Page 49 of The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
The words were hardly comforting. She didn’t dare open her eyes, for fear of what she might find. Perhaps these people thought her dead, or asleep. Best not to give herself away if she could help it.
The next voice was unfamiliar, but spoke with a crisp, upper-class accent. “Come now, it was just a light knock to the head. She’ll be fine. After all, we wouldn’t want to jeopardize that extraordinary mind of hers.”
“If you don’t let her go, I’ll tell the captain of police.”
This was met by grim laughter. “Hodsdon, I assure you that the captain already is aware. Who do you think looks the other way and allows us to operate with impunity?”
Officer Hodsdon. Her elation at recognizing a familiar voice quickly faded. How did he know about her? Had word gotten out after the séance? Why was he collaborating with these vile men?
She couldn’t play dead any longer. Tabby struggled to open her eyes, but they didn’t want to cooperate. Her legs were equally heavy, and with building panic, she realized that she was bound to the table. She might not be dead, but she was well and truly rooted.
Her efforts to free herself must have attracted the attention of the men because their conversation broke off, and there was the sound of footsteps on a bare wooden floor.
“Here she comes,” said the unfamiliar voice, coming closer.
When she was able to make her sluggish tongue cooperate, her words were hoarse and small. “Where am I?”
“A safe place. A place of learning and enlightenment.”
These cryptic words did nothing to reassure her. When her eyes finally opened and came into focus, she was looking up at a man with a neat brown beard, spectacles, and a white coat. Dr. Jameson. She could just make out the rows of steeply stacked seats rising up around her, the kerosene lamps dotting the walls. She was in some kind of theater or auditorium. “What do you want with me?”
Dr. Jameson gave her an almost pitying look. “You’re a clever girl. You know exactly why you’re here.”
She did know. She knew with a cold and dreadful certainty she’d had since she was a scared and malnourished twelve-year-old stealing into the cemetery in the middle of the night. Her abilities made her valuable. Men could make good money off a girl who had a power like hers and no one to protect her.
“You’re a difficult girl to find, Miss Cooke. When Officer Hodsdon said he knew of a young woman with clairvoyant powers, it was only a matter of looking in the right places. And your aunt was very helpful in that regard. Of course, she wanted compensation for the loss of income she would have made with you, which was easily arranged. Imagine my surprise when you walked right into my office!”
Tabby’s heart dropped. She could not be surprised that her aunt had betrayed her, but she had thought Officer Hodsdon an upstanding young man. She should have heeded her instincts the first time he came to call on them: police could not be trusted.
Dr. Jameson followed her gaze around the empty medical theater and broke into an unnerving smile. “Incredible, isn’t it? But no, Miss Bellefonte, the slab is not your fate. You are too valuable alive. For the longest time it was your aunt and uncle who provided us with the names of the recently dead. Clients would come to them seeking communication, and in turn your aunt would alert us of their loved ones’ deaths and direct us to the body. But sometimes it would be days later, weeks even, before an eligible corpse could be located, and of course by then it would be too far gone for our purposes. With you, on the other hand, you can just take a peek in your mind, and alert us right away when someone dies, before they even have been carted off to the morgue.”
The way his beady eyes bore into her sent chills running down her spine. He looked at her as if she was plated in pure carat gold.
“Yes, yes,” a new voice cut in. Tabby strained to lift her head to see who it was but they remained just out of view. The voice that spoke was cool and even, and made Tabby’s skin crawl. “That’s all true, but you lack imagination, Dr. Jameson.”
“I’m a medical man, Mr. Whitby. I do not bend to the whims of imagination.”
Mr. Whitby answered this with a grunt and then moved into view, his steely blue eyes looking coolly down at Tabby. “Miss Cooke—or, excuse me, I believe it’s really Miss Bellefonte—can do so much more for our cause. Imagine, if you will, having a line of communication to the dead. Imagine how invaluable it will be to be able to confer with the spirit during the reanimation process. The things they could tell us! Why, just think of all the crimes that Officer Hodsdon here could solve as sergeant if he could simply ask the dead who it was who killed them.”
Reanimation. What a cold, terrible word, as if life were no more than a switch that could be thrown on and off.
“Like how you murdered Rose Hammond?” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Mr. Whitby’s lips twitched. “Sometimes we must do regrettable things for the greater good. Just think of the advancements we could make for all of mankind.”
He had said something to that effect before, but Tabby did not believe that his motives were really so altruistic. How had Rose’s death benefited anyone besides Mr. Whitby? Had he killed her simply for the purpose of framing Caleb and thus leaving the path to the business wide-open? Or was there some even darker reason? Besides, if the greater good required the death of young women, then how could that be considered progress?
But Tabby wasn’t finished. She might die here, might never rise from this table again. Mr. Whitby’s admission of guilt could be the closest thing to justice Rose would have. “She was an innocent woman! If you wanted the business so badly you might have just asked Caleb. He certainly didn’t want it. But instead you murdered her.”
Mr. Whitby was so still, so quiet, that she wondered if he hadn’t heard her. Then slowly, he turned, his eyes blazing with fire.
“You understand little of the contents of men’s hearts,” he said in a hiss.
But he was wrong; she knew all too well what speaking to the dead could mean for their experiments in reanimation. The power that men like Whitby would wield if they could bring back the dead was almost too staggering to comprehend. The wealthy—who were already so afraid of dying prematurely and losing all their worldly riches—would pay exorbitant prices to live again, perhaps forever. It was all mankind had ever dreamed about, to be immortal. And Tabby was the key to the most precious treasure box that someone like Mr. Whitby could imagine. No, she understood more of the contents of men’s black hearts than he ever would.
“And what if I refuse to cooperate?”
Mr. Whitby gave a bark of laughter and looked genuinely amused. “You think yourself very brave, do you not, Miss Cooke? Well, I think that you are naive, for I have some information that would prove very damaging if it were to be known.”
