The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

the dead boy looked cherubic. His expression was calm, almost smiling, like he’d just seen an angel. Maybe he had. His eyes were shut; they could be blue.

One of his hands was fisted. Cora struggled to uncurl his fingers.

In his palm was a well-worn engineer figurine, cheaply made. She tipped backward with relief. From Dr. Gettler’s stories, she knew Ulrich’s train set was a finely crafted Märklin, imported from Germany.

But this boy was someone’s son. She positioned his hands on his abdomen and acknowledged his death with a moment of silence. Continuing on, she passed three primary- school-age children; a teenage boy and girl who might have been in love; a gangly man; and an infant, fully covered by a scrap of cloth meant to veil only a face. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

Carrying a lifeless man in a Sunday suit, O’Toole staggered past her on the far side of the row. His face as white as the corpse’s, he didn’t notice her, nor did she call out to him. Later they would try to find the words.

She bent over another woman, this one slimmer, and lifted the cloth. Her tousled hair was corn-silk blond. On her neck, beneath her right ear, was a birthmark. If this were Rolene, wouldn’t the doctor have included such a distinguishing feature in his description? Only if he’d been of sound mind.

The woman’s lips were blue and her skin a waxy white, but still she looked beautiful, with a straight nose and dainty, curled lashes on her closed lids. Cora had seen this heart-shaped face before when picturing the doctor with his Liebchen. She prayed the eyes would prove her wrong. With an unsure hand, she raised one lid, glimpsed pale blue, and dropped to her knees.

Still, there was no definitive proof. Cora surveyed the woman’s crumpled skirt and dress shirt and stopped at her wedding band. It might be engraved. If not, she could show it to the doctor. But if someone saw her removing it, he might assume she was a thief and summon one of the many policemen now present. She would be carted from the island and imprisoned. Eventually, they would release her. But along the way, how many would fall ill because of her?

An escape wouldn’t require a pair of handcuffs: with so many good-size boats strung along the shore, she could act like a departing volunteer.

Preoccupied, the doctor wouldn’t notice her slip away. She would have to discard her cloak, but she could huddle in a corner of one of the larger vessels and breathe into her hand. Once in Gotham, she would carefully make her way to Bellevue Hospital, home to Carnegie Laboratory. The first microbiology lab in the country, it housed the best microscopes and the brightest minds. Surely, they could cure her.

But if she fled, and the dead woman before her was Rolene, and one of the many small bodies she hadn’t yet checked was Ulrich, Dr. Gettler would be left with nothing. Although she hated this exile, she didn’t fault him for keeping her here. He was a good man. The patients and nurses loved him. And she loved him, the way she might have adored a father.

On the other hand, his loss shouldn’t matter more than her own. He’d gotten the chance to experience love, whereas she hadn’t, nor would she as long as she remained confined to this facility. Conflict bubbled up from her stomach, an organ he’d sliced and stitched three times already and would surely probe again. If she stayed.

Unsure what to do, she swayed from side to side on her knees. Inexplicably, Cora felt tied to this woman. Her spirit seemed as present as Maeve’s right after her body had slackened. If the blonde were Rolene, Cora would stay at Riverside with the doctor, she decided, so that he would not be alone in his grief. For all he’d done for her, she owed him that. Otherwise, she would make for the nearest vessel that looked ready to cast off.

Before her courage could abandon her, she checked to see that no one was watching and wrenched the ring off the already bloated finger.

On the inner side, glistening in the sunlight, were two initials: O & R.

The wedding band fell, and she buried her face in the grass, its smell too sharp even through the cotton wrap. Too alive. She sat up and pressed the back of her hand against her nose. First Ingrid, now Rolene, and possibly Ulrich, too. How could any man bear such loss in one day? Fighting off the urge to flee this scene, she found the ring and smoothed out Rolene’s skirt, stiffened by the salt left behind after the water had evaporated.

“Steh auf und geh weg. I need to see.”

She tensed but neither stood up nor went away, as he’d commanded. Dr. Gettler’s gruff voice had sounded distant. Without his full hospital garb, he couldn’t approach the woman, whom he must suspect was his wife, until Cora had moved.

She shifted to block Rolene from his view.

“Your germs. You’ll kill her.”

The words sliced through Cora, and she scrambled to her feet. These rows consisted of only the dead; Dr. Gettler had to be in denial. Cora’s courage fled, and she edged away.

The wedding band, laced with her pathogens, felt like a branding iron, burning her palm. She dropped it into her shoe. Somehow, she would find a way to return it, sterilized.

Dropping his crumpled boater hat, which he must have recovered from the beach, he rushed past her and crouched before his wife.

Tears streaming down her face, Cora braced for the guttural wailing that had followed Ingrid’s death.

None came.

She gingerly stepped around two bodies so she could better see his face.

He’d ripped off his glasses. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his mouth was moving.

Cora lowered the cloth wrapped around her head. Still, she couldn’t hear him clearly.

He kissed his wife on the lips and grasped her hand.

Now the ring