wanted to see him, and you told me it was to know if he was doing well. I suggested that I could arrange that information, and it seems that wasn't enough, so there must be another reason."
Pellinore Warthrop had a not very tender way of disarming us. In that sense, I think, I preferred Kearns' emotional surgical approaches.
"I miss him," I admitted.
"Oh, you barely knew him."
"We had a lot in common."
"You had one thing in common: dead parents. Otherwise, you would never have exchanged three words if you went to the same school. Or worse, he and his friends would have given you a good old beating."
That frustrated me, partly because it was painful, partly because it was true. My connection with Malachi was, above all, tragic and circumstantial.
"Why are you doing this? Trying to refute my feelings? They're not facts! They're mine."
He resigned himself with another candid sigh.
"I understand that you may be in a phase where making friends your age is important. I mean, it must be; I always hated all my teenage peers. If that is what you want, I won't object. We can consider Latin classes, violin, choir, those things for your age. But why, Will Henry, unearth a corpse? Why not use a clean plate and start over? What would that boy do for your loneliness if not add to it? You know, we should surround ourselves with people who attract the good characteristics we don't have. Like intelligence, for example. There must be dozens of eligible children, children of brilliant members of the Society. And even if he is alive and well, I highly doubt that Malachi is thriving, given everything that happened. All right, don't look at me like that. Let's say he is. The boy must be almost seventeen by now, maybe working and dating. What would he want with a brat like you tormenting him, let's be honest… He would accept your company a few times out of kindness, catch up on the news for old times' sake, then get bored because you two are in different stages of life, and the few months you knew each other weren't enough for him to believe in those same imaginary bonds you're delirious about. What would happen then, I will tell you: I will have to rescue you like an abandoned kitten again."
I began his monologue inundated with anger, and not much later my eyes burned with tears that the doctor certainly noticed. It wasn't enough to make him stop, not because he was insensitive to my pain, but because he was a man who deemed his insensitivity necessary and my pain, like everyone else's on this Earth, inevitable.
"Did what I said make sense?" he asked, slowly.
"Yes, sir," I replied, my back completely straight and his face lost in the blur my vision had become. There was a smile in him, in his most distorted attempt at sympathy.
"Thank you for the raspberry scones, Will Henry," Warthrop said, settling back into his three pillows.
I stood up.
"Thank you for the advice, doctor."
Notes:
sorry for taking that long expect even longer delays !! (jk but not really cause this semester is already humbling me)
anywayss apologies for any mistakes i wrote this on public transport so comments always brighten my dark days <3
Chapter Text
The following days, were, lacking better words, a complete neglect on my part towards Doctor Warthrop. The point of no return was, I believe, waking up one morning in my room having drifted into sleep against the parlor armchair. I tried to recall a dizzying path taken in the darkness, but my shoes were neatly waiting for me near my single cabinet. Surely, it couldn't have been my own doing; I would have climbed upstairs barefoot or kept my dirty shoes in bed.
Then came the despair. It was already eight in the morning. I had postponed more tasks than I could justify. I had postponed more tasks than I could recover even if I worked until sunrise the next day. I hurriedly got up, and upon opening the door, there was a breakfast tray waiting for me on the floor.
Was he not bedridden, I could assume Doctor Warthrop had moved me in my sleep, as he sometimes did when I was too weak or injured to walk. However, beside the sweet-smelling and steaming teacup, I found five pastries—all mine. He could not have been the author of that, thus I indulged my breakfast in bed and surrendered to sleep until nearly eleven o'clock.
A certain night, perhaps due to all those hours of sleep that I had reclaimed, I decided to get up and work on something to tire myself out. It happened not to be snowing, and the early morning was warm even, so I went down to the basement in my pajamas to confront it without any longing. Curiosity finally got the better of me, and the path that was straightforward turned into a stroll through the dark house.
The doctor's room was the first stop. I didn't think much before turning the doorknob, and my heart raced when the door actually came off the frame. The last days of idleness returned with a wave of anxiety, like forgetting to throw away scraps of food and remembering days later, when you're already too scared to open the cupboard.
When was the last time I heard the doctor make any noise? He had already regained his voice, and yet, when did I hear it after the morning of our last conversation? I made the effort to at least retrieve my last memory of John Kearns. I felt like a disgusting slouch for having seen him two days ago, descending the stairs after dinner while I went back up to my room. He wished me goodnight, and that was it. No questions asked.
I thought my knees would give out upon seeing the doctor's empty bed. The sheets were rumpled, but in that dimness faintly illuminated by the moon and obscured by my mental confusion, I couldn't tell if the mess was old. The window still had the same gap, not enough to cause discomfort but sufficient to let in the scent of pine and wood.
A few steps ahead and I heard the first noise. It came from the bathroom in the doctor's room, which he rarely went to the point I forgot it existed. He usually used whatever was closest in the basement, for his convenience and my headache.
I stopped near the door left ajar and listened intently. Through the crack in the fold, I could make out a single candlelight on the floor. And then the sound of water. I needed to look, for the doctor's sake, so I knelt down and crawled until a piece of my head peeked out.
It wasn't Doctor Kearns giving my master a bath that disturbed me, I had done that myself; it was the state in which Warthrop was, and the position Kearns took beside that bathtub, sitting on the ceramic edge with his customary formal clothes soaked, like a mother washing her young child, or a pastor guiding the baptism of a convert.
Warthrop's head lay, inert, in Kearns's open palm, supporting it to keep it from falling forward. My master breathed through his wet fingers, murmuring nonsensical lamentations while the doctor, with the other hand cupped, gently rinsed his black locks.
John Kearns's lips moved as well, but silently. Similar to my master's, though, I couldn't decipher a single word.
That early morning, I put an end to my childish recess. I took the key to the doctor's room with me and went to wash his clothes.
We encountered each other in the hallway before sunrise. Kearns barred my path to the door yet again. I was ready to push past him this time, but his grave expression stopped me right there.
"Pellinore is still asleep," he said. "Let him rest until later today."
"What happened?" I blurted out, reacting emotionally to his rare professional tone.
"He'll be fine. Just had a little mishap that slowed down his hasty recovery, but he's not in any danger."
"Mishap, sir?" My voice almost faltered.
The doctor sighed dismissively.
"Nothing worrisome. He was determined to be 'productive,' you know how he is. But his body said 'no sir, not yet!'. The wound on his leg reopened."
Kearns touched my elbow to steer my hurried arm away from the doorknob. I didn't even realize it; I accepted it as a comforting touch.
"Don't worry about him, Will."
"The doctor got hurt ," I replied.
"Oh, but it's not a visible wound. You won't find a drop of blood, I promise you that. We just need to monitor his temperature, make sure he's taking the antibiotics correctly, all those things that aren't child's play."
"Can I see him?" I asked.
"Of course, come, I'll show you it's not so serious."
It looks serious , was my first thought. His forehead was sweaty, the eyes under his eyelids wouldn't stay still, dark circles reddened, and if I tried to cross the air around his bed, he groaned in pain as if my presence worsened his condition.
"He can hear us, right?"
Kearns's voice hinted at a smile as his steps moved away toward the door.
"Yes. Talk to him for a bit. Put some sense into your master's head."
I approached, uncertain, and placed my hand on his.
"Sir, don't leave me alone in this house with this man. Should I send a telegram to Meister Abram? To his doctor? To some other trusted monstrumologist? Tell me what to do."
No response came. The silence of that one-sided conversation, however, soon embraced me. I realized that talking to the doctor wasn't as good as... talking. Unable to respond, I wasn't intimidated by him.
Long comfortable minutes passed. I rested my chin on the bed.
"He wanted me to go with him," I confided, stirred by courage. "Malachi wanted to take me with him, doctor. Did you know?"
I waited for a nonverbal response, but all I received was more of that same turning and twitching, so my heartbeat calmed.
"I said no. I said my place was with you. I don't regret it, but..." I hesitated. "But it hurts to know that, after the explosion, he was the one who changed his mind. If I could at least..."
I didn't finish. If I could, what would I do differently? In the end, I would give the same answer; circle back, perhaps now with more indecision, to the same immutable truth: my place was still by the monstrumologist's side. That, however, didn't stop the thoughts: if not here, then where? If not with him, then with whom?
Unconsciously or not, Warthrop pulled his hand away from mine.
My knees burned against the stone floor of the basement. This was my job , I convinced myself, to alleviate the anxiety and guilt, it was my job to manage all sorts of documents and records for the doctor, and the fact that I was reviewing his meticulous notes regarding the anthropophagi case didn't make my work a crime, just a coincidental alignment of interests.
I vividly recall the sense of relief that washed over me as I returned to Harrington Lane after that night in the nest. I had hoped to accompany Malachi to the hospital, but much to my dismay, they separated us. Perhaps Warthrop and Morgan feared that I would finally witness the boy's death. Then again, it's possible they were not sparing me, but rather Malachi. After all, he tended to get hurt proportionally more in my presence.
It wasn't until two months later that I saw him again—a sudden farewell, marked by few words, as he still wasn't fully recovered. Throughout the encounter, the doctor's hand remained steadfast on my shoulder. Malachi bid me good luck, and my master wished him a prosperous life. When he expressed his desire to depart from New Jerusalem, I heard he wished to abandon me. At eleven years old, the thought stung, leaving me too enraged to offer the embrace I yearned to give.
Warthrop's notes were monstrously technical. They were designed to be comprehensible, so that other biologists, doctors, and scientists might find themselves in awe or shock while reading them. However, for a police officer seeking clues and traces in the aftermath of those involved, delving into those pages often felt like a waste of time.
It wasn't a waste of time for me though. I was simply organizing his files as he requested. It took me the time to think all these thoughts to notice Kearns reclining against the rudimentary door frame, which seemed almost too low for his stature. He observed me in silence, his gaze penetrating yet unreadable.
"Are you looking for a weapon by any chance?"
"No... Why?"
"This kind of haste usually only follows the urgency of imminent death. Unless these papers scattered on the floor are about to grow legs and run away from you, Will Henry."
"I have pending tasks," I murmured, burying my head in the boxes again. "What did you come here for?"
"To check on you, of course."
"Lie."
He raised his hands.
"Alright. I came to ask if you want to watch."
"Watch...?"
"It's time to remove the stitches from Pellinore's wounds. You need to know how to properly clean them in the future, unless you want me to stay here changing bandages as well.”
"Are you leaving soon?"
The smile reappeared.
"Perhaps... Miss me already?"
"I have a question that Doctor Warthrop might not know how to answer, or doesn't remember. Well, at least there's nothing written anywhere..."
"I remember everything and answer all questions. What is it? Do you want to know where to buy your first cigar? What's happening to your body? Do you want me to describe the taste of human flesh? First of all, you need to cook slowly, preferably on a rotating grid with plenty of coarse salt and spices..."
