The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  “Go to my studio,” Alexander ordered. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Cora nodded. He deserved to be heard. She entered the studio and sat on a stool near where Alexander created some of his soft-wax sculptures. This one he was currently working on was of a man suffering from a tuberculous growth on his cheek, based on two sketches pinned to the plaster wall.

  Murmurs came from the hallway. The other gentleman wore a hat low over his forehead, obscuring his face. But as he walked past the studio door, Cora’s discerning eye saw that he was young. Perhaps only eighteen. He was of slight build, but wore bulky, ill-fitting clothing to make him seem larger. He didn’t make eye contact, only rubbed his mouth as he passed Cora.

  Alexander came and stood in the doorway. He wrestled his hand through his hair and closed his eyes.

  “I am sorry you saw that,” he said quietly. “I should have told you.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. You don’t owe me an apology,” Cora said.

  The studio was sunken into the ground, several steps down from the corridor, and Alexander sat upon the steps. “I guess you and I both have been hiding our other lives for a little while, haven’t we?”

  Cora nodded. She had to force a smile, because it occurred to her—she had felt like Alexander was leaving her behind to make his own family. She looked up. “How long has it been going on?”

  “A few months,” he said.

  “Is that why you lied about how long you were in Philadelphia?” she asked as gently as she could.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I came back early. Sometimes we meet here, and there’s a room we get sometimes, at Madame Beck’s.”

  “You could have told me. I would have wanted to know. I would have had you both over for supper.” She tried not to frown too hard. “I’m so sorry I intruded,” Cora said. “I thought he was a pickpocket! He looked like it.”

  “So do you, when you’re Jacob,” Alexander noted.

  “Except I’m not picking pockets; I’m picking graves,” she said, smirking. But then she sobered. It wasn’t funny, and she regretted the joke immediately. “Here I am concerned about myself, and I haven’t once thought about you, and your life. You worry too much about us, Alexander. We’re holding you back.” It was hard to keep the jealousy out of her voice. Alexander had a love in his life; Cora did not. Cora had nothing of the sort anymore.

  “Nonsense,” he said, waving his hand.

  Cora’s hand rested on her reticule. The glass shard had torn a small hole on the side, and she saw the newspaper inside. She thought of not saying anything, but Alexander worked here. He might know more about what Duncan was thinking.

  “And once again, I need to talk of myself.” She pulled out the penny paper and handed it to him. She pointed to the corner, where the tiny article was.

  He read it with a deep frown, before going to his large fireplace and lighting a long taper. He touched it to the end of the paper, which burnt bright and quick, before dropping it into the fireplace. They watched the flames until nothing remained but curled black ash, like a shrunken, malformed ghost.

  Alexander turned to her, his eyes still on the smoke wisping upward from the ash.

  “I think it’s time,” he said slowly, “that you left New York. Forever.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “I can’t leave New York,” Cora said. “Not yet.”

  Alexander looked at her. “Why not?”

  “If we move, I only have enough money to provide for Leah and me for a week at the most. It’s not enough. And I owe the Cutter family.”

  “I can pay for that,” Alexander said.

  He was offering to pay for everything. Even with his own personal life, as she’d seen.

  “Two hundred fifty dollars?”

  Alexander paled. “That much? I couldn’t provide half that.” He thumped his fist on the wall. “I should have known to keep a closer eye on Leah.”

  “It was her transgression, not ours,” Cora reminded him. “But that’s only part of the problem. The secret is out,” she said, leaning over and stabbing the ashes of the newspaper with an iron poker.

  “Then we can find out the sources of the rumors and eliminate them.”

  That sounded oddly like a threat of some kind. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Alexander said with a measured voice, “we can convince people it isn’t true. At this point, who knows? Leah, you, and me, of course. Suzette Cutter—”

  “She knows I exist, but she doesn’t know my hearts are real. But she’s not the problem. Word has gotten out in the Five Points. Duncan’s list has convinced people that this girl—me—is a prize worth killing for. Or at least, taking Jacob and me out of the business. It’s too big to contain, Alexander.”

