Goblin Moon (44 page)

Dawn was staining the eastern sky when Jenk and Caleb
left the tomb and trudged wearily toward the bookshop. A fog rolled
in from the river, and the two old men shivered in the early
morning chill.

“Guess we can try again at the full moon,” Caleb
said. “Pay Matthias and Walther to help us cart the coffin up to
the boneyard on Fishwife Hill. I told you it weren’t likely to do
no good, your spells and conjurations, without we had the corpse
along with us at the time.”

“Yes, you warned me,” said Jenk, in a hard, bitter
voice. “You were on hand to nay-say me on this occasion, as indeed
on so many others.”

Caleb, startled, turned to look at him. “Here, now,
you ain’t blaming
me?
It weren’t no way my
fault your spells was too weak.”

“Was it not?” said Jenk. “But I think it was. You
with your reluctance and your disbelief, draining the spells of
their power. I am determined to try again when the moon is full,
but without your assistance, Caleb—without your interference.”

They continued on to the bookshop, each entertaining
his own angry thoughts. The street lamps were burning low by the
time they arrived at the door, and Jenk spent several minutes
fumbling about in the misty darkness before he was able to fit the
key in the lock.

As soon as they entered the shop, they both knew that
something was wrong. A thumping and a banging and a high-pitched
wailing issued from the room at the back.

“
I
knowed
she’d come to some harm, we kept leaving her alone in
that box!” exclaimed Caleb, rushing heedlessly into the darkened
shop and crashing into a bookshelf along the way. Recovering, he
felt his way to the laboratory door, where he rattled the lock and
shook the door in a helpless rage until Jenk, following more
cautiously, produced the key.

The door opened on a scene of destruction. Rather
than leave Eirena totally in the dark, Caleb had left a burning oil
lamp hanging from a beam in the ceiling. The oil was nearly gone,
the flame growing dim, but it provided enough illumination for the
two old men to see the broken flasks and vials scattered across the
table, the overturned vats, the chaos of bent copper tubing, the
sand and the water poured out upon the floor—and the staggering
figure of a man wreaking havoc in all directions as he groped
blindly about the laboratory, knocking over the equipment and
clawing at his face in a panicked attempt to tear the stitches from
his eyes.

Eirena’s box lay open on the floor, and the tiny
creature ran frantically around the room, in her efforts to avoid
being stepped on. At the sight of Caleb, she flung herself at his
leg, wailing and scratching, trying to climb up into the safety of
his arms.

Caleb reached down and snatched her up, cradling her
protectively against his chest, and heading out of the room as fast
as he could go. Jenk was only a step behind him, slamming the door
shut and throwing his body against it.

“Guess we done better than we thought,” Caleb said,
in a shaken voice. “But what—what do you reckon we ought to do
now?”

“I believe the choice is clear,” said Jenk. He tried
to speak firmly but his voice wavered. “We must either calm him—and
convince him to allow us to cut the stitches from his eyes—or else
find a wooden stake and drive it through his heart!”

Chapter
38

Which the Reader may Choose to regard as the Calm
before the Storm.

With typical generosity, the Duchess insisted that
she, and she alone, should provide costumes for Elsie and Sera.
“The Wichtelberg lumber rooms contain any number of chests and
boxes filled with old gowns and cloaks and wigs. And there is a
clever little seamstress down in Pfalz who shall come up and see to
the alterations.”

Accordingly, Sera and Elsie followed their hostess up
a narrow, twisting flight to the attics. As Marella had promised,
there were trunks and wardrobes and boxes all stuffed full of
ancient clothing, most of it still in excellent condition. And
besides hundreds of old garments there were the accessories: shoes
with rhinestone buckles; kidskin gloves scented with civet and
ambergis; amazing hats, hoods, and veils; vials of gold and silver
dust—“An invention of the dwarves, I believe,” said the Duchess—“to
be worn on the hair instead of powder.”

They found also a number of masks, some quite
elaborate, others very plain. “We used to wear these black velvet
masks whenever we ventured out of the house,” said the Duchess.
“Oh, yes, I assure you, it wasn’t thought decent for a well-born
woman to appear in public without her mask, though the gowns we
wore were often rather daring, and our shoulders and bosoms were
shockingly bare, however we covered our faces.”

