Basilisk (9 page)

He brought them back to the kitchen and opened them up.

‘What?’ asked Grace.

‘This creature . . . it killed everything in the room, right? Look what Pliny wrote about a serpent called a basilisk: “There is not one looketh upon its eyes, but hee dyeth presently”.

‘And see here: “He killeth all trees and shrubs not only that he toucheth, and that he doth breath upon also. As for grasse and hearbs, those hee sindgeth and burneth up, yea and breaketh stones in sunder, so venimous and deadly is he”.

‘“He creepeth not winding and crawling by as other serpents doe, but goeth upright and aloft from the ground with the one halfe part of his bodie.” It also says he wears a coronet or a diadem, on his head.

‘And what did your “Michael Dukakis” tell you? The creature he saw had horns on his head.’

Grace said, ‘I don’t know. He frightened me. The whole thing frightened me. If you hadn’t had that dream, or whatever it was, I would have said that he had senile dementia, and left it at that. But – I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe there
is
some kind of creature. But I don’t know how there can be. It’s unreal.’

But Nathan opened the black-leather book and said, ‘You only have to read this. It was written by Saint Wincenty Kadłubek, who was Bishop of Kraków, in Poland. In the year 1218 he unexpectedly resigned and went to live with the Cistercian monks in an isolated monastery at J
ę
drzejów. Nobody knew
why
he had resigned, not until this book was published, about thirty-five years after his death.

‘It says here that one April night he was holding a Midnight Mass in St Andrzej’s Church when “the darkest of creatures appeared from the shadows, all swathed in many black robes, and with a black crown of thorns upon its head”. This creature “breathed upon the assembled worshippers with the foulest and coldest of breath, and stared at them with eyes that shone like two terrible lamps”.

‘According to this, the congregation all fell to the floor, more than thirty of them, but the bishop was dragged out through a side door by three of his priests, and he escaped. “The next morning, when they dared to venture back inside, they found no sign of the creature, but that all of the congregation still lay where they had first fallen, and that the church floor was strewn with dozens of dead swallows that had been nesting in the rafters, and hundreds of dead flies”.

‘Not only that, listen – “all of the flowers with which the church had been decorated had dried up and shriveled, as if they had been scorched by a fire”.’

Nathan closed the book. ‘The way you found Doris Bellman’s room, that was pretty much the same, wasn’t it? Everything was dead. The flowers, the birds. Even the flies.’

‘But a
basilisk
, creeping around the Murdstone? How can that be?’

‘I feel the same way as you, Grace. I don’t know what to believe. But that thing I saw in my nightmare, and that hunched-up monster that “Michael Dukakis” saw, going around the corner, and that “darkest of creatures” that Bishop Kadłubek saw in Kraków – they’re all so similar, don’t you think? And they’re
all
just like Pliny’s description of a basilisk.’

Grace came around the kitchen table and laid her hands on his shoulders. ‘Nate, let’s be serious. You only
dreamed
about this creature, you didn’t see it for real. And “Michael Dukakis” is suffering from senile dementia, so you can hardly call
him
a reliable witness. His real name’s Stavros, or something like that. As for your Polish bishop – well, they were all very superstitious in the Middle Ages, weren’t they? Not only that – April? It was probably Lent, and he hadn’t eaten for days, and he simply imagined it.’

Nathan looked away. Grace was probably right.

‘Suppose for a moment that it really
is
a basilisk?’ Grace asked him. ‘Where could it have come from? The world’s leading expert on mythical zoology is
you
, and you haven’t been able to hatch even one living gryphon.’

Nathan looked down at his books. Next to Bishop Kadłubek’s account of the creature in St Andrzej’s, there was a thirteenth-century woodcut of a basilisk. The creature had the head of a cockerel, with razor-sharp teeth in its beak, and a scaly body that was hideously swollen in the middle, like a boa constrictor that has just swallowed an entire goat.

He said, ‘OK . . . but just suppose that I’m
not
the world’s leading expert on mythical zoology. What if there’s some zoological genius who knows a whole lot more about it than I do?’