"No," I cut in, disgusted. "It's about that night after we killed the Anthropophagi."
"Oh," he exclaimed disinterestedly. "Right."
"I remember you left before the authorities arrived..."
"Yes," he replied, and there was a dark gleam in his eyes. "Pellinore is a man of the highest moral, but he is merciful. What do you want to know, young Will?"
"You, the doctor, and Malachi remained together for a while, didn't you? While I stayed with the officer."
"That boy needed urgent care, and you were very lucky to have me on the team... If it depended on Pellinore, Malachi would be just another spirit sacrificed hanging on his belt like a souvenir to motivate him, I wouldn't doubt he would put his teeth or locks in one of those basement jars just so the loss of a human life would become a symbol of contribution to humanity's history."
"Did the doctor... say anything about what he planned to do next?"
"Put me behind bars for my crimes while I saved your little friend."
I clenched the fabric of my pants until my nails dug into my knees.
"I mean," I continued, "after… if Malachi survived the injury."
John Kearns pushed his shoulder and head away from the door and took a few steps toward me.
"Umm. He didn't go into details, I think he didn't expect that to happen," the man laughed. "In the end, you're asking me the wrong question."
He proceeded, emitting a sort of contemplative whistle:
"In fact, that night was chaos and I didn't stay for long after our... truce ended. But, as I said, your master is very merciful. And he talks a lot about you; he confides in me, reluctantly, his greatest titles of pride and regret. Perhaps he mentioned, in one of our clandestine meetings, no more than a year after the end of the anthropophagi case, that Morgan was annoying him with intrusive questions about you."
The imprint of his shoe left a mark of dirt and moisture on the valuable records of the hunt he led so long ago.
"Questions about me, sir?" I whispered, huddled and mesmerized.
Kearns lifted my chin with the tip of a cold finger. His eyes were hidden against the light of the lamp attached to the low ceiling. But his white teeth and the curve of his lips were always visible, even in the deepest darkness.
"It's safe to say you were a memorable companion to someone out there, Will Henry."
Isn’t the god worthy of your prayer, then, ultimately the one who can save you? Can we choose the face of our savior? If Pellinore could, what choice would he make?
The role of a monstrumologist's assistant, I always thought, wielded little to no power over the living, although indirectly, according to Warthrop, our small routine — the success of an autopsy, a night of perfect concentration, my silence — could greatly influence the preservation of the human species. In the long term, at least.
John Kearns simply asked me to hold the torch and try not to cast a shadow, please. Try . Please . Those words weren't in Doctor Warthrop's vocabulary. My hand on the handle remained steady the whole time while Kearns administered a needle to the doctor's arm and spoke, gentle and cheerful, "Will Henry has come to keep you company; keep him company as well."
The direct manipulation of a life, even if my role in it was as insignificant as illuminating instruments, made me feel more powerful than all the rotten, cold organs my master ordered me to extract and weigh. Or was it the image of the living person, the most powerful one I knew — now depending on my insignificant role — that transferred their power to me?
"This shouldn't hurt much," Kearns reassured to Warthrop.
My master's teeth ground in a grunt that, if not contained, would have made me jump in my seat.
"I said it shouldn't hurt much, not that it wouldn't hurt at all," he explained, and, after exchanging the pair of gloves again with an unnecessarily theatrical snap. "Now, let us take a look at this beauty..."
I preferred not to include myself in his "us." Kearns sighed in disappointment as he examined the wound with the tips of his gloved fingers.
"Have you been spitting out your meds, Pellinore? Dancing in bed? Huh? There's no sign of pus or blood, but the swelling and redness should have gone down by now. The skin around the wound is on fire!"
Warthrop, who until then had been struggling to stay awake, suddenly seemed to have a magnet repelling the contact of his eyelashes. He could choose what to look at, but he couldn't choose not to look.
"Why isn't he speaking?" I asked Kearns, watching Warthrop's difficulty in moving his jaw, and when he did move it, it was to express a reflexive reaction, but no idea more complex than that. It wasn't entirely bad…
"Effect of the painkiller, probably."
"Probably?"
Kearns chuckled.
"Well, I only know one Pellinore Warthrop, and he doesn't speak when he doesn't want to."
I approached carefully. His hands trembled, and his entire body tensed in an attempt to initiate a full movement toward me. But when he managed to lift just one finger, he was overcome by a lethargy coming from the opposite direction.
Unnoticed by the doctor whistling a tune a few steps away from us, Warthrop finally dragged his hand upward.
"Good news: we're taking all these strings out! Not-so-good news... we're only taking them out because we have a bigger problem," Kearns lamented.
Warthrop's fingers didn't touch the bandage, but his nails lightly hovered over the tape's edge, unable to make the pinching movement.
"That means when your leg gets better, the wound still needs to heal with their help. But for now, we should drain the infection..."
With a discreet movement, I reached out and removed the bandage. The flesh was alive, muscle showing and twitching through the glossy raw borders of cut, just as I had staunched the blood from his neck right after that creature ripped its serrated claw out of him weeks ago.
The arm holding the torch must have trembled, because Kearns lifted his head.
"Everything alright, Willy?"
I looked into the bottomless pit that was my master's iris. I saw myself in the perfect, uniformly filled circles that his pupils had become. Who could save who at that moment? Who needed saving?
"Yes, sir," I replied, carefully covering the wound. "I was just thinking… Doctor Warthrop, I know this isn't the best time to bring it up, but it might serve as an incentive for you to take better care of yourself..."
My master stared at me, confusion momentarily distracting him from the pain.
"Doctor Kearns gave me the address of the orphanage where you and Morgan left Malachi." I nestled into the doctor's chest. My words came out muffled by the fabric of his clothes."I've already bought the ticket, actually. Doctor Kearns said he can take me to the station if you can't. Isn't that so kind of him? I'm sure he'll take care of me as much as he does of you."
His muscles stiffened beneath me. Poor Pellinore, was never forced to keep so many suffocating words to himself. I suppose he could barely stand to be me, if I were him for a minute or two. But I wasn't anybody's god; I was just their assistant.
Notes:
I didn't take so long this time, did I?? tbh idk i lost the concept of time
hope you enjoyed and see you soon!!
Chapter Text
How, I do not know, but a few days later, I found Pellinore Warthrop sitting in his armchair in the center of the living room. My foot had not finished descending the last step when his gaze paralyzed me right there. Of all the feelings he could have evoked in me, it should come as no surprise that I was silently deemed the greatest evil mankind ever impersonated. It didn’t matter; that was how I felt.
John Kearns smiled at me as if I were his guest. Dressed to a tee and standing next to Warthrop, he leisurely filled the glass that lay nestled in the doctor’s long, pale fingers. My master was so motionless he could have been held in place by a wooden stake at his back, and suddenly I considered being the last audience of this disturbingly realistic human taxidermy display. But then he wetted his cracked lips with what seemed to be whiskey, and I blinked.
He wouldn't break the silence first, and if I challenged him with similar treatment, said silence would last for weeks. I had tried before.
“You’ve recovered quickly, sir…” my dry throat expelled, and I felt myself shrink to the size of a speck of dust on the carpet.
Perhaps I was wrong. Taking the lead in communication this time could be of no use; he might as well never speak to me again.
“Isn’t it?” Kearns exclaimed. “Your prayers worked, Master Will Henry! Well, I must admit my little kisses on his forehead also had some merit…”
“I couldn’t miss this,” the doctor cut in, and his voice was a sweet razor.
There was an obscure amusement in it, mocking, unimpressed, and at the same time disappointed; a nostalgia only he had access to and for which he blamed me for rekindling. It repeated itself in his deep-set eyes, adorned by dark circles almost as dark as his hair. His hair, to my surprise, was neat. Not the unsure and at best presentable way I used to manage. My master's hair was impeccable.
“Miss what, sir?”
Pellinore stood up without the difficulty and slowness I expected. He took a final sip and pushed the glass back to Kearns, who accepted the rudeness with ease and drank the remaining drops himself. The doctor was dressed to go out, I noticed, and he picked up a heavy black overcoat from the coat rack by the entrance. His clothes had an unfamiliar scent, but his steps, a familiar determination. I didn’t want to follow him, but was wired to be incapable of not doing so.
He was heading for the door without waiting for me, so I asked, agitatedly (accidentally) to John Kearns:
“Where are we going, sir?”
The man enjoyed that power I regretfully granted him, then adjusted my hat over my head and leaned down a bit, as if whispering a secret with the fear of being overheard.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let Pellinore hand you over to that horrible orphanage.” He laughed and returned the glass back to me as if I were a waiter’s tray.
This was one of the few times I didn’t mind an open cabin on the train. The Monstrumologist did, though, less because he liked privacy and more because he hated the other passengers. I had to make a difficult decision: sit next to the doctor and face John Kearns, or sit next to Kearns and spend an hour and a half facing the doctor. In the end, the expected arrangement of my assistant duties came in handy, and the doctor took the solitary seat in front of us. It was a mostly silent trip, and unfortunately—once again—I was grateful for Kearns’ pretentious failed attempts at small talk; he shared with me the target of the Monstrumologist's fury.
According to a quick comment—not directed at me—the orphanage wasn’t far from the train station, so we could walk. This elicited a protest from Kearns, initiating a brief argument I watched with mild fascination.
“You’re not in condition for long walks,” Kearns pointed out. “We’ll call a cabriolet.”
“Don’t be stupid, Jack. I said it’s not far. Besides, why did you come along? Better yet, why are you even in America? Don’t think I’ve dropped that subject just because I was on my deathbed! If your job here—unsolicited, by the way—is done, why don’t you pack your bags—which you didn’t bring, by the way—and take the first ship back to that dark monarchy you call home?”
“Your definitions of far and near are distorted by your penny-pinching, and I’m here because I know you overestimate your physical limitations, exactly as you’re doing now.”
“Typical of you to only respond to the least relevant of my many questions,” the doctor retorted.
The walk was indeed too long for someone whose leg was still recovering. Kearns offered help—surprisingly without a smile—and the doctor only refrained from hitting him quickly with the cane because he needed it.
We arrived in front of a gate, and Warthrop was the first to stop. The orphanage building was still a long, grayish playground-turned-garden away. To my surprise, we entered without needing permission, which didn’t mean much since Warthrop rarely asked for it. The path to the entrance stairs clarified that mystery: the rusty toys probably indicated no child made it past that massive wooden door to escape through the front.
We waited a good few minutes until someone opened it.
The small, suspicious woman behind that crack took a while to ask what we came for. Before Kearns could assure her that no one was abandoning another child there (one of his hands was already on my shoulder, setting up the scene), Warthrop got straight to the point, dry as the skies.
