Grimm's School for the Erratically Gifted: Chapter 7

After a suitable mourning period for his lost bent-key,¹ Edmund refocused his efforts.

He needed a new bent-key. A better one. One that could easily circumvent the lock on Tunansia’s chest, and even more besides. To that end, Edmund resolved to research everything he could, from engineering and metallurgy to the newest locksmithing theories. Once he was well-educated, there wouldn’t be a lock in the world that could keep him out.

By lunchtime that day, he paused to make a new bent-key from a hat-pin he had found on the hallway floor. Even though it was lighter and flimsier than his old broken bent-key, it made him feel better to have one in his pocket.

For two more days he spent his time in the Grimm’s library, pulling books and papers on locksmithing down from the dark-wood shelves. It was a long and arduous process, as most of the books he could find were devoted to theoretical lockery, as opposed to the practical application of the physics and mechanics involved.

There were whole books devoted to locks and their uses, but in all their descriptive pontification there was not a single sentence about getting around them. He studied conceptual treatises on what locks precisely were and proper etiquette surrounding their use. He learned about the mathematics involved in the seven different breeds of lock and how to best design the teeth of a key to make it unique. He even learned the entire history of the re-locking mechanism that had destroyed his old bent-key.

There is no telling how long he would have searched fruitlessly had fate not conspired once more to disrupt his goals.

It began on the second day of his research as Edmund drank his evening cup of boiling tea

He had taken to drinking tea as part of his daily routine. The herbal blend he used was an effective soporific, and helped insure he slept at the same time every night.²

This evening, as Edmund was finishing the last chapter before bed, he yawned and took a sip of tea.

Edmund swallowed, and paused. He yawned again.

He yawned a third time. Something was wrong.

It took him a moment to realize that the fundamental flaw with his yawning was that there was no impetuous to do so. He was not tired in the slightest.

He took another sip of his herbal tea and tried yawning a fourth time. Sure enough, his yawns were forced, an action born of habit instead of fatigue.

Edmund looked at his tea. He was drinking it, he knew. He had felt the liquid burn on the way down. Was it too cold? He had set it boiling but perhaps it had cooled off too much to properly soothe his body. He could fix that, by improving the metal plate on the portable gas-stove that had boiled the water with some insulation around the base, and perhaps test the metal to make sure it was the best choice for proper conductive heating because he knew at least five methods for testing metal that could discern the properties he would need to measure and a seven-tier ranking system along each property would let him decide which metal to replace the —

Edmund blinked, and shook his head. What was happening?

He wasn’t tired. He should have been; he had been tired every day for the past week following this schedule, drinking this tea, reading a book in the library, and finishing at precisely ten-forty-two on the dot so as to give him enough time to get all the way back to his room before Grimm’s bell rang lights-out and he could write a few poems about what ever crossed his mind such as a particularly interesting curl of smoke he had observed just today after reading about the use of convection when boiling certain chemical elements which come to think of it might be a more efficient manner of boiling the water for the tea he had been drinking that should have been making him tired but he wasn’t tired at all —

Edmund bolted up from his seat, grabbing at his tea-cup. Bringing it to his lips, he blew to aerate the tea, and took a deep sniff.

Coffee. Edmund had been poisoned!

Someone was clearly trying to ruin his education. His routine had been carefully constructed, down to the minute in some cases. Perhaps foolishly, he had thought it unnecessary to hide the fact; anyone could have noticed his penchant for boiling herbal tea and placed a small amount of ground coffee beans in his preferred blend, small enough that he didn’t notice the smell but enough to keep him awake all with the intent of ruining his routine so that he wouldn’t fall asleep on time so he wouldn’t write notes in his notebook during his sleep and therefore wouldn’t be able to organize his thoughts which he now noticed were coming on so rapidly that he scarcely had time to think them before a new thought was taking its place —

Edmund fell forward onto the table, gritting his teeth. How long could he stand this? How long before his brain overheated with constant thought and burn away in his skull? He could have measured if he had ever taken the time to experiment with thermometers placed at strategic places around his head and measured their readings as he thought specific thoughts. He could have learned how much energy a single thought took to think and even invented his own unit to measure them which would forever immortalize him in the annuls of science as the inventor of the Moulde: the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of the brain one tenth of a degree —

Edmund slapped his own cheek, the pain shocking himself free from his ever-accelerating thoughts. Antidote!

