“They eat pineapple from the ground instead of from a can there, Mom. Look!” Martyn showed his mom a picture from a library book of Hawai’i that rested on his lap as they both sat in his bed that night.

Martyn had eaten fruit that wasn’t from a can, his parents weren’t heathens. They of course purchased other fresh fruits from the store, just not pineapple or kiwi or dragon fruit. (Although, his grandma certainly had thought of the fruit salad that comes in a can and is then mixed with marshmallows, as a “salad” and a healthy option. That was a fact.) But Martyn had eaten fresh oranges, grapes, bananas, and apples from the store. And he had even eaten juicy ripe raspberries straight from the bushes that grew in Hunt Cemetery right next to his house. (Although, he always wondered if the bodies that were buried beneath them had somehow contributed to their sweet flavor, which seemed weird but also kind of cool.)

“Where do you think the pineapple that we eat in the can comes from, Martyn?” his mom laughed.

“Oh…right.” Martyn looked at her and smiled. “Well, but look at the beach! It’s so beautiful!”

“It really is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said as Martyn turned the pages of the colorful book that showed pictures of green mountains sweeping down into turquoise waters. Hawai’i had always been a place that she wanted to see as well, but one that was financially out of reach for her own parents when she was growing up in Trout Run, and definitely now financially out of reach for her and her husband Ben who were living on two very low wages.

But Eloise Porter had never thought of her family as being impoverished. They had a home, albeit quite small, yet they made it cozy and comfy. They always had food on the table and never went without the basic needs of living. Every bill was paid on time. Every natural human need addressed, both physically and emotionally. But when her son began having higher aspirations of experiencing the world, of truly living at such a young age, it was unexpected. She and Ben understood his desires, because they had them themselves, but they couldn’t provide him with satiating them. And that made her feel that she was lacking. She didn’t want to discourage her son, but she knew that it just couldn’t happen for any of them right now.

“I would love to see it one day, too. But we have to wait, Martyn. It costs a lot of money to go there, and we just can’t swing it right now, you know that.”

“I know,” he said, defeated. “But, maybe I can help somehow. I can get a job or something.”

“We’ll figure something out at some point. Come on, lie down, it’s time to get to sleep now.” He shifted down under the covers and she brushed the soft skin between his eyebrows as his eyes began to flutter shut.

“Goodnight, Mom. I love you,” he slurred out before he was quickly asleep, as any young child is without the problems of the world yet on their shoulders, and the wonderful dreams of the world in the eight hours of slumber ahead of them.

Eloise shimmied out of the bed and turned out the light.

“Aloha, Martyn,” she whispered into the dark room.

Martyn Porter just wanted to be all grown up so that he could travel the world. But at only six years old, although he was more ambitious than every child his age, he didn’t have any money or independence to do so. He was in the first grade at Nylund Elementary in the tiny town of Trout Run, Pennsylvania where he lived in a very small house with his parents and baby sister, Anne.

He asked his mom and dad if they could go on a family trip, and unfortunately they said that they just couldn’t afford it right now. But Martyn needed to see the world, just like he needed water and air. If only he hadn’t seen those pictures in books at the library of places like Greece, Hawai’i, and Egypt. If only he hadn’t read stories of the adventures that people had taken to those places, as well as so many others. Places that were far from, and far more interesting and exciting than Trout Run. At just six, he already knew he was missing out.

He had gotten his parents to agree to pay him fifty cents a week for doing minor chores like making his bed, tidying his room, and feeding his baby sister. At first, he used the money to get himself onto the local bus to the municipal airport in town every week after school. He would go inside and sit there, watching others happily board planes, excited for whatever came next, or watching people coming off of planes hugging those who awaited them with smiles. He wanted to be these people. Luggage in tow, with souvenirs and stories.

He walked up to the ticketing counter at the airport one day and asked the agent how much a plane ticket to Hawai’i would be.

“Oh, son, no, we don’t fly to Hawai’i. We’re just a small airport. You’d have to go to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or Baltimore first, and then you could head to Hawai’i from there. Where are your parents, by the way?””

“They’re over there by baggage claim,” Martyn pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at a random couple collecting their bags. “But how much would a flight to Baltimore be?”

