“Blast,” she cursed, dropping her hand. “Don’t tell anyone. Not Montgomery. Certainly not Elizabeth.”
I looked around at the other bodies, noticed some of the other sheets disturbed, a few drops of congealed blood on the floor. This clearly wasn’t the first time she’d come down here with the scalpel and an anatomy book. And there was only one reason why she’d do something so gruesome: she was trying to teach herself basic surgery by practicing on the vagrants’ bodies. All in an effort to bring Edward back.
“Lucy, you can’t mutilate strangers, even if they’re dead!” I hissed, low and frantic. “Have you gone mad?”
“It’s the only way!” she pleaded. “You refused to help me, and Elizabeth has that oath of hers, and I know Montgomery wouldn’t do it. I don’t understand how you all can just let Edward’s body rest down here, knowing there’s a cure. He’s dead now—there are no more hurdles. No questions of morality. We could bring him back, Juliet.”
“No questions of morality?” I pressed my hand to Jack Serra’s charm beneath my dress. I had gotten to know my demons and been tempted to bring Edward back, but that was before I’d witnessed Hensley’s horrible show of violence. “What about Hensley? You’ve seen him. He’s hardly a normal child. There’s no telling if the procedure would even work, but if it did, who’s to say Edward wouldn’t be like Hensley, his mind as simple as a child’s but his body able to kill so easily?”
“It isn’t the same thing at all,” she argued. “Hensley died and was reanimated as a child, so of course his mind stayed the same. Edward’s an adult. And besides, the professor was distraught when he brought Hensley back, so it’s only natural that he made mistakes.”
“And you think you wouldn’t make mistakes? Lucy, you’ve never done any of this before! This is highly skilled science. Only trained surgeons could perform such a procedure.”
“I don’t know what else to do!” She collapsed on one of the benches near Edward, burying her head in her hands. “I know I don’t have the skill, but I can’t sit around giggling about your wedding while the boy I wished to marry someday is dead. He could be back with us, Juliet. Cured of the Beast. How can you say you don’t want that?”
I stared at her in the flickering electric lights, afraid of the look in her eyes, and even more afraid of how much sense she was making. Had I been heartless not even to consider bringing Edward back? What a fool I’d been, planning my own wedding, acting as though everything was fine and we’d all have a grand future together, when one of us was gone.
I sank onto the bench opposite her. Edward’s body lay between us, still shrouded, with Balthazar’s paper flower resting on the center of his chest. I dared to let myself peel back the shroud to get one final look at him.
His face was so familiar it made my chest ache. He’d survived days alone at sea. He’d survived the fire in my father’s burning island compound. He’d even survived an attempt to poison himself. He’d escaped death so many times that it didn’t feel real to see him like this, cold and lifeless.
I studied the lines of his face, trying to read his fortune, just like Jack Serra had read mine. The water charm felt heavy around my neck.
Lucy would never have the skill to bring Edward back, no matter how many bodies she practiced on, but I might. I had watched Elizabeth reanimate the rat, and the procedure was well documented in Frankenstein’s Origin Journals. I’d have to practice on other creatures first of course—Lucy had been smart on that count. I could start with the dead rats, then move to one of these cadavers. I wouldn’t bring it fully back—that would be too dangerous. But I could hook the body up to the machines, test the procedure out, and make certain I understood how the operation worked. As to fixing Edward’s broken body—repairing his heart, swapping out the diseased part of his brain, sewing back the incision mark across his throat—I had seen the medical notations Elizabeth made on all of her transplants. I’d watched her transplant Moira’s new eye. If I could get those notes, and the Origin Journals, I could study them.
It was possible—quite possible—that I could reanimate Edward.
I stood abruptly, scared even by how far I had let my own fantasies unfurl.
Lucy looked at me with wide eyes. “You’re considering it, aren’t you?”
I grabbed the anatomy book and the scalpel, wrapped both in a sheet, and hugged the bundle to my chest. I shook my head a little too hard. “No, Lucy. I couldn’t go against Elizabeth’s wishes. This is her house.”
“But you could do it, couldn’t you?”
I recognized that feverish look in her eye because it matched my own. Just like my father’s voice, urging me to do something remarkable instead of living a quiet life.