The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  Charlotte would watch me greedily doling out my care for you, in measures of sugar lumps and deliveries of Sunday fowl, lessons of arithmetic and geometry. She said once, “You love that child more than you love me.”

  “It’s like she’s mine,” I said, which was true. “Like the child you and I lost,” which was a lie. But it is easy to lie, when it comes to preserving what is the most salient in your life. Charlotte sighed with resignation. We didn’t share a bed after your birth, but I was still allowed under her roof, because, as everyone said, I loved you like an uncle.

  And as you grew, first in your boyish disguise, my affection deepened. What I didn’t expect was how my body began to make demands upon me while you metamorphosed into a woman. I studied the angles of your rising breasts, the curve of your lumbar spine under your new dresses. My body created prurient thoughts that were utterly distracting. You were not ready to see me with my eyes beneath a hazy veil of desire. You were still innocent, unable to accept me not as family, but as a man. In time, you would. But for now, I needed release. And I found it at Madame Beck’s, in the form of the mab who looked so much like you. I could ravage this portion of flesh, this duplicate doll, and save my quenched temperament for my dearest niece.

  I gave you everything. Every wire I ordered pulled to closure, every ribbon I gave to knot a breath away, every dose of poison I poured. They were all for you.

  Cora. My Cora. With hair like aged ebony and eyes like wet river stones. I know the angles of your jaw and cheekbone, of your wrists and the arch of your eyebrow. Those angles will pierce me even as the earth eats away at my skin, grinding my bones to powder.

  There was something to be learned about that frozen fox. Teeth bared, it was screaming a message at my childish self. Perhaps I should heed what looks solid, but upon thoughtful testing, cracks and shatters. Perhaps I should have considered that there were other ways to cross a vicious body of water; considered that what gives life can drain it as well, drop by drop, or in one quick eclipse of a moment.

  But I didn’t listen.

  I chose the shattering and was consumed.

  CORA LEE

  When I lost consciousness, they took me—the police, carrying me covered in silk and blood—to the operating theater right in the very same building where I had visited Theo. Only this time, I was exactly where I’d dreaded ever to be—on the table, my bare body open to the air, and a surgeon ready to split me open to learn all my secrets.

  Everything I had done to avoid this moment had come to naught.

  Alexander, the only family that I’d had left to trust, took my trust and corrupted it into a fetid heap. Leah, gone with what money we had. And Suzette—if only I’d had an opportunity to wish her well once more.

  And then there was Theo.

  But I’ve lost that chance, haven’t I?

  The surgery wasn’t nearly full of the dramatics I’d expected. There were no eyes watching, only one assistant to Dr. Draper, an older gentleman so inured to the bloody work that he would sigh repeatedly from sheer boredom. And Draper hemmed and hummed throughout, asking for a length of catgut to tie off the troubling blood vessels of my extra, tiny heart. And then he asked for another. The catgut was tied in several places, snipped to size, and my skin sewn to close the ragged, gaping wound.

  “Well,” he said when done, “how very unextraordinary. Second heart, indeed. I knew it was more myth than truth. What a disappointment. But she shall live, after all.”

  Oh.

  Oh! Where am I to go then? Where—

  EPILOGUE

  The news ought to have been entertaining.

  The Two-Hearted Girl Lives!

  Murder Scandal Near the Five Points!

  Artist Courts Lady with Dead Bodies!

  Lady of the Dead Resurrectionist Discovered!

  But somehow, the Herald and the penny papers were silent on the subject.

  Perhaps it was because Cora, retired resurrectionist and recent owner of two hearts, no longer had two hearts.

  It was true. Cora would hear later about how it had happened. After Alexander had stabbed her, she had swooned from the loss of so much blood. Theo had collected her and run to the door, screaming for aid. He’d refused offers to take her to Bellevue, or the dispensary, and demanded she be taken directly to the surgical theater at the University of the City of New York, albeit without an audience.

  Dr. Draper had been called, the ether administered, and Cora’s wounds explored.

