Death's Puppeteer

1907

By the time he was fourteen, Enoch was shooting upwards. He stood quite tall for his age, his shoulders, though skinny, were strong from carrying corpses and coffins so frequently. His hair was growing out and dark curls tickled the back of his neck. Physically, he seemed like any of the other boys around the town, most of whom looked older than they were from factory and apprenticeships at young ages. There was nothing distinctive in Enoch's appearance to outwardly display his difference from the rest. At least, at first there hadn't been. He had had over a year to hone and practice his new found talent, as he liked to think of it, but the extent of what was slowly changing in him had far from been reached.

For over a year, he had kept his peculiar habit of collecting dead animals and manufacturing little clay soldiers with their hearts, a closely hidden secret. Inanimate and still, the clay figures lived beneath his floorboard until he saw fit to bring them to life. He found, quite accidentally, that he did not have to remove the heart to send them back into a lifeless pile of clay. With a little press to the chest, the figure would go limp and, if it hadn't been too long, with another press life was restored to the heart.

Any time he was not working as an apprentice to his father, and Uncle Uriah, he devoted to determining which animal's hearts were the strongest for his use. After much experimentation by candlelight in the undertaker's parlour, he found mouse hearts the most useful for smaller 'homunculi'.
The homunculi he made were, albeit a little strangely, the closest things Enoch had ever had to friends. They kept him company and amused him running around his room and trying to climb things, he could make them do whatever he wanted them to. Once one of the stupider ones had toppled right out of his open bedroom window in the middle of the night and shattered in pieces on the ground below.
Sometimes Enoch scratched simple faces into their clay heads, and even named the more useful ones. Chester had been his favourite. Once, when he'd had four at a time after managing to catch and kill several mice running around the house, he'd lined them up two against two and watched them wrestle and fight each other. By the end of the strange brawl, only one was left with all four of his limbs. So he had graced the clay man with a name, Chester.

Faith O'Connor was one of the few living souls that brought a genuine smile to Enoch's face, when she wasn't screaming and crying at least. Approaching two years old she was not yet talking but the light in her bright blue eyes and the happiness in her smile when she laughed could not help but touch his heart. He loved his sister and, despite his generally cold and dismissive manner, did not always mind having to watch her in the house on infrequent occasions.

xxxXxxx

Enoch kicked a stray pebble as he wandered down the street, barely paying attention to where he was walking. It was a pleasantly nice day, the sun having cracked its way through the clouds at last and all around him families were taking advantage of the good weather. Girls in white dresses and boys in fine shirts and flat straw hats ran about the streets, tugging at the hands of parents or nannies. Enoch had unbuttoned the top of his own shirt and stuffed his cap into his pocket to enjoy the warmth of the sun on his head, so infrequent it was. In his other pocket a little clay figure the size of his palm kept trying to pull itself out of its cloth confinement. Blindly, he felt for it and pushed it back down with his thumb. He cut left at a crossroads and turned into a narrow back alley between two rows of buildings.
The smell hit him before the sight. Cast in shadow, up against the western wall were the bodies of two very limp and lifeless cats. Both were so skinny that even from a distance Enoch could see their ribs protruding from mangy tabby fur. He took a few steps towards them and as he did, the few rats picking at the corpses scattered. They had clearly been dead for some time, Enoch actually gagged at the smell and lifted the collar of his shirt to cover his nose. Despite the obvious deterrence, he crouched down and prodded one with the tip of his boot. He'd never tried to use cat hearts before...maybe he could make larger homunculus with them. At the very least, he could experiment.
The clay man wriggled in his pocket again but this time Enoch ignored it even as it managed to struggle free and fell with a soft thunk onto the pavement.
He might not have been so curious had they been alive. Killing a cat out of cold blood seemed much different to killing pests like mice and pigeons. But as they were already dead and half the job was done...
The fabric slipped from his face as the boy lifted his head and glanced over his shoulder quickly. He was just in time to see his homunculus beginning to totter away from him and lunged to catch it. He just managed to seize it but lost his balance and landed awkwardly on his knees and elbow. His palm closed tightly around the clay doll and it squirmed and writhed trying to get away before the clay cracked and the heart within was squashed. Enoch tossed it aside as it went limp and lifeless in his hand and turned back to the dead animals. He had made his mind up and in seconds produced from the same pocket that had held the homunculus a short knife. It wasn't as precise and manageable as scalpel but it would do in a pinch.