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.