Her Dark Curiosity

by Megan Shepherd

I squeezed the rock as the Beast ran his claw down my cheek, drawing a line of blood, stinging me with pain.

  “Well, love?”

  Wind pushed against the windows, making the entire structure sway and creak. The Beast glanced up, which gave me just enough time to slam the rock into his temple, knocking him off me as his blood spilled on my dress.

  At the same time, the world shattered in an explosion of glass.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I SCREAMED AND COVERED my head with my arms. Showers of glass rained onto the bed of flowers, clinking in the brook like terrifying music, just as a burst of steam formed a thick cloud around us.

  Beside me, the Beast groaned and clutched his head. I glanced over just long enough to see the claws were gone; he was shrinking in size slowly, shifting back into human form.

  An icy gust of wind ruffled my dress. I managed to sit, shaking, as frigid winter air poured in through a shattered glass panel next to the grotto. A man crouched in the middle of the glass, half hidden in fog, white shirt latticed with cuts on his arms and shoulders that already seeped blood.

  “Montgomery!” I choked, crawling toward him over broken glass, heedless of the sharp pain in my palms and knees. He’d thrown himself through the glass.

  “Juliet,” he breathed, straining with the weight of his wounds. One hand held a pistol and the other a hunting knife, but he threw his bloody arms around me. “We were held up. A fire on Eastwick and all the roads shut down, blocked by police. We couldn’t get the carriage through, so I came on foot as fast as I could. I feared I’d be too late.”

  “My God, you’re bleeding everywhere.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No—I dazed him, at least for now.” I pulled away, gasping at the sight of blood dripping down the crown of his head, glass still tangled in his hair. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

  Montgomery shook his head. “Not before we finish with Edward.”

  “There are chains attached to that palm tree. He can’t break through them, but he can dislocate his joints and free himself, so we’ll have to take care.”

  I tripped on my torn skirt as we hurried with the chains. The Beast was fading back into what was left of Edward, though he moaned in pain.

  “Let me handle him,” Montgomery said. “Run outside and fetch Balthazar. By now he’ll have found his way to the gate with the carriage. I can’t carry the Beast by myself.”

  I started to turn toward the broken glass panel but paused. A cold blast of air pushed through my thin dress.

  “Juliet, what are you waiting for? We must hurry.”

  I had once sworn that Edward Prince would not have another chance to kill anyone else I loved. I’d been so drunk on anger, right after the professor’s death.

  And yet.

  I couldn’t shake the Beast’s words. That one was not me, love. There had been no mirth on his face when he’d denied killing the professor.

  It was madness, surely—but I actually almost believed him.

  “You’ll kill him once I go,” I whispered.

  Montgomery raised an eyebrow. When he didn’t deny it, I grabbed a handful of his torn shirt. “Promise me you won’t,” I said.

  “He was about to kill you. This is what we agreed to.”

  “Maybe he deserves to die, maybe he doesn’t. Edward knew this was a trap but came anyway to turn himself in. He assumed his darker half had killed the professor, but the Beast swore he didn’t do it. I know it’s probably a lie, but I don’t want it to end like this. I want to take him back to the professor’s house and decide his fate there.” At Montgomery’s silence, I shook him again. “Promise me!”

  “All right!” Montgomery dragged me toward the broken panel, one hand on his pistol. “You have my word.” His eyes were angry, but they were honest.

  I climbed over the tangling ferns and away from that terrible grotto of Plumeria selva. My skirt was in tatters; I’d lost a boot somewhere. As I ducked through the broken pane, my bare toes didn’t even feel the cold—every sensation I had was fixated on the urgency of the moment. I darted across the bridge to where Balthazar waited by the gate.

  “Come quickly,” I said. “We need your help!”

  Balthazar hitched the horses to a post and climbed the fence with surprising agility for a man of his size, and we raced back to the greenhouse. I smelled the traces of chloroform in the air and saw a rag tucked into Montgomery’s pocket. One glance at Edward’s slowly rising chest told me he was unconscious but still alive. Montgomery had managed to wind the chains in a pattern around his limbs so that no matter of shifting bones could set him free.

