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The deer stopped keening. It did not die as Victor tugged the knife through the skin over its stomach. I had imagined it parting like the crust of a loaf of bread, but it was tough, resistant. The sound of tearing made me sick. I turned away as Victor strained to make progress with blood coating his hands and making the knife slippery.
“It will be harder,” he said, breathing heavily with exertion, “to get through the ribs before the heart stops beating. Run to the house and get a bigger knife. Hurry!”
I ran. I did not beat the failure of the heart. Frustration and disappointment twisted Victor’s face as I held out the long, serrated knife the cook would be blamed for losing.
He accepted the knife and got to work on the now-still rib cage. I turned away again, keeping my eyes on the scarlet leaves trembling above us. A single leaf fell, and I marked its lazy path down until it landed in the darker crimson pooled at my feet.
I saw nothing. I heard everything. Knife ripping skin. Blade against bone. All the delicate viscera that support life spilling like slop onto the forest floor.
Victor learned about the paths blood takes in a living creature, and I learned the best ways for cleaning that blood from hands and clothes so that his parents would never know the course of our new studies.
When I crept into Victor’s room that night, I found him drawing the deer still alive, but flayed so that all the parts he had seen inside were showing. He shifted to let me into the bed. I could not get the deer’s noise out of my head. Victor actually fell asleep before I did for once, his face at peace.
That winter was long and cold. Banks of snow as high as the first-story windows sealed us in, away from the world. And while his parents did whatever it was they did when they were not with us—we were utterly uncurious about them—we played games only a child like Victor could design. He had been inspired by the deer. And so we played.
I would lie silent and still, like a corpse, as he studied me. His careful, delicate hands explored all the bones and tendons, the muscles and tracings of veins that make up a person. “But where is Elizabeth?” he would ask, his ear against my heart. “Which part makes you?”
I had no answer, and neither did he.
* * *
—
The metal scalpel in my hand was a sort of comfort. Though nothing in this room threatened me, I could not fight the instinct telling me I was in danger. Telling me to flee.
“Shoo!” I stomped toward the bird. It fixed one baleful yellow eye on
me, clacking its murderously sharp beak.
“Get out!” I ran the rest of the way, startling it. In a flurry of feathers, it flew past me and into a black hole in the wall I had not noticed. I followed it, finding the beginning of the chute that ran from the building to the river. It was large enough that I could have comfortably crawled through. Doubtless it had been added to dispose of refuse. But it was so large! What had been the purpose of this building before Victor?
Chest heaving, I looked down at the trunk that had so fascinated and occupied the wretched bird. The trunk was made of wood, painted with thick black tar to seal it. An inelegant but effective form of waterproofing.
I tried to lift the lid, but it was locked. Crouching, I found a heavy padlock securing it. With trembling fingers, I pulled out the key I had found beneath Victor.
It fit.
I wished desperately it had not.
With a well-oiled click, the padlock sprang open. I unhooked it, opened the latch, and then heaved the long lid upward.
The force of the smell was a physical blow. I fell back onto the ground, cutting my hand on a shard of glass. The scalpel skidded away along the filthy floor. I turned my head and vomited, my stomach seizing my whole body in spasms to propel me from this.
Coughing, I found my handkerchief and held it to my face instead of binding my hand. I stood, my legs shaking, and looked down.
There were…parts.
Bits and pieces, like sewing materials discarded but saved for the day when perhaps they might be useful. They could not have been too old, because the decay was minimal. Bones and muscles, a femur so long I could not guess what animal it had come from. A hoof. A set of delicate bones like a puzzle waiting to be pieced together. Some of the parts had been roughly sewn together.
A sheet of parchment, tacked to the lid of the box, shifted in the breeze from the open roof. It bore lists: Types of bones, types of muscles, missing parts. The name of a butcher shop. A charnel house. A graveyard.
This was a supply box.
“Oh, Victor,” I sobbed. I yanked the list free and shoved it into my purse. Lowering my head, I saw in the far corner something square and inorganic wrapped in an oiled sheet. I reached in as carefully as I could, gagging again as my hand brushed something cold and soft. I pushed past it and grabbed the item I wanted. I pulled it out and slammed the lid of the trunk closed.
It was a book. For some reason, though, it frightened me more than anything else in the room. Moving away from the horrible supplies, I opened the well-worn leather covers of Victor’s journal.
His handwriting, tiny and cramped, as though he feared not having enough space to get his thoughts down, was as familiar to me as my own. There were dates, notes, anatomical drawings. At first they were of animals and humans. And then they were of something…not quite either. I skimmed the words through my tears, his handwriting growing more frantic with each passing page.
