The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  The ledger was a wide, flat book, containing a neat list of patients, doctors, and ailments, along with home addresses and notes about when Cora had last checked in with the physicians. Along the edges, Cora had added other items too: Names of their children. How Conall owned two spaniels and loved those flowery walks. How Jonathan disliked the oyster saloons, but drank huge quantities of his favorite port. The prices she’d secured for various ailments were listed on a separate page.

  But the ledger was gone.

  With the flurry of deaths recently, she hadn’t had a chance to open the book and write down the sales numbers and details. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at it—perhaps two weeks ago? She tried to recall the names she’d added most recently. Randolph Hitchcock. Ruby Benningfield. William Timothy. Ida Difford. Conall Culligan. But this one, with the gout, Jonathan Fuller, was added long before.

  What did it mean that most were dying in the order that she had written in her ledger? Of course, there was one person who belonged on that ledger but was absent. Herself, of course.

  “I am no different, and no better,” she said, as if speaking directly to Ida or Ruby or Conall. Yet oddly all these years, she had not said such a thing aloud.

  And now the ledger was gone.

  Who had access to this room? Leah, of course. But so did Theo—only this morning, in fact. And he’d been in the house before, the day she fell ill. And then she remembered—had Suzette Cutter not come to her room on the occasion she’d visited Leah? Cora thought back to when that would have been. Had she seen the journal since then? She didn’t think so. But what on earth would Suzette want with a list of the sick and the dead?

  Cora readied herself and asked Leah about the ledger.

  “I don’t know. I don’t touch your table, messy as it is. I never have, I promise.”

  Leah was a nervous liar, and in this case, Cora felt certain that she was telling the truth.

  As Cora walked to the Grand Anatomical Museum, her mind ached with unease. Her world was a cautiously curated fabric of secrecy, information acquisition, and quietly executed resurrections. And the fabric was fraying on all sides—the bodies being stolen out from under her, people turning up murdered—the exact same people on her list, which was now missing. And there were Grier’s missing diaries. She had yet to discover who’d taken them, and why. Was someone trying to expose her? Perhaps the danger wasn’t due to her two hearts. Perhaps she and Jacob had become too successful to live. How ironic that the very vocation she picked up to protect herself placed her in danger, for different reasons altogether.

  Her confusion didn’t lessen once she met with Duncan. He ranted and raved about her betrayal.

  “I’m going to have a word. You’ll see, I’m going to have a word. Shoddy work! Shoddy work, indeed!” Duncan yelled, at the walls, it seemed, while Cora stood before him. He turned to her and addressed her. “And you! I promised you above and beyond—ten dollars! What business do you have saying no when we agreed on the price?”

  Cora sighed. “I said I would think on it, Mr. Duncan. There is no agreement until Jacob delivers a body.”

  “But it was my body! We discussed it!”

  “True, and I apologize for that misunderstanding. But you see, this gentleman, Mr. Culligan, whom we had discussed for delivery—we believe he was murdered. Strangled with a wire, it appeared.”

  Duncan’s eyes bulged. “In what way should that matter? That is none of my business!”

  “Jacob thought it would be a better case for the students. The university can handle receiving bodies of such abused quality, because they receive any quality, from the worst to the extraordinary. Your museum cannot handle that kind of . . . insinuation.” She chose her words carefully. “A reputation is a delicate thing. Would you want anyone to link you to a murder, for profit?”

  “I am no killer,” Duncan said. He’d said it a little too vehemently, a little too quickly.

  “Of course! Which is why we steered that taint away from your good institution.”

  Duncan went to the window, watching the line outside his museum. It was always shorter than Barnum’s. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.

  “It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter. I’ll soon have an exhibit that will leave Barnum salivating at my feet. So, they have that little General Tom Thumb and taxidermied elephants. We will have better! Just wait and see.”

  “What exhibit?” Cora asked.

  “In time, you’ll see. In the meantime, I have my eye on another exhibit. A personal one. Alexander is commissioned for the work.”