“We’ve come to speak with one of the boys living here.”
And he couldn’t have phrased it worse, though it didn’t stop Kearns from patching things up before her frown evolved into a slammed door in our faces.
“My colleague means to say that we’d like to pay a visit to an old friend of his son.”
I watched my master’s lips compress to avoid correcting the last part. With more details on the nature of our unusual group, her expression softened.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Meetings need to be discussed and approved by the orphanage administrator.”
“Well, what do you think we came here to do, good woman? Kidnap him? Of course we want to schedule a meeting.”
Warthrop placed his hand on the door as if to enter. But she didn’t yield; instead, she turned to John Kearns with a hurried, low question.
“What’s his name?”
The monstrumologist was offended.
“My name is Pellinore Warthrop! Know that I speak the same language as you and therefore need no translator. I’ve been here years ago, though I had forgotten, most likely due to the poor reception that now returns to my memory. I hope you don’t treat the children this way, or else, woe to me…”
“The boy’s name, sir.”
“Malachi Stinnet,” I whispered, making her lower her gaze to me and soften for a second time.
Kearns pushed the doctor aside by the shoulder and gave his most social smile. He towered over her in a not-so-intimidating way, judging by her sudden anxiety.
“The boy’s entire family died in one night,” Kearns lamented seductively. “We don’t know how Malachi has been faring after all these years dealing with the trauma without seeing a single familiar face. Will Henry and he were practically brothers; they knew each other for so many years that I, at least, would call them that. Miss…?”
“Mary.”
“Miss Mary! We just need a few minutes to make two children momentarily happy. But, God willing, imagine if this leads to another blessed adoption for our old and grumpy friend here? Wouldn’t you like to say you contributed to that?”
Doctor Warthrop was horrified, but it didn’t matter much; Miss Mary had stopped hearing—or understanding—John Kearns’ words with a flash of his white teeth. Her face was flushed when she said:
“Sorry, sir. I can’t help… Malachi left about a year ago.”
“He wouldn’t be just fifteen?”
“Such exceptions are common with independent and cooperative children.”
From the doctor’s gasp, I knew that young lady would soon receive an inspector to check the orphanage’s guidelines.
“If you could give me any information, I’d consider myself eternally indebted.”
“Well, we can’t just put the children on the street, so they usually need to present a subsistence plan that ensures they’ll survive.”
Another gasp, now accompanied by a subtle curse, upon hearing the words “subsistence plan” and “survive.” Poor Mary was digging her grave with stars in her eyes.
“I believe Malachi mentioned something about voluntary enlistment and living in a boys’ republic near Orchard Valley,” she continued. “He said he wanted to attend a nearby church, and we found that quite promising… Anyway, that’s all I know, sir.”
Doctor Warthrop couldn’t continue fuming in silence.
“ All you know ? Quite promising ? That’s nowhere near sufficient to allow…”
Kearns pushed Warthrop and me away from the door, still smiling at Mary.
“Thank you very much, Miss, I would give you my address, but unfortunately I live on another continent. But rest assured, it was a pleasure meeting you. Have a good day.”
I paid little attention to the mysterious exchange of glances between Warthrop and Kearns on the way back to the gate—one furiously indignant, the other maliciously content. I didn't notice the snow falling again in fine flakes, nor that I was falling behind. My heart vibrated in my hands.
Orchard Valley was the perfect balance between suburbia, rural area, and outskirts. The houses were far apart, generally separated by vacant lots or acres of farmland, yet still too close to the sidewalk to be considered chalets or farms. In the back, there were open fields waving in the wind or black walls of seemingly infinite woods. As the bluish sun was setting, anything more than a mile away had to be distinguished from the falling autumn darkness with a squint. Except for the parish on top of the hill, around which clouds of rain hovered like a halo over its pale colonial structure.
We needed to ask around to get a complete address, and we finally reached the last house on the dirt road; from there it rose toward the dark-blue horizon in an uneventful pattern of swaying cornfields. The narrow three-story house looked like the home of an old Victorian family whose new tenants did not bother to touch up the worn exterior paint or trim the weed invading the porch where a uniformed young man sat smoking.
“Is Malachi home?” my master inquired.
“Is it urgent?” he asked, bored.
“A matter of life or death for someone,” Warthrop mocked.
The boy sighed, and I thought it was due to the reluctance of getting up, but he merely turned his neck toward the door behind him.
“Stinnet! Come here,” he shouted and paused to listen, then shouted again, now opening his mouth wider: “Stinnet, you have visitors!” Another moment, he prepared his mouth again, and we prepared our grimaces, but Malachi opened the door at that exact moment, equally annoyed by the noise, but in no hurry or much desire to find out its reason. Whatever question or rebuke he intended to direct at his colleague died on his lips.
He looked at Dr. Warthrop first because it was his immediate and inescapable view, and I couldn’t help but think his expression was similar to the urgency that precedes an expectation, which at the same time grants its messenger a treatment of accidental disregard. In that moment before his eyes found me, I thought of the routine equivalence of the sound of a delayed letter finally hitting the ground outside Harrington Lane, my hurried steps running to fetch it, and the ignored and invisible postman walking away as I tore open the seal because that’s all I care about. Today, as I revisit the memory, I think of the doorbell announcing the customer of an empty bakery, the crack of a branch before a ripe fruit falls, the rustle of leaves before a gentle breeze reaches me.
“Will Henry,” Malachi said, almost imperceptibly before finding me, the way we utter the word “rain” when the first drops hit our roof but we are not yet looking out a window to confirm.
“Interesting…” the doctor began, tilting his head slightly to study him as if he were a biological anomaly. “The scar healed reasonably well. Better than expected, at least.”
Only then did Malachi look away from me, acknowledging Kearns (at some distance behind us) and lastly his friend, still sitting on the porch, now having finished his cigarette and following the proceedings with the hope of not being remembered. He got up and quickly left.
“Did you know I still expect to receive the worst news of all,” he said, more to Warthrop—“even if that’s no longer possible?”
There is no better way to describe Malachi’s scar than implicitly massive. It covered more than half his face, in an irregular diagonal that engulfed one eye, his nose, half the mouth, and both eyebrows. It didn’t change any of his facial features, though, nor distort the naturally harmonious position I remembered of his face, it just spread a reddish-brown tone over slightly taut flesh. The points where the scar met the unaffected skin had the effect of burnt paper edges, and these points descended down the collar of his shirt, tracing a path from the nape to the covered back and spreading indefinitely down his throat and clavicle.
John Kearns, who had been unusually withdrawn until then, stepped forward.
“Is it really you? Impossible! I remember when you were as tall as my knee, crying and wailing in excruciating pain in my arms as if I were the Virgin Mary. I’m joking, the scar looks great, I wish I had one myself… It gave you a scary look that fits my memories. No offense, but you were a bit unbearable. Don’t apologize, it’s water under the bridge.”
“I’m glad to know you seem well, Malachi,” my master said. “I mean, I already imagined it, but Will Henry wanted to check.”
My face heated so much I thought all the blood irrigating my brain had rushed to my cheeks.
“So,” Kearns clapped once to fill the vacuum and allow me to breathe again, “is there a seedy bar around here, kid? It can’t be too far, because Pellinore would rather let me carry him there than pay for another cabriolet.”
“There’s the Beetles’ Tavern a few blocks from here, but…”
“Perfect, I’m sold. Let’s go, Pellinore. Let’s let the boys catch up.”
The doctor didn’t protest, but didn’t return the smile either.
“Be here when I get back, Will Henry,” Warthrop said.
Coming from any other adult authority in a child’s life, those words usually carried a well-intentioned warning, a trusted liberty with traces of worry—concern that something might happen to me or I might get lost or hurt or get into trouble. Maybe there was some of that too, but with the monstrumologist, the underlying message—buzzing like electricity running through a wire that stretched when we moved too far away—was different: he was afraid I would abandon him, and he was afraid I wouldn’t look back.
Me and Malachi faced each other and I had no idea what all those desperate questions I had to ask were. I still needed to look up to see him; he still needed to take a step back to meet my eyes instead of the top of my head.
“You should have grown more…” Malachi reflected, studying me from top to bottom.
“It’s the parasite,” I defended myself without thinking—“The parasite inside me slows down my growth.”
“Like a roundworm?”
“No,” I quickly replied. “It’s something else.”
Malachi approached first and only then asked.
“Is it contagious?”
“I don’t think so… If it were, Dr. Warthrop would have…”
If it were, would the doctor have cured me? Would he have capitalized personally and scientifically on me? If there was a possibility of transmitting my disease by contact, would the taste of a somewhat eternal life scare him away from the risk or attract him to be the most worthy host of this opportunity? I didn’t know.
“What made you change your mind about seeing me?” Malachi asked.
“I couldn’t…”
“Abandon the doctor, I remember.”
“No. I mean… also. But I couldn’t ruin your life.”
“You think you’d be able to?”
“Or spoil your future.”
“What future?”
“Malachi. I didn’t come to apologize for not running away with you. I came to thank you… For saving my life.”
“That was for my dead parents and siblings. And maybe my wounded ego.”
“I’m not referring to the explosion…” He waited for me to continue, and my lips and throat dried under his gaze. “After Dr. Kearns ambushed the anthropophagi…”
“Used you as bait,” Malachi interrupted to correct.
“Well, he missed that last shot. I didn’t realize it at the time, but if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive.”
Malachi stared at me for a few seconds, then said:
“Can I take you somewhere?”
“Is it nearby?”
“Hmm. I might tell Pellinore it is still in the U.S., if that calms him down.”
“Kearns was right… The scar does give you a scary look.”
I watched fascinated as his smile stretched the scarred skin when Malachi smiled.
But of course, he could. Of course, I would go with him.
There were no stars or signs of the moon to guide our way, so we went up the dirt road in complete darkness, moving away from the last light pole of Orchard Valley. We only heard our own steps— or mine—stumbling over hidden stones among the valleys of dust that would soon return to mud.
From time to time, the immense black clouds that mingled with the sky received a burst of white shock that lit up their woolly insides, and I could see Malachi ahead of me for a fraction of a second.
“We can climb here or take the entrance further ahead in the low pasture,” he explained, and I had no knowledge to prefer one or the other. Only then did I notice he was referring to an almost imperceptible gap in the cornfield wall. “The climb here is steeper and shorter but…”
But we would be completely submerged in the field.
“It’s fine. Just don’t go too far.”
Malachi responded by extending his hand and gently holding my wrist.
I barely felt the serrated edges of the dry straw poking my eyes on the way up, or the corn silk peeling off the cobs that tickled my neck. Sometimes my feet would step on stumps of dead stems, sharp or previously sliced by a machete, causing my ankle to wobble; all I felt were the fingers wrapping around the blood rushing under my veins, tightened around my skin to balance me.
