Author: Megan Shepherd
Category: Young Adult
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/megan-shepherd/page,19,54767-a_cold_legacy.html
She stared at the brain in morbid fascination.
I pointed to Edward. “I need you to help me prop his torso so I can access the back of his head.” Lightning crashed outside, shaking the windowpane. Lucy’s head whipped toward the windows. “We should hurry,” I added, “while there’s still a storm.”
We moved faster, propping his body up, as I marked off measurements on the back of his neck. I selected a scalpel and carefully cut into the base of his head. Blood seeped out over my white apron—Edward hadn’t been dead as long as the other cadavers. I didn’t bother to wipe it away. The anticipation was almost too much to bear. Would he truly sit up again? Sip tea and read Shakespeare and play backgammon as terribly as he always had?
“Is he supposed to bleed like that?”
Reason snapped back into me as Lucy nodded toward the blood dripping down the back of Edward’s neck.
“I injected him with an anticoagulant,” I explained. “It will make him bleed profusely, but it will also help bind the reattachments. You can help. Take that rag and mop it up.”
She hurried to dab the blood away with a clean cloth, exposing the smooth white of the bone beneath. His skull. I made an incision just below the occiput, four inches in diameter, and exposed the pink tissue of his brain. So simple, and yet so complex.
I pressed the scalpel to the base of the brain and cut.
My stomach lurched in response. Before, when I had watched Elizabeth work on Moira’s eye, I had wanted to be the one holding that blade. I had wanted to cut apart the essence of a human and stitch one back up again—and now I was.
“Keep holding his body steady,” I said. “And hand me that larger scalpel.”
I knew every fold of skin, every joint and artery. I’d memorized human anatomy on pages in a book, and I felt it beneath my own fingers. Lucy handed me the scalpel and took a small step back. My fingers were shaking, but I took a deep breath and thought of my father’s steady hands, and mine stilled.
“My God,” Lucy said, watching with rapt attention. “You really were born for this.”
Pride, mixed with shock, laced her breathless words. I wondered what it must feel like to have a parent who supported one’s desires and talents. If only Father had taught me alongside Montgomery. I could have made him proud.
“Yes, now the carotid artery . . . I need to sever the connective tissue. . . .” I already knew the procedure by heart. In another few cuts, the posterior lobe was exposed. A sharp, rotten smell emanated from it, and I nearly dropped my scalpel in revulsion. Edward’s reptile brain was swollen to the size of a rotten and bloated tomato. Deep lines of black marred the purple surface. The tissue looked thin and waxy, and thick yellow pus seeped out of a tear.
Lucy gagged at the rotten-egg smell. “How foul!”
“Indeed. There’s the problem,” I pressed a hand over my own nose as I pointed the sharp end of a scalpel toward the ganglia. “See the connective tissue? It’s diseased. The jackal organs my father used were diseased from rabies, and it combined with the malaria from Montgomery’s blood.”
My eyes followed the pus dripping down the side. I was looking at the Beast in his most animalistic, physical sense. I knew disease and cancers could result in modified brain activity. This swollen, diseased organ had gone one step further: created an entire second self within Edward, not only toyed with his personality, his temperament, but also changed him on even a physical level.
The sterile cloth lay on the table; I wrapped it around my nose and mouth to stanch the smell before pressing the scalpel into the base of the medulla. The sharp point sank into it like butter. White-yellow pus foamed out. Lucy gagged and turned away, but I kept cutting. In another few incisions, I had freed the diseased organ. With hands slick with pus and blood, I unscrewed the lid of a glass jar and dumped the organ inside, sealing away the terrible stench.
In the jar, the organ looked so small. Could an entire personality truly be reduced to pus and flesh in a glass jar? Loss and longing pulled at my gut. The Beast had been a monster. He’d been a murderer. And yet on some terrible, deep level, he had been the only one to understand me.
“Juliet,” Lucy said, pulling me from my past. “The rain is letting up. The storm won’t last forever.”
I flicked a glance at her: dark hair twisted back tight, streaks of blood on her cheek and staining her hands. Such an innocent face, but she wasn’t innocent any longer. What happened in this room would change her forever.
