The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  “A what?” Flint asked.

  “A drink. Liquor. Suet. Swig,” Otto said helpfully. “He means, put your back into it, already!”

  “Very well.” Flint wiped the sweat from his brow and bent down next to Cora. Cora confessed to herself that she liked Flint better now that that smile was off his face and a good sweat had soaked his neat hair into points and curls. Also, he wasn’t complaining about the labor.

  “On my count. On. Duo. Tray!” Cora whispered.

  They all pulled, jugulars bulging at the effort. The marble capstone weighed almost three hundred pounds, but Cora could lift her portion equally. The heavy work, night after night, had made her arms and thighs taut and strong.

  After a small amount of grunting, they were able to transfer the capstone onto the lawn. Cora wiped her hand on her trousers and peered into the dark shaft. Several feet below were two dusty doors opposite each other. Cora lowered herself into the shaft with one swift movement, landing on hard dirt.

  “Lamp,” she ordered.

  Otto used the tip of his tail to polish a milky spot on the glass, then handed her the lamp. Cora adjusted the wick. These doors didn’t have locks, like some of the others she’d encountered. She opened the north door with a creak and held her lamp aloft.

  The vault was small, just eight feet wide, with a curved ceiling. The packed-dirt floor was perhaps ten feet below turf level. The vault smelled damp, like good soil, not like rot. Several shelves of slate jutted from the walls, holding the crumbled remains of previous Hitchcocks. One large body lay conspicuously near the door on a low shelf. Randolph Hitchcock, wrapped demurely in cloth. The coffin had only been a temporary home for him at the funeral.

  “Flint. Otto. Get down here,” Cora ordered. “Bring the rope.”

  Flint lowered himself into the shaft, followed by Otto, holding a coil of narrow rope. Cora began unwrapping the shroud.

  “Get his shoes and stockings off, Flint.”

  “Why?”

  “No one ever needed a nice pair of shoes to be ottomised by a professor. His clothes are in the way. If you want to keep them, take them off with care. If not, use a knife.”

  Under the light shroud, the body wore a nice evening outfit, complete with silk embroidery at the collar and cuffs.

  Otto pointed to Flint. “You heard Jacob. Get the shoes and socks off. And if they’re my size, they’re mine. If they’re not, I keep the rags.”

  By rocking the body left, then right, Cora was able to get the rope beneath Hitchcock’s torso and under his armpits. His limbs were stiff already, making the job more difficult. She finished tying the knot as Flint and Otto pulled off the last of the clothing. Hitchcock’s body seemed bloated, but not from death. From too much drink and too many rich victuals. Wealth, it seemed, was not always a boon to life.

  Cora handed the rope’s end to the boys above, who prepared to pull. But Flint had paused, staring at the naked body with a nauseated expression.

  “No one has time for your tender feelings,” Cora said briskly. “Haven’t you seen a dead body before?”

  “I have. I’ve just never stolen one.”

  Flint continued to stare at the body God had given Hitchcock. No more silk or linen garments here to mask or impress anybody, or to stave off the rot that would eventually eat him into dust. The eyes were opened to slits, darkly staring into oblivion.

  “Aw, it’s his first time. Have a care, Jacob Lee,” said Otto, clapping Flint hard on his back.

  Cora stepped next to Flint, who was blinking quickly. “I’ll tell you what I was told the first time I did this five years past. This chum is dead, and can’t hear or feel a thing. He’s as sad as floating wood in water. If you’re going to cry, go to church and pray for the living. The dead don’t need your tears.”

  Flint’s eyes flicked up to meet hers. They were red, but he wasn’t crying or sad. In fact, he seemed angry. The hazel had become an inscrutable color, almost the color of his namesake stone.

  “Just tell me what to do next.” His voice was cold and dry, and for a moment Cora had the distinct feeling that Theodore Flint wasn’t exactly who she thought he was, or the individual she had met earlier. She’d expected him to snap, not to display this shred of resiliency.

  “Grab his right shoulder. I’ve got his left. Otto, get his ankles,” Cora ordered.

