The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  Alexander gave Cora a helpless look, before following the curator and his assistant out the door. She was left alone with, of all people, Flint.

  And she was furious. She’d barely been able to introduce herself. Duncan didn’t even know who she was, what she did—he had even gotten her name wrong.

  “Cora May?” Theodore chuckled. “Is that what he called you?”

  “Oh, cheese it!” she hissed, irritated.

  “Such language, Miss May!”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  Cheeks scarlet, Cora forced herself to keep her voice low and ladylike. She certainly couldn’t yell and holler like she wished. She wasn’t Jacob right now. “Let me be clear, Mr. Flint. The back alleyway of the University of the City of New York could have been graced with two corpses last night if my brother had so wished it.” She flicked her finger hard against the bruise on his jaw. “You’re lucky this is all you’ve purchased after your lies.”

  His impertinent face sobered. “I’m not fond of anyone laying death threats before me. I do apologize. But what, in God’s name, have I done wrong today except tease you about Duncan’s own mistake?”

  She pointedly refused to answer, asking instead, “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? Of all people, you should know why I’m here.”

  “I know why you shouldn’t be here. My uncle works here. And the curator will only work with me, once I’m through discussing the terms with him.”

  “Once he actually knows your proper name, Miss May.”

  “Stop it!”

  “You’ve missed your window of opportunity. I’ve already set the terms. Four bodies, each with a unique anatomic finding, dissected down to their most illuminating revelations. Half-paid in advance, I might add.”

  Cora actually lost her ability to speak for several seconds. “You . . . are a thief! This is my job!”

  “You don’t dissect. I can do it all, and ask the most preeminent anatomists to work with me. I can procure the bodies as well as your men can, I’m sure. And a portion of the ticket sales to the dissection event will end up in my pocket, not in your lace mitts.”

  Cora cooled her temper. Flint was no expert resurrectionist. He was nothing but an opportunity for her to pick, just one she hadn’t encountered before. She simply had to figure out how to turn him back into a buyer, not competition. What have I got, she wondered, that he wants?

  The answer was at the ready. Cora smiled slowly, and took Flint’s arm in hers, leading the way into the next salon. She walked briskly, so that he could perceive the pull of his arm against hers. A small party was having a gay discussion over the bright-blue butterflies in the corner, pierced with pins in a display that made them look as if they were sprouting out of an artificial bouquet of roses. A blonde woman in the middle of the group stared briefly at Cora before turning back to the display.

  “Tell me, Mr. Flint,” Cora said. “Where do you plan on procuring these four unique specimens?”

  “Oh, in time, they’ll come.”

  “So, you don’t even have your marks. You’re waiting for fate to drop them into your lap.”

  “That’s not what I said,” he replied, irritated. Cora tugged his arm again, and this time they swung into a room containing insects from Madagascar—terrible creatures, big and black, the size of an adult human hand, the occupants of nightmares.

  “What if I told you that I already had my bead on seven—seven anatomic curiosities—whose doctors have promised to inform me about their imminent demise so I can snatch them from the grave before anyone else does?”

  Theodore stopped walking. Cora rested her arm on his and smiled.

  “Seven. Seven! What kind?” He was slightly out of breath. Cora wasn’t. Jacob kept her as fit as a fighting dog.

  “My secret, not yours. Where will you find four more on this island? I have established contacts and a history of good, fair work. You do not. You’ll need me.”

  Every last scrap of smirk and confidence had left Flint’s face. Cora was right—he’d made deals without having anything to sell, really—just promises constructed of smoke and shadows.

  “I’ll think about your offer.” He let go of her arm and shuffled one step away. “Maybe I could speak to Jacob about it.”

  Cora’s face reddened. “You may speak to me. I handle the business, and Jacob does the labor. He hasn’t the mind for it.”

  “I’d rather discuss it with Jacob. I suspect your brother is far more intelligent than you give him credit for.”

  Cora’s eyebrows twitched upward. She’d crafted Jacob to be crude, simpleminded, direct, and not terribly complicated. Nevertheless, she was somewhat pleased that Flint regarded Jacob with more appreciation than most of his class who met him.

