A shadow passed over Edward’s face and I knew, in that look, that he didn’t want to take Montgomery with us. “You were awfully quick to forgive him after what you saw in the laboratory,” he said.
“He didn’t have a choice,” I said defensively. “He was just a boy when he came here. You’d have done the same thing in his place.”
“No. I wouldn’t have. I’d never choose to hurt anyone.” His voice didn’t hold a trace of doubt. He tilted his head, his face suddenly tender. Goose bumps rippled over my arms at the memory of the night behind the waterfall. “We’ll leave this island. You and I. Go wherever you want. You’ll forget about him.…” He swallowed, unable to finish.
I sat straighter. The whalebone corset dug into my ribs, stifling my breath. What could I say? The night behind the waterfall with Edward had been disconcertingly intense, yet there’d been a distance between us since coming back. Nothing I could put my finger on, exactly. More like our connection existed out there, in the wild. It dulled among the books and fine china and lace curtains.
I pulled a worn throw pillow into my lap. I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. Montgomery meant too much to me, despite everything. “We’re taking Montgomery and everyone else who has a human heart beating in their chest,” I said, and left it at that.
He didn’t press. “And your father?”
“He can stay here and rot with the rest of the animals.”
EDWARD AND I WHISPERED about escape whenever we could steal a moment alone. As the days passed, those times became scarcer. More islanders went missing. Edward was needed with the search party while I was left alone to think about the murders.
About Jaguar.
One afternoon after the men returned and we’d finished eating a sullen midday meal, I found Mother’s crystal earring among the trinkets in the salon and held it to the light of the window, where it sent a spray of dancing rainbows over the walls. That was my mother—color and light and delicate as glass. She would have been repulsed by Father’s creations. Not drawn to them.
Balthazar passed on the portico outside, stealing my attention. Puck followed him, and then the rest of the servants, one by one, in their blue canvas shirts and pants. I pressed my face to the window. They gathered under a thatched sunscreen outside the bunkhouse. I put the earring back and pushed open the salon doors.
The islanders formed a loose line, chattering and shuffling their twisted feet. They looked at me curiously as I squeezed to the front between two hoglike men whose bristly hair made me cringe.
Montgomery stood on the other side of a worktable that held his medical bag and a half dozen cloudy glass bottles. He’d smoothed back his hair and put on a fresh shirt. He might have looked like a gentleman if it hadn’t been for the open button at his chest and the casual way he stood, as though he’d spent more of his life climbing trees and racing wild horses than walking.
“Come forward,” he said to one of the hog-men. The creature shuffled to the table, holding out his fat arm like a piece of meat. Montgomery filled a syringe with the cloudy liquid and tapped the man’s vein before inserting the needle. The man must have been twice my size, but he cringed like a little girl.
“You’re all done,” Montgomery said, drawing out the needle. “Next.”
I wandered to the other side of the table, watching over Montgomery’s shoulder. Another islander slipped to the front of the line. The python-woman from the village. She grinned at me, flashing the tips of thin fangs. Montgomery gave her an injection and checked her name off a roster. She waved as she left. Four fingers.
I picked up one of the vials, studying the cloudy liquid. “What are you giving them?” I asked.
“Something to restore the tissue’s balance.” He waved a gangly-limbed man forward. “Come,” he ordered. The man shuffled to the table and extended his arm, covering his eyes while Montgomery found a vein.
The next, a man with a folded nose like a goat, approached with his sleeve already carefully rolled up.
I watched Montgomery administer the treatments. The islanders all walked away proudly rubbing their arms, like a child after his first trip to the physician. My hand drifted to the skin on the inside of my own elbow. I drew my thumb in a circle around the red mark from this morning’s injection, studying the vial in my other hand. The slight tint, the cloudiness of the compound—it looked remarkably similar to the treatment Father had designed for me. I sneaked a glance at the sheep-woman next to me, at her too-human eyes and the casual way she scratched an insect bite on her neck. I wondered how similar their treatment’s chemical makeup was to my own injections.
Montgomery watched me from the corner of his eye while he gave the next injection.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“Mostly rabbit blood with hormones added.”
“How often do they need it?”