Edmund grabbed his candle from the table and ran from the Library. He had never had caffeine before, save from the black tar-like tea that Matron had brewed for lunch, and Mrs. Kippling had confided in him once that it wasn’t even a black tea, but rather green that had been steeping since the day before. He was not used to caffeine; he had no tolerance for it. How much had he drank? How badly would it affect him? How much antidote would he need, and which kind?

He had sipped five…no, six times, and his average sip was about five milliliters. He hadn’t noticed the flavor until he had smelled for it, so it hadn’t been too much coffee, say two milliliters in his whole cup. Assuming equal diffusion throughout the tea…

Edmund took a hard left as he reached the end of the hallway. If his calculations were correct, the best antidote — or at least the easiest to acquire — was warm milk, and there was only one place to get that.

Another two turns, and he found himself at the door one of the most sacred places in any university for its students; the kitchens.

Being so long after dinner, the door was locked. Nevertheless, this was an emergency,³ so Edmund pulled out his new bent-key from his pocket and shoved the tiny tool into the kitchens’ keyhole. Setting the candle on the floor and leaning his head against the door, he gripped the thin tool in his shaking hands. Edmund took a shuddering breath and began coaxing the lock open.

The locks of Grimm’s had not been changed in decades, and were therefore simple devices the likes of which Edmund had slipped through thousands of times before with barely a break in stride. But, his old bent-key had been made of the wrought-iron handle of a candle-snuffer. It had felt thick and strong in his hands. This new bent-key, made from a silver pin, felt like the thin wiry hair that piled on Matron’s head. If he pushed too hard, he would snap it in half as cleanly as Tunansia’s trunk had his old one. He had to re-train his hands to work with the smooth and delicate silver instead of the strong iron.

The caffeine coursing through his veins made a neigh impossible task of what would have been merely difficult. He gripped a poorly-made tool in hands that shook like leaves in a gale, and the image of the lock’s inner workings quivered and faded in his mind as thousands of thoughts tore his focus from the task at hand. If only there was a metal as light as silver but strong as iron, an errant thought flickered in his mind, only to return many years later.

It took several minutes before he realized his silver bent-key was useless. It was too soft and delicate for the large iron lock on the kitchen door. He threw the trinket away and beat on the door with his fist. He needed to hurry! If he waited too long, the caffeine would settle into his brain and keep him up all night to work on problems that he didn’t need to work on or at least not work on at the moment or at least not work on late at night when he was trying to sleep because he had other problems that needed answers that were far more pressing and yet not pressing enough that he needed to stay awake to work on them because he needed to sleep or else he wouldn’t be able to come up with good solutions because so many of his good solutions came to him when he was relaxed and asleep —

Edmund gripped the kitchen door-handle and pulled hard. With a pop, the door opened and send Edmund tumbling to his rear.

Shaken free of his spinning brain for a moment, he spared the lock a glance as he picked up his candle and dashed through the door. The lock was indeed old; so old that the latch had been worn down and the doorjamb worn to almost nothing. Locking the door did little more than latch it, considering Edmund had been able to open it with a single furious tug. Or had he tugged more than once? He couldn’t remember, frankly, and the caffeine coursing through his veins certainly was operating similarly to adrenaline, which had many physiological impacts on the human body including an increase in physical capabilities vis a vis tearing a door off its hinges which Edmund had not done but certainly could have if —

Edmund gasped at the sharp freezing air that struck his cheeks. Blinking hard, he looked around. While his mind had been under the influence, his body had taken control and pushed him through the darkened kitchens to the ice-house. He was mildly impressed; he had never been in the kitchens before, but he knew proper design, so the fact that he find the ice-house without even thinking about it showed good architectural sense.