I jerked my chin toward the metal table. “The manacles. Help me secure him in place.”
She picked up one heavy leather cuff, dusty with disuse. “Is that really necessary?”
“You’ve seen Hensley’s strength. We aren’t taking any chances until we’re certain he’s not dangerous.”
The sight of a gaping hole in the back of Edward’s head made her uneasy, but she strapped him to the table while I sutured the vagrant’s healthy posterior lobe to Edward’s brain stem, wired the vertebra and bone back together, and bandaged his head.
“That’s the worst of it over now,” I said as I reached for the complicated system of wires. “This part is far less bloody. It’s just like we did with the rat.” Her eyes watched in wonder as I attached the electrical nodes to the key neurological points on his body: the sciatic nerve, the base of the spinal cord, the nerves in his wrists. We soaked two sponges in a brine solution and pressed them to the sides of his head. Outside, thunder clapped. It seemed the heavens were as anxious to witness the impossible as we were.
I finished with the wires and then went to the cabinet and opened the drawer. I took out the silver pistol.
“We can’t take any chances,” I said. “On my signal, pull the lever, just like before.” Her hand rested on the lever, her eyes on the storm outside. Wind blew the window open and rain pelted in, stinging both of our faces.
Time seemed to slow. I took in the room in flashes: Edward, cold and dead on the table, Lucy with wild eyes awaiting the storm, the pistol in my own numb hand. The hair slowly rose on the back of my neck. Tingles began along the nerves running up the backs of my legs.
“Now!” A bolt of lightning struck the rod, and Lucy threw down the lever. Sparks flashed from equipment that hadn’t felt such direct voltage in forty years. Lucy remained steady, but her eyes were on fire. My breath came fast as pulses of sheer electricity ran down the lightning rod, into the wires, into Edward’s flesh. I could imagine them finding the web of nerves, connecting synapses, traveling from the extremities to the core to the heart to the head, waking everything with a jolt.
More lightning crashed outside, with the sound of a tree falling somewhere. I became aware of a pounding at the door downstairs; no—the door to the laboratory. Balthazar was knocking. He had heard me screaming, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t make it to the door. Couldn’t even keep a hold of the pistol in my hand.
“Turn it off!” I shouted at last, and Lucy complied.
The equipment powered down with snapping wires, with the smells of burned flesh and ozone in the air. Lucy slumped against the table, spent. I forced my fingers to wake up and curl around the pistol. I raised it on instinct toward the body on the table.
More pounding came at the door, followed by Balthazar’s frantic voice asking if we were all right.
“Yes!” I called back in a shaking voice. “We’re fine!”
“Juliet, look,” Lucy whispered, and I whipped around. I pointed the shaking end of the pistol at Edward’s chest. Almost imperceptibly, his chest was rising and falling. He was breathing. His wrist pulsed within the manacle.
“It worked,” she breathed. “We did it.”
I stumbled forward, clutching the table. Below us, Edward’s eyes slowly, impossibly, opened. Swirls of green and brown, hazy now.
He blinked.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“EDWARD!” LUCY RUSHED TOWARD his side, but I dug my fingers into her arm to hold her back.
“Wait.” I pressed the pistol into Luc
y’s hands. “Keep this aimed on him until I tell you it’s safe.”
Edward blinked again, moaning, his eyes glassy and unfocused. I took a cautious step closer, and then another, as a bolt of lightning lit the night sky outside.
“Edward?” I reached out trembling fingers to touch him. “Can you hear me?”
He mumbled a few incoherent words and shut his eyes. I let my fingers slide over his forehead. Cold, but alive. Blood pulsed beneath the sheen of sweat on his skin. I was at a loss for words. We had done it. Defeated death.
“I should check his heartbeat and breathing,” I said, still dazed. “Make sure everything is working.”
I went through the motions I knew by heart, monitoring his pulse, taking his temperature, utterly amazed to see his body working. I pressed the silver end of the stethoscope against his pale skin and listened to his beating heart. What a difference a single day could make. Yesterday Edward was a cold body in the cellar, and now I was feeling his breath against my cheek.
