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?”
It took a moment for him to respond, but after a few breaths, he finally nodded.
When I thought he’d finally seen reason, he painfully gripped onto my arm, brandishing the syringe. “‘Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light,’ dear Sister. We must continue our chosen path. It’s too late for turning back now.”
TWENTY-NINE
SHADOW AND BLOOD
WADSWORTH RESIDENCE,
BELGRAVE SQUARE
9 NOVEMBER 1888
I clung to my brother in the midst of our shared hell, not wanting to step away and make this nightmare real.
Dragging me back across the room, he threw me into a wooden chair next to our mother. “Look what you’ve done! Now I must tie you up for your own safety, Sister.”
I sat there immobile, unable to comprehend what he was saying, which cost precious time. Before I could react, he yanked my arms behind the chair and swiftly tied my wrists together. No matter how hard I strained against the rope, there was no escaping my new prison.
Nathaniel had secured me so soundly the tips of my fingers were already turning icy cold. I tugged and pulled, managing only to scrape my skin raw with each panicked attempt to break free of my bonds.
I screamed, more out of shock than hurt, as he thrust the syringe into the thin skin on my inner arm. “Stop it, Nathaniel! This is madness! You cannot revive Mother!”
My pleas didn’t stop him from sinking the plunger in and drawing out my blood. His first attempt failed and he drove the needle in a second time, ripping a yelp from me. I clenched my teeth and gave up struggling, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
He was too far gone. Science had overtaken his humanity.
Once he’d filled the glass tube with my blood, he smiled kindly and blotted at my skin with a cotton swab he dabbed in alcohol.
“There, now. That wasn’t so bad, was it? A little prick, no more. Honestly, Sister. You act as if I was torturing you. Half the women I freed from their chains of sin didn’t cry so much. Have some dignity, would you?”
“What have you done?”
Nathaniel jumped and I jerked in my chair, startled by the sound of Father’s voice at the edge of the stairs. He hadn’t shouted, making it all the more terrifying. I cringed, more from habit than from true fear at being caught doing something potentially dangerous. I was strangely less intimidated of Nathaniel, even knowing the atrocities he was capable of, than of Father when he got angry.
Perhaps I was simply used to the daily mask of a good son and brother that Nathaniel wore. Father never hid his demons, and maybe that scared me more.
“You… you…” I watched Father’s gaze leave my bindings then linger on the steam-powered heart, the muscle in his jaw twitching ever so slightly as his attention moved onto who the organ was residing in.
Father walked over to the contraption, then lifted one of the tubes carrying the black substance. He followed the tube around the table, halting when he got close to Mother. In that moment I saw an entirely new side of my father. Here before us was a man who seemed as if he’d been fighting a battle for years and had just realized it was close to coming to an end. He sucked in a deep breath and turned his attention back on me, his gaze locked onto my arm restraints. “How could you do this, Son?”
It disturbed me how still we all were. Nathaniel seemed to be stuck to the floor, unable to move his feet even the slightest inch, while Father shifted and quietly stared at his wife with growing horror and denial.