The ice-house was ingenious in its simplicity; small pits in the floor were filled with cloth-covered snow, and what had once been burial alcoves were packed with straw-lined ice. It was as cold as deepest winter, and Edmund watched his breath condense in the chill air.

Tearing his thoughts away from invasive and unwelcome thermodynamic equations, he raised his candle shed flickering light over the small room. It was mostly empty, save a few brown sacks of oats, white sacks of salt, and a few jugs of milky liquid.

There. Grabbing one of the jugs, Edmund returned to the main kitchen. How much caffeine had he drunk? Having never had coffee before, he couldn’t tell simply from his own reactions, and he needed to get the proportions precise. Too little, and the caffeine would keep him awake all night. Too much, and he would sleep-in tomorrow morning. He wasn’t sure which option was the worse one.

He searched his memory for the proper ratio; he had read it somewhere, he knew it.

With quivering hands, he poured out what he thought — no, he was certain — was the proper amount into a cup from a nearby shelf, and placed it on the stove. Now, he needed to get the temperature perfect…Using his candle to light the range, he calculated the proper flame height and duration of heating given the chilled temperature of the milk and conductive properties of the ceramic cup.

Counting in his head, he stared at the milk with such burning intensity it might have heated the milk faster than the flame. He didn’t have much time; already the edges of his vision were contorting. He was beginning to hallucinate sounds of dripping water, and howling winds were tickling the edges of his mind. A scraping sound followed by a thump came from the ice-house. Distant laughter and clinking chinaware. His heart was vibrating with every beat like a struck bell.

When at last he finished his count, Edmund snatched the cup from the stove, ignoring the painful heat, and drank the hot milk down as fast as he could.

When the cup was drained, Edmund leaned his head against the counter-top, breathing heavily as his vision returned to normal, the strange sounds vanished. His heart stopped quivering.

When his breathing calmed, Edmund stood up. Ha! Let anyone try to poison a Moulde, and see how well they succeed! No wonder the upper-class had done away with poisons as a means to removing noble obstacles; they were so easy to counter.

But confidence was no excuse for carelessness, so Edmund waited a few minutes just to be sure he had got the ratio right. When he was certain he had successfully counteracted the caffeine, Edmund picked up his candle, turned off the stove, and carried the jug of milk back to the ice-house.

Alas, there are some situations that even a Moulde can not prepare for, and so as Edmund reached out to replace the milk-jug back on the shelf, he tripped over a thick canvas bag.

The jug, being thick and strong, merely chipped when it hit the floor. The candle was less fortunate, popping free from the candlestick and snapping into pieces on the stone. Edmund quickly picked up the still-burning stub, almost burning his fingers as he set it back in the candlestick.

Edmund picked himself up off the floor, brushed himself off, and kicked at the strange new bag. Edmund racked his memory; He hadn’t tripped when he had entered the ice-house in a caffeine addled haze. Had he simply stepped over it? He was almost certain he hadn’t, but he had been under the influence. Maybe he just didn’t remember?

Edmund nudged the bag again. What was in it?

Curiosity won out over caution, and it only took a moment for Edmund to pull open the string and peel down the opening of canvas to reveal a partially decomposed corpse.

It should be noted at this juncture that Edmund had never seen a dead body before. When he had wandered the empty coal-mine beneath Haggard Hill at the tender age of eight, he had seen only coffins and bones. Among the multitude of books he had read, he had seen several pictures of bodies with half their skin and muscle carved away to reveal the organs underneath, but they had been drawn for educational purposes. It was different, seeing one up close.

Memento Mori.

He had always imagined a fresh corpse would look like Aoide, the reciting automaton he had repaired back at Moulde Hall, but more grotesque. To an extent he was right. The skin was an ugly gray, the face a bloating mess. An array of stitches and scars climbed up and down the body like ivy growing through cracks.

Somehow, no matter how hard Edmund tried, he couldn’t see the beauty of Aoide in the pallor of the body’s face. Aodie had been a beautiful construct, almost human, wonderfully life-like. The body was a horrific mockery, almost human, horribly death-like. Aodie had been something more than what she was. This was something less than what it had been.