  “Yes, Alexander said he’s been quite busy with several works. I should like to see them when they’re on display.”

  “Oh no. They’re very small personal projects,” he said. He cocked his head slightly, as if trying to make out Cora’s eye color, or whether she had a stray piece of down stuck on her cheek. “Yes, small ones.” He looked down at his desk. “I’m about to ask him to do another Venus for me, only a foot long. A recumbent one, similar to the European wax masters, with the face of an angel. I don’t like the British style—too real. Patrons like a little romance, even in anatomy.” He smiled. “I would be delighted if you let me give you a personal tour sometime.”

  Cora had stopped listening. She wondered if these personal projects added to Alexander’s dissatisfaction with wax work.

  “Miss Lee?”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize, what did you say?”

  “A personal tour?”

  “Oh. I have another engagement shortly. Perhaps another time.”

  “You should keep an eye on that Alexander. He’s never here when I want him!”

  Cora raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know where he goes? I do. You ought not to put so much dependence on such a family member. You need a better benefactor. Don’t you think?”

  “I do very well, thank you, with or without the support of Mr. Trice. Not every woman needs a man to take care of her,” Cora said.

  “Like Elizabeth Blackwell?”

  It wasn’t the first name she’d considered, but she nodded. Why not? Why not be like her? Cora knew anatomy as well as or better than any student at the university. She might learn the practice of medicine similarly.

  “Miss Blackwell is a pariah in this town. I imagine her practice on Union Square is failing miserably. Do you know—they made her rent an entire floor of the building, because no renters would stand to be in her tainted proximity?” He laughed aloud. “Take my word, Miss Lee. I may be married, but I am in a place to be your very good friend. Remember that.”

  Staring at his mustache, and his gaudy green-and-yellow-striped trousers, Cora felt her breakfast and tea working their way up her esophagus. She held them down.

  “I appreciate the offer. In any case, I shall be in touch with other specimens, Mr. Duncan.”

  He came forward to kiss her hand, leaving a wet mark. She could have sworn that she felt his tongue against her skin during the brief kiss. When Cora left, she considered purchasing a barrel of whiskey to pour over her hand to wash away Duncan’s polluted touch.

  By the time she had left the building, she realized that Duncan never actually denied having anything to do with Conall Culligan’s murder.

  And . . . she’d completely forgotten to ask him about Grier’s missing diaries.

  CHAPTER 21

  Alexander was not in his studio. Cora went there directly after her visit with Duncan. But the door was locked, and the front guard said that Alexander had left early in the day.

  Her mind was a confusing jumble. Her fight with Theo. Her need to drink her midday dose of tea soon. Wanting to scrub Duncan’s kiss off her hand, down to the bone. The resurrection they must do tomorrow night, for the gouty old man, and her escalating distaste for doing any resurrections ever again.

  At the center of this chaos were her original intentions. She must pay back the Cutters, and before the gossip of the two
-hearted girl bloomed into a riot of noise, she must leave New York. Which meant leaving Theo.

  It was that last thought that made her clutch at her chest, frowning. After their row, the stink of bitterness rose above her like a halo that refused to be cleansed away. He’d assumed she’d fall in line to marry him. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know her at all. She began to walk back home, when a newsie on the corner thrust a paper almost in her face. He had a stack of small newspapers and was yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “Get your daily news! One penny, only one penny! Jenny Lind to perform her sixth concert! Eighteenth Ward watchman assaulted with ax will live!”

  Cora was about to pass by, when he yelped, “New York’s Two-Hearted Maiden soon to be on display at the Grand Anatomical Museum!”

  Cora tripped over her own feet. She grew light-headed and forced herself to breathe. She pivoted to the newsie—a little smudge-faced boy no older than eight, his arms waving the papers at everyone who passed by within a few feet.

  “Let me see that,” she said.

  “One cent,” he said. Cora hesitated, and he reasoned, “Only one cent! Herald charges two pence!” Cora fished the coin from her reticule and handed it to him.

