The Taxidermist [SEMI-OPEN]

It was the one place in London where they didn't ask all the wrong questions. Questions like who'd you pay to put this together and is this some kind of joke and who do you think you are, anyway? Henry tried to answer the questions they didn't ask, the right questions, the questions about what it was, where it had come from, whether there were more of them.

No one cared about that, though, because no one believed enough to ask the right questions.

No one but Morgan.

Henry knocked on the door, hiding himself in the shadows, the sack slung over his shoulder lumpy and odd colored. It was after dark, because there were some questions he didn't even want to be asked.

The door opened, and she stepped out. Henry wasn't fully convinced that she wasn't a... a... Thing. Her face was human enough. Not pretty, but human enough. The rest of her, though? He didn't know. You could hide a lot, under clothing.

Or maybe she was just strange. He stepped inside, through the door, into the flickering lamplight. The bag was soggy and would probably ooze onto her floors, but Henry knew she wasn't going to care about that, or at least not until later. She asked about the bag, because that was all she was ever interested in. Henry preferred it that way. At least someone was.

"Mole." His answer was short, one word, as if he didn't have a lot of them to spare. He thought a minute, then added, definitively: "Long mole." His hands were weathered, calloused, but they had no trouble with the knots on the sack or opening the bag so she could see inside. The creature was, indeed, a mole, the face much like a common mole, as well as the legs, and the legs, and the legs, and the legs, and the legs...

It had fourteen sets of forepaws - or one set of forepaws and thirteen sets of midpaws - before the hindpaws and the tail. It was coiled up in the bottom of the sack, looking a bit like a furry snake with extra bits tacked on. Uncoiled, it was almost as tall as Henry. He was not of any great height, for a man, but for a mole it seemed excessive.