The Book of Bones

by Natasha Narayan

Reluctantly we did as he requested. Then the doctor knelt by our heads and literally felt our heads. His hands were bony and probing and the whole thing was most uncomfortable. I could see Waldo’s mouth twisting in discomfort and Isaac frowning. At last his examination was over, although what it had to do with poisoning was a mystery.

  “Very interesting protuberances on your head, Miss Salter,” Dr. Sheldrake said to me as we rose. He added to Isaac. “Your skull has definite possibilities, Mr. Ani.”

  “How so?” Isaac asked suspiciously.

  “The marked development of your pre-frontal cortex makes me believe you to be highly mechanically competent with a developed rational streak. On the other hand, Miss Salter, your lobes, to use layman’s terms, are less prominent. I believe you to be impulsive and reckless, with a marked distaste for reason.”

  “Are you saying Kit is a bit silly?” Waldo inquired.

  “That’s not a medical term. But essentially yes.” Dr. Sheldrake nodded. “The young lady puts passion before reason.”

  “You’ve hit the nail on the head, Doctor.” Waldo grinned.

  “That’s outrageous—” I began, then stopped. “Look, we’re not here for this. When will we get the blood samples back and find out about the poisoning? We’re really worried.” I glanced at Isaac, who was tugging my sleeve. “Stop it!”

  “A few days.”

  “We’re in a hurry,” Waldo said. “That’s far too long.”

  “I see. As a special favor I’ll try to rush them through by tomorrow. Can’t promise, mind. Where should I contact you?”

  I was about to tell him the name of our boarding house when Isaac replied, giving him a false name. He was practically pulling me out of the door. Suddenly he seemed in a mad rush to be elsewhere. We said goodbye and tumbled out into the Shanghai street.

  “Why did you give him a false address?” I asked Isaac in surprise.

  “I didn’t like that doctor,” he replied.

  “Nor did I,” said Rachel. “He was all wrong.”

  “But it wasn’t just a matter of not liking him. I think he’s positively sinister. You realize what he was?”

  “No,” we chorused.

  “Honestly, you lot are half asleep sometimes.” Isaac sighed. I let this comment go, even though Isaac is the most dreamy of us all. “Doctor Sheldrake is another phrenologist. Didn’t you see that bust in the corner? The phrenological head? He’s a dangerous crank!”

  Waldo gave a low whistle. “There was a leaflet on his desk,” Isaac continued. “I saw it out of the corner of my eye. It advertised the ‘Greatest Scientific Unveiling of the Mystery of the Human Mind Ever Seen.’ This meeting, whatever it is, is taking place at midday in somewhere called the Jade Dragon Theater.”

  I gasped. Things were clicking into place. I had an intuition, reasonable or not, that we must join the scientists at that meeting.

  “Come on!” I said. “We have got to go to Jade Dragon Theater.”

  Somehow Yin had sensed we must be there. Her enigmatic words were starting to make sense.

  I’ll meet you in the belly of the dragon.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We arrived late at the meeting, as the first cab driver that we hailed had taken us to the Jade Dragon temple. This ancient shrine was near the Dai Jin Tower, where the guardians of the city kept a lookout for Japanese pirates, near the stone wall that protected Shanghai from her enemies. It took us much confusion and explanation, in our pidgin Chinese English, to return us to the city center. Luckily our second driver was more intelligent and took us to the Jade Dragon Theater in Seven Lotus Lane. We had to bypass the watchful guards at the entrance to the theater, creep up the stairs and into the meeting, which was already crowded when we arrived.

  At first I thought I was back in Oxford, for it was the type of fusty, dusty gathering that my father frequents. Apart from a smattering of women and Chinese, most of those gathered here were elderly Europeans, with a scholarly air. Sitting here there was an artistic lady in fringed hat and beads, there a more robust type, perhaps a merchant. None of them, I was relieved to see, looked as if they would be much use in a fight.

  If Yin turned up here, we might have to spirit her away by force.

  I could see why the strange child had described this hall as the “belly of the dragon.” It was painted in shades of red and pink and decorated with red silk banners inscribed with Chinese calligraphy. It did resemble the guts of an animal and I could imagine the fluttering silk as the pulsing of the beast’s intestines.

