The Dollmaker by Morgan Shamy

4

LIVING DEAD

Thank you.

The words resonated over and over again in Dawn’s mind as she made her way back home. Those two simple words Mrs. Johanson had given her had taken root in the pit of her belly, slowly growing like roots spreading outward, tangling with her veins.

Dark clouds shifted across the night sky as her feet clopped quietly on the cobblestones. The scent of rain hung heavy in the air, as if the fat clouds above would burst at any moment. A slight breeze skidded across the backs of her shoulders, and she tucked her coat closer around her. She hated that her work often took her to walking the streets at night. But she couldn’t predict when patients would need her help.

At the edge of the town square, a figure was leaning against a lamppost. Its warm glow highlighted a man, his legs stretched out in front of him. He tilted his head as she approached, his shadow in the dim light a dark extension from the post.

Dawn skirted away from the man, edging along the shops that lined the square, but the man straightened and stepped toward her. She picked up the pace, but he followed, his lean presence still a shadow in the dark. She picked up her feet and began to run—a man in the dark of night could never be good news—and the thought of the Dollmaker flashed to mind.

“Leave me alone,” she called out. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she tried to push out even breaths. Adrenaline had hit, and she knew it was just her blood circulation preparing her muscles to act.

“Dawn.”

The name rang loud and clear through the night, the word slicing right through her being. She paused, her heart still thumping in her ears. She spun to face him.

“What do you want?”

Gideon emerged from the dark, the light from another lamppost highlighting half his face. It cast a warm glow over his features. His eyes were two dark hollows, matching his cheeks.

“Waiting for you. I asked around and discovered you worked with Dr. Miller. So you area healer, then. I didn’t believe you back at the theater.”

“I’m a doctor, yes.” She let out a shaky breath.

A smile played on the corners of his lips. “And what on earth would make you want to do such a thing?”

Why, indeed. She knew she was an anomaly—that girls her age were more interested in parties and finding wealthy husbands. She’d always been different. Well, since her brother . . .

“And why should that matter to you?” she asked instead.

“Hmm.” He took another step forward. “Answering a question with a question.”

They stood in silence for a moment, another breeze pushing over Dawn’s face.

“Tell me why you’re here, Mr. Hemsworth.”

“Gideon. Call me Gideon.”

“All right. Gideon.” The name felt foreign on her tongue, and she rolled it around in her mouth.

He linked his hands behind his back and slowly began to walk around her. His legs were long and lean, his head tipped downward.

“I need your expertise. I’ve already gone to Dr. Miller. And he won’t help me.”

“Expertise?”

“Medical expertise, yes.”

A myriad of questions rose in her mind, but she clamped them down. “What do you mean?”

Gideon paused his circling and faced Dawn head on. “It’s of a delicate nature. I’m afraid it isn’t very proper.”

Dawn held in a laugh. “If you haven’t noticed, Gideon, I’m not your usual lady.”

Something lit behind his eyes—amusement? Hesitancy? “No, you’re not.” He began his pacing again and said, “I assume you’ve heard about the murders?”

Dawn went cold. “You mean the Dollmaker?”

Gideon nodded. “I’m sure you’ve heard about his . . . tastes.”

She kept still, waiting.

“I need you to do some research for me. It’s of a personal matter.”

“What kind of research?”

He gripped her elbow and pulled her up against the nearest building. A large basket of flowers hung outside a door, their colors muted in the dim light.

“The Dollmaker clearly has medical knowledge or he wouldn’t be able to do what he does. The amputations. The way he works with the human body.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Her pulse picked up.

“I have information on him. I’ve been studying him, and I need someone to help me.”

“Help you with what? I still don’t understand.”

“Help me find him!” he burst out.

Blinking, Dawn edged back against the building. His sudden outburst shook her.

“I think I need to leave,” Dawn said, and she hated the way her voice trembled. She didn’t want him to know he had any power over her.

“Wait.” Gideon held up a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” He heaved out a breath. “I just really need this, all right? The Dollmaker took something of mine and I need to make him pay.”

Dawn eyed him suspiciously. “You mean,” She swallowed. “A girl?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need a medical professional to help me find this man. He’d need medical tools. He’d need medicine—I assume. He’d need—” He broke off. “I’ve tried every avenue, and this is my last thought, my last resort.”

There was a softness in Gideon that Dawn had never seen before. Where he had come off so cold and hardened in her first two encounters with him, he now was standing before her vulnerable, clearly desperate. But she wasn’t going to help him find a mass murderer. Being tied to him socially would cause problems. She couldn’t let consorting with a man ruin her reputation.

“I’m sorry, Gideon,” she said. “I can’t help you. Now if you’ll excuse me.” She brushed past him, but a chill had settled in her bones. The thought of finding that madman made her stomach twist, and she couldn’t believe Gideon had asked her to help with such a thing.