The ticketing agent tapped at her keyboard. “Most flights are around one hundred dollars.”

“Thank you,” he said and walked away. Martyn’s mind began calculating things as he walked out of the airport.

He got home and asked his parents if they could increase his allowance to a dollar a week if he agreed to do more chores around the house, but his mother said she was sorry, but they just couldn’t. There wasn’t even enough money to go around as it was.

But a few weeks later, as soon as school let out for the summer, Martyn headed down to the local flower shop around the corner from his house, Petals n’ Thorns. He had always adored plants and flowers and anything nature. He stood on tippy toes at the counter and cleared his throat to get the woman’s attention.

“Oh, hello!” the old woman with tiny spectacles said as she looked down at him. “You’re Eloise Porter’s son, aren’t you?”

“Hello, yes. I’m Martyn. I’d like to apply for a job here.”

She laughed. “What? A job? But you’re just a child. You can’t have a job yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re supposed to be in school, and playing, and enjoying life. Not working a job. Not yet.”

“But I want to earn money to do the things that I want to do and go the places I want to go. I don’t have any money yet, so I can’t do what I want to do.”

The old lady set down the bunch of daisies she was holding, took off her specs, and put her elbows on the counter to get closer to Martyn’s face.

“Oh, dear. That’s just the sprout’s plight. You’ll just have to wait until you’re older to do what you want to do.”

Martyn walked out of the shop.

No, the very impatient, eager and excited Martyn thought. I won’t.

They were late.

I loathe late people. Though, I was not surprised that these two fools couldn’t be on time. They were likely counting their profit from the demise of poor Mary. Whatever amount they planned to give me for my percentage earned in Mary’s murder, I was going to tell them to just keep; yet another way to ease them into trusting me and their sips into their expiration.

It was now quarter past eleven. The orange glow from the gas lamps flickered off of the fallen snow on the street below. A handful of people were standing about the outside of the tippling house below, and a few more standing ’round the hot roast chestnut cart. But then I noticed a tall, thin man with a round cap standing in the shadowy entryway of Anchor Close. I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but it seemed that he was looking up at me standing in the window, watching me. He pulled a watch from his pocket, checked it, placed it back inside his coat, then walked off down the street, not turning back. As I pulled the tattered curtain at the window closed, a knock finally came at the door.

“There he is!” Hare said as I opened the door. “Our little alchemist! And I do mean little!” He laughed out loud.

They had obviously already started celebrating as they both stunk of ale, stumbled into the room, and slumped down into the chairs at the table. This was going to be easier than I thought. Men, I thought to myself as I shook my head.

“Knox gave us eleven quid for that scrawny bird. Eleven!” Burke said as he took off his snow-flaked cap and scratched at his balding head.

I closed and latched the door behind them, nonchalantly slipping a second brass pin into the additional latch I had added earlier, just in case one of them tried to get out of the room after discovering they’d been poisoned. I picked up my previously-poured glass of whisky, held it in the air, and said, “That’s fantastic, mates!” I took myself a sip. “Let me pour you gentlemen some of this here gentleman’s drink so we can celebrate properly.”

This was it. I knew that once the whisky was poured, these two weren’t going to sip it like gentlemen. They were going to take it down like the tosspots they were, and once they did, the poison would swiftly take effect, and I would need to be on my way.

I sat down at the table, set a glass in front of each of them, then uncorked the bottle of Hennigans and poured out a healthy portion of farewell for both Burke and Hare, then raised my glass again and said, “To Mary! And all the other poor fools and their organs to come after her!”

“Here here!” they said in unison and then, just as I thought, both took back the full contents of their glasses in one swig.

Burke noticed first. He furrowed his brow, then cleared his throat a few times. Hare seemed not to notice anything about the taste, but immediately clutched at his stomach. I stood from the table and slowly walked backwards toward my bags sitting on the bed.

“What’ve you done, Bloom?” Burke said as he tried to stand but stumbled down back into his chair. Hare began to cough up brown and yellow onto the floor.

I grinned and took off the Bloom jacket, shirt, and trousers I was wearing, revealing my female undergarments and wrapped bosom beneath, then in my own voice as Emily Baker said, “Given you a taste of your own medicine. And my name’s not Bloom, you idiot.” Burke’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening.

