‘Yes, just give me a moment to gather my thoughts and we shall begin,’ he said distractedly.
She turned away to allow his mind free roam of the studio. She wore a simple white blouse, buttoned up to the neck, and a long, layered skirt of muted turquoise and greens. Her hair was pinned back and exclaimed the dynamic contours of her skull, neck and face.
He prepared the plates and returned. She was seated in the chair, the box of unused instruments already lying next to her. Had he done this in the last sitting? Placed it so in rushing departure to remind himself of their usage? Or had she made the decision for him? He pondered this as he adjusted her head and tightened the head clamps, seeing her smooth skin dimple under the pressure. He framed the camera, focused it and loaded the film.
‘Josephine, the first image will be a static reference to the poses that come after it.’
Her eyes blinked in understanding, and he took the first photograph, observing her implacable exterior before changing the plates. He returned to the camera and paused for a moment, holding the pneumatic shutter bulb in his right hand, and the bell in his left. He rang it twice.
Instantly, she contorted into a position of wretched exhaustion, as if frozen mid-nightmare. Her head twisted sideways, straining against the brace, and her mouth lolled open, eyes turned upwards under heavy, almost closed lids. The rest of her body slumped, sack-like, into the chair.
Muybridge was shocked by the speed of the transformation: so utterly different was the person before him, it was almost impossible to recognise her. Gone was the inner dynamo, with the outer beauty and gentle sanity he had begun to so enjoy. He quickly took the picture and rang the bell to return her but, to his horror, the ringing only heightened the pose. Her body twisted further away from itself, as if a great rope had been wound around her and connected to a cruel windlass, which had been tightened against normality. There was a spiteful crack, and for a horrifying moment he thought one of her bones had shattered; his astonishment augmented as he realised it was the sound of the metal head brace snapping behind her neck. Not knowing what to do next, he did the only thing he could: he reloaded the camera and made the exposure. Her head was now loose and driven back, as if by a mighty force. He changed the plates again and picked up the bell. He had forgotten every instruction he had read about this procedure; he couldn’t be sure if another ringing would release her or turn her invisible winch more severely; opportunity and curiosity lay across from pity and aid, in equal measures on the other side of the turn. With an uncertain exhilaration that he did not care to name, he rang the bell again. She slumped forward like a dead weight against the leather belt of the seat; it pressed up under her breast, forcing out a great exclamation of air. She was totally inert. Muybridge stepped towards her, disappointment congealing into concern. He lifted her weight back into the vertical, and was stunned at its solidity; she seemed to have changed density. Her subtle bones and gentle curves were cast in lead and granite, and when she opened her eyes, he saw a space in the universe he had never dreamed of. He distanced himself, stepping back as one of his long, shivering arms held her in place.
‘Josephine, are you alright? Can you hear me?’
The eyelids mercifully closed, and she seemed to soften into normal weight, falling into a detached slumber. He returned to the camera and collected his things, deciding against wakening her – it seemed safer to leave her undisturbed.
He gathered the plates and made his way to the darkroom. He processed them in an immersed daze, totally engaged by the images produced. He was beginning to understand what Gull had wanted from these sessions; tomorrow he would use the mirror.
Suddenly, he remembered his scheduled lecture at the Academy. His memory jolted, and he rapidly put away the chemicals and set the glass negatives to drain, returning to the studio to help Josephine out of her confinement. But she was gone.
He walked quickly and quietly through the kitchen to her rooms. Her bedroom door was ajar, and he softly pushed it open. She lay diagonally across the small bed, a blanket draped from her knees to the floor. Her breath told him that she was deeply asleep, and he crept a little closer. The restraining belt had wrenched away some of the buttons of her blouse; it fell to one side as she slept, exposing the rich upper curve of her right breast. Her hair comb had fallen out and was on the pillow, precariously close to her eyes. He moved it to the bedside table and picked up the blanket, lingering for a moment to savour the view of her exposed shoulders and chest.
He gathered his things and quietly left the studio, the warm glow of self-sanctified chivalry brightening his view of the grubby streets outside.
After his duties at the train station were finished, Maclish had rushed to find the doctor, his expression grave and urgent.
‘It went terribly wrong. We must find Sidrus at once.’
‘What went wrong?’ said the doctor, obtusely.
‘The Orm, man, the Orm! It hollowed the wrong man, some other poor black who was guiding a stranger through the forest. Not a hunter, anyway, and not Tsungali,’ said Maclish.
‘But how could that be?’ said the doctor, finally relinquishing the remnants of his peaceful day. ‘He was spoored, he had the trace string…’
Maclish shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me, man, I don’t have the answers. It didn’t work this time.’
Sidrus fumed, his head shaking in dismay; its soft, bald surface rippled and wriggled his disturbing face, looking even more unreal in the pallid light of Hoffman’s laboratory.
‘He had the string worm and you had the description of the prey; how could this happen?’ he said ominously.
The doctor looked at the floor and Maclish tried not to look at the articulation of the face, as anger slid beneath its baby-smooth skin and wrinkled between its wide-set, piggish eyes. He had seen many things, worked with all kinds of freaks and barrack life, but this man gave him the horrors, made his flesh creep.
‘You have wasted my time and my money, and the one opportunity I had of stopping that animal from killing Williams in the Vorrh,’ he snarled.
‘It worked with Cornelius and the Silver Man,’ mumbled Maclish, his words barely escaping before the cleric turned on him, crossing the room and looming into his face.
‘Then what fucked up this time?’ he shouted, his breath hot and fast on Maclish’s face, forcing him to close his eyes. No one had ever dared try this before; the consequences of insulting the fire-headed Scotsman were broadly known. But on this occasion, he looked away. The deepest levels of his well-sprung instinct locked down his hands and his rage, quelling it beside his opponent’s ferocious power.
‘We will give the money back,’ said the doctor, trying to defuse the situation. The cleric sent him a withering gaze, as if to silence him forever; alum for the tongue. The stringent moment lengthened. Sidrus stormed out of the pale room, snapping the atmosphere’s tensile thinness with his stomping feet.
Anger was not the most useful tool in his armoury. He had achieved everything without its obvious help, could reach the far points of expression and action without the adrenaline other men required to achieve half as much. So he marched through the streets, wanting to dissipate his rage and think more clearly, but he could only contemplate the dismal outcome of what should have been a foolproof plan – what had those idiots done to ruin such a perfect solution? Now he had to find another way of stopping the wretched Englishman from being butchered in the Vorrh as he tried to pass through it for a second time. Nobody had ever accomplished such a thing; the great forest protected itself by draining and erasing the souls of all men; all except this one, apparently, who walked through it with impunity, even appearing to gain benefit from it. Sidrus did not know how or why this unique possibility had manifested itself, although he guessed that the witch child of the True People had worked some blasphemous magic with her protégé. What he did know was that if the Englishman passed through the forest again, he alone would have the opportunity to understand its balance, its future and maybe even its past. Not since Adam had such a single being altered the purpose and the meaning of the Vorrh, and now he was being hunted by a barbaric mercenary, one these fools had let slip through their grasp.