13
Her first week as a grave robber, Molly’s days began to take on a reliable routine.
At ten, she woke to wash herself in a two-inch bath of water and then dress in one of Ava’s hand-me-down gowns, usually a plain brown gingham for day and, depending on her task, a different one that her aunt chose for night. After breakfast, she headed to the library, where Maeve would have already prepared a mug of cocoa and a fire. There, Molly immersed herself in one of the room’s many books. But rather than geometry, she began to read about the dead. Several dense texts rested on the highest shelves, and she started to make her way through each of them.
She was amazed to discover that the intricate anatomy drawings were more beautiful than any of the moth illustrations she’d loved as a child. Soon enough she could tell a tibia from a fibula and differentiate the thorax from the larynx. She made a game out of it, identifying the parts of the corpses she and Tom loaded each night, taking them apart and putting them back together again in her mind, like a puzzle. Sometimes she even carried one of the books with her.
At noon, she had tea with her aunt, usually something light—finger sandwiches of ham pâté and salted mushrooms, or salads dressed in vinegar—Ava guiding her on which forks to use, the proper way to wash her fingers in the bowls of rose water at the end.
“We’ll bring you out into society gradually,” her aunt said. “For now, just worry about your work.”
Always, Molly carried the knife. But she was continually frustrated in her attempts to find Edgar. Still, her only clue was the fact that he was a medical student. But try as she might, she could not seem to penetrate that world.
Molly tried, once, to ask Ava if she might be allowed to meet Dr. LaValle and attend one of his lectures, but her aunt brushed her question neatly away. The next day, she did not appear for tea. Taking the lesson for what it was, Molly did not ask again.
She attempted, instead, to slip outside to the church on her own. But each time, William was there, eyes as watchful as a bulldog. When Molly dared to walk boldly past, the butler cleared his throat in a warning.
“Perhaps I should fetch Mrs. Wickham,” he said.
It was not a question.
After tea, her aunt began her social calls, and Molly was left by herself. The books helped, but they weren’t enough to keep her mind from humming with thoughts of Kitty, Edgar, and the Knifeman. Molly tried to engage Maeve in conversation, but the maid seemed embarrassed by the attention and then horrified when one day Molly actually picked up a feather duster and began to work beside her.
Some days, despite the chill, she strolled the sparse gardens, walking amidst the grisly statues. Others, she wandered the house, taking in her luxurious surroundings bit by bit, fingering the dining room’s velvet curtain or taking down a pretty china shepherdess from the fireplace mantel to run her fingers over the porcelain lips.
It was a fine thing to have one’s hair washed whenever one pleased and to slip chilled feet into rabbit-fur-lined slippers. Finer still to drink melted chocolate steamed with vanilla and sit cozily by the fire. But it was lonely.
The orphanage, with its constant press of other bodies, had not offered the option of solitude. Even at night, there was no privacy, with dozens of sleeping girls tucked about Molly like quilt stuffing.
Here, though, the quiet was unnerving.
Molly thought briefly of seeking Ginny out at her performance venue but stopped short of actually going. It was rare that a student of the doctor’s came to the house, but on occasion it happened, and she did not want to miss it. A boy in a long coat would visit to collect something for LaValle or relay a message to Ava. Usually, it was Ursula’s beau, James, who seemed to hold a special place in the doctor’s esteem. Molly twice tried to speak to him, but each time Ava stopped her at the door, telling Molly she was to keep from socializing with gentlemen until she better understood the correct rules of engagement. Finally, Molly simply listened quietly at the top of the stairs for a name when a student appeared, fingers curled around her knife.
If Edgar ever announced himself at the house, she vowed to be there to greet him, Ava be damned.
Dinner came at eight—taken in the kitchen alone—and then Molly’s evening began.