I threw on the black dress that I had laid out of the bed and tied my boots up tightly, then tossed the Bloom clothes into my bag. Hare had now fallen to the floor and was twitching and secreting more fluids from his mouth and nose, but Burke somehow had gotten himself up and was slowly coming toward me.

“You bitch!” He shouted as best he could through the blood and bile bubbling at his mouth. He reached for me, but then fell to the floor.

I buttoned up my heavy coat and put its large hood up over my head, then blew out the candles in the room, leaving only the light of the fireplace to shine on the two men slowly dying on the floor. I watched and waited as they took their last breaths, assuring that they were gone and would not be able to tell a soul who had done this to them. As the last viscous bubble of life left Burke’s lips, I unlatched the door and exited the lodging house into the night.

The snowfall had ceased and the air was quite mild and pleasant, which bode well for me seeing as how I was going to need to wait several hours until the first train departed for Liverpool at half past five the next morning. I made haste to the station, but not too quickly, making sure to not cause any suspicion to those who were still milling about on the streets around me.

When I arrived, the station was empty save for one man sitting at a bench with his arms crossed and his head slumped downward, having a sleep. His round cap, and quite dapper clothing and shoes didn’t appear to say that he was a tramp or a vagabond, so I wondered why he had chosen the train station to have his sleep. Maybe his wife had kicked him out for being a fool.

I took a seat on another bench next to the tracks and set my bags next to me, keeping them close, then I waited, keeping my eyes and ears open for anyone who might have discovered what I’d done back at the lodging house and be coming for me. But no one did.

I finally allowed my eyes to droop and drifted off for a while. When I opened them again the train was pulling into the station. The man was gone from the bench, but was now standing right next to me along with several other passengers waiting to board. He was quite tall and thin and when I took a second look at his round cap, I thought that he looked a bit like the man I had seen standing in Anchor Close the evening before, looking up at me in the window.

“Good morning,” he said and tipped his hat to me.

“Oh, good morning indeed.” I gathered my bags and stood feeling somewhat out of sorts now. If this was indeed that man from last night, what was he doing here now? Was he indeed following me? Does he know what I’ve done? Is he with the police?

“Would you like me to help you with those?” the man asked in an accent that sounded somewhat English, but also somewhat Eastern European.

“No, no, thank you. I’ve got it.”

“Surely you have. Heading to Liverpool then?”

Of course I’m going to Liverpool, you fool. That’s where this train is going, I thought. There was no way I could lie. “Um, yes. And you’re heading there as well I assume”

“I am indeed.”

“For business then?” I asked.

“Indeed.”

“And what is your business, sir?”

“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about, Emily.”

My heart stopped for a moment. I stared at him and then looked all around us to see if anyone else had noticed that he just uttered my real name.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“You do not,” he grinned and stepped closer to me, then whispered in my ear. “But I do know you. I have been watching you since Dover. I’d like to discuss a business proposition. I work for an organisation that could use your skills of alchemy and guise. I can assure you, you’ll be very interested in what we have to offer you in return. We take very good care of our people. Let us get onto this train and we can talk further. Sound good?”

People began walking around us and boarding the train and the conductor called out the destination.

How did this man know about me? Who was he and where was he from? What was his organization? And just what were they willing to give me for my skills? I wanted to know and I honestly had no other options at this point.

I smiled at him and nodded, then handed him my bags. He smiled back at me, stretched out his arm toward the steps, and said, “After you, Miss Baker.”

I quickly entered my room, latched the door and began packing my things. I needed to be sure that once I left after killing Burke and Hare, that no trace of Bloom nor Baker was left behind. And once I left, I could no longer be Bloom, because the other lodgers, Hare’s wife, the ale house bartender, they had all interacted with me. I had to leave as myself, Emily, with the hopes that in my movements from the lodging house to my next destination, no one would discover me as the woman who had poisoned her husband in Paris.

I planned to catch a train to Liverpool and then set off by ferry to Dublin. From there I had no idea where I was going to go or what I was going to do, but I was confident I would figure it out. I always did.

