“It’s not my first body.” Molly had found her voice again. She handled the dead every night. Surely, she could do so now.
“That’s right,” said James, brightening. “Molly helps collect the corpses.”
“You’re the Corpse Queen?” Edgar said.
Molly blanched, shocked to hear the name fall from his mouth. Anyone who worked on an illegally procured body was breaking the law. Students in the doctor’s classes might guess at the origin of their cadavers in private, but to speak openly of Ava’s real profession in her own home simply wasn’t done. It was as good as calling her a criminal.
Clearly, Edgar wanted to rattle her.
She lifted her chin. “No. I work for her.”
“I suppose that takes a certain, er . . . constitution.” Edgar grimaced. His toadlike eyes blinked at her, dull and wet. “Well, if that’s the case, then this should be no bother to you.” He held out one of his knives. “Here, Corpse Queen. Why don’t you make the first incision?”
“That’s unnecessary,” James said. “Molly, it’s perfectly acceptable for you to watch your first time.”
She grabbed the knife. “I can do it.”
She felt Edgar’s stare. If she didn’t make the cut, he would think her a coward.
It’s nothing, she reminded herself. Not Sophie. Just a body. Skin and knife, that was all. But her palm grew slick with sweat, and the knife slipped and twisted in it like a new-caught fish. Leaning over the body, she pressed a trembling hand to the girl’s chest.
Just slice, she commanded herself. Quick and neat, like boning a chicken.
She felt a chilly, wet trickle splash down the neck of her dress.
With a shriek, she dropped the knife and spun, clawing at her back. Horrified, she saw something small and white fall from beneath her skirt and plop to the floor.
A human eyeball stared at her, bloody roots still intact.
Laughter sounded as Edgar bent to retrieve it. He held the gutted oculus to Molly, leering.
The other students had stopped what they were doing to watch. Dr. LaValle made no move to intervene.
Stepping between them, James’s face knotted in fury. “Of all the damned, insensitive—”
“Oh, come on, man,” Edgar said. “I was just having a little fun.”
Anger, unlike anything Molly had ever felt before, raged inside her. If this idiot hadn’t decided to use Kitty for his pleasure, she might still be alive. And now he was toying with Molly. Playing a prank as if he were a child and not the fully grown man responsible for stealing and breaking Kitty’s heart. Without stopping to think, Molly grabbed the eyeball from Edgar’s fist. He flinched at her unexpected boldness.
Her fingers sank into the jellylike orb, and she had to stop herself from flinging it back to the floor. Instead, she held it out in her open palm so that everyone could see it.
The room grew silent.
“Thank you,” she said, slipping the organ into her pocket. “Hard to keep an eye on these things.”
Snickers rippled through the room.
Edgar grabbed her wrist, pulling her close. His breath was hot and rotten on her cheek. “You’ll never be a doctor,” he whispered. “And don’t you ever try to make a fool of me again.”
She kept her voice loud enough for others to hear. “I don’t need to. You do a damned good job of it yourself.”
Shaking her hand free, she walked briskly across the church and fled outside into the brilliantly streaming sun.
* * *
Hunching over, she spit the taste of sick from her mouth.
“Molly!” James appeared, kneeling beside her. His broad shoulders blocked out the glare of the sun. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out a white handkerchief embroidered with his initials and offered it to Molly. She took it gratefully, wiping away the slime from her lips.
“That was a damned awful thing Edgar did.”
“I’m fine. I just needed some air.”
But when she looked down, she saw a long stain of vomit across the front of her new dress. Blushing, she wiped it furiously away.
“Go inside and change,” James said quietly. “You can’t let them see you like this.”
She nodded, letting him pull her to standing and walk her to the house. On the way, she deposited the grisly treasure from her pocket into a flowerpot.
They entered through the front door, and Molly nearly ran into Ava and a small group of well-dressed women.
“Molly!” Ava’s eyes darted to the smear across her dress.
She studied her aunt, trying to read in her face whether or not she knew about Sophie.
The other women stopped what they were doing, heads perked like hens in a worm yard. Ursula Rutledge stepped to the front. She looked thin and unhealthy, her skin dull. Clearly Cady’s death had taken its toll. But when she saw Molly, her mouth wrinkled with concern. “Are you all right?”
“Ladies.” James stepped from behind Molly and bowed. “Ursula.”
The concern immediately fled from Ursula’s face. “Your aunt led us to believe that you were ill,” she said to Molly. She smiled tightly, her attention skipping between Molly and James. “But here you are!”
Molly did not speak. Could not. Her mind kept racing to the memory of Sophie’s body, helpless and soon to be sliced apart on the table.
Furious at herself, she tried and failed to will the image away.
“I found her in the garden,” James said hastily. “I was doing some work for the doctor, collecting herbs.”
“Herbs? At this time of year?” A small, delicate vein as purple as a bruise throbbed at Ursula’s temple. “And what a rare specimen you’ve found.”
“Molly,” Ava said, cutting in briskly, “I’m certain the Ladies’ Society will miss you at our lunch today, but really you’d better rest.”
“Yes,” Ursula said. “You don’t look well. Corpselike, even.”
