***

That night my excitement was so great I felt restless and couldn't stay in one position for more than a few seconds. I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep, and indeed for what felt like hours I had lain awake and replayed those few seconds that I had watched the boy in the window. I felt like I was caught in an enchantment, and I was sure there was something unearthly about him, like a god sent down from the heavens to taunt the rest of us mortals with his enigmatic beauty.

It seemed I had been able to sleep after all, for when I opened my eyes there was white sunlight rising on the walls and outside the window I could hear the sounds of people talking and chickens scratching at the bare earth.

I massaged my leg which had been bent in an odd triangle position and stiffened in the night. I sat up and did my usual ritual- a patting of water to the cheeks and a quick run off my fingers through my hair. This morning however, I took more care in tamining it because I would be meeting Dr. Skelton, who was Vale's partner in the research.

Just had agreed the day earlier. Professor Vale was waiting outside the building for me, his plump figure poured neatly into a three-piece suit and his hair combed back so finely I could see the pink of his scalp. I coughed when I got closer because of the wet cloud of wood-scented perfume that clung to him.

Vale's cheeks flushed as pink as the rose bush he leaned against, as I took in his excessively made up manner. "Come on, let's not be late." He looked me up and down, from the polished leather of my shoes to my poorly controlled curls, and nodded approvingly, "Make sure you make a good impression, yes?"

I nodded and we walked in silence, cutting across a lawn to the hall where we ate a breakfast of eggs and tea and fresh melon ("you don't get this in England" Vale had said, licking his pink lips that glistened with the melon's juice). We then made our way down the stairs, where Vale explained, the laboratories were nestled in the basement.

Although we were in an entirely different continent the labs looked the same as the ones in Kings College and I wondered if it was a requirement to paint the walls that particular shade of sickly yellow, perhaps to prepare students for the horrors within. This was especially true for Dr. Skeleton's lab, which was less a lab but more a museum for all that was grotesque and disturbing.

Vale knocked on the door where Dr.Skeletons name was nailed to the wood on a silver plaque. He opened the door when there was no answer and I gagged as I was struck with the overwhelming smell of formaldehyde. It was a cluttered place, each wall of the room was lined with open wooden storage frames, and every shelf was laden with boxes separated by slim shadows. I wander past the shelves and read the notes on the boxes that had been denoted in a neat calligraphic hand – 'Femur', 'Mandible' 'Skull' 'Cranium' and so on.

Those were the contents that were hidden. Displayed openly and almost proudly were tissue cultures in which recognisably human organs spawned lumpy fungal growths. There was a stuffed rat, and next to it a loose eye of some poor creature- still attached to the meaty red string of the optic nerve.

On the window still was a series of jars housing preserved babies floating in an amber fluid. Each baby was bigger than the last, all with their small bodies curled around fat white heads. There was a prominent rumor in the school that the largest, almost fully developed fetus had grown inside Dr. Skelton herself before she had miscarried and decided to pickle her baby like a vegetable.

I found it uncomfortable to be in a room that was both so funereal, and yet arrogantly medical in atmosphere. It disturbed me so much that when I heard movement from behind a pile of empty boxes I cried out loud.

"Oh, sorry," A young man said as he peered over the top of the small mountain and saw myself and Professor Vale. "I didn't hear you come in. How are you, Philip?" He asked using Vale's first name.

"Very well, thank you."

It suddenly became profoundly clear why Vale had taken such time in his appearance that morning. Standing before me, his eyebrows gently furrowed in curiosity, was the boy from the window. 

***