Boneseeker (2 page)

“Coming, father.” Sweat breaks on my brow.

Stop it. He has no recollection of your feelings for her.

Dr. Earnest lowers his head, plunging headlong into the black smoke and is instantly swallowed.

I step to follow, but father restrains my forearm. “
Do you see
why you are here now, Henry?”

I struggle to keep my anger in check. “Why didn’t you tell me she was here? All those months, battling over my future—you were dead-set against this appointment.”

“I was. It was Holmes. Once he caught wind of your interest, there was no throwing him off—he was relentless.

You know how very disappointed I am that you’ve chosen…antiquities—”

“It’s more accurately forensic anthropology.”

Father’s eyes roll. “
Such an elaborate name for dead things
. Anyway, chosen it over medicine—but at least it’s proving useful. Now that you’re here Holmes will stop his incessant worrying about her safety. He’s normally insufferable, but since she left, he’s
intolerable.
”

Even I know an idle Holmes to be a self-destructive Holmes.

I nod in agreement and step into the smoke, following the trail of barking coughs.

“Arabella, where are you, girl?” Father calls from behind me. His tone is almost jovial; as if we’re headed to a bloody picnic rather than weaving our way through this acrid smelling smoke.

I step into the large laboratory; I squint and finally make out her small frame, barely visible through the dissipating black clouds.

She turns, and I marvel. Her face is a mask of calm; her dainty fingers circle a full flask of bubbling red elixir.

Bits of her hair have escaped its tidy bun and now free-fall in shocking red waves about her face. One brazen, challenging eye peers out through the mess of hair.

Between the red shock of her mane and the black soot streaking her face, it’s as if I am staring down a Bengal tiger.

I take a deep, steeling breath, and my chest sears—hitching into a coughing fit.

Brilliant.

She clears her throat, blue eyes scrutinizing her superior. Her chin turns up in defiance. “Dr. Earnest. I was…experimenting—”

“You—” Earnest sucks in, his chest bloating in outrage. The result is a similar hacking fit, racking his old body in half. “Arabella. You know b-better, ever since the last incident.”

“Yes, I remember.”

The smoke is thinning and my eyes tick up and down, analyzing Arabella’s lab.

Although I won’t join father in medicine or his adventures with Holmes, I cannot help my upbringing. I’ve been indoctrinated to drink in every minute detail of every place I’ve ever stepped foot.

Bones.

Bones are everywhere, as if a graveyard platoon marched in and surrendered for display.

Patellas, femurs, ulnas, metacarpals…and skulls from both animal and humankind in various states of skeletal reconstruction, litter the walls and floor.

I look up.
And the air
.

A half-assembled, bony falcon hovers overhead, dangling from the ceiling.

All that’s missing is a skeletal prey clutched in its beak.

A glass case, looking distinctly out of place among the dead, draws my attention to the room’s center. Brilliant yellow, blue, orange and black bodies are strewn throughout.

It’s crammed with butterflies; their vibrant black and blue wings contrast against the surrounding blanched-bones like a rainbow amidst a bleak thunderstorm.

Pins stick through their thoraxes, their wings spread in perfect display. Each one sports a label beneath in Arabella’s untidy scrawl, proclaiming its genus.

Arabella’s stare leaves Dr. Earnest’s face, and she squints, finally registering our presence. Her eyes focus on my father and turn cautious.

Her lips twist up in a tentative smile.

He strides toward her, unflustered. Not unobserving, though, I am sure. My father misses nothing. He will have catalogued Arabella’s response in his Dewey-Decimalized brain.

“My darling! It has been far too long.” Father’s arms wrap around Arabella, folding her in. She winces.

He pulls back, leaving his hands on her shoulders. His eyes rove quickly, evaluating her for injuries.

Her mouth twitches in amusement. Amazingly, she isn’t fooled—she knows he’s examining her. Knows my father better than I realized.

He can normally charm a nun out of her habit.

“John. So good of you to come. How is father?”

“Worried about you, but no longer retired, so tolerable.”

They share a knowing laugh.

“Naturally, you remember my son, Henry?” Father raises his arm in presentation.

Arabella’s blue eyes flick to mine. My stomach lurches.

