The Sunken Cathedral

Chapter 2: Dr. Andreyev's Research into the Paranormal

Below listed are the texts Dr. Andreyev requested Thomas Wilson bring back from his January trip to England.

A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences, written many years before either one of them were born.

A Christmas Carol, oddly enough. It seemed that Dr. Andreyev thought he could find a kernel of truth in a story meant for children. Perhaps the cultural divide between them was greater than Thomas had thought.

He also requested this: The Book of Physic, Arts of the Paranormal, written by one of his and Thomas Wilson's contemporaries, Mr. George S. Burn. They went to university with him. Dr. Andreyev had done little to support his research, but played along well enough with his talk of ghosts and demonology. Thomas wrote to him during his time in London, and requested an afternoon with him, and a cup of tea. Burn brought him a copy of his book, signed and dated. It was already out of print, so Thomas was grateful for the gift. Burn offered a copy of his new book as well, but Thomas Wilson politely declined, citing the growing size of his luggage as the concern. It wasn't.

They went to a nice little spot on his side of London, and sat near a window. They had black tea, and finger cakes.

Mr. Burn spoke to him in near excruciating detail of the current state of things in London, as well as his research into demonology, and spirits. In the past year he had dabbled in photography, divination, and religion, trying to put together an adequate portrait of the many facets of the paranormal. Mr. Burn had studied law in university, a year his junior. When Thomas Wilson asked about his final year at university, Burn changed the subject abruptly.

In spite of his lack of any concrete career, George S. Burn was doing quite well for himself, his own adequate inheritance supplemented by that of his wife. She also didn't work. The whole conversation, Thomas could only think that Dr. Andreyev would have been a lot less judgmental of these things. Perhaps if the doctor had been this conversation's liaison, he would have had more luck getting the help he sorely needed; though, at the time, Wilson saw the doctor's interest in ghosts and demonology as a passing fancy, brought on by the odd notions of those lonely nuns up at St. Mary's. He could never have comprehended the matter of life or death it would become.

He returned to Grimshader a week and a half after Christmas, laden with gifts from his cousins in Wales, the books, and some so-called photographs of "demons".

Dr. Andreyev had spent the holidays alone, and Thomas had been worried about his condition. The doctor was throwing so much of himself into the goings-on up at the cathedral. Andreyev had never been a careful man, with himself or others.

In their house, there was a tiny entry room, immediately adjoined to a sitting room that doubled as a library. Beyond that were four other rooms down a cramped hallway. Two of those rooms were bedrooms, one was the kitchen, and the last was the water closet. When Thomas entered their shared dwelling, he found the good doctor asleep in his armchair, curled up like a child, a book with a broken spine dropped to the ground beside him. Thomas did as he usually did when he found him in such a state; he washed his whiskey glass, threw a quilt over him, and began to search the pantry for something to eat. There wasn't a lot, as suspected. The doctor didn't tend to eat much when Thomas wasn't around. There was preserved fish in oil, and a loaf of bread that had gone a bit stale. The bread he wrapped in a damp dish towel, and warmed over the wood-burning stove in an iron pot. The tin of fish he simply left on the stovetop, to open once the bread was more favorable in texture.

They ate the rehydrated bread in slices, with two or three of the little fish to each slice, with a bit of the oil from the tin spooned over. There was near complete silence at their dining table, an old wooden thing with two chairs on one side and a wall opposite. Once dinner was out of the way, and coffee had been brewed and rationed out to both men, Thomas told him about his conversation with Mr. Burn. They sat in the living room. While he was talking, they looked over the collection of books Thomas had brought, as well as the ones Dr. Andreyev had found locally. There were few, but there were some.