“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“One . . . two . . . three!” They lifted on Tom’s whispered count.
“Jesus!” She’d been prepared for the weight, or thought she had been, but this was something else entirely. The body threatened to drive her to the ground.
“Stay steady,” Tom whispered through gritted teeth.
Molly took a step forward, but as she did, the corpse’s arm slipped free from her shoulder. Before she could stop it, the arm crashed forward onto the table, knocking the rest of the dead man’s beer to the ground.
“Hey! What are you doing?” A man at the table next to them jumped up, wiping splashes of the spilled beer off his lap. His glittering eyes looked eager for a fight.
Molly felt Tom move, shifting more of the weight onto himself. Finally, she was able to breathe. Wiggling back beneath the arm on the table, she positioned it around her shoulder again and stood. The body sagged between them in a perfect drunkard’s posture.
“This man’s my father,” Molly said, raising a pain-filled face in rebuke. “And, God willing, that’s the last drink he’ll ever take.”
Other men in the pub were looking at her now, this hysterical girl in their midst. She used their curiosity, turning it to her advantage.
“As for the rest of you”—she raised her voice, words trembling in righteous anger—“shame on the lot of ya!” A tear slipped down her cheek. She was amazed at how easily it came. “You saw him here every night, drinking away his health, and you just let him do it. He might as well have been dead, all the help you gave him! I’ve had to bring the preacher’s son with me to get him home.”
Heads ducked, the patrons chastened, back into their beers.
She and Tom made their way to the door without anyone else stopping them, the men too ashamed to even look in her direction.
She was good at this now, Molly realized. They were good at it.
They carried the body out into the night, and behind them, Molly could hear a relieved sigh from the crowd as the door swung closed and the peaceful drinking resumed.
“The preacher’s son?” For the first time that night, Tom spared her a smile.
“It was a hard sell,” Molly said, her heart fluttering stupidly, like a dog panting to be petted. “Tom, I—”
“Let’s get the body in the wagon,” he said brusquely, turning away. And whatever hope she’d had of salvaging a tender moment between them was gone.
* * *
Tom yanked the body away from her, tossing it into the back of the wagon. His face strained with the effort.
She had no idea how he managed. The dead man had been excruciatingly heavy.
“Guess you could have saved a lot of trouble and carried it yourself.” Her words were harsher than she’d meant.
They stood across from each other, the body between them. The wind picked up, whipping Molly’s bare skin.
Tom slammed the gate closed. “You have no idea, do you?”
“About what?”
“It’s dangerous, Molly.” There was a pleading note to his voice.
At first, she thought he was talking about the Knifeman, that he, too, had seen the newspaper article back at the bar. She looked at him, surprised.
“Trying to get those doctors to take you seriously is only going to end with you hurt. Men with power like to believe they’re gods. And gods demand sacrifice.” Tom moved closer, his eye a single wild point in the night. “They take what they want, especially from women and girls.”
His hand lifted, hovering between them like a moth searching for light, and for a second she thought he was going to touch her.
Her breath stopped.
Dropping his hand, he turned away. “You want to know what happened to my sister?” His voice was a low growl.
“You don’t have to—”
“They killed her,” Tom said. “Men like that.”
She waited, hardly daring to breathe.
“I killed her.” His voice grew quiet.
“We were poor. My folks kept us caged like rabbits, six kids squatting on top of each other, and them trying to make more each night because the pope said they should.” He shook his head bitterly. “Bridget was the only one of us worth a damn.”
His eye reflected the moon’s light. Pain and a brightness shone from its depths, like a man leaning too close to a beautiful fire.
“They put us all to work in the factories as soon as we came over. Bridget was too young to go. There were laws that said it. But you think anybody cared?” He laughed. “No. She was just another body. They took her and all the other littles they could get. Made them crawl under the wheel and pick out the bits of wool that got stuck.”
His breath grew jagged.
“Paid them two pennies a day. Two pennies. Not even enough to buy a loaf of bread.”
Molly swallowed down the words that rushed to her lips. Forced herself to simply listen.
“I told her to quit. It weren’t just the machines that were dangerous. The factory men, the bosses, they’d pick the prettiest ones out of the bunch. Give ’em presents. And then, soon enough, those little girls would be doing favors for ’em in return for staying off the line.”
His voice dropped. “She was eight, Molly. Eight years old. And those men looked at her the way they should a grown woman.”
It was costing him to say this. Each word was blood squeezed from a dry cut.
“I told her she had to quit when the shift manager came in and handed her a ribbon. Said she was getting a present that day instead of pay. I yanked it right off her head. Wouldn’t let her wear it.”
He winced, his scar contracting in the dark.
“It was her hair that caught in the machine. The wheel pulled her under. Ate her limbs one bone at a time.”
She stared at his shoelace, sickened. The tattered red ribbon glowed in the moon’s light. “Tom,” she said.
“I found the factory boss and beat him near to death. Then he had his boys do this to me.” Tom raised a hand to his face. “And none of it, nothing, mattered. It didn’t bring Bridget back.” He looked at Molly. “People don’t come back once they’re gone.”