  Ah well, here I was being unreasonable again.

  “Let’s creep up to the front. Get a better view,” Waldo whispered.

  We edged along the side of the chairs. Someone was striding onto the stage, a man dressed in a white coat. My heart nearly stopped when I saw it was the scientist from the Mandalay. The quack doctor who had kept Yin a prisoner. In his wake came two Chinese pushing a metal trolley covered with a sheet. It came to a stop near a green baize card table. There was a babble of talk now, a sort of hushed expectancy in the air, as the scientist held up his hands.

  “Welcome to the Jade Dragon Theater. I’m Doctor Richard Billings and I am going to present you with one of the most marvelous demonstrations of the human mind ever known to science.”

  There was a smattering of applause. Then, more like a showman than a scientist, Dr. Billings whipped the sheet off the trolley. I had already known what was underneath. Still, the sight of Yin’s skeletal body, of her shaved, decorated head, shocked me. She was just a child, an innocent child, and here she was being offered up to these scholars like a performing monkey.

  “Little Yin here is going to perform some remarkable feats,” Dr. Billings boomed. “I will give you a phrenological explanation of them. I guarantee today’s demonstration is going to make waves across the seas, from Shanghai to London to New York!”

  Yin had seemed to be in a coma but now, on cue, she rose and sat obediently on her trolley. The shaven skull covered with scrawls and the almost translucent white of her skin were chilling. She looked more than ever like a death’s head. Her gray-green eyes were dull. Was I wrong to see a spark of recognition in them as they swept over me?

  “Little Yin is the most phenomenal patient I’ve ever had,” Billings went on. “She has a particularly enlarged perception cortex and, as you can see, her memory and time lobes are also very prominent. This means she has powers that would put any fortune-teller to shame. Now, do I have a couple of volunteers to come up on stage and test the girl’s powers?”

  A number of people put up their hands. Two gentlemen were chosen and ushered to the front. To my surprise, at the very last moment, Waldo barged in and took one of the men’s places. When he saw Waldo walk on stage, along with a muscular man who carried a knobbly cane, Dr. Billings paled a little. But he quickly carried on.

  “Have you ever met this child?” he asked.

  Waldo shook his head, as did the other gentleman.

  “Very well. For her first amazing predictive effect I choose you, young man. Your name is …?”

  “Waldo Bell,” my friend said loudly.

  “Mr. Bell, prepare to be amazed!”

  Billings indicated a pile of books which lay on the card table. “Choose a book. Any book,” he ordered.

  Waldo went over and picked out a book. I saw that it Mary Shelley’s well-known work Frankenstein.

  “Frankenstein. Aha,” Dr. Billings said. “Now, Mr. Waldo Bell, I am going to ask you to flip through this book.”

  Waldo took the book and flipped through it while the audience held their breath. Yin was watching him, or at least her eyes were directed toward him. What she saw, whether she saw, it was impossible to say.

  “Waldo, I may call you Waldo, may I not?”

  Waldo nodded.

  “Pick a word, any word out of the hundreds, nay thousands, in this book.”

  Waldo flicked through Frankenstein some more. Then shut it tight.

  “Got a word?”


  “Yes,” Waldo nodded.

  “Remember the page.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Please write down the word on this piece of paper. Show no one what you’ve written.”

  Waldo did as he was bid, folding the slip of paper and placing it face down on the table.

  “Prepare to be astounded beyond your wildest dreams. For this child, this little girl with the amazing skull, will reveal the word Waldo Bell picked. Moreover she will tell you on which page the word resides. Yin—” the scientist turned to the Chinese girl—“this is your moment!”

  But Yin was gazing vacantly at Waldo and seemed scarcely to have heard Dr. Billings.

  “Yin!” Dr. Billings snapped.

  I was gripped by the drama unfolding on stage but Isaac was restless. “I’m slipping out,” he said to me, and vanished down the side of the packed hall.

  On stage the little Chinese girl seemed to have slipped into a waking trance and didn’t respond to the doctor’s promptings. Dr. Billings was not having this. He walked over and hissed in her ear while around the hall a few restless shuffles and mutterings broke out. This was not the entertainment that these crusty old men had been promised. I believe I saw Dr. Billings’s hand slip to Yin’s arm and give her a cruel pinch. The girl started and turned toward her master.

