Overwhelmed, and flattered by his characterization of her, she replied, “You’re one of my best friends, too. Actually, the only one I’ve got left,” she finished bitterly.
He ruffled her hair. “Then I guess you’ll stay put so I don’t have to dive in after you.” He smiled, his full cheeks nearly swallowing his eyes. “The amount of meat I’ve got on me bones… those sharks of yours would have a field day.”
She mirrored his smile. “They wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
“Perhaps. Seriously, though, I don’t understand your circumstances any better than you do. But I’m certain that you will bring good to mankind.”
Cora squirmed at his sudden change in demeanor.
His hand returned to her shoulder, gripping it more tightly than she knew he’d intended. “I’m here for you, in any way you need. Always have been, always will be. You know that. I understand that your blessings are also a curse. But if you don’t let the doctor finish his work, then your sister’s death will have been in vain.”
She leaned away. “You sound like him.”
O’Toole shrugged. “Whatever greater force that’s at work here, perhaps Rolene’s and Ingrid’s drownings were by its design.”
The possibility made her sick to her stomach, and she curled forward.
He rubbed the top of her head, and his touch sent a wave of warmth through her.
“Trust in God. And yourself. Miss McSorley, that leper’s cloak may fool others, but I know who you are: the descendant of a great Celtic warrior. And no one of that bloodline—not even a woman—would ever give up.”
Cora looked up at his fiery orange hair, cresting this mountain of a man. Far more likely, she thought, he’s the one of warrior descent. But O’Toole was right in one regard: she had to carry on. For Maeve’s sake. And because of her pact with God.
She looked at the watch that Dr. Gettler had given her for her nineteenth birthday. In ten minutes they had their standing appointment for her weekly blood draw.
“I need to go. The doctor hates it when I’m late.”
O’Toole sighed and cast his hook. “As long as you walk tall, with your head high, he can never own you.”
Smiling weakly, she rewrapped the cloth around her head and pulled on the hood.
As she neared the building, her feet began to drag.
Who was O’Toole kidding? She was no warrior.
March 1915
he musty air within the bungalow felt like a second layer of wool pressing against Cora, yet she resisted the urge to step outside. Mary had unpacked most of her suitcase, without chucking a single one of her possessions across the room. After five years of freedom, Cora’s friend had been forced back into isolation permanently, as the newspapers had proclaimed, but not with her spirit intact.
“Dr. Soper was right,” Mary whispered in the Irish brogue that reminded Cora of her mother. “Disease and death follow me everywhere I go.” Keeping her back to Cora, she arranged her comb, jar of hairpins, and hair powder on the tray beneath her mirror. “I was wrong. In so many ways.”
There were no words of condolence that wouldn’t ring empty. A month ago, a typhoid fever outbreak at Sloane Maternity Ward had infected twenty-five patients, two of whom had died. Unbeknownst to health authorities, Mary had been working there as a cook.
Mary stared into the mirror. By her furrowed brow, Cora could tell that her friend abhorred the person she saw.
“Sixteen years ago,” Mary said, pinching the far corners of her eyes, “I was the cook at the Kirkenbauer estate. Little Tobias, he used to love my peach ice cream. He died from typhoid fever. His mom and the butler too.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cora murmured, her friend’s loss echoing through her own hollow spaces.
Mary turned away from the mirror and began unpacking the blouses and wool skirts she’d laundered and ironed herself throughout her last stay at Riverside.
Cora understood: all these years, Mary had been refusing to believe she was a germ carrier because that would have meant accepting responsibility for the little boy’s death. As a result, how many more had been lost? Cora wondered if Mary knew, or had even tried to guess.
“Sour milk,” Mary muttered and shoved a stack of shirts into her small dresser. “I feel like I’ve drunk a pitcherful.”
Cora knew that sensation; she’d often felt it herself. Frequently she’d wondered how many people she’d inadvertently infected despite her isolation. In addition to the five people she’d sickened in the first year following Maeve’s death, she suspected that she’d been responsible for at least six other cases, including two deaths. Once, she’d asked Dr. Gettler if he could figure it out from the hospital records.
He’d replied that the potential benefit for the greater good far outweighed any isolated casualties; tallying the sacrifices would be an unproductive distraction.
Cora loathed that word.
“I know how you feel,” she said softly to her friend.
“Aw, shite.” Mary tugged the other wooden chair to the far side of the room and flopped onto it. “We’re a sorry pair, aren’t we?”
Cora raised her head so Mary could see her eyes beneath the overhang of her hood. “If I tell you I’m glad you’re back, will that sound selfish?”
For the first time since Cora had watched her step off the ferry that morning, Mary smiled. “No, it would sound human. I’m equally glad you’re stuck here.” She inspected her hands, roughened from twenty years of plying a trade that involved scalding water. “You’re all I’ve . . . My Alfred, he’s dead.”
Cora jolted upward. “What? When?” For the past five years, she’d been assuming that Alfred had remained married to Liza Meaney.
“A heroin overdose. My fault, just like the others.”
She’s been through so much, Cora thought, and she’d been oblivious to it all. Suspecting that Mary would pass along messages intended for Eleanor, Dr. Gettler hadn’t allowed Cora to write her, even after Cora had declared that she’d rather have