‘Oh come on, Nathan. That’s not very likely. There can’t be more than three people in the whole world trying to breed mythical creatures. If one of them had actually managed to hatch a basilisk, don’t you think you’d know who they were?’

‘Maybe they’re keeping it a secret.’

‘But why would they? It would have to be the greatest zoological breakthrough
ever
. They wouldn’t want to keep it to themselves. They would be world-famous. They would be rich. Just like
you
expected to be.’

Nathan shrugged. ‘How should I know why they’re keeping it a secret? Maybe they’re simply not ready to announce it yet. And if it’s killed people, like Doris Bellman, maybe they’re scared that they’re going to be held liable.’

He thought for a moment, and then he said, ‘Maybe they have some kind of evil master plan, to dominate the world with mythical creatures. Or maybe they tried to hatch out dozens more basilisks, but only one of them survived. Maybe it was born deformed, and that’s why they cover it up in blankets.’

Grace gave him the gentlest of shakes. ‘Earth to Nate! Earth to Nate! You just want to believe that somebody has managed to hatch a basilisk, don’t you, never mind the reason? Because if somebody
has
managed to hatch a basilisk, that means that it might still be feasible that
you
could hatch a gryphon.’

‘Well? Why not? It makes sense, doesn’t it?’

Grace kissed him. ‘Sweetheart, let’s try to be reasonable. You had a nightmare about a big black shadowy thing, and “Michael Dukakis” thought he saw a huge hunched-up monster with horns. I agree that was kind of a weird coincidence, for sure. Doris Bellman heard dragging noises outside of her room, although she never saw anything. All the same, she died, along with her cockatoo and her ivy plants. It all sounds very scary. But it doesn’t really add up to much, does it? It doesn’t add up to a real live mythical creature.’

‘So you don’t really believe that there
is
a basilisk on the loose?’

‘I’m not saying that. You know me. I always have an open mind about everything. I’m a doctor, remember?’

‘But?’

‘But, to be perfectly frank with you, it’s just about the least plausible explanation that I can think of.’

‘So?’

‘So we use Occam’s razor and we look for the simplest theory first. Somebody needs to investigate the Murdstone Rest Home. If not the police, then the Philadelphia health authorities. After all, Doris Bellman must have been frightened by
something
, or she wouldn’t have called me. And even if his mind is wandering, “Michael Dukakis” must have seen something, too.’

‘But not a basilisk?’

Grace shook her head. ‘You remember that retirement home in Virginia, where the manager warned all the residents that there was a monster prowling around the corridors after lights out? All he wanted to do was scare the old folks into staying in their rooms, because they used to keep wandering around in the middle of the night. But one old woman thought she saw the monster coming up the stairs, and she died of a heart seizure.

‘And there was another rest home – in Maine, I think. The trustees persuaded their residents to include them in their wills, and then a couple of months later they filled up their bedrooms with carbon monoxide. The old folks died, and their pets died, too.’

Nathan said, ‘Sure. I remember that case in Maine. But even if Doris Bellman was killed by carbon monoxide, and her cockatoo, too, it wouldn’t have had any effect on her ivy plant.’

‘OK. Fine. That’s a very reasonable point. But like I say, let’s start by thinking simple.’

Nathan dry-washed his face with his hands. ‘You’re right, as usual. What it is to be married to an MD.’

Grace kissed him. ‘At least you’re not married to a professor, like I am.’

EIGHT

The White Face

G
race cooked her famous jambalaya with smoked sausage and green peppers and marinated chicken, and they sprawled on the couch in front of the TV with their plates on their laps, which they never did when Denver was home. Nathan thought that Denver had inherited enough of their bad habits already.

They didn’t talk about Doris Bellman any more, although Grace could tell that Nathan was still thinking about the basilisk, even when he was pretending to laugh at David Letterman.

The phone rang twice, but each time it was for Denver. The first caller was a boy who even
sounded
as if he had raging acne; and the second was a breathy girl with a very strong South Philly accent. She called herself Whimzy (‘that’s with a zee . . . he’ll know who it is, aayt?)

