Chapter 24
Chapter
The questions were the same.
Do you now, or have you ever, worked magic with words of sorcery?
Have you now, or have you ever, stolen magic through vampyrism, in service to the Devil?
Have you now, or have you ever, communed with the dead, through necromantic magics?
The two assisting Inquisitors hung my ammonite reliq around my neck, then strapped my hands to the heavy golden plates.
My fingers were spread with leather bands, tiny cogs whirring around them, brushing against my knuckles as Bishop Price asked the questions and the reliq burned against my chest until I thought the flesh must surely be melting away.
“Unmarked,” one of the Inquisitors said, after they’d inspected the skin under my throat. “She speaks the truth.”
They freed my shaking hands once the archbishop nodded, and I tried to wipe my tears surreptitiously with a sleeve of my dress. The pain was gone, and my ammonite reliq was cold again against my flesh, but the memory of agony still fired along my nerves.
It was over. I had passed the test. I would live. Probably.
The men were talking, voices heated. Price and Buckland sniped at each other. Henry was demanding my immediate release, and Edgar was citing historic ecclesiastical case law in my favor.
I tried to focus, but my thoughts were too scattered. I pulled at my reliq necklace, running my fingers up and down the leather and over the ammonite, working to try and calm my racing mind as the men debated my fate.
I followed the curl of shell with my index finger, over the fine ridges, and my thoughts drifted, carried on the slow currents out to an ancient sea.
What remained now was only the shell, but once this empty case had housed a soft, strong body—large eyes, and tentacles.
It would have been a powerful swimmer, propelled by spurting tentacles through the water.
This one had lappets, long prongs, at the shell opening, so it was a male.
I could almost see it—darting through a rainbow reef to avoid the jaws of an ichthyosaur, or diving to catch small fish.
I imagined it using those powerful prehensile limbs like an octopus to crack open a bivalve and slurp the slippery feast inside.
I thought of the ammonite, growing larger, year after year, diligently building itself a new home as it outgrew each chamber of the spiral, and then sealing it up behind. Always at home, and always trying to leave. Bound to its past. A record of a life.
If only humans carried our pasts so visibly, rather than as scars on our hearts. Perhaps we would be kinder to one another, if the past were bound to our backs for all to see.
“Miss Anning.” The archbishop scrubbed at his brow.
I jumped a little at my name.
“Based on your testimony, I am sufficiently convinced that the pterodactyl’s existence is not a result of any knowing act of sorcery on your part.
Unfortunately, that is not proof of an absence of heresy.
” He raised a hand before Buckland could interject.
“So what I’d like to know is, how should we explain the pterodactyl, if not with sorcery? ”
My fingers stilled on the ammonite as I felt the gaze of every powerful man in the room settle on my face. Watching. Waiting. My cheeks warmed with the heat of their eyes. Henry’s, especially. Henry’s most of all.
I believe him.
The realization hit me like cold water. I believed him. The idea was mad, his theory absurd. Witches and catastrophes and magic and secret powers I’d never known—but knew now that I had always possessed.
Because the ammonite in my hand was alive.
A soft, warm tentacle probed at my palm, and another searched between my fingers.
I swallowed down the scream that rose in my throat.
Be still! Be stone! For God’s sake, stop that! I commanded, and the tentacle disappeared. I wrapped my fist around the ammonite, and it was hard, dead stone once more.
It was Henry’s voice I heard in my mind, urging me to tell the truth. Here was proof. Of his theory. Of my own magic. My own power. Evidence wrapped under my white knuckles.
It was true, and it was heresy. It was true, and it might see me killed, and Ajax, too, and both of us in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
Could Henry save me from that? Did I even trust him to try?
I tried to speak but made no sound. I closed my mouth, working my tongue against my teeth. “I do not know how it came to pass,” I said finally, speaking slowly. “But I know I played no part in the pterodactyl’s waking. The miracle was God’s alone; I was only a witness.”
I bowed my head, my face flushed with the lie.
“Thank you, my child,” the archbishop said, just as Edgar Murray leaned forward with a raised index finger.
