Justine laughed. “Oh, I could never marry Henry!”
I turned to look at her. “Then you are not upset? I had wondered if maybe you would feel it a lost opportunity.”
“Goodness, no. I never want to marry. I want to stay here and raise dear William and Ernest. And I want to take care of your children.”
My children. What a horrible thought. “But then you would never have children of your own!”
Justine nodded, her face clouding with sadness. “I do not want them.”
“Surely no one has ever been more capable of being a loving mother.”
“My mother was loving.”
I frowned. “We are not thinking of the same woman.”
Justine’s eyes were pulled to the floor with the weight of her memories. “She was. Loving and gentle and kind. To my three younger siblings. What I did to so anger her that she could treat me with nothing but hatred and spite, I have never known. Maybe something was wrong inside her. Or maybe she saw something wrong inside me that I have not yet discovered.”
I grabbed her arms and turned her toward me, my voice fierce. “There is nothing wrong with you, Justine. There never has been.” I knew what it was to be rotten in the core—to hide sharp teeth behind a serene smile. Justine was not hiding anything.
“But do you see? How do I know I will not share my mother’s madness? How do I know I will not make life a hell for a child of my own?” She patted my hands, removing them from her arms and settling back against the sofa. “I am so happy here with you. I want nothing more than what I have and can reasonably hope for in the future, now that Victor will return. I am glad it is all settled.”
I was happy to hear it, for her sake. But something in me recoiled at her words, and I realized what the ghost haunting my return truly was.
I was haunted by the diverging future I had given up. For so long I had held Henry’s potential like a card hidden up my sleeve. That card was lost to me now, as was Henry, whom I had planned to keep one way or another, whether by my side or Justine’s. As it always was, the choice had been made for me by others.
“It is so lovely to be home.” Justine sighed happily, staring into the crackling fire.
“Lovely,” I echoed, closing my eyes and remembering the thrill and satisfaction of other flames. I had proved my cunning and capability were as much as I had always hoped. And now I had my reward.
I shivered against a sudden imagined chill.
* * *
—
I slipped through the doors and took my place at the dining table. Judge Frankenstein did not even look up at me.
“I have good news,” I said as the maid placed soup in front of me. The boys had already eaten. Ernest was old enough to eat with us now but preferred to dine with William and Justine. I would have preferred that, too, but was never given the option. I had to maintain my standing in the home.
Judge Frankenstein did not ask what my good news was, so I pushed on. “Victor has written that he will be returning home within a month. He is eager to be reunited with me.” I allowed a feminine blush and ducked my head. “With all of us.”
“Good,” Judge Frankenstein said. The force of his voice surprised me, and I looked up to find him glaring intently at me over the papers I recognized from Monsieur Clerval. Victor’s father stretched his lips beneath his mustache into an imitation of a smile. “That is good.”
I fought the urge to recoil from the patently false expression. Was that how I looked when I pretended at happiness? No. I had far more practice than he did. And his smile was underwritten with desperation. It was the look of a street performer, hopeful and enthusiastic on the surface, patiently calculating beneath.
Did he think Victor would petition Henry about discharging our debts? Henry had fled the continent to get away from us. He would certainly do us no such favors. Or perhaps Judge Frankenstein thought Victor’s return would allow him to consult with his son on how best to eliminate the household’s only immediately disposable excess—myself.
He had no idea I had already won. Victor’s return would forever seal my fate and keep me safe from Judge Frankenstein’s harm. I returned his smile, and we spent the rest of the meal in miserable silence, companions in lies and deception, trapped forever under the same roof.
I had won indeed.
“WE SHOULD HAVE A party to celebrate Victor’s return!” Justine said, leaning over William to help him with his letters. “Excellent! If you turn that E the other way, it is perfect! You are so smart.”
Ernest, lounging on a nearby sofa reading a book about Swiss military victories, looked up. His thin lips turned down in a pout. “I would much prefer a party celebrating whenever he decides to leave again.”
“Ernest!” Justine said. She communicated so much reproach with a single word that he flinched, abashed.
“It has been two years.” I drummed my fingers against the mantel where I leaned by the cold fireplace. “Surely you can barely remember him!” It was early May, three weeks since we had left Ingolstadt. I had in my pocket a brief letter from Victor, who would arrive in one week. He had been true to his word. Perhaps when he was home I would feel less unsettled.
I thought I saw movement outside the nursery window. I rushed to look, but I was mistaken. It was just the blackened and tortured remains of that tree long ago destroyed by lightning. Why they had never torn it out, I did not understand. Something about it now struck me as obscene. It was like leaving a corpse as a monument.
“Do you think I am bigger than him now?” Ernest stood and threw back his shoulders.
“Than he,” I absently corrected him. “And no.”
I turned my back on the window and its false threats. Ever since Monsieur Clerval’s visit, I had been haunted by the feeling of being watched. Perhaps it was Judge Frankenstein’s new habit of surprising me at meals he had never customarily taken with me. Or the way he seemed to be staring at me whenever I looked up. But there was also the sense that if I simply turned around fast enough, I would catch a face at the window, staring in at me.
