“But don’t worry.”

Smethwick smiled and patted my shoulder.

“We’ll be fine.”

But we were not going to be fine. We were not going to be fine at all.

In the weeks that followed I grew closer to Smethwick, even though we had little in common. It was natural that I should do so, for I was without allies or support in that place, and Smethwick offered both. Yet I found myself distanced from him by the actions of the older boys. It was as though they had chosen to take Smethwick under their wing, for he was not subjected to the same little humiliations and hurts that marked my first months at the school. Instead, they joshed with him and permitted him to run small errands for them, in return for which he was allowed to conduct his business without fear of casual violence. He seemed to become almost a mascot for them, a totem of some kind. I took to staying close to him, in the hope that some of the goodwill directed toward him might extend to me. Smethwick, to his credit, did all that he could to protect me, even to the extent of placing himself between me and those who would have harmed me otherwise. On one such occasion, he received a gash to his forehead that required treatment by the school nurse. The headmaster was called, and although he spent some time with both Smethwick and me in an effort to discover the identities of those responsible, we both remained silent. Nevertheless, the fifth-formers who had perpetrated the assault were quickly found, and their punishment was both savage and public as an example to others. The result was that, gradually, I was left in peace, although less out of a regard for my well-being than a greater reluctance to cause Smethwick any harm.

Things continued that way for some months. For my part, I neither understood nor trusted the motives of the older boys in taking Smethwick under their wing, but Smethwick himself was too grateful to be suspicious.

When at last they came for him, I believe that he cried as much out of sorrow as from dread.

On the night of the ritual, I remember waking as a long line of sixth-formers entered our dormitory, some with candles, but all holding their little velvet boxes in their hands. They moved silently, and none of the other boys appeared to be awake to see them or, if they were, they chose not to reveal the fact. The sixth-formers slapped their hands over Smethwick ’s mouth so that he couldn’t scream, while four or five of them lifted him from his bed. I could see Smethwick thrashing in his pajamas, his eyes full of fear and panic. Perhaps I should have cried out, but I knew that it would do no good. Perhaps also I should have left Smethwick to his fate and remained content in my ignorance, but I did not. I was anxious to see what they were going to do to him. It pains me to say it, but I was glad that it was him instead of me.

I shadowed the group at a distance, following them down corridors and stairs until they came to an oaken door bound with iron bands that stood open in a corner by the staff common room. I can’t say that I remembered ever seeing the door before. Perhaps it had been hidden by a tapestry or a suit of armor, for there were many such relics in the Montague School.

The door was pulled closed behind the boys, but not locked. I opened it gently and felt cool air on my face. Stone steps wound down in front of me. In the quickly fading light from the candles of the group, I descended until I found myself in a huge, cold room with stone walls and a low, vaulted ceiling. There were more candles here, and more figures waiting. I hid in the shadows behind a stone column and watched.

On a raised stone platform below me stood the male teaching staff of the school. There was Bierce, the games master, and James, who taught Latin and Greek, and Dickens and Burrage and Poe. Before them all stood Mr. Lovecraft, the headmaster, dressed in a red tartan nightgown and matching slippers.

“Bring him forward, boys,” said the headmaster. “Gently now, that’s it. Tie him down well, Hyde, we don’t want him running off on us, do we? Oh, do stop whimpering, Smethwick. It’ll soon be over.”

They tied Smethwick to four iron rings set into the stone slab, binding his arms and his legs tightly with strong rope to each ring. Smethwick was wailing now, but nobody seemed to be paying him much attention and the stone walls simply threw his cries back at him.

“All right, you older boys,” said the headmaster, beckoning them with his right hand. “Up you come, one at a time. You know what to do.”

The sixth-formers stood in an orderly line facing the platform. On the floor beside Smethwick I could make out a pattern, perhaps a foot long and six inches wide, marked in a stone that was darker and older than those surrounding it. It looked like fossil remains, except concave, as if whatever fossil had once been entombed there had been expertly removed, leaving only the impression of what it had once been.

And as I watched, each of the boys stepped forward, opened his little velvet box, and placed his bone in a section of the hollow pattern, filling it bit by bit, until at last the skeletal remains of some kind of animal lay on the floor, although it was like no animal I had ever seen. It seemed to have eight legs, like a spider, but its skeleton was obviously internal, not external. I could see its rib cage and a tiny, pointed skull, and a kind of short, barbed tail that followed a groove in the stone.

The headmaster smiled as the last bone was positioned, then removed a small, ivory-handled knife from the pocket of his dressing gown. “Hyde, as head prefect, the honor of bleeding Smethwick falls to you.”

Hyde, a dark-haired, smug looking youth, stepped forward in his brocade gown. He accepted the knife from the headmaster with a small bow, then turned to Smethwick. The cries of the spread-eagled boy rose an octave.

“Please, let me go,” sobbed Smethwick. “Please, Headmaster. I won’t tell. Please, please, Hyde, don’t hurt me.”

The headmaster shook his head in exasperation. “For goodness’ sake, Smethwick, stop whining. Be a man about it. It’s no wonder your family never made anything of itself. Hyde’s brother died at the Somme, leading a charge of two hundred men. They all died with him, and were grateful for the chance to go out like soldiers behind their beloved captain. Is that not correct, Hyde?”

“Yes, Headmaster,” replied Hyde, with the kind of misplaced pride that only the relative of a bloodthirsty lunatic could show.

“You see, Smethwick? Hyde’s the kind of chap that other men follow to their deaths. Who’d follow a whiner like you, Smethwick? Nobody, that’s who. Who’d vote for you, Smethwick? Not a soul. Would tribes of natives break their ranks and flee in terror from the sight of your sword? No, Smethwick. They’d laugh at you, then cut your head off and stick it on a pole. You are of no value as you are, and you would be of no value in the future. This way, you’ll bring a whole new generation of Montaguans together. That will be your legacy. Hyde, continue, if you please.”

Hyde leaned over and made a long, deep incision in Smethwick ’s left arm. Smethwick immediately cried out in pain. Blood flowed quickly from the wound and dripped onto the skeletal remains of the insect thing below.

And, as I watched, a red membrane began to form over the creature. I saw veins and arteries appear, and a tiny dark heart began to pump blood. The bones on the beast’s skeletal legs, which had lain curled over what had once been its abdomen, now bonded and began to twitch, testing the air. A yellow substance flowed over its little skull as the spined tail moved on the stone with a thin, raking sound.

The creature twisted where it lay, then coiled its body in on itself and stretched suddenly, the springing movement ejecting it from its bed and bringing it to rest on the ends of its long jointed legs. It stood about ten inches tall, the semitransparent skin on its back a whitish yellow and sectioned like a caterpillar’s. In the candlelight, six round black eyes of varying sizes gleamed at the front of its skull. It raised its head, and I caught a glimpse of a long mouth, perhaps an inch or two in diameter, flanked at either side by small, thick palps.