Nocturnes

The Ritual of the Bones

The headmaster’s voice was the voice of God.

“You there, Johnston Minor, stop running. Bates, my office, ten A.M. Be prepared to explain why you were studying the form on the two thirty at Kempton during Latin One yesterday. In Latin, boy, since you’re obviously so adept at the language that you no longer feel obliged to study it. You there, boy, what’s your name?”

And, for the first time, or so I thought, I found his attention turned upon me.

“Jenkins, Headmaster. The scholarship student.”

“Ah, Jenkins the scholarship student.” He nodded, as if everything had suddenly slotted into place. “I trust you’re not too intimidated by your surroundings, Jenkins the scholarship student.”

“A little, Headmaster,” I lied. The Montague School, with its mahogany walls, its elaborate busts, its legions of dead men in powdered wigs staring down from the walls-prime ministers, bankers, captains of industry, diplomats, surgeons, soldiers-was just about the most intimidating place I had ever encountered.

“I shouldn’t let it trouble you, Jenkins,” said the headmaster. He placed a hand on my shoulder and gripped tightly. I could feel his fingers moving upon me, testing the small muscles beneath my blazer. “I feel certain that you’re going to make a fine contribution to the Montague School. You know, in many ways, scholarship students are the lifeblood of this establishment…”

The Montague School for Boys had been in existence for almost four centuries. So many great men had passed through its portals that it had become almost a microcosm of the Empire, a byword for all that was once great about Britain. It stood amid rolling hills and green playing fields, its buildings elaborate constructions of towers and battlements, as though the school were in a state of constant readiness to repel the great masses envious of the privilege it represented. Its Old Boys’ network spread through the upper echelons of British society like a great unseen web, permitting only its favored sons to trip lightly across its strands on the way to wealth and glory while trapping those less worthy of ascension and draining them of hope and ambition. Their hollow forms littered the hallways of the Civil Service, the Foreign Office, and the lower divisions of the foremost institutions in the land, an object lesson in the power of good breeding and better connections.

It was surrounded by a vast high wall, and although its great iron gates remained open from early in the morning until late in the evening, few without business at the school dared to venture beyond them. Relations with the natives of the neighboring villages were strained at best, for the school appeared to evoke feelings of intense dislike among those whose children would never experience the benefits of such an establishment (feelings exacerbated by the knowledge that, in all likelihood, their children would be subject to the whims of some of its graduates in later life, just as they themselves were). As a result, trips to the villages were carefully monitored and supervised by the school, although the older boys were permitted greater latitude in their wanderings and took a perverse pleasure in taunting the local merchants, certain in the knowledge that however much the merchants despised these wealthy interlopers, they could ill afford to turn down their custom.

Still, occasionally groups of local urchins would mount an assault on the school’s property, hoping to inflict some minor vandalism on the statuary or steal apples and pears from the orchard. If they were very lucky, they might encounter an unfortunate student who had drifted too far from the safety of the herd, and a beating would be administered. But this was a risky business, for the grounds were regularly patrolled by porters in night blue uniforms who meted out their own brand of justice upon those who fell prey to them; and, on at least one occasion, potential marauders had found themselves facing the combined might of the school’s First Fifteen, and were fortunate to leave the grounds without medical assistance.

Yet the Montague School appeared to recognize, in some small and infinitely patronizing way, a vague duty toward those less fortunate than its fee-paying elite. Every ten years, a scholarship examination was held in the school’s Great Hall, and this test, along with a subsequent interview, was used to determine the identities of those lucky few who would be plucked from a life once destined to be littered with disappointment and unhappiness and instead allowed to glimpse the possibility of a better future (even if that future was never really on offer, for the ignominious reek of charity would hang about them for the rest of their days, and dirt would forever cling to their boots, leaving a trail behind them so that the wealthy and privileged might not, however briefly, mistake them for their own).

Like all such great institutions, the Montague School had its own unique traditions and rituals. There were particular dress practices to be followed, certain directions in which to walk, and peculiar hierarchies of students and teachers that appeared to have little to do with age or merit. Those with the strongest familial ties to the school were permitted dominion over those with less secure links, and with great wealth came the freedom to inflict pain and humiliation with impunity. There were songs to be learned and histories to be recited. There were games with no rules and rules without purpose.

And then there were the bones, and with them went the strangest ritual of all.

That morning, following my first face-to-face encounter with the headmaster, I saw them for the first time. A selection of the final-year boys was presented with them at Assembly, each one stepping onto the stage in turn to receive a bone locked in a small velvet box. In most cases their fathers had held the bones before them, and their fathers in turn, back, back for hundreds of years. When a family line died out, there was always another great name waiting to take its place, and so possession of the bones remained the preserve of only the bluest of bloodlines. It was an old Montague tradition, this ritual of the bones. When at last the final student received his token, all the boys turned to face their younger fellows and we were permitted-nay, instructed-to cheer loudly three times.

