“But how did it get inside him?” Lilly blurted out. She was visibly shaken by this, her first real exposure to aberrant biology. You may study it in a thousand books and hear about it in a thousand lectures and discuss it with a thousand learned philosophers, but you can never know it until you have seen it—and what she had seen was but a glimpse.
Warthrop seemed perplexed by her question. “Well, the number of available orifices is quite small. I think it is safe to assume it entered through the largest one.”
“But why did it crawl inside him?”
The monstrumologist blinked several times. The answer was obvious—to him and, to his mind, anyone who had one. But his tone was patient with her, more so than it ever had been with me. “To eat, Miss Bates. And to hide from anything that might eat him.”
He clapped his hands softly. “Well! I must have a look at Adolphus now, I suppose. Hang on to that revolver, Mr. Henry; I shall help myself to this fellow’s Colt and meet you back here. Stay in this room and do not venture out until I return or unless your life depends upon it. Miss Bates, after you.”
Lilly slipped her arm through mine. “I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.”
“It may be a little much to ask of him,” Warthrop replied. He nodded to the bag in my hand. “I wouldn’t want for him to find himself in the unfortunate position of having to choose between you.”
I laughed. Lilly failed to see the humor, though. She said, “I can manage myself.”
The doctor started to say something, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and then without a word darted out the door. We were alone, Lilly and the monster and me.
I sank to the floor and rested my back against a shipping crate emblazoned with the Society’s coat of arms. Nil timendum est. With the squirming sack between my legs, I looked up at Lilly, who seemed very tall and nearly goddesslike from my inferior position, haughtily regal in her purple dress, though it suffered now from a smudge or two.
“May I say how striking you look right now?” I asked. “I can’t decide if it’s the angle or the lighting. Perhaps both. I am very tired. I think the alcohol has worn off.”
“You used to be so serious,” she observed after a studied silence. “Even when you were trying to joke, you were serious.”
“The work gives one perspective.”
“What kind of perspective would that be?”
I pursed my lips, thinking about it. “The loftiest humanly possible. Or just possible, period.”
She shook her head. “Where is the gun?”
“In my pocket. Why?”
She squatted beside me and fished into my pocket. “Don’t take my firearm, Miss Bates,” I cautioned her.
“Your hands are full.”
“If you take my firearm, I shall be forced to shoot you.”
“The more you try to be funny, the less funny you become.”
She held the gun with both hands against her stomach. She with the gun, I with the bag.
“It isn’t my fault you don’t have a sense of humor,” I said. “Please don’t worry it; you’re making me nervous.”
She sat down beside me, her eyes upon the lump beneath the burlap.
“I thought they grew to five times that size.”
“More like ten. It’s just a baby, Lilly.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking about taking it out for a cuddle. . . .”
She let go of the gun with one hand long enough to punch me in the arm. “I mean after this is done.”
“He’s going to present it to a group of like-minded men, who will nod with admiration and approval and pat him on the back and vote him a medal or perhaps commission a statue in his honor. . . .”
“Some boys grow up,” she observed. “And some grow backward.”
“I shall have to ponder that awhile before I can offer an opinion on it.”
“What will he do with it after the congress has adjourned? That’s what I meant.”
“Ah, I see. The cat, as it were, is out of the bag now, so it can’t stay here. I assume that was his original plan. Perhaps he’ll bring it back to New Jerusalem, build a special pit for it, and feed it goats. I don’t think he has any plans to release it back into the wild.”
“Wouldn’t that be the best thing to do?”
“Not for the wild. And not for Warthrop. One is much more important than the other, you know.”
“I would set it free.”
“It’s the last of its kind, Lilly. Doomed either way you go.”
“Then why not just kill it?” Looking at the undulating burlap. “He could stuff it like a trophy.”
“Well, that’s an idea,” I said curtly. The topic had become tiresome. “Tell me something: Have you kissed him?”
“Kissed . . . Dr. Warthrop?”
I smiled, picturing that. “Warthrop hasn’t kissed anyone since 1876. I was referring to the mediocrity.”
“Samuel?” She lowered her eyes; she would not look at me. “Is that any business of yours?”
“I suppose not.”
“I know not.”
“Really? Then he must be mediocre, for you not to know!”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You aren’t half as clever as you think you are, you know.”
I nodded. “More like a third. Did you meet him in England? Aren’t you lonely there, Lilly? Don’t you miss New York? What sort of person would want to apprentice for Sir Hiram Walker? No one who’s a third as clever as he thinks he is, so he must be a mediocrity.”
“He’s a friend,” she said.
“A friend?”
“A very good friend.”
“Oh. Hmm. Very good is certainly not mediocre.”
She smiled. “Not by a third.”
“I should very much like to kiss you now.”
“That is a lie.” Still smiling.
And I, now frowning: “Why would someone lie about that?”
“If you really wanted to kiss me, you would have kissed me, not—”
I kissed her.
Dear Will, I pray this finds you well.
Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. “Will,” she whispered. “I should very much like for you to kiss me again.”