The Aylesford Skull

the darkness of the passage illuminated by the light of leaping orange flames glowing in nether regions below. The sound of voices reached her, wafted upward from deep pits, voices murmuring and crying out, snatches of mad laughter, the urgent murmuring of unspeakable regret, damnation, and suffering. She descended the stairs despite the black horror that filled her chest. She saw a shadow rising to meet her – something or someone ascending the stairs. She thought of the shadow figure that had opened the door and beckoned to her. But it wasn’t he, at least not in that guise; it was a black goat, ancient as the grave, its eyes glowing, its matted hair smelling of must and decay and brimstone. She had turned and fled, sensing pursuit, hearing the cloven hooves clattering on the stones. She was too terrified to look back, but ran back up the stairs until she emerged again into the night wind blowing across the pasture. The door creaked shut behind her, closing a door on the dream, and she found herself sitting upright on her divan, her heart hammering, the sounds and the sheer terror of the vision filling her mind.

She had arisen and roused out Simonides the scullery boy, who could drive the cart to the station. She would catch the first train into London. Simonides would ask no questions, unlike Bill Kraken, who would both ask and answer them. She couldn’t afford to be hindered, although she realized now, caught up in her trek across the bridge, that she was happy that someone feared for her, that another human being on this vast, crawling planet had Mother Laswell’s interests in his heart.

If somehow she won through and found her way back to Aylesford, she would marry Bill, if he would still have her. The real possibility of it had come into her mind just this past moment, when she had recalled the dream. She had already turned him down twice – she was too old, had always been unlucky in marriage, was used to living alone, and more such excuses – but it had been like trying to reason with Ned Ludd, the mule. Her words went into the man’s ears – God knows they were capacious ears – but they didn’t take hold. They blew through like autumn leaves and out the other side. She smiled at the thought. Bill had become the pilot of Hereafter Farm, as if he were born to it, as if the farm had been waiting these long years for his arrival. If she were called upon to descend into Hell, she thought, there was no one else she would rather have by her side than Bill Kraken. Leaving him in ignorance this morning made her feel shabby and low.

She was jostled hard, two swaggering young men pushing past her and down toward Pudding Lane. She was across the river now, and into the shadows of the buildings, the tremendous flow of people disappearing into the great city as a river into the sea. She stood quite still for a moment, out of the way of foot traffic, and listened carefully to the sounds within her mind – sounds, as it were, of another sort. Edward’s presence had slipped into her consciousness as through an open door, and she knew that she heard his voice now, small and distant, like murmuring from a closed room. She was quite certain he was no great distance away, and that he sensed her presence in return.

She set out again at a determined pace, the Monument coming into view, its gilt summit aflame in the sunlight. She bought a meat pie from a down-at-heel coster-lad dressed in a heavy coat two sizes too large for him, no doubt intolerably hot, and he with no safe place to hang it save around his shoulders. He was just about Edward’s age when Edward had…

She gave the boy two crowns and felt guilty for not giving him more and at the same time foolish to be so completely at the mercy of sentiment. She walked on, eating the miserable, gristly pie, leaving the boy happily stupefied on the footpath. The bells of St. Clement’s Church chimed out the story of the oranges and lemons, and she recalled from her childhood that St. Clement himself had been pitched into the sea with an anchor knotted around his neck. Well, she thought, there’s worse things than being Harriet Laswell abroad in London, and she reminded herself that it was better to look outward than inward. “It’s a poor heart that never rejoices,” she said out loud, and set her sights on Lime Street now, where her old friend Mabel Morningstar lived near the Ship Tavern. The thought of the tavern reminded her that she would want something refreshing before long, a pint, perhaps, in order to restore her blood to its natural fluidity, now that the sun had thickened it.

When she turned the corner, her destination in sight at last, she saw Mabel herself on the pavement beyond the door of the tavern, dressed in the Robe of the Starry Firmament, which Mother Laswell had given her these many years past. It was Mabel’s summoning robe, scarcely the sort of thing to wear abroad. Three centuries back and she’d have been burnt as a witch at Smithfield for appearing in daylight in a summoning robe.

