by Hester Fox
“What do you mean, the ‘useful sister’?”
Glancing around at the crush of men in plaid trousers and cinched frock coats drinking their ales and whiskeys, Alice lowered her voice and leaned forward. “What I am about to tell you is the gospel truth, and I don’t care one whit if you believe me or not.” She took a deep breath. “Where Tabby has a channel through which she can communicate with the other side, my channel connects me to the future, to things that have not yet happened.” She paused and, when he didn’t react, continued. “They didn’t know this, of course. They only knew that I could not speak with the dead and, once they established that, decided that I was useless.” She gave a shrug, as if it were the most inconsequential thing on earth.
Caleb opened his mouth, trying to find words. It was almost too extraordinary to believe, but if he believed Tabby, then he must believe her sister, as well.
“So you never spoke to her again?”
Alice shook her head, studying the contents of her cup.
“But surely you could have written her, sent her some kind of message at the very least to let her know that you were all right?”
She gave him a withering look. “I haven’t dared try to contact her or do anything that would draw attention to her. With all this renewed activity by resurrection men, I don’t for a moment trust that they wouldn’t have some sort of nefarious design on her. Her only protection is that no one knows about her gift. In Boston she can be anonymous.”
But she wasn’t anonymous, not anymore. He had told Officer Hodsdon about her, had let her fend for herself after she had run afoul of Mr. Whitby. Caleb thought about Tabby, about his mother, about Buttermilk, and how much he missed them. It must be torture for Alice and Tabby to be separated from each other.
They sat in silence, each nursing their own thoughts and regrets as laughter rose and fell around them and lamps were lit. It was Alice who spoke at last.
“How is she, really? Is she happy? Married? My only consolation is that she has gone on to live a full life. I cannot tell you how often I picture her with a baby and someone to love and protect her.”
Caleb had never thought of Tabby as a mother, but the image he conjured of her dandling a baby on her knee made something inside of him hot with longing.
“No, she’s not married. As for her happiness, I couldn’t say. She has managed to make a life for herself in Boston, and she charms everyone she meets. My mother is exceedingly fond of her, and that is no small feat. For her part, Tabby likes everyone. Everyone except me,” he couldn’t help adding.
Alice raised a brow, but thankfully didn’t probe any further. “Why haven’t you gone back to find her?” he finally managed to ask. “Surely you could be careful, not draw attention to yourself or to her?”
Alice didn’t answer, just stared into her cup. When she finally met his gaze, there was unspeakable fear in her clear eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose that after all this time I assumed that even if Tabby were still alive that she would resent me for leaving her.”
“I think she would want to see you.” Caleb fiddled with his cuffs, saying the words that he hoped were true of him, as well. “She needs you.”
“I don’t know about that. Tabby is resourceful.” Alice gave him a thoughtful look. “I don’t know anything about your relationship, so you’ll excuse me saying so, but it seems to me that you certainly need her.”
Caleb swiftly shifted his gaze. “I doubt it. I was...that is, I acted the cad when last I saw her, and I wasn’t exactly a gentleman in our dealings prior to that.”
“But she obviously holds you in some regard if she confided in you about her ability.”
Caleb wasn’t so sure, and even if she did, he didn’t deserve it. Like Tabby, talking to Alice was easy, and before he knew it, he was telling her about his father, about the other body snatchings around Boston. He told her about Whitby and Rose’s murder. He told her everything. Perhaps the more she knew, the more she would somehow be able to help. He already knew the answer, knew it because of the hot ball of guilt he felt deep in his gut, but he asked anyway. “You don’t think that Tabby could be in danger, do you?”
“Tabby has been in danger since she was born, just by virtue of her gift. Our mother taught us never to share our gift with anyone, for fear that it would be exploited.” She leveled a long look at Caleb and he felt his stomach drop even further. “But she shared it with you. I hope you guarded that secret like the treasure it is.”
But he hadn’t. He had traded it for his freedom, and now she was vulnerable, alone. He let out a groan and cradled his head.
Alice narrowed her eyes. “What.”
“I—I may have told someone.”
It was a moment before Alice responded. “And is this someone trustworthy?”
Billy was a policeman, and he had only wanted to contact his dead mother. Where was the harm in that? But what if he told others about her?
His silence must have been all the answer she needed, and Alice sighed. “I see.”
In the din of the pub, a plan began to crystalize in Caleb’s mind. He had managed to make the beginnings of a life here in Edinburgh for himself, but he could not enjoy it with the yoke of guilt on his shoulders. Clerking for Hugh in the firm wasn’t the most fulfilling work, but it certainly was better than prison and a death sentence hanging over his head.
He had wasted his chance of love with Rose, and he wouldn’t do the same with Tabby. And so long as he was considered a suspect in Rose’s murder, there would be no justice. Rose deserved justice.
He studied the woman across the table, a vision of her sister, and knew what had to be done.
“What if we go back together?”
24
IN WHICH A LIBRARY YIELDS AN OPPORTUNITY.