Had I changed as well, in a single day?
“His pulse is a little slow, but still in the range of normal circulatory function.”
“But is he himself?” Lucy asked, clutching the pistol.
I lifted his eyelids one at a time. Even when the Beast had taken on a more human body, his eyes had still glowed a golden yellow. As I peered into Edward’s glassy eyes, they were an earthy brown the color of peat. Relief overcame me like a warm bath. He mumbled a few incoherent words and I caught a sniff of his breath: unwashed teeth and day-old bread. Unpleasant, but very human.
A relieved laugh slipped from my lips. “It’s him.”
Lucy let the pistol tumble from her hand and threw her arms around him, sobbing, petting his hair, speaking as incoherently as he was. I watched the reunion with a mixture of awe and gratitude. Why had I ever doubted this was the right thing to do? Edward was one of us, and he’d sacrificed himself for us, and now we’d repaid that favor. At long last I had made up for Father’s cruelty in making him.
It occurred to me that now I could always keep the ones I loved safe. No matter what happened, accident or illness or violence, death wasn’t the end anymore. I could bring Lucy back, or Elizabeth, or Balthazar, if anything happened to them. Tomorrow I would marry Montgomery, and we truly could have a lifetime together—many lifetimes—safe from the fears that one of us might die young.
Lightning crashed outside. The electricity flickered and dimmed, then abruptly cut off. Lucy gasped in the sudden dark.
“The candle—I left one on the cabinet,” she said.
I lit it quickly, letting the light spill out over the wires and switches rigged into the walls of the laboratory. “This is where Elizabeth controls all the electrical systems,” I said. “She’ll be here soon to repair it. We need to clear out quickly before she comes.”
“I don’t think he can walk yet,” Lucy said.
I bit my lip. I’d poured all my energy into reaching this point; I hadn’t actually thought past it to what we’d do with him afterward.
“Help me with the manacles.” By the light of the single candle, Lucy and I unfastened the shackles and dressed him quickly. His unfocused eyes moved back and forth in their sockets; his forehead was damp and feverish. While Lucy did up the buttons on his shirt, I cleaned the laboratory of signs of our presence as best I could, swept up the blood-soaked sawdust and tossed it out the window along with the poor vagrant’s empty skull, and wiped down the knives and instruments.
I opened the door. Balthazar stood on the other side in his blue-striped pajamas. When he gazed beyond me at Edward moaning on the table, he whimpered.
“My friend,” I said, “I need your help once more to carry Edward downstairs. But I won’t command you to do it this time. I was wrong to before. This time I’m asking, as a favor to me. You can say no.”
He rocked back and forth in indecision, until Edward moaned again. “I shall, miss, but only because Master Edward needs me.” He paused, kneading his fingers together. “Though if I’m free to say no, am I also free to make a request?”
“Of course.”
“Tell Montgomery about this. Or allow me to tell him. It isn’t right, keeping it from him.”
Edward moaned again, and Lucy gave me a look that said we dared not wait much longer.
“I will,” I blurted out to Balthazar, a little desperately. “I promise. Only give Edward some time to heal. I’ll tell Montgomery after the wedding. Is that good enough?”
He nodded. “Yes, miss.” He lumbered into the room and picked up Edward with gentle care.
“Take him to my bedroom,” I said in a rush. “There’s a dressing screen with a chaise longue. We’ll keep him there until he’s fully conscious, then move him somewhere more permanent until we can figure out how to tell everyone about him.”
Lucy and I followed Balthazar down the winding staircase and through the halls as he carried Edward. For once, I was thankful for the poor electricity that let us sneak through the halls under cover of darkness. At last we made it to my room.
“Thank you,” I whispered to Balthazar.
He paused before leaving. “Just remember your promise. It isn’t good to keep secrets, miss.”
When he was gone, Lucy helped me lay Edward down in the chaise longue behind the screen. He reached a hand up, combing it through his sweaty hair, his eyes still glassy.
“Juliet?” he mumbled.
I knelt at his side, wiping the sweat from his too-cold skin. “Yes, it’s me. You’ve undergone an extensive medical procedure and you’re recovering.”