“Did not our Lord reveal himself first to Mary Magdalene? Perhaps God, in His wisdom, intends here to remind us that it is the humble—the poor, the downtrodden, the powerless—who are closest to His heart, and most worthy of His miracles. Indeed, I am—”
“Save it for Parliament, Lord Merlton,” chuckled the archbishop.
“A valiant attempt, but my position on reform has not changed since our last conversation. The Church of England left the reliquary business three hundred years ago for good reason. I will not be the one who puts us back in the midst of it all.”
The archbishop exhaled. “But I am satisfied there was no malicious magic at work. Very well, Buckland. Go on, then, tell me more about this new ‘hibernation’ theory of yours.”
“When Miss Anning found the creature,” Buckland said, “he was in a cave, with his mother and a clutch of eggs. I examined the cave myself, before we left Lyme Regis. There was clear evidence of diluvium throughout the cave, Your Grace.”
I bit the side of my lip. I was afraid I knew where he was going with this. My eyes flicked to Henry, who was watching Buckland with a hard, blank stare.
“You say that like it means something important, but I cannot possibly guess at what,” the archbishop said drolly.
“Diluvium is sediment. Gravel and sand,” Buckland said. “It is evidence of flooding. In fact, I believe it to be proof of the flood, Your Grace.”
The archbishop tapped at his chin. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying that the pterodactyl mother perished in the great floodwaters, but the clutch of eggs was covered with diluvium and sediment, and set by our Lord to a long and quiet slumber. Not destroyed,” Buckland said quietly. “Nor made extinct. Only sleeping, for a time.”
This time, Henry did meet my eyes, raising his brow.
Because it wasn’t true. What Buckland was suggesting couldn’t possibly be proven.
It did appear that Ajax’s mother had died in some kind of flood, but the geomagical strata in the lias immediately above that cave was not marine.
I’d dug into that layer before, farther down the coast, and had found impressions of plant life and bird bones.
The evidence just didn’t support Buckland’s claim.
I wondered if he believed it, too, or if it was another lie. It was growing hard to tell now. Was this simply another strategy to help my cause? Or to help his, I thought, darkly. Or did Buckland really believe what he was saying?
Either way, I couldn’t say anything now—I would undermine Buckland, for one, and second, the archbishop was laughing with delight and clapping Buckland’s shoulder. I had chosen my path. Now I would have to follow it through.
Henry clearly made the same calculation. He pressed his lips tight in a thin line.
“You will have to help with the sermon, my friend. For there must be a sermon. A declaration! A great reveal! The Geomagical Miracle! A Refutation of the Extinction Heresy! The great marriage of science and faith, at last.” The archbishop sighed. “I do always love a wedding.”
The doors swung closed behind us, and we stood a moment in the dark hallway.
Buckland swept me clean off my feet and crushed me against his chest.
He set me down again as I tried to catch my breath.
“Are you well? Are you hurt?” His chin creased in a frown, and his eyes were intent as they searched my face. He looked like he wanted to hug me again, and my heart pinched at the lines of worry between his brows. It made my throat thick with emotion.
I took his hand between mine. “I am well. I am fine. My accommodations were honestly rather comfortable.”
Buckland guffawed, and then he did hug me again, ruffling my hair like he used to do when I was a small girl and wore it loose down my back.
I flushed, but I couldn’t really muster any annoyance, even with Henry, Edgar, and President Davies present. I was too grateful to be alive.
“I hope you know we are very grateful for your assistance in the matter, Lord Merlton,” President Davies was saying, shaking Edgar’s hand. “The Society is lucky, indeed, to have such excellent friends.”
I might have rolled my eyes at Davies’s obvious simpering, but Edgar looked pleased.
Another door opened down the hall, followed by a pinched squawk and the flapping of leathery wings.
“Ajax!”
I rushed toward the harried-looking servant who held Ajax in a small gilded birdcage.
I snatched the cage from the startled fellow and opened the door, hugging Ajax to my chest and checking him over.