Though she hardly dared admit it to herself, she began to long for the nights. Sometimes, when Tom picked her up, she was so full to bursting with her own thoughts, or new information from a book she’d read, that he had to sit there a full five minutes before she’d stop talking, enduring her spill of pent-up loneliness. His own days, she’d learned, were spent running odd jobs to earn extra money and helping mind his brothers and sisters when he could. She wondered if maybe he was lonely too. He’d cross his arms and tilt his head like an annoyed nun hurrying along an especially slow-moving Communion line, but he never tried to stop her, and sometimes Molly thought he even enjoyed it.
But there was still a wall between them. Each night, after they collected the bodies from the increasingly familiar cemeteries and poorhouses, he would ask her the same question.
“Do you want to quit?”
And each night, she went on with it.
By the time Tom picked her up on the Monday of her second week, Molly had left Ma’s coat indoors in favor of a blue muslin dress of her aunt’s. Though intentionally drab, it was much better suited to the angled lines of her body than any of the other borrowed dresses she’d worn. It was the sort of gown that acted to draw one’s attention away from the wearer, a garment that would be as appropriate in the streets as at a middle-class dinner party. Molly felt quite at home in its shadow.
But when she stepped outside, Tom whistled. “Molly Green, you look almost like a real lady in that.”
She blushed, unsure if she should feel angry or pleased. “I wouldn’t trust you to know,” she said. But she allowed him to take her hand as he helped her into the wagon.
His red shoelace flashed as he jumped up beside her, and for the first time, she decided to ask.
“Why is one of your shoelaces—?”
“We should have a short night tonight,” he said, cutting her off. Not cruelly, but she saw in his unbroken stare a warning.
She let it go.
He had his life, and she had hers.
And yet, other than Ava, he was the only person she had in her life whom she could count on to be there. Night after night, he found his place beside her again, his familiar presence as comforting as the library.
The horses began at an easy gallop as the city whisked past.
At the orphanage, she and Kitty would already be holed up in bed, bones weary from a hard day’s work, shutting their eyes tight against the inevitable appearance of the next day’s tasks.
But tonight . . . tonight, Molly did not know where she was going or what new kind of person the job might ask her to be, and she felt her blood rise in exhilaration.
Soon enough, the houses began to grow farther apart. Tom gave a crack of the whip, and the horses sped faster, unencumbered by the city’s narrow, crowded streets.
The cobblestones disappeared, and now they flew over dirt country roads, fields lining their path with tall grasses, the night’s dew shining like jewels on their tips.
The air pressed against Molly’s face, pinking her cheeks and bringing a spark of moisture to her eyes.
“You cold?” Tom yelled over the rush of wind.
She was, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t wipe the grin from her face. For the first time in a very long time, she felt alive.
“I’m fine.”
Tom grinned back. “Molly Green, always fine. Do you never feel anything else?”
He was teasing her, but she found she didn’t mind. When he leaned over to bat away a stray branch that had caught on one of the horses’ backs, Molly felt the heat radiating from Tom beneath his worn suit. He smelled of salty sweat and leather. Her breath caught in her throat at the unexpected intimacy until he pulled away.
They rode another few miles in silence, and the rapidly cooling air soon lost its charm.
The horses slowed, and Molly saw a large building appear on the horizon. Tom eased the wagon onto an ill-kept circular gravel drive. “Here we are, then. The Wakefield Women’s Home for the Criminally Insane.”
A thin moon peeked like a lidded eye over the building’s shoulder. Molly shuddered.
Lights flickered on and off in the windows of the first and second floors, but the top three stories remained black. It was far too easy to imagine women locked up there, minds as dark and broken as their surroundings.
“Am I to go in by myself?”
Tom gave her a sympathetic look. “The women are mostly harmless. And nobody will give you any problems about getting the body. Saves them the trouble of a burial. Besides, they like to think someone cares. Makes it easier.”
“Who am I to be tonight?”
Tom pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and consulted what looked like a list. “It’s an old woman—fifty or sixty.” He peered from beneath the sweep of his hair at Molly with his one good eye. “Let’s say she was your aunt, shall we? There’s plenty of madwomen who’ve been stuck here by families unwilling to pay for them. You can be a caring niece, come to do her duty. The corpse’s name is Josephine Bettleheim.”
