Episode 3: The Resurrectionist

THE SCIENTIST: Experiment 31E, supplemental notes.

Date: October 3, 1843.

For the past couple weeks, I have attempted to analyze this panacea Solomon and Rahul gave me. I had hoped this might be the missing ingredient for my formula, but unfortunately, I have been unable to test it as part of my experiment because I cannot identify one of its components.

I placed a drop from the vial into my Separator. That particular invention of mine requires a significant amount of power to run, but it is my best chance at being able to distinguish the individual parts of formulas like this. The Boy had to work harder than usual to stoke the boiler—he coughed quite a bit from the excessive smoke—but his work was sufficient. The Separator identified almost everything, but it can only identify things I have programmed it to. One ingredient eluded it. If this unknown component is something I have never encountered before, I can only guess at its source. It seems to be organic, some form of vegetation, but what type I cannot tell.

Without understanding the complete composition of this panacea, I fear to add it to my formula in case there may be an adverse reaction.

There is something here, though. There is something…

When I first touched the vial, I felt…so very odd. I have not succeeded in recreating that feeling, however. After that first time, when I grasped it with bare hands, I have subsequently only touched the vial with gloves, keeping my skin covered. I have not experienced that same…bizarre feeling while handling it in this way. And I don’t want to feel that again, that…doubling of reality. It made me feel…cold. I felt split, as if I’d been placed inside my Separator, but one part of me felt the same as always, while the other…was gone. I felt…absent, as if I had suddenly vanished from existence.

There’s something else that bothers me about this panacea. After analyzing the results from the Separator, I question its efficacy for my purposes. It seems to contain some arsenic, which would certainly be useful for preservation, but I have my doubts as to how well it would work for my experiment. I’m not attempting to preserve dead flesh—I am attempting to revive it. And the other components of this panacea—some are herbs I know are used for medicine, but some I know are used for magic… I know I should expect a thaumaturgical aspect to anything produced by alchemists, but I worry how much this panacea’s supposed powers are based in the supernatural.

I know so little about the liquid swishing around in this tiny vial. I was given no provenance—well, none I can believe—no list of ingredients, no tangible evidence of its purported powers. It seems as if…as if someone is trying to hide its true nature from me. But why would Solomon and Rahul do that? I trust them… Am I wrong to do so? The Boy trusts them…but would the Boy be able to recognize subterfuge? He is more intelligent than I initially gave him credit for, but he is still not well educated. If I have been fooled, surely he would be too.

While I cannot identify this final ingredient, I have tried to verify its abilities as a panacea. I had the Boy bring me a few dozen potted plants to experiment upon. He seemed oddly reluctant to carry the plants up the stairs to my secondary laboratory. He looked wan, moving slowly. There were dark circles under his eyes. At the time I thought perhaps he been drained from manning the boiler for the Separator, but later…well, I’ll get to that. He did carry the plants up eventually. I noticed a stain on his shirt and the sour scent of old milk.

I used the panacea on several of the plants. I wanted to see what it could do to living things. A few of the plants died within a day or two. A few more died after an additional dosage. Only one plant survived the initial round. I can’t say if it is in better or worse health than before.

I then tried it on several other plants after I had induced an ill state in them—hiding them from the sun, withholding water, tearing up roots, things such as that. The panacea failed to heal any of these ailments. I gave it the benefit of the doubt—perhaps it only works with humans, or possibly animals. I asked the Boy to bring me some mice. I know we have a few running around the estate. But the Boy seemed even more reluctant than before. He looked somehow more exhausted, his skin paler, eyes half open, a crease between his brows as if he suffered from a perpetual headache.

Despite this behavior, though, the Boy did bring me mice. He coughed, rather violently, as he placed their cage on a table inside the lab. I wondered if he was ill or if perhaps running around the estate, scrounging for mice, had simply exposed him to a significant amount of dust. There was another stain on his shirt. He still smelled sour.

The mice did not take well to the panacea.

It sickened all of them. Again, I thought perhaps the panacea does not do well with healthy bodies—it is a cure, and what is it to do if there is nothing to cure? I tried a second dose, in the hopes that if it can cure any ailment, it could cure ailments that it caused. This turned out to not be true. The mice grew weaker. I stopped any further doses and observed the mice as I attempted to nurse them back to health. They improved, no thanks to the panacea.

At this point I can confidently say this panacea does not work on plants or animals. But what of humans?

Considering what it did to the plants and mice, I did not want to test it on a living person. Not even one who was ill. The Boy’s coughing did briefly cross my mind as an opportunity, but I quashed it. I did not trust this panacea to not kill him outright.

To be completely certain of its effects on the human body, though, I need a human body.

Which of course means I had to contact Herman.

I sent the Boy to find him. Herman can usually be found in one of a handful of places—there seems to be no central location for his residence. I can’t be sure he has a home of any sort at all, and in fact I believe he merely tucks up in the local tavern whenever he needs to sleep. He claims he has to stay unmoored from traditional housing and work due to his occupation.

