At seven o’clock, some unseen, stentorian timepiece tolled the hour. Lindsome, who had elected to spend the rest of the afternoon in the library in a fort constructed from the oldest, fattest, dullest (and surely therefore safest) books she could find, reluctantly emerged to search for the dining room.
The murmur of voices and clink of silverware guided her steps into a room on the first floor nearly large enough to be a proper banquet hall. Only the far end of the long table, near the wall abutting the kitchen, was occupied. A fire on the wall’s hearth cast the head of the table in shadow while illuminating Chaswick’s disdain.
“You are late,” Chaswick said. “Don’t you know what they say about first impressions?”
Lindsome slunk across the floor. “I’m sorry, Mister Chaswick.”
From the shadows of a wingback chair, the master of the house leaned forward. “No matter,” said Dr. Dandridge. “Good evening. I am Professor Albion Edgarton Dandridge. Our meeting is well. Please pardon me for not arising; I’m an old man, and my bones grow reluctant, even at the welcome sight of a face so fresh and kind as yours.”
Lindsome had not expected this. “I … thank you, sir.”
“Uncle Albion will do. Come, sit, sit.”
Opposite Chaswick, Lindsome pulled out her own massive chair with some difficulty, working it over the threadbare carpet in small scoots. “Thank you, sir. Our meeting is well.”
Chaswick snorted. “Mind her, Doctor. She’s got a streak in her.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Comes from my side.” The old man smiled at her. His teeth were surprisingly intact. “Are you making yourself at home, my dear?”
Lindsome served herself a ladle full of shapeless brown stew. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t mumble,” said Chaswick, picking debris from his teeth with his fingernails. “It’s uncouth.”
“I am delighted that you’re staying with us,” continued Dr. Dandridge. Outside of the nightmarish basement, he looked ordinary and gentle. His halo of hair, Lindsome now saw, wandered off his head into a pair of bedraggled dundrearies, and the fine wrinkles around his eyes made him look kind. His clothes were dusty and ill-fitting, tailored for a more robust man at least thirty years his junior. She could not imagine a less threatening person.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Uncle. I am dear old Uncle—” Dr. Dandridge coughed, a dry, wheezing sound and put an embroidered handkerchief to his mouth. Chaswick nudged the old man’s water glass closer. “Albion,” he managed, taking a sip from the glass. “Thank you, Chaswick.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“And how is your papa?”
Lindsome did not want to think of him, arm in arm with Mama, strolling up the pier to the great boat and laughing, his long legs wavering under a film of tears. “He is very well, thank you.”
“Excellent, excellent. And your mama?”
“Also well.”
“Good, good.” The doctor nibbled at his stew, apparently unfazed by its utter lack of flavor. “I trust that the staff have been kind, and have answered all of your questions.”
“Well …” Lindsome started, but Chaswick shot her a dangerous look. Lindsome fell silent.
“Yes?” asked Dr. Dandridge, focused on teasing apart a gravy-smothered nodule.
“I was wondering …” dared Lindsome, but Chaswick’s face sharpened into a scowl. “… about your work.”
“Oh!” said Dr. Dandridge. His efforts on the nodule of stew redoubled. “My work. My great work! You are right to ask, young lady. It is always pleasing to hear that the youth of today have an interest in science. Young people are our future, you know.”
“I—”
“The work, of course, builds on the fundamentals of Wittard and Blacke from the ’30s, going beyond the Skin Stitch and into the essential vital nodes. But unlike Havarttgartt and his school (and here’s the key, now), we don’t hold that the heart, brain, and genitals, aka the Life Triad, are the necessary fulcrums. We hold — that is, I hold — that is, Chaswick agrees, and he’s a very smart lad—we hold that a diversified architecture of fulcrums is key to extending the ambulatory period of a vivified, and we have extensive data to back this hypothesis, to the extent where we’ve produced a curve — a Dandridge curve, I call it, if I may be so modest, ha-ha — that illustrates the correlation between the number of fulcrums and hours of ambulatory function, and clearly demonstrates that while quality of fulcrums does indeed play a role, it is not nearly so prominent as the role of quantity. Or, in layman’s terms, if you stitch a soul silly to a corpse at every major mechanical joint — ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists — you’ll still get a far better outcome than you would had you used a Butterfly Stitch to the heart itself! Can you imagine?”
Lost, Lindsome stared at her plate. She could feel Chaswick’s smug gaze upon her, the awful look that grown-ups use when they want to say, Not so smart now, are you?
“And furthermore,” Dr. Dandridge went on gaily, setting down his fork and withdrawing a different utensil from his pocket with which to attack his clump of stew, “we have discovered a hitherto unknown role of the Life Triad in host plasticity, which also beautifully solves the mystery of how a very small soul, like that of a mouse, can successfully be stitched to a very large flesh mass, like that of a cow, and vice-versa. Did Chaswick explain to you about our chimeras? The dogs with souls of finches, and the blackbirds with the souls of chipmunks, and in one exceptional case, the little red fox with the soul of a prize-winning hog? Goodness, was I proud of that one!” The old man laughed.
Lindsome smiled weakly.
“It is upon the brain, you see, not the heart,” Dr. Dandrige went on, “that the configuration, amount, and type of stitches are key, because — and this is already well known in the higher animals — a great deal of soul is enfleshed in the brain. You may think of the brain as a tiny little seed that floats in the center of every skull, but not so! When an animal is alive, the brain takes up the entire skull cavity. Can you imagine? Of course, the higher the animal, the more the overall corpse shrinks at the moment of death, aka soul separation, due to the soul composing a greater percentage of the creature. This is why Humankind (with its large and complex souls) leaves no deathhusk, or corpse, at all — nothing but a film of ghostgrease. Which, incidentally, popular doggerel will tell you is absent from the deathbeds of holy people, being that they are so very above their animal natures and are 100 percent ethereal, but goodness, don’t get me started about all that ugsome rot.”
Dr. Dandridge stopped. He frowned at his plate. “Good grief. What am I doing?”
“A Clatham Stitch, looks like,” said Chaswick gently. “On your beef stew.”
“Heavens!” Dr. Dandridge put down his utensil, which Lindsome could now see was an aetherhook. He removed what looked like a monocle made of cobalt glass from a breast pocket, then peered through it at his plate. “There weren’t any souls passing by just now, were there? The leycurrents are strong here in the early winter, dear Lindsome, and sometimes the departed souls of lesser creatures will blow into the house if we have the windows open. And when that happens—”
The lump of beef quivered. Lindsome dropped her fork and clapped a hand to her mouth.
From beneath the stew crawled a beetle, looking very put out.
Dr. Dandridge and Chaswick burst into guffaws. “A beetle!” cried the old man. “A beetle in the stew! Oh, that is precious, too precious for words! Oh, how funny!”