As soon as we exited the maze, he let me go. It was impossible to see the road beyond the cornfield below, only the dark and abrupt drop with its stalks moving in a wuthering coordinated dance. Despite this, I felt no wind, and the stormy air was warm and suffocating.
We found ourselves on the church grounds. Its single emergency light, whitish and dim, was fitted into the internal triangle of its high roof. The darkness under the bell was like an open mouth, adorning the top of the church like a macabre Christmas tree.
He started to walk around it and I followed. Up close, I noticed that its clapboard walls were not painted white, but a light blue faded by the sun. We stopped in front of a back door that looked more like a barn gate, gnawed by termites and fragile as styrofoam, symbolically guarded by a chain and a padlock that must have weighed as much as I did.
"We're not going to break in, are we?" I asked.
"That would be blasphemy."
"Right."
Then Malachi gained momentum from a pile of construction debris, used the gutter for support, and climbed onto the roof.
"Come on," he called from above.
I stared at him until he gave up waiting and extended his arms to pull me up.
"A cement bag is more cooperative," he muttered, lifting me like a dead weight to the edge. "There are some loose tiles, and it's pretty slippery in certain spots…" he began, and I realized that this was another lengthy justification to hold my wrist, so I offered it already.
Malachi took my hand instead. It wasn't delicate, so it didn't feel much different from when the doctor would pull me out of some danger with cold irritation.
We reached the ridge of the two sides of the roof, covered by the shadow—slightly darker than the night—of the chimney that sheltered the bell from the elements. Malachi didn't let go of me all at once. He waited for me to sit on top of the inverted V and sat beside me, only then did our palms separate, and he put his in his pockets. I left mine drying on my knees. I was a mess.
"I used to come here whenever I thought about ending it all," he broke the silence.
"Did you come to pray?"
Malachi turned, confused.
"To jump."
That drew a laugh from me. I looked down again, inspecting the height to the ground.
"You wouldn't die. At most, you'd get very hurt again."
"And why do you think I didn't go through with the plan?"
"You'd be smart enough to think of a better plan, so I think you didn't do it because it wasn't what you really wanted."
"You're right," he nodded. "I'm not suicidal. Semi-suicidal, maybe."
I bit back another smile because he was looking at me.
"Do I still remind you of everything you lost?" he asked, more softly.
"What?"
"That's what you said."
I rummaged through my memory. I had indeed said that, but never to Malachi. It was a distressed confession one night during the hunt for the anthropophagi, shortly after the invitation I refused. The only person I had told that to was Warthrop, and the only reason for that was that there was no one else. I used those vague words about Malachi because I still couldn't be honest about his proposal, though the real meaning of them would be equally impossible to admit.
The truth had nothing to do with my parents and his, or the fact that all four were dead. The grief I felt after refusing the chance to abandon fear and danger and monsters (that was what I ultimately refused to abandon) had nothing to do with Malachi being the living memory that I was an orphan. I was an orphan with the doctor, I was an orphan alone. What I couldn't bear, and what I mistakenly revealed to my master, was that Malachi reminded me of everything I had lost that night, because that night everything I had lost was Malachi.
"I understand, Will," he said as if to say don't worry. "Maybe it was madness after all… But know that if it hadn't been for Pellinore's request to leave you alone, I wouldn't have waited for you to show up. And I wouldn't have burned all the letters I wrote you."
Notes:
not gonna lie i had so much fun writing this chapter!
important question: how much romance? cause if i let loose this will be the purest form of fluff lol, so I need to know if you guys are expecting more plot or romance (and more romance between which couple? and how spicy?) plsss let me know
Chapter 5: Chapter V
Chapter Text
We returned reluctantly. Malachi probably thought it was out of fear of not being found, but I was yearning for a confrontation. I walked back savoring the harsh words I had restrained, and Warthrop couldn't wait to hear them.
He asked if I was hungry or thirsty and gently suggested—after hours with no sign of the two doctors—that we should go inside. I refused repeatedly and sat on the outside stairs with my anger, waiting for the monstrumologist with growing anticipation.
Malachi insisted on keeping me company on the porch floor. He distracted me from my very well-cultivated defiance, because when I heard footsteps coming from the front yard I felt, above everything, taken aback. Like desperate hands grasping at whatever they could for defense, I gathered the shreds of my determination, which were, as always, pulverized by the gravity of his presence. Just before dawn, Dr. Warthrop appeared, crushing the earth underneath his feet and cursing the stars, something about a traitor that I thought was me — until I saw John Kearns following from a distance, apologizing.
“Sweetheart, you’ve always been so progressive. Just hear me out…” Kearns's voice was only slightly more melodious than usual.
My master's, on the other hand, reeked of booze. Apparently, he didn’t despise alcohol as much as I had assumed. Or perhaps it was the usual drinking companions he couldn't stand.
“Shut it, you Satan. And I mean this in the worst way possible, the non-Christian way. Translating from Hebrew, you are the adversary—not mine, but my heart’s, which is driven by knowledge and proof, where you have no place. Hate me, kill me, harm my body because my soul is immortal in the holiest of vocations. Disrespect my work, and you are my enemy. Where is Will Henry? Wil Heeeenry.”
I was right in front of him. The doctor tried to hook his hand on my arm, which would have been an inescapable grip had he not misjudged where my arm was.
“Well, isn’t it a sin to jump to conclusions before having all the facts?”
“Me! Jumping to conclusions!” Warthrop shouted at Kearns with a maniacal laugh.
I took advantage of his disorientation to observe them. My master had bloodshot eyes (alcohol-induced), no coat (not even holding it), no crutch, a fresh bruise on his neck (above his healing wound), his shirt unbuttoned to his chest, and only one shoe (the right one). Kearns staggered with a bit more urgency, his characteristic glow more intense, a superficial cut on his cheek, and a left shoe in his hand. His belt was missing too.
"Beloved..." John Kearns purred, placing a hand on Dr. Warthrop's back.
Warthrop swung at him, but Kearns effortlessly leaned back, causing the doctor to stumble as his fist cut through empty air.
"You're going to end up getting hurt..."
“Are you threatening me??”
Kearns sighed.
“No, Pellinore.”
“Good, because you already murdered me! You and that disgusting old man, that passive witness of corruption. To think I once called him father. What to expect from this damned word, after all?”
I was about to consider myself lucky this time, but then Warthrop’s eyes searched for me.
“And you knew about it, didn’t you?” Pellinore laughed, pointing a finger at my cheek. “Of course, you spiritual mastermind. I should have known. Who has less reason to hate me and seek my ruin? Who is more interested in the decay of my legacy? Who if not you? And you asked me to write a book about me! I’d rather you spit on my grave and realize no one will ever love you like I never did because no one can stand you. You want to write the damn book? Do it. Write a happy ending for yourself, Will Henry. You will be free to rot away in your delusional fantasy of being liked by this teenage troubled boy you think cares about you. But let me give you my last free advice: pray to the fire that maimed your parents for you should be forever grateful they’re too dead to be disappointed in you.”
Then all I saw was the blurry silhouette of John Kearns punching Warthrop unconscious.
I cried on the sidewalk in front of the townhouse. I cried on the way to the train station. I cried during the trip. By the time I arrived at Harrington Lane, my eyes were swollen like bee stings.
Kearns apologized to Malachi. He called a car, bought our tickets, and carried Warthrop until he could walk, then helped him stand and greeted everyone who might question our disheveled state (conductors, ticket collectors, vendors, shoeshiners). He didn't talk to me but handed me his newspaper, the crossword page facing up. At home Kearns asked if I wanted him to wake me up. I yelled no with a renewed shaky voice and puffy nose. I cried again, relieved and guilty for feeling relieved by his presence.
My headache woke me up, and my thirst sent me downstairs. Warthrop lay on the rug in the center of the room, looking up, legs stretched out, and arms crossed as if confined by an invisible coffin. He wasn't dead, but he hadn't blinked once in the minutes I watched him silently. Around him were dozens, if not hundreds, of photos and engravings. My first step closer confirmed them to be of dead bodies.
“I said too much, didn’t I?” he asked without turning, without moving his lips, without regret, just a mere “refresh my memory.”
“No, sir,” I replied. “You said enough.”
“You know I don’t like lies, Will Henry,” he justified.
“You just don’t like mine.”
“Jack told me everything…”
“Why don’t you call him John like everyone else?” I asked with more irritation than the thought presented to me.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. You just don’t like me lying, which, by the way, I didn’t do. And if Dr. Kearns said otherwise, he was the one who lied. So answer me, please, do you even care if any word that comes out of that man’s mouth is true?”
Warthrop’s fingers faltered over his joints as if playing the piano.
“Where is that bastard, anyway? These last hours since his disappearance have been suspiciously pleasant.”
The last few days without yours have been even better , I held back.
“How could I know?”
The doctor sat up and massaged his neck.
“Do you know what this is?” he pointed to the mess carefully laid around him like feathers of wings.
I stopped myself from from repeating my answer.
“Death scene records, sir.”
Warthrop looked at me as if I’d suggested they were pages of poetry.
“Death scenes? They are crime scenes, obviously. Oh, in the face of pseudoscience, everyone turns into cautious investigators, it seems…” he scoffed.
“I understand,” I replied, unwilling to elaborate another question and serve as his doormat for monologues.
That never stopped him from taking any of my responses as an invitation to continue.
“Calling them death scenes implies that their causes could have been varied, from accidents to suicides and homicides. A priori, I could easily dismiss even the most meticulous analysis from the finest charlatan detective."
The doctor imitated the voice of the character he called A Typically Simple Man (of the non-malicious kind), which, according to him, represented 70% of humanity:
“You see, in all my years of career I have never seen a case like this. I am someone who believes in reason, but I must admit… the author of this aberration is a child of darkness.” Bla bla. Simpletons! I apologize, Will Henry. Actually, only the most honest of charlatans would be capable of giving such a vague justification for the violence you see at your feet. No, no. Whatever species of charlatans the Monstrumology Society has turned into has not yet been cataloged, for they make a point of erring with precision.”
The doctor picked up a photograph with his fingers and held it over his face with solemnity and sadness. It was a picture of frozen horror; a girl, or an elderly woman, or a man, or a baby; impossible to tell. The skin of the remains clung to the shape of the bones, and the bones turned to dust beneath it, and all of it turned into an irregular, oval thing that, up close, someone might call meat, and, were it not for the eyes, no one would call it human.
“May the words Meister Abram used to describe the author of this human crime be his cursed legacy. I will personally make sure they’re engraved on his stone pillow. We must never forget that a great man can also be eternalized by his greatest mistake. The irrefutable proof of the existence of vampires? Shameful.”
