The Corpse Queen

by Heather M. Herrman

  Molly started up the stairs, then stopped.

  Voices drifted from down the hall above.

  “It’s foolishness.” A man’s voice, solemn. “I swear, Ava, you’ll regret this.”

  “I won’t let you change my mind.”

  “There is no need for such a risk,” the man said. “Not now.”

  “You’re a coward.” Ava spit the words.

  A long silence. When the man spoke again, his voice was quiet.

  “You won’t believe this of me, but I care about you. The girl’s dangerous.”

  Ava laughed, but it was a strained sound.

  Were they talking about her? Molly leaned forward, trying to hear better. The step beneath her gave a loud crack.

  “What was that?”

  She sucked in her breath. Should she announce herself, or wait here and hope the moment passed?

  The decision was made for her.

  “I’m going to bed.” Her aunt’s voice was weary. “The boys brought in two littles. I’ve cleaned them up for you. Twins. Make sure you charge extra for the lecture.”

  “Of course.”

  A door slammed closed, followed by the click of a lock.

  She heard footsteps and scurried back down the stairs. The outline of man appeared on the landing above her.

  Molly pressed herself against the wall, trying to sink into the shadows.

  But the man hurried past her, as oblivious to her presence as if she’d been one of the dozens of paintings lining the walls.

  She let out a shaky exhalation and made her way up the stairs, toward her room.

  In the hall, the scent of peppermint lingered. From behind her aunt’s door came the rustle of skirts, accompanied by the clink of a bottle being uncorked and the soft sound of crying.

  Molly paused, but it was anger, not pity, she felt. Whether they’d been talking about her didn’t matter. This house was a viper’s nest of secrets, and she was tired of being kept in the dark.

  Without stopping to think, Molly hurried down the stairs after the man’s disappearing shadow.

  * * *

  She caught up just as he exited through the hidden back door, and then quietly trailed him to the church.

  For once, the butler was not there to stop her.

  Taking a deep breath, she slipped inside.

  She was stunned to find herself surrounded by a crowd. The pews were packed with stylishly dressed young men and, here and there, even a few women. All leaned forward eagerly, craning to stare at an empty table surrounded by lanterns in the center of the room.

  The man she’d followed stepped brusquely into the circle of light. Immediately, the audience quieted. He raised a gloved hand. She thought, but couldn’t be sure, it was the same doctor from the madhouse.

  “Good evening. I am Dr. Francis LaValle. Thank you all for coming.”

  The crowd exploded into applause.

  Molly started. When she thought of doctors, it was old Dr. Frazer from her childhood who came to mind, his severe face and his gray suit, the same one worn for funerals, births, and home visits.

  This man was another species entirely.

  His clothes were peacock-bright and clearly expensive, tailored to an exacting fit. He wore a smart waistcoat of a pale robin’s egg blue, paired with green velvet pants, and a towering top hat set off by a distinguished beard and sideburns.

  “Tonight, we have a very special treat,” Dr. LaValle said. He spoke with the charm of an actor, his voice rising and falling in enticing waves. The audience hung on his every word. “Tonight, we will not be stopped by the mortal laws of physics. Tonight, I will show you . . . the future!”

  The audience clapped wildly.

  With a slight tilt of his chin, the doctor signaled to a young man in an apron, who swiftly disappeared behind a blackboard.

  When he returned, he rolled out a table covered in a sheet, only the casters visible. The room was so quiet that Molly could hear them squeaking as they rolled across the floor.

  A large shape lay humped beneath the sheet.

  Taking off his gloves, the doctor removed the cover.

  A body appeared, torso bare and muscular legs clothed in ripped brown pants. But where his head should be . . .

  Several people screamed, and Molly saw a woman faint, her partner barely moving in time to catch her before she hit the floor.

  Where the man’s head should have been was the head of a pig.

