Novels

Bockabell Mansion was the seventh of eight homes owned by the Cromley’s in Brackenburg. Built in 1861, it was the height of modern fashion at the time, and was well known among the Nine Founding Families as one of the more scandalous and inappropriate expressions of architecture in all of Brackenburg.

“We are thinking of dismantling it,” Matron Dryshire Cromley mused, gesturing with a cigarette held in an elegantly manicured hand. “All of France is agog with this new ‘arts décoratifs’ style. I know the Founding Families are dreadfully upset with our efforts, but we feel it is important to keep up with the times.” She took a puff of smoke. “Now that my mother is gone, we actually might be able to.”

Edmund gave a small nod. “I must apologize for not attending Matron Hagetha Cromley’s wake.”

“Of course,” the new Matron Cromley sighed. “I too have to apologize for not attending Matron’s wake.”

Of course, both of them had perfectly good reasons for not attending the wakes — Edmund wasn’t about to pause his education just to come back for a Cromley, even the one who had signed as a witness for Edmund’s arranged marraige, and Dryshire wasn’t going to show up to any Moulde’s wake until she was certain she was well and truly dead — but, they both needed to keep up appearances, and that meant a personal apology, in addition to the ones already given in writting.

When my sizzle is done, I climb right back into the kitchen off the escape. Stick half finished, pocket for later. Grab a drink of water on the way, dry mouth, no pop. No clean glass. No dirty glass. Use my hands and slurp like thirsty.

Walk into the room. Kid’s gone, everyone else sitting around, looking at the ceiling.

They’re all silent. Not moving. Not speaking. Rude.

I look up. Nothing there. Cracks and plaster. Nothing.

A church can mean many things to many people. In the quiet rural and uncrowded towns, a church can be a place for gathering and fellowship. For the bustling cities, a church can be a place of quiet, to get away from the same clusters of humanity that fill the streets. With the right preacher, a church can be a place to find guidance and moral clarity among the complicated and confusing customs of the time. With the right parishioners, a church can be sanctuary and succor for the poor and unfortunate.

Cathedrals have no such flexibility. There are no friendly vicars who dismissively wave their hands at the mud on your boots. No smiling monks who are willing to roll up their robes to help birth a calf, or thatch a roof. A cathedral is a shrine writ large; a divine embassy on mortal land. When you step across a cathedral’s threshold, you are stepping into a world where your mortal concerns are secondary. You are not a believer in a cathedral, nor parishioner, nor penitent. You are a guest.

The Brackenburg Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of God was a well built cathedral.

Not half an hour after Wislydale left, Edmund made his way down the Moulde Hall elevator to the abandoned coal mine deep under Haggard Hill.

It had been almost seven years since Edmund had crawled through the tunnels under Moulde Hall. When he was eight, his cousin Pinsnip Sadwick had locked him away in the tunnels to starve; vengeance for Pinsnip’s failure to claim the fortune of the Moulde Family for himself.

But that was only his first foray into the depths. When he was older, and not under immediate threat for his life, (At least, not by entombment.) he spent a good length of time learning their twists and turns, and returning periodically to the tombs of the Moulde Family.

Now, he had a destination. With a speed born of curiosity, it took only a quarter hour for Edmund to climb his way through the empty tunnels. Turning left and right, he made his way through the mines to the place on the survey map where the tombs and the iron vein were closest.

As has been repeated consistently, there is very little that we have of real factual record regarding Sir Edmund Moulde, the majority of his personal writings having been destroyed in the Great Brackenburg Fire.

There is, however, one exception.

Most everything we know about Sir Edmund Moulde and his ways of thinking comes entirely from a single surviving diary. Called by historians the Sir Edmund Codex, the entire journal was saved mostly unscathed from the ashes of Moulde Hall, the only damage being a blackened cover.

It is from this single diary that the majority of theories regarding Sir Edmund and his life have arisen. Indeed, there are several years of Edmund’s life that would be complete mysteries if not for the few pages or tangential references discovered in this journal.

What follows is an excerpt from this diary, dated the 28th of March, 1881, the day of Matron’s wake:

Dear diary,

Week later? Two weeks? Don’t remember. New Kid walked into my room like tentative. Cagey. Nerves all tingling. “Hi.”

Cindy gave him the up-and-down and pointed at Binny. Sage was sitting there, eyes closed, smoke to the top. Leon wasn’t watching, the nut. Should have been, but didn’t. I brought the kid, least he could do would be to pay attention.

Kid walked up to Binny, held out a hand. Binny kept his eyes shut. Took a slow breath, like wise old frog. “You new in town?”

“Ain’t seen you before,” Ribber giggles. “You hiding from us?”

The Wake of Matron Mander Moulde, held on the 28th of March, 1881, was, in a word, awkward.

There were multiple reasons for this, each enumerated and detailed in large numbers of historical and heraldic texts. While it would be prohibitive to explain at length here, with entire chapters devoted to the food and drink, it is simple enough to say that emotions were mixed.

This is often the case when dealing with the death of someone important, and there was no one of more importance than the Founding Families. Matron was, after all, a fellow peer. In spite of the distressing behavior of the Moulde Family, coupled with their steady descent from grace, she was still due the same honors given to every head that died of natural causes: a solemn wake filled with a lingering sense that they had beat the odds.

At the same time, there were few among the guests who did not feel the world was better for having one less Moulde in it. Matron’s cutting tongue and razor-sharp mind had not won her many friends among the nobility of England, and her knack for foiling schemes of grand design seemingly by accident was uncanny.

The next day of importance for Edmund Moulde is well known to all students of Sir Edmund’s life: the 23rd of March, 1881.

This day was, in fact, only two days after his journey to Tendous Grange and five days before Matron’s wake. It is a notable day primarily because of three singular events which occurred.

The first event was that Edmund woke up from a fitful and restless sleep to find the paper he had placed under his hand during the night had been written on.

The fact that he had written in his sleep had been surprising and delightful enough. It had been almost a month since he had returned from the War, and Edmund had begun to worry that he would never write in his sleep again; that he would be forever more alone with his waking thoughts. His relief was subdued by the second realization that came from reading the scribbled words; Edmund was about to be married.

The little man gave no greeting, nor gave Edmund much consideration when he entered. Instead, he simply opened his ubiquitous briefcase and pulled out an entire ream of paper.

Edmund needed no prompting; he sat down, pulled one of his pens from his vest pocket, and began to sign as fast as he could. He did this primarily because of the size of the stack and a quick bit of mental mathematics; if Edmund had paused to read every paper before he signed, it would have taken days before he had gotten through them all.

Luckily, the War had trained Edmund well, and he had become quite practiced at reading quickly. He had also learned the benefits of a leisurely and elaborate signature, and as such, he was able to get a solid idea of what he had started signing before he finished signing it.

After an hour, Edmund paused to stretch his hand before resuming signing his name as regularly as any clock.

There were affidavits, affirmations, demands for legitimacy, and a few papers that appeared to be heavily veiled threats to governing officials. Formal denials of breaking the law, informal declarations of financial holdings, Legal acceptance of liability, refusal to name co-conspirators, acceptance of any profits while denying any losses…every t crossed and every i dotted. All of them had copies; Sometimes two, sometimes five.

Head held high as I walk back, swinging free. Old Oz, what a wiz. Pluck a Skip from the ditch-water and watch them fly.

Catch Leon on the way. Walking like a boss, running like. Thinks he’s got somewhere to be, but doesn’t know Ozzie’s news. Going to flip, I think. Like over heels.

“Oz,” he shouts at me, like I haven’t seen him. The nut, he’s walking right at me. “Oz, come on!”