  She took the small newspaper and walked across and up the street, to the gated quiet of New York Hospital. There were several benches on the manicured lawns, and she sat down and closed her eyes.

  This could not be happening. It couldn’t. It was only gossip. It must be a mistake.

  When she had caught her breath and the dizziness had settled, she began to read. The article was the third on the front page in the upper right where the local news was listed, and very tiny at that.

  Two-Hearted Girl Sought for the Grand Anatomical Museum

  Frederick Duncan, curator and proprietor of the Grand Anatomical Museum at 300 Broadway, is seeking to obtain a specimen for his exhibit, a young woman famed for owning not one but two beating hearts.

  Duncan is confident that they will obtain the specimen soon, and will be selling tickets once the details are confirmed. “There will be nothing like it in New York, or any great city in the world,” he stated. “It will be a once-in-a-lifetime finding—a Venus like no other.”

  Visitors now can view The Wondrous Tailed Lady, The Anatomic Venus, The Womb’s Miracles, and The Tin Whistlers Show at only twenty cents per visitor. The museum is open Monday through Saturday.

  The single sheet of newsprint was trembling in her fingers. She crumpled it on her lap and closed her eyes. How could this be? How could Duncan be so bold to say that he would have the exhibit, before he knew who she was? Even if he’d stolen Grier’s journals, he didn’t have a name of the girl. He couldn’t be absolutely sure she existed. Could he? Only Alexander, Leah, and Theo knew.

  Unless Theo had told him.

  No.

  Duncan gave no indication that he knew about Cora’s secret. The newspaper article simply must be a boastful way of getting attention. These penny papers were always trying to print the scandalous bits and pieces of New York life.

  But it would only fuel the rumors and the competition among resurrectionists to find this girl. And if the rumors spread enough to associate a name with the two-hearted girl . . .

  Cora shivered. Her first instinct was to discuss this with Theo, but she couldn’t. She was too proud to go back and apologize; and she had nothing to apologize for, she thought defiantly. She might go home to Leah, but Leah would only fuss over her.

  Alexander wasn’t in his studio. But perhaps she could find him. She knew he often went to Market Slip—it was where his favored paint and dye company brought in the goods he often used for his sculptures. She would go there.

  Cora uncrumpled the newspaper and folded it neatly into her reticule, and left the hospital grounds. She surreptitiously looked over to the corner where the newsboy was still selling his penny papers to eager passersby. Were the buyers glancing toward her? Could they know that she was that girl? But no, no one was looking. She hurried down Broadway, oblivious to the cacophony of the street noise.

  At that moment, Cora saw Alexander. He was exiting an omnibus two streets away from the Anatomical Museum. Several debarking passengers obscured her view of him. She wouldn’t call for him, or wave her arms. Now was not the time to bring attention to herself. If only she could transform instantly into Jacob. She wanted to hide in him, immerse herself in his safety.

  So, she walked at a ladylike pace, perhaps thirty feet behind Alexander, watching him and others threading their way past the lines outside the museum. Alexander took a sharp right after the entrance, down the alleyway that led to his door. Just then, another gentleman also took a sharp right down the alley, only ten steps behind Alexander.

  Cora halted. She knew of the various techniques that the city’s unsavory might use to take advantage of others. There were countless ways to pickpocket a gentleman, and countless more to earn a dishonest dollar. Clever ways, as when women robbed men they’d lured into their room for a tryst. Alexander was smart, though, and unlikely to be fooled. But then again, he hadn’t once looked behind him.

  Cora quickened her pace until she reached the building’s corner. She caught a glimpse of the man as he rounded the rear of the building. He wore the scruffy clothing of a dockworker. She had seen a nape of dark-colored hair, and a hunched appearance, as if the stranger did not want to be seen.

  From afar, she heard a door shut. Cora followed quietly down the narrow alley. As she clutched the twisted strings of her reticule, she realized that she was unarmed. If this man was attacking Alexander, what could she do but scream? She could fight, but with four layers of petticoats and a corset, she’d be at a grave disadvantage.