I meticulously cleaned the squalid dwelling from top to bottom the best I could. It was likely the only cleaning the room had ever seen. I packed all of my things into my suitcase, save for the Bloom outfit I was wearing, the Emily outfit I was going to change into that I laid out onto the bed, and the bottle of Hennigans whisky that I had picked up on my walk back from Grassmarket. I was sure that Burke and Hare would drink down the Hennigans with haste, seeing as how it had to indeed be the most expensive thing that they’d ever consumed. And it would make the strychnine go down so much more smoothly and swiftly.

The clock chimed half past seven as I lit several more candles to illuminate the quite dark room. I set out three glasses and the bottle of Hennigans onto the small wooden table, then threw two logs into the stove fireplace, trying to make the space as cozy and inviting as possible. I peered out of the window, noticing tiny snowflakes beginning to fall against the light of the gas lamps on the street below. The Christmas season was just starting to come ’round with carts of roasting chestnuts on the street and people seeming slightly more cheerful.

I laced two of the glasses with the strychnine, then poured myself a good serving of the Hennigans in the third glass and took a sip. I had never been fond of whisky, but this deliciously smooth sip tasted of its high price and reminded me of my wealthy past life.

I sat onto the bed, stretched out my legs, and took another sip. Then another. And then I waited for my guests to arrive.

A broken heart, a betrayed heart, is the most torturous pain one can endure. And it can cause one to do almost anything.

This was all spurred on by heartbreak. Bloom was born out of sorrow and injustice. It didn’t heal my heart, but I did taste justice when I murdered Thomas. Justice not only for his betrayal of our union, but his betrayal of the respect I deserved as a fellow human being on this Earth. He took advantage of and abused my trusting and loving heart. There was no way to repay him with the reciprocal justice measure of an eye for an eye, because his heart was empty and black. So I did what had to be done for my own satisfaction.

But when it came to Burke and Hare, I had nothing in my heart for these two buffoons in Edinburgh. The justice that would be served here would simply be to stop them from their sickening acts, and protect the rest of society.

I strolled through Grassmarket Square disguised as Bloom in the morning hours with the extra vial of strychnine now tucked into my breast pocket. Grassmarket had been the site of many public executions a century before. These days, there was still the occasional hanging if it was justified, but nowhere near what had been before. Public murder just didn’t seem to be as intriguing as it once had been for some reason. Imagine that.

I paused in a spot where several large chunks of the brick ground were missing, a grim reminder of where the gallows once stood. I could feel the energy of justice rising up through me from the ground beneath my feet. I took in a deep breath, held my hand over the lump in my breast pocket, and then exhaled, knowing I was ready to take two more lives who definitely deserved it.

I planned to go back to the lodging house, wake Mary, alert her well ahead of her afternoon tea of their insidious acts with previous lodgers and of their plan to poison her and sell off her body to the local university’s anatomy lab. She would no doubt express extreme gratitude and then flee with her young life. I smiled to myself, standing in that spot where the gallows once stood, knowing the justice that I would soon serve that it also once did.

When I returned to the lodging house however, I found Burke and Hare had already taken matters into their own hands earlier than they had intended. As I walked down the dirty hallway, Burke was carrying her frail, lifeless body in his arms.

“What happened?” I said, mostly in my Emily voice, which I quickly caught and then cleared my throat and lowered. “Is she? Is she dead?”

“Unfortunately, she has passed,” said Hare as he closed the door to her room and locked it and then gave me an evil grin.

“But,” I turned around and looked down the hallway to assure no one else was around. “I thought…she wasn’t going to pass until later today?”

“We had morning tea with her instead of afternoon. Unfortunately, she was feeling very poorly and then, she died,” said Burke. He continued down the hallway with Mary’s limp corpse.

Hare slapped me across the back, then leaned in a whispered into my ear, “Your little tincture worked wonders, mate. She took two sips and was immediately gone. Fast and clean. Well, mostly clean. She vomited up a bit, but we cleaned that up right quick. We will definitely work together again!”

“Yes indeed!” I said. “I’m sure you shall fetch a nice price for her young body at the lab. In fact, tonight, let’s celebrate this new venture. Come to my room at half past ten. I’ve got a bottle of Hennigans I’ve been saving for a very special occasion and this seems to be it. You and Burke come on by and we shall take it down and plan our next kill!”