  “It was rather a tidy mess, for one thing,” Draper had explained afterward. “I can see why some thought she had two hearts. A tangle of arteries and veins, pulsating like a heart. A vascular hamartoma. Quite an enormous size. I was able to tie off the main vessels after some difficulty. She ought to recover well enough.”

  Theo had thanked him, but Draper had taken him aside late that night while Cora was brought to the home of one of his nurses, to be cared for. Theo had told him the entire story, the same one he’d given the watchman and police when they had surveyed Alexander Trice’s studio, along with Audrey’s body and the ledger detailing the list of recent murders.

  “Look here,” Dr. Draper had said. “We’re on the cusp of certain legislation that will greatly assist our anatomic studies. Imagine, all the cadavers we need, from the unwanted poor of the Almshouse! But these unfortunate events with this girl—a girl, of all things, performing resurrections—all of this will muddy the waters and bring unwanted, sensationalist attention. Be quiet about it, and I’ll see if the police can do the same. There’s an ending to this, and it would be better for all if it stays far from the Herald.”

  Theo was too tired to disagree. He looked rather sorry with his head bandaged and eye swollen so tightly shut; he felt like all the world had been transformed into a flat daguerreotype instead of three dimensions. He nearly injured his other eye after walking into a partly opened door during his recovery.

  But recover he did. As did Cora.

  As soon as Cora was able to receive visitors, Suzette and Dr. Blackwell had come. Daniel Schermerhorn did not. The scandal, though not in the papers, was still on the lips and tongues of the uppertens.

  “I won’t look for an invitation to the wedding,” Cora had said as Suzette sat next to her sickbed. She had been moved to an empty room in Theo’s boardinghouse and was situated in a room down the hallway. The landlady had been adamant about no ladies amongst her boarders, but she softened at the knowledge that a nurse would visit frequently. Also, there was Suzette’s double payment for the room and board. Dr. Blackwell had supplied the physician visits afterward.

  “There will be no wedding,” Suzette had explained, looking unruffled throughout. “The reduction of my inheritance was intolerable to Daniel. It didn’t help that my affection for you was as strong as ever once we heard you had survived.”

  “Your mother still hates me, I am sure,” Cora said matter-of-factly.

  “Indeed, she despises you! But we have the rest of our lives to reconcile. Do we not?”

  “We do. Though I am very sorry about Daniel.” Cora raised her eyes. “Are you quite all right?”

  “Yes. I am young, as are you, and this island is fairly crowded with eligible men, though perhaps not as lofty as the Schermerhorns and Cutters.” She frowned. “Mother will barely speak to me. But I’m her only daughter, and though it may take a season or two, she shall forgive me. And you as well.” She smiled cheerfully. “I should like to help Dr. Blackwell with maintaining a dispensary once she finds a position. There is good I can still do in my position, you know. I have my books for now, and I’ll have you.”

  “Not in New York, you won’t. I shall be leaving once I’m healed.”

  Suzette looked forlorn. “Why must you leave? There is no one to fear here any longer. Except my mother.” She grinned. “How else will I keep you abreast of the gossip surrounding Dr. Blackwell and her quest to rule all of New York?”

  “I am not on a quest!” Dr. Blackwell said, obviously ruf
fled. She had been in the corner of the room, arranging the tinctures she’d procured at the druggist. “And you! What will you do now? I’m very satisfied that you will not be doing any of this resurrection business any longer.”

  “I don’t know,” Cora said, wincing as she adjusted her position. “Goodness, I’m hungry. Hand me that other plate of cheese and apples, will you? I can’t seem to get full.” Mouth crunching, she added, “I doubt the city is ready for another female physician. They don’t even know what to do with you.” She pointed her nose at Dr. Blackwell.

  “Goodness, don’t speak with your mouth full. And you have been eating nonstop since I came here. I’ll have the grocer deliver more food later today,” Suzette said. Dr. Blackwell glanced at them both, before going back to her organizing. “Mother has said that we can provide for a small income, as long as you . . . What were her words? Behave like a Cutter woman. What on earth that means, I don’t know, because we behave abominably!”

