The Ugly Werewolf

Chapter 3: An Elusive Species of Octopus

In the townhouse at the end of the street there is a display case filled with unusual things. It is strategically placed in the corner of the room where it is invisible to prying eyes. It does not matter at which angle one peers into the window, one will not see it. But it is there. A collection of items that could easily bring down death and destruction.

There are countless empty spaces on those shelves. Once, Bartholomew anxiously imagined the horrible things which would someday find a place there. Now, the vacancies send a shiver of excitement down his spine. He cannot wait to add his own treacherous trophies to the display case. He retrieves a crumpled slip of paper from his shirt pocket and angles it so that the light from the window across the room falls across it. It is the list from the library, the items which he had vowed to find so that he could change his life into something interesting. He stares at it and wonders what each of the items would look like shelved before him.

But which item will he add to the collection first?

Bartholomew frowns. He cannot decide. Eurydice is not yet awake either. But that might be a good thing. As grateful as he is for her help, he doesn't want to depend on her entirely.

The problem is that he has no idea how he would go about obtaining any of these items. They all seem completely unobtainable. Jarl Vori  is, after all, a very thorough man. When he bans something, he ensures that there is absolutely no trace of it left behind. Anything else would be unfair. What if one of his beloved citizens accidentally found themselves in possession of something banned and were prosecuted for it? Jarl Vori wouldn't risk that. And thus, you will not find a dusty silver spoon in an old lady's attic, long forgotten about and from a time before the ban. You will not find a beady-eyed rat at the bottom of a burrow hidden deep in the woods. You will not find a banned book in the off-limits section of any library, public or private. Jarl Vori did not just ban things, he eradicated them.

All this makes Bartholomew's mission exceptionally difficult. But he refuses to give up. He consults the list again, squinting to read the scrawled handwriting. No, he thinks, not that. Not that either. Then he sees it, written sideways in the margin of the page: Thaumoctopus destructor. It is a species of octopus, Bartholomew recalls. In the book that inspired his list, there was an illustration of it beneath the scientific name, depicting an ordinary-looking orange octopus, except for the eerie grin stretched across its face. Apparently it was banned after fishermen insisted that it bought bad luck down upon them whenever they accidentally caught one in their nets.

But how do you ban an octopus? Bartholomew is convinced that it would be entirely impossible to completely eradicate an entire species of octopus from the ocean, no matter how dedicated Jarl Vori is. Therefore, he thinks, of all the items on the list, this would surely be the easiest to find.

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Eurydice is thrilled with his decision. "You're going to love having a pet," she tells him. She smiles fondly at the fat rat curled up on her lap. (Bartholomew sees a whisker twitch and is convinced that it must be dreaming of something nefarious. Total world domination? Probably.)

He nods excitedly. Although he dislikes the beady-eyed rat, he does not actually dislike all animals. He has always enjoyed watching the stingrays at the factory swim about, and he thinks he will feel similarly about the octopus. "I should be able to get an aquarium from work. There's plenty of spare ones in storage," he tells Eurydice.

Eurydice nods excitedly. "Even better. So. What's the plan? How are we going to find and capture this octopus?"

Bartholomew hedges. "I'm not that far yet," he admits. He knows very little about octopuses, after all, and has no idea how to go about finding one. "I suppose we could start by going down to the docks and talking to the fishermen there?" he suggests.