Grimm's School for the Erratically Gifted: Chapter 17

Edmund barely noticed the city of Mothburn as he walked towards Grimm’s, his fevered brain churning like a machine. He didn’t even notice the distant clock-tower ringing half past seven-o-clock in the evening.

He did not duck and hide, as was his usual wont, but carved a path through Mothburn as straight as an arrow. Perhaps it was not the wisest course of action, nor the most prudent, but Edmund was not concerned with such matters at the moment. He was far more concerned about a single task that simmered in his mind, growing stronger with every passing second.

Madness, as a subject, has been studied to varying degrees of precision throughout the ages. Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted was established, in fact, as a means to both examine and focus the creative energies of the more erratic and uncontrollable members of the gentry.

A contemporary of Sir Edmund Moulde, Count Osvold Fenderbankson of Wendansinburg, devoted his later years to a study of Sir Edmund’s mind during this period of his life, and is perhaps most famous for a single insightful paragraph buried in the middle of his otherwise unreadable book, A Cohesive Study of Insanity and the Upper-Class. To spare interested parties the substantial cost of the book, this paragraph will be reprinted here:

“To be protected by propriety while chained to its fortunes is an unenviable position for the meanest of peers. The Founding Families were simply to big to fail. No one would dare suggest the Emperor had no clothes, lest they subject themselves to the horrific moniker of impropriety. At the same time, a genius without a discovery or invention to their name was scarcely a genius at all, and if Edmund couldn’t attract the gaze of his peerage peers, then he would never be able to hoist the Moulde Family out of its pit of derision. Therefore: in a single moment, Edmund had chosen, or perhaps was forced, to embrace that everything he had ever wanted and everything he had ever feared were in fact one and the same. Is it any wonder events transpired the way that they did?”

Edmund, in a most uncharacteristic display of present-thinking, was not concerned about any events that would unfold after he achieved his goals. Instead, he continued to run through the streets of Mothburn, pausing only once to lean against a nearby post and catch his breath. He was getting older, he noted in derision. How could he manage everything now, when he lacked the vim and vigor of youth?

“Well now! Is the wee jessie tryin’ to ‘scape from the Law?”

Edmund looked up at his latest obstacle. Jolly Snagsby, flanked by seven of his thickest Downstreeters, was standing in the middle of the street, picking dirt out of his fingernails with a long thin knife.

“War is coming,” Edmund said, Jolly’s warning echoing in his ears. “You told me.”

“Aye, that I did.”

Fueled by adrenaline, Edmund’s brain ignored the warning signs that would have otherwise sent him running. “You wrote to the Mayor using my pen. My cards.”

Jolly smiled wider, giving a theatrical bow. “Aye, I’ve been locked up in the jail enough times to ken a bit of legal chin-wag. Quite a lot o’ solicitors tend to get locked up for a spell these days.”

“You know penmanship,” Edmund continued, answers pumping into his brain with every heartbeat. “And rhetoric. You’ve been educated.”

The smile became a sneer. “Now, no need to be insultin’. I’ve had lessons, sure enough, though I were tutored through windows and keyholes. On the street ye have to take everythin’ ye own.”

“This wasn’t the first time, either. Letters to the Mayor, to the papers, muttering in pubs, a note here, a whisper there…”

Jolly gave a slow nod. “Aye, I been known to gossip a bit.”

“You know this city better than anyone,” Edmund continued. “I imagine they call you gutter-rat without understanding that rats can go anywhere. You know the police, the alleys, who’s friendly and who isn’t. Everyone sees the people walking down the street like cream on milk, but you see everything underneath. The millers and bakers and brewmasters. You see the gears and springs that keep this city working. You know what keeps the cream floating.”

“That supposed to be flattery?”

“Familiarity,” Edmund shook his head. “You remind me of me.”

Something flickered in Jolly’s eyes. Something dark, dangerous, and familiar. “Do I? Think ye know me so well, do ye? I ken I have a few skills I doubt ye’ve picked up.” He drew the knife up towards his face, staring at the glint in its edge. “Shall I show ye a few tricks?”

Edmund opened his mouth, and ran.