Where had this body come from? Whose was it? And what should Edmund do with it?

A number of options presented themselves to Edmund, and all were quickly dismissed. It wasn’t his, and he had nowhere to take it. The ice-house would keep it fresh enough, and he had a schedule to keep. If he got the antidote right — he had got the antidote right, so he only had an hour or so before he would fall asleep.

Tying up the bag again, Edmund left the ice-house, made his way through the darkened kitchen, opened the door, and walked directly into Fairly Carver.

---

It is the mark of a true British gentleman to behave properly even when engaging in improper behavior. Sir Oswald Bowler — the gentleman thief written about in many pennies-dreadful of the time — was famed for his upright stature, his letters of apology, and his polite greetings to any policemen who had the fortune to apprehend him.

Edmund had aims to be such a gentleman.

“Good evening, Master Carver,” Edmund said.

“Bloody hell!” Fairly leapt back, pausing just long enough to wipe his mouth, before leaping forwards again to grip Edmund fiercely by the collar, and lift him against the wall. “Hell’s teeth, you been following me, have you!”

“Let me go, please,” Edmund asked.

“What are you bloody well doing here then, are you?”

“What are you doing here?”

Fairly snorted and dropped Edmund to the ground. “You’re out after lights out, aren’t you!”

“So are you.”

“Got special permission, don’t I.”

Edmund hadn’t even considered getting special permission to be out after lights-out. As far as Edmund knew, the Headmaster was the most obvious candidate how had the power to waive the rules, but it never hurt to check: “From Professor Lynch?”

Fairly’s face fell. “Not important, is it.”

Edmund’s nighttime studying had yet to be noticed by anyone, but it could be helpful for him to have similar dispensation if fortune ever frowned on him. “I think it is, I might want to speak with him.”

“Oh, that’s how it’s going to be, is it?” Fairly hissed, leaning down to Edmund’s level.

Edmund nodded, unsure as to why Fairly seemed so upset about it.

“Right.” Fairly raised a fist next to Edmund’s face. “I could pound you, couldn’t I. I’ll tear you apart and throw all the bits away, won’t I. Think you’re so special because you’re a Moulde, don’t you. I’ve been here four bloody years, and you think you’ll just snap your fingers and I’ll do anything you want because you’ve got something on me, don’t you?”

Edmund glanced at Fairly’s fist. It was smooth, clean, and it glinted in the candlelight. “You’ve never pounded anyone,” Edmund noted. He had never been pounded, either, but that was hardly pertinent to the situation at hand.

“Don’t push me, will you.” Fairly’s fist lowered again. “Tell me what you want then, won’t you. After my family crypt too, are you?”

“No, I want special permission too.”

Fairly blinked. After a moment of careful scrutiny, he scoffed. “You’re serious, are you?”

Edmund nodded.

“There’s no bloody special permission, is there. Aquinas wouldn’t be caught dead bending the rules for anyone, even teachers, would he? Only said that to shut you up, didn’t I.”

“Then,” Edmund thought for a second, “If even professors aren’t allowed out after lights-out, how does Aquinas know if anyone is breaking the rules?”

Something flickered in Fairly’s eyes, before another sneer spread across his face.

“Right. You don’t talk, and I won’t talk, will I. You’ll just get on back to your room quick-like, won’t you.”

“What are you doing?” Edmund asked.

“None of your business, is it.”

“No,” Edmund admitted, “but if I’m not supposed to talk about what you’re doing, I’ll need to know what I’m not talking about.” It seemed fairly straightforward to him.

Fairly’s gaze went from scornful to appraising. “Looking for an angle, are you boyo? Think that might get you on better footing with Fairly Carver, do you?”

Edmund had no idea what Fairly meant, so he said nothing.

Fairly’s scowl deepened. “Right.” His hands gripped Edmund’s shoulders and spun him around. “First you’ll get the bag from the ice-house, won’t you. You’ll know it when you see it, won’t you.”