  Flint did so without complaint or a wince. As the men above tugged on the rope, they shuffled the heavy body together into the narrow entrance shaft. As Cora pushed and heaved, Hitchcock’s face drew closer to her. His jaw sagged a touch, and the tip of his tongue bulged slightly against his teeth. Even in the dim light of the lamp swinging from Puck’s hand, she could see that his tongue was a vibrant shade of green.

  How extraordinary. Why on earth would it be such a color? But she had little time to think about it, as she was soon heaving the rest of Hitchcock’s slack weight upward. Tom and Puck tugged the naked corpse into the night air and onto an outspread cloth, rolled it up like a cigar, and carried it to the wagon. The others replaced the heavy fieldstone cap on the shaft and shoveled dirt back into the hole.

  Cora dug into her coat pocket, pulled out a few dollars’ worth of coins, and went to the guard, who was awake and sitting up.

  “You’ve earned a peck and booze for tonight.” She handed over the money, and the guard replaced his hat, touching it.

  “Be off, now. I never heard nor seen you.”

  All six of them loaded into the wagon. There were no congratulations. Revelries would be succinctly articulated with a few belches later after some whiskey or a visit to one of the beer gardens. Cora turned to Flint, who was still steely faced.

  “Well, Flint? Who’s to buy our prize?”

  “Drive north on Broadway,” Flint said. The Cat shook the reins, and the horse began to clip-clop toward First Avenue. The gaslights had been extinguished, and only a dim sliver of moon lit the way. Bill stickers, with their paste-filled buckets, were at work along the street, gluing on fresh advertisements wherever there was flat space to be had. “Night scavengers” passed by, the unluckily employed men who carried the contents of public privies toward the river.

  “I didn’t ask for directions. I want a name. What’s his affiliation?” Cora asked. “Physicians and Surgeons? University of the City of New York? The Grand Anatomical Museum?”

  “The university,” Flint responded. That was all.

  Cora thought of the various physicians she’d sold to recently. Their class sizes were surging lately. Drs. Mott and Van Buren had both bought unusual specimens from her in the last month, but she also knew that their students smuggled in corpses dug up from Potter’s Field. Her contacts told her that they were not bringing in the volume they’d like, but the question why this Flint boy needed to step into her corner of the game was unanswered.

  Ten minutes later, the wagon pulled up in front of the Stuyvesant Institute, the current and temporary home of the University of the City of New York’s medical school, across from Bond Street. The granite building was designed to impress, with four imposing Corinthian columns in the front. Iron gates blocked a side alley.

  Flint stepped down from the wagon and wordlessly produced a key. He ushered the wagon to the back of the grand building. A stale odor emanated from piles of rotted garbage that a cook had thrown out. But it was nothing compared to some of the alleys farther downtown in the Five Points, where clogged sewers prevented even the rain from washing away the refuse. Cora looked left and right. There was no one waiting for them.

  “And who’s the buyer?” she demanded.

  Flint smiled, the first time since she’d wiped the smug look off his face at the cemetery gate. “It’s me.”

  Cora narrowed her eyes. “You.”

  “Yes. I’m a medical student, but I’ve been tasked with finding the most unique bodies on the island for the right price. Several of the anatomy professors are counting on me.”

  They should have been counting on her.

&n
bsp; “Why not say so in the first place?”

  “I have my reasons,” he said stubbornly.

  “Then why dig with us? To steal our methods?”

  “Never mind that. We’ve got a body to stash upstairs. And I’ve got the money for it.”

  Cora crossed her arms and frowned. She glanced up at Otto and Tom, who were both scowling. The Duke and Puck were murmuring to each other. None of them enjoyed being lied to.

  Cora lifted her chin. “Let’s see, then.”

  Flint pulled out a handful of coins—gold five-dollar half eagles, quarter eagles, and more. He handed it all over to Cora, who counted. Forty dollars, just like he said. Cora slipped the coins into her vest pocket. Half would go to her men; the other half she kept.

  “Are we good?” Flint asked.

  “Aye, that we are.” She turned toward the wagon, noting that Flint had lifted a foot to follow her. She planted her right leg, pivoted her hip, and punched Flint square on the left cheek. The force of the blow rang up Cora’s arm to her elbow, but she had momentum and preparation on her side. Flint, on the other hand, had walked into the punch.

