Boneseeker (3 page)

He clears his throat. “Arabella, the expedition?”

My mind clicks as a litany of images invade my cortex. “Remember the massive storm a few months prior; the one that snapped off tree tops like matchsticks?”

“Yes, I read of it.”

“It unearthed a hand in upstate New York, and the museum acquired it. It is currently locked safely away in Earnest’s office. It’s twice the size of your own, Henry. And you are a tall man.”

He worries his lip. “Ape?”

“It has 27 bones, the same as our hands. The sheer size; it would be larger than any ape I’ve ever seen. I’ve spent hours examining it.”

“Yes, I’ll wager you have.”

White-hot anger flashes. I’m quite used to men having no idea what to do with me and my mind.

“The results are inconclusive. That comment was very droll. So you suggest more feminine pursuits, Henry? Has boarding school narrowed your thoughts about women? Expect me to knit, to play an instrument and speak when spoken to?”

My eyes flick to challenge his, but he merely smirks and my anger dampens as quickly as it flared. My cheeks flush at my outburst.

His eyebrows rise, but his expression is unaffected. “Your temperament still matches that hair, Bella. Well, that’s a relief. I know how I may be of use.”

“How’s that?”

“Your sense of humor, my dear. You’ve lost it. Finding it will become priority. I can only assume the lack of my presence contributed to its demise,” he pauses, blue eyes scrutinizing.

I feel like one of my specimens, I’m the one under the microscope.

“Yes, well, father has a very—”

“Dry sense of humor, I know. I was around him as a boy, too. It’s just, in order to survive amidst these egomaniacal men of science—you must learn to control it. Stygian obviously doesn’t want you on the team, then?”

“No. He was vexed that I was actually granted a curation position. He doesn’t believe in women venturing out of the home. Or being worth more than child-deposit-boxes.”

A memory flashes. Stygian’s hands, rough against my bare arm.

The hot color on my face deepens. I turn away quickly, but he catches it.

“Arabella? What aren’t you telling me? It’s more than that. Did he try to woo you? And you spurned him?”

I laugh, and almost taste the bitter. “
Woo
is a very interesting way to put it.”

Henry goes rigid, clutching my elbow again. He spins me to face him but I cast my eyes to the floor.

Father warned me of my eyes. How they never, ever lie.

Henry’s warm, large fingers grasp under my chin, turning my face up to force my gaze. “Did he—? What happened?”

Henry’s face glows a furious red, a muscle bulging in his jaw.

“I’m fine.” I blush when I realize what he’s asking. “It’s nothing, it’s over. He is not worth the worry. I’m sorry Henry. I just, well, I’m sure you remember. I don’t—I’m not like other girls. I just can’t be. I gave up trying.”

Especially after the fiasco that was our kiss.

He nods, nostrils flaring as he exhales through his teeth. His long body eases, his thigh brushing mine as he relaxes against the lab bench.

His hand slips too slowly from my cheek. His eyes skip across my face, trying to read me.

“I remember. But I also remember you were my favorite playmate. I never knew what adventure you’d dream up.”

I smile.
I must get him off the Stygian subject.

“One side has proposed the skeleton is a Nephilim.”

“From the Bible, the book of Jude?”

I nod, feeling the hair on my arms rise. I rub furiously, trying to quiet them. “Yes, the angels who forsook their dwelling in the heavens—”

“To mate with women. Their offspring were giants.”

I nod. “Nephilim. The mighty men of old. I plan to write a paper disputing it. Proving the bones are Neanderthal.”

Henry cocks his head, frowning. “Really? Without any data, you’re already forming a hypothesis? That does not sound like any Holmes I’ve ever met.”

“I believe in
science
, Henry. And in myself. Nothing else.”

“Ah.”

His expression is so smug my hands ball into fists.

“What does
that
mean?”

He shrugs.

I begin to pace. “This position at the Mutter…is everything. Father called in a myriad of favors to secure this placement. I’ve never fit in. Not in sewing circles or with giggling girls or with anyone, anywhere. But
here
.” I stare up at the bones, with more affection than I know to be acceptable. “The museum is a home built of science. This I understand, nay I
excel
in. And if I was forced to leave…”

Henry’s gaze is rapt, never leaving my face and he swallows. “I recall one other place you always fit perfectly.”

