Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [114]
I tried to picture the chapel as I had last seen it, dripping in oil and burning brightly. Fern’s death in the flames, the grotesque remains of my hound –
these things I relive almost every night. How strange it was, then, to be back in a place now more familiar to me as a location in my mind than one in reality.
I placed myself where I remember standing as the grotesque drama played towards its conclusion and, as I looked to the corner where Fern had been engulfed, I saw that a patch of sooty darkness remained. I am not sure if an unsuccessful attempt had already been made to paint over this reminder of the fire, or if it were one of many little jobs still left to be tackled. In any event, I felt drawn to that area – not quite as mindlessly as my past behaviour in the chapel, I should stress, yet still with a sense of compulsion I could not entirely combat.
Almost immediately I noticed something gleaming, wedged into a crack where floor met wall, seemingly in the heart of the still visible black stain. I thought at first it was a coin, though what light was making it shine so I could not establish. As I moved closer I saw that it was not round; closer still and I saw that it was a tooth.
I bent down to look at it, reaching for it with nervous fingers.
As I brought it before my eyes I felt a thrilling warmth spread through my body, as inexplicable and puzzling as those more sombre feelings that I 212
associated with Mausolus.
I held the tooth up to the light. It was a canine, its graceful arc hinting at a bestial purpose. It was much too large to be human.
I turned it over, again and again, in my hand. Perhaps as a side effect of the flames it had taken on a metallic hue, as if it had been dipped in liquid silver and given a protective coating. I knew that the fire that claimed Fern and my dear Grant had somehow accelerated to unbelievable temperatures, consuming them both utterly and leaving next to nothing behind.
Could this be the only thing that had survived, the only remains left of my dearly departed hound?
I look around, almost guiltily. Why had this not been spotted before?
Perhaps it had, and had been dismissed as trivial. Only I would see importance in such a scrap, such a tiny part of a once great and noble creature.
I was unsure, though, whether I desired a reminder of my own brush with madness – a reminder of the mortality of all things.
But I could not bring myself to merely dispose of the tooth. The enticing warmth I felt, whenever I touched it, had me mesmerised.
Yes, I would keep it. Indeed, in my new spirit of redeeming the old and the bad, I would make something fresh with it.
I hope to take the tooth to the jewellers tomorrow.
I hope never to be parted from it.
213
Twenty-five
Soldier Girl
(She’s Leaving)
Laska sat on the hillside, her back to the folly, sketching the Retreat through the trees. In the right light, the building had a dignity about it, a certain Victorian forcefulness. She was no great artist, but she was enjoying drawing her surroundings now – the building, the ornate gardens, the mausoleum behind her.
Not just any old mausoleum. The mausoleum of her family.
It sounded a bit weird when she thought of it in those terms; a bit of a goth’s fantasy. But actually the continuity of it all comforted her; that at her back rested the earthly remains of so many ancestors who had had an intimate knowledge of this place.
And, unlike the vast majority of them, she was about to leave.
She returned to her sketch. For the second time in its history the Retreat –
Mausolus House – had been the subject of extensive structural and cosmetic repairs. Whenever she had been able she watched the men as they worked on shoring up the foundations and strengthening the basement. Much of the building had been closed during the work – Laska had ended up with a temporary room – but its business was unaffected. Within days people were beginning to assemble for interview: Dr Smith had tendered his resignation the moment the last of the flames had been