Chapter 6 #5
Once she heard the heavy click of the door latching and was all alone, her hands quickly pressed into the itchy fabric of the white gloves and collected her notebook.
She opened it, cracking the spine so that it would remain open, and uncorked her well of ink.
Her hands trembled with exhaustion and anticipation, and the small glass jar of ink tipped onto her black dress, but instead of cleaning it, she found herself transfixed by the beautiful man lying dead in front of her.
Something about him reminded her of the spider she’d saved earlier—mysterious and certainly misunderstood.
How could something this beautiful not be?
Despite the terrible things her father had said the man had done, a part of Victoria wondered why he’d done these horrible things.
Had they stemmed from a place of good? The stray freckle and scar told stories she longed to hear—maybe she would.
She was confident she would bring him back to life.
Then she could learn everything about the man.
Perhaps with some reconstructive work, she could make the new scars less noticeable.
She couldn’t imagine how beautiful he would be with his burns and lacerations cleaned up.
Already, she felt like an insect caught in the man’s web.
There was an odd feeling of protection already forming for the cadaver.
“Agh!” she cried out in frustration. Her eyes pinched closed, forcing a warm tear to slide down her cheek.
“To the devil,” she muttered as she realized she could no longer keep her overwhelming emotions contained, all to herself, inside of her body.
Reluctant to go to her room for a change of clothes, she quickly removed the gloves that had, by the grace of God, remained white and unstained by the black ink before glancing about the empty laboratory in panic and focusing again on the cadaver’s face.
“One more thing that has been ruined by me,” she mumbled.
“Hopefully, you will not be my next.” She quickly peeled off her petticoat with the hopes of saving her white chemise from the bleeding ink.
Only a small dot of black had made it through to the loose-fit white linen dress.
It was fine; her stays would cover it easily, though with her sudden weight loss, she hadn’t been wearing her stays as there was nothing to cinch.
She piled the ball of black fabric at the base of the stairs and quickly returned to her work.
Her slender fingers filled the pockets of the lace gloves, and the fabric of her chemise brushed against the sheet that covered the man’s chest and body.
The color and fabric of their gowns were identical.
Something within her felt heavy at the realization.
Though she still inhaled breath, she felt as dead as the man on the table.
Already she felt more aligned with him than any of the living that required her to wear a mask of wholeness.
They were one, her and the cadaver. All they would really have was each other.
It was fitting they should both be so empty and broken.
Gathering her notebook once more, a breath left her chest as she hovered over the gorgeous man.
It was like looking at a painting. His face was pale, skin thin and nearly translucent.
Even in death, the man’s face relayed a sort of defiant authority.
She bent and grabbed the warm glass of the oil lamp, placing it in the empty nook of the table next to him so that she might get a better look at his features.
The warm glow of light glinted over the peaks of his cheekbones, the pointed end of his perfectly sloped nose, the side of his Cupid’s bow that hadn’t been marred and left scarred.
One of his closed eyes protruded slightly more than the other.
Dark hair, somehow even blacker than hers, fell behind his head in long strands that clumped together in loose waves as lustrous and as black as any raven’s feathers she had ever seen.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached out and slowly touched his silky hair, unable to help herself.
Smudges of dirt covered his rounded chin up to the soft dip in his cheeks and under his cheekbones.
She grabbed a stray rag from the shelf nearby, dipped it in the vinegar solution, and slowly wiped the dirt from his face, painfully aware with each gentle wipe of the presence the man emanated and the strange comfort she found in it.
She froze as she saw movement in his thick throat. Her nerves electrified before calming them. Had she imagined it? The smallest thread of hope sparked in her gut. Was—was it possible he was still…alive? Could she save him?
Once more, she saw his throat move slightly, to the right of where the skin had been cut open, near his Adam’s apple.
She shook her head, brushing it off. He reminded her of the man in her dreams—the one she saved, and then he would heroically save her.
