The Golem's Eye

Kitty's stupefaction, it then ducked down out of sight, paused a moment and sprang up again with a giggle. This action appeared to give Stanley childish pleasure; he repeated the motion, accompanying it with assorted whoops and cries. "Now you see me!" he cried, his voice muffled behind his cap. "And now... you don't!"
    "The boy's gone mad," Mr. Pennyfeather said.
    "Get out of there now, Stanley," Kitty said, in an altogether different tone. Suddenly, unaccountably, her heart was beating fast.
    "Stanley, am I?" the head said. "Stanley... mmm, suits me, that does. Good honest British name. Mr. G. would approve."
    Fred was beside Kitty now. "Hey..." He was unusually hesitant in manner. "How come his voice has changed?"
    The head stopped dead still, then tilted coquettishly to one side. "Well now," it said. "There's a question. I wonder if anyone can guess." Kitty took a slow step backward. Fred was right. The voice no longer sounded much like Stanley's, if it ever had.
    "Oh, don't try to leave, little girl." The head shook vigorously back and forth. "Then it'll only get messy. Let's take a look at you." Skeletal fingers, extending from a tattered black sleeve, rose from the sarcophagus. The head tipped sideways. With loving care, the fingers removed the cap from the face and placed it on the head at a rakish angle. "That's better," the voice said. "Now we can see each other clearly."
    Beneath the cap, a face that was not Stanley's flashed with a glint of gold. A spray of white hair showed all around.
    Anne gave a sudden wail and ran for the staircase. The head gave a jerk of surprise. "The bloody cheek! We haven't been introduced!" With a sudden flick of a bony wrist, something was scooped from inside the sarcophagus and hurled forward through the air. The crystal ball landed with a crack at the foot of the stairs, rolling directly in Anne's path. She screamed and collapsed back upon the floor.
    Everyone in the company had watched the ball's precipitate flight. Everyone saw it land. Now everyone turned slowly back to the sarcophagus, where something was rising to its feet, stiffly and awkwardly, with a clittering of bones. It stood upright at last, shrouded in darkness, brushing dust from its jacket and tutting away all the while like a persnickety old woman. "Will you look at this mess! Mr. G. would be quite distraught. And the worms have wreaked havoc with his underclothes. There're holes down there where the sun don't shine."
    It bent suddenly and extended an arm, long bone fingers plucking a fallen lantern from the floor beside the sarcophagus. This it held up like a watchman, and by its light, considered each horrified face in turn. The neck vertebrae rasped as the skull behind the mask moved, and the golden death mask flashed dully inside its halo of long white hair.
    "So then." The voice from behind the mask had no consistent tone. With each syllable it shifted, first high like a child's, then deep and husky; first male, then female, then growling like a beast. Either the speaker could not decide, or relished the variety. "So then," it said. "Here you are. Five lonely souls, far underground, with nowhere safe to run to. What, pray, are your names?"
    Kitty, Fred, and Nick were standing motionless, halfway to the metal grille. Mr. Pennyfeather was farther back, shrinking against the wall below the shelf. Anne was closest to the stairs, but sprawling, sobbing soundlessly. Not one of them could bring themselves to reply.
    "Oh, come on." The golden mask tipped sideways. "I'm trying to be friendly. Which is exceptionally decent of me, I reckon, given I've just woken to find a leering lout with an outsize cap rifling through my possessions. Worse still—look at this scuff on the funeral suit! He did that with all his thrashing. Kids today, I ask you. Which reminds me. What year is it? You. The girl. The one who isn't mewling. Speak up!"
    Kitty's lips were so dry, she barely got the words out. The golden mask nodded. "I thought it had been a long time. Why? Because of the boredom, you'll say. Yes, and you'd be right. But also the ache! Ah, the pain of it you wouldn't believe! It got so's I couldn't concentrate, with the agony and the solitude of it, and the noise of the worms gnawing in the dark. It would have driven a lesser fellow mad. But not me. I solved the pain years ago, and the rest I endured. And now, with a bit of light and some company to chat with, I don't mind telling you, I feel good." The skeleton