An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [62]
I had to hold on to the banister.
Uncle Valentine knew those two dwarf body snatchers he'd chased that night in the cemetery. They worked for him. What more proof did I need to know that Myra was right?
"Have you made contact?" Uncle Valentine was asking.
"Yes." It must have been one of the dwarves. "Our man in Memphis."
"How many do you think we should bring back, Robert?" Uncle Valentine asked.
"Two," Robert said. "Other doctors are sending representatives. So we should waste no time. Students from Winchester Medical College in Virginia are on their way there already."
"Have you a plan?" Uncle Valentine sounded like a teacher now, like Mrs. McQuade.
"It's always best to say you're family," Robert said. "I'll say I'm looking for a brother. And I thought I'd take Marietta with me. She could be a neighbor, looking for her husband. We've done it before. She's sharp and smart, with a level head and not given to silly feminine hysteria or scruples. She said she could get someone to take her place in school for a few days."
"Right," Uncle Valentine said.
Marietta. But of course, why not? I felt a stab of jealousy. Sharp and smart. Enough to be in on whatever it was they were doing. A level head. Not given to silly feminine hysteria or scruples. She worked in the lab, didn't she? Oh, it was like a knife through me, hearing Robert talk about Marietta like that. And the special note of pride in his voice when he'd said it, too!
"It's always better with a woman along. They invite less suspicion," Uncle Valentine said.
A woman. He considered Marietta a woman! And me a child. He wouldn't even let me go over and see Annie without permission. Because I hadn't gone last time, Annie had been put out with me. And we'd ended up having a fight.
"I want facial burns, if you can get them," my uncle was saying. "Also burns on limbs. And get them back as quickly as possible. Pay whatever you must. Come into my office. I'll give you money."
Their voices were receding. I slipped past Addie and down the stairs, staying close to the wall. In Uncle Valentine's office they were making plans, talking about money, train schedules, routes.
"My Maude should go with him," Merry was saying. "She could act as the grieving mother. You know how good she is at it."
"Yes," Uncle Valentine said, "but I need her here."
Grieving? You only grieved when somebody was dead. Were they going to get dead bodies, then? For a moment I'd allowed myself to think Uncle Valentine was going to have them bring back living burn victims.
Oh, I didn't know! Think, I told myself sternly. Be sharp and smart. Like Marietta. Addie didn't help, of course. She'd come down onto the stairs and was poking me and pointing and grinning "I tol' you, I tol' you," she said gleefully. "You sees now what I means? Now you believe old Addie?"
I looked back at her. "You'd best get back upstairs," I hissed.
Just then Robert came out into the hall, heading for the front door. I heard his special walk, with the little limp, turned my head, and there he was, staring up at me.
Me and my silly feminine hysteria. And scruples.
For one terrible moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, he and I looked at each other. And in that moment I knew what was wrong with me.
I loved Robert.
Not Johnny. Robert. With his limp and his Northern accent and his full mouth and long nose and determined thrust of jaw. With his passion for medicine and his dark brown eyes. Not Johnny's eyes anymore. But his own. His very own. There for me. Inviting me in. That's what he'd been doing all along. Only I'd been too stupid to know it. Instead I'd rebuffed him. And now he was going away with Marietta.
He was like Johnny, yes, in age and stature and a certain something about the cheekbones. But here was the thing I'd just this moment come to understand.
He was the good side of Johnny. The side that I'd seen fleetingly, been drawn to, and