THE LIBRARY WELCOMED Tabby with the warm smell of books and leather. The door had been unlocked, just as Mr. Dwight had said, and then it was up two flights of stairs from the basement to the library. A small plaque informed her that the medical theater was next door. God willing, Tabby would not have to look there.
There was a hushed reverence about the great wood-paneled hall. A handful of students sat at desks with thick volumes spread before them, glancing up at her as she passed. If any of them were concerned with a young woman in their midst, they didn’t say anything. She was used to being invisible, and nothing was more invisible than a lone woman in a shabby dress.
Tabby wandered the shelves of books. So much knowledge kept locked away for the privileged few, out of reach to those who were not born a man with white skin. She ached to pull the volumes down and learn all their secrets, but there was no time. She had learned her lesson the hard way at Mr. Whitby’s house.
The floorboards creaked under her feet as she studied the shelves, the only other noise the soft rustle of pages as students read. She fidgeted with a loose button on her bodice, her skin starting to feel hot and prickly the longer she aimlessly wandered about. What was she looking for, exactly? There had to be books on anatomical study, some sort of chronicle of the history of dissection at Harvard. She had never been in a library before, and didn’t know what kind of books might be available, let alone how to find them. Regardless, she could not simply take a book off the shelf and sit down with it like the men around her. Acting like a lost woman was one thing, but pretending to be a student was another altogether.
If only Caleb were there, he would have known what she was looking for. She was exhausted from nights of watching, weak from too little food and being cold all the time. What would she even do if she were to find out who the grave robbers were and what they were doing with the bodies? Who would listen to her? Tears of frustration started to build in her throat.
“Excuse me. Excuse me!”
Tabby looked up to see a barrel-chested man walking briskly toward her. She froze.
“Just what do you think you�
��re doing here?”
“I—I’m sorry. I was just—” She moved to slip past him, but the man took her by the arm.
His tobacco-yellowed mustache curled downward as he frowned. “There are no women permitted in the library.”
“I was just leaving. I’m sorry. I was only looking for—”
The man’s grip on her arm relaxed. “I know what this is about,” he said sternly.
“You do?”
“You’ve come looking for a position, haven’t you,” he said with a pitying, knowing smile.
She hesitated only a moment. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded as if this confirmed his suspicions. “You’d have done well to come during business hours, but you’re here now. My name is Mr. Quinn, and I manage the building. You look like a young woman in need of Christian kindness, and good, honest work. Can you carry a pail?”
She nodded. Though Tabby had never met Mr. Quinn before, she knew him all too well. He went to church every Sunday, puffing his chest as he belted out the hymns, thinking that it all but made him a saint on the days in between. When he looked at her, he saw not a person, but an act of charity.
“Good. Come back tomorrow at seven in the morning.” He wagged his finger at her, a glimmer in his eye as if they were sharing some great joke. “This time no wandering about the library, eh?”
* * *
After a cold, sleepless night spent guarding her possessions at the boarding house, Tabby made her way back to the library. It didn’t matter if she never slept a wink again; every time she closed her eyes she was assaulted with a barrage of pleas and grievances from spirits. Where were their bodies, they wanted to know? When would they be returned? When would they have their rest? Tabby could offer only harried promises, assurance that she was doing everything possible to help them.
Mr. Quinn was waiting for her at the back entrance of the library. He cast a disparaging glance at the dress she had been wearing the day before, and then gestured for her to follow him inside. Gleaming floorboards squeaked under her boots as they passed academic men carrying on hushed conversations. This time Mr. Quinn led her away from the library and up another set of stairs to a hall lined with studies and offices. He unlocked one of the doors and motioned for her to follow him inside, but she hesitated on the threshold.
Catching her uncertainty, he smiled. “Your modesty is a credit to you, Miss Cooke, but I can assure you, you are most safe.”
She had no choice but to believe him if she wanted to learn what went on in this place, so she stepped the rest of the way inside. The office had an unpleasant vinegar odor, and the air was stale. Bottles with amorphous specimens floating in them lined one shelf, books stacked on another. She swallowed down her revulsion at the jars and forced herself to focus on what Mr. Quinn was saying.
As he explained what her duties would be, it dawned on her just how much a stroke of luck this had been. Not only would she be earning money, but she would have access to places about which she could have only dreamt. She would have to be on her guard, but if there were answers to be found, they would be here.
“It is of the utmost importance that you do not touch anything, for what may look innocuous to you may in fact be crucial research, of which replication is not possible if destroyed. Your path should take you only to the grate, the lamps, and the bookshelves if they are dusty.” He gave her a stern look. “Do I make myself understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He led her back out to the hall, closing the door behind them. To her amazement, he handed her key after key, explaining which rooms each one unlocked.
“Now,” he said, beckoning to a woman bent over a mop at the other end of the hall, “I will leave you to the capable hands of Mrs. Cruikshank, who will show you where the supplies are kept.” He paused, hands in his waistcoat pockets as if pondering some deep thought, before adding, “I hope that you will find the work honest and edifying.”
