A Taste for Monsters by Matthew J. Kirby

Author:Matthew J. Kirby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

The door to the school lay open, and I walked into a barren lobby not nearly so well appointed as the London Hospital, with nary a side table, vase, or plant in sight. A great carved wooden crucifix, quite old by all appearance, adorned one wall, flanked by icons of Catholic saints gilded with gold leaf. Behind a long desk opposite the cross sat an attendant in a high-necked white blouse with a cameo at her throat, her graying hair pulled up loosely, and behind her stood a bank of file cabinets and drawers. Upon my entrance, she looked up at me and smiled. “Can I help you?” she asked.

I stepped toward her. “I’m here to inquire after one of the boys in your care.”

“Are you a relative?”

I considered lying, but thought against it. “I’m not. But I’m concerned for him.”

“I see,” she said. “And what is the boy’s name?”

“John Alfred Chapman.”

She repeated the name to herself as she spun around on her swivel chair to the file cabinet behind her, and after flipping through several inches of papers she said, “Here we are,” and withdrew one. Her expression as she scanned it quickly fell, though, from her brow to her frown. “Would you wait here a moment?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

She rose and retreated through a door behind her desk, taking the sheet of paper with her, and was gone for quite some time. I waited on a bench beneath the heavy presence of the cross, my hands in my lap. When the woman returned, she brought with her a white-haired priest in his long black robes. He carried with him a small wooden box, and came around the desk to sit beside me on the bench, placing the box next to him.

“Good afternoon,” he said, his accent Irish. “I am Father Cogan. You’re here about John Alfred Chapman?”

“I am,” I said.

“But I’m told you’re no relation to him.”

“I know—” I started, but corrected myself. “I knew his mother, who died recently.”

“Died, you say?”

“Murdered. Have you by chance heard about the recent evil in the East End?”

“I have, indeed,” he said. “A great evil.”

“The boy’s mother, Annie Chapman, was one of the victims.”

Father Cogan crossed himself. “Oh, sweet mercy. What a dreadful, dreadful end!”

I nodded. “Would it be possible to speak to John Alfred?”

“Oh, my dear child, I’m afraid that’s not possible. John Alfred is dead, you see.”

My initial confusion at what he’d just said turned quickly to harrowing disappointment. If the boy was dead, then how was I to end the haunting? Charles had been right, and I’d wasted the trip out there chasing a wild goose and was no closer to helping Mr. Merrick than I had been that morning. I felt my frame buckling under the strain of my failure.

“We’ve had no word from the lad’s mother in some years,” Father Cogan said. “We sent letters but never heard back. But she’s dead you say? You’re sure of it?”

I stared hard at the stone floor, having gone a bit numb in my extremities.

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