* * *
—
Just before nightfall—saving us from the enthusiastic locks of Frau Gottschalk, who watched us leave with suspicious eyes after demanding extra coin for more ink usage—Justine and I settled in our carriage.
“Home!” I cried, pointing forward. The carriage bumped over the roads and out of Ingolstadt, back to the house on the lake that no longer threatened to spit me back out. We would ride all night for Justine’s sake.
In the early hours of the morning, when the sun had yet to make any claim on the sky, I startled awake to a bright flash of lightning. Silhouetted against a hill parallel to our path, I thought I saw the figure from the street. The figure from my nightmares. It ran with inhuman speed, its gait close to a man’s but horrifyingly off in some unnamable way. I closed my eyes in terror. Another flash of lightning forced them open.
Nothing was following us.
I sank back against the seat, closing my eyes and thinking only of home. The home that was, once again, mine.
AS JUSTINE AND I were rowed with patient and even strokes across the lake, I remembered my first time here. How frightened I had been. How the house had felt like a predator, waiting to devour me. Now, as I looked at it, it seemed infinitely lessened. Did the spires not stand up so much like teeth as grave monuments? Did the gates swing not so much to catch us as to wave us wearily inside?
I had pictured my return as triumphant. But I sat passively watching the house grow closer as someone else took me there. I realized then: for all my striving, all my hoping and fearing and traveling, I had worked this hard to stay in the same place.
The sun was almost setting, the day nearly done. I did not anticipate home and my bed the way I had expected. Justine sighed happily, taking my hand and squeezing it. “Look! William is on the dock, waiting for us!” She waved so vigorously at her little charge that the boat rocked.
I smiled, too, with a wave. Mine did not so much as add a ripple to the lake.
Everything was not the same, though. Judge Frankenstein, thankfully, had not yet returned from the mysterious trip that had allowed ours, making it less likely that he would speak with Justine and discover my illicit travels. Not that he ever spoke with Justine—in her more than two years at the house, I could not recall a single conversation between them—but it was still a relief. Being caught in my lie about Henry was more than enough. I did not want Justine knowing I had tricked her into chaperoning me without express permission.
With the judge gone, and with the freedom of knowing I would not be thrown out, I prowled the house with a possessive aggression. Perhaps some in my position, having finally obtained a measure of stability after so many months of worry, would collapse into bed, or spend their time reading or painting or simply relaxing. But art had long been a performance for me, a way to convince the Frankensteins of my value. There was no one to convince now. Art brought me no joy, and my canvases were left blank.
I moved from room to room, pulled by an invisible, nagging thread. Things familiar—my four-poster bed, the leaded windowpanes, even my own paintings—had a layer of uncanny discomfort. I walked as if in a dream through a simulated version of life in which I was certain that if I just turned around quickly enough, I would find the truth of the dream: A wall melted to reveal the bones of the house, groaning and fracturing under the weight of us all. The ghosts of Madame Frankenstein and her long-lost second child, watching how well I kept her charge, even beyond the grave. The desiccated corpses of my own parents, too unknown to be anything to me but lifeless husks.
Yet no matter how many rooms I prowled, no matter how many times I spun, certain someone was watching me, there was never anything worth noticing.
The house was the same.
The people in it were the same.
Victor was coming home, and we would be the same.
What, then, had changed?
The estate felt lessened and cheap under my newly critical eye. Now that I did not have to fear losing this sitting room, I saw that the velvet sofa was all wrong, the dimensions of it too big for the space. It was furniture designed for a grander room. Rather than improving the space with its fineness, it emphasized how claustrophobic the room was, how low the ceiling, how bulky the fireplace.
Everywhere I looked was the same. Soulless paintings too big for the walls they hung on. A dining table set for twenty that only ever fed four. It was all boastful artifice hiding the truth:
The house was dying.
I saw it all now: The dusty corners. The cracked and fading paint. The doors that did not hang quite right, either never closing all the way or closing so tightly I feared being locked inside a room, unable to open them again. Half of the fireplaces were boarded up. The other half either heated the rooms to stifling oppression or did little to cut the ever-present draft. Any room that might ostensibly have visitors was stuffed with overtly ornate furniture, scrolling wood and gilt and velvet. And any room that would not was either empty or a graveyard of broken, useless items.
The only room with any real life was the nursery. I spent more and more time there with Justine, Ernest, and William. And even though I had done my best to avoid the boys all these years—preferring to be responsible for only Victor rather than taking on even more Frankensteins—they were…rather delightful. It was probably Justine’s effusive love of them infecting me, but Ernest was at an age where he tried to speak like an adult, and William was at an age where he tried to copy Ernest, and they were both so absurd and simple and easy to please.
“Actually,” William said, watching Ernest pack his things for school one morning, “I am going to school soon, too.”
“That is an incorrect use of the word actually,” I said. “You were not correcting him or disputing any information, merely stating a fact.”
