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?”