  “Can you carry him?” Montgomery asked Balthazar, who nodded and slung Edward over his shoulder as though he was a sack of oats. All together we raced to the carriage, back into a city I’d never felt I belonged in, but that I greeted now as an old friend.

  Balthazar climbed the fence and helped lift Edward’s body over. Montgomery made a stirrup of his blood-soaked hands to help me scale the fence, and we both landed on the other side and climbed into the back of the carriage while Balthazar took the driver’s seat. With a crack of the whip, we were off.

  I looked around the carriage for some scrap of fabric and settled on one of the curtains, which I ripped down to stanch the bleeding on Montgomery’s face.

  “We don’t have much time,” I said. “You need medical attention, and there’s no telling how long the chloroform will keep Edward sedated.”

  My own bleeding hands shook uncontrollably as I let out a single sob. Montgomery took the torn curtains from my hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “We got Edward before he could kill anyone else, and before the King’s Club could get their hands on him. It’s over.”

  I ran a hand over my face. “It’s not over! They’re negotiating with the French military. Spending a fortune on shipping crates for the creatures. They aren’t going to just give up.”

  His big hand smoothed my hair back. “For tonight, at least, it’s over.”

  Before I knew it, his lips found mine. He tasted of blood and sweat, and it twisted my insides into sharp angles. Tears started down my face but he kissed them away, cupping my cheek, trailing rough fingers along the smooth skin of my neck.

  “I was so afraid I’d be too late,” he whispered into my hair. “I would have torn him apart if he’d hurt you.”

  I let my eyes sink closed so I could exist in this single instant. I’d had few moments in my life that felt so right. The last time I’d felt this way had been on the island, before I knew of Father’s gruesome crimes, and I had thought we could be a family again. I’d been wrong then, naive. Surely I wasn’t wrong now, too… .

  I kissed him again, silencing those thoughts. I didn’t want to think about Father, or Edward, or what would become of him. For months I’d dreamed of Montgomery, and he was here now, wrapping an arm around me as we rode in an exhausted silence. Every bone in my body ached, reminding me that I was just as cursed as Edward—though my affliction stayed buried deep beneath my skin.

  It’s a part of you now, the Beast had said. What will you be without it?

  I pushed aside the curtain, focusing on the city outside, rows of storefronts with holiday wreaths, quiet streets spotted with snow, until at last we arrived at the professor’s. I stumbled out of the carriage and pounded on the front door, while Balthazar and Montgomery dragged Edward, unconscious and chained, out of the back. I tried to run my stiff fingers through my hair, but it was useless. My dress was torn and covered in bloodstains; Elizabeth would instantly know we were in trouble.

  And yet Elizabeth didn’t answer. I pounded again, called her name, peered in the front window.

  “She must be asleep,” I called back to Montgomery. “I’ll climb in through my window.”

  Once I was up the trellis and into the house, however, there was no sign of Elizabeth, only an eerie silence in the big dark rooms, and her keys missing from the front door.

  I opened the door from
the inside to allow them entrance. “She isn’t home. She must have gone out.”

  “Fortunate for us,” Montgomery said. He and Balthazar carried Edward into the foyer, then through the dining room, still set with silver finery, and into the kitchen. The basement doorway was low, the stairs narrow, and Balthazar had to step carefully not to miss a stair. At the bottom I twisted open the rusted cellar door. Balthazar carried Edward inside and I followed him, fumbling to unlock the chains.

  “Are you mad?” Montgomery said. “Leave him chained.”

  “The chains will serve us better wrapped through those door handles to keep it closed,” I said. “The only thing the professor ever imprisoned in here was vegetables, and they hardly required a lock.” I handed the heavy chains back to Montgomery.

  Edward’s sleep was troubled. His head tilted to the side as his eyes fluttered behind his lids. A dried patch of blood clung to his temple from where I’d hit him. I brushed it off with the pad of my thumb. His skin burned with a deep fever.