“Of course. How could I
ever
forget Henry?”

For pity’s sake. Control, man.

I nod stiffly. “Arabella. Pleasure to see you. You’ve…grown.”

She laughs, so loud and bawdy that Dr. Earnest squirms and drops his eyes.

“Yes, children do just that. The last time I saw you—you were headed for boarding school.”

“And you.”

Her gaze drops with the mention of the school.

Father clears his throat. “Yes, well, your similar upbringing has bred two adventurers. Apparently Henry shares your interests. He will be working for the museum as well. Searching for medical oddities. An antiquarian.”

“Will he?” Her expression molds into a most peculiar glare. Almost adversarial.

“Don’t forget Henry’s skills with the wax replicas,” Earnest interjects, rubbing his hands together. “We were fortunate to secure him before the Smithsonian swooped in to claim him.”

Arabella’s eyebrows rise in interest, but the sound of someone approaching shifts her attention.

Footfalls echo through the smoke.

“What is the meaning of this?” a voice booms.

Everyone jumps in a communal start. Except father. He straightens up, muscles tightened, ever the soldier.

His knuckles whiten as he strangles the top of his cane.

Dr. Earnest is visibly flustered. “Dr. Stygian. Arabella had an experiment go awry. Again.”

Dr. Stygian towers a head taller than every man in the room. The hair on the back of my neck prickles.

Odd?

“This! This is what I mean, Earnest. “She—” he jabs an accusing finger at Arabella, “she is impulsive and arrogant and
unnatural.
She should not be considered for such an important expedition. A woman is much better suited for curation.”

Father steps forward, staring Stygian full on despite the fact he’s a head taller. “Sir. You’ve forgotten innovative and cunning and possesses her father’s talent for problem solving. Is this expedition not about bones?”

“Of course.”

“I dare venture no one on this eastern seaboard could match Miss Holmes’s knowledge of bones.”

“Arabella is a genius,” I add helpfully.

I dare to glance her way. And promptly wish I hadn’t.

Arabella’s face is tinged purple with indignation.

She stomps forward, closing the distance in seconds.

With a toss of her head, the tumult of curls flips from her face. Her blue eyes are vicious. And beautiful.

“I am a better scientist at twenty than half your staff of port-swilling, armchair-philosophizing, smoking-jacketed morons. All debate, no action.”

Earnest gasps behind me. My arms tense, Stygian’s eyes go wild and bright.

Father puts a placating hand on her shoulder. “Arabella….”

She shrugs it off.

“John, you know it to be true.”

His fingers land back on her shoulder and
squeeze
. “Arabella, decorum, remember? Surely all those lessons we taught in the parlor have not been forgotten?”

She averts her glare and her chest heaves, taking in huge, calming breaths.

Stygian’s color rises to rival Arabella’s; his black eyes murderous.

He speaks over her head, as if ignoring a naughty child’s behavior.
“Besides her obvious impulsive nature, she is
a woman
. Not all the men on board the steamship shall be museum employees, and I cannot vouch for their characters. She will be in danger.”

Father’s responding smile is wry. Arabella’s head rises and their eyes lock in unspoken communication.

Father turns to Stygian. “You need not worry about her safety. Arabella is not like other girls.”

“Yes, I am wholly aware,” he spits, viper-like. His eyes narrow to slits as his stare bores onto her, dripping venom.

A protective surge flares in my chest and my teeth grind together.

Father interjects, “Henry will also be on the voyage. I know he would be willing to assume responsibility for her safety.”

I nod, stand ramrod straight and square my shoulders. We’re almost nose to nose as he unleashes the black look on me.

“Is this true, Mr. Henry Watson?”

“Of course.”

Arabella’s jaw pops open and snaps shut, as my father claws her shoulder.

“We will convene on this matter in a week’s time. Put it to a vote with the museum council.”

Stygian spins on his boot heel and exits the lab, eyeing the splintered door as he rounds the corner.

I exhale, relief flooding through me.

I turn, and smile at Arabella. “What went wrong? With your experiment?”

Arabella is not relieved. Arabella is trembling all over.

