“Tell me this is a nightmare, Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel knelt before me, wiping my tears away with such gentleness, I sobbed harder. I shook my head again. This was a nightmare. Surely I was sleeping and I’d wake up in Uncle’s house and discover this was a terrible dream.
What a rotten sister I was! Dreaming such things about my beloved brother. The real Nathaniel would never do this. He’d know it would kill me to lose him. He would never do something to hurt me so. He’d never hurt anyone. He just wouldn’t.
“Shhh,” he cooed, smoothing loose hair from my face. “It’s fine now, Sister. I promised you everything would be all right. And it is. I helped exonerate Uncle with those letters. Didn’t I? Though, admittedly, it was rather fun seeing the chaos a bit of bravado and red ink caused. Couldn’t help myself from sending more.”
“You… what?” I felt my nerves unraveling. “This can’t be real.”
Nathaniel lost himself in some reverie before shrugging the memory away. “Anyhow, I think I’ve discovered why you and Mother got sick, and Father and I didn’t.”
He sat on his heels, looking around the room again, exaltation and wonder etched into his normally sunny features.
“Took some time figuring out, and I wish you would’ve waited before coming down here, but no matter.” He smiled, patting my hand. “You’re here now and it’s perfect. I’ve worked out the final touch. All that’s left is a little prick of blood and a bit of electricity. Like in the book. You remember the one, don’t you? Our favorite.”
Another tear slid down my cheek. I wasn’t dreaming, I was sitting in Hell. My brother fancied himself Dr. Frankenstein, and I’d never allow our mother to become his monster. “You cannot bring Mother back from the dead, Nathaniel. It isn’t right.”
He shoved himself away from me, pacing in the orangey glow of his devil’s lab, shaking his head. “What makes it wrong? You, of all people, I thought, would appreciate and understand. This is a breakthrough in science, dear Sister. A feat people will speak of for all time. Our name will forever be attached to the unimaginable. Uncle’s a shortsighted fool. He wishes only to conduct a successful organ transplant. I’ve got something much bigger in mind.”
Nathaniel nodded, as if it were all the convincing he needed. He punched his fingers into an open palm, exposing cuts on his fingertips. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen him without gloves on. Now I knew why.
“Until now, people didn’t believe it could be done. Only authors and scientific visionaries like Galvani dared imagining such a wonder. Now I’ve accomplished it! Don’t you see? This is something worth celebrating. People will never forget the scientific breakthrough I’ve made.”
“What of the women you killed?” I asked, wringing my hands in my lap. “Is it worth celebrating their deaths?”
“The whores? Why, yes. I think it’s doubly worth celebrating now that you mention it.” He stood, hands fisted at his sides, eyes darkening. “Not only have I rid our streets of the blight attacking it, but I’ve just about brought our beloved mother back from death.”
He paced in front of me again, his tone growing more hostile with each step he took. “I’ve put the wretches out of their misery and their sacrifice will bring back a good, decent woman. Please, inform me of my wrongdoings. Honestly, Sister, you make it seem as if I were a common monster preying on the helpless. Mother herself was a God-fearing woman. She will understand.”
I had no words. The women he murdered did matter. They weren’t rubbish to be tossed away in the streets. They were daughters and wives and mothers and sisters. And they were loved as we’d loved our own mother. How dare he pass such judgment. My brother was so lost to his own fantastical science and sense of justice that he totally missed the mark of what it meant to be human. Which sparked something in my brain.
“What of the gears left inside the bodies?” I asked. “What sort of message were you sending the police?”
“Message? There was no intended message. I simply left them where I’d dropped them.” Nathaniel ran his fingers over his hair, attempting to smooth it down but achieving the opposite. He continued pacing, growing more agitated that I wasn’t applauding his unforgivable behavior. “Is that truly all you care about? The blasted gears inside the wretches?”
“They did not deserve to die, Nathaniel,” I whispered.