  “Juliet?” Montgomery asked.

  I blinked and pulled my hand back. Montgomery helped me out and locked the root cellar behind me, testing the chains. I tossed one final glance through the barred window in the cellar door at Edward’s bruised body, and something hitched in my chest.

  Maybe I was fascinated by Father’s research. Maybe I did think some of it brilliant. But the Beast was wrong when he said I didn’t want to be cured and didn’t want Edward cured. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than for both of us to be free of Father’s curse.

  Father had won in life; he wouldn’t win in death.

  THIRTY-TWO

  WE CLIMBED THE STAIRS to the kitchen just as the cuckoo clock squawked that it was midnight. I looked around the quiet house, shivering at how empty it felt.

  “We should try to find Elizabeth,” I said. “She might have gone looking for me.”

  “It’s a big city,” Montgomery answered. “We’d have no hope of finding her. Best to stay here and wait for her to return.” He stumbled slightly, and my eyes went to the glass still embedded in his skin, the web of cuts across his arms.

  “First things first,” I said. “You need sutures before you pass out on the floor. Come with me.” I led him up the stairs to the professor’s study and turned on the lamp. For a moment I expected to see the professor’s body still there, the blood dripping onto the floor below, but it was empty now, save the cat. With my knee I gently nudged the cat out of the chair so Montgomery could sit. I sat on the edge of the desk, examining his wounds.

  I found the professor’s medical bag in the dusty old cabinet, stacked atop the ancient journals and boxes, and placed it on the desk. With the soft lamplight and the cat winding between my feet, I felt safe for once—if only for a little while.

  “You’ll have to unbutton your shirt,” I said softly.

  He started at the cuffs, taking care with a glass shard embedded in the fabric, and then undid the buttons down the front of his chest. Wincing, he let me help him peel it away from his blood-soaked skin.

  My breath caught at the sight of his chest—bloody, slashed, bruised. Not so very unlike Edward’s bruises, in fact. I touched his shoulder softly, studying the cuts with a surgeon’s eye, then grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the bookshelves. “You might want a swig of this before I start.”

  He took it gratefully as I arranged the handful of medical supplies I’d dug out of the professor’s bag. Forceps. Sterile needle and thread. Tin pan.

  As I picked up the forceps, I couldn’t resist studying the pattern of his cuts. Wounds had always fascinated me. These were so smooth, perfectly sliced. A shame, really—straight cuts like these never healed as well as jagged ones.

  He flinched as I touched the cold forceps to his forearm.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He brushed back a strand of blond hair. “It’s fine. I just wish you’d let me clean that cut on your face first.”

  I touched my cheek, surprised to come away with my own blood on my fingertips. I’d felt so numb that I could hardly feel the scratch the Beast’s claw had made.

  “I didn’t crash through a glass wall. My cheek can survive a few hours without soap and water.” I examined the glass in his forearm and then carefully extracted it with the forceps.

  Tactile work like this gave me pleasure. I could get lost in the routine and give my head a rest. I worked in silence, filling the tin tray, and then, once I was certain all the glass was removed, mopped the blood from his skin before coming back with thread to stitch the worst wounds.

  It wasn’t until I was nearly finished and a web of black stitch marks crisscrossed his arms that his unsteady voice, threatening to shatter, broke our silence. “I feared he would kill you, Juliet. I saw him through the glass attacking you, and it was like he was ripping out my own heart.”

  I shifted, needle and thread poised above the last cut. “I’m thankful you were there.”

  “I should have been there sooner. You took care of the Beast on your own. You’re stronger than you realize.”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer such tender words that made knots of my veins, so I punctured his skin with the needle. He didn’t flinch. I made the stitch quickly, then another, then another. I blinked furiously with my head ducked, but a tear still found its way onto his skin.

  Montgomery tilted my chin up gently, forehead creased in concern. “Why are you crying?”

  I turned away, running the back of my hand over my wet cheeks. His chair creaked as he leaned closer, but I shrugged away from him and paced in the small space between the desk and the bookshelves, my emotions pulling me in too many directions.