  They walked into the next salon, followed by the party who’d been examining the butterflies. This room was full of anatomical wax displays. Oohs and aahs erupted, and many of the ladies covered their faces in astonishment. Only the blonde woman didn’t seem fazed by the large glass enclosure containing a female wax model whose abdomen had been flayed open, and intestines pushed aside to show liver, spleen, and uterus. The figure’s eyes were half-closed, pink lips parted to show white teeth and a dab of tongue. Alexander must have painted her to look as if her lips were wet; her inner organs also glistened with a shining coat of paint. The blonde wasn’t looking at the anatomic display, though; instead, she’d fixed her eyes on Cora, as if she knew her.

  “Is she a friend?” Flint asked, noticing the two eyeing each other.

  “Not at all. Do you know her?”

  “No, but I recognize the gent with her. Daniel Schermerhorn. Rich fellow. Their fortune is in shipping, I believe.”

  Everyone knew the Schermerhorns, so this was not fresh information. “You’re changing the subject,” Cora said.

  “Aye, and I’ll change it again. Do you know what I did this morning?”

  Cora didn’t particularly feel like guessing.

  “Well. I dissected that fellow we procured last night, before my fellow classmates, in our largest operating theater. My first lead dissection, and as a medical student. It was fascinating.”

  Fascinating. In what way? Had they found other signs of vascular anomalies, beyond the aneurysmal swelling, ones that tempted her two hearts to flutter with fear and fascination? As Jacob, she often attended public dissections in the upper, cheaper seats. The truth was, she didn’t truly enjoy these spectacles—though Jacob pretended to—but she learned from them. So very much. The human body was a revelation in every sinew, every branching artery and nerve plexus. The betterment of humankind through understanding was worth the cause. And maybe one day, they’d discover how to cure an anomaly like hers.

  “Fascinating,” Cora found herself repeating. She thought of Hitchcock’s emerald tongue but said nothing.

  “Absolutely. What did you say that he died from? An aortic aneurysm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you were wrong. It wasn’t his cause of death.”

  This time, she couldn’t mask her surprise. How could that be? Dr. Flannigan had been absolutely sure the aneurysm was nearly ready to burst. A mere extra serving of cake could be enough internal pressure to pop the thing, he’d said. True, not all of the people she procured died directly from the cause she sold them for, but most did.

  Flint’s slight grin had all but vanished. “Oh, it was there, the aneurysm, and it was on the verge of bursting. But it was intact. Entirely intact. Full of clot, but it hadn’t budged or caused any trouble. Something else killed him.”

  “An apoplectic attack?” Cora suggested.

  “No. The brain tissue was normal.”

  “A cardiac anomaly?”

  “No.”

  “Dropsy?”

  Flint’s face brightened and relaxed. The language seemed to comfort him. “My, you’re full of horrible ends, aren’t you? No. None of the above. He was a puzzle to all. His tongue was a poisonous green col
or, though.”

  Cora’s bottom lip dropped open. He’d noticed too. What did it mean?

  “I should hope that someday, we doctors will have better tricks to evaluate the causes of death. Chemical tests, or some such magic. You know, I wish Jacob had been there to see. He’d have an idea.”

  “Women are allowed in such theaters too,” she said, before realizing it sounded like she yearned for an invitation.

  Theodore paused. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”

  She said nothing, her mind whizzing with other thoughts. What on earth had killed Hitchcock, if not that terrible aneurysm? What could that green tongue possibly mean? Could he have been poisoned? She’d never heard of a green poison before. It couldn’t be. But what also surprised her was an unexpected sensation of grief. It came like a winter wind in September. She didn’t know Hitchcock, not really. But the thought that someone might have hurt him, on purpose, tilted her world.

  “Cora.”

  She spun around: Alexander was there, but the curator was nowhere to be seen. “It’s time we were off,” he said. He glanced at Flint, sizing him up as he might a large gutter rat.