Nathan put down the receiver. He had been expecting a call from Richard, with the early results of his necropsy; and he had secretly been hoping that Dr Burnside might ring him, suggesting that if he was more disciplined with his budget, he could carry on with his breeding program.

‘Does Denver have a girlfriend called Whimzy with a zee?’

Grace shook her head. ‘I didn’t know that Denver
had
a girlfriend. Not since Marian Mellenstein, anyhow.’

‘Marian Mellenstein wasn’t a girlfriend. She was a three-toed sloth, with curly hair and glasses.’

‘Oh,
don’t
. She couldn’t help it, poor thing.’

‘I didn’t say she could. But just because
I
breed creatures from different species, that doesn’t mean my son has to try it.’

They went to bed around eleven thirty p.m., and a few minutes later Denver came home. They heard him come upstairs, and knock at their door.

‘Pops?’ he said, in a throaty voice, holding up the note that Nathan had left him. ‘What did Whimzy want?’

‘She didn’t say. She just said you’d know who she was. Least, that’s what I
think
she said.’

‘OK.’

‘There’s jambalaya in the Dutch oven,’ said Grace. ‘You may need to warm it up a little.’

‘So who is she, this Whimzy?’ asked Nathan. ‘Is she pretty? Will we ever get to meet her?’

‘Just some girl I know, that’s all. Thanks, Mom.’

Denver closed the door and went downstairs. Nathan and Grace looked at each other.

‘Did you see that?’ said Nathan. ‘He definitely blushed.’

‘At least it proves he’s not gay.’

‘I’m not worried about him being gay. But I
am
worried if he’s going out with girls with accents like that,
aayt
?’

Grace laughed, and switched off her light.

Two hours later Nathan was still awake. The bedroom was airless and far too warm, and the wind must have been blowing from the south-west, because planes were turning and decelerating almost directly overhead as they made their approach to Philadelphia International Airport. Every time one of them came over, the low thunder of their engines made the window frames buzz like trapped blowflies.

He heard a man angrily shouting in one of the houses opposite, and then he heard accordion music, and laughter, and doors slamming. He heard a car slowly trundling down West Airy Road, as if its tires were all punctured and it was rolling along on its wheel rims. He was sure that Grace murmured something, but he couldn’t be sure what it was.

‘Grace?’ he said, and leaned closer to her. ‘Grace, are you awake?’

‘
Never
,’ she said. ‘
Never looks once
.
Never
.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ he asked her. He waited for her to explain what she meant, but she turned over and started to breathe steady and even, and it was obvious that she was deeply asleep. Nathan lay back on his pillow but he couldn’t close his eyes. His bedside clock said seven minutes past two.

At the top of the bedroom drapes, there was a small triangular gap where Grace hadn’t quite drawn them together tightly enough, so that the moonlight shone in a wide fan pattern across the ceiling. Where the plaster was uneven, the moonlight cast irregular shadows; and as Nathan stared up at them, he began to distinguish patterns, and shapes. He saw a curve that looked like a man’s cheek, and another curve that could have been the side of his nose. Then he made out a ripple that formed the shape of his mouth.

A rough semicircle of plaster made him look as if he had a high forehead with his hair brushed back.

‘
It can’t be
,’ Grace insisted.

‘Grace? You’re talking in your sleep, sweetheart.’

While Grace was talking, the man’s face in the ceiling began to grow more and more distinct. His eyes were closed, as if he were a death mask, but as the minutes passed, his features appeared in greater depth and greater detail – his eyebrows, his cheekbones, the curve of his lips. Nathan was tempted to pull back the bedcover and stand up on the bed, so that he could actually touch the face with his fingertips, but he was sure that it was only a trick of the moonlight. The moon must be sinking, that was all – and as it sank lower, it was casting longer and longer shadows, which made the man’s face look increasingly three-dimensional.

He stared at the face for more than twenty minutes. When it was daylight, he would probably look at exactly the same place on the ceiling and see nothing but lumps and bumps. He remembered that when he was six years old, he had been convinced that there was a wolf in his closet door, but it had only been the pattern of the walnut veneer.