  “I appreciate her gesture, but I’m used to having a vocation,” said Cora. Though she knew much about anatomy, she had no interest in teaching, or drawing figures, or any such work. “I’ve thought of midwifery.” Perhaps it would be a pleasure bringing little ones into the world instead of spending her hours with the dead.

  “The physicians have been battling the midwives in this town,” Dr. Blackwell warned. “It’s a war. Men and women, babies and power.”

  “I’m used to a challenge,” Cora said. “But I have time to decide. I’ve been considering a different option, actually.”

  “What option?” Dr. Blackwell asked.

  “Becoming a druggist, or chemist,” she said. “Not many women are in the business, but there are some. I find it interesting how those medicines nearly killed me.”

  Suzette groaned. “That’s interesting? You are peculiar, Cousin.”

  “Interesting, but they can do so much! Every year, there is more to discover. I may not have an ailment anymore,” she said, touching the bandage on her belly, “but I remember well enough how it feels to live with one. Perhaps I can still help someone who can’t escape their illness.”

  Dr. Blackwell nodded appreciatively. She walked to Suzette and grasped the novel in Suzette’s lap. She lifted it to display the title to Cora.

  “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,” Dr. Blackwell read. “This paper rubbish? You’re both peculiar, and we’ll leave it at that.”

  “Curiosity is not a moral failing!” Suzette said, taking the book back and hugging it to her chest. “There is brilliance in here. It’s fascinating.”

  “I’ll have to read it then too,” Cora said, smiling. “Medicines are fascinating also.” Then she said, “‘Alle Dinge sind Gift und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis machts, dass ein Ding kein Gift sei.’ It’s the only German I know.”

  “Ah,” Dr. Blackwell said. “‘All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Only the dose makes a thing not to be poison.’”

  “Who said that?” asked Suzette.

  “Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,” Cora said, before biting into another thick slice of cheese.

  “That sounds like a terrible rash.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Cora said, chewing. “Well, if I am to become a druggist, I’d have to find someone who would let me apprentice, and go to school perhaps, but first—”

  “First, you need to recover,” Suzette added.

  “And then she’ll need her lying-in time,” Dr. Blackwell said matter-of-factly.

  “What?” Suzette went pale.

  “Well goodness. You have to tell her sometime,” Dr. Blackwell said, turning about. She brought a tiny cup full of amber liquid and set it before Cora. “This is to strengthen your womb. Come now, after all that stress, you need it. It’s a miracle that the medicines we gave you didn’t cause you to lose the child.”

  “You’re with child?” Suzette stood up and fanned her face with her hands. “Oh, my dear Cora, you really are a Cutter. Is it Mr. Flint’s child?”

  Cora said nothing.

  “It is! Does he know?” Suzette said.

  Cora said nothing.

  “He doesn’t! Why won’t you tell him? You ought to be married—immediately. Why have you not—”

  “Give her a moment to breathe, Suzette!” Dr. Blackwell said.

  “You’re one for secrets. I thought a physician didn’t speak of such things to strangers,” Suzette said, tilting her head.

  “Suzette Cutter, you are no stranger. And she was afraid to tell you, so there. I made it all very easy for the both of you. Do you still love your cousin?”

  Suzette’s face went pink. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Then it’s settled. Cora, stop looking so discomfited. You can dig up a dead body but cannot speak the truth to your own family? For shame. Be done with it, and tell her what you must.”

  Cora had said nothing throughout their back-and-forth, just blushing furiously and attempting to stave off further conversation by eating more cheese. But finally, she did. She told Suzette that the baby’s father was Theo, and how far along she was, and that no, he didn’t know.

  “And you’re planning on moving to Philadelphia? With no family, no connections, and with a child? Are you mad?”

  “Of course she is,” Dr. Blackwell said. “Not the usual kind of madness that rarely improves from a thorough bloodletting. This is the irritating kind that can be helped. Come, Suzette. I’ve some medicines to distribute to my patients, and you’ve got an hour and two good legs and arms to help me. And I’m your chaperone, so you must. Let’s leave Cora to rest.”