  Under the glaring reflection of cleverly positioned mirrors, each bristle on the head was visible, grown to gigantic proportions. It had been so seamlessly joined to the body that it looked as if the head had grown there—as if, indeed, this were a new kind of beast woke from a hellish nightmare.

  The doctor moved around the body and lifted the dead man’s hand, then let it fall back onto the table with a loud smack.

  A whimper sounded from the audience.

  “This poor boy died not twenty-four hours ago from a horrible accident. His entire skull was crushed.”

  Molly thought of the body in the road.

  “While we cannot make him whole again, we can do something else.”

  The doctor’s assistant moved, once more, behind the blackboard. This time he wheeled out a contraption nearly as tall as the doctor—a large metal box with wires and clocks on its face.

  “It has been said that no man can raise the dead.” Dr. LaValle’s face grew grave. “I mean to show you otherwise.”

  Excited murmurs rippled through the crowd.

  Rolling up his sleeves, Dr. LaValle stepped toward the machine. Picking up two wires, he plunged them into the pig’s head, then nodded to his assistant. The young man cranked the knobs of the machine.

  The dead pig’s eyes sprang wide as its mouth opened and closed. Then, the dead man’s entire body sat up from the table, as neat as a windup toy.

  The crowd gasped, shocked.

  “Behold!” The doctor spun the knobs higher, and now the smell of singed flesh filled the room. “Life!”

  The body jumped again, and small sparks flew out of the pig’s glistening ears, followed by smoke. A woman shrieked.

  Molly could stand no more. Whoever this man was, he was as mad as the Tooth Fairy.

  Reaching blindly for the door behind her, she shoved it open and stumbled outside, inhaling the fresh air in great gasps.

  “Not your sort of sport?”

  She startled at the unexpected voice. Leaning against the church was a young man. Molly recognized him immediately—the boy who’d refused to shake her hand at the poorhouse. Ursula’s beau, James.

  He pulled a small silver case from his vest, shaking out a thin white stick the size of her finger. He held it to the flame of a lantern before popping it into his mouth like a pipe and inhaling.

  He mistook her silence for a question.

  “It’s a cigarette. Turkish. They’re all the rage in Europe.” He inhaled again, then released a long stream of smoke. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t take tobacco around a woman, but that smell. It’s like bad Christmas ham.”

  She nodded, still sickened.

  “I’m James, by the way. James Chambers.”

  He did not remember her. She tried but failed not to feel the slight.

  His gaze landed on her, and this time it didn’t leave like before. “Do you come to many of these lectures?”

  “No.” She shook her head in disgust. “I work here.”

  “A maid?” His forehead wrinkled in confusion, and she could see him taking in her dress, though he never moved his head. “I didn’t realize—”

  “I’m not a maid.” Anger crackled at the tips of her fingers as if she’d had the doctor’s wires shoved beneath her nails. There was no shame in serving others—Kitty had been a maid, after all—but it was the way James see
med to dismiss the very possibility that Molly could be anything else that galled her.

  “No, of course not.” James ran a hand through his hair, sending inky curls tumbling over his eyes. Taking another drag of the cigarette, he flicked its ashes to the ground. “Sorry. I spend so much time studying these days I seem to have lost all my manners.”

  Sensing her opening, Molly asked what she already knew. “You’re an anatomy student?”

  “Yes.” His voice filled with pride.

  Her pulse quickened. “Do you know a student named Edgar?”

  “Edgar White?” His face shifted to a frown. Molly got the sense he didn’t like the man of whom he spoke. “Why are you getting mixed up with him?”

  “We have a mutual friend.”

  James stared at her, his blue eyes piercing. “I’d tell her to stay away from him if I were you.”

  “Why?” Her mouth felt as if someone had filled it with cotton.

  James only shook his head. “I’m sorry you had to see the doctor like that tonight.” He motioned toward the church. “It’s a damned shame, watching a man like that stoop to such chicanery.”

