Her Dark Curiosity

by Megan Shepherd

  A swirling gust of snow ruffled my velvet skirts. The botanical garden’s ice-covered lake spread in front of me, the water sprite fountain in the center now frozen under a waterfall of ice.

  I’d get an earful from Lucy later. She wouldn’t like that I’d left her to fend off John Newcastle’s kisses alone. But just being around the police—even a well-mannered inspector—made me nervous.

  And I had my errands to run.

  I drew my fur-lined coat around my neck and waited behind the frozen skeleton of an azalea for Inspector Newcastle and Lucy to leave. They climbed into the black carriage amid pleasantries I couldn’t make out, save for a single curse from Lucy when her skirt caught on the curb. I smiled at her impropriety as their carriage rolled away over the cobblestone.

  Pulling my coat tighter, I made my way toward Covent Garden. The sun was already heading for the horizon, so I slipped into an alleyway that would cut my walk by half. The alley was quiet, save for a pair of cats chasing each other through abandoned crates.

  Ahead of me a short young man approached from the opposite direction, cap pulled low over his brow so his face was hidden in shadows. As our paths grew closer, he took his time looking me up and down, giving me gooseflesh. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and I noticed that he was missing his middle finger—a difficult detail to ignore. I stiffened. The only reason an otherwise warmly dressed man wouldn’t wear gloves on a day this cold was if he planned on needing his dexterity for something.

  I stepped into the street to pass him with a wide berth, but he spun around and walked alongside me. The hair on the back of my neck rose. I forced myself to keep walking, hoping he’d just doubled back on some forgotten errand, even though I knew it was too late for wishes. I glanced at my boot, where a knife was hidden—a trick I’d learned from Montgomery.

  “Spare a coin, miss?” the man asked, suddenly right at my side, in a voice that seemed unnaturally deep. His bare fingers reached out, the missing middle finger leaving an unnatural vacancy.

  I jerked away. “Sorry, no.”

  “With those fine buttons? Come on, miss. Just a coin. It isn’t safe out here, alone on the streets. Not safe for a girl at all.”

  I saw his arm twitch a second before he grabbed my coat. I ducked out of his grasp and pulled the knife from my boot, then shoved him against the curb at the right angle for his ankles to catch. It threw him off-balance and he fell. I collapsed on top of him, knee digging into the soft center of his chest, knife at his throat, as I checked the alley to make certain we were alone.

  His cap fell back, and I started as shoulder-length red hair tumbled out around a pretty face. A girl younger than me, disguised as a man, which explained the put-on deep voice. That was good—a girl I could scare off. A man I might have had to inflict some damage upon.

  “I know it isn’t safe,” I hissed. “What do you think knives are for?”

  I pressed the knife closer against her neck, watching the flesh wrinkle beneath it. Her eyes went wide.

  “I didn’t mean nothing!” she said, voice substantially higher now. “Please, miss, I swear, I just wanted them buttons!”

  I narrowed my eyes at her, digging my knee deeper until I felt a rib, and then gave an extra jab before climbing off her.

  I jerked my chin toward the opposite street. “Go on,” I said. “And next time put some lampblack on your chin to look like a beard, and for god’s sakes wear gloves; your bare hands gave you away instantly.”

  She scrambled to her feet, brushing the muck off her clothes, and stumbled away at a run. I sheathed the knife in the boot holster, then wiped a trembling hand over my face, breathing some life back into my cold hands.

  I took off at a brisk walk, still shaken, the afternoon clouds overhead the only witness to the incident I couldn’t forget fast enough, until at last I saw the shining lights of Covent Garden.

  FOUR

  THE MARKET WAS FILLED at all hours with a vast range of people, and I gladly plunged into the safety of their midst. Ladies in fine dresses shopped for Christmas presents, scullery maids swarmed past the wrinkle-faced vegetable women, tailors and seamstresses haggled in the textile quarter. My fine coat and boots caused no one to give me a second glance, until I slipped into the meat section of the market. Few fine young ladies could stomach these narrow passageways. Eels as long as my arm twitched on hooks above lambs’ glassy dead eyes, and stray cats licked up the salty blood pooling on the floor. By the time I reached Joyce’s Choice Meats, I was getting nothing but strange looks.