His eyes gleamed, not with anger but with sheer determination. If I didn't suspected his goal was to prove the Society was wrong for considering this new addition, I’d wager Warthrop was on the verge of murdering his own mentor—and then turning to me to instruct I prepare a chisel and hammer for the funeral.
Standing at the dark top of the staircase, John Kearns observed us with crossed arms. The flames of the lit fireplace in the room illuminated the lower half of his body. He was dressed to go out. Perhaps he was finally leaving, now that he'd gotten what he came for. The real question was, I still had no idea why he had come in the first place.
“Prepare a strong coffee for your master, Will Henry. An extensive rebuttal awaits to be written.”
Warthrop laughed, and I smelled the coffee beans on his breath already. Of course, Kearns had filled him with caffeine and compliments to make him ecstatic like that.
“I’d rather write my resignation letter! A rebuttal will, at best, be laughed upon, and at worst, be read.”
“Wouldn’t it be the opposite?” I asked.
“A man who hasn’t read my arguments can have his rejection of my ideas forgiven, but a man who has read them and rejected them has no salvation.”
“What then, Pellinore?” Kearns cooed from above.
“Well, no one but you knows about the first victim and it’s death circumstances.”
“But you said these people were not victims of a crime,” I interrupted.
He raised a finger.
“Are you deaf, Will Henry? I said they were not victims of an aberrant creature, much less an imaginary one. Does not mean they were not victims of another creature monumentally more insidious.”
“You think this…” I pointed with my eyes to the photographs and engravings on the floor, “is the creation of a murderer?”
“Again, were you even here when I was speaking? I don’t think anything, Will Henry, without first investigating all the facts.” He paused. “But this time I am almost sure. We cannot prove that something does not exist, but we can prove that the indications of the supposed existence of something are built on speculation, hysteria, and lies.”
“But don’t we need the police’s help?”
“Oh. We have something the police don’t, though they covet it greatly.”
“The murderer’s tracks?”
Warthrop looked over me, step by step, up the stairs, to the man waiting for his cue like a patient actor.
“No. His blueprint.”
Dr. Warthrop ordered me to pack for a week or less, but Kearns pulled me aside and instructed me to extend that period to a month or more, just in case. The truth was, I barely had enough clothes for three days at home, let alone for travel.
We were set to leave for New York that very night, but the next ship to England wouldn't depart until the following afternoon. It took a reasonable delay to convince Warthrop that we couldn’t hop from café to café and sleep on park benches until departure time. Renting a room was inevitable, and visiting Lilly and the Bates family was out of the question—an answer I received before even asking. "The air there is contaminated with denialism," the doctor said. "It’s a dominant gene."
The train ride, though longer, was much smoother than the previous one. By "smoother," I mean avoiding the guards deciding to search the doctor’s suitcase full of photographs of mutilated bodies and navigating the wary glances from the food service whenever they interrupted his most asylum-worthy ramblings.
Dr. Warthrop hadn’t returned to his normal self—because, in truth, nothing had happened to pull him out of it. Nothing significant, at least. So, if nothing he considered important had transpired in the past hours, then nothing happened to me either, and thus our relationship remained unshaken. The few times I sulked in silence, he seemed genuinely puzzled, as if wondering what he’d done to cause it. Or else, what he thinks I thought he did to upset me.
Pellinore found the greatest peace in his anxiety and turmoil, while my own peace seemed to him the most offensive affront. So, true peace between us was impossible.
His foot tapped against the floor of the cabin with every mile we drew closer to our destination.
"That mere connection of yours seems to be making you rather anxious," Kearns teased, as Warthrop had earlier referred to our stop in New York (and consequently the heart of American monstrumology) as nothing more than a "mere connection."
"I’m just not too thrilled about having my ankles nipped by Brits with sour breath and pea-sized brains."
Kearns murmured sadly. "I only nip at your ankles lightly."
"Where did you even get all of this, anyway?" my master asked, casting a glance at the briefcase beside them.
"I’ve got a friend on the force."
"And he willingly loaned crime scene evidence to a civilian?"
"We were great friends."
Warthrop eyed the doctor’s cynical grin with skepticism.
"I’m not foolish enough to think you’re helping me because you consider me a great friend..."
"Pellinore!" Kearns exclaimed, feigning offense.
"...much less because you care about the future of monstrumology."
"True, I couldn’t care less about that."
"Though, on occasion, your help has been critical in preventing large-scale human disasters..."
"What can I say? I like you more than I like humans, and you like monsters more than you dislike me."
"If I find out any innocent lives were lost in your little venture..."
"Many were! Dozens, maybe hundreds more that we don’t know about."
"Don’t provoke me, Jack."
"Then don’t interfere, Pellinore." His eyes darkened. "You want to know my stake in this? It’s the same thing eating at your nerves: nobody likes incompetent competition."
"I wouldn’t be so quick to underestimate my enemies. That hardly seemed like the work of amateurs."
The doctor laughed. "The day the police know as much about me as the London inspectors already know about him," he leaned in close to Warthrop’s face and spoke quietly, though I was right beside them, "I’ll let you do the honors and cuff me yourself."
My master’s lips parted, but he said nothing. Kearns continued.
"Of the evils, we both want to be the better, and I hate to admit it, but like you, a lack of attention leaves my hair feeling a bit dry."
John Kearns twirled one of Warthrop’s dark strands, and that was one of the least horrifying things I’ve ever witnessed between the two of them. Still, it made me look away.
We arrived in New York just as the first orange rays broke over the horizon. The station lights were still on, and we needed them to avoid tripping over the tracks and dodging the crowd that was starting the day with us. I hurried to keep pace with Warthrop and Kearns as we headed toward the taxi area. Upon reaching the exit, I lagged behind and was nearly swept away by the throng.
Leaning against one of the metal railings, Malachi was dressed in a thin jacket with one hand in his pocket. The sharp morning wind hit him from the side, messing up his light brown hair, almost blond through the sunlight. He gave a brief smile when he saw me. He didn’t greet Warthrop or Kearns, nor did he explain his presence, which, combined with their lack of surprise, made me realize they knew he would be there. I silently thanked Kearns for fixing my collar and buttoning all my cuffs before we left, despite my protests and Warthrop's.
“There’s a hotel nearby. We can walk,” Warthrop said, turning to Malachi. “Are you coming with us?”
“No. I’ll stay with some friends until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow?” I finally asked, drawing the attention of all three.
“Malachi’s coming with us.”
“What?”
My master shot Kearns a sharp look. “You didn’t tell him?”
“Since when is that my responsibility?”
Warthrop rolled his eyes. “I have no one to leave you with there, Will Henry. No one I trust, at least. And I’m not paying for a babysitter.”
“I’m not a babysitter,” Malachi interjected.
“And I don’t need one,” I protested.
“We’ve had this conversation, and the last time, you were both wrong. Anyway, I can focus better when I don’t have to worry about you getting into trouble, which is why I asked Kearns to invite Malachi.”
“You asked him?”
“Are you surprised?”
I was.
“No, I just thought—”
“If my kindness isn’t enough, feel free to stay. I’m even a little jealous, to be honest. That place is hardly the summer vacation you’re expecting.”
“The Eiffel Tower would disagree,” John Kearns added.
“Shut up. I’m talking about your house.”
“Are we going to Paris?” I asked.
“We’re going to the hotel. I’m freezing.” He turned to Malachi. “You know where to find us tomorrow. Arrive early, or we’ll leave without you. Come, Will Henry. Quickly.”
I had an idea that needed quick execution, as they were already walking away again. Perhaps it was for the best, because if I’d had too much time to think, I might have thought better of it.
“Sir,” I called. “Can I stay with Malachi tonight?”
Warthrop looked at me with a frown, shielding his eyes from the wind, which was blowing even more fiercely in the street. Snow began to fall.
“How should I know? Ask him, not me.”
I needed the doctor’s permission first, but he liked to pretend he had no authority over me, even though he had all of it.
I didn’t turn to ask Malachi, but I heard him answer.
“Of course.”
“No alcohol, I hate alcohol you know that. Don’t leave the house, or the room. And above all, don’t be late. I’m not delaying another ship’s departure for nonsense.” Then, to Kearns: “Single rooms are cheaper.”
The doctor’s reply didn’t include us, but I read it on his lips. “Single beds too.” The joke was met with a piercing glare from Warthrop.
We watched them walk away, and suddenly I became aware of my own awkwardness.
“You’ve got other plans, don’t you?” Malachi asked.
I was relieved he hadn’t assumed I’d invited myself to stay with him. But yes, I did have other plans. And if Warthrop found out who they involved, I’d have to swim to Europe alongside the ship.
Notes:
comments are highly appreciated!!
Chapter Text
The old man’s hug cracked something in my torso, but he didn’t stop until I fully understood how happy he was to see me alive.
“Forgive me, mein sohn. Under Pellinore's care, each extra year of yours is a reason for celebration!” Abram said, releasing me. “I imagined your master wouldn’t come, but at least he had the decency not to deprive me of you. I’ve seen Pellinore angry before, but never so angry that he wouldn’t answer my letters to tell me just how angry he was. So, how did you get here? And who is this young boy with you?”
Some clarifications were more urgent than others, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to delay them a little.
“This is Malachi. He’s my… friend.”
“I didn’t know you had friends! How did Pellinore allow that?”
“Uh…”
Malachi found something to respond in my place:
“I guess you could say we met because of him.”
“Really? How?”
My shoulders slumped. That would be hard to explain.
“The anthropophagi devoured my family,” Malachi answered simply.
The old man’s mouth hung open, but not for long enough to be considered rude. He soon composed himself, offering Malachi the same kind of inescapable hug I received.
“Of course. Now I remember. Well, the ‘how’ doesn’t matter anymore. Pleased to meet you, Malachi. Make yourself at home. Mein haus ist dein haus, yes?”
Von Henlrung excused himself and called a maid to bring us “things children like to eat.”
Malachi looked at me, confused.
“Meister Abram is German,” I explained softly.
“Austrian!” the old man corrected. “By the way, I insist you stay the night. I imagine your master came for the convention…” His tone became grave, almost melancholic, but then it lightened again, to my relief, for it meant Von Helrung was still unaware of the real reason Warthrop came. “I’m willing to engage in physical combat to ensure you stay. I challenge Pellinore to try!”
“I don’t think he’ll mind too much,” I replied. “But I’d like to visit Mrs. Bates tomorrow before we leave.”
“Leave for where?”
I panicked, and Malachi stepped in.
“For the convention…?”
