Beastly Bones

  He put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Stay quiet, but there is something outside the cabin.”

  My thoughts tripped and tumbled, and then clumsily righted themselves. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Jackaby’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, pulling his bulky coat over his pajamas. “You’re certain it’s still out there?” my employer asked in a whisper.

  “My hearing is still very good, Mr. Jackaby.” Charlie peered out of the bedroom window into the blackness of the forest.

  “What is out there?” I said.

  “That is what we intend to find out.” Jackaby pulled the knit cap over his mess of dark hair and stuffed his bare feet into his shoes. “Stay here until we return.”

  I shook the last of the fog from my brain. “Well, you already know that isn’t going to happen.” I was out of bed with my own coat wrapped over my nightgown before the men could leave without me.

  The three of us tiptoed to the corner of the cabin. Charlie took the lead, silently peering into the darkness. The surrounding wilderness was louder than I would have imagined. I strained to hear anything out of the ordinary, but the clamor of chirping insects and rustling leaves made it hard to focus. The forest itself seemed to drone on in a perpetual low murmur. Charlie held a hand up, and my employer and I froze. Tentatively, he leaned his head around the corner. I could hear it now, just the faintest crackling of leaves. Footsteps. Something was around the corner. Impossibly close—impossibly large.

  “Mr. Hudson?” said Charlie.

  The trapper stomped into sight, the wide barrel of his rifle dipping to the ground. “Shh.” He held a finger to his bristly mustache and glanced behind him into the woods. “What in the Sam Hill are you folks doin’ out here in the middle of the night?”

  “This is my cabin,” said Charlie. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

  Hank looked left and right into the surrounding forest. “Trackin’. Been followin’ trails all night. There’s somethin’ big in the valley for sure, and not just an old bony fake. The prints get pretty thick around here. I lost a good one just outside your place. You seen anything?”

  I held my breath. Charlie shook his head. The trapper nodded slowly and shifted his rifle to his shoulder. “Well, sorry if I woke ya. Guess I’d best be headed back, anyway. Y’all be careful. No tellin’ what’s lurkin’ in the deep dark woods.”

  “What sort of footprints have you been tracking, Hudson?” asked Jackaby. He was peering into the trees toward the road.

  “Dunno. Sharp claws. Real big. Why? You spot somethin’ with them fancy eyes of yours?”

  “No. Possibly no. Although . . . Can any of you see a faint metaphysical incandescence radiating just beyond that maple tree?”

  “Of course we can’t, Mr. Jackaby,” I said. “Could you describe it?”

  “I would say it’s fifty or sixty feet tall, stout trunk. Still largely bare, although I imagine the spring buds are probably beginning to . . .”

  “Not the maple, sir.”

  “Ah, yes. The aura is faint—shrouded or possibly just residual. It’s terribly familiar. Sort of a . . . how to explain the color . . . sort of a lumpy bluish with a hint of peril. No, that’s not quite right. It isn’t really blue at all, is it?”

  Three sets of eyes blinked at my employer.

  “Oh, never mind.”

  “I got my wagon over that way,” offered Hank. “Yer probably just pickin’ up on leftover Rosie feathers.”

  Jackaby looked his friend up and down in the dark. He picked a speck from the man’s fur cuff and nodded. “Yes, you’re probably right. You have something of the same color about you.”

  “Hah! Anyone else told me I was ‘lumpy with a bit of peril,’ I might take it as an insult,” said Hudson. “Well, y’all have a good night. Sorry I woke you, but do watch yerselves out here.”

  We nodded and said our good-byes, and the trapper was on his way. When we were inside, I planted myself in front of Charlie. “You see? I should have expected he would find his way here. You really must be careful.”

  “I have been careful, Miss Rook. If the tracks he’s following are mine, they’re not recent. Besides, I’m sure you are worrying over nothing. Mr. Hudson is a personal friend of Mr. Jackaby’s, is he not? If he were to uncover the truth of my . . . my family history, he seems like the sort of man that would remain discreet, don’t you think, Detective?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes—Hudson can be quite circumspect.”

  Charlie looked back to me. “I appreciate your concern, and I would certainly prefer that my little secret remain a private one, but I don’t think I need to be afraid of Mr. Hudson.”