He stared at her as if he knew her own loss. She wanted to confess it to him, but the words caught in her throat. Nothing she could say would ease the pain in his face or the weight in her heart.
“Dr. LaValle’s making you feel like he’s giving you a present,” Tom said, “letting you study with him and the other boys. But gods don’t share their power, Molly. It’s how they stay gods.” His face flushed. “When he’s done with you, he’ll give you a ribbon, pat you on your pretty backside, and send you away. Either that or he’ll crush you, bone by bone.”
“No,” she whispered. “I won’t let him.”
“You won’t be able to help it. Men like that, they only do what suits them. It ain’t about you.”
There were worlds between them now. His fear and her desire. He wanted her safe, and she wanted—no, needed—more.
“I’m sorry.” She raised a hand. Let it rest along the plane of his face without touching him, the heat from their skin rising to couple in an aching, open wound. “For what happened.” Her voice cracked. “But, Tom . . .”
She knew it would hurt, knew that what she was about to say would drive something between them, that this moment could not be taken back. She said it anyway.
“I’m not your sister. And I don’t need saving.”
25
Splashing cold water onto her brow, Molly chased away the nightmares. In her dreams, Kitty had become the woman in the newspaper, and she was getting married. The Knifeman walked his headless bride down the aisle of Ava’s church, his tattered clothes that of the grave. But no matter how hard she tried, Molly could not see his face. She followed after them, scattering not petals bu
t ashes in the trail of Kitty’s footsteps.
Molly slapped another handful of icy water onto her cheeks.
Today was to be her first day at lecture. Ava had given the okay that morning, sending a note with Maeve, along with the gentle reminder that Molly must be ready to deliver their agreed-upon payment when asked. Molly didn’t care. She would gladly collect whatever “difficult” body Ava required so long as she was allowed entrance into the lecture hall. If she wanted to find a man skilled with his knife, there was no better place to look.
The first of the dresses, a plain gray cotton one, had arrived from Pierre, and Molly pulled it out to wear. Though the fashion for women’s sleeves was heavy ornamentation and flounces, someone, perhaps Ginny, had made sure the ones on this dress were narrow and fitted. Molly would be able to bend over an anatomy table without worrying about dragging her sleeves in any organs. She started to put on her gloves to hide the jaggedly healing skin of her cut but then threw them back on the dresser. She didn’t want anything coming between her and the knife. Then she pinned her hair back, in two sensible braids, the nerves in her belly twisting like snakes.
Forcing down a thin breakfast of dry toast and coffee, Molly took a final look at her pale face in the mirror and tried to pinch some life back into her cheeks. Her reflection did not inspire confidence—she looked like a twelve-year-old farm boy.
Outside, the morning sky was still gray. The hellish statues grinned at Molly as she picked her way through the garden paths to the church.
At the top of its steps, she hesitated. For just an instant, despite everything, she wished that Tom were beside her, full of his unquenchable bravado.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the church door, its ancient wood groaning like a fresh corpse.
“You’re late.” Dr. LaValle’s voice echoed across the room. He stood, knife raised, beside a dissection table, his students clustered about him. “Lectures start at eight.”
The air smelled of camphor and old blood. Scattered across the room were anatomy tables, each with a covered body in its center. It was easy to imagine them sitting up. Throwing off their sheets and stalking across the church like the corpses in her dreams.
Molly’s face was burning with embarrassment. Still rattled by her dreams, she must have misread the time on her aunt’s note. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
“Don’t let it happen again,” the doctor said with a flick of his hand before returning his attention to the table, leaving Molly to awkwardly make her way up the empty aisle without introduction.
A dozen students huddled closely together. She tried to squeeze into place beside them, but no one moved. She was left staring stupidly at the seams of their jackets, Tom’s words echoing in her ears.
Gods don’t share their power, Molly . . .
“We will continue today’s lecture with a recitation of the parts at the base of the brain,” Dr. LaValle said. “Who would like to begin?”
An eager hand shot up.
“Thank you, Edgar.”
Molly stiffened, her mouth filling with bile as she imagined the simpering boy’s mustache pressed to Kitty’s lips.
Dr. LaValle nodded to the class. “The rest of you, take notes and attend the labeling of your own anatomy illustrations as he proceeds.”
The huddled men took out identical small black books from their coat pockets and began to sketch. Molly hid her own empty hands behind her back.
Edgar’s voice rose as he began to name the parts. It was thin and reedy, a false British accent tracing its edges. She tried and failed to imagine it whispering endearments in Kitty’s ear.
“Olfactory nerves, fissure of Sylvius, infundibulum . . .”
She forced herself closer to the lecture table.
“Psst.” A voice from her left. And there, finally, she found a space as James Chambers stepped aside, allowing her room. Molly nodded gratefully, slipping in next to him. For the first time, she could see the corpse.
