A Beautiful Poison

“I need what works, Jasper. No newfangled ideas of yours.”

Considering the numbers of dead showing up at the morgue, Jasper didn’t have the heart to tell her that nothing really worked. Just then, Josephine exited her bedroom, and Allene marched up to her. “I want everyone in the household wearing a double gauze mask, including Birdie. No excuses. Have Esther cook up another thick onion broth—everyone gets a serving daily, no matter what. Every surface of this house will get wiped down with Lysol, and the bedding gets a Lysol soaking too. Air all the rooms out. I don’t care how cold it is; we can’t keep the air trapped inside the house. There will be no visitors except the physicians.”

“Yes, miss!” Josephine bobbled away to delegate the tasks. Allene helped Jasper settle Lucy onto the snowy-white guest bed, and she opened the window to let in the cold October air. When one of the maids came to the door with a handful of cloth masks, Allene waved her away.

“I’ll take care of her.” She snatched masks from the maid and tied them on, covering her nose and mouth. She turned to Jasper, handing him two. Her voice was muffled as she caught his eye. “Surely my father’s physician can direct me how to nurse her. And I want Holly sent away and Birdie too, as soon as she’s fit to be moved.”

“I can take her,” Jasper volunteered. As soon as he said it, he realized he meant it—even though the idea of having a child in his dingy apartment, just cleared of his uncle’s corpse so recently—was somewhat abhorrent.

“No, that won’t work,” Allene said. “Birdie needs round-the-clock help, and the hospital needs you.” She seemed to notice his disappointment. He always thought of children as irritating creatures, though he himself had been one less than a decade ago. His reaction surprised him.

“Maybe I can visit Holly,” Jasper offered.

“I’m sure that would make it easier on her.”

All at once, the chaos hit a fever pitch. The physician, Dr. Hanover, arrived to check on Mr. Cutter but was instead shuttled to see Lucy first, then Birdie. Allene took copious notes on what to do. The maids came to Allene asking for further orders. Nostrums from the drugstore were ordered for a poultice to help with Lucy’s breathing and medicines were fetched for Birdie too.

Mr. Cutter’s demands were ignored—particularly the order that Lucy be immediately removed from the house. He was still too weak to battle Allene’s new and unrelenting hand in household matters, but he was strong enough that his health was less of a worry. Allene also sent word to Lucy’s family in East Harlem that she would be caring for Lucy directly, with their own doctor, and not to visit for risk of infecting Lucy’s other family members.

Jasper accompanied the physician to see Birdie after he had finished with Lucy. He was an older gentleman with white hair, round brass spectacles, and a grim mouth that didn’t waste a single word. When they entered the bedroom, Birdie didn’t stir. It looked as if one of the maids had already given her a dose of laudanum, and Birdie slept, but not contentedly. Even in her drugged stupor, her eyebrows pulled together, as if her dreams were stitched together with razor wire. Gently, Jasper raised the hem of her nightgown to show the surgeon her leg. The shin area was deeply purpled from bruising and blood spilled from the broken marrow of the bone. Her limb was at an angle instead of being straight as an arrow.

“There was no trauma,” Jasper explained. “She paints watches, no heavy work. She’d gone to relieve herself in the ladies’ room—she couldn’t remember anything after that.”

Dr. Hanover observed the leg without touching it. He leaned closer to Birdie’s lovely face, her cheekbones like a knife edge under her translucent skin. Dr. Hanover threw Jasper an accusing glance.

“Why, this girl is positively skeletal.” He pointed to the hollows at her temples and cheeks. “She’s cachectic.” He cradled his generous hands around her face and used his thumbs to pull down her lower eyelids. Instead of the healthy pink color, they were more a yellowish pink. “She’s terribly anemic. I would guess her hemoglobin levels to be seven grams per deciliter or lower.” He let his hand slide down to her jaw and raised her upper lips. “Tooth decay. No, it’s worse. Look.” He exposed more of her teeth and touched her upper left canine. It was loose in its socket, with a large growth protruding from the gum above. “There’s a destructive tumor in her maxillary bone.”

“A tumor? Are you sure?” Jasper’s throat was so dry he could barely get the questions out.

“I know a tumor when I see one.”

Jasper stayed silent as the doctor bent to examine Birdie’s leg. She moaned in pain but remained in deep slumber. Josephine must have dosed her with enough laudanum to take down an elephant. Dr. Hanover’s fingertips traveled over her thin, milky thigh down to the broken bone of her lower leg.

“Look here.” His finger pointed to a mound on either side of the break. “There’s a bone tumor here too. She didn’t fall. It snapped on its own accord. Gravity broke her. Pathologic fracture.”

Jasper’s mind whirred over the information he already knew and what Dr. Hanover was telling him. Anemia. Fractures. Bone tumors. Her thin body wasting like a starvation victim’s. Something was eating Birdie alive from the inside out. Oh God.

Birdie.

She was leaving him. She was leaving everyone.

He was so goddamned sick of being left behind.

“What . . . what . . .” Jasper couldn’t manage to get the question out.

“What’s causing it? She has a malignancy, boy. Clear as day. This girl won’t be alive in a month, if she even has that long. How tragic. She’s a lovely young thing.”

Jasper left him in the company of one of the chambermaids to help properly splint Birdie’s leg for comfort. They chattered on about when and if she would walk again. How utterly pointless to talk about walking when her life was to be snuffed out. And here he was, walking healthy as could be, not even having been drafted. Perhaps God wanted him to stay alive and be the last damned man standing.

Jasper escaped straight to the bathroom to compose himself. His eyes stung and his throat was scorched. He stuffed his fists into his eye sockets, willing them to stop oozing wetness. How on earth would he deliver the information to Holly? She’d already lost her mother. Jasper knew exactly what it was to lose a sibling after being orphaned. There were only so many pieces of your heart that could be damaged before it irrevocably changed you. But he was powerless to stop it, just as he had been powerless to save his parents or Oscar.

“Jasper?” a male voice called from the hallway.

“Be a minute.” He wiped his face one last time, glanced at the mirror to make sure the redness wasn’t bad around his eyes. He looked tired instead of crushed. Small mercies.

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