  “I wouldn’t go quite so far as that,” Jackaby said, hanging his coat and hat by the door. “Hudson is a remarkable man, and a valued associate, but he and I don’t exactly share the same philosophies on sentient freedoms.”

  “Come again?” I said.

  “He had a fish for many years, lovely golden thing he called Jinny. It could speak, when it raised its head above water. It had a surprisingly deep voice for such a little thing, although it spoke only Mandarin Chinese. Hudson copied down the little creature’s words phonetically and took his notes to a few shop owners in the Chinese district, claiming the words were from an old book or some such. He determined that the fish was called Jinyu—hence the name Jinny—and it was offering to grant him any wish he might desire. It could turn his hovel into a palace, or transform every brick into solid gold.”

  “I heard a story like that in Romania once,” said Charlie, “only the fish offered the old man three wishes.”

  “Yes, the golden fish is a timeless folktale in many traditions. Invariably, the fisherman asks for too much and learns some trite lesson about greed or compassion.”

  “What did Mr. Hudson wish for?”

  “Nothing. He just kept the thing in an oversized aquarium until the day it died.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Not that he mistreated the creature. Scarcely any other fish in all the world could have claimed a better master—although I suppose scarcely any other fish in all the world could have claimed anything at all, which is why he wanted it in the first place. I cannot speak Chinese, but the thing looked content enough whenever I saw it. I did find it rather morbid when he had the body mounted after Jinny passed away, but I suppose the fish wasn’t using it any longer, and we all deal with mortality in our own ways.”

  Charlie blanched. “He had it mounted?”

  “He likes a rare breed,” said Jackaby.

  “It might not hurt to err on the side of caution,” Charlie conceded. I nodded my agreement. “On the subject of keeping secrets,” he continued, “have you made any progress on our ulterior investigation?”

  Jackaby shook his head. “Mrs. Brisbee’s killer seems to have left very little for us to find. The body in the morgue was several days cold—as is our trail.”

  “Body in the morgue?”

  “Denson,” said Jackaby. “I have his tooth.”

  “Oh,” said Charlie. “Is that . . . helpful?”

  “Not enough. I’m tired of chasing shadows. I would be back in New Fiddleham pursuing more prominent leads already, but there’s something we’re missing here—and not knowing what is driving me mad. Before we’re through, I intend to know precisely what’s really lurking in the deep dark woods.”

  Jackaby let the thought hang in the air for a moment before bidding us a curt good night and vanishing into his room.

  For the rest of the night, my ears pricked at the slightest noises from the forest outside my window. I longed for the hum of city life, the occasional clatter of hooves on cobblestones or drunken singing as the pubs closed for the evening, but instead my mind made monsters out of every chirp and rustle. I had to keep telling myself that nothing nefarious was taking place in the shadows beyond my curtains—a deeply inaccurate sentiment, I would come to learn, but one that brought me what little rest I could find.

  Chapter T
wenty-Four

  A knock on the door roused me from a fitful dream about claws and cages. “Time is wasting, Miss Rook,” Jackaby announced as I pried open my eyes. The bright daylight was pressing unsympathetically into the bedroom. “There has been a disturbing new development. Charlie is already away.”

  I sat up abruptly, then swayed as the blood caught up to my head. “What sort of development—the bones? Have they found the missing tooth?”

  “Better yet—they’ve found Brisbee’s kid.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “With all due respect, sir, your priorities are a curious mess. Please tell me that Charlie Barker did not seriously rush off at the crack of dawn just to bring a lost goat back to Brisbee’s farm.”

  “I’m not sure if he intends to bring it back, but I imagine he’s rather interested in taking a look at what’s left of it, and to see if he can find any useful clues amid the blood and debris.”

  I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth.

  “I’m rather keen to have a look myself,” continued Jackaby, “but I promised Mr. Barker not to leave you behind, what with the grisly nature of the mess. Come on, then. Bright new day and all that!”