I never did.
“I think you probably will be taller someday,” Justine said. Evidently I had hurt Ernest’s feelings with the truth.
“Good,” Ernest said. “I know I will be stronger. And I know how to fight. Victor never bothered learning that.”
“Are you planning to challenge him to a duel?” I asked, laughing. But my laughter stopped when I saw Ernest rubbing the forearm that bore his scar. Whether the action was conscious or unconscious, I did not know.
Ernest looked at me too closely, much the way his father had begun to. “You have been spending an awful lot of time with us. You never used to.”
“Perhaps our time away taught me to miss you.” I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him as if he were still a little boy. “Or perhaps I am just bored.”
“Must be truly bored to spend time in the nursery.” He flopped back down on the couch, his careful posture abandoned. “I cannot wait to leave this house. This stupid house with no neighbors and nothing to do. I will row away across that lake and never come back.”
“Do not say that,” Justine reprimanded with gentle sadness.
Ernest sighed, sitting up again and crossing the room to her. He revealed his lingering childhood by throwing himself into her lap. Justine hugged him tightly and mussed his hair. He had been young when his mother died, but he was old enough to remember her. I wondered if he preferred Justine. I certainly did.
“I will always come back to see you,” he said. “I promise. And I will write you every week.”
“We have worked so hard on your penmanship, it is the least you can do,” she said teasingly, though I could see her holding back panicked sorrow at the very thought of his permanent departure. “But you are not leaving yet! The military can wait until you are grown. Give us a little more
time, dear Ernest.”
“I am not going to be a soldier,” William declared, continuing his march of poorly formed E’s across the parchment. Justine was too permissive, letting him use good ink and paper for his practice.
“What will you be?” Justine said, turning her attention back to him and releasing Ernest to go back to lounging.
“A dragon.”
“That is a deeply practical aspiration,” I remarked dryly. “Your ambition will serve you well.”
William blinked his heavily lashed eyes at me, confused. “What?”
“Cousin Elizabeth means you can be whatever you wish.” Justine ruffled his curls. For her, his dimpled smile appeared.
Was it wrong to envy a five-year-old child? As the third son of the family, he would have means but lack pressure. He truly could be whatever he wished. Perhaps he could even change into a fire-breathing hellbeast. Wealthy men did whatever they wanted, after all.
Though from what I had heard, if Monsieur Clerval had his way, none of the Frankensteins would be wealthy.
“I want to go shooting,” I said to Ernest, who regarded me with surprise.
“Really?”
“Yes. I would like to learn. And I think you are old enough to teach me.”
“Me too!” William said. Justine glared at me across the room, shaking her head vehemently. She grabbed William around the waist and guided him back to his seat.
But Ernest stood undeterred, his face alight with anticipation. “I will go and—”
The maid knocked on the door, peering meekly in. “A letter for you, Miss.”
I stepped forward, but she shook her head. “For Miss Justine.”
Justine never got letters. She appeared as puzzled as I about who would be writing her. I wondered if perhaps it was Henry. Another stab of jealousy pierced my heart, but I let it go. I had wanted both Victor and Henry for my own. It was inevitable I would lose one. I could be glad just to hear that Henry was doing well in England.
Justine opened the letter with a distracted smile, still paying more attention to William’s disastrous writing. But as she read, the color drained from her face. She looked up, searching for me. I rushed to her just as she stumbled and fainted, insensible, in my arms.
“What is it?” Ernest demanded, fear raising his voice to a piercing whine.
I nodded toward the sofa. Ernest helped me get Justine placed comfortably there. Then I retrieved the letter that had fallen to the floor. I scanned the contents.
“Oh! Her mother died. Last week.”
“God rest her soul,” Ernest said sadly, crossing himself in imitation of Justine.
If God has any sense, he will damn her worthless soul for how she treated Justine, I thought.
* * *
—
After Victor left for Ingolstadt, with Henry occupied working for his father, Justine was my only friend. She took her role as governess to the boys as seriously as Victor had ever applied himself to his studies. I might have brought her to the Frankensteins out of an impulse to save her, but she turned out to be the best thing possible for the younger brothers. The death of their mother saddened them. But in beautiful, bright, infinitely loving Justine, they had more of a mother than their own had ever been.
One day not long after Victor’s departure, the cook took ill. With no one to go to town to collect supplies, I eagerly volunteered and insisted Justine come with me.
She wrung her hands. “What about the boys?”
“Justine, you have not left this house since you got here! Surely you deserve an afternoon off. The maid will look in on them, and Ernest is old enough to be in charge for a few hours. Right, Ernest?”
He looked up from his one-sided game of chess. “I can do that for Justine! You should go and—” He paused, his face screwing up in thought as he tried to come up with something a woman might enjoy. “You should go and buy some ribbons!”
“Three ribbons!” William added. He had recently turned three and was obsessed with the number.