“I died,” he said. “I think . . . I died.”
I glanced at Lucy. I hadn’t thought through how to explain to him what we had done.
A knock came at the adjoining door, soft at first, and Lucy and I both froze.
“Juliet?” It was Montgomery. “Are you awake? I thought I heard you walking around.”
Eyes wide in terror, I thrust the cloth into Lucy’s hand and signaled for her to keep Edward quiet. I hurried to the adjoining door, trying to think straight.
“Montgomery?” I said through the door.
“I can’t sleep. Stay with me tonight—I want to wake up with you on our wedding day.”
My wedding. Tomorrow. I looked back at the dressing screen, where I could barely make out Lucy and Edward. I’d tell Montgomery about Edward eventually, as I’d promised, once he regained his strength and things had settled down. It would be a shock, but Montgomery would understand in time. He’d even be delighted to have Edward back—surely.
But I didn’t dare tell him tonight.
“I think . . . that’s bad luck, isn’t it?” I said. “To see the bride on her wedding day.”
“It isn’t yet midnight,” his voice came. “There’s no rule about not seeing the bride the day before.” His voice was so light and playful, in stark contrast to the procedure we had just wrought in Elizabeth’s laboratory.
I glanced back at the dressing screen, where Lucy was dabbing at Edward’s forehead as he tried to sit up.
“One kiss,” I said, and twisted the key in the lock, swinging open the door and stepping into his room quickly. If he sensed how nervous I was, he must have attributed it to wedding jitters.
He stepped close, sliding a hand behind my back. “One kiss,” he murmured, “For tonight, that is. Tomorrow, after the wedding . . .”
He nearly growled as he pressed his lips to mine. I could feel his heart pounding beneath his thin shirt, and it made my own flare to life. Tomorrow I’d marry the boy I’d known forever. Edward wouldn’t be able to attend the wedding, but it would be enough to know he was alive, returned to us, completely healed.
Montgomery pulled back, one corner of his mouth hitched in a grin. He looked so very young then, and more handsome than I’d ever seen him. “Your hands are shaking.”
“I’m . . . just nervous about tomorrow. That I’ll trip walking up the aisle.”
“If you do, I’ll be th
ere to help you up.”
He kissed me again, more passionately this time, his hands drifting farther down my dress to settle on my hips. The clock on his mantel struck midnight, and I managed to pull myself away. I gave him a smile that I hoped appeared coy.
“Now it’s bad luck,” I said, and returned to my room. I twisted the key in the lock and leaned my head against the door.
Lucy was watching me, dabbing at Edward’s brow. I took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“We have to get him out of here,” I said. “We must find a secret place for him to stay tomorrow, and for a few days after while he heals. We could put him in Valentina’s room. No one’s been in there since she died.”
Edward moaned again, his body jerky as though he was still getting used to it. He kept rubbing the bandages on the back of his head where I’d replaced his posterior lobe.
“Do we dare leave him alone during the ceremony?” Lucy asked.
I sighed. “Let’s get him to Valentina’s room first, and then we’ll figure it out.”
We struggled to help him stand. He seemed to have regained some strength, but his steps were unnatural and robotic.
I took a deep breath. I only needed to keep him secret until after the wedding. I wasn’t going to suffer the same curse as Victor Frankenstein—there wouldn’t be any tragedies on my wedding day, not after Montgomery and I had suffered so much already, only to find a safe haven here.
From today forward, I told myself, things are going to start going right for all of us.
TWENTY-NINE
I SLEPT LITTLE THAT night. Lucy and I had spent hours with Edward in Valentina’s room, monitoring his breathing and pulse, trying to communicate with him, though his eyes and hands moved strangely, as though there was some disconnect between them and his brain. He fell asleep at last, and in his sleep looked so startlingly human—so perfect—that it stole my breath. Lucy pushed back the curtains as the first tinges of dawn appeared on the horizon.
“Go to bed, Juliet,” she said. “I’ll stay with Edward. You should get a few hours of sleep. You’ll need it. It’s your wedding day.”