  Jack Joyce, however, tipped his hat to me.

  Joyce, an Irish ex-boxer who’d turned to the meat trade in his old age, cracked a broken-toothed grin as I approached. His previous profession had left him not only minus a few teeth but with a permanent squint eye that never seemed to be looking in the same direction as the other. A small black dog with a white spot on his chest and notable only in his ugliness, wagged his tail.

  “Hello, Joyce,” I said, and then knelt to scratch the dog’s bony head. In general, I did my best to stay away from animals. They only reminded me of the dark experimentation Father had done. That was why I limited myself to plants. Roses couldn’t kill, or maim, or betray.

  “And hello to you too, boy.” I picked up the dog, though he was heavy in my arms. “He’s put on a pound or two, I believe.”

  “Aye. Soon enough he’ll be fatter than a queen’s lapdog, if you keep buying him scraps. And just as lazy.” Joyce took his knobby old hands away from his fire and dug around behind the counter until he came back with some chicken bones that he tossed to the dog.

  Technically, the dog was mine. He’d started following me around town ever since I’d first come to Joyce’s Meats six months ago. It was the meat in my pocket he smelled, and the only way I could get him to keep from trailing at my heels was to pay Joyce to keep him well-fed on scraps, a task that despite his grumbling, I suspected, the old boxer rather enjoyed.

  “Let’s see,” Joyce said, digging around beneath the counter. He came up with a package wrapped in butcher paper and tied with twine. “Here’s your order. Two pan­creases, one liver. Couldn’t get my hands on the deer heart you wanted. I should have it next week.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, slipping the package into my pocket. Just being here stirred the bones of my hands from their slumber, made them remember what Father had done to me. I flexed them, hoping to hold off the symptoms of another fit.

  The dog finished his chicken bone and barked at Joyce, who stooped down on his bad knee and scratched the dog’s head. “When are you going to give this ugly fellow a name already?” he asked.

  I leaned against the counter, watching the dog thumping his tail. “He isn’t my dog.”

  “Don’t think he understands that.”

  “My guardian wouldn’t care much for a stray in his house. I fear I’m already uncivilized enough for him.” I didn’t mention how the last dog I’d named, a puppy called Crusoe, had died under Father’s scalpel. The thought made my stiff hands ache more, and I pushed them into my coat pockets.

  Joyce grinned. “Aw, you could use a companion. Keep him in a back garden. How about Romeo, eh? Romeo and Juliet, you were made for one another.”

  “I was made for a flea-ridden stray?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, perhaps you’re right. Though in any case, Romeo doesn’t suit him. Who’s that boxer you’re always talking about? The underdog. That mutt’s an underdog, if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “Mike Sharkey,” Joyce said. “Pride of Ireland. He beat that big Turkish bloke four to one. What do you say, fella? Are you a Sharkey?”

  I watched Joyce pet him and scratch beneath his chin. Joyce had always been friendly with me, and never once asked what a well-dressed young woman wanted with so many animal organs.

  “Hope you’re taking care out there, miss, walking around town on your own, especially this late in the afternoon. It’ll be dark soon. You’ve heard about the murders, I wager?”

  “Wh
ich murders? This is London. There are a dozen murders every day.”

  His eyes went serious beneath his brow. “Didn’t read the morning paper, did you?” He rooted around in the stack of old newspapers he used to wrap cuts of meat and slapped one down on the table.

  “A MASS MURDERER IN THE MAKING?” the headline read.

  “Three murders in the last two days,” Joyce said. “Scotland Yard says they’re connected; the murderer leaves his mark at each crime scene. It’s all anyone’s been talking about. They’re calling him the Wolf of Whitechapel on account of how he claws up the bodies. One of them had a purse on him and a gold watch, but the murderer didn’t touch it. Wasn’t interested in anything but tearing that man apart like an animal.”

  Like an animal.

  The twist in my gut grew to a desperate squeeze, and I had to lean on the counter to catch my breath. Like an animal, that’s how Edward had killed his victims. Ripped their hearts out with six-inch claws.