  Flint seemed to wither under the intelligent, hooded eyes of her uncle.

  “Miss Lee,” he said, bowing, before releasing her arm and leaving.

  Wordlessly, Alexander took her arm. “I’m sorry to say that Frederick Duncan has left for an appointment down near the Bowling Green. I apologize for not giving you the meeting you’d hoped for.”

  “It’s all right.” They walked toward the grand staircase in the front of the building. More patrons entered the museum, clutching tickets and printed guides, and closing parasols. “You provided an introduction, and that is all I need. I’ll try to meet him again soon to discuss terms before that Flint—”

  “You know that ridiculous man?” Alexander interrupted.

  Cora nodded. “He’s another resurrectionist. He and I . . . and Jacob . . . had a bit of a misunderstanding last night.”

  “I see.”

  Once outside, Alexander stopped her. “Cora. Be careful. Flint seems like a fool, but the curator is a different beast altogether. He’s a rampant adulterer. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he’ll take it anyway.”

  “I can handle myself, and him, Alexander. Both of them. You ought to know that.”

  Alexander didn’t smile but nodded all the same. As they paused in the sunlight, the blonde woman and her party passed them. Once again, the woman gazed a little too long at Cora—at her pink-and-green lawn dress, at her dust-smudged hem, at her neatly trimmed faille bonnet. Had they met in one of the salons near Union Square last week? Cora never paid attention to the ladies, who had no business in her business. She put it out of her mind.

  All the way home, she stared out the window of the omnibus, but she hardly noticed the scenery. She thought instead of Ruby with the tail. Where had she gotten to? Perhaps she’d simply disappeared temporarily with a young gentleman. It had been known to happen—it had happened to both her mother and her aunt, and they’d suffered the consequences of losing everything. Perhaps it would be in Cora’s blood, too, to run away from everything settled in her life, and into the warm arms of someone wholly wrong for her. Against her wishes, Theodore Flint’s grinning face flashed in her mind’s eye. No. He wouldn’t be her savior, nor her undoing.

  There were other things to worry about. Hitchcock’s manner of death and that emerald dye in his mouth remained an unwhispered secret that unsettled her. First Hitchcock, and now Ruby. The deaths and bodily disappearances of those on her watch list were never meant to surprise her. Her hands shook slightly—with fear or horror or sadness, she wasn’t sure.

  She did not like this at all. She found herself murmuring imperceptibly as the omnibus rattled homeward.

  “Where are you, Ruby?” she whispered.

  RUBY BENNINGFIELD

  I don’t know where Mama is.

  In times like this, she would say, Keep yourself neat, Ruby. Be sure your bustle is in place. Always sit to the side. We’ll fix your ailment soon enough. She calls it my fairy tail, though in truth it disgusts her like nothing else. Father never speaks of it.

  I don’t know where I am, and I find that it’s a very strange feeling, to be lost like this. I am not hungry, I am not cold, I am not wanting of anything that used to push and pull me. The temptation of a delicious new novel, or ten yards of good voile for a summer dress do nothing to make my heart flutter.

  My heart.

  My heart.

  It doesn’t flutter at all now, does it?

  One moment, I was exiting Stewart’s Marble Palace, my maid’s arms full of dry goods, and then I tripped and someone had their arm around me, and I turned to see if Mama had noticed, and then I was in an alley, and it was as if a ribbon were being tied too tight around my throat from behind. I felt it with my fingertips, though I could not loosen it. It was a ribbon that took my breath away.

  In anguish, Mama and Papa search for me. And they are not the only ones. That girl who used to watch me from afar—the one with hair the color of burnt chestnuts—she still follows me. She still searches for me. I cannot see her—not exactly. But I am not afraid of her anymore. In fact, I feel certain that she should be afraid, though I know not why.

  Oh, I believe I must go.

  I don’t know what for; I only know just now—I must go.

  CHAPTER 6

  Supper was a quiet affair, but Leah thrummed with anger. She hacked the small pork roast on the cutting board, then thumped the boiled potatoes, and snatched a flour biscuit and slapped the butter on.

