The Winter Garden (IMD #2)

Chapter Two: Alchemists and Pinnipeds

Chapter Two:

 

Alchemists and Pinnipeds

The cathedral of knowledge spread out before him. A forest of steel trunks rose toward the heavens, branching into soaring vaults and arcades of striated stone. A lattice of glass covered the ceilings, allowing the sun to illuminate the mysteries and curiosities of nature. Immanuel stood between the wooden reliquaries as Professor Martin closely examined the bones one more time to ensure there wasn’t a single speck of rotting pinniped left on them. Bile rose in his throat as he remembered the smell coming from the chunks of meat in the laboratory. For two weeks, he returned to the dormitories reeking of the foul, metallic odor of decomposition. After bathing and scrubbing his hands half a dozen times, he would lie in bed at night and smell the all too familiar stench of dead walrus wafting from his fingertips. The young scientist would never admit it to his beloved professor, but more than once when he was spilling out the maceration water from the bones, he could not help but be sick into his flower bed. Now that the bones had been stripped clean and sanitized with acetone, they were actually quite beautiful. There was something remarkable about watching a pile of offal transform back into a bow-legged, barrel-chested walrus.

What he still found disconcerting about the whole process was once when he touched the bones, something odd happened. It had occurred when he was carrying them inside after their final drying. Immanuel was quickly bringing them in before a rainstorm undid all his work and didn’t think to put on his gloves since the bones were no longer putrid. As he hefted the skull, a chill passed over him. Before his eyes stood a vast sea peppered with mirror-like patches of ice and a sky that touched the water. The whites and aquamarine blues melded to form one limitless sphere of creation. The wind lashed against his skin, tousling his hair and blowing through his shirt and vest as if they were nothing more than paper. The cold burned his face and arms as he stared into the mute, unending tundra, but when he blinked, the gentle patter of rain hitting his eyelashes and cheeks brought him back to Oxford. He had no idea how long he had been standing there while being in the arctic, but from that day on, he made sure to wear gloves while handling the beast to keep it from happening again.

“Well, Mr. Winter, I believe our friend is ready for some varnish. You start with the head, and I will begin with the tail.”

Immanuel dipped one of the brushes into the lacquer and carefully smeared it across the walrus’ skull.

“You can do it a little more vigorously. You can’t hurt what is already dead.” He watched as his student nodded and picked up his pace. “Now that he is finished, he needs a name.”

A small smile played on Immanuel’s lips. “Otto.”

The professor’s gravelly laughter echoed through the empty museum. “Ah, yes, Mr. Bismarck does bear a striking resemblance to a walrus, doesn’t he?” When Immanuel did not respond, he went on, “Are the other lads treating you any better?”

His student shrugged. “They aren’t mistreating me, sir. They don’t really bother with me. I do not like cricket or going to the pub after lectures. It is as much me as it is them.”

Elijah Martin looked up from the walrus’ tail at Immanuel’s pensive yet pained expression. The young man reminded him of the faces and figures in stained glass windows with each delicate and comely feature carefully delineated by an artful hand. His countenance brightened in the light drifting down from the crystalline roof, giving his hair and eyes an almost metallic sheen, but he had seen the same reaction occur during class as his eyes lit up in comprehension or pride when only he knew the answer. While the professor often met his other students in town, he only caught glimpses of Immanuel Winter on the lawn sketching or tucked away in the library with a massive tome and his hands clasped over his ears despite the silence.