Whitney FI’s Reviews > Our Hideous Progeny > Status Update

It was a noble creature really; larger than I had thought it would be, with a kind of grace that not even death could strip away. Even though most every scholar in the field of natural history dismissed the theory of transmutation, it held a special place within my heart. It was a miraculous notion that we all perhaps originated from the same simple seed, shifting and changing over countless millennia.

How utterly, reprehensibly unfair it was that after all this time I still bore the marks, his fingerprints pressed into me like candle wax, while he went on unburnt.

"That was it, wasn't it?" I whispered, startled at how loud my own voice seemed in the silence. I had never expected the aftermath of a miracle to be so ordinary.

From this point, there would be no more dreaming. It was time to turn our theories to flesh and blood.

I suppose that is why it often makes me sad to read about history, or even natural history, as you do; I cannot help but think of everyone whose tale cannot fit in one book, those poor creatures who remain lost or forgotten. Do you think that one day, some Mary of the future will sketch our bones and wonder what we might have been in life?

And I suppose, in fairness, there must have been something of the gambler in me too. For despite how much I longed to think myself a sensible and rational soul, I had sat and penned that letter, wagering all I had left on the chance that he would agree to my proposal. Perhaps I meant to drown after all, I remember thinking, worrying at my lip until I tasted blood. But if I do, at least it'll have been by my own hand.

Of course it mattered; perhaps the knowledge would not help build bridges or make new medicines, but that's not all science was about. Science was the truth, about knowing what was possible and what was not; it was about the fervour I had felt looking upon the beached whale, or the fossil tooth in Catherine's palm. I had spent my whole life since in service to that same longing: the ravenous beast that was curiosity.

Later, I would think about those words - I've got no use for it - over and over, letting them sink like needles into my skin. But in the moment, I was too distressed to notice, for all I could think of were the tears pricking at my eyes, the warmth of her hands around mine. She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, as friends do. As the French very often do. And then I ruined our friendship entirely.

The difference between a proper young lady and a beastly little thing was that ladies were never angry, they took their moods and wove them into lace, stuffed them into pillows. They learned to hold their tongue. But I have always been a beastly little thing at heart, it seems. "Finish your damned article on your own," I snapped.

It was a subject of constant debate between the two of us, whether the curtains ought to be left open or shut to prevent the books from fading. Evidently I won that day - for it was through a haze of that rare London sunshine that I watched through the doorway as an envelope slid from the letterbox and landed with a gentleness that did not match the gravity of its contents, on the chequered hallway floor.