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"I will not discuss this, Mary I will not tell you any more of the nature of his work"

"Why?"

"Because you do not wish to know!" For the first ti you in truth that there are days when I wish I didn’t know! I have seen things that no living els themselves would fear to tread! Now push no more upon this, Mary, for you do not knohat you speak Be grateful for your ignorance and take comfort in the false witness it forces you to bear! Dr Warthrop is a great reat business, and I shall never turn h the fires of hell itself arise to contend against me"

And that would be the end of it, at least for a tiain after he puther in the parlor to face her fire, a fire only negligibly less intense than that of hell, he always kissed h my hair, always closed his eyes with me as I said my bedtime prayer

My entreaties to heaven complete, I would open entle eyes of ically naïve way of all children that he would always be with o, Father?" I asked him once "I won’t tell Mother I won’t tell anyone"

"Oh, I have been so e and e and not so htine And I have seen things that would turn grown s So many places…"

"Will you take o?"

He s, with the intuitive knowledge of a man who knows his luck is not inexhaustible, that the day would come when he would eh," I said when he did not answer "I’o with you Please, please take me with you!"

He laid a hand upon my cheek His touch arm

"Perhaps one day, Williaist left o to his room to rest; I heard his footfalls upon the stairs and, after ato the basement He would not sleep that day: The fever of the hunt was upon him

My sobs petered out A few feet above , and I could see diaphanous clouds sailing like stately ships across the bright sapphire sky At the schoolhousein the last at bat before Mr Proctor, the headmaster, called them back inside for their afternoon lessons Then, at the last ringing of the bell, the excited race for the door, the explosion into the soft spring air, the bedla in unison, "Freedoa, the minor distraction of afternoon lessons disood batter, but I was fast When I left the school for the private instruction of Dr Warthrop, I was the fastest runner on my team and the holder of the most stolen bases I had stolen home a record thirteen ti the lead on third, scooting along the baseline, eyes darting froh in my chest as I waited for the pitch Scoot, another foot Scoot, still another The pitcher hesitates; he sees me out of the corner of his eye Should he whip the ball to third? He waits for me to run I wait for hi when a voice speaks sharply in my ear

"Will Henry! Get up, Will Henry!"

I openedin the opening toa lantern, with cheeks unshaven, with hair disheveled, and dressed in the saht before It took a ister that he was covered head to toe in blood Alar up with a cry

"Doctor, are you all right?"

"Whatever do you ht You rows late and there is ainst the wall as if to emphasize his point, and disappeared down the ladder Quickly I donned a fresh shirt What time was it? I wondered Above me the stars seared the obsidian canopy of the sky; there was nothe wall, found , as I’ve said, but soreat co a pot of noxious liquid, and it tookflesh off a bone belonging to the Anthropophagus Perhaps it wasn’t blood after all, I thought Perhaps he’s covered with eniuses, his brilliance illuminated a very narrow spectrum: The doctor was a terrible cook

He ladled some of the noxious mixture into a bowl and slapped it upon the table

"Sit," he said,to the chair "Eat We shall not have the opportunity later"

I gave the gruel an experireen object floated upon the surface of the thick brown broth A bean? It was too large for a pea

"Is there any bread, sir?" I dared to ask

"No bread," he said curtly Then he bounded down the stairs to the basement without another word I rose at once frole roll, perhaps a week old, lay fer inside I looked about and spied no second bowl, and sighed Of course he had not eaten Returning to ht have been called, I chased down a fes with a glass of water and a few anxious words of prayer-not in thanksgiving, but in supplication

"Will Henry!" floated his call through the open basement door "Will Henry, where are you? Snap to, Will Henry!"

My prayers were answered I dropped ave a little bounce when it hit the spongy liquid-and hurried down the stairs

I found hiirl’s body rested, to the exa table, now empty and wiped clean I cast my eye about the roo had risen fro in the shadows I spied it hanging upside down, between the bench and the shelves that housed its organs, the rope suspending it froht, and, beneath, a large tub filled with the foul-sealed blood Here was the explanation for the offal on the doctor’s clothing: He had been draining the carcass Later it would be embalmed, wrapped in linen, and shipped by private carrier to the Society in New York, but for now it hung like a slaughtered hog in a butcher’s shop, its heavilyon either side of the tub, the tips of its claws scraping upon the floor as the rope sloisted and groaned with its weight