“These women did not deserve to live!” His voice boomed in the small space, making me jump. “Don’t you see? These women are a disease. They destroy lives. I offered them a chance at redemption—death for life!”
He walked around to the coffin, then threw the lid back, tears filling his eyes. “Her life was destroyed by disease. Disease spread widely in part by whores coughing and infecting good men. So, no, Sister, I won’t feel an ounce of sorrow for cleansing our city of a few of them. Would that I could, I’d set the entire East End ablaze and be done with them all. As it stands, I took only what I needed for my experiment.”
“How very noble of you.”
“I know.” My brother missed the sarcasm in my tone. He smirked, like it was high time I saw his reasoning. “Truthfully, I’d not intended to kill so many, but the organs shut down before I could work on them. The bolts proved difficult to master in the dark, so I started carrying a medical satchel with ice and inserted the bolts and gears here. Watch.”
He hoisted a large luggage case over, unfolding it into a portable table and setting it beside the glass-encased heart in the center of the room. Hand and leg restraints dangled from the edge of it. Nathaniel walked over to a gear on the wall and cranked it until a long, needle-type device hovered above the table. This must be his electrical source.
Something that felt a lot like fear stirred in my blood.
To my utter horror, he bent down, dragged Mother’s corpse onto the makeshift table he’d set up, then shoved her hands and feet into the leather straps.
I closed my eyes as her lifeless head lolled to the side, feeling a rolling wave of nausea wash over me. She’d been deceased for five years and I hadn’t a clue how she was more than just bones.
“I had the foresight to keep Mother partially frozen in a special icebox down here.” Nathaniel stared at the slightly decayed corpse, tenderly pushing her hair aside, and answering the question I never asked aloud. “Shame I didn’t think of preserving her immediately. It was hard enough sneaking her out of her grave and bringing her here without Father’s knowledge. That’s where the laudanum came in handy.”
Nathaniel dropped a glass specimen jar, then cursed, rousing me from denial. I couldn’t reconcile the Nathaniel I’d known all my life with this beastly version before me. And I couldn’t even think about the pains Father would experience should he see our mother now.
Mother had been dead enough years that strands of her long, black hair fell onto the floor. Nathaniel picked up large pieces of glass, discarding the clumps of hair that caught in them as he tossed them into a rubbish bin. He was completely unaffected by the ghastly scene in front of him, cleaning up his mess as if the corpse of our mother were not rotting on a table before him.
Had I not already expelled the contents of my stomach earlier, I’d be doing so this instant.
“How did you discover this room?” I gripped my hands together, refusing to look at Mother again. I was so close to losing my nerve, so very close to losing my own sanity, it wouldn’t take much to cripple me now.
Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.
Nathaniel flicked his attention to me. “You recall the secret passages in Thornbriar?”
Memories of playing in secret passageways each summer flipped through my mind. Jonathan Nathaniel Wadsworth the first was a bit of an eccentric. He’d had more secret passageways built in the cottage estate than were in the queen’s own palace. I nodded.
“A few summers ago I found a map of this property at Thornbriar,” he said, shrugging. “Father was already abusing his tonic, so I added extra laudanum to his brandy at night. It wasn’t hard to en
sure Father remained… sedated and unaware of my use of his precious study. What was a bit more opium to an addict?”
“You… fed Father opium, knowing the consequences?” Clenching my teeth, I watched my brother walk over to the table with the steam-pumping heart. The urge to cry reared up, but I silenced myself. Nathaniel removed a scalpel from a medical kit under the table, then set it down beside the organ. He took another bag out and placed several locks and bolts out in a row.
Little puzzle pieces finally clicked into place.
Nathaniel was the only one other than Father who knew how to craft such intricate steam-driven toys. He’d been there with Father nightly as a child, watching and learning from the best. Then there was the matter of his short medical apprenticeship before he switched to studying law. Both of those previous hobbies had aided with his dexterity. And precision.