It was a simple trick; the brain could listen or the brain could move, but if it was prepared for one, it would be hard to switch to the other. It made Jolly pause for a second, waiting for the reply that would never come, and that was all Edmund needed to give himself the edge.

It wasn’t much of one, it turned out. Edmund worked his legs furiously as he tore through the streets towards Grimm’s, the shouting and roaring sea of Downstreeters close behind him. Could he make it to the secret tunnel in time, or would they catch him before he could crawl through to the ice-house? Could he get to the front gate before Mr. Tombswell locked up for the night? Would he be able to climb over the gate and drop down the other side before the Downstreeters pulled him back down?

What would once have been a carefully decided choice after examining all the possibilities was now pure instinct. It is possible everything may have turned out differently, had Edmund turned right, but he turned left instead and ran towards the front gate of Grimm’s. His legs were burning and his lungs were trying to split in half, but still he ran.

The clock-towers of Mothburn rang eight in the evening just as Edmund saw the glint of the fading sun on the words Demonstrum Illis Omnes carved over the gate to Grimm’s. He was too late; Tombswell was nothing if not punctual, and the gates would be locked shut.

He didn’t even bother slowing down or trying to knock. Putting on one last burst of speed, Edmund threw himself at the boarded up gate, grabbing at the bent nails and curved bolts that held the planks onto the wrought-iron bars. They scraped and cut into his skin as he used them as finger- and foot-holds to climb the gate as quickly as he could.

Edmund was not built for climbing, but as fortune would have it, the wooden-planks had not been meant for climbing either. Rather than hardening them into steel oak planks, the wind and weather had weakened them to rotten paper-thin husks of their former selves. As Edmund climbed, chunks of wood fell away beneath his feet, turning the rough gate into less of a wall and more of a ladder.

Edmund didn’t feel anyone grab at his legs, but the shouting of the Downstreeters was too close for them to not have tried. Reaching the top, he threw his body over the gate an instant before realizing his mistake. With no easy footholds on the other side, he could do little more than let his body fall to the earth to collide with the dirt and knock the wind out of him.

The gate shook behind him as the Downstreeters shouted and jeered through the rotten holes. Edmund crawled away from the gate before picking himself up and dusting off his clothes.

“’ere! Push off!” Suddenly, Mister Tombswell was there, rake in hand, shoving the handle through the new gaps in the planking. “No coming in after curfew!”

Tombswell’s jabs were followed by quick barks of surprise, pain, and irritation on the other side of the gate.

Then, the shouting subsided, and the gate shook from a series of sharp knocks.

“‘Ello?”

Edmund and Tombswell stared at each other.

“Yes?” Tombswell gripped his rake tighter.

“I did warn ye, didn’ I?” Jolly’s voice was proud. “I tol’ ye war was comin’. An’ now, ’ere we all are, ready to tear down yer fancy buildin’ down ‘round yer ears. What do ye say to that?”

With the instinct born of cruel and clever family, Edmund turned away from the gate, and up at the surrounding walls. Jolly was stalling them, keeping them talking. Why do that, unless he was keeping them from noticing — There!

A shadow picked itself up on the wall so many meters above them. As Edmund watched, the figure reached down and pulled up another figure. All along the walls, the shapes of young boys and girls rose like ghosts among the ramparts.

Instead of taking Tombswell’s rake to heart, the Downstreeters had discovered and utilized the fundamental flaw in the construction of Grimm’s defenses. They were climbing the tiny walls that stretched up and over the hillside, and now held the high-ground.

As Edmund stared, something small and hard clattered to the ground nearby. Edmund spared a glance just as a glass bottle shattered on the other side of him.

Forsaking voice for action, Edmund ran at Tombswell and tackled him to the ground as a large metal can of trash bounced from the cobbled path and struck the old man in the head. The old grounds-keeper dropped his rake with a groan, as Edmund struggled to pull him upright.

Before long, both Edmund and Tombswell were running as fast as their short and old legs, respectively, could carry them. Dodging the sharp missiles and showers of trash from above, they ducked inside the large oak doors of Grimm’s.

