The Sea of Ash Read Online Free PDF Page B

organs nor bones. In fact, part of it stuck to the door of
the ice box and stretched like taffy when that compartment was opened."
    This turn of events forced Dr.
Pond to do something that he had thus far resisted. He told someone else about
Arabella and the baby. He telephoned his good friend Nigel Wagner (who would
later go on to publish Dr. Pond's Journal ) and shared all. He knew he
could trust Wagner, and someone other than himself had to witness the
baby, for the only proof of its existence, besides his words, were the
photographs that he had taken, and some would disregard those, if he ever chose
to make public his strange experiences.
    Nigel suggested that a third party
be allowed to view the child, someone who might be sympathetic to such
mysteries. He suggested Professor Earl Wakefield of Pawtucket University in
Rhode Island. Wagner had read a paper called Overlaps , written by
Wakefield, which had to do with the theory that other dimensions existed
alongside our own. Further, Wakefield put forth the proposition that there were
spots where various dimensions actually overlapped each other, some being
natural formations, and others which were created . Nigel speculated that
the baby was a corporeal overlap.
    "In my desperation, I
agreed," wrote Pond.

    "Despite the fact that the
icebox was maintaining its cold, the condition of the corpse appeared to be
worsening by the hour," Pond noted. "By the time Nigel arrived in the
evening, it was growing softer and darker, and the stench had gotten noticeably
worse. I cursed myself, for any chance of performing an autopsy had long
passed."
    Shortly after ten o'clock that
night a car rattled up and coughed outside the Queen Anne. A tall, wiry
silhouette moved jauntily along the walk, but there was a pause before the men waiting
inside heard a knock. When they opened the door the old professor stood there
grinning, sniffing a sprig of lily-of-the-valley that he had plucked from the
yard.
      "I hope you don't mind," the
fellow said. "It's my favorite. Is there any other scent so sweet?"
    Wakefield was a horsy-faced
creature with a red tempest of hair and ill-fitting spectacles. He was well
dressed in a suit and bowtie. He stuck the sprig, with its delicate blooms like
tiny white bells, into the buttonhole of his jacket and strode in.
    Albert introduced himself and
Nigel Wagner. The professor stooped to put his face close to Pond's (Albert had
been warned that the professor was an eccentric sort) and remarked, "You
were in the war. Only men who were in the war have eyes like that ."
    The three went into Pond's
examination office, where the icebox crouched against a wall. There were
shelves lined with jars, file cabinets piled with manuals, and the expected
tools of the trade. The professor paused to study the eye chart, both with and
without his spectacles.
    Wakefield exhibited an enthusiasm
and sprightliness that defied his age. He lit a pipe and paced while asking
Pond some preliminary questions before viewing the baby. He wanted to hear more
about Arabella, the birth and the note from Simon Brinklow. Fascinated by the
responses, Wakefield mentioned that he too had experienced the wonders of an
overlap point.
    "Twelve years ago I received
communications from a Wampanoag Indian woman. The overlap in that case was a
two-foot-wide circle in the center of a pond over in Plymouth."
    Albert was eager to hear more
about Wakefield's story, and the man's speculations about the nature of these
other dimensions, but he knew that the baby was deteriorating by the minute and
so he urged the professor to have a look.
    "Yes, yes -- let's have a
look, why don't we?" Wakefield said, turning to the ice box. He rubbed his
hands together, knelt down in front of the thing and handed his glasses up to
Pond. "Would you hold these a moment, my boy?"
    Wakefield opened the door and
peered in. "Oh, my..." he breathed, "Amazing! look how
it's-"
    The professor reeled back, his
scream muffled by a mask of