While I fought with the image of a loving brother I knew and the monster before me, he lit a burner on the table and heated the metal up, fusing bolts and gears together as if it were second nature.
Another memory slid into the forefront of my mind. My brother had been disturbed when he’d discovered I’d snuck into Father’s study. I’d thought him worried for me, should our father ever find out I’d been snooping through his things. When in reality, Nathaniel had worried I’d find his secret lab.
Nathaniel peered over at me, smiling menacingly as he worked furiously on his newest invention. I watched in silence while he created a metal cage, still unable to think straight. My logical brain knew I had to think and act quickly, but my body felt leaden and crushed by devastation. I couldn’t move.
“It’s going into Mother’s chest cavity. It’ll keep her new heart protected.” He nodded several times to himself. “Think of it as an artificial rib cage of sorts.”
My body finally shook itself free of shock. Chills dipped their fingertips into buckets of ice, then darted wildly over my back. Everything made sense. The look of fear when the detective inspector showed up with me at the door after Father’s dismissed coachman had been murdered. The same fear-frozen gaze when Superintendent Blackburn interrupted us at the circus.
A million clues had been sitting right before me, and I chose to ignore them.
My brother was the kind one. The sensitive one. I was the monster. The one who sought to pry secret knowledge from dead flesh. How had I not seen the same curiosity in him? We were composed of the same inheritance.
He held the contraption up to the steam-powered heart, measuring it for size, laughing to himself and muttering incoherently. I could not ignore his sick deeds anymore.
Once the metal cooled, Nathaniel carefully placed the steam-pumping heart within the rib cage, then fused the metal together with more bolts. He cranked the gear on the wall, adjusting the electrical needle until it touched the metal cage, then stood back, admiring his work. Satisfied with this new grotesque device, he walked over to the table and picked up a syringe, tapping its side with his forefinger.
“You must cease this madness, Nathaniel.”
“What’s done is done, Sister. Now”—he turned to me, brandishing the syringe as if it were a holy relic—“I only need a bit of your blood to inject into her heart, then we’ll flip the switch together. If dead frog legs can be made to move by dint of electrical current, we can do the very same on a grander scale. We have the benefit of having more living organs. That’s where Galvani and all his intelligence went wrong,” he said, pointing to his head. “He should’ve invested in live tissues for his cadavers. Then he need only add a little voltage. Metal in the gears will help transfer the energy. That’s why I’m fusing them with flesh. It’s brilliant, you’ll see.”
I followed his gaze as he admired the electrical needle dangling from the ceiling and disappearing into Mother’s chest. This needed to end now. I could not bear to see him do another wretched thing to Mother’s body. I allowed all the emotion I was suppressing to seep into my voice.
“Please, Brother. If you love me, you’ll stop this experiment. Mother is dead. She’s not coming back.”
I swallowed hard, tears streaming down my face. I recoiled at the small part of myself wishing to see if it could be done; if he could animate long-dead flesh. If he could bring the mother I missed so much to life again.
But the human part of me would never allow it.
“You’ve achieved so much. Truly,” I said. “I’ve no doubt you’ll surpass any scientist you choose to, but this, this is not the right path.”
Whirl-churn. Whirl-churn.
Nathaniel shook his head, pointing at the steam-driven heart. “We’re so close, Sister! We’re mere minutes from speaking with Mother! Isn’t that what you’ve wanted?”
He’d shifted from being angry to looking like a sullen child. All he needed to do was stomp his feet and cross his arms to complete his tantrum. Instead, he stood completely still, and that was somehow more eerie than watching him pace like a rabid animal.
“This is all for you!” he shouted, exploding from his stillness, taking a few giant steps toward me. “How can you turn this gift away?”
“What?” I wanted to sink to my knees and never get off the ground. My brother had killed all those women because he thought I’d be selfish enough to see only the beauty of the end result.
