The Madman’s Daughter (35 page)

“You gave them pain. They’re animals and that’s what they’ve always been, no matter how you’ve twisted their limbs and minds. They’ll get their revenge.”

The monkey tapped the block against the bars of his cage. Father turned back to his note-taking.

“Yet you insist on deluding yourself,” I continued. “You think yourself safe because … why? A few door latches?”

He slammed down his tablet. The monkey screeched and hid in the corner of its cage. But I didn’t flinch. I smiled. This was what I wanted.

A fight.

Faster than I could react, Father grabbed my wrist and splayed my hand on the table. My first instinct was to pull away, but I realized he wasn’t planning on striking me.

“The human hand,” he said in that steady voice he used for lectures, “is what most separates us from the animals, did you know that?”

His voice was calm, and yet I detected a ripple beneath it, like the water beasts swimming below the ocean’s surface. A chill tiptoed up my spine, one vertebra at a time. He traced
his fountain pen, slowly, along the length of each of my fingers, leaving thick black lines. “The four lateral fingers are extensions of an animal’s primary phalanges. We hardly need Mr. Darwin to tell us that—it’s evident when comparing the musculature of any mammal, human or otherwise.”

He tapped my thumb with the sharp tip of his pen. “But the opposable thumb—ah, there’s the secret. The distal phalanx is attached to the wrist by a mobile metacarpus, giving the thumb unique properties. The ability to clutch objects—weapons, tools. To climb. To build. Why, even to hold a fountain pen.”

The precise black lines he drew along my skin radiated from the wrist to each knuckle, an anatomical diagram written on my hand. Fingers were so important to a surgeon. It was little wonder that Father was obsessed with the hand, the fingers—even going so far as to base his own safety on cleverly designed latches instead of locks.

“Without the thumb, most animals are simply mindless beasts, unable to advance mentally due to their limited physiology. Which is why they’ll never get into the compound. We are perfectly safe as long as the opposable thumb eludes them. And the next stage of evolution shouldn’t happen for, oh, a hundred thousand years.”

His words sounded so logical. It might have been easy to believe him if I didn’t know he was utterly mad. He’d assumed the beasts couldn’t get in over the roof or break through the gate, yet they’d done both. Montgomery had warned me—Father would never admit to his mistakes.

My splayed hand began to shake. I curled my fingers
inward, no longer wanting to be part of his lecture. His arrogance was going to kill him. Maybe all of us.

“They took Montgomery,” I said like a slap, wanting him to feel as much pain as the rest of us.

His dark eyes snapped to mine. He let go of my wrist. “What?”

“They dragged him into the jungle. He was bleeding.”

He set down the fountain pen, fingers trembling slightly. He looked around at the blocks, the monkey, as if seeing it all for the first time. A flicker of humanity showed in the look on his face, the way he wiped a hand over his whiskers. He stood. “Which ones?”

“Creatures in the water.”

“
Damn!
” The force made me jump. I took a step back, sensing his madness roiling like a storm. He grabbed his canvas jacket from a hook on the wall and removed a revolver from a cabinet. “This is
your
fault,” he snapped, struggling into the jacket. “You bewitched him! Everything was fine before you came. I never wanted a girl. Montgomery was lowborn, but at least he was male; at least he could reason, not like some hysterical female. I’d just as soon you’d died with your consumptive mother and left me in peace!”

I blinked. My mind was strangely calm, strangely clear, and yet my body was shaking. “How did you know Mother died of consumption? The obituary only said a prolonged illness.”

Father’s eyes narrowed. He spun the revolver’s cylinder into place, snapping the bullets into their chambers. “I know because Montgomery was there on a supply trip six
months before she died. He sent Balthazar back with a letter telling me to come. Those quack doctors couldn’t save her, and he knew I could.”

A slow anger uncoiled inside me, weaving between my ribs, plucking my tendons like piano strings. “But you didn’t come.”

“Of course not. I had work here.”

“But you could have. You could have saved her.”

He waved his hand. “Didn’t you hear me, girl? I had work to do. Typical flawed reasoning of a woman, to place mortal needs above timeless research.” He straightened his jacket. “I’m going to the village. He’s either there or torn into pieces on the jungle floor.” He left the laboratory, leaving me alone.