  He staggered back, eyes squeezed shut, arms reaching for purchase as he lost his balance. She took one clean leap upward and kicked him in the chest, and Flint landed on his back with a grunt. Gravel scattered around him.

  The other lads jumped off the wagon and stood behind Cora.

  “What was that for?” Tom asked.

  “Yes, what was that for?” echoed Flint, gasping as he rubbed his jaw and moving it to make sure it still worked.

  “We have rules. If you were the buyer, you should have said so. Come on, lads, let’s give him what he’s bought.”

  With that, they dumped Hitchcock’s naked body nearly on top of Flint, who scrambled away from the pasty corpse.

  “I guess that’ll teach him. We’ll not work with him again, eh?” Puck said, clapping Cora hard on the shoulder once they were in the back of the wagon.

  “No, we won’t,” Cora said smoothly, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would see him again, whether she liked it or not.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was past nine o’clock in the morning when Leah awoke her. Cora turned over and grunted, her dreams fleeing her groggy mind, save one detail.

  A green tongue.

  She shivered and pried open one lazy eye. Leah, scrubbed to shiny cleanliness with her apple cheeks aglow, maid’s cap on her crown, was carrying a basket of wood. She swept out the ashes in the fireplace and placed more wood on the dying embers.

  “I’m still sleeping,” Cora said with an added groan. If she groaned enough, sometimes Leah would make coddled eggs.

  “If you were sleeping, you wouldn’t be speaking.”

  “True.”

  “Never mind that. The currant buns are already getting cold.”

  No mercy, this one. “But, Leah.”

  “Never mind you.” Leah bent to pick up the dirty clothes near the bed, and her eyebrows rose half an inch. “Why are your knuckles bruised? Ah, have you been fightin’ again? Cora Lee, your aunt and mother in heaven would cry!”

  Cora shook out her right hand. Her knuckles were sore, and a purpling mess spread across them.

  “It’s fine. Get some liniment and I’ll heal nicely.”

  “One of these days you’ll get a bruise on your eye, and how will that look on a lady?”

  “Wonderful! Then I’ll have to be Jacob for weeks. How fierce I’ll look!”

  “Let ’em come here, and I’ll blast them with my wind. That porter didn’t sit right in my stomach last night.” She waved a hand near her rump.

  Cora laughed, and jumped out of bed to ready herself. Before long, she was downstairs in a day dress of pink-and-green lawn, corset on neatly, bustle accentuating her tiny waist just so, her favorite wig firmly on. The tendrils drooped over her forehead and temples, covering the edges of the wig beautifully. Even though it was only Leah and Alexander, she was careful to be Cora completely. Never halfway with her two lives.

  She entered the dining room, where breakfast was laid out. And there were coddled eggs! Leah was a dear. And there was Alexander too. He didn’t acknowledge her when she entered, his eyes fixed, through his reading glasses, on the latest issue of Courier and Enquirer. When she was little, she’d receive an embrace and perhaps a sweet kiss. Now, he was stiff and formal. She missed the old Alexander.

  He was tall, handsome though nearing forty, and already with half a head of silver hair. He’d not yet attained the middling corpulence of others his age, instead cutting a trim figure like the dandies walking about Broadway at night. Unlike those rogues, he chose the sober dress of one who saw beauty beyond pearls and silk. What Cora loved the most about him—if she were rudely objectifying—were his hands. Alexander had sculptor’s hands—long, tapered fingers that were strong and delicate at the same time.

  “And how is the wax-sculpting business these days, Alexander?” Cora asked lightly, pouring him a cup of tea, then one for herself and for Leah.

  “It is eminently meltable, malleable, and occasionally brittle.” Alexander took off his spectacles. “And you’re bruised. My goodness, Cora. What would Charlotte say?”

  Cora put a currant bun on her plate, then sipped her tea. Whenever her behavior didn’t please Leah or Alexander, it always came back to her aunt. Would Charlotte be displeased? Would Charlotte approve? Cora hoped that in heaven, her mother and aunt weren’t gossiping over her choices. Even if her choices had been born of their decisions. Charlotte was the one who originally found a meaningful salary from watching over cemeteries, scouting out the newest burials for the resurrectionists in town. She had used her uppertens upbringing as an asset—in the cemeteries of the rich, no one doubted she belonged among the mourners. Charlotte made sure the rich were pillaged the same as any other soul.

