The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

  But there was no time. If I did not find Victor today, Justine would make us go home. And I could not return to that place. Not without what I came for. I could not go back to running the whole household for that silent, ungrateful man, worried every day that this would be the day he informed me I was no longer necessary. That my time as a temporary Frankenstein was at an end. That I was well and truly on my own forever.

  This librarian could and would help me. I smiled benignly. “Yes, actually. I am looking for my cousin. He has recently moved, and we began our trip before his letter with his new address reached us.”

  Justine turned her head sharply at my falsehood, but I pushed on.

  “I am afraid his landlord has been ill and was not able to rescue Victor’s new information from an overzealous maid. So you can see our dilemma! We are quite desperate to find him. As he loves nothing more than books, and this is the finest library I have ever seen, I am certain we will find some trace of him here!”

  The man sighed in exasperation but visibly softened. I was not here for his precious books. I was just a girl looking for a boy.

  “A great many students use our books. I doubt I will be of any help. What is his name? Victor?”

  “Yes. Victor Frankenstein.”

  “Oh.” His eyebrows lifted in surprise and recognition, nearly dislodging his spectacles. “I do know that name. He used to haunt these rows, often here until we closed for the night. Several times I even found him waiting on the steps for us to open in the morning; I suspected he never went home. An odd, intense young man.”

  I beamed. “That is our Victor!”

  “Well, I am sorry to say he has not been here in—”

  “A year?” I said with a defeated sigh.

  “More like seven or eight months. At that point, he had exhausted even this library’s tremendous reserves.”

  My heart beat faster as my hopes expanded. That would have been after he left his original lodgings! “And do you have his address?”

  “No.”

  My hopes were dashed. I tried to keep my expression from showing my true despair as I reached into my purse to withdraw one of the last cards I had written up. “If you think of—”

  “You might try the bookseller.”

  I paused, my fingers still buried in silk. “Who?”

  “There is a bookseller three streets over. A foreigner. Turn left out of the library, and then the next right. He specializes in difficult-to-obtain science and philosophy tomes that are both too expensive and too radical for us to stock here. I gave his name to your cousin, and that was when he stopped visiting us.”

  I could have kissed his papery cheek! Instead, I settled for the more appropriate gift of a blinding smile. His own lips, unused to that expression, twitched upward as though remembering what such happiness felt like.

  “Thank you!” I took Justine’s elbow and spun her, practically running out of the building.

  “Slow down,” she cautioned. She grabbed my arm to stop me before I stepped into the street just as a carriage clattered past.

  I laughed, breathless with nerves. “You have saved me! See, we are finally even.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth.” She tucked a strand of hair fallen free from my hat back into place, pulling a pin out of thin air to secure it. “Are you hungry? Should we find somewhere to eat before talking to the bookseller?”

  I could see the exhaustion in her face. Normally it would be enough for me to acquiesce, but I could not. Not when I was so close.

  Or so far.

  Because if this bookseller did not know how to find Victor, I had no other ideas. And I could not stand the tension of delaying either reality: finding Victor, or having to go home without him as protection.

  * * *

  —

  The Frankensteins took me from Lake Como and on their travels through the rest of the continent. I was too young to appreciate anything other than a full belly and no one hitting me. But not so young that I did not realize the precariousness of my situation. When we finally approached their secluded residence, located across a lake from Geneva and accessible only by boat, it was as though I was being rowed across the sky. It was a brilliantly clear day, the water around us a perfect reflection of cloudless blue.

  The house appeared in the trees like something from a fairy tale. Lying in wait and ready to devour us. Sharply angled roofs cut like teeth against the sky. Everything was pointed—the windows, the doors, even the wrought-iron gates that slowly swung open to admit us.

  I instinctively knew this house was a predator. But I was clever like a rabbit, fast and smart and tiny. I took Madame Frankenstein’s hand and beamed up at her.

  “Oh,” she said, always surprised when she remembered me. She smiled, stroking my hair. “You will like it here. It will be good for Victor. Better. Better for us all.”

  I was taken to a room by one of the three servants they kept. The four posters of the bed echoed the lines of lead through the windowpanes, all of them like bars in a cage. But the mattress was soft and the blankets warm. Thus every small animal is lulled into security.

  In the mornings when I awoke, I always spent a few precious seconds in bed with my eyes squeezed shut. I remembered the feeling of an empty stomach, the blows of angry fists, the fear and the cold, and always, always the hunger. I held on to that until I could open my eyes and smile.

  I had been traded to the Frankensteins for a few coins, and lived in fear that they, too, would sell me. By their grace I lived, and so I did all in my power to keep their love. Perhaps they would have tolerated some disobedience, but I would not risk it. Not ever.

  Victor liked me, but he was the child. Madame Frankenstein hardly seemed capable of getting out of bed most days. I could not depend on her kindness to sustain me. And Judge Frankenstein had never so much as addressed me, treating my presence in their company with the same indifferent indulgence he might have had his wife taken a notion to bring in a stray dog.

