Goblin Moon

by Teresa Edgerton

  But the body in the casket did not change, not in any particular—as many times as he examined the corpse, Jenk was surprised anew by the incorruptibility of the flesh, and by the uncanny preservation of cloth, leather, and paper which pertained to the corpse's immediate vicinity.

  For the sake of experiment he had placed certain items in the bottom of the coffin: a bouquet of violets, a loaf of bread, and a bowl of fruit. Each was just as sweet and fresh, when Jenk came to remove it, days or weeks later, as when it first entered the coffin. As another experiment, he cut a small square of velvet from the sorceror's tunic—the cloth had decayed and fallen into dust in a matter of hours.

  And yet . . . to what end had the body been preserved? What value did it possess, once the spirit of the former occupant had fled? Was the spell one of the sorcerer's own devising, or was he the subject of an experiment initiated by an even mightier magician? These and other questions continued to puzzle and excite Jenk. The only clue (and he could not be certain that it was a clue) was a little piece of narwhal ivory he had discovered clutched in the corpse's left hand.

  But it was the books, not the body, that drew Jenk to the coffin now. The books were old, older by far than the body, most of them written in an archaic hand and a dead language. They were so fragile that their pages disintegrated rapidly if removed from the coffin. To make use of them, Jenk always did as he did now: he took up the volume he wanted and placed it open on the chest of the corpse.

  He opened to a page near the middle of the book, took a pair of spectacles out of his pocket, and placed them on the end of his nose.

  "There is a Stone called Seramarias which does not occur in Nature," Jenk read. "Its properties are Marvelous, for it neutralizes Poisons, attracts other Gem-Stones as a Lodestone attracts Iron, and gifts the One who wears it with the power of Prophecy. Many other Applications, equally Remarkable, have been ascribed . . ." He shook his head. To compound the stone Seramarias had been his dream for many years, but without the tinctures he was helpless.

  He turned another leaf, scanning the page until he came to the proper passage. Then he walked over to the other table, unloaded the contents of his pockets, and unwrapped the brown paper parcels.

  Caleb shambled into the room and glanced inside the coffin. He paused to examine the open book. "To Make an Homunculus or Little Man . . ." he read aloud. "Blister me! That ain't what you're about now—tell me I'm mistaken."

  "It is," Jenk replied. "Why should I not attempt it, after all?"

  Caleb shook his head. "But you tried it afore those long year past—again and again you tried it, and never had no luck. Doomed to failure, you said. It can't be done no way at all. A fable, you said. A mad fancy. You said all that, and I don't forget it, even if you do."

  "I wonder that you should remember words spoken so carelessly, so resentfully," said Jenk. "I spoke out of disappointment because I could not effect what other men had effected before."

  "Not nobody we ever knew . . . no, not one of 'em could ever boast of that," Caleb reminded him.

  "But the Ancients possessed the art—we have that on the very best authority," Jenk insisted. "The formulas I attempted before were faulty, they were all of them incomplete, though many of them hinted at a process . . . Well, well, you will remember how it was: I believed I might divine that process, that the answer to the riddle, while not explicit, was at least implicit in the formulas themselves. I had many theories, but all of them failed me."

  He gestured in the direction of the coffin. "Imagine, then, my astonishment on opening that volume, to find the whole art written out in careful detail. Naturally, I was skeptical at first, just as you are now, but you shall see how far I have succeeded."

  He directed Caleb's attention to a curious construction at one end of the table: an object draped in black cloth, resting on an iron tripod. A lighted candle in a glass chimney (evidently meant to direct the heat of the flame upward) stood under the tripod. Jenk removed the black cloth, revealing a glass vessel about the size and shape of an ostrich egg.

  Caleb leaned forward to examine the egg. It was filled with a viscous fluid, a dull clouded liquor, but Caleb was just able to make out a tiny, doll-like figure suspended in that fluid. It appeared to be a perfectly proportioned little man, no more than six inches high, accurate in every detail right down to the fingernails and eyelashes, utterly realistic but for his minuscule size and the grey-green pallor of his skin.