The missiles finally stopped, but the jeering and shouting continued. Edmund caught his breath as he listened to the insults and war-cries of Mothburn’s street-class.

They could do anything from up there. They wouldn’t stop at glass bottles and rocks. They could collect sewage and throw it down into the grounds. They could get muskets or rifles and shoot anyone who left the main building. They held the high-ground, and the high-ground surrounded Grimm’s.

“Not bad, eh?” Tombswell grinned though his pain. “Take more than a can full o’ trash to stop ol’ Basil Tombswell.” He blinked at Edmund. “Didn’t think you’d be on this side o’ the gate when the time came.”

“I’m not a Downstreeter,” Edmund said.

“No,” Tombswell winced. “I can see that. But ye ain’t a Teapot, nor student neither. I wonder who ye really are?”

It would take another six years for Edmund to truly know the answer to that question, but at the time he felt it sufficient to say;

“I am a Moulde.”

He knew what that meant. It meant he would never surrender to circumstance. It meant he would always fight for his family, even if it cost him. It meant he could see the paths and solutions that no one else would consider.

Edmund later reflected that the Downstreeters had given him a gift, because being a Moulde also meant fighting like a demon when surrounded and attacked from all sides. Now, thanks to their claiming of the high-ground, Edmund was cornered.¹

The fires of resolve burned like magnesium in his eyes. With the steady and inexorable pace of a tsunami, Edmund pulled out his notebook.

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In later years, it became known as the Siege. In time, street performers and generously employed laborers filled the streets on the week-long anniversary of the Siege, spending money on frozen treats and watching jugglers and acrobats throw clubs, balls, and each other into the air.

As is always the case, no one paid much attention during the Siege. This is because, in the grand scheme of things, people are always willing to overlook existential threats in favor of maintaining standards.

Students daring to step outside into the Grimm’s grounds were pelted with garbage and refuse of quite an aromatic stench; so, students stopped leaving Grimm’s. Mr. Tombswell continued his work outside, managing the grounds and sending the post, all while collecting the thrown garbage for compost and smelling worse than ever for his efforts. Headmaster Lynch, as ever, ignored the growing complaints and urgent memos from the staff regarding the ever dwindling pantry, and the desperate alarums of lack of supplies. The Bursar’s office remained empty, and the school year crept ever closer to its close; by extension, so did Grimm’s creep closer to its close.

This continued for a full two weeks while Edmund remained in his room, working day and night.

When he finally left his room, notebook in hand, he walked with the steady and inexorable gait of a boy possessed.

“Bedlam!”

Edmund didn’t even bother to look at Victrola as she ran to match his pace. “That doesn’t look like my Non-euclidean Geometry class-work to me.”

“It’s not.”

“I hope you’re not wasting time doing your own class work, when you should be doing mine.”

“I have a great deal of work to do.” She wasn’t making any of it any easier, either.

“Well you should have planned better,” Victrola crossed her arms. “End-of-year exams are approaching, and I have three papers to write summarizing and collating everything I’ve written so far. I hope you kept notes?”

Edmund closed his eyes. He was beginning to understand…no, to feel in his viscera the frustration that distraction and disruption caused the truly driven. In the back of his mind, he promised himself to write a paper on the impact of meaningless distractions on the Erratically Gifted mind, and its potential connection to what is now termed “bouts of homicidal clarity.”

“I’m very busy at the moment,” Edmund said without opening his eyes again. “I have a very important —”

“It’s not as important as my grades, whatever it is,” Victrola huffed. “You’re almost as bad as those hooligans outside, causing so much trouble instead of getting back to their work, whatever it is. Honestly. Sometimes I wonder if you really are my friend, smart or otherwise. If you don’t work hard enough, I might not get a good grade from the professors, and then I’ll be sent home and my parents won’t even speak to me. Is that what you want?”

There is a dearth of people who have interacted with Sir Edmund when he was in a mood anywhere approaching anger. Fewer still who have stood directly in his way. Historians debate whether this is because few people are so foolish, or because few are willing — or perhaps able — to speak of it afterwards.

Edmund opened his eyes. Victrola’s eyes, staring into his, told him everything he needed to know.