“Wait, please,” Gideon called after her.

But she continued walking, leaving him alone in the dark.

Banging sounded from the front door of her home, and Dawn sat upright in bed. She heard shouting, and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from inside her house. Her feet met the cool floorboards before she quickly grabbed her robe, wrapping it around herself over her thin nightgown. She slid on her slippers and peeked outside her door, peering down the stairs to the frazzled woman standing inside her entryway. She was speaking at an ungodly volume, and Mrs. Cook was waving her down, trying to get the woman to stop. Dawn’s eyebrows shot up as she recognized Frederick’s wife, from the courtyard the other day.

“Where is she?” the woman demanded. She pushed past Mrs. Cook, glancing around the home. “I need her now!”

“It’s six a.m.,” Mrs. Cook said. Her hair was still pinned to her head and her own robe cascaded to the floor. Her facial rash seemed extra red in the lamplight. “Come back at a decent hour.”

“No!” Her eyes flicked around the space before they caught Dawn at the top of the stairs. “There you are! Get down here now. There’s no time to waste.”

Dawn wrapped her robe tighter around her body and slowly moved down the stairs. “Is Frederick all right?” The vision of the tree limb crashing down on him surged to her mind.

“No, he’s not all right. He has a fever higher than the fire in my hearth, and he’s as pale as a ghost. His breaths are labored and . . .” She set a hand to her forehead. “I’m too young to become a widow.”

The woman had said they’d only been married a week.

“Where is he?” Dawn asked.

“At home, of course. I couldn’t find Dr. Miller, so you were my last resort. You have to help me.”

Dawn was beginning to feel like everyone’s last resort. Gideon had said the same words to her.

“Fine,” Dawn said. “Let’s go.” She grabbed her coat off a hanger, along with her silk scarf, which she wrapped tightly around her neck.

Mrs. Cook’s eyes widened in surprise. “You can’t go out like that! In your nightclothes.”

“I highly doubt Frederick will care how I’m dressed,” Dawn said. She nodded to the woman before grabbing her medical bag. “Let’s go.”

Frederick’s wife drove the automobile, which rumbled beneath them. Its headlights illuminated the streets in the dim morning light, and she took the turns as fast as the vehicle would go. Dawn had only ridden in an automobile once, when her father had borrowed one from a neighbor a few years ago.

The sun hadn’t shown its face yet, and billowing gray clouds hung in the sky, the air blowing in the open windows. They approached a building on the outskirts of town, where the structures were packed tightly together, with steps leading up to every door. The car came to a stop, its brakes emitting a loud screech in the silent morning.

Frederick’s wife jumped out of the car and rushed up the front steps, Dawn following behind.

The inside of the home was similar to Dawn’s in layout—stairs leading up to the second level, a small main foyer opening up to other rooms—if a bit nicer. Where cracks and peeling brocade wallpaper lined Dawn’s walls, Frederick’s home was polished and pristine.

“In here,” Frederick’s wife said and led her into the downstairs back bedroom.

Frederick lay on a small wrought-iron bed with a striped mattress, his body seeming to have shrunk to half its size since she’d last seen him. No longer was he the lively man that Dawn had met in the courtyard but a shell of that person. Kerosene lamps burned on the side tables, casting an eerie glow on Frederick’s small frame.

His thin chest rose and fell beneath his open white shirt, wheezing breaths echoing through the room.

“It seems to get worse every hour,” his wife said.

Dawn turned to her and asked, “What is your name?”

“It’s Gertrude,” the woman said, wiping a tear from her eye. “Can you do anything?”

Dawn set a hand on her arm. “Gertrude, everything is going to be okay.” She moved over to the bed and gently unbuttoned Frederick’s shirt further. He stirred, his eyes glazed, barely focusing on Dawn.

“My savior,” he choked out, wheezing again. A faint smile lifted his face.

The skin on Frederick’s abdomen was a deep purple, a clear indication of internal hemorrhaging. Dawn had been right. She set a hand on his sweaty forehead. He was warm. Really warm. Dawn placed two fingertips underneath the line of his stubbled jaw, feeling his racing heartbeat.

“He’s been vomiting,” Gertrude said. “And every time he does, he curls up in pain. I have a maid, Clara, who says she has some healing knowledge, but she hasn’t been of any help.”

“We could use some wild geranium or birthroot,” Dawn said. “That would slow the bleeding.” But Dawn knew it would only slow the inevitable. She knew the look of death when she saw it. There was a scent heavy in the air, and it settled in her nose like poison. “But I think we should just use some laudanum. Make him comfortable.” Her voice caught at the end. She didn’t believe in using opiates, but she kept some in her bag just in case—for incidents like this.