  “Doesn’t he believe in it?” James had changed the subject, but Molly let it go. She’d learned from Kitty it was easier to ask the questions you wanted if you first listened to what a person cared to tell. She’d learned Edgar’s last name. It would have to be enough for tonight.

  James scoffed. “Of course not. Dr. LaValle isn’t just a regular anatomist. He’s one of the greatest doctors in the world.”

  “Then why is he sewing pig heads to dead bodies?”

  “Because it brings in money. And new students. Oddities are quite fashionable these days.”

  “Was it . . . alive?” She had not entirely believed what she was seeing, but it was true that the pig’s head had opened its eyes; the body had moved seemingly without anyone touching it.

  “No.” In disgust, James tossed the remainder of his cigarette onto the ground, grinding it beneath his boot. “It’s electricity. A current. It makes the thing move, but it’s no more alive than a chicken whose head’s been chopped off running around the yard for a few seconds. It’s science, not a miracle.”

  “Oh.” Molly felt strangely disappointed. “The nervous system.”

  James looked surprised. “Yes. But there are miracles. Real ones.” His face lost its rigidness and his voice became animated. “The human body is a miracle in and of itself. We’re only beginning to understand it. The doctor, he’s like a man who reads a language nobody’s yet discovered.”

  “Why not operate on the living?” she asked. “People who actually need help. Surely, that would draw a crowd and save a life at the same time.”

  A strange look crossed James’s face. “Dr. LaValle prefers to conduct his lectures on rarer specimens.”

  The door to the church opened, and a stream of people began to exit.

  “I should go.” She nodded curtly.

  “Wait!” James blocked her path. “You said you worked here. What do you do?”

  For an instant, Molly thought not to answer, and then she remembered the casual way he’d dismissed her before.

  “I bring in the bodies.”

  The carefully manicured expression of good breeding fell from his face, and a naked look of confusion followed. “No. But you’re a girl.”

  Molly smiled. “Actually, I’m a lady.”

  16

  In Molly’s dreams, Kitty’s tail was whole, but her head was gone, replaced by a pig’s. When the electric shock hit her, she sat up in the grave, holding her hand toward Molly.

  Come with me, Molly. Please.

  She woke in a sweat, reaching beneath her pillow for her knife.

  How was it, she wondered, that a girl like Kitty could be called abnormal and the man who’d sewn a pig’s head to a body last night called a doctor?

  Downstairs, Molly waited for Ava at the breakfast table. When no one came, she retreated to the library. There, she found an entire medical volume on oddities and read a chapter on vestigial tails—a condition that was rare but had been observed before. Also called pseudo-tails, they were simply lesions found in the caudal region of the newborn, while true tails were actual dorsal cutaneous appendages. Some doctors thought vestigial tails had been passed down from genetic markers carried by human’s forebears. One family Molly read about had passed the trait through three generations of women.

  She wondered if Kitty’s baby would have had a tail.

  Molly slammed the book closed, heart breaking at the thought of the tiny child she would never get to meet. All because of one man.

  Edgar.

  Edgar White.

  “Molly.”

  She looked up, startled to see her aunt standing in the doorway.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” Molly rose. “But I’m glad you’re here. There’s something I need to tell you. Last night . . .”

  But Ava’s eyes stopped her. Her skin looked paler than normal, and her face was drawn.

  “Are you all right?” Unsure, Molly held out a hand. It felt strange to offer concern for a woman who usually seemed so unbreakable.

  Ava stepped away, refusing Molly’s touch, and when she spoke, her voice was unsteady. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I . . . I have to go somewhere. Will you come with me?”

  Molly paused. She had never seen her aunt look so vulnerable before. “Yes.”

  Ava’s face relaxed. “Thank you. Maeve will bring you a dress. Put it on and meet me downstairs. Hurry.”