  “Tonight, before you came,” I started, “I had the Beast chained against a tree. We spoke. The things he said about my father, and who I was… A part of me thinks he was right. There is something unnatural about me. I can feel it, deep inside. I don’t care for the things other girls do. I’m curious about things I shouldn’t be. I’m so fascinated by Father’s research that I can hardly stop thinking about it. I feel like a monster for thinking that.”

  I squeezed my lips together as if that would help me hold in tears.

  “It’s your illness,” Montgomery said after a pause. “It’s getting worse, and your mind doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s causing these unnatural urges. Once you’re cured, there’ll be nothing abnormal about you.”

  I thought of the spasms, the dizzy spells, the hallucinations of beasts crawling through tall jungle grass. “Do you think so?”

  “Of course I do. Do you truly believe I could love a monster?”

  A sob caught in my throat. “That’s just it. There are things you don’t know about that last night on the island. Terrible things I’ve done.”

  “Shh,” he said, running a hand through my hair. “The island is long behind us. I’ve made my peace with it, and so should you.”

  “You don’t understand. That night, while you were packing the wagon, I lied to you. I said I was going back for my treatment, but I went to the laboratory instead. Father had locked himself inside. Jaguar was there—”

  “Juliet,” his soft voice came. “Let go of these nightmares.”

  I shook my head as memories came back faster: of blood-red paint bubbling under a burning door, Jaguar’s tail flicking in the darkness.

  “I killed him,” I choked, turning toward the windows. “I opened the door for Jaguar. He might have been the one to do it, but I was just as responsible.”

  I faced Montgomery and the terrible penance I was due. He’d paid for his sins by staying behind for the beast-men he’d helped create. This was my due—admitting my guilt, telling him everything and resigning myself to whatever fate he decided.

  “Well?” I asked. “Do you still think me not a monster?”

  He tucked a loose strand of my hair back tenderly. When I dared to look into his eyes, I was surprised to find them absent of any judgment. “I already knew, Juliet.”

&nbs
p; I swallowed. “What?”

  “I saw what you did that night. It took me a long time to understand how you could do such a thing, and it frightened me, too, for a while. But I know you. I love you. You did it for the greater good. You see a chance for redemption in even the darkest beast.” He tilted my chin up. “You’re brilliant like your father, but you’ve none of his cruelty. I thought I might have lost you tonight, and I discovered there’s nothing in the world that frightens me more. I want to always be with you.”

  He touched his lips to mine. “Marry me,” he whispered.

  My heart stopped. The world stopped.

  I hadn’t words. My thoughts seemed to diffuse through the room like the lamp’s soft light.

  Marry me.

  I sank onto the windowsill before I could fall. I’d been half in love with Montgomery ever since I was a little girl and used to daydream about our quiet servant. But so much had changed. There’d been Edward, and Father, and an ocean between us.

  At my stunned silence, he cleared his throat in a rare moment of shyness. “I had hoped to find some mistletoe, wait until Christmas, do this properly… .” He swallowed hard, fumbling in his pocket until his hand came out with a silver ring. “I know I said I wanted everything resolved about Edward, but it can’t wait. My entire life I’ve wanted a family. My father’s the only relation who might still be alive, and I’ll never find him; I know that. But I can have this. You and me, our own family.” His blue eyes, soft as the early-morning sky, found me. “I want to marry you.”

  My heart wrenched. Who was the man I loved, exactly: The childhood servant? The brilliant surgeon? The single-minded hunter? He was still so young, still unsure of his path in this world, just as I was.

  “Juliet?”

  My stomach felt hollow. I loved Montgomery, but we had both changed since the island. He’d been forced to slaughter all the beasts he’d once called friends, which had hardened him. Would marriage bring a little of his softness back? And would I make a good wife? I hadn’t any domestic skills; I could barely sew a button. It was more than that, though. A wife had to surrender all her property and wages to her husband, had to seek his legal permission to sign a contract or, in some cases, even to travel alone. I trusted Montgomery, but I’d been wrong about men before… .