Edmund looked at the floor when he re-entered the ice-house a third time, in case another bag had appeared while he had been gone. It hadn’t, so he picked up the cadaver in the canvas bag. It was surprisingly heavy and awkward, the body flopped about like loose potatoes. He had to hoist the bag onto his shoulders like an oxen-yolk, and even then the ends almost scraped the ground.

“Right, we’re heading up now, aren’t we,” Fairly spun on his heel as Edmund staggered from the kitchens.

The going was difficult. Edmund had never carried much weight on his back before, his arms much better suited for large stacks of books. The laden bag pushed hard on Edmund’s spine. He tried dragging it, but Fairly swatted him on the head, saying he’d bruise it, wouldn’t he. Every flight of stairs they climbed was another stab of pain for Edmund as he hoisted the dead-weight on his shoulders. Fairly alternately sniggered and grumbled at his slow progress.

“Are we allowed to do this?” Edmund gasped under the heavy bag. “Help each other?”

Fairly didn’t look back. “You’re not helping, are you? You’re doing this because you know what’s good for you, don’t you.”

The ache in Edmund’s back provided clear evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, he soldiered on, following Fairly’s broad stride as best as he could.

The last and most uncomfortable stretch of the journey was a tiny winding staircase that climbed up into one of the three main towers of Grimm’s. Edmund had to climb the stairs sideways so the body would fit. When they reached the top of the stairs, there was nothing more than a tiny antechamber and a thin ladder that lead to a trap-door in the ceiling.

“There, have it from here, don’t I.”

Fairly reached out and grabbed the bag from Edmund’s back. He sighed in relief, straightening his back and muscles as they groaned in protest. Hoisting the bundle over his shoulder, Fairly turned to look Edmund squarely in the eye.

“There. Now, you haven’t seen anything, have you. Going to forget this ever happened, won’t you, and then I’ll forget to tell Dean Aquinas you were out without permission, won’t I.”

Edmund nodded as Fairly jumped back up the ladder, pushed the body into the tower room, and climbed in after it.

Edmund turned to stare out one of the thin windows overlooking the grounds. Somewhere there were the kind of children that would have listened to Fairly. They would have feared his retribution, or that of Dean Aquinas. They might have been eager to get back to bed, or simply weren’t interested in the finer details of their own actions. Or maybe they would have come back later, justifying their inefficiency as prudence.

Edmund was not one of these children, so he settled himself in a shadowy corner and waited for Fairly to leave the tower-room. When he did, Edmund could slip in and see what he had been up to.

And it must be said, he might have succeeded if not for one simple fact: his hand had been shaking when measuring out his warm-milk antidote, tragically overdosing himself.

---

Edmund awoke to frustration, deep personal shame, and a bright light peering in through the tower’s windows. The sky had traded the black velvet of midnight for the deep ocean blue of dawn. A quick check of his ever-wound watch told him that he had drastically overslept; it was nearly midday.

Cursing himself for a fool, Edmund stood up from the crumbled ball he had slept in and stepped out from his hiding place. Fairly was long gone by now, and whatever clues he could have gleaned from the tower were most likely stale. Perhaps worst of all, his routine for the day had been completely ruined.

He was just about to return to his room and hopefully salvage something of the day, when the tower-door at the top of the ladder popped open, and a collection of students began climbing down the ladder from the room above.

A familiar voice wrenched Edmund’s ear. “Ledrum?”

“Edmund,” he reflexively corrected.

Victrola stepped off the ladder. “Why are you here? You’re not taking Professor Whiskfield’s class, are you? I didn’t see you. Are you hiding from the Mummy? Or have you found out something in the Library about the Mummy’s curse?”

“Mummy’s curse?”

Victrola’s eyes rolled about her head. “Honestly, I did tell you all about it last week, remember? Hubert and I found those tracks in the dungeon, and they led us to an old sarcophagus hidden behind a wall?”

“Oh, that,” Edmund shrugged. It had sounded terribly cliche; he hadn’t bothered to listen. “No, I don’t know anything about a curse.”