“Of course! She’ll be thrilled to see you. But you’ll have a lot to explain, junge… You’re still too thin for your age, though I believe you’re out of danger now. Just a moment…” He poked his head out of the door and called another maid. “Show these two young gentlemen their rooms. Close to each other, don’t forget, for they’re friends!” Von Helrung seemed deeply proud of this, which embarrassed me beyond measure. “I can’t join you for lunch. I’m quite busy with preparations for tomorrow. And I’ve already had breakfast, so I’ll see you at dinner, yes? If you two need anything, I’ll be in my office.”
And with that, he left the room with short, quick steps.
“You said he was Warthrop’s mentor, right?” Malachi reflected, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.
“I know. It’s hard to believe.”
The maid then escorted us to our rooms (side by side, as instructed) and left with the same offer to call her if we needed anything (which seemed more genuine).
Malachi looked around the room assigned to him. It was large for a guest room. The bed linens had been replaced with new ones, though likely the previous ones were perfectly acceptable.
Footsteps approached fast and soon the door burst open.
“William James Henry,” Lilly Bates exclaimed, throwing her arms around my neck. “Uncle told me you were here, but I sensed your presence from the garden.”
“How?” I asked, gently pushing her away.
“I’m allergic to mold. But don’t worry, I’ll survive.”
Only then did she notice Malachi, surprised by her own inattention and embarrassed by her behavior. It never occurred to me that Lilly’s outgoing treatment of me might be exclusive. She was a lady, after all.
“Sorry, uncle didn’t mention Will Henry had company. Well, I didn’t give him any time.”
“And you didn’t sense my presence from the garden? That’s good news I suppose.”
Lilly laughed politely.
“Oh, that was a joke. Will Henry doesn’t smell like mold. Never.”
Her attempt to act all proper seemed pathetic to me. Of course I smelled like mold. I realized I should introduce them, as Malachi gave me a sideways glance.
“Lilly, this is my friend Malachi. Malachi, this is Emily Bates, Von Helrung’s niece.”
“You can call me Lilly too.”
She extended her hand and Malachi kissed it, as was expected. That common gesture made me uncomfortable once I realized that neither Lilly nor anyone else expected social etiquette from me.
I was not only the youngest in the room again but also the shortest. And suddenly, this encounter, unlike years ago, seemed far less childish. I mourned for a few seconds as I looked at the triangle we formed. She was as stunning as always, no longer dressing casually for any visit, not even to her uncle’s house. Her curls were always pinned up now, her lips painted in varying shades depending on the occasion, heels on from the moment she woke up until the time she went to bed, dresses covering her ankles. My childhood friend was gone, and this woman couldn’t act with other men the way she acted with me.
“I believe Will Henry has told me about you…” she said thoughtfully, studying him.
I could not remember for the life of me what I might have told her. Though I had a feeling I’d prefer this conversation not continue in front of him.
Her gaze scanned his scar, still confused, and I was sure her next words would be something about the explosion or the death of his parents, which was bad enough.
“The grumpy chapel boy?” she guessed.
“Lilly! I didn’t call him grumpy.”
“Right. Whatever. But you said he hated you and that you met him in a chapel.”
“And I explained why .” I didn’t want to talk about his parents again, so I hoped the emphasis on the word “why” would be enough for her to catch on. It wasn’t, so I whispered, “The anthropophagi.”
“Oh my dear God!” Her eyes widened. “Of course, the anthropophagi. You had every reason to hate Will Henry. To hate everyone, really.”
He didn’t seem bothered.
“Grumpy chapel boy?” Malachi asked slowly, as if savoring the words with some amusement as he looked at me.
Lilly collapsed into groans.
“He didn’t call you grumpy, Malachi! It was a silly thing to say; I paraphrased. I don’t even think he used the word ‘hate.’ Honestly, I don’t even remember what Will Henry said; we were kids.”
“I did use the word ‘hate,’” I replied, holding his gaze.
“And I did hate you,” he shot back.
“Well,” I challenged, raising my chin, “maybe I did use the word ‘grumpy,’ as well, the second time I talked about you to Lilly.”
“And what did you say about me to Lilly the second time?”
Lilly gave him a half-hearted smile when he turned to her.
“Good question. I have no idea!” she laughed nervously. “Now, come on. Let’s show Malachi the garden. And you too, Will Henry, because I don’t recall you ever praising my little gardens, which must mean you’ve never seen them.” She lifted her dress slightly to run down the stairs, shouting from below, “I’m going to change my shoes and grab some scissors and baskets. Be right back.”
Malachi was still looking at me.
“For a few minutes,” he uttered quietly.
“What?”
“I hated you for only a few minutes.”
The room was silent except for our breathing.
“Blue eyes,” I finally said. “I told her something about your blue eyes.”
I had never seen her little gardens before. In fact, I always imagined Lilly would be the type to grow white roses instead of carrots. So, I watched, a bit unsettled, as she leaned her entire body back, pulling out the dirty roots to measure the quality of her harvest and muttering soft curses when the size of the leaves falsely advertised her skills as a farmer.
The whole garden sparkled in the morning light, where the white snow had given way to the sun and its warm tones. The trees displayed comforting trunks, their vines dragging on the ground, the grass a painfully pristine green, and all the colorful dots made me want to bury my nose in their pollen, not caring if I got stung by bees. Lilly filled half the basket with flowers (grown by the gardener) and the other half with strange looking legumes (her own). She said her mother would love them, though she didn’t specify which half she was referring to. Lilly mentioned that Mrs Bates was preparing lunch and then asked if we were already feeling hungry.
“If I go now, I can let her know to double the portions. But it’s still a bit early, do you guys want to come with me, or should we meet there? Will Henry knows where my house is, it’s not far.”
“You go ahead. I’ll change clothes first; I don’t want your mother reporting the doctor again.”
“The comment about the mold was a joke, my goodness, Will Henry.”
“ Again ?” Malachi asked.
Lilly placed a flower behind each of our ears.
“He’s being dramatic, Malachi. After the finger episode, no one’s getting him away from Pellinore. Mom’s given up.” The girl then kissed me on both cheeks and hugged Malachi from a safe distance. “See you in an hour!”
“The comment about the mold was really a joke, Will,” Malachi said, after a while.
“Was it?” I doubted.
Malachi took the jasmine from his ear and tucked it over mine.
“Well, now it is. You smell great,” he said and laughed.
The tips of his fingers tingled the spot where they had brushed my skin, and I was too mesmerized to kick his shin.
Lunch with Lilly’s family was a mix of my worst nightmare and my greatest dream. The voices overlapped in a nostalgically familiar way, although in a manner I don’t remember hearing during my own childhood—even at the rare family lunches with my parents, some thorny issues joined us like unwanted guests.
I couldn’t recall the last time a steaming meal burned my tongue, and I barely practiced table manners because the doctor never made a fuss over it. Mrs. Bates had us all wash our hands before eating and later distributed the dessert in responsible slices. The obstacles she placed on the simple biological need known as eating also irritated me a bit, like praying and waiting until the last person was finished. I imagine this too is another inheritance from the monstrumologist.
Later, when everyone was already slow and sprawled around the living room, she called me into a little room and conducted a thorough inspection. Weight (insufficient), height (better), lice (none), cavities (none), ticks (none), nails (clean), new scars (several), smell (mold).
When she was done, she wrote down some instructions and asked me to deliver them to the doctor, something about dentists and tailors. A gift, she added. I would burn them. In my mind, the records Warthrop kept on me were precise enough for me to find in them—or convince myself I found—a paternal concern he just refused to admit. It had nothing to do with my parasite or with science, I would tell myself, facing the tenderness with which Mrs. Bates looked at me.
“How are you, Will Henry?” she asked. “And tell me the truth.”
“You just saw that I’m fine, Mrs Bates.”
“I don’t mean your health. At least not the visible part of it.”
“That’s fine too,” I replied to appease her.
The woman gave me a stern look but did not insist. She made me take off my coat and quickly started stitching a patch on the inner lining.
“Your friend is very polite. I noticed he silently followed the prayer. Is he religious?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “But his family was.”
Mrs. Bates didn’t ask why I referred to Malachi’s family in the past tense, but I imagine one look at his face would be enough to guess why.
“What does Pellinore think about it?” she asked, now watching me over her glasses.
“About what, ma’am?”
“About a good influence in your life.”
I don’t know where that fury came from with which I defended the man I cursed countless times a day, but it took control of my tongue, always preventing, when out of his reach, that I profaned his name.
“It was the doctor who invited Malachi to accompany me,” I replied, with a hint of pride.
Her foot pressed the pedal. Against the sunlight slanting through the window and diffusing through the white lace curtains, she assessed the quality of the stitching.
“Very generous of him,” she said, helping me put the coat back on. “Just don’t let him find out you visited Abram and me. He might change his mind.”
We returned to Von Helrung’s house by dusk. Lilly practically threw a tantrum to come along (momentarily forgetting her role as a proper young lady). Mrs. Bates added arguments that hadn’t stopped me from doing anything for years, like homework, dinner, and bedtime. She bid us farewell grumpily, saying she would meet us tomorrow before or after the convention—adding loudly— if her jailers allowed it . So, Malachi and I walked alone, without much hurry, through the streets of New York back to the corner of 5th Avenue and 51st Street, taking a two-block detour to watch the lights turn on inside the houses and off inside the shops.
“Lilly likes you a lot,” he teased.
“That moment when you got up to help Mrs. Bates bring the dishes,” I said, “she pinched me and insisted on switching places so she could sit next to you.”
Malachi laughed. Our lazy steps caused our shoulders to bump into each other like they were still a bit drunk from all that orange juice and peach iced tea.
“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Then she flicked me when I offered to dry the dishes you had offered to wash. And she hates drying the dishes.”
“Okay. I believe you.”
“And…?”
He laughed again, and it annoyed me.
“And what? I’m not going to steal her from you, don’t worry.”
“Whatever. It’s more likely she’ll steal you from me…” I said it aloud and instantly regretted it. It didn’t sound so possessive in my head.
“Does Lilly steal your friends often?”
“Lilly has always been my only friend.”
“And she’s not the only one anymore?”
I knew where he was going and decided not to give him the satisfaction. So, I stayed quiet until I forced Malachi to change the subject if he wanted to keep talking.
“I saw the way she looks at you, Will,” he continued, without provocation in his tone, just watching our synchronized footsteps. “That is, between the flicks and pinches.”
Maybe I saw it too, from the first day we met. But I think, just like her mother, Lilly Bates had also given up on me.
A maid informed us that Meister Abraham regretted but had an unforeseen event and would not be dining with us. In fact, he wouldn’t be home until the next morning. Malachi and I informed her that we weren’t hungry and would retire to our rooms to sleep. It was seven in the evening. I could’ve left out the sleeping part because the maid, a little older than the one who had prepared our stay, stared at us for a while and finally said that if we needed keys, the butler would be downstairs. Maybe she feared we might jump three stories to escape, and that would end up being her problem.