  “You shouldn’t speak to Suzette Cutter, at least,” Alexander said.

  “I think she considers me family,” Cora said. “I don’t think she would try to harm me.”

  “Does it occur to you,” Alexander said, “that you’re another Cutter heir? That you’re competition?”

  Cora sputtered out a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous! They can rewrite their entailments to exclude me. I haven’t been part of that family since even before I was born!”

  “But if the legacy is written in such a way . . . it’s possible it could be entitled in a manner that is not changeable. It happens, often enough, in the older families, and the Cutter family has a lineage going back to estates in England. And Suzette would get nothing, if she’s younger than you. Is she?”

  “She is only a little younger than I am, by a few months. I never thought of it,” Cora admitted. “Apparently there are many things I haven’t considered. I’m sorry, Alexander.”

  “Stop apologizing. I should have made sure the door was locked, is all. It’s not every day that your family walks in on your trysts and embarrasses you utterly.”

  They laughed together, and the dissonance in Cora’s heart abated.

  “I can meet with Duncan, to find out what he really knows about this, after the article,” Alexander said. He raised a single eyebrow. “And have you spoken to Theodore Flint about this?”

  She fiddled with the tear in her reticule. “I’m not sure Theo and I will see each other anymore.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. The less you talk, the better. He’s in the business, and he’s not to be trusted.”

  Cora opened her mouth to protest, but found that she couldn’t. She rose to leave, and exhaustion suddenly threaded through her limbs and weighed her down. In her mind, she was running, running, running away. Even now, so near to Alexander, she felt unsafe because only two stories up, Frederick Duncan was wishing she was dead and splayed open in an amphitheater. She shivered.

  As she walked out, her dress brushed against the linen draped on a piece of unfinished work, sending it fluttering to the ground. She stooped to pick up the sheet and cover the piece, when her breath caught.

  It was a miniature waxen figure, about ten inches tall, but with a noticeable crack through its middle. Wearing a Grecian robe, the figurine had black tresses that curled over its bare ivory shoulder. But the face had a Far Eastern flair to it. Rosy lips, with dark eyes drawn out just slightly to the temples.

  It looked like Cora.

  “What is this?” she asked coldly.

  Alexander quickly snatched the linen out of her hand and draped it over the broken figure.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s a commission. From Duncan. He’s had me work on a few pieces for his private collection, but I didn’t realize until after I’d completed it that—that he—”

  “It’s me, isn’t it?” Cora whispered.

  “He didn’t say so,” Alexander said, looking miserable. “Not out loud. But he kept visiting and asking me to change it this way and that way. And once I realized what he’d done, I pretended I’d broken it and had to start over again.” Alexander took the piece, snapped it in half where the crack had begun, and set both parts in a large cauld
ron that hung over the fire. “I’ll melt it down now, but he’s still going to want it. The last time he visited, he said, ‘It doesn’t have her eyes, not yet.’ And I asked to whom he was referring, and he laughed. ‘You should know your own family!’ And then I really knew.”

  “It makes sense,” Cora said. “He just mentioned to me that he was having you work on some personal pieces. And the way he looks at me . . .” She stared vacantly into the fire, watching the feet of the Cora statuette turn into a gooey mass against the cauldron’s bottom. “Like he wants to roast me for dinner and spend eternity dining.” She shook her head. “Very well. I don’t need him to make myself a salary. I need not see him ever again. And if you can keep ‘breaking’ my likenesses, then maybe . . . maybe he’ll forgo his obsession once and for all.”

  Alexander smiled helpfully, but there was no hope in his eyes. “Maybe.”

  The stretch of days that followed was a blur of tedium and frustration. Cora stayed home, afraid to even set foot in the late-September sunlight. She drank herbal tea three times a day, and meanwhile Leah watched her as if she were always on the verge of escaping. Her boys pilfered the grave of Jonathan Fuller, but they were able to sell the body for only ten dollars, as his death wasn’t unusual—he was simply quite old—and his gout was sadly crippling yet ordinary. After turning down two more resurrection runs with her team (they were for pilfering ordinary bodies at Potter’s Field on Fourth Avenue near Fiftieth Street, but Cora refused, as did Jacob, leaving them to handle the small sales on their own), Cora was growing increasingly restless. She rarely spent a whole day indoors, and now it had been well over a week.

