Stranger Things

Homunculus

Trading on my weaknesses for volumes that hold the allure of alchemy and majic, corpulent Mr Skeeter, the bookseller has promised me a book of exceptional uniqueness. In his shop hung with the heady leathery scents of a thousand dusty volumes and strung with evil vapours of the riverside tannery's that cause him to curse every time one of his patrons leaves the shop door ajar he displays to me a volume with all the panache of a circus ringmaster.

'A book of uncommon curiosity, Mr Drood. Unique I would say.' With a flourish he pulls a wide leather bound tome from his shelves and rests it respectfully on his stained counter.

'But wait,' he petulantly pushes my hand away as I attempt to open the volume. 'The cover, Mr Drood, I believe to be human skin,' With a wink on his sagging face that draws attention to his opaque blind eye he caresses the cover with fingertips stained black as a Moor's by inks leached from the pages of the countless books that reside on his shelves.

'Mr Skeeter, you suffer, like most book sellers from an uncommonly prodigious imagination,' I say brusquely. 'It's calf skin and its condition is poor, the volume has been rebound at some point and exposed to damp. Hence the mottling you attribute to human skin. It is not so.'

Skeeters dissimulation discovered, he attempts to disguise a flicker of displeasure by quickly opening the volume to reveal a handsomely illustrated inner folio, an ancient Zodiac filled with majical signs.

My heart leaps, then I quickly don a mask of disinterest and to double its effect extravagantly draw my fob watch from my pocket, pop its cover and check the time. I sigh in the manner of one who supposes his time is better spent elsewhere and suggesting that Skeeter better make the best of the moment for I am nonplussed by this peculiarity.

'Mr Skeeter,' a shabbily coated man with slicked back hair calls across the shop. 'Might it be an opportune time to enquire as the province of this codex?'

I sigh again. 'Go on, Mr Skeeter. My morning is already lost, see to your client.'

Skeeter looks at me and then openly at the volume as if he suspects I might sweep it away like a thief and scuttle off into indistinctly dreary London morning. 'Mr Skeeter, your customer?' I say.

A prattling Skeeter disappears into his labyrinthine shop of tunnels of ancient sunlight and ghostly trails of shifting motes. I take stock of my situation. A few disreputable collectors lurk around the decrepit shelves, none appear to be giving me any attention. They are men in the mould of Skeeter, given to furtively withdrawing to dark corners to bargain on prices with curses and cries of outrage before setting on a figure with a surreptitious hand shake and leaving with volumes swaddled tight in their arms like a stolen babies. I check again. No one is looking in my direction.

Quickly I rifle through the pages, a collected of illuminated manuscripts with detailed descriptions in Latin. Wonderfully fine drawings full of odd devices shown in exhilarant colours; bizarre apocathary jars, crowned firebirds, mermen in glass display cases, three legged lambs. A joyous cacophony of gold flecked smiling suns and grinning pockmarked moons flicker past, all accompanied by long lists of ingredients in tight gothic scripts . Around the edges are handwritten notes, latter additions in spidery writing; alternately in Greek, German and Arabic. There is no doubt this is an alchemist's work with his own corrections and annotations. The date, no later than say, 1600. But who's book? Flamel, Agrippa, Paracelsus even? Mr Skeeter has indeed picked out a jewel amongst the detritus of the moribund pamphlets that can be found scattered across the dealers of London.

Skeeter bounces up from behind his counter like Punch, his ruddy nose with a globulus drip on it which he wipes away with the sleeve of his jacket. 'The British Museum has expressed interest, a strong interest, their representative comes to visit me this afternoon. The museum,' he states loudly to a now empty shop, 'is a valued customer of mine. They agree with my determination as to its rarity, Mr Drood.' He adds in determination to show his erudition on the matter. Then he lowers his voice and leans furtively over the pockmarked counter. 'I will have to defer to them of course should they wish to purchase it.'