The body—a male in his sixties with a drink-red nose—was not fresh. Its skin had been stripped away and several incisions and removals had been made, so that identifying the parts left was difficult at best. Despite having its head and being a man, the body looked not unlike the drawing of the killer’s latest victim. A smell of putrefying flesh—sweet and meaty—spilled from the waxy-looking corpse.
Molly lifted a hand to cover her nose, leaning closer.
“Substantia perforata, latitudinal fissure—”
“It’s not.”
The words were out of Molly’s mouth before she could stop them. Edgar looked up briefly before continuing as if he hadn’t heard. “Latitudinal fissure—”
“It’s the longitudinal fissure.” Her words hung in the air. She was pleased at how easily the information came to her, memorized from one of the library’s anatomy books. But it had always been this way with her. Facts worked themselves into her brain like splinters into a woodworker’s skin. The other students’ curious eyes darted in her direction.
“That is right,” Dr. LaValle said, sounding surprised. “Thank you, Miss Green, for the correction. Go on, Edgar.”
Edgar’s face turned an angry red as he resumed. “Longitudinal fissure, crura cerebri . . .”
He made no other mistakes, and though Molly, empty-handed, could not take her own notes, she watched James’s notebook over his shoulder, silently naming the parts as he sketched. For an uncomfortable moment, she had the feeling of being watched herself, and her skin prickled. Inside of this room were some of the most eager knives in the city. Any one of the men here could be the killer.
After Edgar’s recitation, Dr. LaValle amputated the corpse’s left arm, with three impressively swift strokes, to demonstrate how such a surgery might be accomplished in patients with gangrene. The arm fell to the sawdust floor with a dull thump, and the students clapped.
Rather than disgust, Molly felt a kind of awe. She’d removed plenty of corpses from the ground, but she’d never looked at the bodies so intimately or watched the pieces being taken apart like a living puzzle. It was beautiful, like the bones of the skeleton coming together at the Red Carousel. With the light filtering through the church’s jeweled stained-glass windows, she felt a kind of holiness envelop the space.
“Now,” said the doctor, turning to the admiring students, “it’s your turn. Three to a body, please.”
Molly found herself unceremoniously paired with Edgar and James, and she fell into step between them. The difference between her two partners was startling. Even amidst the anatomy tables, James remained every inch the gentleman, his clothing impeccable and his coal-black hair combed neatly into place. Edgar slouched like a spoiled child, sweaty hands smudged with ink from his meager note-taking. Even at this hour, his ruddy face looked bloated with drink. The very idea that she’d ever suspected him capable of being the Knifeman now seemed laughable.
As they made their way to the table, James turned to her. “Do you have a set of knives?”
Molly thought of her own dull blade with which she’d meant to slice away Kitty’s tail. She still carried it at night for protection, but it would be useless here. “No,” she said.
“If you mean to be a surgeon, you’ll need one. Whatever you do, don’t buy from the Fourth Street shop. I can tell you some better places to look if you like.”
“Thank you. That would be very helpful.”
Molly wondered how the rest of the students managed to buy their supplies. Gods or no, they certainly weren’t all rich, despite Tom’s perception of them. There was a distinct division between the haves and the have-nots, which their equal interest in anatomy could never erase. Though they all wore black coats and white shirts, the quality of the garments varied, as did speech, manners, and medical supplies. One gawky boy with wrists sticking well out of his sleeves had an undershirt so worn it was nearly transparent.
<
br /> Perhaps this stark division of wealth had been enough to make one of them kill. The Knifeman could very well be a student in need of money, practicing skills on the living and selling bits of his victims in the shadows. She’d learned just how valuable teeth or bodies with anomalies could be.
Molly glanced at the faces around her, studying them as she might the pages of her books. But nowhere, in even the poorest of them, could she find the obvious mark of a killer. No overly eager eyes, no inappropriate signs of excitement as their hands skimmed the dead bodies.
The students gathered around their respective tables, and Molly stood beside James.
With sure fingers, he folded back the sheet.
A young girl’s face peered blindly up at them, eyes completely white.
Molly slapped a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out.
“Are you all right?” Edgar peered curiously at her, his face a mask of false concern.
“I . . . I’m fine.”
Sophie.
The green ribbon was gone, but she recognized the girl from the almshouse immediately.
Molly had felt the child’s tender hands on her own as she’d worked her fine stitches, the comforting warmth of the girl’s small body pressed against her like a shield against Ursula and the other Society women.
And now here she was, dead.
Edgar unceremoniously yanked off the rest of the sheet. Underneath, the girl’s pale, naked body looked doll-like and helpless.
Molly groaned and turned quickly away.
“This is just what I was talking about,” Edgar said with disgust. “You can’t allow a damned woman in the operating theater!”
Molly forced herself to turn back around. “I’m fine.”
“Everyone’s first body is difficult,” James said quietly. “If I remember right, Edgar, you soiled a new pair of shoes with yours.”
A splotch of color bloomed on Edgar’s face. “Pure coincidence—I’d had a bad lunch. Oysters.”
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