Mabel knows I’ve come, Mother Laswell thought suddenly, and a chill of relief came upon her. She needed Mabel’s powers, and her need was so great that Mabel had sensed her approach, and had caparisoned herself in anticipation.

“You look done up, Harriet,” Mabel said to her. “Like a banger in a hot pan. I’ve got a high window that’s catching the breeze just now, and something to wet your whistle – a nice shandy, if you’ve a mind for it. We’ll go up.”

“I’d be most grateful,” Mother Laswell told her. “I’m parched as a desert.” She followed her friend through the street door, past a small sign that read, “Fortunes Told, Clairvoyance, Necromancy, Lost Objects Found.” They exchanged pleasantries, catching each other up as they climbed the dim, narrow stairs, one flight after another, around a corner into a long hallway lit with gaslight, with doors on either side. There was another set of stairs beyond that, the last, but Mother Laswell stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “I’m fairly knackered,” she said. “The tramp from Tooley Street just about finished me. I took heart just now, though, because it came to me that you knew I was coming; I can see that, Mabel. You’ve put on your robe.”

“I felt you a way off, Harriet. I had the sure presentiment of a sail billowing overhead, carrying you toward me like a boat on a river, so I made ready. I knew this wasn’t a pleasure call. Your mind is full of dread and hope in equal measure. That much is plain. I came down to the street when you drew near, and there you were, your umbrella unfurled on the mast.”

Her tone was cheery but there was deep concern in her smile. She had the homely appearance of a solidly built innkeeper or cook, hearty rather than dumpy, with a frazzle of brown hair, not yet showing any gray despite her sixty-odd years. Mother Laswell found that her mind was growing easier now that she wasn’t alone, her step more sure as they climbed the last flight of stairs and entered Mabel’s quarters. The two of them, both with considerable powers, would see to this together, and would prevail.

A long row of windows in the surprisingly large room looked down onto Fenchurch Street, the casements standing open, letting in air and sunlight both, just as Mabel had promised. There were books in age-darkened bookcases against the walls and more books and manuscripts heaped on the floor. A long, low cabinet stood against one wall, with turned legs and a medieval scene painted in the arts-and-crafts style on the four hinged doors. A pitcher and basin sat atop it.

As she sipped her shandy Mother Laswell studied a framed photograph of Mabel’s dead husband. He wore a morning coat and looked quite young and distinguished, despite his eyes being crossed on account of holding still for the photograph. He had been dead these ten years past. Mother Laswell had always been a little jealous of Mabel and the luck she’d had finding a husband who wasn’t some variety of husk. Now he was simply another memory hung on the wall, all things having the sad habit of passing away.

She thought of Bill Kraken again and realized that she wanted his company badly. She had been a fool to come into London alone. It was a sin to be always doing for others but not letting others do for her – a kind of betrayal, a pig-headed pride dressed up like a saint, useful for self-deception but not much else.

Mabel pulled open a curtain, revealing a dim, closeted space in one corner of the room, its opposite walls affixed with long mirrors in plain, dark frames. The third wall of the small room had a candle sconce hung above a small, oak wardrobe cabinet, the doors carved with the image of a face peering out from a cluster of leaves. On top of the cabinet sat a crystal ball on a copper ring, and next to that a barometer. There were two chairs at a square table, one covered in satin that was woven with stars and symbols, the other plain. Small spring-clamps were affixed to the four corners of the tabletop. The room was otherwise unadorned, no frippery at all. Mabel Morningstar was a purely practical woman when it came to the magical arts.

She opened the wardrobe and drew out a roll of heavy vellum from among other rolls, which she spread out on the tabletop, clamping the corners into place. Painted on it was a detailed street-map of London, stretching from Notting Hill Gate to the East India Dock, the more outlying streets and neighborhoods being slightly too distant for her inner sight to penetrate. Objects in the river, corpses included, had always been hidden from Mabel unless she possessed some fragment of the missing thing – a lock of hair, say, if the lost object were a human being. Sometimes a kerchief or a cap would do. Although she could easily have swindled anxious customers by overstating the distance that her mind could range over the city, she despised the idea of giving people false hopes.

There seemed to Mother Laswell to be an almost frightening intensity in the atmosphere of the room,