I wondered where the bones had come from, but when I tried to catch more than a glimpse of them as their new owners were proudly displaying them I found myself shunted roughly away, and a sea of backs closed before me, denying me even that small concession. Later that night, as I lay in my dormitory bed, I imagined my father, devoted but impecunious, discovering to his surprise that he was the lost heir to a great fortune, with a title to his name that would eventually be passed on to his son. Overnight, I would find myself elevated to a position of influence and respect in the school. I would perform heroic deeds on the sporting field, and my academic achievements would dwarf those of my peers. As my reward, the school would ignore the submissions of better-known families in order to make up for earlier injustices, and I would take my place on the stage and receive into my hand a small velvet box containing a single yellowed bone, the symbol of a new life to come.

It was a brief fantasy, driven sharply away by the flicking of a towel at my face and a burst of laughter from the culprits. I knew that there would never be a relic for a scholarship boy, that they were not for the likes of us.

But I was wrong, for in a way they were all for us.

One week later, I was standing in the rain watching a dispiriting rugby match when a small untidy-looking boy with dirty-blond hair approached me.

“Jenkins, isn’t it?” said the boy.

“Yes?” I replied. I tried to sound detached and unconcerned, but secretly I was quite grateful to be approached. I had found it difficult to make friends among the other students. In fact, I had made no friends at all.

“I’m Smethwick, the other scholarship student.” He smiled uneasily. “I’ve been a bit ill, so I started term late. Crumbs, it’s quite a place, isn’t it? So big, and old, but everyone’s being jolly kind, even the older boys, and they were the ones who scared me the most.”

For a brief moment, I was jealous of Smethwick. Why had the older boys spoken to him but not to me?

“Scared you?” I said at last. “Why?”

“Oh, you know, in case they’d try to bully me. And then there are the stories.”

“The stories?”

“Crikey, Jenkins, you’re like an echo. The stories. You must have been told some of them? Ten years ago, a scholarship boy died during some kind of prank. It was all hushed up, of course: they claim he wandered off and got hit by a passing train, but some say he was dead before the train even left the station.”

Smethwick ’s face betrayed mingled terror and fascination at the tale. I wasn’t sure what to feel. I was finding it hard enough to settle into the routine of life there without adding stories of mysterious deaths to my woes. I had already been regaled with tales of wandering spirits and creatures that lived in the eaves, and on my second day at the school my head was covered with a pillowcase and I was locked in a dark cupboard beneath the stairs until the housemaster heard my cries and finally released me.

“But don’t worry.”

Smethwick smiled and patted my shoulder.

“We’ll be fine.”

But we were not going to be fine. We were not going to be fine at all.

In the weeks that followed I grew closer to Smethwick, even though we had little in common. It was natural that I should do so, for I was without allies or support in that place, and Smethwick offered both. Yet I found myself distanced from him by the actions of the older boys. It was as though they had chosen to take Smethwick under their wing, for he was not subjected to the same little humiliations and hurts that marked my first months at the school. Instead, they joshed with him and permitted him to run small errands for them, in return for which he was allowed to conduct his business without fear of casual violence. He seemed to become almost a mascot for them, a totem of some kind. I took to staying close to him, in the hope that some of the goodwill directed toward him might extend to me. Smethwick, to his credit, did all that he could to protect me, even to the extent of placing himself between me and those who would have harmed me otherwise. On one such occasion, he received a gash to his forehead that required treatment by the school nurse. The headmaster was called, and although he spent some time with both Smethwick and me in an effort to discover the identities of those responsible, we both remained silent. Nevertheless, the fifth-formers who had perpetrated the assault were quickly found, and their punishment was both savage and public as an example to others. The result was that, gradually, I was left in peace, although less out of a regard for my well-being than a greater reluctance to cause Smethwick any harm.

Things continued that way for some months. For my part, I neither understood nor trusted the motives of the older boys in taking Smethwick under their wing, but Smethwick himself was too grateful to be suspicious.

When at last they came for him, I believe that he cried as much out of sorrow as from dread.

On the night of the ritual, I remember waking as a long line of sixth-formers entered our dormitory, some with candles, but all holding their little velvet boxes in their hands. They moved silently, and none of the other boys appeared to be awake to see them or, if they were, they chose not to reveal the fact. The sixth-formers slapped their hands over Smethwick ’s mouth so that he couldn’t scream, while four or five of them lifted him from his bed. I could see Smethwick thrashing in his pajamas, his eyes full of fear and panic. Perhaps I should have cried out, but I knew that it would do no good. Perhaps also I should have left Smethwick to his fate and remained content in my ignorance, but I did not. I was anxious to see what they were going to do to him. It pains me to say it, but I was glad that it was him instead of me.

