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

This was pointless, Cora decided, slumping to the ground. Through her neckerchief, she inhaled the brittle smell of the browning leaves. Soon even the island’s plants, her greatest sources of comfort, would desert her for the winter.

In a vain attempt to relieve the burning in her thighs, she rocked on her heels and thought about the collection of scalpels she’d been amassing over the years. They were hidden beneath a floorboard in the gardening shed. While Otto had been in charge, the sense of power they’d given her had been reassuring, but she’d never actually used one. Now they would need to serve as more than a psychological crutch. It was time to scrub off their rust and learn to wield them.

“True, he’s handsome,” said a high-pitched voice from the parlor, “but the way he eyes me, it gives me the creepy crawlies. And so full of himself. Claire, would you like a top-off?”

“Yes, please. His father may have been a loner, but at least he was a gentleman, a per—”

“Did you ladies read about Jesse Owens?”

The sudden shift in conversation made Cora tense.

“He’s claiming that our very own president—and not Hitler—was the one to snub him.”

To appear industrious, Cora raised the pruning shears, but the tremors in her arms prevented her from locking the blades onto a branch.

“The way they treated him at the Waldorf, after that ticker-tape parade . . .”

The smell of Foster’s hair gloss, mixed with antiseptic, soured the breeze, and Cora stifled her gag reflex.

The nurses had stopped their chatter.

She lowered the clippers.

“Miss McSorley, the rosebushes by my cottage are diseased,” Ulrich said from the road in front of the residence. “Let’s have a look.”

Slowly she gathered her tools.

Since he wasn’t wearing protective gear, she fell into step her standard ten paces behind him. Hoping, irrationally, that Otto would suddenly appear, she kept her gaze fixed on the dock.

Halfway across the central lawn, Ulrich swerved away from the site of the future tuberculosis pavilion, where the main hospital building had previously stood, and toward the morgue and pathology building, confirming her suspicion that the plagued roses had been a ruse.

He entered, and she watched the door swing shut behind him.

As instructed long ago, she waited outside while he put on a gown and mask. She felt the itch to run, but where could she go? The complex was too small to hide her for long, and the river—well, that simply wasn’t an option.

A rapping on the far side of the door signaled that she should enter.

Rocking on her heels, she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Yet she knew that the consequences of disobeying him would be far worse than whatever awaited her within the lab, its arch windows papered over when converted from its original use as a church.

She mustered the courage, took one last deep breath, and entered the house of the dead.

The corridor was empty; he’d already returned to preparing his instruments.

Dawdling a moment longer, she stopped in the doorway. “Where’s Otto?” she asked over the squeaking of caged rodents. To deflect their scent, she kept her breath shallow.

“The mutt’s got a new master,” he said without looking up from his mortar and pestle. “Take off your trousers and lie down so I can check for infection.”

She tried to swallow, but the lump in her throat had swelled to the size of a peach pit.

He looked up. “This isn’t a breadline. Get moving. I’ve got two more pavilions to visit before I need to leave for an NSDAP dinner.”

The pit in her throat dropped to her stomach, and she did as he’d directed.

Humming Bing Crosby’s new tune “Pennies from Heaven,” he removed the dressings as tears slid down her temples.

“No sign of infection, as I’d expected. Apparently only the more potent germs can coexist with your immune system. It’s a shame your unique cellular abilities don’t include accelerated healing, but we cannot let a little discomfort slow our progress, can we?” He leaned over to inspect the incisions at the top of her thighs, and she spat on his protective goggles.

“You disgusting bitch,” he said, methodically setting them in the sink designated for contaminated glass, then donned a clean pair.

When he turned to face her, an Erlenmeyer flask, now in his hand, glinted beneath the operating light.

Cora’s stomach clenched, and she whimpered. Just like a mutt.

He raised the object above his head.

“No, please!” she cried and slid to the far side of the table.

A rush of air hit her eyes, driving them shut, and glass shattered against her crown.

“Excellent. Another test site.” Carefully avoiding the shards, he placed a bedpan on the floor to catch the dripping blood.

“If your old master hadn’t gone so easy on you, mankind might already be rid of disease. Tens of millions died from the Spanish influenza. Because of your weakness, and Otto’s lack of resolve, those corpses sit squarely on your conscious.”

His accusatory stare pierced her, sharper than the sting of the split skin on her forehead, and she fought the impulse to curl away from him.

“The next time that foreigners bring a novel disease to our shores, we will be ready for it. I’ll let you go back to your work, digging in the dirt. But know this: if you ever resist; if you tell anyone; if you attempt to harm me, I’ll destroy what matters most to you.”

“You don’t know what that is,” she taunted.

Ulrich grinned. “Sure, I do. Otto’s records—the ones relating to curing you, so you can leave this island. Without those files, you’ll never be free.”

He despised her, to his very core, she knew. Throughout the past ten years as Otto’s assistant, he’d been making offhand remarks that had amounted to an obvious conclusion for Cora: Ulrich blamed her for his lonely childhood, absent of love. To some extent, his view was merited. If it weren’t for her, Otto would have eventually returned to Kleindeutschland to comfort his son. The incident with her blood spraying onto Otto’s gown, after Ulrich