Author: Megan Shepherd

“But they’re amalgamations,” I said. “You stitch together different animals.”

He shrugged. “Then I suppose they would regress into strange-looking cows and sheep perhaps, but harmless nonetheless.” He took a sip, and then thrust the cup angrily into Balthasar’s hands. “The tea’s gone cold.”

Balthasar stared at the sloshing tea, uncertain what was to be done with it. I folded my hands around his, taking the cup gently.

“I’ll take care of the tea,” I said, biting my words. I hurled the cup into the fireplace, where it shattered in a thousand white pieces that littered the floor like snowfall.

Edward leapt up in surprise, but Father didn’t flinch.

Balthasar trembled. I laid my hand on the unnatural hump of his shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, Balthasar,” I said. “You’re not the monster here.” I gave Father a cold glare and stormed into the courtyard.

Twenty-six

I STOPPED TO STEADY myself on the water pump. In the garden Cymbeline calmly dropped peas into a wicker basket, just another normal day. All traces of the snarling little creature from the village were gone. He sang a strange song, though the tune seemed familiar. The melody slowly took shape until I could hum it, the words gradually returning. “Winter’s Tale.” A lullaby Mother used to sing to me. Sung now on the lips of this poor animal carved into a little boy by a madman.

I dashed into the barn. I needed a place to hide from the world. Chaff filtered through the air like dancing sunlight. I collapsed on a bale of fresh straw, pain gripping me somewhere deep. I buried my hands in my hair. The shame. The rumors. The whispers. Just like I was still eight years old. Only now I knew.

My father was a monster. And a genius.

Mother’s voice whispered, telling me everything he was doing was against God, against nature. And yet a small but sharp part of me, like a piece of broken glass lodged in my heart, was almost proud of him. I knew that was wrong. But he was part of who I was—how could I not feel that way?

Footsteps came from the tack room. I crawled to my knees, peering into the next stall.

Montgomery paused, leaning on a pitchfork, and brushed a loose strand of blond hair behind his ear. Duke nuzzled his shoulder from his stall. Montgomery pushed the horse away affectionately. I fought back anger. Of all people, of course it had to be him. The boy I’d idolized, who now betrayed me with a scalpel and a set of manacles.

“You’re good with animals,” I said coldly. “Or should I say creatures?” All the anger from the past few days flooded my brain, made me lash out at Montgomery when it was really Father who was to blame.

He wiped his hands on his trousers, not acknowledging my sting, and picked up the pitchfork to gather a load.

“You enjoy all this, don’t you?” I pulled myself up, straw raining from my dress. “Having these aberrations wait on you hand and foot.” I knew I was being cruel. He didn’t deserve it, and yet I wanted him to feel the same angry bite of broken glass that I did.

He dug the pitchfork into a pile of straw. “Seems to me I’m the one mucking out the stall.”

I glowered. “You’re right. Mucking out the stalls. Proper work for a servant. That’s what you are, isn’t it? Still doing whatever he commands.” I leaned against the wooden stall gate, entwining my fingers in the steel bars. “Even if it is the devil’s work.”

“That isn’t fair.” He dumped the straw and went back for another load, his shoulders tense. “I hadn’t a choice.”

“You could have stayed with Mother and me.”

“You don’t understand.” The pitchfork scraped the stone floor so hard it squealed. “I was a boy. I’d already taken part in his work. I was already guilty of his same crimes before I even knew what we were doing.” He dumped the load and shoved the pitchfork against the wall. “I didn’t have a choice.”

For a moment, he rested his hand on the pitchfork, breath ragged. Strands of his hair escaped the ponytail and fell over his eyes, making him look wild, untamed. He’d changed so much from that quiet little boy. He’d had to, growing up with monsters as playmates.

He turned to go.

“Wait!”

He paused, a hand on the barn’s half door. I put my hand next to his, keeping the door closed. I remembered the feel of his body. The heat of his skin. Montgomery wasn’t my enemy. He wasn’t to blame.

Father was cruel—I didn’t want to be, too.

“I’m sorry. They aren’t your crimes,” I said. His jaw flexed. He started to push the half door open, but I jerked it closed again. “They aren’t. You were a child. He manipulated you, like he manipulated all of us.” I stepped closer. “We have a choice now. We can stop him.”

Montgomery’s jaw tightened. His voice was a gruff whisper. “Even if we could, what then?”

“We’ll leave. You and me and Edward.” My voice broke, thinking of the scene earlier over the lavender bowl. “And Alice.”

But he shook his head. “I can’t leave them. Without treatment they’ll regress.”

“Maybe they should. They’re animals. What he’s done is unnatural.”

“What I’ve done, you mean. I’m just as guilty.” His words echoed in the barn and set my heart pounding. “They’re not animals anymore. You haven’t seen what they can become. You haven’t met Ajax.”

“Ajax?”

“He was one of them. The doctor did something to his brain, something we haven’t been able to replicate. He became smart. And civil. He was like a brother to me. He’s different—he was different.”

“What happened?”

“Ajax stopped his own treatment. The others crave humanity. But Ajax knew what he was. He wanted to regress.”