  "Six and thirty days ago," said Jenk, "this was a mandrake root, crudely fashioned to resemble a man: rudimentary arms and legs, no more than a suggestion of the other features. I washed it in blood, in milk, and in honey. I made a slit in what might be termed the belly and inserted the white of a boiled egg treated with sperma viri, whale oil, and other—rather more arcane—ingredients. Then I sealed it in this glass egg, where I have been incubating it over a gentle but steady heat ever since. During that time, it has slowly increased in size, becoming what you see now."

  Caleb took a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly. "You're telling me . . . this little poppet you done carved out of a root . . . is alive? That it's agrowing and achanging right there in your crystal egg, like a seed in the earth or a babby in the womb? You're telling me you done fathered a child?"

  "It is certainly alive," said Jenk, "though beyond that . . . you perceive it does not move, it shows no signs of a heartbeat or respiration, it has not quickened. As we see it now, it has no more life than a plant—which indeed, it was from the beginning."

  He readjusted the spectacles on the end of his nose, the better to view his own creation. "What it may yet become, I do not know—beyond the fact that it will certainly not be a human infant, not in the sense that we would define the term. You can see it more closely resembles a tiny mannikin. Should it eventually become a sentient being, I believe it will emerge from its egg fully mature—ignorant, certainly, in need of tutoring—but mentally and spiritually mature."

  Caleb put out a shaking hand to touch the crystal egg, then drew back again, as if regretting the impulse. "You're mighty cool, Gottfried. Think you'd be excited . . . and mor'n a little afraid."

  "But you see, I have been watching the process develop for many weeks now," Jenk replied, with a shrug. "I have had ample opportunity to temper my elation . . . and my apprehension. I admit that sometimes, in the watches of the night, I still wake and wonder what terrible thing I am creating here. But that is vanity, Caleb, sheer sinful vanity, for I am not creating a new thing at all, only following in the footsteps of the Ancients."

  Turning his back on the marvel he had created, Jenk went back to his brown paper parcels. But Caleb could not tear his fascinated gaze from the tiny figure in the glass egg.

  "It is too early, of course, to term this experiment a success," Jenk was saying. "The creature, if one might term it such, may never be more than what we see now. Yet no man living has carried the process even so far. So today I purchased a second mandrake root, in order to repeat the experiment. Perhaps I shall send the result to the Duke, along with my plea for funds. I can't but think he will be suitably impressed, and respond most generously."

  But Caleb had passed beyond any interest in the Duke of Zar-Wildungen or his gold. "Gottfried . . ." he said, in a trembling voice. "Where did you come by the sperma viri?"

  Jenk turned on him a look expressive of the utmost disgust "Surely you do not suppose that I . . . ?"

  Caleb shook his head. "No, Gottfried, no, I didn't think nothing like that. You've fathered a child; she's dead, but you've got young Sera to take her place. But I . . . I'm fond of Jed and the girls, but they ain't my own.

  "It weren't through any disinclination that I never wed, you know that," he continued earnestly. "I just never had nothing to offer a woman, not until Joss's little widder come along with her three hungry babbies, worse off even than I was. I was glad to take them in, to play pa to her, and grandpa to the children, but it weren't nothing like having little ones of my own."

 
As his former servant spoke, Jenk's expression had softened considerably. "I know, Caleb, I know," he said gently. "And I know, too, though you do not reproach me, to what extent I was responsible for your poverty, the ruin of your early hopes. But even supposing that your seed were still vital—which is by no means certain, my friend, for you are no longer young—it will be a freak, an artificial creation, with no more humanity or claim on humanity than an ape or a four-legged brute. Were that not so, I would not think of sending one so casually to the Duke. Were it not so—"

  "Send this one to the Duke," pleaded Caleb. "It's plain enough you don't care what comes to it. And I don't reckon it has no father likely to take an interest."

