A Stranger in the Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

Grue growled through his lips. It seemed that even when the Grue had control of nothing else, he still had Charles’s tongue.
    Her eyes widened and she backed up a step.
    Dr. Gully’s voice was firm on the other side of the bed. “Look toward the pendulum, Mr. Waddingly. Francine is here to assist only. There is no magic involved here. Only the fine art of healing.”
    Charles looked back at the pendulum unwillingly. Gaylord’s eyes were blank, his posture unyielding. The only thing that moved was the pendulum, swinging in a golden arc between his fingers.
    Charles followed the fan of light until he was lost in it.

     
    He woke again to hear himself screaming Catherine’s name in a hoarse voice.
    Gaylord cupped the pendulum with one hand and it disappeared inside his palm again.
    Both he and Francine stared at him as if they wanted to say something but couldn’t quite form the words.
    “What did I tell you?” Charles asked.
    “Of a strange place called New London where a group of men called the Architects found you. And a Museum of Unnatural History”—here Gully looked at him over the rim of his glasses with raised brows—“and a being who possessed you . . .”
    “You think I’m mad,” Charles croaked.
    Gully shook his head. “Francine is a clairvoyant. She can see into matters of the realms beyond this one in ways most of us cannot. I think you believe that you are from this New London. I know that something untoward has infected you. Beyond that, it is not for me to judge.”
    Charles thought he had never met a wiser man.
    “And Darwin?” Charles asked. “What does he think of this? And where is he?”
    “Mr. Darwin guessed your condition admirably,” Gully said. “Right now, he is taking his own cure, which I developed for him long ago.”
    Charles nodded.
    Nigel peered at him through his monocle, and it made Charles oddly uncomfortable. It reminded him of something. Rackham. The dirty little hexshop owner from whom he had stolen the soul jar. His mouth tightened against the tears that threatened. Rackham had not been the first nor the last. Why his death of any of them should affect him so, Charles had no idea.
    “You are feeling things,” Francine said. “Human emotions. This is good. You must allow yourself to have them.”
    The Grue laughed and twisted in his belly until Charles cried out. “How about my insatiable lust for your flesh?” he snarled.
    Charles clapped his hands over his mouth. They were so thin the bones seemed to rattle within them.
    Her eyes widened a little, but she was growing accustomed to him. “That is the parasite within you talking. I know its voice. We will rid you of it.”
    He bit his fingers against the Grue’s retort almost until they bled.
    “He cannot withstand the full walking cure,” Nigel said. “But the rest of it, we should most certainly do.”
    “Tincture of wormwood and oak gall?” Gully asked.
    Gaylord looked at Charles again. “And the merest speck of hemlock. Followed by syrup of ipecac of course. We do not want to poison him .”
    “Poison?” Charles whispered.
    But they were not really talking to him. They bent their heads together and whispered. Even his senses, once so finely tuned by the Grue, could make out none of it.
    Finally, Dr. Gully turned and said, “We shall leave you now. To take advantage of the most healing energies, we will begin the treatment at dawn.”
    Francine gave him a sad, knowing look as they departed.
    It was a strange thing to realize how much he wanted to live when he had thus far been so bent on dying.
    The Grue had been listening. He warned Charles: You cannot remove me. I am part of you now. If you let them do this, you will die.
    Perhaps, Charles thought. But you will die too.
    It wasn’t the magic he needed to get rid of. It was the Grue. His first mistake had been in believing the Grue’s power could make magic more palatable. His greatest mistake was in believing the Grue could take it all away,