“And has he?”

“Not yet. He lives alone. Won’t be a part of their village. Won’t live here. He waits until all traces of his humanity are gone.” He paused. “The doctor doesn’t know. He ordered me to shoot him, but I couldn’t.”

I stared at Montgomery, realizing that he must never have had a true friend since coming to the island. Father was no companion. And Balthasar and the others, well, their company was more like dogs’. Then I remembered the cabin in the woods, the yellow hair on the mattress and the single flower in the vase on the dusty mantel.

“Jaguar,” I muttered. “He calls himself Jaguar now.”

Montgomery’s shoulders tensed. “How do you know that?”

“I met him in the woods.”

“You what?” There was fear in his eyes.

“He told me you’d sent him to find me. Didn’t you?” A trickle of worry crept at the base of my neck.

“I haven’t spoken to him since returning from London.”

“But he knew about Edward. And he knew about me.”

Montgomery leaned his weight against the door. He put a hand to his brow in thought. “He must be eavesdropping on the compound. It’s the only way.” He grabbed my shoulder. “And he didn’t hurt you? Do you swear? He’s not some docile farm animal, Juliet. He’s dangerous.”

I shook my head, my heart pounding harder. I remembered the feel of Jaguar’s rough tongue on my skin. Fearful sweat began to drip down my face. Had I been in the company of the murderer? I hadn’t trusted him, which was why I’d slipped away. It might have saved my life.

“He didn’t hurt me,” I stuttered. “But he killed a rabbit.”

Montgomery’s hand gripped mine protectively. He squeezed so hard it hurt. “Killed a rabbit? Are you sure?”

“I saw him arguing with another man about it.” I swallowed, wanting to find some logical explanation. “They can’t be perfect always, can they? They must break commandments sometimes.”

“Not that one. Not to kill. We didn’t think they knew how to kill.” An idea seemed to strike him. The blood drained from his face. I remembered the stinking corpse in the back of the wagon. All the other accidents. He pulled a pistol off the gun rack in the back of the barn. Checking the chamber, he started for the half door, but I held it closed.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“You were right. That woman in the wagon wasn’t an accident. There’ve been more bodies. Many. All with three slashes across the chest. We thought it must be a rabid animal. A bobcat got loose once. . . . It didn’t occur to us that one of them might be responsible.” He grabbed my shoulders. The butt of the pistol lay between his hand and my clothes, a harsh reminder of what was out there. “Whatever you do, don’t go back into the jungle.”

Twenty-seven

THE NEXT MORNING, IN the salon, I peered between the long shutter slats at the courtyard outside. Father and Montgomery argued furiously, tramping up dirt, sweat staining their shirts. They’d been arguing like this for hours. It must have been serious for Montgomery to be so defensive. The pistol butt gleamed in his waistband. I only made out two words: Rabbit. Ajax.

I didn’t need to hear more.

Edward sat in a chair reading, his attention on the musty pages rather than the argument in the courtyard. I sank into the green sofa opposite him.

“There’s a murderous beast on the island. How can you just sit and read?”

He flipped a page. Then another. “I can’t. It’s impossible to concentrate.”

“You could have fooled me.” I raised an eyebrow, but my sarcasm was lost on him. I leaned forward to read the title. The Tempest. “I’ve read that one. Shall I tell you the ending and save you the bother?”

He closed the book on his finger to mark the place he’d stopped. “I’m not reading it for pleasure.” He cocked his head toward the courtyard. “I’m trying to find something that might help us escape. The book’s about castaways on an island. They get off eventually.”

I rolled my eyes. “With the aid of magic.”

He dipped his head, going back to the book. “We’ll have to be a little more creative.”

A door slammed outside and I peered through the shutters. Father and Montgomery were gone. Only the chickens pecked in the courtyard. The familiar trickle of worry returned.

“The doctor came in here earlier furious over something,” Edward said, his voice lower.

“It’s about that dead rabbit I found. They think one of the islanders killed it. The one who calls himself Jaguar. And so that must make him the murderer.”

“But you think he didn’t kill the rabbit?”

I frowned. “No, I’m sure he did. I saw him waving the bloody head around. It’s just . . . never mind.” A dull pain throbbed at the base of my skull. I rubbed the stiff muscles there. My hands still felt the weight of the ax I’d brought down over the rabbit’s neck in the operating theater. I couldn’t exactly condemn Jaguar for separating a rabbit from its head when I’d done the same.

“Have you at least found anything useful?” I said, nodding at the book.

Edward set the book on a pile of warped leather volumes. “Not unless you have a magic wand. We need a vessel. That’s easy enough—the launch at the dock. We can steal enough food from the garden and the kitchen. There are a few waterskins—not ideal, but enough to survive, I think. The only problem is—”

His words died as Alice entered the room. Her eyes grew wide. She knew she was interrupting something. She quickly flitted around, picking up a dirty towel on a peg by the door, the napkins from breakfast, the rag Puck had used to clean up the spilled tea last night. Her long blond hair floated behind her like some ephemeral being. She slipped from the room as silently as she had entered, leaving behind the faint scent of lavender.