9

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Who Owns Those Bones?

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Mary worked hard, harder than she ever had before. The giant eye was now joined by a long snout and a tangle of jagged teeth. The thought of how shocked folks would be when she, “poor Mary Anning of Bridge Street,” sold the skull and saved her family from ruin, drove Mary on.

“Hello!” came a shout from above. It was Elizabeth Philpot.

Miss Philpot rarely came on beach. Now the woman from Morley Cottage was walking slowly and carefully, step by step, down the footpath in her fine shoes. Then she crossed the sand and timidly picked her way over the stones. Though she didn’t do it often, the middle-aged woman didn’t lose her balance. Mary was impressed.

Miss Philpot stood away from the cliff and silently gazed at the creature. She drew closer and removed a glove so that she could run her hand along the long, pointed snout and the jagged teeth.

“The skull is massive,” she said, her voice filled with awe. “The expression in its eye looks horrified at being buried alive. Might it have died in a sudden cataclysmic event, I wonder?”

Mary had no answer to that. Instead, she responded, “I think the rest is buried higher up. I feel it in my bones.”

Miss Philpot smiled, but Mary wasn’t joking.

“I found many verteberries that must belong to its spine. The beast would be worth plenty more if I could find it all. Maybe the next big blow will uncover it.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Miss Philpot, not wanting Mary’s hopes to get too high. “For now, though, we have our work cut out for us and, I think, the Day brothers are just the pair to help. I’ve hired them to lift the creature from its grave.”

Mary smiled, grateful. She’d lain awake nights wondering how she would ever remove the giant skull and bring it to the shop.

Two brothers named Davy and Billy Day came to do the work. They were stonecutters, and they had the tools needed to cut blocks of concrete, and strong backs to carry the weight.

“Is it real?” murmured Davy nervously when he saw the skull.

“Might it be a stone carving?” suggested Billy.

“It’s a fossil,” replied Miss Philpot. “Once it was a living creature. Now it is frozen in time.”

“How can that be?” asked Davy, mystified.

But before Miss Philpot could answer, Mary interrupted.

“Can you pull it from the rock and bring it to the shop?” She was eager to get on with it.

“Aye, to be sure!”

“Aye, in a wink!”

Davy and Billy got to work, forgetting the nature of the beast they were freeing from the cliff. They stuck wooden wedges into the gaps in the layers of shale. They pried and pulled the creature out in three chunks: first the snout, then the eye and finally, the side of the head that was embedded in the rock. They laid the pieces on a canvas stretcher with poles at either end.

“Off we go!” said Miss Philpot cheerily. For if truth be told, she had doubted the job was possible.

The brothers were strong, but all the same, they grunted and groaned as they labored up the narrow footpath’s incline.

“Careful. Careful,” they kept repeating the word to each other.

In Cockmoile Square, it was rent day, and Lord Henley was making the rounds. When he spotted the brothers carrying the heavy load, he came over to take a look.

“What have ye here?” he asked, touching the creature’s teeth.

Lord Henley looked long at Mary before he spoke. “I heard tell you’d found something in my cliffs and wondered when I might find out about it. You do know this creature belongs to me, don’t you?”

Mary was about to speak, but Lord Henley raised a gloved hand.

“No. Don’t say a word. I own the land where it rested, so it naturally follows that the beast is mine. However, I am not an unfair man and will pay you for it.”

Mary frowned. She didn’t want to sell the skull without the body.

Before Mary could answer, Elizabeth Philpot came to her defense.

“Mary would gladly sell you the fossil, Lord Henley, but not merely the skull. She believes the body remains hidden in the cliff and that a good storm will reveal it. Once Mary has found and prepared it, you will be adding a creature to your collection the like of which no one has ever seen. For a fair price, of course.”

Lord Henley scowled at the woman from London. However, his icy stare did not succeed in getting her to back down. Miss Philpot stood her ground.

“The body may never be found even if it exists, and I’m not sure that it does,” said the squire. “And I mean to have this creature for my collection. Why don’t I buy the skull now and the body whenever — if ever — it is found?”

“If Mary believes the body belonging to this skull lies somewhere in the cliff, I believe her. Why not let her do things her way? In the end, the curiosity will be yours, however things unfold.”

“All right, then, I’ll give you one year,” replied Lord Henley gruffly. “If the rest of the curio doesn’t surface by then, I’ll be adding the skull to my collection.”

“For a fair price,” added Miss Philpot.

“For a fair price,” replied Lord Henley, defeated. Then he turned on his heel and left.

Mary and Miss Philpot exchanged a triumphant look.

In the Fossil Shop, the Day brothers heaved the massive weight of the eye onto Mary’s long worktable. After putting the other pieces on the floor, they left. The creature’s leering grin filled the room.

“It’s a gruesome thing,” murmured Ma. “What do you make of it, Miss Philpot?”

“Our lives are built on mystery, Molly. We know so little about how the world around us came to be that I dare not hazard a guess.”

Miss Philpot had little trouble believing that a beast such as this one had once swum in an ancient sea. Science was endlessly fascinating to her, and each and every day, new things were coming to light.

“It’s a mystery monster!” Mary said. “We’ll be rich when I find the body!”

Just then, Joe walked in. His day at Hale’s was over. When he saw the pieces of the curio, he gave a whistle through his chipped front tooth.

“We can pay off Pa’s debt with the money from this one!”

“I have an idea,” said Miss Philpot. “Once Mary’s finished the cleaning, and you’ve encased the skull in a protective frame, Joe, let’s put it on display. I think people would be willing to pay a penny to see something this rare. It would be like going to the London museum. And you could make a little money sooner rather than later.”

Over the next few weeks, Mary busied herself with picks and brushes, cleaning the limestone that encased the skull. She carefully chipped and brushed away debris, bringing into focus the clean lines of the skull with its fierce grandeur.

When Mary was done, Joe built a frame around it, and the Days proudly carried the curiosity over to the Assembly Rooms where it was put on display.

Miss Philpot had been right. People wanted to see the giant crocodile, and every day more and more found the penny to take a peek. It was like seeing a two-headed cow or a cat with no face. It was a freak of nature.

Even Captain Cury came for a look. When he’d had an eyeful, he said to Mary, who was standing nearby, “I wager you’ll be seeking the body now, Miss Mary. Well, don’t let your hopes fly up too high. I’ll be looking for that part of the beastie, myself.”

With that, the Curiman left the building, banging his gorse-bush walking stick on the varnished oak floors.