Mary Anning's Curiosity

by Monica Kulling

Mary quickly ate a bacon sandwich and grabbed her rucksack, collecting a hunk of bread for later.

  The Gun Cliff houses stood black against the sea and sky. In dawn’s dimness, the cliffs loomed menacingly as Mary tramped across the beach. The sea’s surf rolled in beside her. The cresting and splashing of its waves were music to her ears. Overhead, hungry gulls squawked raucously.

  “I’m not giving you my bread!” yelled Mary playfully.

  Out of habit, Mary searched the ground as she walked, losing herself in thought. She tried to imagine the ancient sea that had once covered the land on which she walked, and all the creatures great and small — from tiny fish to ammonites to swimming great beasts — that had teemed in it. But it was like trying to imagine how deep the sky was and how many stars it contained.

  Mary had almost reached Church Cliffs when she spotted Captain Cury hobbling down the footpath. Not again! She walked past the cliffs and headed further east toward the Black Ven, where Pa had fallen all those years ago.

  Mary stood before the dark, massive cliff face as Captain Cury lumbered over, using his spade to steady himself. She had seen a line in the shale and had started chipping. As she blew away rock dust, Mary saw what looked like a cluster of thunderbolts. What luck! She could keep herself busy and not let the Curiman get under her skin.

  Mary worked slowly and carefully, blowing away chips and dust to reveal more of the stone shapes that lay in the rock.

  “Well, well, Miss Mary,” said Captain Cury, a bit out of breath. He watched Mary at work for several minutes and then said, “Is this the find you and Joe are keeping dark about? Looks like nothing more than thunderbolts. Hardly worth the effort, it seems, being only belemnites. I find myself wondering, though, why you and your brother scurry so whenever I appear? Could it be my winning personality?”

  “There’s more here than meets the eye,” muttered Mary, without looking up.

  “So you say, but I don’t believe it. There’s nothing more than a thunderbolt cluster in those rocks, you and I know it. I’m off to the ledges near Charmouth where I hear there’s been a landslip. I aim to find that croc, or my name’s not Curiman.”

  With those words, Captain Cury shambled off, picking his way eastward. Mary waited until he was far down the beach before walking back to the eye. Now Mary had time to give to the work without the worry of the Captain showing up.

  Mary worked tirelessly, removing the surrounding shale. She placed her hammer at shallow angles, and flakes and small chunks of stone fell away. She must not crack the bones. It would be horrible to damage this magnificent creature.

  The saucer eye grew larger. Its fierce look made Mary wonder if it had died wide-eyed. She shuddered at the thought. Was it possible that a creature like this had once roamed the seas? And how long ago was that? One thousand years? Millions of years?

  Elizabeth Philpot had told Mary that some of the world’s geologists believed the earth had gone through many different ages and was millions and millions of years old. That certainly wasn’t what church folk were taught.

  “It boggles the brain,” Mary had said with a mixture of fear and wonder when Elizabeth Philpot told her.

  The knowledge gave Mary even greater admiration for the creature that had once swum freely and was now being uncovered by a fossil hunter’s hammer.

  9

  —

  Who Owns Those Bones?

  Tap-tap-tap!

  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 bod
y 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.

  10

  —

  The Great and Terrible Lizard

  For months Mary watched and waited. If wild storms came when you wished for them, the coastline would have been pummeled hundreds of times over — for Mary made that wish each day. But the storms that smashed the coast that winter didn’t uncover the body that was buried deep in the cliff.

  Mary went fossil hunting every day and returned with the usual curiosities, but not a shred of good news. Perhaps she’d been wrong about the creature’s body. Perhaps it was only the skull that was to be her great discovery.

  Ma tried to be encouraging. “It will happen,” she said, “if it’s meant to be.”

  Then came a winter storm that lasted for days and had everyone worried for their safety. Gigantic waves bashed and battered the cliffs, drenching the houses that stood near them. Many quaked in their homes, sure they’d be washed out to sea, but not Mary. Her spirits rose as her hope was renewed. She could hardly wait for the blow to end!

  At the first calm dawn, Mary excitedly tramped down to Church Cliffs. The sea glimmered in the morning light and gulls shrieked their greetings. Mary breathed in the tangy sea air. It was wonderful to know where she belonged.

  Mary tromped steadfastly eastward. When she reached the spot where the skull had been, she slowly scanned the limestone ledges and the bands of shale of the Blue Lias. She sought out places where crumbling layers had been washed away by smashing waves to reveal what was underneath. Mary was searching for the slightest hint of the creature’s spine.