The room spun when I realized the choices now laid out before me. If I called upon Superintendent Blackburn, he’d kill Nathaniel. There would be no asylum or workhouse. No trial. No hope for life.
What was I to do about my brother, my best friend? I couldn’t stop myself from crying out, from rushing across the room and beating his chest.
“How could you do this?” I screamed while he stood there, accepting my hysteria with that same frightening stillness. “How could you believe murdering women would make me happy? What am I going to do with a dead brother and mother? Don’t you see? You’ve ripped us apart! You’ve killed me, you might as well have torn my heart out, too!”
The proud gleam in his eyes was replaced by a slow sense of understanding. Whatever madness had gripped him over these last few months seemed to release him from its grasp at last. He staggered back, steadying himself against the table.
“I—I don’t know what evil has overtaken me. I—I’m sorry, Audrey Rose. It will never be enough, but I’m… truly sorry.”
He allowed me to pound his chest until I grew tired. Tears slowed, marginally, but the ache of what he’d done was a weight I feared would never lift.
My brother. My sweet, charming, beloved brother was Jack the Ripper. Emotions threatened to drown me where I stood, but I fought the flood of them back. I couldn’t be consumed by grief yet. I needed to get Nathaniel help. And I needed to get out of the room where my mother was trapped somewhere between life and death.
“Let’s go, Nathaniel. Please,” I said, urging him toward the stairs. “We’ll have some tea. All right?”
It took a moment for him to respond, but after a few breaths, he finally nodded.
When I thought he’d finally seen reason, he painfully gripped onto my arm, brandishing the syringe. “‘Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light,’ dear Sister. We must continue our chosen path. It’s too late for turning back now.”
TWENTY-NINE
SHADOW AND BLOOD
WADSWORTH RESIDENCE,
BELGRAVE SQUARE
9 NOVEMBER 1888
I clung to my brother in the midst of our shared hell, not wanting to step away and make this nightmare real.
Dragging me back across the room, he threw me into a wooden chair next to our mother. “Look what you’ve done! Now I must tie you up for your own safety, Sister.”
I sat there immobile, unable to comprehend what he was saying, which cost precious time. Before I could react, he yanked my arms behind the chair and swiftly tied my wrists together. No matter how hard I strained against the rope, there was no escaping my new prison.
Nathaniel had secured me so soundly the tips of my finge
rs were already turning icy cold. I tugged and pulled, managing only to scrape my skin raw with each panicked attempt to break free of my bonds.
I screamed, more out of shock than hurt, as he thrust the syringe into the thin skin on my inner arm. “Stop it, Nathaniel! This is madness! You cannot revive Mother!”
My pleas didn’t stop him from sinking the plunger in and drawing out my blood. His first attempt failed and he drove the needle in a second time, ripping a yelp from me. I clenched my teeth and gave up struggling, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
He was too far gone. Science had overtaken his humanity.
Once he’d filled the glass tube with my blood, he smiled kindly and blotted at my skin with a cotton swab he dabbed in alcohol.
“There, now. That wasn’t so bad, was it? A little prick, no more. Honestly, Sister. You act as if I was torturing you. Half the women I freed from their chains of sin didn’t cry so much. Have some dignity, would you?”
“What have you done?”
Nathaniel jumped and I jerked in my chair, startled by the sound of Father’s voice at the edge of the stairs. He hadn’t shouted, making it all the more terrifying. I cringed, more from habit than from true fear at being caught doing something potentially dangerous. I was strangely less intimidated of Nathaniel, even knowing the atrocities he was capable of, than of Father when he got angry.
Perhaps I was simply used to the daily mask of a good son and brother that Nathaniel wore. Father never hid his demons, and maybe that scared me more.
“You… you…” I watched Father’s gaze leave my bindings then linger on the steam-powered heart, the muscle in his jaw twitching ever so slightly as his attention moved onto who the organ was residing in.