There was a lovely old gown of white brocade that
seemed just right for Elsie.
(Of course,
thought Sera,
it would be white. It is always
white for Elsie!)
“With the ���diamond’ stomacher and the
rhinestone buckles,” said the Duchess, “and the spangled scarf, it
will do very well for—Well, I’m not yet certain, but something
allegorical.”

For Sera, she found an old court costume of
midnight-blue velvet, with slashed sleeves, a jeweled bodice, and
an underskirt of bronze-colored satin.
(And of
course,
thought Sera,
it is something as
dark as sin for me! )
“Lady Nemesis, the daughter of Night,”
said the Duchess. “I know just what is needed to complete the
effect.”

They went down to the Duchess’s bedchamber to try on
the gowns, and the little seamstress came, too, to pin them into
the dresses as needed, and make note of the necessary alterations.
But the Duchess would not allow the girls to look into a mirror.
“You must not see yourselves in these dresses before the night of
the ball, and then you will receive a delightful surprise.”

Elsie looked sweet and pretty in her white brocade.
And in the sunlit bedchamber, Sera realized that her own deep blue
velvet was not so dark and ugly as she had feared. But the gown was
obviously one of the daring ones, with a low, square neckline that
put Sera to the blush.

“It does rather
gape,”
said
the Duchess, “but that may be easily fixed. It is nothing to take a
gown
in.”

“I think that it rather suits you,” said Elsie.

“But naturally it suits her,” the Duchess exclaimed,
“Sera is a young woman with a great deal of presence, and she
carries these darker colors very well. Another girl would only look
insipid.”

Then she laughed at Sera’s expression of surprise.
“Yes, I know, you wish to dress like the other young ladies, and
that is perfectly natural. And it does not help that Clothilde’s
gowns lack even a particle of style. But really, Sera, pastel
satins are not for you. This dress is absolutely ravishing.”

This was a new thought—one that had never occurred to
Sera before—that she might look anything but hideous in her
made-over gowns. She looked from Elsie to the Duchess a little
warily, wondering if they were teasing.

But Elsie smiled and shook her head, saying with some
of the old warmth in her voice, “Dear Sera, I have tried to
convince you of this before. You always look so dramatic in Mama’s
old gowns. Like a princess in disguise!”

It was the fortieth day of the season of gathering,
and in the counting-house at Master Ule’s it was the usual hustle
and bustle of letters to be written and accounts to be rendered
before the turn of the season.

“Mr. Braun,” said a voice at Jedidiah’s elbow. Jed
looked up from his ledgers to find one of the journeyman
glassblowers standing by his desk. “Mr. Braun, that lot of crystal
flasks as the gentleman ordered from Vien, it don’t look like we’ll
finish in time to ship them out. That last load of barilla, the
salts was very poor.”

“Aye, very well,” sighed Jed. “A letter to the
gentleman in Vien, begging his indulgence, and a stiff note to the
merchant who sent the glasswort. I’ll see to them both, first thing
in the morning. “

“Mr. Braun,” said the boy who swept up the offices,
“you’re wanted in the warehouse.”

Jed pushed back his chair, reached into his waistcoat
pocket, and pulled out his watch. It still lacked an hour ‘til four
o’clock, he noted with relief; he might yet make it in time for tea
at the bookshop with Uncle Caleb.

“My dear Jedidiah, I thought I had given you the
afternoon off,” said Master Ule, when Jed returned to his desk.

“Guess I haven’t had time,” said Jed. “I’ll just tot
up these figures and—“

“You will do nothing of the kind,” said Master Ule.
“You are a conscientious lad, but you are working much too hard. A
pleasant visit with your granduncle is precisely what you
need.”

Jed nodded glumly. “Guess it won’t be so pleasant as
all that. Uncle Caleb hardly makes me feel welcome anymore. And him
and Mr. Jenk, they’re both so queer and . . . and skittish, I don’t
exactly know what to make of it.”

“I do not wish to pry,” said Master Ule.
“Particularly knowing that interference from this particular
quarter might prove unwelcome . . . but Jedidiah, I hope you know
that if you should ever require any
assistance
or advice, Mr. Owlfeather and I are
entirely at your service.”

“Aye.” Jed reached for his hat and jammed it on his
head. “I know that well enough. But I reckon this is something I’ve
got to handle on my own.”