Well, technically, the plan wasn’t far from that. When she walked away, Malachi said,
“For a child of truth, you do lie a lot.”
“There’s one last thing I need to do,” I replied. “But I understand if you don’t want to come with me.”
Our entry to the Monstromarium was blocked before Malachi could even regret it.
“Children are prohibited here. Read the sign,” professor Ainesworth replied without registering anything beyond our heights. He used the tip of his cane to shut the door of the Monstromarium in our faces, but I was quicker.
“Sir, it’s me. Your former apprentice. Will Henry.”
Only then did he squint in my direction.
“It’s not. Will Henry is dead.”
“I didn’t die, sir. I assure you.”
“You said you would die.”
“I said the probability was high.”
“In monstrumology, that’s called a promise.”
“I’m sorry to break it, sir.”
“Too late. I already put your name in the record book as the youngest fatality in the field as a somewhat member.”
“You did what?”
He made a sound of disdain and opened the door.
“Whatever. No one reads that crap anyway. Come in. Wait. Who’s that?” Adolphus pointed his cane at Malachi.
I was tired of giving that answer.
“My friend Malachi,” I sighed.
“What happened to your face, boy?” the old man grumbled, and anyone would rightfully interpret his curious grimace as disgust. Except Malachi.
“I blew up some anthropophagi a few years ago.”
“I know the feeling. How many were there?”
“Half a dozen, maybe.”
The old man nodded slowly.
“I’ll put your name in the book too. Come in, come in. But don’t touch anything. You might be junior monstrumologists, but you’re still kids, and I won’t overlook that fact.”
“We’re not monstrumologists,” I clarified.
“Then you work for free.”
We followed the man through narrow turns and corridors so low that all of us, even I, had to duck to pass. My limbs destroyed cobwebs so ancient I feared they were part of Adolphus’ collection.
“What do you need?” he asked, walking with determination, which was the opposite of what I had planned to do.
“Actually, I just wanted to have a look around and show the place to Malachi.”
“This isn’t a shop window, kid.”
“I know, sir.”
“Malachi, is it?”
The old man pointed the cane at him again, with his most cantankerous grimace.
“Yes, sir,” Malachi replied.
“Why don’t you take Will Henry to Washington Square Park for a date or some nonsense like that?”
I almost tripped over boxes and books that weren’t even in my way. But Malachi didn’t flinch.
“I would try, but I take he prefers more dangerous activities.”
The old man pointed at Malachi’s scar, this time with his twisted, wrinkled finger.
“Looks like you do too.”
The blue of his left iris was lighter, almost the same whitish tone as his sclera. It somehow resembled Adolphus’ eyes; his pupils clouded by cataracts.
Professor Ainesworth sighed.
“Two conditions: don’t touch anything, don’t take too long, and above all, under no circumstances do I want Pellinore knocking on my door tomorrow. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” we answered in unison, but he disappeared so quickly he might not have heard us.
“I was going to ask him for the keys to the Locked Room...” I said, too late to remember the arguments I had prepared.
“The room is called the Locked Room?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t think there was any chance of getting those keys, Will.”
We walked in silence, side by side despite the difficulty due to the narrowness of the corridor. That wasn’t working, so I took the lead. Somehow his slow walk behind me made me even more self-conscious of his close presence.
I vaguely remembered the way because I had followed the monstrumologist at a distance when he came to deliver it. He said he didn’t like throwing such things away but had no more space for this kind of junk at our house. Adolphus insulted him, saying the Monstromarium wasn’t a dump, but he accepted the donation and cataloged it diligently. On the way back, understanding my silence, Warthrop explained that, regardless of whether the finger was infected or not, he would have brought it here anyway for science purposes (and to not give away whether it was or not).
I found the porous and damp wooden shelf in less than ten minutes.
I imagine Malachi expected an explanation, but then he leaned over my shoulder and stared, with the same fascination I had, at my amputated finger floating in the formaldehyde.
“I want you to read the label,” I exhaled the words in a single breath. “I told the doctor I didn’t care to know whether it was infected or not, but...”
“But you changed your mind?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t tell me anything. I just need someone besides him to know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What if I blurt it out while I’m sleeping?”
His words eased some of my tension.
“You’ll have to shout for me to hear it from the next room.”
Then he reached out and carefully took the jar. I instinctively closed my eyes, though Malachi had turned it so I wouldn’t see the label. Enough seconds passed for him to have already read it, and I was expecting a reaction, though I had specifically asked for none.
“All right,” he said. “I know.”
And he put it back.
I studied his face for some clue.
“Why are you looking at me?”
I looked away.
“You want to know, don’t you?” Malachi asked.
We started walking again, this time paying less attention to the other jars containing things more bizarre than amputated fingers.
“I do, but I can’t,” I confided.
“Why not?”
“Because whatever the truth is, my finger is gone. And whether or not what the doctor did saved my life, I’d hate him a little more.”
“If it’s any consolation, people look at my face first and your hand second,” Malachi said.
“If it’s any consolation... I like it,” I responded, not quite realizing the words that had left my mouth.
“You like what?”
It only took me raising my eyes to his beautiful burnt face for him to understand and smile.
Notes:
about a month... not so bad
If the name of a place or side character is different from the original books, know that it's because I was too lazy to look for it on my bookshelf (I almost called Adolphus Edgar and ran with it)
Chapter Text
Dr. Von Helrung was already back—or on his way out—when we got up.
"Ah, guten Morgen! How was your night? I didn’t expect you to be up so early; otherwise, I would have joined you for breakfast. It’s set on the kitchen table. Please ignore the mess of crumbs. I get a little scatterbrained when I’m nervous."
"Nervous, sir?"
"Some fellow monstrumologists and I are having a pre-meeting to discuss the worst-case scenarios for tonight. I ask that you not tell your master, Will. He is the worst-case scenario himself. By the way, will you find him there, or are you all going together?"
Was this the ideal moment to tell the truth? But wouldn’t the truth only serve to agitate Meister Abram even more? How could I explain that Pellinore wouldn’t be joining the congress because we were setting off for Europe with a monster hunter—to hunt a murderer—first of reputation, second of people?
"What time does the Congress start?" I asked, dodging the question.
"Oh, Pellinore didn’t tell you?"
"He told us what time we were expected," Malachi answered for me, "but we figured Warthrop would hardly arrive at the appointed hour."
"You’re right. Knowing him, he’ll wait for the hall to be full to make a grand entrance. The event officially begins at five sharp. I’ll be there at four. You can come earlier if you’d like, so we can enjoy the few hours of peace and the fresh appetizers. And I’m sure Warthrop will neglect his own presentation, let alone his assistant’s, so I asked Ada to set aside some more appropriate clothes for the occasion. See you there, Jungen!"
Malachi and I exchanged glances, unsure how those flimsy lies had worked. But I couldn’t allow my moral deviations to be in vain. Since our ship wouldn’t depart until eight, there was no harm in being the doctor’s eyes and ears at the Congress for a few hours. Perhaps this transgression would even be beneficial—how did the doctor plan to refute those monstrumologists without knowing the logical absurdities they spouted? Of course, I’d take a few smacks, but he’d thank me later.
Deep down, I knew that attending a monstrumology event without the doctor felt a little more like going to a party, and I couldn’t deny that I was excited to go to a party with Malachi.
I stared at the clothes the maid had laid out on my bed. They were… a bit much, so when it came time to dress, I discarded everything except the vest and the shoes. Despite the drastic change—I wasn’t used to seeing myself so well-dressed—I still felt underdressed. I remembered that on the rare occasions I heard the doctor’s frustrations about his appearance, they had more or less the same dimensions as mine. No matter how many embellishments we wrapped ourselves in, they weighed on us like foolish ribbons.
"Elegance is the makeup of pathetic men, Will Henry," the doctor would say, tearing hats and cloaks from himself. And I had always agreed—until Malachi opened his bedroom door.
Complementing me, he had chosen the overcoat instead of the vest. The pieces weren’t sand-colored like mine, so his piercing blue eyes stood out against the dark tones of his clothing and hair.
"You look like someone’s powerful son," he said to me.
That thought only occurred to me later, when the man controlling the entrance and exit of guests confirmed the name William James Henry on the list and didn’t ask to see my invitation (which my master had burned in the fireplace along with his own).
I already knew most of the monstrumologists there, and they knew me. They greeted me as Master Henry, and even those I had never seen before clearly knew of me, for among them, I heard the doctor’s surname whispered. I feared I was drawing too much attention by finally being unaccompanied by him, but I no longer needed his physical presence to conjure, now through me, the ghost those men saw at my side.
I was treated as a monstrumologist without being one. As an adult despite being a teenager. My position as an assistant was valuable, and the experiences I had as the doctor’s pupil were, in many tongues, the chance of a lifetime—even if I myself abhorred them.
The ballroom was packed. The monstrumologists had divided themselves into stratified groups according to various criteria, such as level of prestige, where they bit their own tongues to keep the comparison of achievements from descending into veiled insults. The few who were old enough to retire either spoke of the love they felt for their families (and how they had saved them from a life without purpose) or clung tooth and nail to the memories of their careers, which they considered their sacrifice for a greater purpose whenever someone brought up the loneliness of having no descendants.
Other groups formed based on common languages, affinities, and, of course, those who had just started drinking versus those who had been drinking since sunrise. Meister Abram got along with everyone, and we soon lost sight of him—which was partly a relief, as he dragged us around, introducing us to people with whom we had so little in common that my thoughts began to take on the misanthropic tones of the doctor.
We chose a spot far from the crowd and the self-service bars. The red velvet sofas scattered there were ideal for conversations that were a little more casual and in larger groups—the kind that might or might not evolve into heated debates but rarely did, as they involved individuals too mature to come to blows over monsters that would devour them all indiscriminately.
The sound of the live band reached us softly from the other side of the stage, and the movement of waiters offering glasses and restocking the snack tables was more intense.
"Wouldn’t it be smarter to have the debate before giving these men alcohol?" Malachi remarked, looking around.
"Dinner is after the debate—this is just the reception," I explained.
We both watched a man attempt to climb the side stairs to the upper floor, carefully balancing a tiny glass of gin to avoid spilling it, but too drunk to realize it was already empty.
"I see," Malachi said, then raised his head. "What’s up there?"
"Rooms for poker and chess, private rooms, entrances to the presentation hall, VIP booths…"
"Private rooms?"
I didn’t know how to explain, but thankfully, I didn’t have to.
"So wives and daughters are forbidden," he continued, reflecting, "but prostitutes aren’t?"
I recalled the doctor's words and repeated them:
"Why do you think wives and daughters are forbidden?"
He remained silent for a while.