  I needed to be something they would love. And so when I got out of bed, I left behind anything I wanted and slipped into sweetness as softly as I slipped into my warm socks.

  Victor was odd. But I had only my caretaker’s feral children to compare him to. Victor never bit me, never stole food from me, never held my head beneath the lake until I saw stars in the darkness coming to claim me. He did watch me carefully, as though testing my reactions. But I was more careful than he was, and never showed anything but the sweetest love and adoration.

  It was after our first few quiet weeks in the house by the lake that I understood, finally, the fear I had seen ghosting across his mother’s and father’s faces sometimes when they looked at him.

  I had been getting ready in my room and was pulling on my shoes when I heard the screaming.

  My first instinct was to hide. There was a spot in my wardrobe that looked too small for a body, but I had fit myself neatly into it just to test it out. My window also opened, and I could scamper out, down the trellis, and be hidden in the trees in no time.

  But that was not what people in beautiful houses did. And if I wanted to stay here, I could not fall back on my old ways.

  I crept out of my room and down the hall, then padded silently down the stairs. By now I recognized Victor’s voice, though it was twisted by rage in a way I had never heard. It was coming from the library, a room where I was not allowed.

  I paused outside, then pushed the door open.

  Victor stood with his back to me, in the middle of a whirlwind of destruction. Torn and shredded books encircled him. His chest heaved, his narrow shoulders shuddering as he screamed with a sound more animal than human. In his hand, he clutched a letter opener.

  On the other side of the room, his parents stood, their backs to the wall, faces frozen in fear.

  I could still choose to leave.

 
But Judge Frankenstein looked at me. He never looked at me. That day, there was desperate pleading in his eyes. And the heavy weight of expectation, as well.

  Instinct took over. I had freed animals caught in traps. This felt the same, somehow. Humming low and deep in my throat, I approached Victor slowly. I reached up and gently stroked the back of his neck, the hum turning into a half-remembered lullaby. He froze, his frenzied breaths catching and then calming. I continued stroking the back of his neck, working my way around him until we were face to face. I looked up into his eyes, which were wide, the pupils dilated.

  “Hello,” I said. I smiled at him.

  He regarded me with that furrowed brow. I moved my hand from the back of his neck to his forehead, smoothing away his tension. “Elizabeth,” he said. He looked down at our feet rather than facing the destruction he had wrought.

  I took the letter opener from his hand and set it down on a table. Then, holding his now-free hand, I said, “We should have a picnic.”

  He nodded, still breathing too hard. I turned him toward the door. As we left the room, I glanced over my shoulder to see the abject relief and gratitude on his parents’ faces.

  He had not hurt anything, not really, but he had succeeded in cementing my place in their family. I might have been his, but he was mine. After that day we were truly inseparable.

  * * *

  —

  “He needs me, too,” I said.

  “What?” Justine asked, pausing in front of a house with a dreary gray door.

  I shook my head. “Look, there!” Across the street was a bookshop. It squatted beneath an overhanging residence that left the windows in perpetual shadow.

  This time I waited to be certain we would not be killed by a passing horse, but only for Justine’s sake. Then I dragged her across the cobblestones as quickly as I could. Anxiety choked me as I pushed through the heavy door of the shop.

  A bell chimed in muted resignation, signaling our entrance to the cramped stacks and dangerously leaning shelves. Where the library had been stately and impressive, this room was overwhelming and claustrophobic. How one could begin to find a sought-after treasure in here was beyond me.

  “Just a moment,” a surprisingly high and feminine voice called from an unseen location. The room could have gone on for leagues, as far as I could tell—any view of the expanse was blocked by the shelves. It was a labyrinth of knowledge, and I had no strings to mark my way. I would have to wait for this Minotaur to come to me instead.

  Justine stood near the doorway, hands clasped primly in front of her. She gave me a tight, hopeful smile. I was too jumbled with nerves to return it. I was about to shout for the bookseller to please come and help us, when a woman not much older than we were appeared from behind a shelf. Her apron was covered in dust, and a charcoal pencil had been shoved into her pinned-up hair.

  She was pretty in a way that seemed imminently practical. Her beauty was not a performance or a necessity; it was simply part of her. Her hair and skin were both darker than most in this region. There was something sharp and intelligent about her eyes that promised a lively mind, and I immediately wanted to know her. And I wanted to know, too, how a young woman had come to be working in a bookshop.

  “Oh! You are not who I was expecting.” She smiled, puzzled.

  “Who were you expecting?” I felt my heart racing, wondering if Victor was due at any moment!

  “The usual dour-faced and double-chinned professor to yell at me about our prices and inform me I am robbing him, robbing him, he says, and he will not have it! And then he pulls out his money anyhow, because he cannot get what he needs elsewhere.” She clapped her hands together, rubbing them free of the dust I suspected never stopped clinging to her. “But you two are like flowers delivered by a sweetheart! I was about to close up for lunch. What books do you need?”

  “No books. We are actually searching for my cousin.”

