The Taxidermist's Apprentice.

Midnight Madness

In between heartbeats and the thump of rain against the window, with fingers as delicate as a tulip's petal, Edmond carefully unfurled the silk parcel in front of him. Beneath his perfectly honed, steely-exterior, anticipation bubbled and churned like potions in a witch's broth. However, as he brought down the last silk leaf to a gentle rest on his desk, and looked at the monstrosity glaring up at him, Edmond wished he had not bothered being so careful in his unwrapping. The content of the parcel did not warrant tenderness or feather-light touches. No, it deserved nothing more than the brutal manhandling of a butcher, because a lion's hide as bruised and abused as the offender before him, could only have come from an abattoir.

The chunks of flesh still clinging from the skin, suggested to Edmond that the blade used was no sharper than a fingertip and the scarring in between, echoed the accidental puncturing of an organ and the carelessness to allow its fluids to freely swill around like wine in a lavish party. Edmond could not help being surprised as much as he was offended by the clumsy work. As far back as he could recall – admittedly in his short years – hides coming from British East Africa were always faultless. But, the lack of professionalism and precision in this frightening instance, brought to Edmond's mind the sorry image of the Scotsman – engorged with the excitement of his first big-game kill – impatiently ordering his native to have at it with a machete.

Usually, Edmond was very selective with the commissions he chose to accept, because the stellar reputation passed down to him afforded the right to turn away anyone he deemed unworthy – regardless of the riches on offer. However, in the last few months, his esteemed regulars had been lured away by the pomp and pageantry of a charlatan called Walter Potter. While Edmond had been taught to craft mounts as living and breathing as any majestic beast that roamed the Serengeti, Walter Potter had taken to dressing and posing animal mounts to appear kitsch and grotesquely human. Edmond, forever the purist and artist, saw at once that Potter's work lacked class and sophistication. Unfortunately, the nobilities of London were as seduced by his gimmicks as moths were with the flicker of candlelight.

Dwindling work and the financial demands of a townhouse and housekeeper, forced Edmond to do the thing that once occupied his darkest nightmares – calling up the colonies for commissions. It was then that Edmond's talents were recommended to Andrew Robertson, the spoiled and entitled oaf who spent his days gallivanting around the dark continent, shooting anything that dared to move. Edmond had only ever communicated with the man-child through letters, but from the indecipherable hieroglyphics he called handwriting and his Neanderthal's grasp of punctuation, Edmond quickly realised he was dealing with an imbecile.

As Edmond opened up his tin of borax powder, he suddenly became aware of the coffin of silence that he was in. The rain had stopped. Usually, he sought comfort in the echo of nothingness, but this silence was a harbinger of the pain to come. Edmond's fears were confirmed when in the corner of his eye, he saw a sword of light slicing through the darkness. The sun was out. Like the snap of a finger, the street outside awoke with a crescendo of trotting horses, cheerful drunks and the laughter of children. While Edmond tried to focus on the task of preserving the hide – the lion will thank him later – his curiosity bore into him like the beak of a woodpecker. Before his good sense could stop him, Edmond drifted towards the window and saw the street humming with the colour and verve of a Louise Rayner paining – and it made him feel sick. Sicker than he was already feeling. The grossly cheery scene reminded Edmond, if it were not for Florence's bi-weekly visits, he would be alone and without a living soul to talk to. Well, that is... if he excluded his midnight friends.

***

As moonlight flooded the streets outside and the hallway's grandfather clock struck midnight, the animal mounts that perched neatly in every nook and cranny – with the flutter of a wing, twitch of a muscle and waggle of a tail – came alive. In the blink of an eye, Edmond's townhouse transformed from museum to zoo. Lions, antelopes, deer, foxes and rabbits roamed the house freely, as if the wooden floorboards had grown into the grasslands of the Savanah. Edmond could not move an inch without bumping into something big and fearsome or small and furry. If the world could see what he saw every night, it would hail him a god amongst men. Frustratingly, they could never see the wonders of Edmond's midnight hours, because such magic had proven to be for his eyes only. One-minute he could be wrestling a slipper from a lion's mouth, then as soon as Florence walked into the room, the lion would be as still as a picture.