  My hand slid to my chest, pressing against the hard whalebone corset. On the island, I’d seen a woman with her jaw ripped off. Buzzing flies. A blood-stained tarpaulin. Mauled, like all the others.

  To this day, even so long after his death, my heart wrenched to think that Edward had killed so many of the islanders. He had seemed such an innocent young man, and yet beneath his skin lurked a monster.

  A monster created by my father.

  “Christ, didn’t mean to frighten you, miss. I forget you’re a proper lady sometimes.”

  “It’s quite all right, Joyce,” I said with a shaky smile.

  I started to pick up the package to go when he said, “You just be careful, miss. Flowers dipped in blood, that’s his mark. That’s how they know the bodies are connected.”

  I slowly turned back to him. The professor had said that a flower had been found beside the body of that terrible solicitor, Daniel Penderwick, who had taken my family’s fortune on behalf of the bank. Shocked that I had been acquainted with the first victim of what the police thought might be a mass murderer, I pointed toward the paper. “On second thought, do you mind if I read that article?”

  He passed me the newspaper and I pored over it carefully. There was Penderwick’s name, listed as the Wolf of Whitechapel’s first victim. A second victim had been found last night, torn apart with violent wounds, and a white flower left nearby. The victim’s name made me start.

  Annie Benton.

  A creeping feeling began in my ankles, making my toes curl. Annie Benton had been my roommate when I worked as a maid at King’s College. She’d had a bad habit of digging through my belongings. A few months ago she’d gotten back in touch with me under the pretense of friendship, but had then stolen my mother’s small diamond ring—the only thing I had left of her.

  I leaned against the butcher’s stand to steady myself. If I’d read Annie’s name in any other context, I would have been seething with anger, but the thought of her murdered by such violent means left me feeling strangely hollow and out of place, as though time was moving backward.

  Was it coincidence that I’d known two of the victims?

  “These are the only murders? Annie Benton and Penderwick?”

  “Rumors of another one found just an hour ago. Unidentified body—so they claim,” Joyce said. “I’d like to think there won’t be more, but Scotland Yard don’t have much to go on.”

  The creeping sensation ran up the backs of my legs. My vision started to go foggy as blood pooled in my extremities. I gripped the butcher’s stand harder and accidentally brushed against one of the glassy-eyed pig’s heads. I jumped and cried out.

  “You feeling all right, lass?”

  “Yes,” I stuttered. “Here—some coins for this package, and to keep the dog fed. I should go.”

  “I’ll see you next week for the usual order?”

  I nodded before leaving, still clutching Joyce’s newspaper, along with the meat. It wasn’t until I was halfway to Highbury, and the sun had dipped behind the skyline, that I realized I’d taken the wrong road.

  I’d wandered into the seedy end of Whitshire, where rats outnumbered the people ten to one and more gaslights were broken than not. The hair rose on the back of my neck, reminding me of my altercation with the girl thief earlier. I’d been lucky that time to escape unharmed. I might not be lucky again.

  I took a deep breath as I mentally worked out a map for the direction I needed to go to get me back to a well-lit street. I hurried past a dress shop full of headless mannequins, taking care to avoid the open street, but a foggy feeling crept upon me.

  Stay near the lampposts, I told myself. Stay near the light.

  I turned the corner onto a shadowy street with only a single lamp glowing at the far end, and my heartbeat sped. After a few minutes I felt the neck-tingling sensation that I was being followed, and considered reaching for the knife in my boot. But as I strained my ears, I made out only the sound of little footsteps that stopped when I stopped, and when I whirled around to face my pursuer, the little black dog was behind me. He wagged his tail.

  “Oh, Sharkey,” I gasped. He ran over and I gave him a good scratch. “You weren’t supposed to follow me! I haven’t time to take you back to the market now—I’ll be late getting home as is.” I sighed. “Well, come on.”

  It was a quiet evening, save for the wind that ruffled the strands of hair that had come loose from my braid. I hurried through the streets with Sharkey at my heels, though I hadn’t a clue how I’d explain him to the professor. Lock him in the garden, perhaps, until morning. It was impossible to think about anything but the murders, until I nearly stepped on a white flower on the ground in front of me.

  I stopped.