  Jenk pulled up a chair, sank wearily down on it. "Its father—if you might term him such—was a felon, a gallows-bird. An involuntary reaction at the moment of death and a man hired to stand beneath the gibbet and collect the semen while it is still fresh—"

  Caleb waved this explanation aside impatiently. "Well then. Your little man, he's got no living father, and you ain't inclined to own him, I can see that plain. Send him to the Duke, to do with as he likes, but the other one . . . we could keep it ourselfs, we could treat it kind."

  Jenk put a gentle hand on his old friend's arm. "You would be dooming yourself to almost certain disappointment. The mandrake may not quicken. And even if it does, and we bring it to term . . . it may know nothing of human affection, naught of joy, or fear, or any other emotion. You might acknowledge the homunculus as your own—but would the bond between you mean anything at all to the creature itself?"

  Caleb did not reply at once. Then he gasped and gave a startled cry. "It moved. I seen it move!"

  Jenk started to his feet. But then, common sense returning to him, he shook his head and resumed his seat. "I believe you are imagining things, my friend. You want so much to see it come to life—"

  "I seen it move," insisted Caleb, clutching his arm. "Look for yourself, you don't believe me."

  Jenk bent forward, peered into the egg of glass. The homunculus was utterly still, giving no more sign of life than it had before. And yet . . . and yet, it almost seemed to Jenk that the color of the skin had changed, had acquired a more lifelike hue than—

  "It's moving now, you can see for yourself," breathed Caleb.

  As the two old men watched in astonishment, the little creature began to stir, to move sluggishly as if awakening from a long slumber. His skin assumed a rosier hue, and a pulse of life passed through his tiny frame. The little head moved slowly from side to side, and the eyes fluttered and opened.

  Caleb was shaking from head to foot. "You done it," he said. "You done created a thinking creature."

  Gazing into the face of the homunculus, Jenk could only nod in wordless agreement. The little man stared back at him with wide-open eyes—eyes which revealed neither the blankness of an idiot nor the innocence of a child.

  Jenk struggled to master himself, to force out the words. "May the Father of All forgive me," he whispered hoarsely. "I believe I have created something unspeakable."

  CHAPTER 8

  In which Sera falls into the Clutches of a villain.

  Once or twice in every fortnight, Sera paid a visit to her grandfather at the bookshop and spent a pleasant afternoon drinking tea in his little sitting room under the eaves. If the weather was fine, Sera walked; if it was wet, she stayed at home, or spent her meagre pocket money on a sedan chair rather than risk Clothilde's displeasure by requesting the use of one of the carriages.

  On the thirty-first day of the season of Leaves, Sera dressed carefully, donning the old gown of black bombazine which she had recently refurbished with yards of white lace. Then she paused to study her reflection in the long mirror over her dressing table. She wished to appear happy and prosperous, lest she give her grandfather any cause for concern. Yet even with all its fresh trimming of lace, the gown was sadly out of date.

  But Grandfather knows nothing of feminine fashions, and I've nothing else suitable for an afternoon call except for the bottle-green poplin.

  There was nothing to do but to make the best of it. And with white net mittens—and the flowered shawl—and her Sunday bonnet with red silk roses—and a little gold brooch nestled in the lace—the black bombazine did not look so ill. Sera picked up her reticule and left her bedchamber.

  She met Elsie and her mother on the stairs, just coming in from an afternoon call. Clothilde Vorder came first, stalking up the stairs with her head held high and a look of vexation upon her florid face, while Elsie trailed dismally behind.

  At the sight of Sera, dressed to go out, Mistress Vorder bridled. "And where do you suppose that you are going, miss?"

  For Elsie's sake, Sera tried to control her temper. "To visit my grandfather. You said that I might."

  "I do not recall," said Cousin Clothilde, "anything of the sort. I had counted on you to write the invitations for my supper party. Indeed, I distinctly recall telling you—

  "—that you required my services tomorrow afternoon!" said Sera. "It is no use pretending otherwise, for Elsie was there, and so was Cousin Benjamin, and rather more to the point: my grandfather is expecting me."