Justine frowned at me. “You hush! If you dare correct another thing he says, I will banish you! And, William, you are not going to school soon. I have you all to myself for a few years yet.”
William gave her a sloppy, wet kiss. I wanted to wipe my own cheek just seeing it. Ernest and I shared a knowing look of disgust, then laughed.
Victor had never been this way, even as a child. They were nothing like him. Maybe it was because they had Justine instead of me. Had I truly helped Victor, or had I made him even more unusual? The madness I had seen of his work in Ingolstadt made me wonder.
But he had gone mad without me. Not with me.
Shaking off the worry, I volunteered to see Ernest off at the dock for school. I was tempted to row into town with him and check to see if there had been any letters, but that promised anxiety. It had not been that long. I would wait.
Victor would write.
“Should I bring you back a flower?” Ernest called as the boat pulled away.
“No! Bring me back an equation. The most beautiful equation you can find!”
He giggled, and I smiled. It was unfeigned. These boys were too easy to make happy. They reminded me of Henry, which made me sad. So I went back inside, intending to stop at the kitchen to find some little treat for William. Soon I would spoil them as much as Justine did. I was doing it to make myself feel better, but it was working.
I paused in the grand entry, staring at the huge double doors that led to the dining room. There, carved into the wood more than a century before, was the Frankenstein family crest. How many times had I traced those lines, willing myself a place on that shield? How often had I imagined myself crouching behind that shield, claiming the protection of the Frankenstein name—a name that had never been given to me?
Someone pounded on the front door, and I jumped, startled. We were not expecting anyone. Indeed, we rarely had guests at all. Perhaps it was a letter!
The maid was in another wing of the house. I swished through the entry to the door, half expecting to find Judge Frankenstein there, glowering over be
ing locked out of his own house. Instead, I opened it to find Fredric Clerval, Henry’s father.
“Monsieur Clerval?” I gave him a puzzled smile. “To what do we owe the honor?”
He looked past me, searching for someone else. Henry had far more of his mother in his face. His father’s features were flat and hard, eyes squinted from perpetual glaring. He looked like a man counting ledgers and never quite satisfied with the results.
“Where is Judge Frankenstein?”
“He is away, I am afraid. Would you care for some tea?”
“I would not!” He took a deep breath, steadying himself. But then his baleful eyes found me, and his glare deepened. “Have you heard from my son?”
The letter hidden in the back of my vanity drawer seemed to pulse in my mind. I still needed to burn it! “Not for some six months, I am afraid. The last he wrote me, he said he was going to England to further his studies.”
Monsieur Clerval let out a derisive blast of air between his lips. “His studies! He has gone chasing poets! If ever there were a more useless waste of his time and mind, I cannot think of it.” He leaned close. “Do not think I hold you blameless. I have no doubt some of this was planted in his mind by your influence. I curse the day I introduced him to your company. You and Victor have done nothing but corrupt him, make him miserable with the life he was given.”
I wanted to stagger back. I wanted to agree, to apologize. Instead, I lifted my chin and raised my eyebrows in wounded surprise. “I am sorry, Monsieur Clerval. I am afraid I do not know what you are talking about. We have ever loved Henry as our dear friend, and want only the best for him.”
“No one in this family wants the best for anyone but themselves.” He threw a stack of parchment on the floor between us. “See that Judge Frankenstein gets these. And let him know I will no longer defer collection on his debts. He has ruined my son. I will ruin his fortunes.”
He turned to stomp away—and found Judge Frankenstein standing in the doorway. I should have acted as hostess and ushered them to a sitting room. Judge Frankenstein looked at me, then at the papers Henry’s father had thrown down. A mixture of fury and fear mingled, ugly and purple, on his face.
I dipped a respectful curtsy and then hurried to the nursery, my skirts swishing with my urgency. “Come!” I said, bursting through the door. “Let us go for a walk!”
Justine agreed, sensing my need. William, always one for time outside, raced ahead of us. We stayed close to the house. My neck prickled with the sensation of being watched. I whipped around, but the windows greeted me with blank reflections of nature. If someone watched us, it was not from there.
The wind whistled mournfully through the trees, shaking them. Somewhere to our right, in the morning shadows of the house, a twig snapped. I rushed to catch up to William, clasping his tiny hot hand as an anchor, trying to absorb some of his brightness as he pointed out interesting rocks and trees he wanted to climb.
“Elizabeth used to be an expert at climbing trees,” Justine said, smiling.
I nodded, distracted and far away. My thoughts were still in the entry with Monsieur Clerval’s accusations.
Had we ruined Henry?
* * *
—
Henry had been gone only two weeks when I received his letter.
To say I had been waiting patiently would be to perjure myself most horribly. I had been haunting the windows, looking out across the lake as though I could will his report to me.
My entire life hinged on Henry’s activities in Ingolstadt. I hated him, and Victor, and the whole world for it. How was it that my future was entirely dependent on one boy who could not be bothered to put pen to paper, and another boy who wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, unaware of who I truly was?