  She rounded the building and faced the cast-off furniture and refuse behind the museum. There was that one cabinet whose glass front was broken, the shards of glass dusty and forgotten in its interior. Cora bent over, grasped a sharp piece, and wrapped the end of it in the fabric of her purse. If she must, she could use it for a quick upward thrust under the rib cage. It would be enough to give Alexander and her time to flee and seek help. She gripped the shard behind her skirts as she crept down the stairs to the doorway.

  She listened. Inside, it was quiet. But then she heard voices—male voices, talking hurriedly, and then a thump. What was that? There was another thump, and a grunt of pain.

  “No,” someone had muttered. “Don’t.”

  Cora suddenly panicked. What if someone had realized that she was the two-hearted girl? What if they had tracked Alexander down to get to her? Then she should run. She should run, now, and quickly.

  But there was Alexander, on the other side of this door. She had to help him, after all he had done. She could not leave him like this. Alexander was no fighter, but Jacob was. Her femininity might fool the attacker, and one sharp wound to the neck would end all of this.

  Cora touched the doorknob and found it unlocked. She opened the door and heard more bumps and thumps, another exclamation, and the sound of something like earthenware hitting the floor and shattering.

  Cora walked quickly down the corridor, past the wax works in the studio and ghostly covered sculptures in the storage room. There was a faint light coming from the tiny room that held Alexander’s small kitchen hearth and bed.

  A groan issued from his room, followed by a sigh.

  Cora stopped. It wasn’t the sigh of someone meeting his untimely fate. She knew this sigh. She had been the creator of such a sigh only last night when Theo had bitten her neck and driven his body against hers.

  Cora was suddenly uncertain of what to do. She held her breath and decided to tiptoe forward. The light from the room cast a thin golden sliver upon the wooden floor, and she leaned her fingertips against the doorjamb to peek inside.

  She had trouble understanding what her eyes were witnessing. The two men were standing against the rough-hewn table upon which rested a dirty spoon and plate. A ceramic bowl was shattered on the floor where it had f
allen.

  Alexander’s back was to Cora, and he had pinned his assailant against the table from behind. But it wasn’t a struggle, but something else. A rhythmic shoving match, and with every shove, Alexander was grunting, and the man in front of him was grunting, too, and occasionally letting out a soft cry of pleasure. Cora could see now that Alexander’s trousers had loosened over his hips, and the man he’d pinned to the table had his trousers down around his thighs.

  Cora inhaled quickly, and her shock was loud enough to draw the men’s attention.

  Alexander turned, and the instant he met Cora’s eye, she fled. Behind her, she heard his plaintive cry.

  “Cora!”

  But Cora couldn’t flee fast enough. She recalled smelling lilacs on him, assuming he’d been with a woman! He’d probably told the truth, that it was a scent from a random passenger on the omnibus. She thought about Alexander always gently rebuffing Cora and Leah’s wish that he marry and settle down. All those times he’d made sure he knew where Jacob would be at night—it wasn’t so that he could tryst with the female prostitutes and filles de rue who loitered outside theaters under the gaslights; it was so that Cora might not see that they were men, not women.

  “Cora!” Alexander yelled again. She was already gathering her skirts to exit the studio, but just as she reached the door, Alexander caught up with her, still shoving the front of his shirt into his trousers. “Don’t leave. Please. Let me explain.”

  Cora dropped the glass shard to the floor, where it cracked in half, and she put her hand on the door.

  “Please. Don’t leave,” he said.

  She hesitated. She had seen men together in some of the upstairs lounges Jacob frequented, finding a room for themselves in the back parlors; she had been to some of the dances in the Five Points, where certain women had unshaven chests peeking above poorly fitting bodices, their beards already grown past a clean shaving hours earlier, and the men who chose them for a dance knew full well they weren’t really women. None of this had bothered Cora. People do as they please, as they have for centuries, Alexander had once told her, and she had heartily agreed—but he hadn’t told her this.