The Rehabilitation of Briar Williams, also known as Benton Bitters:

The first step is to open his head up again, which means cutting it. The last time, Victor did this with a whalebone knife, and I have a dull hunting blade. It bled when I made the first cut below the ear, and he panicked and I spent who knows how long trying to console him, Victor’s lecturing about bedside manner fluttering in my head. He had to go fetch a whetstone, which took another who knows how long, and it took us forever to sharpen the knife because both our hands were trembling. We’ll have to try again tomorrow.

He’s staring right at me. I know he doesn’t trust me, but what does he think I’ll do when updating my journal? Leap at him and stab his eyes out? He’s three times my size!

Got it open. This is going to be harder than I thought. We were too good and not good enough. The oil-based paint dripped too far into the wrinkles in several places. The watercolor paints have blended in almost perfectly with the pink. I can’t tell what we did on purpose, what was a mistake, and what’s supposed to be normal. The incisions are clear at least, but repairing the wrong one might bring out the slave hunter again; I can’t have that and I don’t think even he wants that. No matter what, I will not wake up that killer inside of him. I didn’t have time to figure it out; if Briar or Benton or whoever is away for too long, the reverend might come looking for him. I dabbed out out the wrinkles overall because I know we did most of our work on the ridges, just so I could say I did something before I closed him back up again. God help me, the best I can hope for is that I don’t make things worse.

He showed up very excited about a memory he had of watching his mother cook when he was a child. He didn’t have many of those left. I managed to do something at least.

The watercolors didn’t fade in entirely. I couldn’t tell in the candle light and he can’t find free time any earlier than dusk so the sun’s no help. I can barely, just barely, tell it by touch. So I’m now slowly fondling the brain of the man who nearly killed Victor while he provides uninvited, drunken critique. I can’t even properly etherize him because he’s scared of the ether; getting him drunk is the best I can do.

I scrubbed off a bit of the paint, practically scraping blindly with a damp rag. I pressed too hard for a few seconds and he started growling about some girl who turned him down before he even became a slave hunter. Tried to peel off a bit of white paint and his leg jerked out, nearly knocked over the chamberpot. It’s so much. It’s too much. This is a person, this is a living breathing person. I can’t focus on the craft when I can hear him muttering beneath me.

I can’t wait. The only reason they’re still in Chicago is because the new marshal wants the old one to stand down. If we have to move, I’m sure I’ll get caught.

I could just kill him. I have all day to wait in here and rest. He comes back exhausted from whatever Bean is putting him up to. I know where he keeps the hunting knife.

Victor would be horrified. My father wouldn’t, but he’d hate that it was me who had to do it. Would Mattie? She’s squeamish when she’s not trying to put on an act. Do I want her to not be horrified? What am I even thinking, I can’t even consider this.

I don’t know what to do. This is impossible! Can’t get enough candles in see properly, no space to put my tools, if you can call them that! I’m not even sure if it can be fixed,. I didn’t know if it could be fixed in the first place, but he was blocking the only path out of that alleyway and I had no way out but to tell him I could make him whole again. The new marshal is taking over and Bean and Bitter Briar is going to be leaving any day and if I don’t come through, he’s going to throw me at the Marshal to save himself. It was bad enough when I thought they would have just sent me home. They’re calling Victor the Mad Cutter now? They’re not going to let me off with a warning!

I want to pray but I’m not even sure who I’d be praying to. Is God real? If Victor’s right, He’s real and not real. Is this the reality where He’s listening? He let me rot in that town for all those years; why would he help now?

No. I can do this. That’s the deal. I fix his paranoia, he helps me find Victor and rescue Mattie. I am not a scared child. I am not some hapless ingenue, trapped by some dark, brooding nobleman. I am Geraldine Macy, and I am going to be a published scientist and I am not going to be alone again. His brain is just flesh. I know how to fix flesh.

The cayenne pepper! It was the goddamned cayenne pepper solution! I forgot about it until I reread my notes! He’s terrified because his mind keeps trying to reach memories covered in spice and recoils! If I just fix that, it should calm his nerves without turning him all the way back to Mr. Stranglehands.

When I tasted a bit of it last fall and practically lost my mind, Victor said that I should have cow’s milk nearby the next time. I convinced Bitters to bring back a bottle of the stuff and a vial of lye, mixed it up and applied it to the wrinkles, let it soak into the core of the brain. He fell asleep! He fell asleep with his brain open to the world, without a drop of laudanum! So God is still listening, despite the mess with the switch? My disinterest in studying the Bible is starting to frustrate me. I suppose I can just ask Victor’s mother how God truly behaves. Bean’s sermons never accounted for that.

Just in time, too. He’s leaving shortly. Someone thinks they saw Morrison from the circus on a train heading to Ohio. Tonight’s success means he won’t just turn me over to the marshal - probably. I’ll have to figure out how to follow them to Ohio, and free Mattie before we leave. I’ll have to ask Bitter Briar in the morning. God, I hope he doesn’t just throw me in a crate with holes in it.