  “I believe,” Cora said slowly, “that Charlotte would be proud of me.”

  “I doubt that,” Alexander said coolly, folding his paper.

  “You’re wrong.”

  Leah walked in, brushed her hands on her apron, and sat down opposite Cora. “Don’t be speaking to your uncle like that, Miss Cora. Manners.”

  Manners. Cora dug up corpses and punched men and bound her breasts into oblivion, yet Leah could make her bite her tongue with one word: manners. Alexander wasn’t really her uncle, but he was as good as. He was there when Cora fell from a tree and broke her wrist. When she had the measles and almost died, he’d fetched the medicines and nearly knocked down the druggist’s door at midnight. She might almost have seemed a substitute for the baby he and Charlotte had lost, but anyone could see that the heartbreak of it had never left them. While she was growing up, they’d acted more like siblings than lovers.

  An artist by trade, Alexander had found work as a wax sculptor for the medical schools that wished to have various anatomical features recreated for study. Thanks to his prowess, the carotid bifurcation and complexities of a hand’s tendons became as detailed in wax as in the real thing. Cora knew he’d rather make his living as a sculptor of marble and clay, but wax paid the bills. He’d once likened it to a poet paying his rent by publishing penny papers and weeklies.

  And his work was in demand. The anatomist at the College of Physicians and Surgeons loved him, and every anatomy museum that cropped up begged for his work: reconstructions of hearts and lungs, open torsos that showed the inner truths of spines and spleens and aortas. Under the skin, we are all the same, Alexander would say. The field is level for everyone. This is what Charlotte tried to do, keep the field level, even after death.

  “Cora,” Alexander said firmly.

  “Yes.” She lifted her eyes and smiled. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Your aunt. You forget yourself. This position was not intended as something to do all your days. I make better money now. I could provide you and Leah income enough. You could stop, you know.”

  Cora bit her lip. Leah said nothing, only nibbling the
currants out of her bun.

  “I cannot,” Cora said. “I don’t wish to be dependent on you, Alexander. I thank you, but what if you were to marry? Or grow sick? No. I must do this.”

  “It’s dangerous work. Someday, you may be found out. If a salary is that important,” he added, “you could find other work.”

  “How?” Cora challenged. “Sewing collars, or embroidering, or tassel making, destroying my eyesight for fourteen hours a day and bringing in fifty cents a week? Being a maid and not making enough to support Leah? Working in Madame Emeraude’s every evening after the theaters close?”

  Alexander looked up at the ceiling. “I see your point.”

  “I don’t have a family name to lean on. I can’t marry well. The Cutter family thinks I’m dead. They stopped supporting Charlotte when she moved to the city, and they won’t start again if I suddenly tell them I’m alive.” And dying a slow death in a salon somewhere uptown was not her idea of living. Charlotte always said that the women of the Cutter family—and Cora was one, even if not in name—were never good at staying put within their limited sphere of gilt-molded ceilings and Grecian facades. Cora’s maternal grandmother had married a rich Cutter heir and wrote sentimental novels. Her great-grandmother had abandoned a husband to become a ballet dancer. The Cutter women always got into trouble. Why go back to such a life, only to disappoint?

  “I speak for Charlotte too,” Alexander said, reaching out to take her hand. “I know you don’t enjoy the work.”

  “You’re wrong.” Cora shied away from the warmth of his grasp. Though she called him her uncle, Alexander was still an unattached gentleman. She didn’t think of him in such terms, but the rest of the world might. “I do not dislike it. It’s a service to mankind. I’m helping someone who will learn from what I’ve provided. Fewer will suffer the affliction, with time and understanding.”

  “And what of Jacob?” Leah ventured to ask. She had stopped picking at her crumbs, an ominous sign.

  “What about Jacob?”

  “Are you ready to leave him behind? Maybe you should consider that you might want a family someday,” Alexander added.