I shadowed the group at a distance, following them down corridors and stairs until they came to an oaken door bound with iron bands that stood open in a corner by the staff common room. I can’t say that I remembered ever seeing the door before. Perhaps it had been hidden by a tapestry or a suit of armor, for there were many such relics in the Montague School.

The door was pulled closed behind the boys, but not locked. I opened it gently and felt cool air on my face. Stone steps wound down in front of me. In the quickly fading light from the candles of the group, I descended until I found myself in a huge, cold room with stone walls and a low, vaulted ceiling. There were more candles here, and more figures waiting. I hid in the shadows behind a stone column and watched.

On a raised stone platform below me stood the male teaching staff of the school. There was Bierce, the games master, and James, who taught Latin and Greek, and Dickens and Burrage and Poe. Before them all stood Mr. Lovecraft, the headmaster, dressed in a red tartan nightgown and matching slippers.

“Bring him forward, boys,” said the headmaster. “Gently now, that’s it. Tie him down well, Hyde, we don’t want him running off on us, do we? Oh, do stop whimpering, Smethwick. It’ll soon be over.”

They tied Smethwick to four iron rings set into the stone slab, binding his arms and his legs tightly with strong rope to each ring. Smethwick was wailing now, but nobody seemed to be paying him much attention and the stone walls simply threw his cries back at him.

“All right, you older boys,” said the headmaster, beckoning them with his right hand. “Up you come, one at a time. You know what to do.”

The sixth-formers stood in an orderly line facing the platform. On the floor beside Smethwick I could make out a pattern, perhaps a foot long and six inches wide, marked in a stone that was darker and older than those surrounding it. It looked like fossil remains, except concave, as if whatever fossil had once been entombed there had been expertly removed, leaving only the impression of what it had once been.

And as I watched, each of the boys stepped forward, opened his little velvet box, and placed his bone in a section of the hollow pattern, filling it bit by bit, until at last the skeletal remains of some kind of animal lay on the floor, although it was like no animal I had ever seen. It seemed to have eight legs, like a spider, but its skeleton was obviously internal, not external. I could see its rib cage and a tiny, pointed skull, and a kind of short, barbed tail that followed a groove in the stone.

The headmaster smiled as the last bone was positioned, then removed a small, ivory-handled knife from the pocket of his dressing gown. “Hyde, as head prefect, the honor of bleeding Smethwick falls to you.”

Hyde, a dark-haired, smug looking youth, stepped forward in his brocade gown. He accepted the knife from the headmaster with a small bow, then turned to Smethwick. The cries of the spread-eagled boy rose an octave.

“Please, let me go,” sobbed Smethwick. “Please, Headmaster. I won’t tell. Please, please, Hyde, don’t hurt me.”

The headmaster shook his head in exasperation. “For goodness’ sake, Smethwick, stop whining. Be a man about it. It’s no wonder your family never made anything of itself. Hyde’s brother died at the Somme, leading a charge of two hundred men. They all died with him, and were grateful for the chance to go out like soldiers behind their beloved captain. Is that not correct, Hyde?”

“Yes, Headmaster,” replied Hyde, with the kind of misplaced pride that only the relative of a bloodthirsty lunatic could show.

“You see, Smethwick? Hyde’s the kind of chap that other men follow to their deaths. Who’d follow a whiner like you, Smethwick? Nobody, that’s who. Who’d vote for you, Smethwick? Not a soul. Would tribes of natives break their ranks and flee in terror from the sight of your sword? No, Smethwick. They’d laugh at you, then cut your head off and stick it on a pole. You are of no value as you are, and you would be of no value in the future. This way, you’ll bring a whole new generation of Montaguans together. That will be your legacy. Hyde, continue, if you please.”

Hyde leaned over and made a long, deep incision in Smethwick ’s left arm. Smethwick immediately cried out in pain. Blood flowed quickly from the wound and dripped onto the skeletal remains of the insect thing below.

And, as I watched, a red membrane began to form over the creature. I saw veins and arteries appear, and a tiny dark heart began to pump blood. The bones on the beast’s skeletal legs, which had lain curled over what had once been its abdomen, now bonded and began to twitch, testing the air. A yellow substance flowed over its little skull as the spined tail moved on the stone with a thin, raking sound.