  They left. Though Cora had the ministrations of a nurse visiting every few hours, Theo never came to visit. And she never asked for him. She listened to see if he came home to his boardinghouse room, just down the hall, but he seemed to be avoiding the entire building. It was as if he’d decided he’d done what he could, dropped her off at the university to be healed, and then flown away without a goodbye.

  A week passed, ten days since she had poisoned herself.

  Cora’s wounds healed remarkably well. Her bruises had faded to a sickly yellow, and though her wounds were still knit together with fuchsia scars, they were improving by the day. Already she had gathered more plumpness to her body and her cheeks, and her hair was a messy shag that she’d combed and held back with a thin ribbon. She had been well enough to dress that day, and the landlady knocked on her door.

  Cora walked slowly to answer it.

  “There’s a man waiting for you. Says his name is Mr. Duke.”

  Cora drew a thick shawl about her shoulders and carefully descended the stairs. Outside, waiting on the street was a small hack, and the Duke was standing outside it, with a woman holding his arm. She had an upright carriage, black hair tucked beneath a lace cap, clear brown skin, dainty dark eyes, and was perhaps a good ten years older than Cora herself. The Duke leaned heavily on a cane, and there was some puffiness to his cheekbone that showed he was still healing from the blows that night at the graveyard. He removed his stovepipe hat.

  “Oh! You’re well! I’m so happy to see you!” Cora said, clapping her hands together.

  The Duke smiled. “Miss Lee. My wife, Annie Preston.”

  Cora bowed awkwardly and smiled. “It’s very good to meet you finally.”

  “And it’s good to meet you too,” she said, bowing in turn. Her voice was rich and low. “Lewis has mentioned you before, but he said you were a very private person.”

  “Lewis?” Cora raised her eyebrows at the Duke. “Is that your real name?”

  “It is.” He smiled. “Apparently, we both had names for our trade work, which we are leaving behind us, it seems.”

  “Yes. Leaving behind more than just the work,” Cora said, her eyes smarting. She’d thought she was through with crying over the death of Otto and Tom, but grief has a way of insinuating itself into hearts. Her stitches threatened to rend at any moment, and Cora pressed her lips together, try
ing not to cry.

  “It’s, ah, good to see that you are doing well. In person, perhaps not so in spirit. We are all still healing from our losses,” said Lewis.

  Mrs. Preston smiled kindly. “We were going uptown and were hoping you would join us, Miss Lee.”

  “Uptown?” Cora asked. Lewis had given her a handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

  “Yes,” Lewis said. “We’ll tell you when we get there. Not to worry, it’s safe. I hoped you and I would both be well enough for this trip.”

  Cora let the driver help her into the hack, and soon they were driving uptown. Once they reached Fiftieth Street, they turned past the orphan asylum and then drove north again. From a distance, she saw Lightbody’s Ink Factory, and the Phelps, Riker, and Schermerhorn estates (minus Suzette’s company, of course) looking out over the East River. Wooded wilderness covered both sides of the roadway. Finally, they stopped before a tidy planting of trees surrounding a small but beautiful outdoor pavilion.

  “This is a private botanical garden, isn’t it?” Cora asked when Lewis held her hand to assist her out of the carriage. She was tired but perked up at the sight of the trees and the crystalline-blue October sky.

  “You are correct. My brother works for the owner, and he has allowed us special permission to stop by. Come.”

  They walked slowly as a threesome deep into the garden. The trees were turning all manner of color—brown and golds and red maples, and the manicured lawn between them was well kept. As it was so far uptown and late on a Sunday, there were no visitors, and it was a chilly day. After a long walk down the middle of the garden, they stopped. There was some recently turned earth in an irregular fashion, surrounding a young oak tree, only about ten feet tall.

  Lewis removed his hat and held it against his chest.

  “Otto the Cat. Or rather, Otto Donnelly,” he said, pointing to one area. He swept his hand a few feet to the right. “Friar Tom, known before as Moses Thomas Burnshed. And of course, you remember Audrey March. The owner allowed us to bury them here, privately and under the utmost secrecy, so they wouldn’t be disturbed.”