The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(29)

“Bet he screams and makes a fuss again,” K’an said. She was a lean, long-limbed creature with tawny hair that best resembled a monkey, but there was also something wolfish about her long snout.

“I’ll take a bite off your tail,” Aj Kaab grumbled.

“Now, don’t quarrel,” Carlota said, shaking her head and touching Aj Kaab’s arm. “Open wide, please.”

Aj Kaab obeyed and showed her his maw. The teeth were razor-sharp and plentiful, but she did not hesitate, her fingers sliding against the jaw, then gently poking at a tender spot.

She found the tooth that had been bothering him. The difficulty was not in extracting it, but in diminishing the pain. For this, she must employ ether, which she dabbed on a handkerchief. Since she’d conducted this operation several times before, she was done quickly, and the long tooth was placed on a dish. Then she packed the empty tooth socket with iodoform-soaked gauze. It wouldn’t take long for a new tooth to grow.

“How are you, K’an?” she asked. “Do you need anything?”

“My wrist is sore,” K’an said.

“Bah! Bandage it tight and she’ll be fine in a day,” Aj Kaab said. “It’s always the same thing, sprained wrist, sprained ankle. K’an is made of glass.”

“And you’re smelly and burly and not nice,” K’an replied primly.

“I’m as big as I need to be,” Aj Kaab said, proudly puffing his chest.

“I’ll take a look,” Carlota said.

The bones of some hybrids were brittle, and although Carlota suspected it was a sprained wrist, it might be a fracture, and the worst thing in that case would be to forego a splint. Her father said even a trained physician might mistake a Pouteau-Colles fracture for a sprain of the wrist, and the hybrids’ peculiar anatomy and fur made it harder to make certain diagnoses, yet she had never failed to determine the proper course of treatment.

In the end, Carlota decided K’an had sprained her wrist after all, and a leather support would keep the wrist sufficiently at rest.

Once her tasks were concluded, Cachito poured water from the pitcher into the bowl, and Carlota washed her hands again.

From the corner of her eye she saw Montgomery walk by, who’d risen early and was also about his chores. She pretended she did not see him. He’d made fun of her the previous day, and she feared he’d tease her once more.

The green-eyed one, he’d said. And how had he known which of the gentlemen she favored? But he’d been right. She liked Eduardo’s eyes.

Carlota gathered her medical instruments and headed back into the house. In the kitchen, her father’s tray was ready. Some days, Carlota cut a flower and offered it to her father along with his toast and his jam. It was a pretty detail. But she’d been pressed for time, so on this occasion she simply took her smile with her.

She walked with quick, steady steps and knocked once before letting herself inside the room. Carefully she placed the tray on the bedside table and pulled the white curtains aside, opening the tall French doors to let a breeze in and also to offer a view of the greenery of the courtyard. At nights, one could stand in the courtyard and look up at a rectangle of night sky and survey the stars, but in the daytime the sun bathed the ivy growing on the walls and made the decorative tiles of the fountain glisten. Light, air, and water mixed together to produce a realm of enchantment.

“I’ve brought you your breakfast,” she said. “And don’t tell me you are not hungry.”

“I am not,” her father said, sitting up.

His mustache was white, and his dark hair had lost most of its color. When he moved now he was slower, though there was still determined strength in his body, which had always been as solid as a mahogany tree. He didn’t like it when Carlota fussed too much around him, offended by her caring gestures. He liked to point out he was no invalid and to send her on her way when she grew too sticky-sweet.

“Have you had your medicine?”

“I have, which is why my stomach is upset and I don’t feel hungry.”

“I’ve made you tea to better settle your stomach,” she said and carefully poured him a cup.

Her father smiled as he sipped the beverage. She took out the clothes he’d wear that day from the armoire and placed them on the back of a chair. The pretty blond woman in the oval painting smiled at Carlota. She wished she could cover it with a piece of cloth; it never ceased to unnerve her.

“You are good to me, Carlota,” he said. He was in fine spirits that morning.

She smiled as she brushed her father’s jacket, her hands careful against the fabric. She liked him to look poised and perfect.

“What did you think of the Lizalde boys?” he asked.

She grabbed a tiny white hair, stubbornly adhering to the lapels of the jacket, and pulled it away. “I don’t have an opinion of them.”

“It would be nice if they stayed for a few days. You’re so alone here.”

“I’m not. I have my work in the laboratory.”

For a few years now Dr. Moreau had allowed Carlota to enter the antechamber and the laboratory more often, to assist him with his tasks. He had not forgotten that incident long before when they’d let a hybrid loose, but his attacks of gout were coming more often, and he needed her. Dr. Moreau tried all matter of remedies to ease his pain, cycling through lithium, colchicine, calomel, and morphine, but there was no easy cure for his malady.