The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(50)

“This house…this life…the trees and the hybrids and oh, even things like this book and my fan,” she said, almost pleadingly. “What would I do without them?”

“Yes, I suppose it would be difficult to purchase fans with ivory handles if Mr. Lizalde stopped paying your bills,” he replied, angrily. He was about to idiotically bare himself to her, and she was thinking about her fan.

“You are horrid.”

“I am. And I should probably leave,” he said, making a motion as if to stand.

But she caught his arm and pulled him down. “You judge me unkindly, but you give me no options. I don’t understand what I’ve ever done to deserve this treatment.”

“Let go, Loti,” he said tiredly.

She did. He stood up, took a few leisurely steps, and she stood up, too, clutching her book between her hands. “I hate you! You’re awful!” she yelled and tossed the book in his direction. It hit the wall.

Montgomery turned around. She stood in the middle of the library and was pressing a hand against her stomach, looking down.

“You might want to control yourself. If you destroy that book, I have no doubt it’ll be discounted from my wages, which I already lack, seeing as I’m being punished,” he said, and he expected her to throw her fan at him next.

But she was standing there, not looking at him. Her hands trembled.

“Carlota?” he asked, moving closer to her.

She didn’t look well. Suddenly, she stumbled into his arms and held on to him, trying to regain her balance. “I can’t breathe,” she said. Her eyes, they seemed to gleam, they looked so yellow. Not amber, but gold.

The doctor had told him that when Carlota was younger she often had terrible fits and she spent most of her days in bed, sick and weak. But although Montgomery knew Carlota sometimes had to rest and that when she became agitated she might feel light-headed, she’d never had an attack he could remember. That was what her medication was for. It kept her safe.

“Montgomery,” she whispered. Her voice was at the edge of breaking, and she was digging her nails into his arm with such force it made him wince.

“Give me a minute, sweetheart,” he said, taking her in his arms like one might swoop up a bride at the threshold because she was about to collapse. “We’ll get your father. It’ll be a minute. For God’s sake, only a minute.”





Chapter 15


    Carlota


At first she heard nothing. It was only the pressure of Montgomery’s arms around her, lifting Carlota, holding her. She could perceive his heart beating and the blood drifting through his veins. She didn’t hear the heart thumping, it was a vibration; a noiseless drum. Her chin was pressed against his shoulder blade and she could smell him. There was the soap he used to wash his face each morning, the laundered shirt that had been hung to dry the previous day, the scent of his sweat, and his body beneath all that.

He muttered something; she did not know what it was. Her head was a flash of red and yellow.

Then came her father’s voice, loud and clear, the tinkle of metal and glass, and the pillow beneath her head. Montgomery had stepped away. She couldn’t feel his pulse anymore. But he was still there, somewhere in the room. She could hear his heart. She almost wanted to ask him why it was so loud.

“Pass me that flask.”

The syringe bit into her arm, and there was the pressure of her father’s hand against her own. Distantly she heard the cry of a bird. She wondered if she might catch it if she was quick.

She turned her head. On the shelf sat her old dolls, staring back at her with glass eyes. She felt as if she were going back in time, to a childhood that was a cloud of sickness and pain, now half forgotten.

Then there came the cold compress against her forehead, and she breathed in. The minutes passed. When she opened her eyes, her father was still sitting by the bed.

“Papa,” she said.

“There you are,” her father said, and he squeezed her hand. “Have a sip of water.”

He grabbed a pitcher and filled a glass. Carlota sat up and obediently drank the water. Her hands trembled, but she spilled only a couple of drops. She handed him back the glass.

“Daughter, you gave me a bit of a fright.”

“I’m sorry, papa. I don’t know what happened.”

“We’ve talked about this. I’ve told you to be calm and avoid excitement. It’s simply the medication. It needs to be adjusted.”

“I lost my temper. I threw a book,” she muttered.

“Why? What agitated you?”

“I was arguing with Montgomery. But I haven’t had a relapse in years, papa. I don’t even remember what it was like being sick,” she said, and she really didn’t. That cloud of pain was terribly distant, and her clearest memories were of her father at her side, comforting her, lifting her from her suffering.

But her body seemed to remember. Her body resonated with an ancient ache, as if there were scars beneath her skin, unseen, which now rose, like mushrooms after the rain.

“Perhaps you’ll learn your lesson and quarrel less with him. You are no longer a child to be throwing tantrums.”

“I know,” she whispered, and she recalled her fight and all the things Montgomery had said. He was awful! But he was right about one thing: she had not asked her father about the hybrids, even though she’d promised them she would.