The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(83)

She had to clench her fists tight and close her eyes.

It scared her, this capacity for strength, for violence. It also awed her.

Once inside her room Carlota divested herself of her clothes and stood before the mirror, naked—like Eve, like the painting in the chapel—and examined her body with the kind of care she had never examined it with before. She felt the muscles under her fingertips and the pulse beating at her wrists; she observed her eyes, glowing, in the semidarkness.

Her father had taught her to be meek. But her hands could pluck flowers or hurt a man.

Did she wish to hurt? No. Not Montgomery, not her father, not even Hernando Lizalde. Yet she might. And how strange it was to think of this possibility.

There were stories Ramona told of wizards who could change their skins and fly through the night. But Carlota was not like one of them. She couldn’t shed her skin at will; it was an uncontrollable transformation that rippled through her body.

It terrified her. She terrified herself. She changed into her nightgown and slid beneath the bedsheets, hiding like a child might hide from ghosts or chaneques.

On the fourth day after her father was seized with apoplexy, Lizalde and his men came. They made such a racket that even without her finely tuned ear, Carlota would have been able to hear them.

She was with Montgomery in the kitchen when they arrived, and he quickly walked out in search of his rifle. She followed him, clasping her left wrist with her right hand and pressing it against her chest, and for a minute or two she didn’t know what to say. Then she let her hands fall by her sides and breathed in.

“We don’t want them thinking we mean them any harm,” she said, practicing the calm she wished him to also convey. “Please, bring them to the sitting room. I asked you not to shoot before we have a chance to speak. Remember that.”

“Very well,” he said.

Lupe, who had also heard the noise, the banging and hollering, came into the sitting room and stood next to Carlota.

“Lupe, you should go to my father’s room. He might need you, and in case the men prove intractable you’d have a chance to run away,” Carlota said.

“I came back to be with you, Loti.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

But Lupe wouldn’t move, and soon Montgomery returned, and with him came the Lizaldes and four of their men. Montgomery did not look uneasy, despite being outnumbered and the fact that they had apparently taken his rifle.

She saw Eduardo and her hands shook, but she clasped them together. Hernando Lizalde had a bandage on his cheek and glared at her. Isidro was not too pleased to see her, either.

“Fetch Moreau,” Hernando Lizalde ordered her. “We’ll need him here.”

“My father has taken ill. He is in bed and cannot rise.”

“How convenient.”

“If you wish me to take you to him, I will. But I do not lie,” she said, her voice still calm.

“Then let him lie in his sickbed, if that’s what he wants. I don’t care if he wishes to hide under the covers. We’ve come for my hybrids. Round them up.”

“They’ve left.”

“What do you mean they’ve left? How could they?”

“I opened the doors for them.”

“You better point me in their direction, then,” the irate man said. This time he had brought no riding crop with him, but his voice was a whip. “That is my valuable property you’ve released into the wild.”

“My father has a little money, which I can tender to you if you’ll leave us all at peace.”

Hernando Lizalde let out an irritated grunt. “Whatever pathetic sum Moreau has in his bank account cannot compare with the investment I’ve made. This is my house, these are my furnishings, and those hybrids remain my property.”

She glanced down, her lips pinched tight. “I cannot help you,” she said.

“I’ll beat the answer out of you.”

She said nothing to that and remained motionless, her hands knit together as if in prayer. This seemed to incense the man further, and he began swearing at her.

“Whore,” he said. “Filthy beast.”

“Damn your tongue, you pig!” Montgomery yelled and surged forward, fist in the air.

But Lizalde’s men leaped after him, and one of them swung Montgomery’s rifle against his back with such brutal force she thought the weapon might break. Montgomery let out a strangled cry and fell down.

“Don’t!” she said, but they ignored her. Two men had grabbed Montgomery and hauled him to his feet while a third one punched him in the stomach. Isidro seemed amused. She looked to Eduardo, who was observing the scene, impassive.

“Sir, please!”

He stared at her, green eyes sharp. “This is not necessary. Perhaps I might speak to her in private and find out more about the situation?” Eduardo asked, raising his voice against the tumultuous struggle.

The men stopped their beating and turned in Hernando Lizalde’s direction as if awaiting a cue. Montgomery glared at Eduardo, muttering a curse under his breath, and then he spat.

“Fine. Come on, out, all of you. Out,” Hernando Lizalde said, waving a hand.

“Should I stay?” Lupe whispered in her ear.

“No, it’s fine. Be careful,” she whispered back, squeezing her hand.