The Corpse Queen

by Heather M. Herrman

  Outside, she found the twins waiting. They were passing between them what looked like a small stack of playing cards. But when Molly got closer, she saw that she was wrong. Each of the cards had a picture of body drawn on its front, the grisly illustrations framed with a border of knives.

  “What are those?”

  Looking embarrassed, one of the twins shoved the cards into his pocket. “Nothing. Just a way to make a little extra money is all. Some boys like collecting ’em.” He looked defiant. “I weren’t keeping them for myself.”

  “They’re the Knifeman’s victims,” the other twin said. His brother glared. “And they’re worth more if you’ve got a whole set.”

  “Let me see one.” Molly held out her hand.

  Reluctantly, the twin with the cards retrieved one from his pocket and gave it to her. On the front was the number 3 with the picture of a woman’s body, her legs gone. But it was the face that caught Molly’s attention. That had been drawn with a grin, all the teeth perfectly intact.

  The boy snatched the card back. “Like I said, it’s just to earn a bit of money. It don’t mean nothing.”

  Exhausted, Molly didn’t press. Instead, she climbed into the wagon and let the twins drive her home.

  She wanted only to go to bed. To lose herself in sleep.

  Instead, she found a note waiting for her in her room.

  It was from Ava.

  Doctor’s request available.

  Procurement will be tomorrow.

  32

  James Chambers came to collect her promptly at five o’clock the next evening, just before dinner. Peering out the foyer’s window, Molly watched his expensive carriage pull into the drive. All thoughts of the Knifeman had been replaced by the weight of what she was going to be asked to do.

  Buttoning her coat over her plain gray dress, she prepared to meet him.

  “Molly.”

  Her aunt’s voice stopped her at the door. She turned to see Ava standing in the hall. “This is important.” Approaching, she took hold of Molly’s shoulders and squeezed, her fingers digging painfully into the flesh. “If you don’t get this body, you won’t be allowed to study with the doctor again. Do you understand? This is the price.”

  Molly nodded, a sick feeling in her stomach. “What kind of body is it?”

  “You’d do better to rely on your instincts—trusting them is what secured you this job in the first place.” Ava opened the door. “They’re the one thing you have that the others don’t.”

  “But at least tell me—”

  “Go.” There was no room for argument in her aunt’s voice. Shaken, Molly stepped outside and climbed into the waiting carriage.

  When he saw her, James flushed and looked quickly away. “Molly, I—”

  “I don’t know why the doctor wants you here,” she said. The anger that had sparked at the sight of him helped steady her nerves. “But this is a job. That’s all. I want to clarify that, in case there’s any confusion on your part.”

  James flinched, looking ashamed. His suit—an impeccably starched navy—was matched with a striped green silk cravat, and an expensive pocket watch peeked from his vest. He looked dressed for the opera, not collecting a body.

  “What did the doctor tell you?” Molly asked.

  “I’m not at liberty to say.” James sounded embarrassed.

  “But you know the specifics?”

  “Not all of them, no.” He still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “But Dr. LaValle thought my family connections might be useful.”

  If he wasn’t going to tell her, she wouldn’t beg.

  They rode the rest of the way in silence. Despite James’s stiff demeanor, Molly noted a nervous tremor that his carefully folded hands could not entirely hide. Whether it was because of what they were about to do or what had happened between them in the attic, she didn’t know.

  For her part, she could not stop thinking about Tom. Despite Ava’s insistence on this evening’s importance, the memory of last night nibbled away at her, as hungry as a newly hatched caterpillar.

  He was the first boy in her life that she had kissed, and now she was never to see him again.

  The carriage stopped at a small house in a long row of houses. It was in a neighborhood on the edge of the city’s slums, though here and there a few newly constructed middle-class houses poked out of the gloaming, like fresh teeth in a rotten skull.

  A small woman, about five feet tall, answered James’s knock.

  “Yes?” Her voice trembled, as pale and insubstantial as the dishwater color of her skin.

  “Madam.” He bowed. “I’m James Chambers, and this is my colleague Molly Green. We’re here as emissaries from Dr. LaValle. I believe you’re expecting us?”

  Molly startled. She had never once, in any of her evenings stealing and buying bodies, given her real name.

  The woman’s face crumpled. “Please, please, go away. We—”

  “Emily.” A man in a wrinkled shirt appeared at her side, frowning. “Don’t be rude.” His voice was jovial as he yanked the door open wide. “Please excuse my wife. Come in.”

  This was a home where cleanliness was but a memory. Molly was reminded, agonizingly, of the tiny room in which she’d left Tom’s mother. The ghostly scent of stewed vegetables mixed with cheap candle wax and dust clotted the air. All of the mirrors had been covered in black cloth.

  Their host led them into a cramped sitting room, where half a dozen faces of well-dressed men peered curiously from worn sofas and chairs. After a few seconds of silent judgment, they resumed their discussion, the rumpled man who’d let them in darting between them like a dog.

  James’s face drained completely of color. “We can’t possibly compete with these people.”

  “Compete?” Molly whispered. “What are you talking about?”