  Clothilde's hand twitched, rather as though she would have liked to slap Sera, but Cousin Benjamin's study opened on the landing above; and the door stood ajar. Though Benjamin Vorder was, as a general rule, too lazy and too neglectful to take issue with Clothilde's bullying mistreatment of his kinsman's daughter, both women knew well that he would not countenance any physical abuse.

  "You are a bad, insolent girl," said Clothilde. "Do not suppose that we shall not speak of this later. And just see that you are home before supper, or it will be the worse for you!" And she continued on her way in high dudgeon.

  Sera put out a hand to stop Elsie as she walked by. "My dear, what is it? Have you quarreled with your mother?"

  Elsie nodded. At first glance, she looked sweet and fresh, in a dainty white dimity gown and a wide straw hat trimmed with velvety pansies and pale Spagnish lilies. (Like a bride . . . or a corpse, thought Sera—then scolded herself for being so fanciful.) A closer examination revealed an unnatural glitter in her eyes and a hectic flush on her cheeks. To Sera's mind, she looked feverish.

  But that was Clothilde Vorder's way: to exhaust Elsie by dragging her along to teas and afternoon calls and picnics when she was genuinely ill and ought to be resting, then to torment her with doctors and unnecessary medications when she was otherwise perfectly well. She parades Elsie and her infirmities as some women make a show of their gowns, their jewels, and their carriages, thought Sera.

  "I told Mama, in the carriage coming back, that I did not intend to visit Dr. Mirabolo ever again," said Elsie. A second visit to the establishment on Venary Lane had been as shocking as the first, and far from benefiting from the demonstration, she had spent the next three days in a state of nervous collapse.

  "And so she is cross with you . . ." said Sera. "Never mind it, my dear. She can rail and plague you as much as she likes, but she cannot force you to go there against your will."

  Elsie looked at her doubtfully. "Can she not? I think that she might. Mama has such—such a forceful character."

  Sera took her hand and squeezed it. "You are sixteen years of age and no longer a child. She cannot whip you, or lock you in your room. And we live in a civilized country; you are not the daughter of some wicked foreign potentate. Your parents won't immure you in stone, or cast you out for undutiful behavior, or—well, I suppose they might disown you, at that, but not for anything so trivial as this. And I cannot see Cousin Benjamin in the role of tyrannical father. No doubt he would find it too strenuous for a man of his sedentary habits."

  Elsie smiled weakly at Sera's attempt at humor. "No, I am not likely to be cast out, or anything so dramatic as that. But she might, Sera, she might send you away, as a way of punishing me."

  "Yes," Sera agreed, with a sigh, "she might do that." The threat was a very real and present one. Whenev
er Sera spoke or acted to disoblige Cousin Clothilde—whenever she supported Elsie in resisting her mother's wishes—always there was the risk that Clothilde would send her away, that she and Elsie would be parted. "But to do that, she would also require your father's permission, and I do not think that Cousin Benjamin would be willing to oblige her.

  "And anyway," she added, tossing her head, "I would sooner be sent off, sooner go to live with my grandfather—which I should not mind at all, if it did not mean parting from you—rather than stay on to be used as . . . as another means of making you docile."

  Sera left Elsie lying down in her bedchamber, with a book in her hands, and a shawl of Mawbri silk cast over her like a blanket, and a maid-servant in the room to look after her during Sera's absence. She left the house and set off at a brisk pace, for the walk was a long one and she had delayed too long already. She knew that Cousin Clothilde would find a way to punish her if she came home late.

  It was a fine day, and the cobblestone streets were crowded with sedan chairs and open carriages, horsemen and pedestrians, costermongers and peddlers of all sorts. Those who rode in carriages and chairs did not scruple to hold up traffic by stopping to examine the goods or to make a purchase. But Sera enjoyed the bustle, the color, and the variety.

  The season was nearing its end, The country girls, who had been selling rabbits four or five weeks earlier, were now selling caged mockingbirds and goldfinches. Sera spotted an old man selling the tiny wooden dolls in white dresses, which, adorned with rosebuds and scarlet ribbons, would accompany the young girls of Thornburg into church on the first day of Flowers, ten days hence. Rose-Brides, these dolls were called.