The creature twisted where it lay, then coiled its body in on itself and stretched suddenly, the springing movement ejecting it from its bed and bringing it to rest on the ends of its long jointed legs. It stood about ten inches tall, the semitransparent skin on its back a whitish yellow and sectioned like a caterpillar’s. In the candlelight, six round black eyes of varying sizes gleamed at the front of its skull. It raised its head, and I caught a glimpse of a long mouth, perhaps an inch or two in diameter, flanked at either side by small, thick palps.

The headmaster took a careful step back, then raised his left hand like a conjurer displaying his latest illusion.

“Gentlemen,” he said, his voice quavering with pride, “I give you…the school mascot!”

There was a round of applause from the assembled boys. On the stone slab, Smethwick ’s whole body twisted and shook as he tried to wrench his limbs free.

“No, pleeeaase,” he pleaded. “Let me go! I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. I’m sorry. What did I do? Tell me! What did I do?”

The headmaster looked at him with what might almost have been pity.

“You, Smethwick, were born into the wrong class.”

Then the creature found at last the source of the blood. Its jaws opened and its mouth expanded and contracted as it swallowed the drops. It tensed its body again, its abdomen lowering until it almost touched the ground, and sprang up onto the slab. I heard Smethwick scream as the thing scuttled across his chest, arched its back, and, with a single scorpion thrust, plunged its tail into Smethwick ’s neck. There was a jet of red that was quickly stopped by the creature’s mouth as, slowly, it sucked the life from the boy. I tried to block my ears from the soft, rasping noise that it made, and I felt my gorge rise as its horrid body began to expand, stretching to store the blood of the unfortunate boy dying beneath it.

At last, the thing was sated. It drew away from Smethwick and staggered slowly onto the slab itself. Smethwick lay still, his eyes open and his face pale. There was a round, bloody hole at his throat. His left hand spasmed once, twice, then was still.

Gingerly, the headmaster lifted the beast by its sides and raised it high into the air, its legs flailing gently and blood dripping from its jaws.

“By this ritual of the bones, we are bonded together, all complicit, all united in the great family that is our class,” he declared. “Generations of men have learned their most valuable lesson from this little creature. The blood of the lower classes is also our lifeblood: without it, we cannot be great, and, if we cannot be great, our country cannot be great. Now, three cheers for the Montague School.”

All of the boys shouted “Hip-hip hooray!” as the headmaster lowered the creature and placed it in a small cage, then handed the cage to Mr. Dickens.

“You know what to do, Dickens,” he said, his voice carrying in the echoing chamber. “In a few days it’ll be skin and bone again, then you can disassemble it and put the pieces back into the boxes.”

Mr. Dickens held the cage away from his body and stared at its occupant, now drowsy and gorged with blood.

“It is the damnedest thing, isn’t it, Head?”

For the first time, what might almost have been disgust showed itself on the headmaster’s face.

“Indeed it is: the damnedest thing. Hyde, you and two boys take Smethwick here and dispose of him. I suggest a walk along the cliffs, but be sure to weight him down before you drop him off. Now, Mr. Bierce will lead the rest of you boys in a chorus of the school song.”

But I didn’t wait to hear it. I ran back to my room and packed my bags, and by morning I was gone. My parents were surprised to see me, and wanted to take me back to the school. My father was angrier than my mother, conscious, I think, of the opportunity that I was rejecting, and the future hardships attendant upon this decision. I cried and screamed, even vomiting with distress, until they relented. I think, perhaps, that my mother guessed something was very wrong, although she never said anything about it and I never told her of what I had witnessed. After all, who would have believed me?

And so a letter was sent to Mr. Lovecraft announcing my withdrawal from Montague. A place was found for me at a local school, one to which every child brought with him his own sandwiches and milk, and in which lice were rumored to be a constant irritant. I was surrounded by those who were like me, and I quickly found my place among them.

One week after leaving the Montague School, the headmaster came to the house for a visit and a talk. My father was at work. My mother gave him tea and scones, but politely declined to return me to his care.

“We’ll be sorry to lose him, Mrs. Jenkins,” he said, as he shrugged on his long blue overcoat. “He could have made a wonderful contribution to the school. New boys are our lifeblood, you know? Will you permit your son to walk me to the gate? I should like to say farewell to him.”

My mother gave me a push in the small of the back, and I was compelled to follow the dark form of Mr. Lovecraft to the garden gate. He paused on the footpath and looked closely at me.

“As I told your mother, Jenkins, we’re sorry to lose you.”

He gripped my shoulder, and, once again, I could feel those fingers working at my flesh.

“But mark my words, Jenkins: in the end, you can’t escape your destiny. One way or another, we’ll have you.”

He leaned in close to me, so near that I could see tributaries of blood in his eyes.

“Because, Jenkins, like all the members of your sturdy, loyal class, you’re full of the stuff that makes Britain great.”