She whirls, heading for the hallway. Yelling over her shoulder, “I. Don’t. Need. Protection.
From any man
.”

She stomps out the door in the opposite direction as Stygian. And is gone.

The lingering black smoke is the only proof she was ever present.

All three of us stare at the spot she’s vacated.

“Boldness, be my friend,” father murmurs.

I keep my gaze straight ahead, but can’t help my smile. “It will have to be.”

Beliefs, shaken

Bella’s Laboratory

Arabella

I stiffen as footsteps draw close, echoing down the hall. My eyes dart around the state of blackened, sooty chaos that was once my lab. Two hours later, at least the smoke has cleared.

I extract a tiny femur from the box of bones, spinning it round through my fingers and sigh. “At least the specimens were spared.”

I force my eyes from the partially erected skeleton and toward the entry.

Footsteps echo off the hallway’s high ceilings and stop, as if the visitor is pausing.

His tall form steps through the doorframe, overcoat drenched from the downpour lambasting my windows.

Henry
. My heart does a strange little flip in my chest, resulting in a cartwheeling rhythm of beats.

I’ve never been apt with words. I think in pictures, as my father before me.

Since my unusual childhood, my mind visualizes my feelings as the organ of my heart, sequestered in a metal box. Its outside covered with countless locks and bolts.

To keep everyone out
. To love is dangerous.

It now throbs against the confines of its chamber.

Henry removes his hat, spinning it in a self-conscious circle in his hands. His hair is darker than when we were children. It was almost white-blonde. And his eyes….

“Your eyes. I don’t remember them being that color, Henry.”

His eyebrows rise. “Still blue. Like my heart.”

I roll my eyes. “
Please
, Henry. I know you, remember. Or at least I did. Your poetry will have no effect on me.”

I flush.

I’ve done it again. I can never discern polite conversation from taboo. I speak my thoughts, directly. Which is why I lasted all of four months at boarding school. And why I was expelled for fighting.

Practically the societal kiss-of-death for a woman.

Henry’s mouth curls up on the sides into a closed lip smirk. “Poetry has no effect? Pity, that. I find it most effective with the female persuasion. Arabella, you’ve changed quite a bit, as well….”

Henry’s hands fidget and the motion triggers images.

My mind time-travels. A tinier, happier version of us darts through my memory and across the English countryside, dirty and mischievous.

I’m instantly at ease. It’s as if we’ve never parted. Our four year estrangement melting away.

How easily I forgive him. Too easily.

I see it too, in his eyes.

Same old Henry.

Except even larger and strikingly more handsome when last I saw him. My mind replays our final goodbye as he stepped onto the boat, bound for boarding school. The very-rare pain that had gripped my heart.

He steps closer and gently wraps his fingers around my elbow and the images flicker away.

Little shocks of excitement spark up my arm, and the heat spreads as my flush deepens. My face might catch fire at any second.

His voice drops an octave, his face becoming all seriousness. “Listen, I know you were offended by father’s offer of my protection. He was merely placating Stygian. I haven’t forgotten your mind, your brilliance. You thrashed me in almost every subject, so please, friends again?”

I am staring.
Stop staring
. The words,
spontaneous combustion
, keep popping in my head.

I shiver and hope he doesn’t notice.

My mind flicks to our singular kiss…which changed everything.

I’d grown to detest that fateful kiss as it had wholly altered our comfortable, easy friendship into…something else entirely. Ironically, the coming together of the kiss, kept us awkwardly apart till the day he stepped on the boat. Wasting our final days together.

I shake my head, banning the memory. “Yes, Henry. I’d like to be friends again. I thought we still were.”

He smiles. “Good.” His eyes pick through the piles of bones. “Tell me more particulars about the expedition. I have only heard the basics. It’s been a whirlwind since our arrival.”

My mind sharpens. The blazing fire of obsession burning off all other thought.

I think of father, huddled over a singular piece of paper, unmoving for hours, working through a problem.

I cannot help my smile.

Henry smiles back; his eyes squint playfully as he bites his bottom lip.

I catch my breath, distracted.

This is a first
. Once aboard the obsession juggernaut, I never swerve or falter. A deductive automaton. Just like father.