He looked well, if tired. His eyes were glassy, and his happy chirps were muted.
But he settled quickly in my arms, resting his orange beak on my shoulder. I held him tight.
“So, this is the infamous beast,” said Edgar. “He’s smaller than I expected.”
“He’s a baby,” I said defensively.
“Do you think he’d let me touch him?” Edgar asked. His eyes were wide with wonder, round and bright as he stared at the pterodactyl.
I grinned. “Yes. Go ahead. He likes when you scratch here, under his chin.”
“Hello there.” Ajax closed his eyes and cooed softly as Edgar scratched him.
Then Ajax jumped from my hold, using Edgar’s forearm as a ramp to climb onto his shoulder.
“I think he likes you,” I said, and smiled.
Edgar stroked under Ajax’s chin. “Come. Let’s get you out of here before my sister loses her mind with worry.”
It was nearly dusk when we made it to Buckland’s house. I half stumbled, half leapt from the coach steps and into Lucy’s arms. Ajax chirped from his birdcage, and Buckland put him on the grass to hop around the garden and stretch his wings.
“You’re alive,” Lucy whispered, burying her face in my shoulder and sobbing. “Mary, you’re alive.”
“Yes. I’m alive,” I said. “So, please stop trying to strangle me.”
She laughed. Edgar handed Lucy a handkerchief to dab her eyes.
“Thank you. For helping her. You too, Henry,” she added, after a reluctant pause.
“Yes, yes, everyone was very noble and brave in coming to my aid,” I said, scooping up Ajax before he could climb my skirts. “And I am very grateful. Thank you, Mr. Stanton. Good night.”
Henry arched his brow, but dipped his head. “Of course, Miss Anning. I am—I am glad that you are well.” He bid goodbye to the others and then strode toward the back gate, disappearing into shadows. Lucy tried to give me a meaningful look, which I ignored.
I said a more earnest goodbye to Edgar, and then Catherine Buckland shuffled us all inside to the parlor, where we told the rest to Lucy, Catherine, and Elizabeth. Ajax sat curled on my lap like a chicken, and I stroked down his spine until he drifted to sleep.
Buckland began to describe the sermons and presentations that were planned to introduce his new flood-hibernation theory, and then, next thing I knew, Lucy was patting my cheek.
“Mary? You fell asleep.”
“What? I’m so sorry, everyone. What were you saying?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I was saying you look like you need to go to bed.”
“I’ve set out a basket in your room so Ajax can stay with you tonight,” Catherine said.
I protested, but feebly, and soon Elizabeth and Lucy were gently but firmly leading me upstairs. I still couldn’t stop yawning.
Lucy whirled the moment she shut the door.
“What happened with Henry?” She and Elizabeth sat on the bed.
I blinked and yawned again, setting Ajax in the blanket-lined Moses basket. “What?”
“After you were taken away last night, Henry nearly lost his mind. I thought he was going to march into Lambeth Palace himself and try to break you out.”
Had he really? There was a moment last night in his office when I thought—but no. He’d been trying to persuade me of his theory, to counter Buckland’s. That was all. “We were…we were just talking about geomagic.”
Lucy scoffed. “And tonight?”
“Lucy says you used to be lovers,” Elizabeth blurted out.
“Lucy!”
Lucy flushed, fluttering her hands. “I didn’t say that. I only said you were sweethearts, once, back when we were children.”
I sat down on the floor beside the bed and groaned, head in my hands.
Elizabeth giggled, and I realized, suddenly, how closely the two of them were sitting—hip to hip on the bed.
Good heavens, had they started up the very minute we arrived in London? We’d been in town only two days, though it did feel more like two weeks, with all that had happened.
Anyway, I didn’t have the energy to consider anyone’s romantic life at the moment. Including my own.
“Move,” I said gruffly.
They exchanged looks.
“Get off my bed.”
Lucy and Elizabeth jumped to scramble.
“I’m going to sleep”—I flopped face-first on the bed, and my words were muffled by the pillows—“for a thousand years.”