“If I’m her niece, why wouldn’t I have visited before?”
“Most of the girls with family in here are factory girls. They ain’t gonna spend their one day off a month to hire a cab all the way out here by themselves.”
“I would.”
“It’s nice to think so, isn’t it?”
He faced her directly now. She found that she did not mind the scars as much as she first had. They were like the knots on a strong oak tree.
He caught her staring, and she held his gaze.
“Best get going,” he said. “Remember, think of it like you’re doing them a favor. Make them see what they want.”
Molly let herself down from the wagon and mounted the daunting steps to the building. Her palms were sweaty, and her throat dry. In just a few seconds’ time, she would be asked, once again, to touch the dead. She lifted the knocker.
A maid answered. She looked like she might be a patient herself, her dress tattered, her hair a wiry mess.
“I’m here to see my aunt,” Molly said. “Josephine Bettleheim. I heard she was ill. I came as quickly as I could.”
“Ach.” The girl’s face wrinkled. “Should have come sooner. She’s gone. Passed away this morning.”
“That’s terrible.” Molly’s heart sped, and she let the agitation show on her face, the nerves reading as dismay at the news. “Might I take her home? I’d never forgive myself if we didn’t give her a proper burial.”
“I thought Josephine didn’t have any family.” The maid frowned. “Ain’t nobody ever come to see her. Who told you she was sick?”
Make them see what they want.
“One of the nurses here. I work in the button factory up in Scranton with her niece.” Molly fell into the lie easily. Looking at the girl’s harried appearance, she knew immediately that the maid was overworked. She would want someone to appreciate her. To understand. “It’s hard, getting any time off.”
The girl’s face lit up. “Don’t I know it. Don’t get but an evening off a fortnight myself, and then it’s usually too far to go anywhere but out on the grounds.” She smiled, and Molly smiled back. “Come in,” the maid said, opening the door wider. “I’ll take you to your aunt.”
Molly was hit immediately with an overpowering odor. The ammonia scent of urine mixed with the musk of unwashed bodies and an aroma of boiled onions.
Women roamed the hall like shadows.
A small girl no older than seven darted in front of her, and Molly had to catch herself from tripping. Popping a thumb in her mouth, the girl watched as a lady with wild black eyes pounded her head over and over against a wall.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“It’s all right,” the maid said, seeing Molly’s horror. “Clara’s got a hard head. Won’t hurt none.”
The child peeled away from the head banging and followed them to the end of the hall.
“Mama.” She clutched at Molly’s dress. “Mama? Mama?”
Molly reached down to comfort her, recognizing the ache of losing a parent. “Poor child! She misses her mother.”
“Shouldn’t have slipped arsenic into the soup pot, then.”
Molly stumbled backward, and the girl ran away laughing, into the shadows.
“Have they all done something like that?”
“No.”
Turning a corner, they emerged into a large foyer with mismatched chairs and loosely circled settees. Women wandered listlessly, like ghosts, between them. A few spoke to partners whom no one else could see, but none seemed to take any notice as Molly’s living body passed by.
“Some of these women ain’t no more mad than you or me.” The maid nodded to the corner where a middle-aged lady with a blank expression sat, hands primly folded in her lap. “That one over there used to be a mayor’s wife. Her husband put her in here when he caught her with the butler.”
“Can he do that?”
“Course he can. He’s her husband. He owns her, don’t he?”
Molly’s face must have betrayed her horror.
“At least they’re fed,” the maid said, sounding suddenly defensive. “There’s worse, you know.”
But Molly had stopped listening.
Seated in a corner was Ava, a man with a doctor’s bag at her side.
Her aunt turned slowly, catching Molly’s eye. She laid a single finger to her lips. Molly nodded, then hurried on after the maid.
What was Ava doing here? she wondered. Had she come to keep an eye on Molly?
They were in a hallway now, the narrow passage lined with padlocked doors.
The maid unhooked a large ring of keys from her belt and unlocked the last one. “Here we are.”
