Free The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock

who didn’t see it would credit it. One of the help cut its head off accidental like, more’s the pity, and it was eaten with red wine and bacon, in the French manner.”
    Other buildings, many of their windows shining with the light of candles or lamps, stood nearby, and past the corner of one of them St. Ives could see the framed glass of an illuminated palm house in which a man nearly as old as poor Shorter worked over a bench of potted plants. Abruptly it seemed to St. Ives like weeks rather than days since he had returned from London, and Aylesford seemed positively like a holiday to him. One heard of lives changing on the instant, but he had always associated the change with tragedy – sudden blindness or a house burning – but this newfound homeliness that had settled upon him was a change of another sort, an unexpected boon.
    Hereafter Farm appeared to be a wonder of productivity, with gardens laid out and fruit trees aplenty. Violin music emanated from one of the nearby cottages, played by someone with considerable talent. St. Ives was dumbfounded, although he couldn’t quite say what he had expected to find aside from some caliber of lunacy, which might possibly coexist with its more Edenic virtues.
    Kraken led him up onto the broad veranda and into the house, where they were observed by several children peeking out from behind a half-open door, beyond which St. Ives could see shelves of books. The children seemed to be dressed as gipsies, and they studied St. Ives as if he were an exotic species. There was the smell in the air of something baking, and St. Ives was reminded that he hadn’t yet eaten supper. Kraken moved on into a vast, dimly lit sitting room, where a seven-sided table stood in the center of a densely patterned carpet, also seven-sided. If ever a table had levitational powers, thought St. Ives, this one clearly did. Atop it lay a Japanese magic mirror, its handle encased in woven bamboo. The ornamented backside faced upward, so that the several cryptic designs were visible. St. Ives was fond of the mysterious mirrors, as were his children, and in fact had several examples at home, with the oxy-hydrogen lamp set up in his study so that the patterns cast by the mirrors could be marveled at whenever the fit took them. He didn’t count himself among the many who believed that the projections from such mirrors had mystical powers, however, and he very much hoped that he would not be called upon to argue the point tonight.
    Around the table stood the requisite seven chairs, the legs carved into the semblance of dragons. The walls, painted a deep blue, were dotted with white stars. Overhead hung an ornate, seven-sided chandelier that must have held a hundred candles, of which twenty or so were lit. Save the chairs and table, there was no other furniture. It occurred to St. Ives that the room would have seen some curious things over the years.
    A door opened opposite the one they’d entered, and a woman, no doubt Mother Laswell, swept through it, shutting the door behind her and stepping into the light. She was large and imposing, with a mass of red hair that belied her age, which St. Ives took to be somewhat past sixty. She wore a voluminous, indistinct garment that must have been cobbled together from several bolts of oriental silk. In her hand she held a jewel-studded lorgnette through which she regarded St. Ives, her head tilted back. She had a theatrical look about her, but a good face, St. Ives thought – one that had seen its share of troubles.
    “This is the Professor, Mother Laswell,” Kraken said to her. “Him what I told you about. Professor Langdon St. Ives, the great genius.”
    “Indeed,” she said, moving spryly into the room. She took his hand, pressed it, and dropped it again. “I’m very pleased that you’ve come, Professor. What I have to say will take time in the telling, and I believe that you have family at home, so I’ll get straight to the heart of the matter. William