I bite my lip, perplexed. “Your father’s morgue?”

He rolls his eyes and steps closer once again. “With me, you intolerably obtuse girl.”

Heat and fear for my heart flush my cheeks.

“As for science, I have witnessed events without explanation,” he says quietly.

“Preposterous.”

My embarrassment fizzles to dread as I see it, over his shoulder, on the windowsill.

The black Swallowtail butterfly should not be out. Out in the rain. And it’s almost too late in the season. The coppery taste of fear floods my mouth.

The butterfly alights from the sill, coming to rest on the case. Its wings beat slowly, as if mourning its fallen, under-glass comrades.

Henry registers my expression and follows my gaze. “What is
the meaning of all those butterflies? I thought you were strictly a bone collector?”

A chorus of voices silences my reply. A small crowd approaches, their laughter growing louder as they draw near.

Henry’s face drains.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I raise my hand, and it hovers above his arm. I want to touch him, to be bold.

But the opportunity passes as Dr. Earnest, Dr. Watson and two women enter; their raucous laughter ringing in my ears.

My hand drops back to my side.

The women’s glares simultaneously rove over my unfashionable dress, my ink-stained fingers and bestow identical cat-like challenges disguised as smiles.

Women, as a rule, hate me.

John motions to Henry. “Henry, may I present Dr. Earnest’s daughter, Priscilla.”

Priscilla bats her eyelashes at Henry, tapered fingers playfully twisting a perfect blonde spiral.

“So wonderful to meet you, Henry. Will you be accompanying us to dinner?”

Henry’s eyes find mine. “I was going to help Arabella—”

Dr. Watson cuts across him. “Of course he will. Arabella won’t mind, will you dear?”

John leads the women, one on each arm, toward the door. He launches a death-stare and a stiff nod over his shoulder for Henry to follow.

I quickly turn away and bend down to sweep the soot and broken glass from the floor to hide my expression.

“Arabella…I shall see you tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

When I hear his footsteps fade away, I turn to stare at the butterfly, still batting its wings at a maddeningly slow pace. As if it languishes to torture me.

“Go. Away.”

It takes flight, soaring through the air, weaving in and out of the suspended skeletons, and rebelliously lands two feet from my hand. I blow, hard enough to flutter the black wings and it finally retreats toward the window.

I track it, boots frozen to the floor, until it finally slips out the window.

“Henry, Henry, you are a show dog to be trotted about.”

What concern of it is mine, what Henry thinks,
or about John’s matchmaking schemes?

A worry, heavy as a granite ball has lodged in my throat. My muscles convulsively attempt to swallow it.

Father’s voice echoes; burned into my memory, after a particularly awkward ball. Delivered in his usual take-no-prisoners, way.

“Arabella, a
wife-in-the-making
, you are not. But science, perhaps that may be your beau.” And then quietly, as he walked away, “I hope it will be enough.”

I jam my eyes shut. A foreign feeling wraps around my windpipe, threatening strangulation. My hands cover my mouth as I struggle to master my breathing.

A sharp pain throbs in my chest as if the glass shards have spirited off the floor and embedded into my beating heart.

I feel color heat my face as I replay my confession to Henry, about this place…and his response. I’m struck with the urge to find him—to tell him more.

I sit still and close my eyes and inhale deep breaths. I never, ever reveal the inner workings of my mind.

But this was always the problem…and
the draw
of Henry Watson. He made me confess my heart.

I picture it rattling its accession that I find him, tell him, hold nothing back.

“Be quiet.”

The tittering girls on John’s arms fill my head, mocking me.

I thought I was sensible. I struggle to name this unfamiliar emotion.

Jealousy. I am jealous.

Affecting Revelations

Henry

I match father’s quick strides as we hurry across the Mutter campus toward the museum proper.

“Are you ready then, Henry?” Father’s voice is light, but his eyes are serious. “Stygian is not to be trifled with; all the months studying in Paris come down to this…”

“I know,” I snap. I clear my throat. “Sorry. Nerves.”

“Of course.”