  “Yin, you will enlighten these eminent ladies and gentlemen who have come here today to see your amazing psychic powers in action. You will tell them what word Waldo Bell picked out of Frankenstein, and from which page.”

  I was sitting bolt upright, my back pressing hard against the bench. I was frightened for Yin. For some reason I wanted her to get the answer right and not be humiliated before this audience.

  Yin shuffled round on her trolley and now she was facing Waldo, her prominent eyes bulging at him.

  “This is no trick, ladies and gents,” said Dr. Billings. “Yin will now demonstrate genuine powers.”

  “You pick ‘alchemists’ on page 175,” Yin said to Waldo. Her voice was high and clear and rang out throughout the hall.

  Waldo handed the slip of paper to the other volunteer, who read out, “Alchemists, page 175.”

  “How on earth did you know that?” gasped Waldo.

  The hall had broken out into spontaneous applause and I myself was thunderstruck. How on earth had Yin known exactly which word on which page Waldo had chosen? She’d scarcely been awake.

  Yin seemed indifferent to the applause, though Dr. Billings was glowing with pride. She slumped back on her trolley, still apparently as drowsy as before. Now the scientist turned to the muscular volunteer and asked his name.

  “Horatio Pyke,” the man answered in an oddly fluting voice for such a big man.

  “Now, Mr. Pyke, I will ask you to write down on these slips of paper the names of ten living men. And the name of one dead man. These men must not be famous. Just relatives or friends or suchlike.”

  Mr. Pyke did as he was bid, hurriedly scrawling names down on the slips that one of the assistants laid on the card table. When he had finished Dr. Billings directed Yin over to the table.

  “Now, for an even more stupendous feat of psychic perception,” Dr. Billings announced, “Yin will tell us, just from looking at the names, which of these men is dead.”

  Yin slouched by the table looking at the slips of paper. She was frowning. She finished reading the names then walked over to the volunteer. She was looking, really seeing, for the first time. The voice that came out of her mouth was high and whining. It recalled the shrill moan that had haunted my sleep on the Mandalay.

  “Something wrong,” she shrilled.

  “What is the matter, Yin?” Dr. Billings demanded.

  “Dead man not on list. This is dead man.” She was standing right in front of Horatio Pyke.

  “Pardon?” Mr. Pyke spluttered.

  “You die today.” Yin wailed. “When the clock is two.”

  Dr. Billings froze. This made no sense. Horatio Pyke was young and strong. Indignant voices began to hum. In the front row of the Jade Dragon Theater a lady with golden hair began to scream. Then suddenly I was engulfed in something smooth and slithery and my vision turned blood red. I too began to scream.

  “It’s all right, Kit.” Isaac was lifting something away from my eyes. “I’ve cut down the banner. Quick! We need to use the confusion to rescue Yin.”

  I now saw that the banner that had hung over the roof of the hall had fallen like an ocean of silk over the crowd, engulfing them in swathes of bloody material. The three of us ran up to the stage, where we saw Waldo had gripped the volunteer, Horatio Pyke, in an armlock. They were struggling, the man kicking at my friend.

  Dr. Billings and Yin had vanished.

  “Hurry!” Waldo grunted, pushing the man to the floor. “The porters have taken Yin down there.”

  We ran after Waldo, down into the footlights of the theater. It was crowded with props and gaslights, all sorts of bric-a-brac. Of Yin there was no sign. The volunteer, convinced that we were villains, had come running after us. We ran down musty corridors and past foul-smelling chambers and then Isaac burst out into the street. There, right in front of us, we saw two coolies pushing Yin into a horse-drawn carriage. Dr. Billings was already seated. The driver was holding the reins, ready to flick the two mares with his whip. There was no way we could catch her. But I put on a burst of speed and tried my utmost to reach the carriage door and the slight figure I saw at the window.

  Waldo and I reached the curb simultaneously, behind the volunteer, who was a fast runner. But the carriage had pulled away, the horses gaining on a cart filled with melons. We had failed. It had been a miracle to find Yin once in this noisy, crowded city. Now she was snatched away again.