Justine laughed. She kissed Ernest and kissed and hugged little William far longer than a few hours’ absence demanded. Then, finally, I got her out of the house and across the lake.
My last trip to Geneva had yielded me Justine. I had no hopes for an equally fortuitous trip this time, but it was a relief to be out of the house. Victor had just written of getting settled in Ingolstadt, telling me of his professors and his rooms. I had imagined it so fully I felt as though I were actually there.
But I was not. I was still here.
Geneva, at least, offered some distraction. Justine dutifully bought three red ribbons so she could show them to Ernest as proof that his idea was good and count them with William. She also found some candy for the boys, though why they deserved any extra kindness from the woman who spent all her waking hours being kind to them, I did not know.
We were in the middle of the market picking out vegetables when a shrieking demon flew into Justine, knocking her to the ground.
“You monster!” the demon screamed, and I realized it was Justine’s mother. “You killed them!”
Justine struggled beneath her mother, the woman’s hands like claws tearing at her face and her clothes. I dropped my things and yanked her away from Justine.
“Madame!” I shouted. “Calm yourself!”
Justine’s mother’s chin was covered with spittle as she continued shouting the most profane accusations. “You sold yourself to witches! The devil claimed you as his own the day you were born! I knew it! I could feel it! I tried my best to beat it out of you, but you won! You won, you wicked creature! Damnation on you!”
Justine was sitting on the ground, crying. “What did I do?”
“Nothing!” I answered.
“You killed them!” her mother screamed. “My precious babies, my beloved children. You killed them!” She tried to push past me once again, and I could scarcely restrain her. By now she had raised such a commotion that several men hurried over and helped me hold her in place. She writhed and contorted, throwing her body every which way before finally collapsing.
“My babies!” Justine’s mother cried. “You killed them. They are all dead, and it is your fault. You left us. You left, and they died. God will remember, Justine. God will remember that you betrayed your own blood and became a rich man’s whore to raise other people’s children. God will remember! Your soul is damned! Hell has marked you for its own since the day you entered this world!”
A constable had joined the fray and directed the men to carry Justine’s mother to the town hall, where they could sort out what to do with her.
“I am sorry, mademoiselle,” he said, dipping his head to me. I helped Justine up.
“What was she talking about?” Justine trembled, clinging to me.
“Nothing. She is mad.” I wanted to get Justine out of there, to get her back to the house. I should never have brought her with me. No wonder she had not wanted to leave that side of the lake and our seclusion there.
“Poor woman,” the constable said. “All three of her children caught fever and died last week. We do not know what to do with her.” He inclined his head again and followed the men taking Justine’s mother away.
“Birgitta and Heidi and Marten,” Justine whispered. She fell against me and I held her. “They cannot be dead. They cannot be. When I left they were all healthy. If I had known, I never would have— I could have helped them. I could have stayed and helped. Oh, she is right. I am the most wicked and selfish creature. I valued my own comfort over my family. My mother always knew, she always saw, and—”
“No,” I said. I pulled Justine close, squeezing her to me, my voice harsh and determined. I would not comfort her, not in this line of thought. I would argue the point forever. “Your mother is a monster. If you had stayed, she would have beaten the light right out o
f you. You would have died with your siblings. I cannot imagine a world without you in it. You were not wicked to leave. It was God’s grace, keeping you safe so you would not leave us.”
Justine sobbed into my shoulder. I turned her toward the lake, and we stumbled together back to our waiting boat, all her pretty red ribbons left behind on the street like scarlet streams of blood.
* * *
—
Justine’s orphaned status weighed heavily on me as I remembered her past and considered her future. Included in the letter about her mother’s death had been a note explaining the delay in delivery. Her mother had specifically requested Justine not be notified until after the funeral. It had been her dying wish to spite Justine and deny her even the opportunity to mourn. Imagine wanting to mourn a woman who deserved no such tribute!
I insisted Justine take the next two days to herself—whether to spend them in bed, or walking the countryside alone with her thoughts. I knew she needed space to heal the final wound her mother had inflicted.
Unfortunately, that left me with William. Ernest was old enough to manage himself, but he was unsettled by Justine’s absence and thus hovered around me like a gnat, pestering and useless but ultimately harmless.
The first day was spent with William clambering through the entire house, getting into everything. He begged to see my room, where he had never been allowed, then proceeded to ask me if he could have every shiny thing he saw. He was a magpie, this child. To get him out, I agreed to lend him my gold locket with a miniature portrait of his mother inside. I had never loved it, had certainly not asked for it. It was too expensive to give into the care of a five-year-old, but I would have given far more for even ten minutes’ respite from his constant demands. Victor would be home in just a few short days, but that did not help in the meantime. I could be charmed by the children in minute doses; being in charge of their care was overwhelming. I could not imagine Victor being willing to take over.
On the second day, at a loss for ways to entertain William, I suggested Ernest accompany us on a walk. A very, very long walk that ideally would end with William exhausted into lethargy for the evening. To my surprise, as we were finishing our preparations—picnic packed and boots laced—Judge Frankenstein appeared.