“Nor does Professor Conswatch. He’s head of the whole Speculative Archaeologies department, and even he doesn’t know what this mummy could do. Hubert and I, well, we think the whole school could be in danger!”

“I see.”

“Corpses and everything!”

“How interesting.”

“So you haven’t finished my homework?”

“It’s on my desk. Who is Hubert?”

“Hubert von Strapping? Noble Fürst to the Herzog of the Free States of Örrstland? I did tell you about him. He’s been helping me with my adventures recently. His family is very important. He’s really perfect for the friend I fall in love with. He’s heroic and everything.”

“Ah.”

“I hope I fall in love with him soon; he really isn’t very smart, and his conversation quite lacking. But he is brave. Did you hear there was another Ripper attack last night?”

Edmund’s mind flickered with the memory of ivy-like stitches tracing occult lines on the corpse.

“Oh.”

“Someone from the poor side of town. I think after Hubert and I stop the Mummy, we’ll go to the Graveyard to see if we can stop the Ripper. They say it’s a ghost, you see, that takes the shape of a raven. I thought I saw a shadow in the graveyard two weeks ago, so it must be true. Don’t forget my homework. It’s awfully important I get good grades while I’m saving the school.” With that, Victrola bounced away down the stairs, following the students who had already left.

Edmund looked up. So, above him was a classroom where Professor Whiskfield had class. He had decided not to take Unstable Biologies, simply because Victrola was already taking it, and he thought it redundant to learn the same things twice.

That said, Fairly had carried a corpse into the classroom, late last night. Edmund had never seen a corpse like it before. He felt a familiar need to learn, to observe, to study…

Edmund reached for the ladder-steps.

---

Edmund caught his breath as he climbed through the trap-door into the large tower room. Now this was a proper lab! Thick oak tables lined the walls of the stone room, covered with glass bottles, fizzing liquids, articulating magnifiers, bone-saws, stirring sticks, leather aprons, scalpels, and — most important for any lab — a large pile of clean towels.

In one corner, a large metal engine of indistinct function squatted like a furnace. Two metal lightning rods stuck out like horns from the top, while an assortment of dials and levers decorated its front. Nearby, a flat wheeled table sat under a bare gas bulb, flickering and sputtering in the gloom.

The walls were covered with charts, diagrams, graphs, and scraps of paper pinned to any available surface. Pictures of skeletons, joints, muscles, tendons, and other strange organs were spread like wallpaper, completely covering the masonry. Jars full of small scraps of — he looked closer — flesh floating in oil, covered with the bruises and scars of syphilis. It was as if the whole anatomy section of Moulde Hall’s Library had come to life. He wasn’t just reading a biology book, he was walking in it.

Careful not to touch anything lest he ruin some vital experiment, Edmund walked around the room. His heart pounded as he looked up and down the tables, recognizing the tools and noting the careful placement of every instrument. An open book on the table listed exotic ingredients for esoteric infusions. This was the lab not just of a scientist, but of an artist.

As Edmund paused to study an interesting set of calipers, the sound of a scratching pencil became clear. Following the sound, Edmund peeked behind a particularly cluttered table to see a tiny desk covered with paper, and a single occupant hunched over like a vulture.

Edmund coughed, politely.

Quick as a popping soap-bubble, the seated figure leapt up and whirled around, hands outstretched to claw at an unseen attacker. She was older, Edmund noticed, at least as old as Junapa. She was wearing a gleaming white lab coat, contrasting her tea-black skin, and thick brass goggles with a collection of adjustable magnifying lenses attached along the edges. Her sable-black hair was done up in a bun, but to no avail, as most of the wiry strands had escaped her attempts to contain them, popping about her head like broken springs.

“Who are you?” she snapped, her head jutting forward in suspicious inspection. “Are you a student?”

“Yes,” Edmund cleared his throat. “I am Edmund Moulde. I’m pleased to —”

“I’m mad boy, did you know that?”

Edmund paused. He had, in fact, heard that all the professors at Grimm’s were erratically gifted, though he suspected, much like with his family, it was not wise to blatantly admit this.