  But James ignored her, eyes wild as he surveyed the room. “That’s Dr. Lerner of New York. And that’s Charles Merceau—the Parisian doctor lecturing at Harvard!”

  Their host, noticing their hesitation, waved them over with a wide grin on his unwashed face. Even from here Molly could smell the drink on his breath. “Don’t be shy. The wife and I are entertaining all offers, even from the least of ya!”

  A small murmur of obliging laughter sounded from the gentlemen in the circle, though their smiles did not reach their eyes.

  Molly tried to understand what was happening, but nothing in the room made any sense.

  The only thing she knew for certain was that if she did not get LaValle whatever body was here, she’d never find another surgeon in America to teach her again.

  A coldness swept through her limbs at the thought.

  Yanking James forward, she dragged him to two empty chairs.

  “. . . the very highest of nobility,” a handsome man holding a ruby velvet hat opined. “His Highness has even planned a ceremony in his private ashram for the occasion.”

  “That’s all very well and good,” another man said, polishing his spectacles with a silk handkerchief. “But of course the respect that will be allowed your son by Dartmouth Medical College is beyond . . .”

  Finally, the pieces of this strange puzzle clicked into place. She and James weren’t here to steal a body—they were here to buy one. The men in this room were bidding on the couple’s dead son, and whoever made the most attractive offer was to be given him.

  “Say something.” She nudged James. Surely, that was why LaValle wanted him here. James’s father was a lawyer who owned property in half the city. With his impressive family connections and money, he’d have the best chance of seeming important.

  James gave her a terrified nod. But when he spoke, his voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Dr. LaValle is—”

  “Here, girl. Get me another drink.” The man identified as Dr. Lerner had cut James off, thrusting an empty glass i
nto Molly’s hand. He turned back to the others. “Now, our hospital offers a very generous bereavement package to all families . . .”

  Molly set the glass down on the table, throat dry.

  She was the only woman here, and they thought her a maid. Molly looked at her dull dress and wondered why Ava hadn’t at least stopped her from leaving the house looking like one. It was impossible to compete in a game that others didn’t even know she was playing. Besides, even James seemed out of his league here.

  You’d do better to rely on your instincts. Her aunt’s voice sounded in Molly’s head. They’re the one thing you have that the others don’t.

  Making her way out of the sitting room, Molly searched for a quiet place to think. She felt like a puppet whose strings had been pulled too tight. Running her fingers over the dusty ledge of the banister, she started down the hall, trying to steady her breath.

  The soft whimper of crying stopped her.

  In a small, dirty kitchen, the woman who’d answered the door sat alone, head bent.

  Molly started to turn away. Entangling oneself with another’s misery only meant finding some of your own. She’d seen it happen time and time again at the orphanage. Girls there were constantly becoming involved in one another’s lives and then suffering the consequences. An open heart was an easy mark, as good as an invitation for someone to hurt you. Besides, Molly needed to be out where the men were, trying to get LaValle his body.

  But staring at the sobbing woman, she kept thinking of Tom. The way no one else in the whole tenement had tried to help his mother—only Tom. And this woman’s son was gone.

  Cursing herself, Molly entered, clearing her throat. “Are you all right?”

  The woman startled, jumping from the table with a snarl. “What’s the matter, do the bastards need more tea?”

  “No, I—”

  “Go to hell!” The woman flung the words at her.

  Flustered, Molly backed away and felt her arm hit something on the stove. A teapot crashed to the floor.

  “I’m so sorry!” Molly said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Why can’t you people just leave me alone!”

  Moving carefully, Molly picked up a dishcloth and knelt, beginning to wipe up the mess, sweeping the broken bits of pottery into a pile. She worked in silence for several seconds, feeling the woman’s steely eyes watching her. Finished, she stood. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  “He was my only son.”

  The words caught her at the door. Molly waited.

  When the woman spoke again, her voice was as broken as the teapot as she stared at the floor. “He started having trouble breathing.” She flinched. “Turned all blue. Begged me to make it stop.” She made a choking sound. “Got so bad I took him to the free clinic. Those bastards said there weren’t nothing they could do. Gave him some pills is all. Candy to cheer him up. Said he had a month left. Two, maybe.” Her lips trembled. “They don’t live long, boys like my son.”

  She looked up, meeting Molly’s gaze.

  “Those men came crawling to Philadelphia like flies, waiting for him to die. Said somebody sent ’em a telegram and they was willing to pay a good bit of money for his corpse. My husband said if they was gonna give it to us, we might as well take it. Get them all in the same room at once and make ’em bid.”

  “That’s awful,” Molly said. And it was. But even as the words left her mouth, she wondered what was enticing enough about this boy to bring men from all across the country. And who had called them. “What was he like, your son?”

  The mother winced, eyes a blank mask of pain. For a moment, Molly thought she was going to flee from the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Molly said. “If you’d rather not—”

  “He was so clumsy.” The words spilled out in a rush, the mother’s hands twisting in her lap. “Used to trip over his own feet. We had to hide the china when he were a boy.”

  “I was clumsy myself as a child,” Molly said. “My ma wouldn’t let me play with my ball inside, because I knocked over the butter churn too many times.” Her heart squeezed at the memory, she and Ma crafting the rag ball out of mending scraps late into night, Da playing a tune on his fiddle. However poor they’d been, her parents had truly loved her.