The molds. The doctors here are mad-keen for them.

Moulage is the more civilized name for my wax figures which capture the shape and size of disease, so that physicians may more easily classify the afflictions.

The Philadelphia Indian summer is fading and I shiver as a breeze ruffles my hair.

We pass through the black wrought-iron gates surrounding the Mutter and climb the stairs to the entrance. I swallow as father heaves the massive wood door open. It’s as if their towering architecture was designed for the Nephilim.

I give father a wry smile and exhale through my teeth. We pass behind the large marble staircase, into the top floor of a double-decker room.

The first floor is littered with glass cases in various states of repair while the ceiling is yawning open, allowing those on the second floor to peer down.

I stare over the edge and catch a flash of Arabella’s auburn hair and a young man’s stooped posture. I recognize Jeremy, my fellow antiquarian; the only man in the Mutter with whom I could possibly tolerate sharing a pint.

We walk slowly down the staircase and the sight gives me pause. It’s the strangest room I’ve ever seen.

Like Poe’s nightmares have materialized and then been neatly categorized for humankind’s education.

Wall to wall oddities, each more horrifying than the last. Brains, suspended in fluid, plaster molds of a pair of conjoined twins, fused at the torso.

Arabella completely ignores us. She lifts a skull from inside a box and holds it aloft, her eyes roving across it.

Jeremy hurries over, extending his hand. “Wonderful to see you again. Welcome aboard, Henry. So, they hired you for your
‘moulages’
?”

Father is trying not to smile. I try not to pummel him.

The room is suddenly a blazing inferno. I force the fidget from my hands.

Arabella’s intense gaze fixates on us. “But I thought the European masters were very secretive?” she prompts. “That’s why we’ve had to ship all of our models in from abroad.”

When it becomes apparent I am mute, father answers for me. He gives me one more
last-chance
glance and rolls his eyes.

“They are. But…Holmes and I have
contacts
across Europe.”

Arabella nods. “Of course.” Then in a lower voice, “People who owe you favors.” She mumbles as she walks away, “The very reason I am here as well.”

In seconds, her focus is back on the skulls; placing one on a shelf and plucking another out of the box.

I set down my box and extract two wax figures surrounded by bell jars; the first of a child’s arm with smallpox, the other of a gangrenous lower leg.

Father checks his watch. “I’ll leave you to it then. See you this evening Henry. Don’t forget to prepare for your presentation,” father says.

Now I roll
my
eyes.

“What presentation?” Arabella is all eyes again. She spies the molds and hurries back over. Her inability to remain in one place for more than ten seconds is giving me vertigo.

“Dr. Stygian and I are giving a phrenology lecture tomorrow if you’d like to attend.”

“I have to be moving, too, or I’ll be Stygian-meat. I’ll be at the lecture. It sounds fascinating,” Jeremy interjects over his shoulder. He’s walking across the museum floor, into the adjoining room. He disappears as the door clicks shut.

Arabella scoffs, “Psuedo-science.”

She bends to stare at the molds. “May I?” She nods toward the specimens.

“Of course.”

Her dark blue eyes squint and scrutinize. After a moment she nods. “They’re quite good, Henry. Dr. Earnest chose well.”

She spins, heading back to her categorization.

I walk over to her pile of bones. She’s particularly lovely today without the frills, in trousers, black boots and a white shirt. They hug and accentuate her every curve. I swallow and avert my eyes, which dart to a glass case and a very long…
colon.

I shrug. “I’m not sure I put much stock in phrenology either, but I did do the coursework, so figured I’d assist Stygian. It was before…we talked.”

About him. About his need to acquire you like some artifact.

She waves the words away without pulling her eyes from the skull.

“Quiz-time, genius. Pray, tell me, why do we have this skull?”

She’s asking me to identify abnormalities. A test.

I force myself to examine it, not her. I squint and rub my chin, considering.

A long jagged line puzzles across the forehead, cutting it in half. I estimate the age of the specimen by the size of the head.

“Persistent frontal sutures. They should’ve disappeared with the fontanelles as a younger child. It results in the egg-shaped skull.”

Her face lights up. “Very good. You may be after my job.”

She flips up another. “This one?”