27
Her second day in the lecture hall began worse than the first.
She’d wanted to wear the new gray dress, but no matter how much Maeve had tried to scrub out the vomit from the day with Sophie, there was still a small pale stain across its breast. The other students wore white shirts with black coats, but the only dress Molly had in black was the one she’d borrowed for Cady’s funeral. It was far too formal for work in the anatomy room, and its pockets were too shallow to carry her notes. She supposed she could have asked Ava for a new black dress, but she did not want to waste her aunt’s time on something so silly as a gown’s color. In the end, she settled on one of her ill-fitting hand-me-downs, the brown dress she wore to rob graves.
“Molly Green.” Dr. LaValle had called her name. “Please come forward and demonstrate the appropriate first steps in preparing a corpse for dissection.”
He was dressed in another one of his spectacular outfits, this one a mustard velvet with a teal silk beneath. Amidst the black and white of the students’ uniforms, he stood out like a colorful painting, intentionally displaying himself. There was no choice but to look at him. In front of the doctor rested the body she and Tom had collected from the pub. A sheet was now draped over the man’s enormous belly.
Molly moved to the front of the class. Placing her hands gently around the man’s soft jowls, she lifted the corpse’s head.
The eyes of the other students feasted hungrily upon her, eager for a mistake.
Gods don’t share their power, Molly.
Trying to keep her nerves steady, she reached to pull back an eyelid. She could feel the stares, Edgar’s keenest amongst them. Her fingers began to shake.
“Molly?” Dr. LaValle looked at her, an amused expression on his face. “Would you like to continue?”
“Of course.” Hurriedly, she picked open the other eyelid. She moved the head quickly from one side to the other. It was called the doll’s eye test. The movement checked the ocular reflex. If the person was alive, the eyes would remain fixed, staring straight ahead. Molly had read in her anatomy books that such a test was to be performed on all bodies to confirm death.
Small snickers were starting. Molly flushed. She was sure she was doing it right. She’d read about how to perform the test again and again, memorized the pages . . .
“I think we can forgo the formalities.” Dr. LaValle lifted the man’s arm and let it thump heavily onto the table. “Save your life checks for the hospital. In this room, we serve only the dead.”
Laughter rippled through the classroom.
“Now make the first cut.” He handed her a scalpel. She took it.
The breastbone. She should make the first cut there.
Raising the knife, she prepared to plunge it into the skin.
But at the last moment, her hand came down in a glancing sweep across the sternum, leaving a small scratch and nothing more.
Cursing herself, she took a deep breath. Then, closing her eyes, she remembered Ava’s words from last night.
The only body you need worry about hurting is your own.
She felt a calm center her, and her hands became steady.
She could do this.
“A little more force, yes?” The doctor laid a gloved hand over the top of her own. But before she could make a second attempt, he took the knife. With a practiced motion, he sliced a neat incision, quick and clean through all three layers of skin.
“Now, who’s next?”
A sea of eager hands rose as Molly, trembling with fury, was jostled back to her place in the crowd.
“How about a wager?”
Molly had been forced to watch as other students, including Edgar, did a better job demonstrating their knife skills on the corpse. Despite her rage, she’d scrutinized each boy’s cuts. Though several students were competent, none of them—not even James, who was by far the best—made incisions as neat as the hand who’d taken Kitty’s tail. Certainly not neat enough to strip the flesh from a body as cleanly as the newspaper had suggested. Then again, perhaps the Knifeman didn’t want anyone to know his skill.
Dr. LaValle returned to the front of the classroom. He paused, waiting for everyone’s attention.
An eager energy filled the air as the students stilled.
“I want each of you to remove the viscera from a body. This will mean a careful extraction of the intestines and stomach without damaging the pancreas or the spleen. Two to a corpse. The first team to finish will be given their pick of fresh bodies next week.”
Excited murmurs broke out across the room.
Even though the school got the best bodies on the market, many could still be very unpleasant to work with. Besides, choosing one’s own corpse meant the pick of any particularly intriguing ailments.
“Want to be partners?” James appeared at her side, and Molly nodded, grateful. She’d worried no one would want to work with her.
