She stared at the cooler as Ednah drove back to the house. “I don’t know... It just felt like a body. I thought there would be a connection when I found the one, but I didn’t feel anything.”
“Better for there not to be one if it doesn’t work,” Ednah mumbled.
“It will work.” Talia imagined the body from the morgue wrapping his muscular arms around her, and she brushed the terrifying thoughts away. She instead pictured Shea’s warmth coming from within the body, alive and whole, making herself feel better.
When Ednah pulled into the driveway of her house, she looked at Talia. “Can you open the garage?”
Talia hopped out and quickly clasped the handle of the garage, then pushed it up, allowing the rickety sounds to echo. She thought the old garage would collapse, but it stayed up as Ednah backed the car inside.
Setting the cooler aside and closing the garage, Talia and Ednah hauled the heavy body out of the car as best they could, propping him on the ground. Then Talia grabbed the cooler, placed it beside the man, and gathered the tools from the bag she’d left on the small table.
“I can help you stitch,” Ednah said.
With a brief nod, Talia began working. She flipped on the tool she’d taken from the funeral home and let the buzzing block any noise as she concentrated on cutting the skull. Talia placed her fingers in between the skull and removed the old brain. Ednah already had the cooler open and Talia placed the old one on the lid and picked up Shea’s.
Blowing her hair out of her face, she inserted Shea’s brain. If everything went well it should align and attach of its own accord.
Ednah had been a nurse during the war and afterward had become a seamstress, so Talia watched as she sewed up the nameless man with precision right by the hairline.
“What are you going to use for the electricity?” Ednah asked. Talia expected her friend’s tone to be condescending, but it wasn’t. She appeared more curious than anything.
“My heart,” Talia murmured as she gazed into the closed eyes of the man she hoped would be Shea.
“What?” Ednah screeched and covered her mouth.
“My heart.” Talia locked her gaze on Ednah’s. “It’s immortal, right? I want you to split it into two.”
“That…” Ednah shook her head. “That’s not going to work. You’ll both be dead!”
“Then it might be better that way.” Talia shrugged and looked away. She’d already lived such a long life. Some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it wondrous. If it had to end tonight, then that’s how it would be. She truly believed in soulmates and Shea was hers. An eternity without her other half wouldn’t be one worth living at all. Her heart was useless without his anyway.
Despite the horrified look on Ednah’s face, Talia grabbed a scalpel from the bag and made an incision on the chest of the nameless body. After pulling back the skin, it took her a bit to find the organ, but she wrapped her hands around the heart and took it out. She set the dead organ in the cooler.
“I’ll have to figure out how to dispose of those,” Ednah said.
But Talia ignored her and removed her shirt, tossing the fabric to the ground.
“You’re not really going to do this, are you?” Ednah pressed, stepping closer.
“I am.” Her bra came next, and she placed a shaky hand at her chest, clenching the scalpel. “Okay, I may need a little help here.”
“Whiskey?”
Talia shook as she nodded. “That would be nice.” She didn’t move a single inch as Ednah went inside and rushed back out with a glass bottle in one hand and a bottle of pain meds in the other.
Talia grabbed the bottle of liquid and downed the whole thing before pressing the blade to her chest. Its coolness caused her nerves to quake.
“I’m going to have to finish this, I assume?”
“Yes,” Talia started, “but you’ll only have to cut my heart into two and place a piece in mine. I’ll finish the rest, if it works.”
“What if I don’t cut it perfectly in half?” Ednah gritted her teeth, her eyebrows furrowed, thick beads of sweat coating her wrinkled face. “What if I do too much or too little?”
“Do your best.”
Nervously, Talia slid the scalpel down her chest. Warm blood bubbled up but it was as if she didn’t feel the pain, or maybe she chose to ignore it because she knew something better and extraordinary might happen. Clenching her jaw, she pushed her hand inside until she cradled her palm around her own heart, feeling the beats pump against her closed fist.
“For Shea.” Then she ripped it out and the world fell to a rainbow of colorful pieces.
Talia’s eyes flicked open to a creamy white ceiling with black smudges in various places. Her breathing came out in rapid waves and her chest ached. She let her head fall to the side to see Ednah staring down at her.
“Don’t make me do anything like that again,” the old woman said, attempting to look angry, but Talia heard the worry. “My old heart can’t handle it.”
Talia peered down at her newly stitched-up chest. Ednah quickly tied off the string and stepped back. Sitting up, Talia placed her hand to her naked chest and her heart beat with a healthy thump. It felt the same.
Ednah handed Talia her shirt, and she slid it on. “Where’s the other half?”
“I set it inside the cooler.”
Licking her dry lips, Talia leaned over the cooler and fished out the other half of her own bloody heart. She gave an inner prayer to whoever her maker was and wished more than anything to hear Shea’s voice.
The body lay as it had before, and she moved skin and muscle back, sliding the heart inside Shea’s new chest.
“I don’t care what you are as long as we’re together.” His words played over and over in her head.
And before she let go, there was a teeny pulse against her hand. With a wide smile, her head turned to Ednah. “I told you it would work!”
The old woman pursed her lips. “Remember, Frankenstein?”
Talia knew she was thinking about Dr. Frankenstein bringing back a monster who wasn’t like he should have been, but in the book it was different. “Hollywood always exaggerates things.”
“Sometimes.” Ednah walked forward and bent low to stitch up the chest. The eyes burst open, the body jolting upward.
A small yelp came from Ednah but Talia yelled, “Don’t move!” She didn’t want something to go wrong now.
The stranger’s dark brown eyes shifted to Talia, focusing on her. His shapely lips parted, the deadness of his skin was already turning a healthy glow. “T—Talia?”
Talia clasped her hands together with hope, fighting back the tears that were coming. “Shea?”
“Yes?”
“Just lie down and let Ednah finish with your chest. It will sting a bit.” Or more than a bit, she thought.
No one spoke as Ednah worked with hurried motions. Shea appeared confused but didn’t take his dark eyes away from her.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Ednah said when she tied off the string before heading inside.
Shea still hadn’t said anything else, but he had spoken her name earlier. What if he slipped into the monster from the movies as Ednah had said?