The Barnacle's Son by Len Boswell

Author:Len Boswell [Boswell, Len]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Published: 2023-07-12T23:00:00+00:00

28

Darwin’s Study, Down House, Downe, 4:25 p.m., Monday, April 24, 1882.

Lily waited until Etty had closed the door and then immediately moved to the desk and sat down in Darwin’s roller chair. She tried the lower left drawer of the desk, but it was just as she suspected: locked. She scanned the top of the desk for the key, but the room was too dark to make out the smaller objects.

She stood and moved to the curtains, opening them just a little, the afternoon light streaming in across the desk, dust motes dancing in the air. No key.

She began opening drawer after drawer, searching for the key. As she searched through the bottom right drawer, she heard the door open, the room growing even brighter.

“You won’t find it there,” said Emma.

Lily looked up to see Emma silhouetted in the doorway. She was wearing a mourning dress Lily knew well from memory. Emma had worn the same dress when her daughter Annie had died. It was black, of course, but far grander than the bombazine dresses worn by the masses. Hers was the more expensive choice: non-reflective Parramatta silk trimmed with crape, a hard, scratchy silk with a strange crimped look.

“Where might I find it, then?” Lily said.

Emma said nothing, but stormed into the room, past the desk, and closed the curtains with a firm tug. “And you opened the curtains. You know that is forbidden.”

Lily sat back in the chair. “Superstition, nothing more.”

Emma ignored the comment. “I told you that I didn’t want to see you again, and yet here you are.”

“I need his notebooks about me.”

Emma huffed. “And you think I would give them to you? Do you have any idea how dangerous those notebooks are? If they were to be shown to the world, Charles would be a laughing stock.”

“I don’t plan to show them to anyone.”

“But why do you need them?”

Lily sighed. “I’m hoping they contain notes about my brother as well.”

“And why would you think that?”

“Charles said once that he had a theory about me and my brother, and I suspect his thoughts are in those notebooks.”

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand,” said Emma, sitting down in the guest chair opposite Lily.

“He wondered what differences there would be between us. My brother was birthed live, and I hatched from an egg. He wondered which of us was more human.

“Well, wouldn’t that be your brother?”

“On the face of it, yes, but Charles wasn’t sure.”

“Not sure?”

“He said he would have to observe and study my brother to be certain. As he did with me.”

“Of course, but why is this so important to you?”

A shiver ran through Lily. “I saw him once, my brother, or thought I did, at that doomed performance at the Royal Pavilion. He was tall and muscular, and when his eyes locked on mine, I felt something—it’s hard to describe—a power unlike I had ever felt. It was as if having him close made me stronger. So I wonder about that, and I also wonder about his intentions.

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