  I dressed quickly, and we reached the clearing in ten or fifteen minutes. It was back from the road by about half a mile, not far from the Brisbee farmhouse. How anyone could tell that the thing had ever been a baby goat was beyond me. Scraps of hide and hair were tossed all around the clearing, and the trees were splattered with dark droplets. Flies had begun to collect in busy swarms around the larger pieces. The image of a cozy huddle of cuddly kids hung in my mind, and the notion that this mess had once been one of them made my head swim.

  “My word,” I breathed. “What happened to the poor thing?”

  Charlie was picking his way around the edges of the gore. He glanced up as we arrived, looking a bit chagrined to see me approach the morbid scene. I was half expecting him to insist that I wait by the road, but he said nothing of the sort. Instead, he just looked from one end of the carnage to the other and shook his head. “Mr. Brisbee found it this morning. He seemed pretty shaken up about it.”

  I couldn’t blame Brisbee. I felt a little woozy myself.

  “Reasonable enough. Find anything of interest so far?” Jackaby asked. The policeman nodded to a tree toward the middle of the mess.

  “Whatever did this is strong. The marks are only a few feet off the ground, but they’re half an inch deep in the tree bark. Could be teeth or talons. It’s hard to tell.” Jackaby knelt beside the tree and examined a series of gashes in the trunk. He snapped off a shredded piece of bark and tucked the splinter into the recesses of his coat.

  “I can’t say I love what you’ve done with the place, darlings,” Nellie Fuller trilled as she trod into the bloody grove, her tripod swung over one shoulder of a slick checkered coat. “Far too much red for my taste—but I must applaud you for going bold. Oh Lord, there are even bits in the branches over there! Goodness! How marvelously grisly.”

  Jackaby and I exchanged glances. Charlie was watching the woman skeptically as she began to situate her camera. “Good morning, Miss Fuller,” Charlie said. “You seem very . . . positive this morning.”

  “Sanguine, even,” added Jackaby.

  “Are you kidding?” She held out her hands, framing a rectangle with her fingers. “Giant bones in the hills, scary monsters in the woods”—she peered through her imaginary photograph directly at me—“and a beautiful young lady right in the middle of it all.” She let her hands drop and looked at me earnestly. “Say, are you all right, sweetie?”

  “Of course I’m all right,” I said in what I hoped was a convincing tone. “I’m great, remember?”

  “That’s my girl. With your poise and my prose, we’ll make every paper from here to Oregon!”

  “I’m really not sure this is the sort of thing people will want to see . . . ,” I began.

  “Abbie, darling, do you have any idea how many newspapers Jack the Ripper has sold in the past five years? The masses love a gruesome mutilation. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll have nightmares for a week—ick—but this is gold! You don’t mind a few quick photographs, do you?”

  I glanced back to Jackaby. “It’s fine,” he answered, “as long as she keeps her distance and doesn’t interfere. Make sure she doesn’t go touching all the evidence.”

  “Make sure she doesn’t go touching the scraps of blood and gore that used to be a sweet little baby goat?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Jackaby frankly. “That.”

  “I think I can resist the temptation, Detective,” Nellie called. “Is your boss always so sentimental when he’s working?”

  “Oh, he cares very much,” I said. “He just doesn’t show it with—you know—emotions.”

  “They’re overrated, anyway.” Nellie clicked open the legs of the tripod and nestled it into the mossy soil.

  “What’s that, Mr. Barker?” Jackaby was saying. I turned to look.

  Charlie held out a little handful of what looked like honey-colored hairs. “I’m not entirely sure. What do you make of them?” Jackaby took them and held them up to the light.

  “Fur. Not goat. Not bear or wolf. Maybe wildcat?” Jackaby pinched them between his fingers and squinted at them. “Wait a moment,” he said. “There are two different materials here. I would wager the first is from whatever beast took apart Brisbee’s goat—but the other’s not fur at all. Fibers of some sort.”

  I looked around where Charlie had found the samples. A shallow line had been rubbed near the base of the tree. “From a length of twine or rope?” I suggested.

  Charlie followed my gaze and leaned closer to inspect it. “There are more fibers dug into the bark. She’s right. Do you think the goat was tied here?”

  “An offering?” Jackaby speculated.

  Charlie shrugged.