“Hennigans?! You swanky bastard!” Hare slapped me hard once again on the back in excitement for our evening celebration, then headed down the hall following Burke to sell off poor Mary. I went into my room and began to prepare for the evening’s main event.

I was curious if anyone was searching for me. After murdering Thomas in Paris, I had swiftly returned to Dover and done what I thought was a good job of making it look like he had done away with me before he’d left for his other life in France. A few shattered pieces of china, some clumps of my hair, and a smear or two of my blood in a few spots in the house would do it. I figured that anyone seeing that and then finding Thomas dead in Paris would assume that he had done off with me, hidden my body very well, and then done off with himself out of guilt in the home of his other family.

So, while the likelihood of me being caught and charged with his murder wasn’t high, I still needed to hide, seeing as how I was also “dead.” But I was really starting to not want to hide as a man anymore, even though Edward Bloom had done me quite well thus far.

Living without Thomas meant living more freely, but living as Bloom did not. Hiding as a male dwarf was only going to last so long. I needed a new disguise, but one that was much easier and natural for me to masquerade as. I also needed a new city to blend into. This would all take much thought and planning.

But first, I needed to rid the world of Burke and Hare before they knocked off another lodger.

I read by candlelight in the wee hours the next morning, enjoying the peace as myself, Emily Baker. It was exhausting being Bloom, and especially being him whilst around Burke and Hare. They were doltish drunkards who contributed absolutely nothing to society, not to mention their murderous exploits for profit.

I discovered that Mary, their next target, was in the room just next to mine. I watched as she had arrived home just after me earlier that evening and quietly slipped her frail body into her room. She was now likely fast asleep on the other side of the wall, having no idea that the two men who she trusted to let her a room had other plans for her. However, I had my own plans now for them.

I set down my book, Sense & Sensibility by the brilliant Jane Austen, and lifted a vial of strychnine from my boot that sat on the cold, hard wood floor. The bumbling murderers and I had stumbled down to Flockhart Apothecary after leaving the tippling house and I swiftly and silently snuck in through the window after the old druggist turned the sign and closed up shop for the evening. I nicked two vials of strychnine, hiding one of them in my boot, then handing the other off to Hare who insisted on keeping it safe until we were to use it on Mary later on.

The sun had just begun to rise and my stomach growled. I was desperate for something moreish for breakfast. It had been so long since I’d had anything quite like a cheese omelet, a pear tart, even a morning bun and a cup of earl grey with clotted cream and brown sugar. I was beginning to tire of this skint Bloom-y existence. A change was in the air.

There was a lodger in room number three whose organs Burke and Hare had evidently had their eyes on for several days.

“She’s quite young, but dreadfully foul-looking, with matchstick arms and gaunt cheeks,” said Burke.

“Right, so she’s definitely not going to put up a fight if we try to smother her. The poor scraggy thing looks as though she’d blow down the lane in a subtle wind,” said Hare. “But she’s not ill, just thin and ugly.”

The two men laughed and both took long pulls of their ale. The fact that their new victim was a woman gave me all the more desire to not only put an end to Burke and Hare’s disgusting, murderous exploits, but also put an end to Burke and Hare. As they told me more about the girl, I began piecing together my own plot to kill two more men who deserved it. I briefly thought of Thomas and picked at the splinter in my finger once more.

Her name was Mary. She was not at all a drinker, so she held fresh, healthy organs for the anatomists to cut open and play with. Burke and Hare hoped they might get an extra quid or two for that, however this meant that they could not get her drunk and then kill her.

But every afternoon at half past four the young woman took a tea with heavy sugar whilst reading the words of Sir Walter Scott. She was sounding more and more like someone I wanted to save from these two buffoons.

“I will befriend her tomorrow afternoon. We shall have tea together and discuss Scott’s work. And then we’ll have tea again in a few days and I’ll slip in something to ease her into a deep and dreamless slumber.”

“We don’t want her to fall asleep, we want her dead,” said Burke.

“That’s what he means, you nit,” said Hare with a jab to Burke’s ribs.

“I’ll need to obtain the proper medicines. We’ll sneak into the apothecary tonight and steal them,” I said.

“We?” asked Hare.

Hare and Burke now trusted me, so they blew the gaff and told me everything.