Ava rang a small bell, and Maeve appeared.
“Please escort Molly to her room,” Ava said. “I’m sure Mr. Chambers has much more pressing things to do than play nursemaid.”
Bowing again, James handed Molly off to the maid.
Clutching Maeve’s sturdy arm, Molly followed her up the stairs, leaving the eager whisper of voices behind.
26
That night, instead of Tom, she found Ava waiting for her in the foyer.
Her aunt was dressed in a spartan-gray dress, not unlike the one Molly had just ruined, the sleeves rolled and buttoned to the elbow. Only the ever-present blue velvet ribbon around her neck, its silver key tucked neatly beneath the neckline, suggested any sense of luxury.
“You’ll be with me tonight.”
Molly startled. “You’re going out to rob graves?”
Ava laughed. “Don’t think that I haven’t. But no. Tonight we have other work.”
They’d spent little time alone together, and Molly found herself eager for Ava’s company. Her aunt’s poise offered a calm that was comforting in its own way, a steady ship in an ever-thrusting sea.
“Come with me,” Ava said. Molly followed her, and together they made their way outside, then across the gravel drive to the church. Icy rays of gibbous light lit the garden path. The night air was freezing, but the skies, for once, seemed clear.
Ava unlocked the church door.
In the moon’s glow, the empty dissection tables and blackboard seemed smaller, as if children had left their toys out after playing school. As always, the thick smell of blood coated the air.
“How was your lecture this morning?” Ava asked.
Molly hesitated. She wanted to ask about Sophie, but the shame of what had happened stopped her. It was only her first day, and instead of acting like a student worthy of the unprecedented opportunity she was being given, she had let her emotions get in t
he way. She’d been unable even to return to the lecture hall after the incident. There was little need to guess what her aunt would think of such a performance. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”
Ava moved aside the heavy velvet curtain behind the blackboard and unlocked the cellar door. They descended together into the darkness.
The tomblike air raised gooseflesh on Molly’s skin, and shards of ice clung to the unheated walls. A single body rested on the table, covered with a white sheet. Beside it lay a tray littered with various bottles and syringes.
Ava used the lantern to light the sconces along the walls before pulling out a stool to sit. Molly moved to one across from her.
“The doctor said you had some trouble today.”
Molly’s heart stuttered. She suddenly understood why Ava had brought her down here. LaValle had told her of Molly’s poor performance, and now she would not be allowed to return to his lectures. She waited, throat dry, for the news.
“I’m sorry we haven’t spent more time together,” Ava said instead.
Molly sat back, surprised. “It’s all right. I know you’ve been busy.” Her aunt had been gone most days, busy planning for the party she meant to throw next month.
“It’s not an excuse.”
Molly didn’t know what to say, and the silence spread between them.
Ava returned her attention to the body, pulling away the sheet.
Molly gasped.
The corpse was a blond woman in her thirties, hair done in Ava’s severe style. Her limbs were slender and well formed, just like Ava’s. Even the nose had the same upturned slant as her aunt’s. And, the final touch, someone had tied a blue ribbon around the dead woman’s neck.
“What is this?” Molly asked, trying to keep her poise.
Far from seeming alarmed, Ava sounded amused. “Someone is trying to frighten me. Can you guess who?”
Steadying herself, Molly leaned closer. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she saw that something was wrong with the woman’s mouth. The lips were thin and sunken.
“The Tooth Fairy,” she said.
Ava nodded. “Yes. The fool left the body on my doorstep tonight with this charming greeting tied about it.”
From beneath the table, she pulled a small wooden sign laced with rope. Words were smeared across its front in what looked like blood. Molly gasped.
Stay away or yewl be next
“The man means to fight a battle by starting a war.” Ava raised an eyebrow. “He won’t win.”
Molly couldn’t believe her aunt’s calm. “Aren’t you frightened?”
“Should I should be?”
“Yes!” Molly pointed to the body. “He’s threatening to kill you!”
Ava laughed. “Better men have tried.”
“Shouldn’t we contact the police?”
Her aunt’s lips curled into a smile. “I make the laws at night.”
Molly wondered if Ava had lost her mind. “The man left a corpse on your doorstep and made it up to look like you! He might have murdered this woman. For all we know, he’s the Knifeman!” She thought of the body in the road, the missing teeth. Though it was impossible to judge the Tooth Fairy’s knife skills with this body. Other than the missing teeth, the rest of the body looked untouched.
Ava laughed again. “Look closer, Molly. Ignore the corpse’s face. What else do you see?”
Molly’s eyes skimmed the naked body. It looked perfectly healthy, the skin still rosy with blood flow.
But, no, that wasn’t quite right.
As Molly leaned closer, her eyes were drawn to the darker nails on one hand. She moved down the legs and saw that the toes were also colored a deep, ugly purple. All the extremities shared the same wine-stained cast.