  “Oh, it weren’t John’s fault.” The woman’s expression softened. “It was just how God made him. Special. I knew that right away.”

  Molly nodded, but then, most mothers thought their children special. Her own mother certainly had, despite Molly’s plain features and pragmatic disposition.

  “The doctors always said he wouldn’t live long, but I didn’t like to believe it. I never would let him out of my sight, you know. Maybe that was a mistake.” She knotted her skirt, worrying at it with her hands. “He wanted to perform. Lots of places offered. Circuses all over the world.”

  She sniffed. “I said no. I wanted to protect him.” Her voice begged for reassurance. “I wanted him to be normal.”

  Molly hesitated. She should comfort the mother. Tell her she’d done the right thing. But the words stuck in her throat. “For some people,” she said instead, “I think normal is the worst thing they can be.”

  The mother’s eyes narrowed.

  “It’s just,” Molly continued, “that’s how it was for me.” She spoke the words softly. “Is.”

  The mother’s face hardened. “That’s how John was. He liked being different.” She wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “You loved him. That’s all anyone can ask for in a mother.” Again she thought of Ma, and the pain that came was hot and white. She had been the one person who let Molly be herself growing up. No matter that Molly was clumsy and she was graceful. Or that Ma preferred fairy tales to facts. She’d loved Molly just as she was.

  “He’s only a boy.” The woman sounded as if she were pleading. “And these men want to buy him like some kind of prize. But he was a person. He was my son. And now they’re going to take him away from me.” Her voice broke into a loud sob. “Why? Why won’t they just leave me alone?”

  Molly flinched. There was no real way to answer this, not without admitting that she, too, wanted to buy the body.

  “I don’t know about the others,” she said finally. “But for me, your son—his body—it’s a kind of gift. And what we do in the anatomy room—the best doctors, anyway—it’s a way of honoring that gift. We make sure the knowledge inside of him won’t be forgotten. Every hand I touch, even when it’s dead, it tells me a story. And if I learn enough stories, if I listen closely enough, I hope that someday I can use them to help someone living.”

  “And my John?” The mother’s voice caught again.

  “I think his story might be the most important one I’ll ever hear.” Molly knew without seeing the boy that it was true; the men out there would not want him so badly otherwise.

  The mother pulled out a worn handkerchief and held it to her nose, blowing hard. When she finished, her eyes were shining but clear. “But what you say can’t matter, can it? A girl like you ain’t no doctor.”

  Molly hesitated. She should lie. Tell the woman she was a great lady like Ava. Promise her money. A private funeral service in Ava’s church. But as she looked at the mother, the too-deep lines on her still-young face, the words refused to leave her lips.

  “I’m not a doctor,” Molly said quietly. “But I’m studying to be one.”

  The mother’s eyes widened. She looked at Molly as if seeing her for the first time, slowly taking in every inch of her. “Then I guess you’re special, just like my John.” Her shoulders lifted, and she seemed to be making up her mind about something. “Would you like to see him?”

  “Yes.” Molly’s pulse quickened.

  “Come. I ain’t shown none of the others yet.”

  Molly followed the woman to a single room at the foot of the stairs. It was empty bu
t for two beds, pushed lengthwise against each other.

  Stretched out to fill them was the boy, his hands clasped neatly across his chest.

  She was staring at a giant.

  “My little boy,” the mother said, running her hands across his still forehead, and Molly knew that whatever the rest of the world saw, the mother saw only that—her boy, a child forever. “You see? He is special, ain’t he?”

  “He’s incredible.” Molly’s voice caught.

  The boy’s feet were twice the size of a typical man’s, his hands as wide as dinner plates.

  “He’d like that.” The mother smiled. “John loved a compliment from a pretty girl.”

  She took hold of Molly’s hand, patting it.

  Then the mother was gone, storming out of the bedroom. With a final look at the body, Molly followed.

  The men barely raised their heads when the two women entered the sitting room.

  “Matthew.” The mother spoke, her voice dangerously quiet.

  Her husband ignored her, continuing his court-jester antics amongst the men.

  The mother walked calmly into the center of their circle. Plucking the full glass of beer from her husband’s hand, she smashed it to the floor.

  The room grew immediately silent.

  “Matthew,” she said, louder now. “I want these men out of our house.”

  “Oh, now, Emily,” the man said, face flushed with drink and embarrassment. “I don’t think that’s the . . .”

  “These men are vultures, Matthew”—the giant’s mother had risen to her full height—“and they will not have my son!”

  “Madam,” one of the doctors began, “I assure you, there is a great deal of money—”

  “None of you.” Her voice contained the fierceness of a goddess disobeyed.

  The men stared awkwardly at each other. Dr. Lerner frowned. “Sir, might I suggest you put your wife in her place and remind her—”

  “I’ve made my decision,” the mother said. Molly felt herself yanked roughly forward. “He’s to go to the girl.”

  A choked laugh sounded from the man with the ruby hat. “Surely you can’t be serious? You’re giving the boy’s body to a maid?”