  She wanted to take up Suzette’s offer to meet, so she sent another letter with a payment, agreeing to meet but knowing that Suzette’s ability to escape her mother was the limiting impediment. That had been three days ago. When Leah came home from the grocer, she held an envelope. Cora tore it open quickly.

  “What does it say?” Leah asked.

  “Suzette has invited me to go with her to see a . . . Oh! It’s a lecture by that woman doctor you met at Castle Garden, Dr. Blackwell! She did find a venue for her lectures. How surprising. It’s in the basement of Hope Chapel.”

  Leah’s nose flared. “What would a woman doctor lecture on?”

  “‘The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls.’” Cora shrugged.

  “Well, you ought to let me go with you. Or have Alexander chaperone you there.”

  “No doubt Suzette will have a chaperone herself,” Cora said. After all these days at home, the thought of extra accompaniment felt smothering.

  “I shall go, if she doesn’t have a chaperone.”

  “Oh, Leah. If something were to happen, I’m more than capable of handling it. You could throw your butcher knife, but that won’t do to carry it about in public, now would it?”

  “Very well,” Leah huffed.

  The lecture was for the next day, late in the afternoon. Cora waited, nervous as she’d never been. She wore her second best in gray poplin with blue ruffles and embroidery, but kept fussing with the trim nervously. Leah scolded her.

  “She’s only a person, like you, and no better.” Leah seemed still a little burnt by knowing that the Cutters considered her a dishonest maid who deserved a scolding, or worse, to be let go. But Cora had forgiven her. Mistakes are common as pigs, and Cora had to give Leah allowances for being weak minded at times.

  At the sound of the small brass knocker against the front door, Leah opened it to find a servant whose hair was grizzled with gray. He bowed and asked for Miss Lee. Suzette waved her arm through the window of a fine barouche on the street.

  “I shall be back before supper,” Cora told Leah.

  “Be careful,” Leah said.

  Suzette nodded to Leah, but her smile for Cora had vanished at the sight of the maid. The door closed behind them.

  “I am surprised you haven’t dismissed her,” Suzette said as Cora was helped into the Cutters’ stylish barouche, with two matching Morgan horses calmly waiting.

  “She’s like family. She’s known me since I was a child. I have to forgive her.”

  “I see,” Suzette said. They said nothing more for a few minutes. Suzette was rearranging some mussed curls against her cheek. Her dress, a beautiful tiered green-and-black silk, took over the whole inside of the barouche.

  “So, are you to be married soon?” Cora said.

  Suzette blushed and put her hands in her lap. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

  “You’re speaking to me, first of all. And we’re going to a lecture by the only lady doctor on this entire continent,” Cora said, trying to hide a smile. “They’re the actions of a woman who shall soon have her own castle and a husband consuming her time.”

  “Oh.”

  “Also, you’re wearing a new ring,” Cora said.

  They looked at Suzette’s ungloved hand. It was true. She wore a new gold ring on her fourth finger, in the shape of a snake with a rose-cut ruby in the serpent’s head.

  “I did get engaged. Only just a few days ago.” Suzette didn’t smile. “Daniel says that Queen Victoria had an engagement ring just like this, only with an emerald.”

  “Daniel Schermerhorn?”

  She nodded. He was everything Cora wasn’t—wealthy, powerful, connected to all the uppertens worth knowing.

  “Do you love him?” she asked.

  “That’s a very forward question,” Suzette snapped. She covered her mouth. “Oh. Mother says I ought not to speak my mind like that. I apologize.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve a habit of speaking my mind as well.” Cora smiled.