“There was something wrong with her circulation,” Molly said, an unexpected thrill accompanying the discovery. She thought back to a chapter about blood vessels, searching for a more accurate diagnosis. “Possibly a problem with the heart?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Ava sounded pleased. Molly realized that after all her aunt’s work with the doctor, she had her own body of knowledge from which to pull. “If that’s the case, such an organ will fetch a good bit of money all by itself,” Ava said. “Far from frightening me, the Tooth Fairy has simply added money to my pockets.”
Molly examined the corpse in a new light, trying to see it as her aunt did, not as a body, but as a possibility—something to be mined for gold.
“When I was a young girl, I only had one dress.” Ava gently brushed away a lock of hair from her doppelganger’s face. “My sister did too. We inherited them from our mother’s aunt. They were made for a sixty-year-old woman.”
Molly frowned. “My mother never said anything about that.”
“Elizabeth never cared. She was happy with the life she had.” Ava picked up a jar of oil and began to rub it into the dead woman’s flesh.
“Yes, Ma always made the best of things.” She thought achingly of her beautiful mother, dancing happily around the kitchen with Da, unpaid debtor notices scattered haphazardly on top of the table.
“It was never enough for me,” Ava said. “Accepting my poverty. Doing what other people told me. I don’t think it’s enough for you either.”
Small lines pulled along her aunt’s mouth. As she worked in the last of the oil, a gleam of something fierce lit in her eye. “But if you want more, you must be willing to take it.”
Ava lifted a bottle full of clear liquid from the tray, along with a syringe. Piercing the bottle’s top, she carefully drew back the plunger, then handed it to Molly, a single bead of fluid glistening from the needle’s end.
“See that white powder?”
Molly looked at the tray and found a brown jar with a tattered label. corrosive sublimate.
“Yes.”
“Inject the solution into it.”
Molly did, plunging down on the syringe. She wrinkled her nose. “It smells like liquor.”
“Gin.” Ava nodded. “Some people use rum, but I find this makes for a much cleaner preparation.”
The liquid hit the white crystals, dissolving them inside the jar.
“Good. Now the arsenic.”
On the tray rested a box of rat poison, half-full. Its yellow cardboard showed a picture of a prone rat, pink tongue protruding and tiny black eyes marked out with x’s.
“Measure out five grams,” Ava instructed. “Now add it carefully.”
Using a long silver spoon from the tray, Molly stirred until the liquid was clear. She had never helped prepare the bodies before, though she knew from Tom that each grave robber and doctor had their own special recipes and means of keeping bodies fresh for cutting. Ava’s was known to be the best.
Her aunt lifted a surgical knife from the tray and pointed to the body. “Now cut.”
“Where?”
“Here.” She laid a finger on the woman’s chest.
Molly took a deep breath.
The dead woman’s face was peaceful, her closed eyelids and calm brow suggesting that she was simply resting. A stray bit of blond hair had worked free from her tight chignon. Molly reached out to brush the familiar corn-silk strand away.
Not Ava, Ma.
As soon as she thought of her name, the corpse became human again.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Ava laid her hand atop Molly’s. A small bit of pressure, and Molly felt the skin beneath the knife give. A nick, as quick as anything, and then she was through.
Ava removed her hand. “Keep going. We’ll want the heart.”
She cut again, more sure now.
It got easier. Soon, Molly lost herself to it, bloodying her hands up to her wrists as she switched out knives to cut through the breastbone, remembering everything she’d read in her anatomy
books. Twenty minutes later, she had the heart, slick and glistening in her hands. Lifting it to the lantern’s light, she studied its flesh, noting a large hole between the left and right chambers. Ava had been right. The woman had been born with a deformity, her death only a matter of time.
“You see?” Ava nodded reverently. “A rare gift.”
Carefully, Molly set her bloody trophy on the tray.
Picking up a new syringe and filling it with the concoction Molly had mixed, Ava emptied it into the heart.
“There,” she said. “It will keep for a very long time now. Years, maybe.”
Molly stared at the transformed organ—no longer a piece of a human, but a harvested jewel. There was an eerie beauty to it, the rich reds and purples swirled into bloody blues.
“As I said, we respect the body. Nothing should ever be wasted. Even after the students work on a corpse, it can often be sold,” Ava said. “If you boil the bones, the best specimens can be strung with wire and turned into anatomy skeletons. You can’t do that with all of them, of course—there’s not a market for it—but some are certainly worth the trouble. The Tooth Fairy and others like him are content to take whatever bits are easiest to sell and leave the rest. They miss the body’s full value. They’re spoiled children who want to lick the frosting off their cake and then demand another piece.”
She began to wipe away the mess on the table, then turned to Molly. “The preservation formula is one part liquor, half as much corrosive sublimate, and then thrice as much again of the arsenic. It must be the white kind, never mixed. Can you remember that?”
Molly nodded, feeling a growing admiration. Ava did not let her emotions hold sway over her as Molly had done today in the classroom. Her aunt trusted, instead, in things that could be memorized and controlled. Cold flesh and hard facts.
“Don’t write it down, and don’t tell anyone else.”
“No.”
Ava moved the empty bottles back to the tray alongside the heart. “I told you there’d be a special body to get for Dr. LaValle.”
“Yes.”
“It will be ready soon. When it becomes available, James Chambers will go with you to collect it.”
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