"So… you never dance?" he asked.
"What?"
"A bunch of unfaithful, socially inept intellectuals—do they dance?"
"I suppose that after a few drinks, they stop being socially inept," I replied.
"Do you want to dance?"
"What?" I found myself repeating, now more surprised than confused.
Malachi stared at me.
“I sometimes understand why Pellinore underestimates your intelligence.”
"Um. We can’t…"
"Why not?"
"We’re men," I said quietly, as if merely stating it was already forbidden.
He laughed.
"Technically, we’re adolescents. And if anyone asks, we’re drunk, and I didn’t realize you were the famous William Henry, apprentice to the famous Pellinore Warthrop. Or I did, but I wanted to say I met you—maybe even steal a shoelace from you."
Malachi stood up. I remained seated, uncertain.
"Come on, Will. Look around. No one cares. And if someone does, what will they do? Call the police? Tell our dead parents? Just say you’re training not to step on Abram Von Helrung’s niece’s expensive shoes, and they’ll leave you alone."
I gave in with a sigh.
We found a spot away from the waiters' doors, near the storage rooms and far from the massive chandeliers above our heads. Even so, there were guests everywhere, so I kept a cordial distance when Malachi placed his hand on my back.
“So, it looks like you are the one training to dance with Lilly..." I said.
It was a harmless tease at Malachi for having instinctively taken the lead in the dance, so empty of meaning that I didn’t even mind resting my hand on his shoulder.
"Sorry," he replied, holding back a smile. "Habit."
Our palms met in the air. Malachi's arm was longer, so I forced him into a gentle curve to avoid stretching too much. It was inevitable, however, that I had to lift my face to look at him.
I knew he was better than me from the very first step we took.
"So, you dance a lot of waltz."
Malachi shook his head, and we maintained a steady but relaxed rhythm.
"I was my sisters' teacher," he explained simply.
I tried to imagine how an outsider might see us, and that immediately calmed my worries — Malachi was leading me with the same fraternal ease he must have had with his sisters, correcting my mistakes with silent instructions. Our backs remained straight, our arms stretched as much as I allowed. His hand warmed mine, but no one would be able to tell.
I was so absorbed in counting the steps that I didn’t notice his hand slipping from my back to my high waist, nor our arms—once as straight as the horizon—falling into a lazy V. The turns, boxes, and classic movements turned into a weak sway. There was no way to be discreet about sliding my fingers up to his nape, so I watched Malachi follow my small boldness with interested eyes.
"I suppose you wouldn’t let me spin you..." he said.
"Correct."
"Good," he answered, then intertwined our fingers. "Because that would be pretty hard now."
I couldn’t blame the music for the pounding inside my chest, so that pressure could only be my heart. When the instruments stopped playing, I feared Malachi might hear my frantic heartbeat.
"Good evening, gentlemen," Abram’s powerful voice rang out from above. "Sorry for the interruption, but I must inform you to prepare yourselves; gather your theoretical references and empty your bladders. The debate begins in fifteen minutes in the presentation hall!"
That place had always seemed more like a classroom than an unused opera house to me, perhaps because of my residual memory of all the corpses—human or otherwise—that they had dissected on that low stage.
We chose the last row, so there was no one behind us (except for the rows on the two floors above, which couldn’t see us anyway). If I were with Pellinore, we would have sat there—not for the view of the stage, which was too far for my master’s taste, but for the honor.
"I’m sure you all already know the main topic of this congress. Otherwise, the seats wouldn’t be so full," Von Helrung attempted a joke, and it worked since a third of the monstrumologists were loosen up by the drinks a few still carried. "First, we must reach a consensus on the terminology we will use to describe the phenomenon we may be facing. I know it seems counterintuitive to step into the field of syntax before discussing the facts of the concrete case, but I only seek to maintain the seriousness of our discussion."
A man in the audience laughed.
"So, even you recognize that discussing the existence of vampires by calling them that reduces this debate to a joke. Isn’t that indicative enough?"
"We’ve done this many times before, Dr. Smith," another monstrumologist challenged. "But you wouldn’t know that because you weren’t born yet."
A heated discussion erupted at the opposite end of the hall, forcing the old man to recalculate his approach.
"Then let us leave nomenclature for last and go straight to the point. I don’t care if we call the thing a force of nature or an object of study, for all that matters. This discussion, like all debates on terminology, may be irrelevant. The real question is—and perhaps this is our first mistake—there is not enough in the scientific literature to consistently describe the—" he remembered there was no conclusion on the name "alleged creature that may present itself to us, and therefore, we cannot draw comparisons to previous works to formalize a description."
Another man, more restrained, replied:
"If it does not exist in the scientific literature, that does not necessarily imply that there are no researchers willing to address it, only that there is not enough in nature to support a respectable study on the... alleged creature."
That was a statement that would have made Dr. Warthrop nod in silence—though muttering a small coward meant only for my ears. According to him, the man’s lack of assertiveness influenced his credibility, even if he was correct.
A third individual, far less sober, added in a slurred yet still lucid tone:
"And how many other creatures cataloged today were once mere myths? That proves nothing except that today’s monstrumologists are cowards more concerned with the public reception of their research topic than with the results it may yield."
A disembodied response came from the crowd, slightly muffled.
"What results have come from the research you conduct at bar tables?"
The man stood up, forgetting to hide the bottle he had been holding between his legs.
"Who said that?"
Abram waved his hands, indicating that they should sit.
"I hope everyone who has spoken so far has read the case materials. Otherwise, even the best arguments are tainted by prejudice. So, let’s ask the question that defines all proposals made before new actors are added to monstrumology: what evidence do we have now that we didn’t have before?"
The audience fell silent, which pleased the monstrumologist, so he answered his own question: "Well, a victim."
The old man pulled back a curtain, and behind it, on a metal table, lay something that looked like a pork leg turned into jerky. It wasn’t very impressive—didn’t even resemble a victim well enough to stir outrage. Someone commented:
"Don’t tell me that’s a goat."
"That is a human torso, as you should be able to tell by the five clean cuts where its main limbs once hung."
Not a single gasp.
"I see, Mr. Fersant," Abram continued. "There are two rather unusual characteristics in this human sample. Starting with the first—did you know that, under careful inspection, it is very difficult to conceal the cause of death in one of us? Our organs react to trauma in a way that follows an unfortunate chronology which can be verified. And whoever this individual once was, he remained alive even after his head, arms, and legs were severed."
Malachi and I merely glanced at each other. Some others did the same.
"That is to say," the old man went on, "his heart was still beating. And it must have beaten for quite a while, since the blood hadn’t coagulated six hours after the... attack. Apparently, even after all that time, this individual was still suitable for a successful bloodletting!"
This time, the joke didn’t land as well, but the monstrumologist remained unfazed.
"Although the blood remnants within the circulatory system were greatly degraded, there are certain unnatural movements that leave behind traces of damage or anomalies in the vascular structures. In this case, although we can no longer identify the specific wound that caused it—since there’s not much left to cover—we know that the human circulatory and venous systems behaved in a deeply concerning way... unless any of you are aware of cases where deoxygenated blood naturally reversed course to supply the organs, and oxygenated blood was diverted for mysterious purposes. Want to know what’s even more interesting? It’s quite likely this individual was still alive when he underwent such a unique phenomenon. Which means there are at least two—" he paused, "things, that can explain what happened here. Or rather, now just one, I hope."
"What was the supposed cause of death?" someone at the front asked.
"My dear fellow, this human torso here was subjected to fire, tied up underwater for three days, exposed to all kinds of physical trauma, and even took a nice long dive into sulfuric acid. And he survived. So, the cause of death is in God’s hands. And now in ours."
"And what’s the second?" I asked, and everyone turned to look at me. Perhaps they expected that Warthrop hadn’t ordered me to ask as many questions as possible—which he in fact hadn’t.
"You said there were two rather unusual characteristics in this human sample. What’s the other one?"
Dr. Von Helrung smiled.
"Although the traces of blood that once ran through these veins and arteries are now nonexistent, if Master Henry would care to come up to the stage and see for himself, he would find that this torso’s stomach is, to this day, soaked in blood."
As though the remains of this body still hungered , I silently added.
We didn’t say goodbye to the old monstrumologist, as we returned to his house without attending the banquet in the hall, and even if we had waited for him to return, we couldn’t have said goodbye—he wasn’t supposed to know we had another place to go.
However, I did ask Ada to inform him that Pellinore wanted us back. Ada asked if that would be enough; I assured her it would.
We arrived at the port with what I assumed was a suspicious amount of earlyness, as the doctor did not expect to see us so soon and immediately alternated his gaze between the two of us as if deciding who to pressure first to extract the truth.
All the anxiety leading up to what I thought would be a humiliating confession amounted to nothing, which was good news, because I could imagine myself getting beaten in front of Malachi, and just that thought made me want to leap into the jagged rocks lashed by the sea.
But the good news stopped there, for sometimes my master’s loudest outbursts were preferable to the somber looks he gave me.
"Malachi," he said, without taking his eyes off me, "go find Dr. Kearns at the dispatch office. Help him with the luggage."
Malachi left, and we were alone.
"Did you enjoy yourself, Will Henry?" I didn’t know if the right answer was yes or no, since I didn’t want to risk assuming anything—but no answer was needed, because the man bent down slightly to meet my eyes.
"I hope you gave my warmest regards to Meister Abram."
I didn’t even have time to react. The doctor shoved a folder against my chest, heavy and shaped in a way that could only contain hundreds of pages.
"You’re going to transcribe every word of the congress, and you’re not getting your butt off the chair until you’re finished. And don’t leave out the bad jokes. I predict this will be a long journey."
Notes:
its been MONTHS i know... a lot happened, almost everything changed in my life, but this chapter was already half written so I decided to give up my perfectionism and finally update the fic :)
coffeecakecrumblr on Chapter 1 Thu 21 Mar 2024 06:07AM UTC
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Kellner on Chapter 1 Sat 30 Mar 2024 05:00AM UTC
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S3rp3ntboy (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 24 Sep 2024 05:35AM UTC
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Kellner on Chapter 1 Fri 27 Sep 2024 01:32AM UTC
Last Edited Fri 27 Sep 2024 01:34AM UTC
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Larceny (Guest) on Chapter 5 Wed 16 Oct 2024 11:36PM UTC
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Iforgotwhatiputmynameasbefore (Guest) on Chapter 5 Thu 24 Oct 2024 11:09PM UTC
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Larceny (Guest) on Chapter 6 Fri 01 Nov 2024 06:26PM UTC
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Kellner on Chapter 6 Thu 07 Nov 2024 02:49AM UTC
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Larceny (Guest) on Chapter 6 Thu 20 Mar 2025 07:17AM UTC
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