  A flower itself was rare enough in winter. I knew all too well how much care and tending they needed to stay as fresh as this one was. It lay all by itself on a patch of sidewalk wiped of snow as though someone had left it for me, creamy white petals radiating from a gold center, a delicate stem no thicker than a bootlace.

  A tropical flower.

  There was a rustle in the alleyway to my side—a rat, no doubt—and the dog took off after it. I knelt in front of the flower. Five petals, not unlike the ones that had grown on Father’s island. Montgomery had picked one, once, from the garden wall and tucked it behind my ear. The memory of Montgomery made the place around my rib throb with familiar hurt.

  He loves me, he loves me not… .

  My heart twisted at the memory, and I turned to go. I should get home, before I was late for supper and the professor grew suspicious. But the flower was so beautiful, delicate as a whisper there in the snow, that I couldn’t leave it.

  I pulled off a glove and reached down to pick it up.

  As soon as I did, I knew something was wrong. My bare fingers touched a wet substance beneath the flower. I held my fingers up to the faint light from the lamppost.

  Blood.

  Blood spotted the back of the flower, as though it had been pressed into a pool of it. It was still fresh.

  FIVE

  FLOWERS DIPPED IN BLOOD, Joyce’s voice echoed. That’s his mark.

  In a blind panic I stumbled to my feet, screaming for Sharkey. His little face peeked out from the alleyway.

  “Come here, boy!” I cried.

  He took a few shaky steps toward me, and my eyes went to the tracks he left in the snow.

  His paw prints were bloody.

  “Sharkey!” I raced toward him, scooping him up and checking his feet, his legs, his body for cuts, but it wasn’t his blood in the snow, and I set him back down. Whose blood was it? He must have tracked the blood from within the alleyway, and whatever he’d seen or smelled in there now made him shiver and bury his snout in the fold of my arm.

  The light was dark, and I fumbled for a matchbox in my coat pocket. I knew I shouldn’t look, and yet it was impossible not to. I lit a match and took a step deeper into the alleyway, then another, and another, despite my every sense screaming to turn away. The match light caught
on a dark pile of rags in the corner, splashed with blood that smelled sharp in the crisp air. A pale hand lay beneath the pile, missing a middle finger, heavily bruised as though it had been trampled.

  I jolted with recognition—the girl who tried to steal my silver buttons not but an hour ago, now trampled and bleeding. Murdered.

  I took in the crime scene in flashes of the flickering match, my mind whirling as I stumbled closer, then away, then closer yet again, my instincts caught in a frantic fight-or-flight, curiosity winning in the struggle. I could only see tears in her men’s clothing, smell the blood. In my delirium, it brought back too many memories from the island.

  A crack of ice sounded behind me. I gasped, afraid I wasn’t alone, and broke into a frantic run with Sharkey at my heels. I raced through the snow, ignoring the burn in my lungs. Sweat poured down my back like oozing fear, and my strangled breath grew shallower the farther I ran, past the row of closed doors, past the dress shop with headless mannequins, into the wider street where lights shone like beacons of safety.

  I collapsed in the doorway of a closed bakery and glanced behind to make sure I wasn’t being followed by anyone other than Sharkey, who trotted up beside me. Visions of the girl thief’s body haunted me. Steam still rising from the body, signaling a fresh kill. The murderer must have been there moments before—the murderer Scotland Yard was so desperately hunting. The man who had killed Daniel Penderwick. Annie Benton. An unnamed victim.

  And now one more.

  The wind blew cold enough to make my teeth ache. A rusty hinge groaned, and I jumped back into a run. It all threatened to overwhelm me—the thief’s body curled in the snow, the bloody flower—and I had to choke back a sob. At last I reached the church on the corner and turned onto Dumbarton Street, where I slowed to a jittery walk. Sharkey trotted beside me, still shivering. I picked him up and wrapped him in the folds of my coat as best I could, mindless of the blood getting on the fabric.

  It wasn’t easy to climb the professor’s garden trellis with the dog tucked inside my coat, but I managed. The window had a keyed lock, but I had broken through that my second night in the house. Hydrochloric acid was easy to get from the chemist’s, and it dissolved iron even in small doses. After that it had been a simple matter of replacing it with a similar lock to which I held the key.