Gertrude nodded, clearly not understanding what Dawn meant. “All right. Yes. Make him comfortable.”

Dawn removed the small bottle from her bag and uncorked it, placing it to Frederick’s mouth. His lips trembled, but he was able to swallow, his skin a sick shade of white.

Gertrude hung in the back, her face as pale as her husband’s. “Now what?”

“Get me a cold washrag.” Another attempt to make him comfortable.

Gertrude bustled over to a washbasin, dipped a rag into the water, and brought it over. Dawn spread it across his forehead, and he moaned. The two women stood over Frederick’s body, Dawn wondering how to tell Gertrude that her husband was about to die—that there was nothing she could do—and Gertrude with her hands covering her face, tears still in her eyes.

She hated feeling helpless. She hated her lack of knowledge. If only she knew more. If only she had read more books, studied harder, maybe she’d know what to do. But she was certain Dr. Miller would be as helpless as she was.

Dawn zoned in on Frederick’s body as she patted the washcloth over his face and neck. She could almost see the blood flowing through his veins. Earlier this week he had been full of life, full of color, and it had been taken away from him in less than a heartbeat. None of them knew how long they had. How fragile life was, like petals on a flower, blooming just long enough to show their beauty before it was too late. She could tell Frederick was a good man, and she suddenly wanted to know everything about him. She’d always forced herself not to care about her patients—she viewed them as specimens needing to be healed. It was too hard to think of them as people. But seeing Frederick lying there, she wondered what kind of void he would leave in this world. Did he have family? Would they miss him? What were his talents? Would he be forgotten?

It wasn’t fair that death was inevitable. The thought that everyone had an expiration date sent a chill through her. When would she face the same fate?

Dawn and Gertrude stood over his body for a long while—long enough for the morning light to slant through the window. The sunlight streamed through the curtains, shifting over Frederick’s sickly face, moving as if in slow motion, just like time passing, between them.

Just as Dawn’s mind started to drift into a numb haze, Frederick’s body suddenly stiffened and was wracked with shakes. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, the whites showing, his mouth open. A seizure. The bed rattled as his entire body thrashed back and forth. Dawn’s heart spiked and she rushed over, turning him onto his side, pinning him to the bed.

Gertrude started screaming, her hands hovering over her husband. “Do something! You have to do something!”

“I’m trying!” Dawn cried. “The best we can do is wait it out!”

“What about that herb?” Gertrude yelled. “The birthroot or whatever it was. Do you have it?”

“Yes, it’s in my bag, But—”

“Give it to him!”

Dawn shook her head. As much as she wanted to help Frederick, she knew he only had a short time left. “Gertrude, you need to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?” Anger lined her face before fear hovered behind her expression. She threw herself over her husband as Frederick continued to thrash on the bed. Dawn still held him down. “You witch!” she yelled. “You did this to him!”

Dawn faltered, her hold loosening.

“You were there the day the limb fell. And now he’s possessed with the devil. Look at him. And now you’re refusing to help him!”

“No,” Dawn choked out. “That’s not true. Your husband is hemorrhaging. It’s too late to save him. He—”

“Help!” Gertrude cried. She sprinted to the door and called out into the hallway. “Help! Clara, call the authorities.” She whirled on Dawn. “I’ll have you put away for this. I’ll have them lock you away until you will regret what you’ve done here.”

Dawn glanced back and forth from Gertrude to her flailing husband. Her breathing sped up, her mind raced, but she wouldn’t back away from the bed. She had taken an oath to help others in need, and even though Gertrude was threatening her, she wouldn’t leave Frederick alone.

Footsteps sounded from upstairs, beating in time with her heart. She peeked down at Frederick again, and his body stilled. His face slackened, and his breaths stopped. His eyes stayed open, and everything paused.

The heavy scent of death settled on the air, suffocating her, filling her lungs. Gertrude was still yelling, but Dawn barely heard it. Her voice was muffled behind the pulse hammering in her head.

“I . . .”

The footsteps pounded faster.

“Help!” Gertrude screamed.

Dawn snapped to attention and everything zoomed back into focus. Gertrude’s body guarding the door. Frederick lifeless in bed. The rushing footsteps distinct. She hurried over to the door and shoved Gertrude aside. The woman cried out, still yelling, and Dawn bolted down the hall. A maid, who Dawn assumed was Clara, raced down the stairs, but Dawn threw open the front door and hurled herself outside. Fresh air attacked her face, clearing her mind, and she frantically took in her surroundings. Everything was silent. No sign of anyone nearby.

Dawn took off down the street, not caring that she was in her nightclothes and slippers. She would run home in her bare feet if she had to.