The Resurrectionist

by A. Rae Dunlap

“I need to know why.” Aneurin’s eyes raked across my face, and I had the uncomfortable sensation of being dissected without so much as a single incision. At long last, he responded. “I can’t tell whether you’re stupider than you seem, more naïve than I’d come to believe, or so intentionally obtuse as to be a rare and volatile combination of the two.”

“You rob graves—” “I snatch bodies. There is a difference. I do not desecrate or dishonour the dead. I do not deprive them of their worldly possessions. Everything that they carry with them beneath the ground into their hallowed tomb remains there, save for their corpse. I simply give their death meaning.” “By placing them on my slab.”

“You came to Edinburgh because you were looking for the face of God and couldn’t find it in your Bible. Don’t cast blame on me if His true appearance is not the one of beatific serenity you’d been deceived into believing. This is the face of Progress, James. Don’t you dare look away.”

The fault was not with us and our business, but with the antiquated thinking of the backwards-facing politicians crowding the halls of Parliament. They knew nothing of the New Enlightenment; they profited from its gains, but turned a blind eye to its costs. They benefited from the sudden prominence of Edinburgh on the scientific world stage, but preferred to keep their archaic edicts in the dark ages.

I chuckled wryly to myself. While it had only taken a minute for my life to be reduced to ash, the process had surely been anything but sudden for my father. How many years had he spent in gambling halls and card rooms, exchanging the future of his family for the pleasure of his present? How could he so sternly dictate the terms of my life to me from behind his great mahogany desk, knowing full well that my efforts were to be for nothing?

Well, I reasoned, better murdered and pinned to a dissection board than trapped for the remainder of my days as a common merchant in the offices of the EIC.

“The preservation of these heads and brains is essential to the work of our fellow physician across the Square who studies Phrenology, the correlation of shape and size of a skull to the personality traits of the man who possesses it.

HAhahahahaha

“James, you cannot join this world out of necessity or because of your financial desperation. True, there are far too many scoundrels and wastrels in this game who do what it takes for profit and think of little else, but that isn’t Malstrom. And that isn’t me. We are members of the league of men who call ourselves not by the mantle of snatchers, but Resurrectionists. Our motivation is not the value of the bodies we steal, but in the second life we give them; each acts as a post-mortem Prometheus, bringing fire to mankind. “If you are to become one of us, a true Resurrectionist, you must believe in the work we are doing, in our purpose and our plan. And until I’m sure you see it, I cannot let you be a part of it. You must understand that, just as actions have consequences, just as laws have repercussions, progress has a cost. And to join me in this, it must be one you are ready to pay.”

In the breath of a few mere sentences, Aneurin had transformed his world from monstrosity to marvel, and I felt the veil lift from my eyes, leaving me lucid and nearly blinded by its poignant truth.

“I may not wear my emotions on my sleeve, James, but Mary’s death has been a weight upon me that I cannot shake. What we are doing here is as much for her as it is for the rest of us, and I need you to believe me—to trust me—that I do not take your friends’ peril lightly. I will protect their lives as I would my own, or that of any member of this crew. You cherish them, James, and I cherish you. They are therefore as dear to me as family.”

“Do I mean nothing to you?” I spat. “Nothing more than the bodies we exhumed from the ground? Because I must confess, you have flayed me open, plucked me apart, laid me bare before you, and now you intend to walk away as if I were simply another cadaver on your slab?”

“You have not brought me low; you have raised me from the utmost depths of despair and longing. I did not follow you out of desperation, I followed you out of desire.