  As Mary scoured the cliff, she thought of the book Miss Philpot had shown her. A French natural scientist named Georges Cuvier had written it. Cuvier studied living animals and compared their skeletons to those of fossilized creatures, and the book was filled with his drawings. Mary immediately noticed that Cuvier’s drawing of a crocodile skull didn’t match the skull she’d uncovered. The snout wasn’t right. The eye was too large. So what kind of creature was buried in the cliff?

  Suddenly, Mary saw a ridge of humps in the limestone. Were these the beginnings of the creature’s spine? Mary scraped at the mud and shale, uncovering a long line of bumps that could only belong to a spine. She’d been right! When it died, the sea creature’s head and body had separated. The body was a little higher up from where Mary had excavated the skull.

  The monster fossil lay waiting to be freed from the cliffs. And what a monster it was!

  “Ahoy there, young Mary!” shouted a familiar voice. “What have ye found?”

  Oh, no, thought Mary. How could I let him creep up on me?

  Captain Cury was banging down the beach, balancing on slippery rocks with the expert use of his spade. When he finally reached Mary and saw what she’d been staring at, he gave a long, low whistle.

  “So, ye’ve beat me to the beast.”

  “I have,” Mary replied. “Just so you know, it’s mine.”

  “I knew ye’d be the one to find it, for ye be the miracle girl. Innit right?”

  “What do ye know ’bout that?” Mary asked quickly. She didn’t like being reminded of the day three women were struck dead and she was spared. It sent shivers through her.

  The curiosity man gave Mary a rare smile. His teeth were all but gone. The ones that remained were brown with rot. All the same, the smile made him look years younger.

  “I was present on the day that bolt struck you and the three ladies nestled under the elm. The lightning strike felled the women, but not you, a wee babe. Oh, no, not you. You were being spared for this day. I knew ye’d make a name for yourself.”

  Mary was uneasy. Why should this man, who’d stolen many a fine fossil from her since Pa had died, be speaking like a friend? Mary was happy she had the beast, it was true, but her achievement felt hollow without Pa there to share her happiness. He couldn’t show pride in Mary’s hard work, which he would have done if he’d been alive. And now, to top it off, Captain Cury was being nice to her! The world had turned on its head.

  “You think my kindness be a trick, young Mary?” asked the Captain, his eyes warm and watery. “Well, there’s only the one trick. I’m old now and don’t wish to die with an enemy standing at my grave.”

  Mary accepted the Captain’s words, and together they stood awestruck by the outline in the cliff.

  Finally, the Captain spoke. “What is this great beast, I wonder?”

  “It’s a sea reptile, for certain,” said Mary thoughtfully. “A giant swimming creature, but not a crocodile.”

  “And you’re certain of this because …”

  “Because of the French scientist’s book Miss Philpot showed me.”

  “I see,” replied the Captain. “Mayhap he be right.”

  When the rest of Lyme Regis found out what Mary had discovered, you’d have thought the King of England was coming to visit, there was t
hat much excitement. The Day brothers built a stronger, higher platform so Mary could stand at the height of the bones to do her work. Joe helped when he could. Ma and Miss Philpot were excited too, and often brought Mary hot tea and crumpets to encourage the young fossil hunter.

  People who hadn’t been to the beach in years came down to see young Mary Anning at work. Even Ann, impressed, came to see what her friend had discovered.

  “It’s a frightful thing,” she murmured. “You’re amazing to have found it.”

  But Mary was chip-chip-chipping away and didn’t hear her friend’s words. After that day, Ann never came back to the beach, for the creature frightened her.

  The daily work of hammering at shale and rock to bring the creature closer to the light rested on Mary’s shoulders, and she accepted the responsibility without complaint. Each day she came down to the shore with a light heart, knowing she was going to uncover more of the creature. She imagined it might be like working on a sculpture, watching rock take on a new shape under her hand. What would her chisel uncover today? What would the creature look like when she finished?

  On cold, blowy days, Mary secured herself to the platform with Pa’s belt. She wore gloves with the tips of the fingers cut off, so she could feel the fossil buried in the stone and not damage any of the fragile bones.

  Because Mary had found the creature within a year from the time she found the skull, Lord Henley let her finish the job of freeing the great and terrible lizard from its grave. Mary worked for months. Her hands grew rough and red, but Ma didn’t say a word. She just rubbed Miss Philpot’s cream on them each night.

  Finally, the day came when the creature’s entire body was revealed. The beast was ready to be removed.

  Once more, the Day brothers cut large blocks in which the fossil was embedded. They brought the pieces to the Fossil Shop. When the bones were clean, Mary varnished them. While she had been carving the creature out of the cliff, Mary had kept the curiosity damp with wet sand. Now, indoors, the varnish Pa had used for his wood pieces would stop air from drying it out.