  “I am afraid I sold the last cousin yesterday and have no cousins stocked on my shelves. I can order one for you, but it will take weeks to arrive.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement, but then she saw my desperation and her expression turned gentle. “This sounds like a complicated story. Will you join me for lunch and we can discuss it there? I get so little time with other women!”

  I opened my mouth to decline, but Justine spoke first, relief bubbling from her. “Oh, yes! That would be lovely. We have had such troubles since we got here last night.”

  “I can tell from your accent that German is not your first language.” The bookseller shifted to French with ease. “Is this better?”

  Justine nodded, beaming with gratitude. I had no preference, but it was kind of her to take Justine’s comfort into account.

  “I am sorry for your reception. That is Ingolstadt. Not known for its warm welcomes during this season. In fact, it is preparing to again demonstrate how much it wishes we were not here.” She pointed at the window, where the first warning drops of rain traced dirty lines down the glass. “We have to go outside and around the corner. Hurry!”

  She pushed out the door and we followed her, huddling beneath our single umbrella. She walked ahead of us, unconcerned about the rain. I envied her dark skirts. Mine would show every trace of mud and filth the city had to offer. But I had to wear white, knowing I would see Victor. Hoping I would see Victor.

  “Here we are!” She stopped in front of a plain door around the corner. Pulling out a key, she unlocked it.

  “I thought we were going to a café?” I asked.

  “They are all wretched and overpriced. I can feed you better.” She turned and grinned at us, her teeth crooked like the shelves in her bookstore, crowding together in a pleasant sort of way. “I am Mary Delgado.” She looked at Justine first.

  “Justine Moritz. And this is Elizabeth Lavenza.”

  “Pleased to meet you both. Now, come out of the rain.” We followed her into a cramped landing area, cluttered with so many books it might as well have been a shop, too. Books were piled on a table, pushed in stacks against the walls, and taking up nearly every step on the stairs ascending to the second story. A narrow path led straight up between the looming tomes.

  “Mind the books,” she said, climbing the stairs with practiced ease.

  I leaned down to see some of the spines. There was no organization I could see. Poems beneath political tomes beneath religious texts beneath mathematical theory. I let my fingers linger on a book of philosophy, then drew them away. My white lace fingertips were still perfectly clean. These books were all regularly used, with no collected dust.

  I did mind the books. I minded them very much, and I wanted to know more about all of them. Instead, we followed Mary up the stairs and into a cozy sitting room. This one, surprisingly, contained not a single book. A worn but clean sofa was paired with an overstuffed leather chair, both kept company by a cheerful fire.

  “Sit,” Mary called from another room, into which she had already disappeared. “Please, sit.”

  We did as instructed. Justine sighed happily, pulling off her gloves and unpinning her hat. I perched on the edge of the couch.

  “You look like you are ready to flee,” Justine observed.

  I removed my gloves, too, but left my hat in place. I wanted to pace the room like a caged animal. Instead, I stared into the fire, willing the hypnotic flicker of flame to calm my mind.

  Mary set down a tray of sliced bread, cold roast chicken, and a wedge of light, nutty cheese. “It is not much, but better than the overpriced swill they cheat the students with!” Before I could open my mouth to ask her about Victor, she disappeared again, reappearing with a tea service. When she had set that down, too, and seated herself, it was finally acceptably polite for me to begin speaking.

  “Now, what type of cousin are you in the market for?” Mary’s eyes sparkled. Adoration and annoyance warred within me. In ot
her circumstances, I would want to be her friend. But right now, she was all that stood between my future and my perilous present.

  “Victor Frankenstein.”

  She paused with her teacup halfway to her lips. “Victor?”

  “You know him, then?”

  She laughed. “Victor’s voracious buying habits financed my uncle’s book-hunting trip abroad. He left last month, as giddy as a child when he walked out the door. I think my uncle would adopt Victor if he could. He has suggested on several occasions that I should try to marry him.”

  I repented of my previous thoughts. I did not like Mary. Not at all. My teacup trembled in my hand, and I set it down lest I break it.

  She must have sensed my reaction, because she laughed again. “You need not fear on my behalf. I have more than enough company with my books as it is. I would never survive having to make room for someone like Victor.”

  Victor did take up a tremendous amount of room in one’s life. And when he left, all that vacant space buzzed, demanding to be filled.

  I did not quite trust Mary still, but I needed her. “Do you know where Victor is, then?”

  Mary opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. “I have just realized that I do not know who you are or what you might want with Victor. And the last few months have taught us all to be cautious.”

  “What do you mean?” Justine asked. “Our landlady, too, seemed frightened and overly zealous about safety.”

  “It is all just rumor. A sailor missing. The corner drunk, there one day and vanished the next. People move, people leave without telling anyone, it happens. Especially among the lower classes, who have less to tie them to one place. But there is a certain undercurrent of…not fear, but concern, that has gripped the city recently.”

  “I assure you I have no intention of murdering Victor,” I said, forcing a smile. Making him disappear from this city, perhaps. But if he was such a good client, she would not want anything to lure him away. “He is my cousin. He left us in Geneva two years ago—”