  “Very traditional choice, a goat,” my employer mused. “Downright biblical. Wrong time of year for it, though. Historically the sacrifice of the scapegoat is a fall tradition.”

  “Is it possible,” I suggested, “that the kid was less of a ritual sacrifice and more of a baited trap?” Charlie and Jackaby both looked up at me. “Because I happen to know a man who’s pretty good at traps and who was definitely out and about in these woods last night.” I could tell my theory was not a bit too wild for either of them.

  “Smile for the camera!” Nellie sang out.

  Charlie looked away as the grisly grove filled with a burst of white light. “Okay, give me a moment and we’ll take another just to be sure.” Nellie smiled blithely as she pulled the plate out of the camera, tucking it into a slim tin case and clicking it shut. She hummed to herself as she carefully popped the cork from a little silver tube of flash powder and began to reload the lamp.

  Hank Hudson did not look the least bit put out by my suggestion that the baby goat had been part of a trap, when we intercepted his cart on the road a few minutes later. “I like the way you think, little lady!” he said. “Was it a real healthy tree, good bend to it?”

  “I don’t know—I suppose so.” I hadn’t been quite sure what to expect from the trapper, but he seemed oddly enthusiastic about the notion as he climbed down from the cart and trekked with us back to the site of the slaughter.

  “How high up was the rope you found?”

  “Not high at all,” I replied. “Just off the ground.”

  “Hmm, well, that ain’t no snare trap, then.”

  We reached the scene, and Hudson grimaced at the remains. “Somebody’s a messy eater. Told y’all to watch yerselves out here.”

  He paused and regarded Charlie thoughtfully for just a moment, but then turned his attention to the claw marks. “Let’s see. Could be a young bear, markin’ territory. They’ll do that, tear the bark off a tree.” He knelt by the gouges in the trunk. “Awfully low for a bear, though.”

  “What’s that up there?” Charlie asked, pointing.

  Hank glanced up the trunk. “Looks like a knothole. Mayb
e a bird’s nest in there. Probably nothin’. I’ll give ya a boost if ya wanna shimmy on up an’ have a look, though.” The policeman looked a little wary, but he accepted the trapper’s help in reaching up to the first branch. He pulled himself up and scrabbled for a decent footing to inspect the hole.

  Hank stooped down and rubbed a finger across the marks in the bark.

  “What do you make of them?” Jackaby asked. “Have you seen anything like them before?”

  “Three talons. Looks a lot like the marks Rosie leaves . . .” He trailed off.

  “And like the tracks we saw up at the farmhouse,” I added. I could tell the trapper had come to the same thought. “Smaller, but just like them.”

  “Them tracks up at Brisbee’s were definitely fakes, though.” Hudson turned to Jackaby. “Unless you know somethin’ I don’t know.”

  “The ones up at Brisbee’s were,” Jackaby said. He had a twinkle in his eye. “These ones, though . . .” He shook his head. “No. No, they can’t be dragon tracks. That would be something to see, but dragons have been extinct for thousands of years. Even in biblical times they were highly endangered, which is why they are mentioned so infrequently in the scripture. Something living left these.”

  “There’s dragons in the Bible?”

  “Really, Hudson? Some of the best verses have dragons. Isaiah has a few particularly vivid passages about divine fury. Not just dragons, either. It goes on about unicorns and satyrs and something else . . . owls, I think.”

  “I shoulda gone ta Sunday school more when I was a kid,” said Hudson.

  “You said there were some smaller dragons alive today,” I said.

  “Yes, fine,” Jackaby said. “A few rare Eastern varieties exist, but they’re scarcely large enough to menace a muskrat. Certainly nothing big enough to do all this.” The conviction drained out of his voice as he eyed the claw marks.

  “You see something, don’t you, sir?” I asked.

  My employer only scowled. If he intended to answer, his response was cut off by a burst of motion above us, accompanied by the frantic flapping of wings and the snap of breaking branches. Charlie tumbled down, his fingers scrabbling to find purchase. On the last branch, his legs caught hold, and he swiveled abruptly, hanging upside down from the branch like a bat, his uniform flopping over his head. Above him, a brown-and-white owl gave out a shrill screech and fluttered off into the forest.