He’s mad
, I told myself.
He isn’t well
. And yet I didn’t feel any pity. He could have saved my mother but he didn’t. My fingers curled into fists. I looked at the monkey clutching the block, and knew I was about to do something terrible.

Maybe I was a little mad, too.

M
Y CHEST WAS THUMPING
, but not with fear. With a dark thrill that snaked up my skin, pouring into my nose and mouth like smoke. Consuming me. Controlling me.

I wove my fingers between the bars of the monkey’s cage. Father said he wasn’t going to operate on this one. He had a new technique—cellular replacement. He intended to change the monkey from the inside out. But you couldn’t destroy the animal spirit. The monkey would always be an animal.

Would always be in pain.

My thumb slipped to the cage’s latch, a modified version of the door latches Father had designed. The monkey had five fingers, but too small to operate the special mechanism. Anger swelled inside me, building and growing until I thought I would split. My fingernails clicked on the cool metal. The monkey cocked its head.

I threw open the cage.

The monkey exploded out, shoving the cage door with
a squeal of hinges that made my pulse race. It dashed over the table, sending the blocks and Father’s tablet crashing onto the floor, and out the laboratory door before the papers had even settled.

I gasped. My body felt so alive, demanding more.

I tore open the parrot’s cage next. The bird cocked its head. I threw blocks at the bars, scaring it into taking flight. Then I set free the capybara and the sloth, shaking the cages to make the sloth hurry.

“Get out!” I yelled. It was as though the bits and pieces of animal flesh inside my body had taken hold of me. “Get out of here!” I chased the sloth outside, where it latched onto a post and climbed to the roof. I turned back to open more cages, but my hand paused.

They were all empty. I’d set all the animals free. But my hunger for destruction hadn’t subsided. If anything, it had grown, wanting to free more animals, to do anything to ensure my father would never work again.

I paced the wall of glass cabinets slowly, shaking, savoring my secret thoughts. The glass was so delicate, I could smash through it, let it all rain to the ground. My heart leapt with the thought, hungry for destruction. Sunlight reflected off the glass canisters. The living specimen—the jellyfish-like monster with its gaping mouth—lunged for me inside its glass cage.

I smiled grimly. Before I could stop myself, I threw open the glass cabinet and grabbed the jar with both hands, struggling to unscrew the lid. The squirming thing snapped at me ravenously. I hugged the jar to my chest and tipped
the contents onto the floor. The glutinous liquid splashed against my feet as it puddled in the center of the room. The thing caught in the jar’s neck and I shook it loose. It fell to the floor with a squish.

I ground the heel of my boot into the fleshy center of the flopping thing. Something crunched. I dug deeper until I cut the unholy thing in half.

Madness overcame me like a whirlwind. I threw the jar to the ground with all my strength, letting it shatter into hundreds of sharp pieces. I pulled out another jar, this one with a graying heart floating in blood-tinted liquid. The liquid poured out like a torrent, puddling on the floor, the heart coming last, like a heavy and dead afterthought. The smell of the chemical preservative made me light-headed. My lungs burned for air, but I smashed the empty jar to the floor anyway. Dozens more jars of all sizes shone in the light of the lantern, each containing gray, twisted bits of organ. Nearly a decade’s worth of work.

My hands were slick with the viscous fluid. It soaked through my dress. Remnants of animal tissue tangled in the lace hem. I unscrewed the next jar, my fingers leaving wet streaks on the glass. Inside, the aged tissue came off in gossamer sheets like a spider’s web. It was almost beautiful. I recognized what half the jars contained—spleen, large intestine, brain. But then there were ones I didn’t know. Those both disturbed and fascinated me the most.

The floor pooled with fetid organs and slick preservatives as I emptied jar after jar. I drew the back of my hand across my forehead, leaving a slimy trail. The
chemicals choked my pores. I smiled, reaching for the next preserved organ. Ready to smash its glass case to the ground.

“Juliet, stop!”

Edward appeared at the door, rushing toward me. He grabbed the jar before I could drop it. My liquid-covered hands left dark stains on his shirt as he tried to wrench the jar away.

“Let go!” I yelled. My vision was black with rage. “I have to destroy it!”

