“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.
FORTY
MY 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.