Their assigned corpse had been in use for several days now. Bodies could not be wasted, and so students dissected them in layers, working first through the muscles and then moving on to the internal organs. The woman on the table was middle-aged and had been pulled from the almshouse by Molly herself. Now her body lay completely stripped of skin, chest open.
“Everyone ready?” Dr. LaValle held his pocket watch in the air, its gold back gleaming in the sunlight that streamed through the church windows. “Begin!”
“We’ll have to do it together if we want a chance,” James said. “Are you up for this?”
“Yes.” Eyes hard, Molly wiped the sweat from her hands along her dress.
“Good.” He handed her one of his knives, a beautiful scalpel perfect for cutting through the more delicate layers of muscle. “Do you want me to make the first incision?”
She could tell he was trying not to let his worry that she might fail again show.
“No. I can do it.” Carefully, she moved the scalpel, her hand steady. She felt the same exhilaration she’d experienced the night at the Red Carousel as she’d watched the bone game. The body was a puzzle, and she its master. In triumph, she lifted out the first section of the large intestine.
“Good.” James eagerly started on the small intestine. “You have to be careful of the jejunum. That’s a tricky bit. You’ll want to avoid nicking the organ where it curves.”
For the next hour, they worked perfectly in tandem. Molly looked up only once and was amazed to find their progress was well ahead of the other students. She was particularly pleased to see the usually smirking Edgar with his face buried in a clumsily dissected pile of intestines, trying to untangle the loops.
“We’re winning,” James whispered, trying not to let his excitement show. “Just the stomach now. You can do it!”
Choosing a new scalpel, Molly moved to cut away the last bits of mesentery. One more slice, and—
The jolt came from behind her, a push that knocked into the hand holding the knife, sending it slicing across soft tissue. A ghastly smell released.
Molly turned to see Edgar’s grinning face. “Sorry. Looks like you forgot to clear a path around your body.” He motioned to the small dissection tray that rested between her and James, the tools they’d been sharing laid out. It stuck farther into the room than it should have so that they might both reach it.
“You did that on purpose!” She raised her scalpel. “We were—”
“What’s happened here?” Dr. LaValle hurried over and looked down at the corpse. James stared grimly from behind. “What have you done?” the doctor said.
The stomach gaped open, the stench of bile now filling the room.
“This is unacceptable!” the doctor shouted. “What if this had been a living person? You’d have killed them with this carelessness.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly began. “There was an accident around—”
“Keep your periphery clear!” the doctor said. “A working distance between you and all causal impediments at all times!”
“We won’t let it happen again,” James said, moving to stand beside Molly. “If you’ll let us finish, sir.”
But the doctor’s fury only grew. Grabbing a sheet, he moved toward the body. “You are finished!”
Molly could not stop looking at the wound. The unfortunate cut she’d made yawned open like a mouth, revealing a jagged window into the organ.
Small white sandlike granules coated its bottom. Molly leaned closer. “What is that? Are those . . . ?”
The doctor shoved her away and threw the sheet over the corpse, hands shaking.
“Lectures are over for today.” A small pulse beat in the center of his forehead, and his face was a mask of rage. “The rest of you can thank Miss Green for the wasted time.”
Several groans erupted, and then Edgar’s voice sounded in her ear. “Get out of this classroom, bitch. Or I’ll throw you out myself.”
James moved to step between them, but Molly held up her hand. “No. I’m going.” Raising her chin, she met Edgar’s gaze. “The next time you mess with my knife, it’ll end up in your neck.”
She held back the furious tears until she was safely in her room, and there, where no one could see, she let them fall, as ugly as the cut she’d made.
The rest of day passed quickly. Molly dried her eyes, and in the little mirror over her washbasin, she practiced the lies she would tell Tom about how well she was doing. When night fell, she went downstairs and stepped out into the chilly air.
But Tom was not there. Instead, only the twins, Tom’s helpers, sat in the wagon, their faces a blank veil that refused to answer the question she would not ask.
Climbing into the carriage, Molly rode with them into the city, her heart calming to a stillness dark enough to match the dead.