  We had failed. Failed.

  As the horses cantered away I collapsed onto my knees in the middle of that busy road.

  “Look sharp!” Isaac yelled, pulling me away from the road toward the safety of the pavement.

  Just in time. Something was thundering toward me. A sleek black juggernaut, with screeching wheels. It was the carriage, which had somehow uncoupled from the horses. It rolled back at us, gaining speed as it came. But how had it broken loose?

  “I did it, of course,” Isaac yelled, as I panted in his arms.

  “Get Yin out!” I shouted to Isaac.

  “I’m trying!”

  Isaac and Waldo raced toward the carriage. The rudderless juggernaut rolled on, crashing into the pavement and overturning. There was the crash of breaking glass and splintering wood. Yin’s head appeared at the window. She was bleeding from a cut above her eye. Isaac and Waldo frantically pulled her out till she lay in my friends’ arms like a rag doll. Behind her was a moaning Dr. Billings. I began to help him out of the window—not an easy task as there was jagged glass everywhere.

  “Leave him!” Waldo hissed, pushing my hands away. “Someone else will do it.”

  It was true; already others had spilled out of the Jade Dragon Theater. Hands were extended to Dr. Billings, while Yin leaned against Rachel, limp and seemingly barely alive.

  A figure was lying in the street beyond the wreck of wood and glass. Its hands were splayed out, its legs flung one on top of the other. It was the angle of the neck that told us everything. It was all wrong. There was no way that the volunteer, Horatio Pyke, could be alive. I turned away, bile rising in my throat. At the same instant I noticed the clock on the church opposite the theater. Its hands pointed to five minutes past two. Mr. Pyke had died just as Yin had predicted. As the clock struck the hour. On the very second.

  What kind of monster was Yin that she could foretell a strong young man’s death?

  I was in a daze, just standing there in the crowd, when Waldo caught me roughly by the arm.

  “We’ve got to keep a hold of ourselves, Kit,” he growled. “Isaac’s found another carriage.”

  Waldo pulled me through the throng and out again, into the carriage that waited beyond. There was such confusion, such
scurrying, with stretchers arriving for the dead man, that no one seemed to notice us melt away. As I sat opposite Yin in the carriage, as I looked into her odd eyes, I could see only one thing.

  The handsome bronze clock, its hands inching past the Roman numeral II.

  We were all quiet because I think we realized for the first time what a truly strange person Yin was. The thought exploded shrill into my mind. Had she caused that man’s death? In predicting Horatio Pyke’s demise had she somehow hastened it? What kind of creature was she? Of course we all felt sorry for her—I believed she had been held prisoner in the Bakers’ castle and experimented on like a caged animal on the ship. Who knows what manner of torture she had undergone?

  And yet, yet … what did we really know of her? She was sitting between Rachel and Waldo, slumped against his shoulder. A ghastly thing, with her shaved skull and her shrunken little face. Her cheeks were so angular that I could see the bones poking up through her flesh. She was pitiful, yes. But not just that; she had power too. An odd sort of force of a kind I had never met before. Those eyes, those milky, mismatched eyes, so enormous they seemed to dwarf the rest of her face. What had they foreseen? What misery could they cause?

  Yin seemed to feel my gaze on her because she looked up at me—and I felt something searing right through me. Not fear—but it was as if she had examined me thoroughly with that one glance. A child, a little girl. Yet she had wrung me inside out. I felt exposed, ashamed and at the same time an awful foreboding gripped me. We had it the wrong way round. We weren’t some gallant knights riding to the rescue of Yin. She wasn’t some helpless damsel in distress. There was a dark power emanating from her. She was an unknown force—volatile and deadly. Now she had us in her coils. Did she wish us harm?

  Her presence among us was unsettling. Waldo and Rachel were almost competing to protect her. They were acting like they had rescued a stray kitten. And poor Isaac, staring out of the window, was pale, blinking nervously through his glasses. He bore a heavy load of guilt. He’d shown real initiative in spotting the doctor’s carriage and sabotaging it so that we could rescue Yin. But now he believed he was the cause of a man’s death.