“Of course,” she said demurely.
When Mr. Quinn had left, Mrs. Cruikshank gave Tabby an assessing look. “Well?” she said, thrusting a heavily stained apron at Tabby. “Are you just going to stand there gawping, or are you going to work?”
She could feel Mrs. Cruikshank looking at her from the corner of her wizened eyes as she tied the apron on and began cleaning. She had endured worse before, and if working her fingers raw was the price of finding answers, then so be it.
The work was monotonous, but it was also soothing. She filled the scuttles with coal, swept the floors, and dusted the spiderwebs from the lamps. It was warm in the building, and there was a stall on the street outside that sold roasted nuts and potatoes for when she was hungry after a long day of cleaning. For the first time in weeks, Tabby didn’t feel so desperately hopeless.
But on the fourth day she had still come no closer to learning what, if any, secrets lurked in this place, and she was beginning to wonder if she ever would. By all appearances, the men who worked in the offices were simply professors and doctors, the building simply a place of learning.
Tabby came out from one of the offices, her hands still black with coal, and found Mrs. Cruikshank on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor. Taking up a rag, Tabby went to work beside her. She waited for two men in conversation to pass by before asking Mrs. Cruikshank, “Do you like it here?”
Mrs. Cruikshank let out a snort. “Do I like it? What a question. It’s work, and the pay is fair. My feelings about the place don’t come into it.”
“What goes on here exactly? What sort of experiments do the medical professors conduct?”
“I’m sure I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
Mrs. Cruikshank’s vigorous scrubbing didn’t invite further comment, but Tabby was undeterred. “I’ve heard there are professors here who study the dead—anatomy and the like. I wonder if you have ever met any of them?”
“They don’t pay me to consort with the faculty. Go in, keep your head down, and try not to get the shivers with some of the things they brine in the jars, that’s my advice.”
“What’s in the jars? What do they do with them?” Tabby pressed. When she had hazarded a look at them, they had mostly been unrecognizable, but some she could identify as frogs and other small animals. There was something sinister about the bloated carcasses suspended in cloudy liquid, a life that should have lasted no more than a matter of months, preserved for eternity.
Straightening her creaking back, Mrs. Cruikshank wiped a dirty streak of water across her cheek. “What do they do with ’em? They do whatever it is men of science do. Now if you don’t stop pestering me with these questions I’ll tell Mr. Quinn that you aren’t fit to work. Go on—” she nodded toward the end of the hall “—there’s windows that need scrubbing.”
Tabby sighed and took up the bucket to bring it to the water pump in the yard. She was taking it back inside when a man appeared in the doorway of an office she’d never been in before. Snapping his fingers to gain her attention, he called to her.
She set down the bucket, glad to give her aching hands a rest. “Yes?”
“The grate is empty and someone tracked mud onto the floor.” He looked at her expectantly. “I have a meeting, but I’ll be back within the hour.”
Sighing, Tabby hauled the bucket into the office, water sloshing over the sides as she went. Her arms ached and her back was stiff as she lazily pushed the mop. Taking a quick glance into the hall to make certain that no one was coming, she rested the mop against the desk and took a moment to stretch and study her surroundings. There was a plush green leather chair that looked awfully comfortable, but she knew if she sat down, she would likely fall asleep and get caught.
The plaque on the desk told her that the man’s name was Dr. Jameson. Unlike some of the other offices that were filled with specimens and medical tools, paintings dotted the walls of this one. Most were portraits of former d
eans and presidents, stuffy, important men who looked down their noses at the viewer, but one group portrait caught her eye in particular. She paused in front of the grandiose painting in a heavy gilt frame. Below it, a small brass plaque read:
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF
ANATOMY AND SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT THROUGH DISSECTION
NON SIBI SED OMNIBUS
The name was certainly more official sounding than the Spunkers Club, but there was no mistaking their purpose. There was Mr. Graham in the front, his sickness charitably omitted by the artist. Next to him was a bearded man in a white apron that she recognized as Dr. Jameson, a scalpel in his hand. Her gaze stopped when she reached the last man in the group. A man with piercing blue eyes, one hand rested on a book, a skull in the other. A man who—
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Tabby jumped at the voice and spun around to find Dr. Jameson standing in the doorway.
“I—I was just looking at the painting.”
“You aren’t paid to look at paintings.” His eyes narrowed and he moved into the room. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”
Tabby would not make the same mistake she had made at Mr. Whitby’s. This time she ran.
Outside, she didn’t stop running until she was well out of sight of the building and had put the river behind her. She didn’t know why she looked familiar to Dr. Jameson, but she didn’t need to know. It had grown dark, and the cold air nipped at her cheeks and wormed its way in through the weave of her cloak. It was a long way back to the boarding house, but Tabby hardly felt the cold as she put one worn leather boot in front of the other.
She shouldn’t have been surprised when her eyes had landed on the last man in the painting, but his face had still made her blood run cold. Mr. Whitby.