She turned slightly to pick up her notebook and again saw the faint movement as her eyes left his and fell to the notebook.
A wave of panic drained the blood from her face, her wide eyes snapping back to the dead man and locking onto the cords of his throat. Nothing.
Her exhaustion was getting the better of her. Her eyes welled with heat again. She hadn’t remembered the last time that she had cried so much. But it was all just too much, and eventually, everything, even emotions, overflow, no matter how well-crafted the dam.
“It’s all too much. I’m falling apart,” she hissed in the quiet of the dark laboratory.
“We are not very different, you and I,” she muttered to the corpse as she began jotting down notes.
“Combustio partialis superficialis, cute nigricante,” she said under her breath, then, “Superficial burns, skin blackened,” she said louder as if to the man himself.
Her gloved fingers returned to his face, skating over it tenderly, noting several fractures.
Reverently, they glided down his neck, noting the multitude of lacerations.
Delicately, she lifted the sheet a bit more and pulled his arm out, placing it on top.
A flash of a rigid, muscular male body caused her to fluster while she struggled to cover the nakedness of him; her face was melting in embarrassment…
and something else that tickled at her lower stomach.
A frown pulled at her mouth as her hands slid over the length of his arm, slowly pressing in to feel the anatomy of his clearly muscular and severely damaged arm.
It drooped in a way that tightened Victoria’s chest. The lace-covered tips of her fingers ghosted over the angry marks on his wrist and arm.
Moving to his legs, she lifted the sheet and draped it over his intimate area.
“Impressiones funium circum carpos et tarsos—rope marks around your wrists and ankles.” Her hand moved up his large ankle, up to his knee where she pushed firmly.
“Luxatio cubiti et genuum.” She repeated this on the other leg.
“Dislocation of your elbow and knee.” She paused to jot her findings down before continuing on the rest of him, inadvertently feeling herself weighed down more with every injury she found.
She yawned as she replaced his arm and righted the sheet before pulling up a chair and writing her final bit of notes for the evening in the gap of the open table.
“Death from multiple traumas, fractures, contusions with superimposed burns. I believe it to be consistent with the execution wheel,” she mumbled as she wrote.
She set the notebook down and leaned against the table to look into his cold, gray face, unable to look away.
It was as if someone had torn her open and mirrored how she felt.
“We’re quite similar in feeling, I believe, but for you there is a new hope.
All of mine has been extinguished. What little pinprick of it remains rests solely in you. ”
Her heart ached to put the cadaver away and go to her mother’s grave.
She needed to tell her mother that Papa would not stay with her and that one day they would be united again.
She needed to feel the grit of the headstone’s worn stone on her forehead as she told her mother about her newest developments, the change to the cranial machine’s capabilities.
But the winter weather and the wolves that roamed through the forest kept her from going at the current hour.
It was all the same; she felt weak-tongued and would likely ramble about her father’s state and what he had done, something she prayed her mother hadn’t seen as Victoria’s hand touched the cheek he had slapped.
“He’s never—” The words froze as her eyes caught sight of the movement in the cadaver’s throat.
She leaped up from the chair and gaped at the body. His Adam’s apple moved again, as if he were trying to swallow. Victoria’s hands slapped over her mouth, and adrenaline surged.
It was impossible.
But…perhaps it wasn’t. What if God had taken pity on her? If her mother could not be brought back, she little needed to attempt resurrection. Her chest swelled. Surely this was why she had felt such an attraction to this man—he was a gift from God.
She flew forward and clasped her hand around his throat, widening her eyes when she felt warmth and movement beneath her hand.
“It cannot be.” But despite her disbelief, she felt the movement and heat.
Her mind spun. She needed to get her father, but there wasn’t time.
He couldn’t breathe. Who knew how much longer he would be trying?
“It’s all right—it’s all right, I can help you,” Victoria stammered as she grabbed a small blade off the wooden table nearby.
With blade in hand, she pressed the sharp blade into his throat, sliding down, hoping to open the airway.