The bookshop was locked and shuttered, but Caleb came
down to admit Jed, then locked and bolted the door again.

“Thought you wasn’t coming,” said Caleb, as he
hobbled up the steps, lighting the way with the stub of a candle.
“Mayhap that would of been best; I don’t feel much like company,
and that’s the solemn truth.”

“
I’ll
make the tea,” said Jed. “I’ll set the table.
And I brought gingerbread and a pork pie. You don’t have to do
anything, just tell me how you been.”

Caleb pushed open the door at the top of the steps.
“I been tired. Not surprising, for a man of my years.” He limped
over to a chair in the little sitting room and sat down heavily.
“But I do well enough. I do well enough. You ain’t got no cause for
concern.”

Jed looked around him. The room had recently been
tidied—rather surprising with Sera out of town and Caleb looking so
peaked. And Gottfried Jenk had never been fastidious; he was always
too absorbed in his books and his musty old documents to pay any
heed to mundane things like dust and dirty dishes. “Where
is
Mr. Jenk? Seems he’s generally out,
these evenings when I come around.”

“He’s took to his bed,” said Caleb, shifting his eyes
in an odd sort of way. “No, you can’t look in on him—he don’t want
no visitors. Likely he’s sleeping, anyways.”

Jed filled the teakettle and hung it over the fire.
Then he took a seat opposite his granduncle. “Just how long has Mr.
Jenk been ill?”

Caleb shrugged. “Must be five or six days now. I
don’t rightly remember. And don’t you go for to tell me I ought to
of sent for a doctor—there ain’t no doctor yet come up with a cure
for old age, and I reckon that’s all that it is.”

“If it’s the doctor’s fee you’re worried about, I
guess I could help out,” Jed offered.

Caleb reacted with surprising vehemence. “High and
mighty, high and mighty! You think you’re such a swell—tell the old
folks how to go on, and throw your money about. But we don’t want
no interference from you, old Gottfried Jenk and me, nor yet none
of your charity!”

He glared at Jed resentfully. “No, and there ain’t no
need for you to keep coming around, neither, with your fancy new
clothes and your high-toned ways! You got new friends, a decent
job, why should you bother with us at all?”

Jed heaved a sigh. He had thought it might be
something like this, the cause of Uncle Caleb’s growing coldness.
“So that’s it; you think I’m getting above myself. I could—I could
quit my job,” he said wearily. “If that’s the thing that’s come
between us.”

“Now, now,” said Caleb, shaking his head, softening
considerably. “There ain’t no call to talk like that. I’m pleased
to see how well you done for yourself. But—but the fact is, lad,
your old Uncle Caleb, he’s got no place in this new life of yours.
You’re a rising man, you’re—“

Jed felt a hard lump forming in his throat. “If I’ve
worked hard to raise myself,” he said, “I always intended to raise
you up with me. Do you think it was all done for my own
gratification? You took care of me when I was small, and now it’s
my turn—nay, it’s my pleasure and my privilege—to do for you.”

“You can’t raise me up,” said Caleb. “Truth is, I’m
much more likely to bring you down. Fact is, I ain’t no credit to
you.”

“It’s not a fact,” said Jed. “It’s not anything like
a fact.” He pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. “I have no
cause to be ashamed of you. You’ve some education, and you know how
to go on in polite company. Weren’t you once a footman in the house
of a jarl?”

“I used to know how to go on,” said Caleb, tugging
meditatively at his pigtail. “Used to be, I could talk near as good
as you do now, but that were a long time ago. I been down too long,
and it’s the solemn truth: I just ain’t got the strength to climb
up again.

“But you . . .” The old man smiled at the
recollection. “You was always the bright one. Yes, and you had all
them good instincts, too:
‘the sensibilities of
a gentleman’,
that’s what Gottfried Jenk once told me, and I
never forget it, neither.”

Caleb heaved a mighty sigh. “I know I was inclined to
be rough on you,” he said. “Acted like I wasn’t pleased when you
read your books and learned your lessons; told you it weren’t your
place to be so particular about where the money come from or what
we had to do to get it; wanted to toughen you up, as I reckoned it
wouldn’t do you no good to be so finicking, the life you was going
to lead. But now it turns out . . . you had the right of it all
along: you was fated to be a gentleman from the day you was
born.