Saint Peter’s Wolf by Michael Cadnum Page A

good, it’s automatically by Fletcher.”
    â€œThey’re probably right.”
    â€œNot with this Mozart. It’s real. But forget Mozart. You want to see something that’ll frighten you.”
    I actually had not, and yet the way he put it made me suddenly eager. I agreed—I wanted to see something that would frighten me.
    He tugged a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and snapped them on, an aura of talcum around his hands for an instant. He unlocked a drawer, and tugged out a black, snaking harness. “Used to keep a witch quiet. Called a brank. Fits over the head. She sits with this probe in her mouth and can’t talk while the judge passes sentence on her. So she won’t put a curse on the judge.”
    â€œFascinating,” I said.
    â€œBut what?”
    He had read my thoughts. “But it’s not scary,” I said.
    â€œYou expect me to start with the best first? No, it’s not scary. Except in a way. All those witches were just innocent women tortured into confessing. That scares me—real torture.”
    Another drawer opened. He held up a gnarled, ebony knot. “The hand of Saint Catherine. Authenticated last week. The other hand is in a church in Ely, in England. It’s authentic that it’s her real hand, not that she deserves to be a saint or is in heaven or anything like that.”
    I was already disappointed. He could tell. He offered me a shrunken head. “Twentieth century. One of the last ones made. I hope. A white man.” It looked dark, with blond hair like a girl’s doll. Its eyelashes were thick and yet delicate, too, its lips sewn together in a meditative pout. Its skin was thick, like the skin of a well-broken boot.
    â€œNot impressed. You’re a hard man.”
    I had to smile. “Maybe arcana just isn’t arcane enough for me. As a boy I would have been awe-struck.”
    He shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t know. I hate the stuff. Pathetic and creepy. I’m going to sell it off and stick to art and music and things of beauty. But here,” he said, handing me a typed catalog. “See if there’s anything else you wanted to see. I don’t have the head of Zapata or anything like that. But if you see anything you might like—”
    There were no prices on this list that he kept for his own reference, but I understood that he would be willing to sell me anything that might interest me. I ran my eyes down a list of antique Tarot decks and alchemist’s alembics. Arcane was a good word for the assortment of preserved snakes and infant sharks from the brujos of Mexico, and the first edition of James the First’s treatise on witchcraft. All of it curious but somehow not exactly arresting.
    Until I saw a single word, with no date or country of origin. A naked word: fangs.
    There was a splash of light, somewhere deep within me. A forest, a path. Moonlight glittering.
    â€œWhat’s this?” I asked, unable to guess why I had trouble speaking for a moment.
    â€œYou tell me. I have no idea what it is or where it came from. You want to see it?”
    â€œYes, please.”
    â€œYou sure?”
    Why, I wondered, the hesitation? “Please.”
    He shrugged. “It came with a trunk of silver goods boxes an agent bought for me in Zurich. It was supposedly a part of an estate. I’m still trying to find out whose estate it was, how many different deceased people it may have belonged to, because the trunk was full of a good many items of interest, salt cellars, sugar tongs, charming things like that. And then, to my surprise, this. An object that hardly fits the rest of the bourgeois knick-knacks.”
    His rubber-gloved hands had taken a small black box from a steel-faced drawer. He offered the box to me, and I took it. My hands, though, were reluctant to open it. I studied the box, its brass hinges turned slightly green, its surface highly polished. The box was surprisingly