The room was a prison. An overfull chamber pot sat in the corner, and the walls near the door were scarred with desperate nail marks. A smear of blood ringed what must have been a recent attempt at escape.
All thoughts of Ava disappeared.
In the center of the room lay the body, stiffening limbs stretched out across a cot.
“You can have your driver bring his wagon round to the back to collect her.” The maid wrenched the dead woman’s arms up and began pulling the dress over her head. “We’ll need her gown. Too many living to waste clothes on the dead.”
Leave the shoes. There’ll be another one, just like you, needing them soon enough.
“Thank you. If you let me out, I’ll let him know.”
She found Tom, and he followed her back inside, his purposeful footsteps echoing down the hall. Hands reached out to them from between the bars as they passed. By the time they reached the body, the maid was already gone.
“Here, then,” Tom said. “Help me lift her.”
She reached for the legs. The woman’s mouth fell open.
AAAAAAAaaa . . .
Molly flew backward. “She’s alive!”
Tom didn’t move. “It’s just gas, Molly.” He waited patiently. “It happens sometimes when they’re fresh.”
She stared at the openmouthed face, trying to calm herself.
But the woman was Kitty now. Kitty’s dead limbs stuck to the hard earth.
“I can’t,” she whispered, ashamed.
He nodded.
And with thin but strong arms, Tom bent to lift the body alone.
When it was loaded, Tom covered the body with a tarred canvas, stacking bags of flour around it. If stopped, they would look like they were doing nothing more sinister than making nighttime deliveries for grocers to sell in their stores come morning.
It was a clever ruse, but all Molly could think about was the pale-pink skull beneath the bags, the thin-veined lines spidering across its forehead.
He climbed up beside her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. It won’t happen again.”
His voice was surprisingly gentle. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
She didn’t answer.
“Didn’t give you no trouble inside, did they?”
“No.” She picked at a stray thread that hung loose from her new gown, furious at herself but grateful that he was willing to let her failure go.
“Tom . . .” She hesitated. “Inside. I . . . I saw my aunt. She was with a man.”
He gave her a funny look. “You didn’t say nothing, did you?”
“No.”
His shoulders relaxed. “That’s good, then. Sometimes we run across them, but it’s best to keep silent.”
He saw the confusion on her face. “Look, it’s no mystery. Your aunt visits these places with her charity ladies. Then she brings back the doctor or his students to take care of the sick ones for free. The students learn, and the sick get better. And if they don’t . . .” He shrugged. “Well, your aunt puts them on our list. That’s how we know where the freshest bodies will be.”
The admission shocked her. “We’re vultures!”
“You can’t think like that, Molly. Your aunt, she tries to help when she can. The other women in her fancy charities, they’re content to wear a pretty dress and visit once a month, but Ava . . .” Tom shook his head. “She cares about them. I’ve seen it.”
Molly thought back to the almshouse, Ava remembering people’s names, asking after children.
She shuddered. “Still. It seems so calculating, waiting for them to die like that.”
“If your aunt didn’t bring the doctor for them, nobody would.”
She’d seen enough sick children ignored at the orphanage to know it was true. Ava was bringing help to those others had forgotten. And though Molly hardly dared admit it to herself, she felt the faintest twinge of respect.
Clicking his tongue, Tom urged the horses to life.
Outlines of houses in early stages of construction appeared as the wagon passed neighborhoods being built. Molly stared numbly at their empty shells.
“Want to hear a joke?” Tom stared straight ahead.
“No.”
“Why is a dog like a tree?”
“I said no. I’m not in the mood for—”
“Because they both lose their bark when they’re dead.”
Silence. But Molly felt something ease in her chest, and she smiled, despite herself. “That’s horrible.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Looking pleased, he shot her a wink. “Wait till you hear the one about the goat.”
“Absolutely not.” But she was already grinning, leaning closer to hear.
The wagon crested a hill, picking up speed.
Tom turned to her, the joke ready on his lips.
And when the person appeared, lying in the middle of the road, it was too late to stop.