I supposed that in some tawdry novel I would not be permitted to read but would steal from Madame Frankenstein’s hidden store anyhow, I would have been torn between my two lovers and wasting away because of it.
In reality, I wanted to tear both of them apart.
It was not fair to them. But nothing in my life was fair, and so I could not find pity for Victor, having to decide whether he wished to marry me or release me to someone else, or for Henry, being used as a whip to prompt Victor into some sort of action.
I held the letter in my hands, staring down at it. Victor, or Henry. It had already been decided in my absence.
Though I had imagined tearing it open on the spot as soon as it arrived, I walked out behind the house into the deep woods there. Ahead of me loomed the mountains. I had spent many happy days at their feet, and even one perfect day on the glacial plains. Their silent strength brought me no peace now. I turned to the thickest portion of the forest, pushing through the brambles and bushes until I found a hollowed tree trunk.
And then, as though returning to my feral roots, I curled into it. I peered out, wondering: Could I live here? Could I make a nest, a home? Sleep deeply during the winter? Prowl the undergrowth at night for prey?
It was the type of fantasy that had sustained me before the Frankensteins. I knew better now. I would starve, or freeze. There was no home for me here in the wild, the place I loved best. I would have to settle for what I could capture on my own.
I opened the letter.
Henry’s hand, usually sprawling with confident loops and self-indulgent flourishes, was shaky. The edges of the paper were splotchy, some of the ink smeared as though he had not waited for it to dry before folding it.
“Dear Elizabeth,” I read, and I had my answer. No “Dearest Elizabeth,” no “Better Half of my Soul,” no “Dream of My Future Happiness.” Henry was incapable of writing so plainly unless his heart was truly broken.
“I have spoken with Victor and expressed my desire to enter into an engagement with you. I am afraid I have broken our friendship irreparably. Where I saw in you two companionable friendship or the love between two people raised so closely, I failed to see the depth of his connection to you. It was a betrayal most unforgivable to assume I could ever come between you two. It is an attempted theft he will not overlook. Nor should he.
“In pondering my attachment to you, I suspect it stemmed from jealousy. I have always envied Victor. I wanted to be him. And in place of being him, I wanted what was his. That included you. Please forgive my arrogance.”
The next several words were splotched beyond recognition. But the last paragraph continued, “to England to settle my mind and my spirits. I do not expect to contact you again. It is best for everyone if I leave behind my false friendship forever and attempt to become someone new.
“Forgive me,
“Henry Clerval.”
Even Henry’s signature lacked any flourish. It barely looked like his, though I knew it to be. It was as though someone else had possessed him and written this letter. But perhaps that was precisely what had happened.
The Henry I knew had always admired Victor and watched him with an almost jealous hunger. Had it all been an act, then? Was Henry a far better actor than even I was, convincing me, the ultimate liar, of his infallible sincerity?
That did not feel quite right. I wondered if perhaps Henry had genuinely believed his own attachment to me, and, when confronted by Victor, had finally realized the true motivation behind his actions.
Sometimes we were strangers even to ourselves.
So it was settled. Henry would leave, and Victor still wanted me. But where, then, was my letter from Victor? Did Victor want me, or did he simply not want Henry to claim me?
I curled deeper into my temporary burrow, hollower than the tree and less capable of providing shelter. I would wait for Victor’s letter.
I had no other choice.
* * *
—
Justine caught me staring out a window at the evening landscape. I had been watching it since Monsieur Clerval left and we had
finally dared to come back inside. Whether I was waiting for something, or fearful that if I looked away, I would miss some vital threat, I could not say.
“Where are you?” she asked, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I sighed. “In the past.”
She led me to the sofa and sat us down, so close that our legs touched. “I thought you would be happy. You did what you set out to do!”
I offered her the best smile I could manage. Soon I would have to go dine with Judge Frankenstein. I needed to get back to pretending. “You are right. I am afraid the trip was more exhausting than I had realized. I am not quite recovered yet.”
“Thank goodness we will never have to do that again! All those decisions. I was frightened the whole time.”
“Me too,” I lied. “I suppose, returning home, I miss Victor all the more. And Henry, too. I am sorry he left for England without the blessing of his father.” Justine had not seen Monsieur Clerval, and I did not mention his visit, or the papers he had left for Judge Frankenstein, though those things contributed to my lack of ease. No wonder Judge Frankenstein had wanted to excise me from their expenses. He had debts, apparently. What if I had secured Victor, only for him to be rendered a pauper?
I did not think that would happen. Wealth like his family’s had a way of replenishing itself. And Victor was a genius. He would take care of me.
Justine clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Men are always doing things without thinking of how they will affect others. It is a woman’s heart that is big enough to hold another’s feelings. We will miss Henry, but we will be fine.”
“I always imagined him as some part of our lives forever. Our friend. Even your husband.” Or my own. I had not anticipated him leaving us behind entirely. If I had, would I have acted differently?