by Edward Lee
Chirping, squealing laughter from the butler and maid spun round Lympton’s doll-head.
“Oh, but the gentleman must forgive me,” mocked the maid, “for failing to bid ye proper welcome to Patten Mansion,” and with this—will the reader have already guessed?—she hiked her ruffled skirt, proffered the tiny drill-hole (rimmed with hair) betwixt her smooth oak thighs and—
“In the name of all things holy!” shouted Lympton as the stream of revolting brown-tinged urine drenched his face and lap.
“Wal, good sar,” another voice boomed, but this one from outside the Doll House, “I see thee’ve already made acquaintance with Mr. Parks and Miss Chittingham. Fine, fine sarvants they be!”
Sopping, appalled, and aghast, Lympton looked out the little doll-house window and saw, big as a god, the face of Septimus Brown, grinning delightedly, and in the adjoining window grinned another: Emily.
“Brown,” Lympton intoned with as much authority as he could muster, “here me, and hear me well. Whatever hocus-pocus it is that you and your witch-daughter have harnessed to imprison me here, I shall pay more than you can imagine to reverse. You’ll be rich beyond measure—just get me out of here.”
Brown chuckled. “Sar, what ye’ve failed to reckon is thus: you’ve already paid, more than ye can imagine!”
“And we truly thank ye, sir!” Emily excitedly added, and it was only then that Lympton’s cognitive powers engaged and he noticed that Brown and his wretched daughter were both ten—no, twenty years younger than they’d been just yesterday.
“And far ye’re general knowledge, sar,” Brown continued from on high, “we be here awaiting Britnell’s men to transpart the Doll House back to mine mansion in Sussex. ‘Tis your lovely wife, sar, that give it back to us, for she seems to be quite sickened by it. Poor woman. So we were only too happy to take if off her hands.”
“You’re a cunning bastard, Brown!” Lympton yelled as best he could, still trying yet failing to break free from the tiny chair. “You, and that daughter of yours—the devil’s plaything she is, I say.”
“Aye, sar, and you too, which ye’ll be discovering shortly.” (And, of all the gall: Brown pronounced “shortly” as shartly.)
“I bid ye good day, sar,” Brown finished, “and shall look farward ta seein’ ye again!”
The giant footsteps thundered off, and next it was a much more youthful Emily who peered in for a parting glance. “Again, sir, I thank ye, my father thanks ye, and above all, Lancaster Patten thanks ye. You’ll be meeting him very soon…”
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Edward Lee is the author of almost fifty novels and numerous short stories and novellas (or is it novellae? Hmm.) Several of his properties have been optioned for film, while Header was released on DVD in 2009; also, he has been published in Germany, England, Romania, Greece, and Austria. Recent releases include Bullet Through Your Face and Brain Cheese Buffet (story collections), Header 2, and the hardcore Lovecraftian books The Innswich Horror, Trolley No. 1852, Pages Torn From A Travel Journal, Going Monstering, and Haunter of the Threshold. One of Lee’s creative ambitions is to one day write an effective M.R. James pastiche.