What Herman does is indeed illegal, although not as illegal as one might think. Interfering with a grave is a misdemeanor, but a corpse is no one’s property, and therefore can be taken from its final resting place without breaking the law. Dissecting or experimenting on that corpse, on the other hand… Herman’s particular job is not something many people practice these days, not since the laws changed to make him obsolete. But for those like me, who still lack legal access, we must seek out our needs from somewhere.

Resurrectionists used to work wherever a medical school needed fresh corpses to study. But then some took it a little too far—Burke and Hare, the Bethnal Green Gang, the Wentzell brothers—they murdered people to keep up with the demand for bodies. When the Anatomy Act of 1834 finally was passed after some dithering, surgeons, teachers, and students were allowed access to a wider supply of bodies—previously restricted to only executed murderers, now they could study the anatomy of any body left unclaimed after death, including those who died in hospitals, prisons, and workhouses. It was a boon to the medical community.

But I am not studying in a medical school or hospital. I have no license to practice anatomy. The British government is not going to grant me permission to perform questionable experiments on dead bodies.

Herman is a necessary evil. I’m surprised he still engages in body snatching, considering how little demand there is for it.

But I suppose there is still some demand…

The Boy first met Herman in a cemetery. The Boy was there to visit—who was it? his mother? I don’t remember—a family member’s grave, I think. It was late, sundown, and he spotted someone digging into a fresh grave. Herman tried to get the Boy to help, but the Boy was disgusted by what Herman was doing. He never forgot the encounter, telling me all about it when I first asked him how best to find specimens for my experiments. Now the Boy has to see Herman every few weeks or so, depending on how quickly my research progresses. He does not care for it, as Herman is as despicable as he first thought.

If I could obtain specimens without Herman’s help, I would. But my work falls outside of what society would accept, and even if I were to try to gain legitimacy, I would be barred based purely on my sex. As a woman, I would never be welcomed in a university’s anatomical theater.

So here I am, dealing with criminals and ill-gotten corpses. I suppose that makes me a criminal too. Although, if Doctor Knox wasn’t prosecuted after that Burke and Hare mess…

I’m quite certain Herman isn’t a burker. The bodies he brings show signs of burial. Of course, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t engaged in such activities at other times…

But I try not to think about that. I try not to think about Herman at all. Only when I have need of his services do I ever entertain the thought of so much as his name. And that is unfortunately where I am now.

I had the Boy make contact with him for a new specimen. But Herman—that flea-infested rat—said he wanted to renegotiate our terms. I had made a contract with him when I first began utilizing his services, but apparently he wants more money. He told the Boy things were getting more dangerous for him. I can’t imagine that his profession is any more dangerous now than it was when last we communicated, but he insisted he wouldn’t procure a new specimen until we spoke. Face to face.

Or as face to face as I ever allow him to get.

I am, of course, not foolish enough to allow a man of that nature to know my true identity. He does not know my name, and he largely communicates through the Boy. I have only met Herman one other time, and I used a method I had devised to hide my appearance.

I prepared myself to use that same method again. But there was…an incident.

The Boy set up a meet late at night in an alley in town where we would be alone during our interaction. I wanted no one around, for various reasons. But I also didn’t want to be by myself with a man like Herman, so the Boy would stay at my side. We took my coach for our journey, telling the coachman to wait for us far away from the meeting location. After traveling to the alley on foot, the Boy surveyed the area, to see if Herman had arrived yet. We were still alone, so I donned the Mask.

The Mask is one of my earliest inventions. I had created it to ease the anxiety I felt when I went into town with my parents. I did not care for people seeing my face, looking me in the eye, and expecting me to do the same. The way my gaze dips from theirs when they speak to me always causes murmurs of annoyance. Some people have said they don’t trust me because I won’t look them in the eye. But what does that have to do with trust? I don’t like being stared at, so I don’t like staring back. That has nothing to do with anything except for my own personal comfort. But people are strange about the most unusual things.

My parents, however, did not like for me to wear my Mask with them around. They said it brought more attention to me than if I hadn’t worn it. They were right, I must admit. The first iterations of my Mask seem foolish and flimsy to me now. But I’ve perfected it over the years.

The mechanism is now contained within a special top hat. It is heavy to wear, but as long as I only bear it for a half hour or less, it should cause no permanent damage. It is powered by another invention of mine, something akin to the Daniell cell, a portable source of electricity that I must charge before use. Since it is in essence a pot of sulfuric acid, I do not carry it alongside the device it powers inside my hat. Instead, I carry it within a glass jar hidden inside my pocket, a collection of wires snaked under my coat connecting it to the Mask.

My mother loved creating bedtime tales to regale me with, fantastical adventures full of inventions she knew she could never build on her own. But those inventions always caught my attention more than the progression of plot or development of character. I wanted to make these imaginings a reality. Many of my first inventions were inspired by these stories, even Experiment 31… But the Mask…when my mother told me of someone harnessing the power of light to create false images—like how shining light through a crystal will project a rainbow across the room—I could see all the possibilities of such a device. I could hide my face by projecting another one over it, a new face made of light but that looks like just an ordinary face.

