Of course Juliet could play games and thwart me like this. Even from the grave.
I return to my cabin in Sheffield with the strangest sense of anticipation trilling over my skin. I slip on my gloves. Tut my tongue. The cage of mice rustles in response.
I move to the darkest corner of the cellar, where I always keep a single mouse in an empty cage. The unlucky mice. Nameless, plucked out by chance, to know little more than cold, starvation, and isolation throughout their short lives. The one in there now has patches of fur missing, a ripped ear. It knows enough to tremble when I come near.
I throw it a piece of rotting celery as I set out my row of instruments. Check my logbook. Retrieve Vala from my quarters and bring her down to the stark cellar. She nestles up into her place under my ear. I push back the small twinge I feel at her warmth; she is nothing but a small sacrifice for a greater good.
“Goodbye, pet.” I cradle my carved wooden bird, switch out the sewing needle for a syringe in two clicks. I fill it with my most promising formula.
I insert the syringe into her body and empty it entirely.
What I withdraw from her is less than a thimbleful of thick, swirling liquid.
Vala slumps in a heap. She crouches there, unmoving, in the swell of my hand for a long moment. Barely breathing air into her own small lungs. I bring her to the nameless mouse’s cage, and when I open the door, it trembles and looks at Vala as if she could be something to eat.
I set Vala inside. Watch her with curiosity for a moment. She is nothing more than a heap of warm fur. I do not pet or soothe her. But her body does not stay still for long.
After a moment she begins to shiver and shake uncontrollably. She stands, becoming rigid, and lets out a high-pitched sound of agony. Then she begins to run in circles. Banging up against the edge of the cage with her head, as if she is trying to beat something out of it.
I pause to note this development in my log.
Then I take the unnamed mouse in a firm grip as it squirms and tries to escape. The mouse with the mangled body and ripped ear. And I give it the greatest gift of its short, miserable life.
I insert the contents of the vial I extracted from Vala straight into its bloodstream.
At first, when the mouse stops trembling and squeaking, I’m certain I’ve killed it. Just like all the others.
But then.
A sense of anticipation trills along my skin without warning. I pause. Take another look at the cage.
The unnamed mouse raises its head, cocked and curious. Its muscles, always so taut through its starved body, suddenly relax.
I watch the mouse warily. Set my wooden bird and the empty vial down on the counter. After a moment I open the cage and extend my arm.
The nameless mouse doesn’t hesitate. It scampers confidently up the crook of my elbow. Past the curve of my shoulder to the prized spot just below my ear.
I begin to stroke the mouse’s patchy fur with great care until I swear it is almost purring.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Clifftons usually hide the newspaper, but on Wednesday morning I find it spread wide across the breakfast table.
ROOSEVELT FLIES TO NORTH AFRICA: TEN-DAY PARLEY WITH CHURCHILL MAPS TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF AXIS.
Perhaps this means the war is almost over.
On Saturday I lie on my stomach on my bedroom floor and write to Father again, with Mother’s book open beside me. I lean to scribble a new line in my notebook. I have several lists now: lines of Disappearances and Variants. A section on Shakespeare’s life: marriage, twins, collaborators, death. Recurrent themes in his work that I will scour later for clues: ambition and loyalty, herbs and flowers, greed, blood, disturbance of corpses, plays on words, appearance versus reality.
My list is growing longer every day.
“Aila?” Will knocks on my door.
I close my books and follow him outside.
He’s made a buttress. The frame is made of wooden planks and covered with chicken wire. It’s packed tightly with what looks like rags, scraps of carpet, and quilt batting. As I watch, he secures a taut piece of canvas across its front. He tests the resistance of the wood, the security of the bolts. “Like it?” he asks.
I bend to the buttress and smooth the face of the canvas with my palm. “It’s exactly what I wanted,” I say. I try not to beam. “What do I owe you?”