  Molly did as she was told. The dress was black crinoline and not well fitted. She wondered why her aunt had insisted on this one. It was too big but taken in enough to make it look passable as her own gown. She stole a quick glance at herself in the mirror. Kitty had always said black was one of her worst colors, and Molly saw that it was true. She looked like a corpse. On her way out the bedroom door, she grabbed Ginny’s lace gloves, putting them on.

  Downstairs, Ava surveyed Molly, lips pursed tightly, before nodding. “I suppose it will have to do.”

  When they stepped outside, Molly was surprised to see Tom sitting in the driver’s seat of the carriage. Instead of his usual nondescript clothes, he wore a black driver’s uniform, complete with a riding whip. He was so transformed that Molly was somewhat relieved to see the red lace peeking out from a shined black shoe.

  Ava noticed her hesitation. “Tom will be driving us today. My regular man is sick. Now get in.”

  She did, wondering if she should have said something to her nighttime partner. The rules of who she was and what their stations were in relation to each other in the daytime seemed suddenly nebulous.

  But Tom decided it for her, never speaking a word. They drove fifteen minutes to a grand house across from a park, its large white colonial frame a testament to the money that had built it nearly a hundred years ago.

  “We will pay our respects to the family first,” Ava said. Molly started to get out, but Ava pulled her back. In another instant, Tom opened the door and extended his hand to help them. Molly tried to catch his eye as he took her arm, but he looked firmly away.

  She flushed with embarrassment. Why was he ignoring her?

  A crowd was gathered outside the house, and Ava guided Molly firmly through it. The wealthiest families in Philadelphia swarmed the lawn, faces grim. She was glad she’d worn the gloves. “Who lives here?” Molly whispered.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge,” Ava said. “And trust me when I say that they are no fans of ours. Keep your back straight and your eyes forward. It’s necessary to make an appearance, but such events are, how should I say, a . . . touchy subject. These people are happy to attend my parties, but there is a great division in opinions as to the morality of the doctor’s work. When a personal loss occurs, it becomes easy to condemn the sort of woman who would pro
vide sanctuary for such supposedly gruesome practices.”

  The giant entryway doorknob had been covered in black crepe, to signify that guests were to come in without disturbing the grieving family by knocking or ringing the bell. Molly slipped inside behind her aunt, finally confirming the purpose of her black gown.

  They were at a funeral.

  “This way.” Ava led them through a dim hallway and to the living room. All the mirrors had been covered, black fabric draping their surfaces so that the dead souls would not be trapped.

  Seated stiffly on a horsehair sofa, three individuals received a line of mourners. The large figure of Mrs. Rutledge Molly recognized immediately. But her presence had changed drastically from that of the imposing woman at the charity meeting. She seemed somehow shrunken. Her eyes were dull, the whites shot through with red. An older man Molly had never seen before sat beside her, and between them was Ursula.

  Her face was so pale it seemed to float above the black of her dress. Her starkly pretty features looked drawn and haggard. As Molly watched, a man went over to the couch, bent, and whispered something in Mr. Rutledge’s ear. He nodded, then motioned to Ursula, whose face grew even whiter than before. She got up and followed the other man out of the room.

  Molly had seen neither Ursula nor her sister since the soup kitchen.

  For the first time, she registered Cady’s absence and took in the full weight of its meaning.

  “Keep to yourself,” Ava said, leaning in to whisper. “I’ll make our sympathies to the family. It’s best, I think, if you are seen and not heard.”

  Molly moved to the edge of the room, near a long table laid out with tea sandwiches and a large punch bowl of something dark and viscous looking. She recognized several faces from the pig’s head lecture—medical students, she guessed—who stood in a gaggle very close to the liquor, helping themselves and trying to keep their faces serious.

  Ignoring her aunt’s words, Molly made her way amongst them.

  “Hello, Miss Green.” James Chambers had appeared at her side.

  “James.” At least now he seemed to recognize her. “I’m so sorry. I know you are close to the family. What happened?”