  Suzette relaxed a little. “Well, Mother says love happens eventually. Though I wish I could just marry a companion. I’ve a friend, Anne White, whom I’ve known for ever so long. You’ll meet her someday. Ladies spend more time with friends than husbands anyway!” She suddenly blushed hard at her words, and waved a hand away. “As for Daniel, well. He’s not terribly happy about marrying me, I suppose. Your existence has changed things quite a bit.”

  “Indeed?” Cora asked, her second heart thumping in parallel to her other.

  “You do realize that half my inheritance is yours? Which means that Daniel’s family is a little upset at the news. The smaller inheritance has diminished my consequence, I suppose.” She put her hand on Cora’s arm. “Please don’t think I’m upset. I’m rather happier that you’re around. Being the only young Cutter in the family, it’s . . . it’s something. They spend more time worrying after you now, and that’s honestly a relief.”

  “They worry about me?” Cora asked. “What do they say?”

  “Oh, they talk about your maid, and how terrible that was—you’d be surprised how many times they can repeat this fact for entertainment.” She frowned. “They worry that you’ll enter society and make things difficult for the family.”

  “Difficult,” Cora said, cringing at the word. “Do they know you were going to see me today?” Cora said.

  Peter coughed and leaned forward to maneuver the reins in his hands. Suzette drew closer. “I told my mother I needed to see about some gloves and a new pelisse before the weather turns colder. She will let me go to a shop or two by myself, as long as old Peter keeps close by.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Cora said. “Speaking of secrets . . . or rather, of nonexistent ones . . . may I ask a favor?”

  “I suppose so,” Suzette said. “What is it?”

  “I would be grateful if you and your mother never mentioned anything about Dr. Grier, or the lies about my hearts, to Daniel, or to anyone. As I have said before, it’s all untrue.”

  “Why?” Suzette’s eyes were wide open and unseeing.

  “Have you ever been to Barnum’s American Museum?” Cora asked.

  “Oh yes. It’s incredible! And the Grand Anatomical Museum. I saw you there one day.”

  “You remember the anatomical subjects, then.”

 
“Of course. But they were all waxen, or drawings. Daniel thought they were barbaric, but I confess, I thought them extraordinary, and rather dramatic.”

  “Well, I’m not extraordinary, Suzette,” she said, lying easily. “But someone might think those rumors Dr. Grier spread are true and wish my body on display on a shelf in the museum.”

  Suzette actually laughed, before she frowned. “You’re not in jest? You can’t possibly mean . . . They wouldn’t . . .”

  “They would, Suzette. It has happened to others. The museums are very lucrative. They’re always looking for new displays to bring in more money.”

  “Oh.” Suzette covered her mouth with her fingertips. “Oh!” She looked at Cora. Her eyes shone, as if dawn had alighted on her irises. “How horrifying! It’s just like from a story!”

  “I can see why you love those books of yours at your home. Like The Mysteries of Udolpho?”

  Suzette blushed. “Mother is always furious with me for reading them. But I suppose it puts me in a good position to help you. I’m not afraid of such things—skeletons and dark castles. Secrets. I’ll keep yours; you don’t have to worry.”

  The barouche stopped in front of 718 Broadway, where the very plain and forgettable Hope Church sat tightly between a hat shop and a grocer. Suzette and Cora were helped off the barouche, and they purchased tickets for two dollars inside the doorway from a sober-looking old man. Cora tried not to balk at the price. Down in the basement, about ten women were clustered in groups of wooden chairs set up in the small room.

  Dr. Blackwell soon emerged from a side door and began her lecture. The ladies were rapt and listened to her thoughts on healthful diets and exercise. For the entire hour, Cora thought to herself, I could do this. And even charge two dollars a ticket. She just made twenty-four dollars! The same as Cora’s profits from one good resurrection. Before she could give it more consideration, the lecture was over. Dr. Blackwell saw Suzette and Cora, and waved them over.

  “What a delight to see you both!” She turned to Suzette. “You’re the only ladies here who aren’t friends of Dr. Warrington, a very kind gentleman who has always encouraged my career.”