“Juliet, calm down! Stop! It’s done.”

The jar slipped from my hands, shattering on the ground. One final act of destruction.

Edward didn’t flinch at the crash. “It’s done now,” he said, breathing hard.

I swallowed, suddenly aware of the slime on my face, the bits of graying organ clinging to my skin. I’d laid waste the laboratory in a whirlwind of insanity. A trembling panic clutched the back of my brain.

“He could have saved my mother,” I said. “He thought his work was more important.”

Edward brushed his knuckles against my cheek, wiping away grit and slime, his eyes deep and strong. “You don’t have to explain,” he said.

I swallowed, searching his eyes. Of course I didn’t. Edward was scarred, too. Whatever he had done, whatever he was running from, we weren’t so different. Edward didn’t care that I was a little mad, that I could slip and slide away from reason. Just as I didn’t care what he had done that made him flee England. We both had ghosts in our pasts
that let us understand each other on a deep level—a level Montgomery never could. Montgomery might be capable of wicked things, but
he
wasn’t wicked, not at the core. No matter how much Father had twisted him, he would always be that hardworking, kindhearted boy who couldn’t tell a believable lie if his life depended on it. Edward and I were cut from different cloth. Maybe we weren’t wicked, but there was something stained, something torn, in the fabric of our beings.

Something warm and wet seeped into my boots—fluid from the specimen jars. Edward’s hand tenderly took my own. There was something not right about a boy who could survive twenty days at sea and didn’t blink when a half-mad girl covered herself in broken glass and rotting organs.

He’s pretending to fit in, just like I pretend
. And he was good at it—better than me.

I curled my hands into his shirt. “What happened to you?” I whispered breathlessly. “What are you running from?”

For a moment his gold-flecked eyes flickered, and he knew I wasn’t referring to his overbearing father. I meant what he truly ran from—the source of his deep-seated scars. He shook his head, almost violently. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll go back to London and none of it will matter. It’ll just be you and me. Juliet …”

I knew what he wanted to say. He loved me. He loved the half-mad, filthy girl standing in a pool of formaldehyde. But he would come back to his senses once we were in London. He’d hide his scars, as he was so good at doing, and find a
girl like Lucy—sweet, rich, sane. And that’s how it should be. Besides, I’d already made my choice. Montgomery.

But then why did I still think about the cave behind the waterfall? Why did my thoughts slip from Montgomery’s face to Edward’s late at night, in the instant before sleep overcame me?

“Montgomery,” I said, though my throat caught. I suppose I hoped that saying his name would evoke his spirit and help ease this heart-clenching tension. “Montgomery’s coming back, too.”

Edward’s jaw twitched. His fingers found my waist, pulling me closer until our bodies were touching. The preservatives seeped into his clothes, binding us together. But he didn’t let go. His pupils were dilated, black as night. “I want to tell you something.…”

I shook my head forcefully. I didn’t want him to say he loved me. Because I had recognized a little of myself in him. Too much. And it terrified me.

I put my finger over his lips. “Father’s taken the dogs to the village. He’ll find Montgomery. We’ll go back to London and we’ll never speak of this place again.”

I
N MY ROOM
, I peeled off my stained dress and shoved it between the iron bars of my small window. The island could have back the mud and the salt and the sweat. I washed the burning chemicals off my face and hands and pulled on the old muslin dress I’d worn when I arrived on the island. I didn’t want Mother’s fancy things. I wanted to feel like myself again.

A chill crept up my back as I bent to lace my boots. That odd sensation of being watched. I whirled to the window, but there was nothing. A familiar smell hung faintly in the air, though—wet dog.

“Who’s there?” I said.

The tip of a boot peeked out from the cracked door.

“I see you,” I said. “Come out.”

Balthazar shuffled forward, peering through the crack. Eyes still human, not regressed like the others.

I threw my hands to the buttons at my chest, doing them up quickly. “What are you doing here?” I snapped. Had he watched me undress? He retreated as though I’d struck him, and I felt a wave of remorse. Balthazar wasn’t a leering beast. He was innocent as a child.

I eased open the door. He was holding the wooden box from the laboratory that contained my new batch of serum. “I’m sorry. I’m not cross,” I said.