“I didn’t know that,” he said.

“And you still don’t!” The woman hissed, slowly stepping around Edmund like a snake inspecting its prey. “You only have my word for it, and you shouldn’t trust me, I’m mad! You see?”

“I think so.”

“Well, you don’t! None of them do. They all call me mad out there, down those stairs and into the world. They think we’re mad here. Did you know why?”

“No,” Edmund lied.

“Because they think it’s an insult, or worse, a warning! Science, boy, is not meant to keep you safe and warm, stretched out under the gas-light with a machine-woven blanket and a butler handing you pre-warmed sherry! It’s the way — the only way — of pushing the world forward! Human-kind advances not through reasoned and sane introspection, but violent and passionate inspiration!”

Edmund did not bring up the philosopher-kings of ancient Latinum, nor the wise gurus of eastern Baltoslavia. He tactfully avoided mentioning the teachings of Al-alari-bin-barabim, or the advances in Exotic Chemistry made by Buhru Nsonowa in the deepest subcontinental jungles without even a pencil. He even managed to keep from citing the entire branch of Applied Geometries discovered through the meditations of three Tagalogian mystics who each ate a different color of sacred mushroom.

Instead, he said: “I see,” but the Professor had already moved on, turning back to her desk with its mountain of paper. Her voice became low and sinister, the dark mutterings of a lone and isolated genius.

“Society…Pheh!” she spat on the ground. “Only five generations ago, society thought that there were only four elements of matter! Society thought that the world was flat! Society thought the body was governed by four humours!”

“It’s not?”

“Science, boy, flies in the face of society! Any scientist who is not mad is a puppet for the powers that be, a slave to the status quo and supporter of antiquated concepts that deserve no more than the dust-bin! Why, imagine where we would be without the fanatical devotion shown by mad scientists throughout the ages! We’d have no reticulating telescope! No saltpeter! No steam-powered engines! We’d be cavemen, grunting at the stars! No, boy, there is no mad science, only true science! A scientist must cast off the shackles of what society calls sanity, and embrace the unknown! The unconquered! The indescribable! The eldritch! The insane! And then, boy, we’ll show them all!”

The woman’s teeth gleamed in a horrific grin. Her hands writhed around each other, wringing themselves in manic excitement. A fiendish giggle started to boil up from the woman’s chest.

Then, she stopped, pulled her goggles off of her head, and looked Edmund in the eye. “Of course the body isn’t governed by four humours! Haven’t you listened to a word of my lessons?”

“I’m not in any of your classes. What’s it governed by?” Edmund asked. He wasn’t about to cast away the system of blood, phlem, and two colors of bile without a reasonable alternative.

“Vitaes!” the woman snapped. “Or temperature. Possibly magnets, though I haven’t finished my last experiments with those, and it’s frankly not very promising. Who are you?”

“Edmund,” he reminded her. “Edmund Moulde.”

“A Moulde?” She straightened from her hunched posture. “Ah, yes. First one in a while, aren’t you? Well, I’m Professor Animi Whiskfield, Head of Unstable Biologies here at Grimm’s.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Edmund stared up at her. Standing straight, she was almost as tall as Ung, though not nearly as broad.

“Is it?” Her eyebrow lifted. Pushing a few strands of hair back towards her bun, she slipped her goggles back on, flicking down two of the lenses. “Well, if you’ve come to help, you’d better get started. Drink this.”

Edmund stared at the suddenly offered beaker of pale blue liquid. It sloshed in a ominously scientific way. “I’m not thirsty.”

“Good,” the Professor’s stare was intense.

“I didn’t come to help,” Edmund said, taking a small step away from the science. “I came to look at the body.”

The Professor set the liquid aside with a huff of frustration. “You suppose I have the time for every hopeful saw-bones and young penny-surgeon who comes through my lab? Science is a demanding master, and a most tantalizing mistress. There is a world’s worth of observations to be made, recorded, and analyzed.” She sighed, pushing her goggles up onto her forehead. “What did you want to see again?”

“The body Fairly brought here last night.”