  Cora sighed. “Very well, Leah, out with it.”

  “You ought to find a husband and stop this business. Have a family. Be a proper lady.”

  “You are my family, Leah.” Cora leaned over to embrace her, but she shrugged away. Cora was used to it—Leah preferred a dirty joke and a pint of cheap beer to morsels of tenderness. “Anyway, who would marry me?”

  “Many good men. You’d never need to speak of that Chinese father of yours. You blend in well enough.”

  Well enough. It was only a hairbreadth away from not well enough.

  “I’m not ashamed of who I am, Leah. It’s everyone else that has trouble with it.”

  “I was talking about money!” Leah said, a little too quickly. She hated to discuss Cora’s birth history—it brought back nothing but grief for her; for Cora’s side, it elicited curiosity. Charlotte and Leah had been her mothers. She knew she missed Elizabeth far less than Leah did. And Cora wondered about her father. Where was he? If he knew she existed, would he miss her?

  “Very well. Well, right now we need the money from my work.”

  Leah sighed. It was true. The rent was expensive: three hundred dollars a year. Being able to live and walk amongst the “bon ton” meant needing a steady supply of bodies, and things had been slow. Health was terribly inconvenient for Cora, but she would not do anything to hasten death. It was one of her rules.

  She went to bed and dreamt that the blonde woman met both her and Jacob, side by side in the way that dreams make the impossible true. The woman stared at one and then the other and said, calmly, and with a righteous firmness to her vowels:

  “I know who you are. And you are a thief, Cora Lee.”

  In the background, Hitchcock laughed. He was fully dressed, with naught but a single red line staining his waistcoat from neck to pelvis.

  “She doesn’t even know what she stole.” He laughed, green staining his teeth. He waved a fork that held a piece of cheese of all things; flies buzzed in a halo around his head.

  Somehow, Jacob and Cora couldn’t move from their spot of judgment. And yet, in the dream they knew—the woman wasn’t talking about grave robbery, but something else entirely.

  Leah was usually rather grumpy in the mornings, but the next morning she was smiling. Cora discovered the reason for her mood on the salon table.

  Two bouquets of flowers, each with a card.
>
  A note from Frederick Duncan accompanied a beautiful cluster of vivid yellow hothouse roses.

  I shall be pleased if you would meet me for tea on Saturday at Sherman’s, on Bleecker Street. Three o’clock.

  Cora smiled. Good Alexander! He must have spoken to Duncan again and urged the meeting. Flint would not be very happy about this prospect.

  She looked at the second bunch of flowers. These were small blue flags, and not from the hothouse. They grew where the wilderness was still lush—past the spoiled-milk stink of the swill dairies on Sixteenth Street. The hastily scribbled note said only, Regards, Theodore Flint.

  Nearby was a separate note creased and sealed. She flipped it over. It was addressed to Jacob Lee.

  Jacob,

  I apologize for not being more forthright—I blame my own senses for being muddled after a slight row with your sister. I should like to make it up to you, and discuss some more jobs in the future, as I have procured a good handshake with Frederick Duncan at the Grand Anatomical Museum. You must know him, I’m sure, though your sister only just met him.

  Cora seethed. Why would Flint assume Jacob knew the curator before she did? Had she not told him that she was the manager of the entire operation? It wasn’t the first time she’d been informed, directly or indirectly, that her womb consumed far too much energy to allow for mental acuity. She bit her lip and read on.

  I think you’d be interested in meeting some of my chums and attending one of our lectures. There is a splendid dissection this afternoon, with a curious abnormality present. Three o’clock, at the Stuyvesant Institute. Come meet me, and we’ll have supper after.

  Yours, Theodore Flint

  It was cordial, and friendly, and a certifiable olive branch. All Cora got was flowers, but Jacob had an invite to friends and a lecture. He would answer and say yes, of course. How odd that Cora should be jealous of herself, but she was.

  She gathered up the blooms from Duncan and Flint, and went into the kitchen, where Leah was scrubbing the morning dishes.