My first Mask looked eerie. The face did not look real. But I have made it now so that the false face the Mask casts looks just as real as my own. Except that this face is one I can alter however I desire.

With my Mask I was able to assume the appearance of a gentleman, and not just in dress. The Mask gives me a squarer jaw, side whiskers, a more prominent nose and higher forehead. The only thing it can’t mask is my voice. Instead, I simply speak lower, rougher, and hope that the appearance of my new face lends it some legitimacy.

With the Mask in place, the Boy and I waited for Herman in that alley. The Mask always feels heavier every time I wear it, a trick of my mind, never remembering the true weight of it, only ever recalling the relief of removal. We waited, for several minutes, in the dark.

Eventually, I checked my pocket watch, my neck aching, my head throbbing. Twenty minutes had gone by.

“Where is he?” I demanded of the Boy.

The Boy insisted he had told Herman to meet in this alley. The Boy’s eyes looked more exhausted than I had ever seen them.

“Are you ill?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“If you are ill and cannot perform your duties, then you must inform me so that I can find a suitable replacement,” I said.

“I’m not ill,” he insisted again. “I’ve just…been busy.”

“Busy with what?” I asked. I hadn’t demanded anything out of the ordinary for his job recently.

The Boy’s shoulders slumped. He stared at the ground then looked back up at me, guilt shattering his expression. “I took home the two-faced kitten,” he said.

I looked at him, my brain attempting to comprehend the words he had just uttered, and said, “You what?”

And that was when Herman decided to show.

I wish I could say that Herman looks like the rat that he is. But unfortunately, the world does not make all good things beautiful and all bad things ugly. His face looks like something carved by Michelangelo, like something divine. All except his teeth. They’re mostly black, half of them missing. If he kept his mouth shut, one might swoon over him. But the second he opens that jagged maw, the spell breaks.

My teeth are far from perfect—crooked, a bit of an overbite, a molar pulled when I was younger—but they look immaculate compared to Herman’s.

“Lord Corvino,” Herman said with a mock bow. I jumped a bit at the name—I had almost forgotten the pseudonym I had told him previously. Herman glanced back and forth between me and the Boy. “Something wrong with your boy, there? He’s an insolent little toad, you know,” Herman said.

“He’s shown me no insolence,” I said, pitching my voice lower to match the image projected by my Mask.

“He’s shown me enough,” Herman said, sneering at the Boy. “Doesn’t respect my position.”

“What position?” I asked him. “You are not John’s superior. You are no one’s superior.”

Herman chewed on his cheek. He spat something foul onto the ground. “I’m gonna need more money to get you your next body,” he said after an unnecessarily long pause.

“So you told John. How much?” I asked.

Herman chewed on his cheek again. “Thirty,” he said.

I almost broke composure and laughed out loud. “Thirty? Pounds?” I asked, incredulous at his audacity.

“Aye, that’s right,” he said. “Thirty pounds.”

“That’s three times as much as I’ve been paying you,” I said. “I’ll pay you fifteen.”

“Thirty. Or you get your boy to find the next specimen,” Herman said then spat on the ground again.

I turned to look at John, to see if he could tell if Herman was bluffing, but my neck was so sore from carrying the weight of the Mask. As I turned, my neck wrenched under the load and the hat tilted, then fell, crashing to the ground, ripping the wires out of the power cell.

The Mask vanished.

My true face was exposed.

Herman’s eyes went wide.

“What’s this?” he demanded, his voice shaking. He couldn’t stop looking at my real face. “Are you a witch or something?” he asked.

“Don’t be a fool,” I said, no longer bothering to alter my voice. “I was wearing a mask.”

“Never seen a mask like that before,” he said, his eyes bewildered.

“It’s a special mask,” I said. I watched Herman. He looked terrified. “I’ll pay you twenty,” I said.

His eyes somehow went wider. “What?” he asked.

“I’ll pay you twenty,” I repeated slowly. “For the body…and for your silence.”

Herman nodded absently, his gaze finally straying to the fallen hat with wires streaming from it. “Yes, si—ma’am. I’ll contact you when I find a good candidate,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said pointedly, indicating the end of this meeting. I scooped up my Mask and turned to leave. The Boy eyed Herman a moment longer then followed.

I cursed myself all the way home. Herman has seen my face now. He still doesn’t know my name, but he knows I am a woman. The shock of the Mask falling, one face suddenly shifting to another, was the only thing that kept him compliant in that moment. But once that shock cools down, will he think he can take advantage of me because I’m of the fairer sex? Will he try to demand ever more money for each new specimen? Will he simply quit? The Boy says Herman does not trust women. I am…afraid of what he may do next…

After that disastrous meeting, I was almost surprised when Herman contacted the Boy earlier today. A new specimen will be here by tomorrow. I will finally test this panacea on a human.

But I can’t help but think…I may be running out of time.