It all started when Hare had a lodger in his house by the name of Donald who suddenly died of dropsy whilst still owing four pounds of back rent. The financial loss was not something that Hare was going to stand, so he and Burke plotted to steal the corpse from its coffin and sell it to local anatomists to offset the loss of the rent. They indeed found a willing buyer who purchased the dead man for seven pounds, ten shillings, which not only offset the rent but also gave them both a nice little profit. The ease of this income became quite the addiction for the two men and they began to plot more ways to produce corpses for the medical university and pounds for their pockets. Instead of just waiting for their lodgers to hopefully die, they were murdering them. Poor, innocent people lying in their beds at night.

As Hare and Burke told their tale, the tippling house grew darker as each candle around the room burned down to its last flicker of wick and wax. I continued to dig at the splinter in my finger as they rambled on about each of their kills. They really hadn’t been very careful at all with how they had gone about it. They had either strangled or smothered their victims in the night with a pillow, both ways that they could have easily been overtaken by the victim, or that the victim could have escaped them and gone to the authorities, and then they’d have been exposed for what they’d done. But prison wouldn’t be a just sentence for these two men. No, they needed to be put down like the dogs they were.

“It sounds like you could be a bit more discreet with your offing, mates,” I said as I drank down the last disgusting, warm sip of ale from the bottom of my cup. I picked at the splinter once more. “You could use some help.”

“You want to help us out with your fancy potions and we’ll give you a cut with each body then, Bloom?”

These two were greedy, bumbling idiots who didn’t deserve me helping them in any way, shape, or form. I had no intention of assisting them in killing any poor soul. But I did see what now needed to be done.

“Indeed.”

Murder. That was the subject at hand as we drank, or rather, as Hare and Burke drank and I pretended to sip my disgusting ale. It was a subject that Emily Baker, the woman who was hiding from the world after murdering her husband, should not take part in. But I wanted to hear more about how Hare fantasized about strangling his wife. And under the guise of Bloom, I could do just that.

Strangulation is a clean way to go if you’re going to murder someone. It doesn’t have the mess that comes with say, stabbing them over and over again in the abdomen, or shooting them straight in the face with a pistol, two ways I had fantasized about killing Thomas before I did it cleanly with poison. (Well, not so cleanly really since Thomas vomited up his stomach lining on his mistress’s kitchen floor. But I was long gone before the mess was even discovered.)

I could see that Hare and Burke were intrigued. So I sat up, took another small sip of the ale and said, “Well, if you must know, I do know a bit about murder. Me mum killed off me dad when I was nine.”

“The bitch!” shouted Burke.

I was now intentionally picking at the splinter in my finger, gritting my teeth and seeing how much pain I could bear. I could feel a small bit of sweat forming at my brow.

“Well, there was no knowing if she really did it or not. She was very good at covering her tracks, but I know she did because she confessed it to me. Her father, me Granddad George, ran an apothecary when she was a child. He taught her all about medicines, healing, and cures. But he also taught her about poisons. What this chemical did to that internal organ. Which chemicals would cause instant death, and which ones would kill someone slowly if given to them over time.”

It was quite freeing confessing all of this while not really confessing at all; telling Emily’s story through Bloom’s fictional family and Bloom’s voice.

“So, your mum poisoned yer dad then? Why?” asked Hare.

“He wasn’t a good man. Nor a good father. He was a cheater. Secretly had another family. A wife and two daughters that he’d been hiding from us.”

“A dwarf?! He had not one, but two women who wanted to fuck his tiny knob? Bloody hell.” Burke stood, groped at his groin and said, “I’m going to go have a piss.”

Hare took a long pull of his ale. “So, did your mother also teach you about the poisons then? When she told you that she had murdered him?”

“She did. And I often even thought about using it on me wife at times when she was really having a go at me. Nagging the piss out of me. But she wasn’t worth killing. Wouldn’t want to get caught. So I just left.”

“But, you do know how to discretely kill someone then? With barely any trace?”

Burke came back to the table with a new full tankard of ale in one hand and still scratching at his groin with the other. Whatever sort of infection lurked in those trousers, I did not want to know.

“I do,” I said.

“Well then,” Hare took another sip. “Burke and I have a business venture you might be interested in, mate.”