“I don’t want to be sent home either,” he began, tugging on the perceived string of Victrola’s mind, “That won’t help either of us.”

“You’ll just have to work harder. Hubert and I managed to find the key to the Obfuscated Vault, but we still haven’t deciphered the last poem.”

“Ah. You’ll not want to be worried about how your classwork is going, then.”

“Exactly. I wouldn’t want to have to replace you with a smarter friend. I’ve met several already who seem like they’d be much smarter than you.”

“Really? Who?”

Victrola opened her mouth, and then closed it again. “Never mind that. Are you going to do my work or not?”

“I’m afraid I’m entirely too busy. You’ll have to do it yourself.”

“What?” The energy fell out from under Victrola’s throat.

“Not enough time,” Edmund’s voice was smooth as the sound of cracking ice underfoot. “In matter of fact, I don’t think I will be able to work on any of your papers this coming week. There is entirely too much for me to do. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be able to manage.”

Edmund watched as the practiced ignorance of almost a whole year at Grimm’s flew past Victrola’s eyes. “But…I…” Victrola rallied gamely, “I have to open the Obfuscating Door with Hubert! I couldn’t possibly—”

“Well, I suppose if you did something for me, I might find the time to write up your papers.” Pulling a sheet of paper from his notebook, he held it out to her like a life-vest. “I need you to fetch these ingredients for me as soon as possible. I don’t know the best place to find them, so you’ll need to use your adventurer’s nose to find them. Understood?”

Victrola’s eyes lit up at the chance of rescue. Snatching the letter from his fingers, she ran off.

A piece of Edmund was delighted. A helpful servant was exactly what he needed, and the power she had handed him over her was nothing short of intoxicating.

A far louder voice in Edmund’s head was furious. Distractions! Nothing but distractions! The Teapots, Leeta, the Downstreeters, even Grimm’s itself had all been nothing but wasted time on his road to salvation; a Revolutionary Discovery that would prove himself once and for all a genius that could lead the Moulde Family into the new century with pride and skill. He didn’t need Grimm’s, he had all he needed in his head and his notebooks.

Truth be told, there was one other thing he needed; a fully stocked and supplied laboratory.

Luckily, he knew exactly where and how to acquire one.

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“Professor Whiskfield.”

The old professor spun about, clutching two vials of clear fuming liquid in her hands. She blinked owlishly behind her brass goggles. “Yes? What? Who? I’ve very busy!”

Edmund could tell. Professor Whiskfield’s lab was twice as cluttered as it had been the last time Edmund had spoken with her. Left open books covered almost every surface, while the rest of the space was filled with metal tools, glass bottles, rubber piping, and an assortment of notes written with an energetic hand.

“I need your laboratory,” Edmund clasped his hands behind his back.

“I’m very busy,” Professor Whiskfield turned away from Edmund again. “Come back later. Or not at all.” Her voice was tight and clipped. Edmund might have thought she was irritated, had he not known she was frightened.

“You recognize me from the alley?”

“The alley? No! That is…what alley?”

“Your work is very important, but society hinders science at every turn. You needed bodies, and the law wouldn’t let you get them, so you found a…loophole?”

“I don’t know what you’re —”

“The Syphilis samples,” Edmund pointed to the row of jars holding small scraps of scarred flesh. “I saw all the bodies, the spots where flesh had been cut away, very carefully. I startled you before you could acquire one from Miss Pinfort.”

Professor Whiskfield glanced around the room, eyes darting like flies, before she threw her arms wide, almost splashing the vials over her notes. “Yes! Yes I did! Fine! I received letters from an anonymous source, every other week or so, when there was a new body I could use. So I crept out at night and looked for them, and I found them, and I studied them, and performed experiments on them, and collected samples, and I learned quite a lot, though not as much as if I had acquired fresh ones, and I’m not sorry, because I didn’t do anything wrong!” She paused. “Illegal, yes, but not wrong!” Another pause. “Well, a little wrong, but more right!”

“I suppose you wouldn’t want me to tell anyone,” Edmund prodded.