“Vitaes,” the Professor waved her hand, walking towards another table. “Or temperature. I don’t think its magnets, but all the same there’s a —” The Professor spun about, yanking the goggles back down over her eyes. “What? What body from last night? What are you talking about?”

“Fairly Carver brought a cadaver into this room last night,” Edmund explained as patiently as he could. “I thought it was still here.”

Whiskfield pulled the goggles off her head, heaving a heavy sigh. “My dear young whomever-you-are, I haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about. This is no place for cadavers.”

Edmund pointed at the wheeled table. “That’s an examination table, isn’t it?”

The Professor glanced at the table. “For dissection,” she crossed her arms. “Vivisection. Exsanguination. Science doesn’t move forward without a few good incisions, you know. In fact, I am currently collecting a wonderful assortment of Syphilis scars,” she gestured to the shelf full of liquid-filled jars. “Each one reveals displays its own personal growth pattern —”

“Have you overthrown Doctor Eddinmarch’s Syphilitic Theory of Blemish Growth?” Edmund was delighted. The theory had held for over a century. If Professor Whiskfield had discovered an alternate theory…

“What?” Professor Whiskfield gasped, waving her hands. “No! Of course not, I’d never do such a thing. Overthrow? What on earth are you talking about?”

“I thought you might have discovered something new,” Edmund said, his heart sinking. “You did say Science was all about forging ahead into the new, past the known.”

“Oh? Did I say that?” Professor Whiskfield glanced about before leaning closer. “I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell anyone. I could get in a bit of trouble with the Headmaster for that. He is quite insistent that Grimm’s remain an institution of education, not science. The art of learning is only for things that are already known, not finding new discoveries. No, I’m afraid that table hasn’t been used in over two years, now. More’s the pity; this is the greatest laboratory for post-mortem observation in the whole school, and yet, I haven’t had the opportunity to inspect, much less dissect a single living cadaver in over…wait!” Whiskfield spun about, scanning the entire room “There was a cadaver in this room?”

“Yes.”

“Damnnation!” Whiskfield slapped her fist into her palm. “I could have used it! I am on the cusp of discovering whether or not a glass cylinder containing mercury is a more accurate thermograph than one made with alcohol. It I am correct, the implications for medical practice will be staggering!”

“Wasn’t that discovered over a hundred years ago?” Edmund asked. He had read several books that suggested it had been.

“Pah!” Whiskfield swatted the air. “Irresponsible! Hearsay and experiential bias! We’ll have no arguments from authority in the scientific realm! Do your own work from soup to nuts, and keep all your discoveries secret and safe! That is how science is done. Established Theory is just words! Remember your Naïve realism lessons: The only things that are real are things that can be perceived.”

It was perhaps premature for Edmund to assume he had learned nothing at Grimm’s. Edmund had taken to his Naïve realism lessons quite faithfully. It fit well with his own understanding of the world; namely, things could be learned through observation. This was a fact he had learned at a remarkably young age, but it was gratifying to learn that this simple fact had been codified into a scientific process.

And what Edmund could perceive at the moment was that there was no cadaver in the Professor’s lab. Fairly must have brought the body back down from the lab once he had finished…whatever it was that he had done. “Sorry for bothering you,” Edmund said, turning back to the stairs down from the Professor’s lab.

Her eyes narrowed again. “And you’re a Moulde, aren’t you? Yes, I know about Mouldes. It’s easy to invent miracles when you have your own hospitals full of bodies. Try it when your only source —” she coughed and waved a hand, “Well…what are your plans, I wonder? What inventions will you create? What miracles of science will you birth? I wonder, young Moulde…just how mad are you?”

“I think I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Edmund said, pulling away from Whiskfield’s gaze.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” she waved a frantic hand. “I’d love to have a good old fashioned corpse to work on! If you happen to find one, please consider sending it my way. It would provide invaluable benefits to my studies!”

“Thank you for your time,” Edmund climbed back down the ladder.

“I’m studying what makes the body work, you see,” Whiskfield shouted after him. “It might be magnets!”

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