“Tell whomever you like! I’m not ashamed. Yes, it would be good for people to know the extent we scientists have to go to for our work, for our art. In fact,” she drew herself up to her full height, “I will tell them myself! I’ll call in the newsprints. I’ll speak to the mayor. I’ll stand on a soap-box and shout it to anyone passing by on the street. Proudly! I am a scientist, and I will do what I must to see science done! Except…” She sagged lower again, bending down to Edmund’s face. “Not today. Not tomorrow, either. In fact, it might take a while because I’m on the verge, you see, of something very important. Very busy, I am. Perhaps next month. Or the next. End of the year, perhaps, I’ll be very proud and tell everyone, but until then, well, I have to work, and all those policemen and reporters would just waste my time, you understand.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Edmund nodded. “I’m busy too.”

“Oh? Oh!” Professor Whiskfield stood up again, relief flashing across her goggled face. “Wonderful. Stay busy, and don’t steal any of my discoveries!”

“I wouldn’t,” Edmund glanced at the cluttered tables. “I don’t know what your discoveries are. I’m working on my own project. It’s quite mad.”

“Is it. Is it?” Professor Whiskfield cocked an eyebrow. “Is it really? You don’t seem very mad.”

“I’ll need to use your laboratory.”

“Out of the question. I’m very busy.”

“So am I.” Edmund took a step forward. “In fact, I’m so busy working on my project that I don’t have the time to tell anyone about your work.”

“Ah.” Professor Whiskfield frowned, and gave a slow nod. “I see. Yes. Well. We’d better get started, then.”

No sooner had the equipment been set up, when Victrola’s voice drifted up from below.

“Edmund?” After a few moments of muffled grunting, her head popped through the floor, a collection of jars, powders, and various herbs in her hands. “I found them all! Even the meadowsweet! I had to go to the Mothburn park to find it, but I found it!”

Edmund was so eager to begin that he had taken the ingredients from Victrola before her response had fully registered.

“How did you get past the Downstreeters?”

“Who?” Victrola tossed her hair. “Oh, them. There are at least seven secret exits out of Grimm’s into Mothburn. Honestly, I told you about five of them at least. Hubert and I found the first one when we were on the hunt for the Reticulating —”

“Never mind,” Edmund waved his hand. “Come over here, please. I need you to hold this.”

The lab prepared, his assistants ready, the ingredients measured, all that was left was in his hands. He opened his notebook and turned to the back page where he had been writing off and on for the past months; ever since he had first thought of the idea after seeing his first dead body. Notes about the Mechanus Vitae that had brought Aoide back to life in the Moulde Hall Library. Annotations about the body that he had gleaned from reading Leeta’s reports and autopsies. Poems about the function and purpose of life, and how it seemingly came from nowhere, and how easy it had to be to pluck from the aether.

The Intransitive Property of Matter sates that if some Thing is a Thing, then it cannot also be a distinct and alternate Thing unless it shares the same properties of said Thing.

This is a terribly scientific way of saying that meat and bone are different than brass and rubber. Edmund was familiar with the Intransitive Property of Matter, and so he knew that his plan to create a Mechanus Vitae for human bodies would require some alteration to the formula. The same chemicals that sparked a life into gears and belts would do something entirely different to a human.²

The alteration of his formula to a more human-centric elixir had taken time, knowledge, and experience; and even with Whiskfield and Victrola as his aides, actually brewing the formula would take a great deal of practical experimentation.

All innovation is, at heart, a chaotic and anarchic process. By definition, all that is known and understood must be surpassed — bypassed, even — as the rules, guidelines, and taboos of the past fade, and the new is discovered.

At the exact same time, there is no institution more controlled than science. Experiments must be detailed with exacting care in case an extra drop of solution is the difference between success and failure. A steady hand must hold the vial, lest a sudden shattering of glass ruin a thousand hours of work. Procedures, proscribings, and proper behavior must be adhered to with regimental precision.

To be so self-controlled, and yet so free; to think what has never been thought, while thinking the same way as everyone else; to break new ground without ever leaving the safety of the well-trodden path…

Why, to succeed, one would have to be mad…

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